300-400 words journal review, 450 is the max. word limitdon't need to research on other sources
The exercise of discipline over the Internet by the Chinese party- state is very well known. The state restricts access to many types of information and harshly pun- ishes those who gain access to it. This state discipline is observable from a national level, where a “Great Firewall” blocks access to websites and Internet services, to a local level, where Internet cafes are closely monitored and supervised by police. While it is very diffi cult to assess, from the perspective of the party- state, what it would take for this policy to be considered successful or effective, it is undeniable that the discipline of the state shapes online life in China. The consequences of this situation have had interesting effects on the Chinese Internet. In a complex, pluralist, internationalized medium such as the Internet, discipline has its limits. Strategies of supervision and discipline can be avoided or subverted by users who have sufficient knowledge or desire to do so. The methods of circumventing discipline can be technical, such as the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), or based in the manipulation of discourse, such as the invention of coded words to avoid censorship. The high level of circumvention of online discipline necessitates the study of methods of control other than supervision, censorship, and punishment. Børge Bakken (2000) suggests that, in China, the “disciplinary society” can be complemented with an analysis of the “exemplary society” (pp. 5–6). The disciplinary society depends on the classic Foucauldian techniques of surveillance, discipline, and punishment; the exemplary society interacts with the world of discipline by providing models of good and desirable behavior which, through sufficient education and inculcation, individuals will eventually come to emulate. This chapter argues that, in contrast to the offline world, the Chinese party- state has been less able to develop coherent non - disciplinary strategies to control Internet use and users. In parallel with this, the development by citizens of dis- tinctive methods of Internet use – symbols, images, and linguistic techniques in particular – has had the dual effect of subverting the online discipline of the state and of creating netizens’ own models of behavior. This analysis is sited contextu- ally within the ongoing debates about stability in China. The doctrine of social stability has been a lynchpin of state discourse in China since the beginning of the reform period: in Bakken’s terms, stability is now a form of state exemplar, 3 “The corpses were emotionally stable” Agency and passivity on the Chinese Internet Jonathan Benney China Online : Locating Society in Online Spaces, edited by Peter Marolt, and David Kurt Herold, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=1829334. Created from monash on 2022-04-07 07:39:18. C op yr ig ht © 2 01 4. T ay lo r & F ra nc is G ro up . A ll rig ht s re se rv ed . 34 Jonathan Benney applied to individuals’ emotional lives as well as to the Chinese economy and the totality of Chinese society. From the mid- 2000s onwards, the development of a formal stability maintenance ( weiwen ) apparatus, which has appropriated some of the functions of the regular law enforcement structure, has turned this discourse from a much- discussed principle to a practical reality. This chapter examines how this enhanced discourse of stability, together with the more practical threat of the stability maintenance apparatus, is affecting online life. In particular it demonstrates that the development of a subversive online argot has allowed Chinese Internet users to identify this stability discourse, to decon- struct and to satirize it, to identify that it is opposed on a conceptual level to the agency of the individual, and to form networks which have the potential to oppose it. The labeling of the so- called bei society (the “passive society”) has allowed netizens both to pinpoint this discourse of passivity and identify that it comes from the party- state. Internet users on message boards, blogs, and social networking sites are thus making a statement about their perceived lack of agency and at the same time expressing their fundamental mistrust of the language of the state. Even so, it is worth questioning whether this culture of urbane, transgressive resistance has any real effect on Chinese political discourse or even on its own users. Negotiating stability online Two particularly deep problems form the core of this chapter’s analysis: the rise of the Internet, and the state doctrine of stability. Both of these challenge the traditional picture of Chinese society as controlled by the party- state: the Internet through its poorly regulated and constant fl ow of information, and the doctrine of stability through its clash with the active, revolutionary rhetoric of traditional Maoist discourse. To consider the Internet fi rst: it is now undeniable that websites, email, blogs, and so on have increased the diversity of information available to citizens in China. Information may now reach the user from a wide- ranging and diverse range of sources, refl ecting the views of people from many different places and with many different ideologies: the microblog site Weibo is the clearest mani- festation of this. What is more, the Internet has provided a vast forum for new modes of satire and parody, which are both done simply for amusement’s sake and also as a means of criticizing offi cials and offi cial ideologies (Li, 2011, p. 72). Compared to broadcast media, for example, offi cial state discourse online is at risk of being ignored in favor of more exciting or realistic spectacles, or, even worse, being lampooned and mocked. The risks of the Internet to hegemons are well established. The discourse of sta- bility, however, provides a more complex challenge to state discourse. Elizabeth Perry (2007) makes the argument that the Chinese party- state is at root still a fundamentally revolutionary organization, one that is maintaining “both the ideo- logical and the organizational features of its revolutionary past” (Perry, 2007, p. 22). The revolutionary society, she argues, “demands active engagement . . . by society” (Perry, 2007, p. 21), but, by definition, never moves towards substan- tial citizen representation, democratization, and so on. Developments in modern China Online : Locating Society in Online Spaces, edited by Peter Marolt, and David Kurt Herold, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=1829334. Created from monash on 2022-04-07 07:39:18. C op yr ig ht © 2 01 4. T ay lo r & F ra nc is G ro up . A ll rig ht s re se rv ed . Agency and passivity on the Chinese Internet 35 China, however, complicate the questions of public engagement. Specifically, the active embrace of a language of “stability” from the mid- 2000s onwards calls the label of “revolutionary authoritarianism” into question and suggests that what Perry herself anticipated is beginning to come true: that the economic and social situation has developed in such a way that the Chinese state is moving from a revolutionary outlook to “stable authoritarianism” – the paradox of this being that the deregulation that allowed for such rapid economic development is in itself one of the main factors that is harming China’s stability. Since the Deng period, stability has been used in China as a “cognitive filter” used to enhance the legitimacy of the state (Sandby- Thomas, 2011, p. 33). Peter Sandby- Thomas identifies three key categories in which stability has been used in official Chinese discourse: national stability, economic stability, and social sta- bility (Sandby- Thomas, 2011, p. 51). National or political stability, in the sense that the government never changes, is a natural desideratum of the authoritarian state. Economic stability is prima facie used to signify low unemployment and stability in prices; in the Chinese context it commonly also signifies economic growth (Sandby- Thomas, 2011, p. 87), despite having been much internal debate at a policy level about the distinction between growth and stability (see Dittmer & Wu, 2006, p. 73). Social stability, in the sense that the world around the individual does not change dramatically from day to day, is a separate issue, and one which is more likely to clash with the Chinese party- state’s revolutionary outlook. But beyond social stability, there also lies emotional stability, in the sense that the individual’s experience of, and emotional response to, life does not change dramatically. The desire for state subjects to be emotionally stable, in particular that they are not openly angry or dissatisfied, has been implicit in the post- Mao party- state project since Deng Xiaoping took power. The state discourses of sta- bility, of being “moderately well off” ( dadao xiaokang shuiping ), of achieving human quality ( suzhi ), of the “harmonious society” ( hexie shehui ), and of the creating of a “wealthy, educated, consuming, and above all ‘responsible’ middle class” (Tomba, 2009, p. 596), have constantly been intertwined (Schoenhals, 1999; Tomba, 2009). Thus, the promotion of the idea of stability in government discourse is never simply restricted to one epistemological sphere. It is linked inherently to the discourse of cultivation of citizens and the development of “civilization”: and in both of these desired states, the primacy and authority of the party- state is never supposed to be questioned (see, for example, Dynon, 2008). The word “stability” ( wending ) is frequently used in official Chinese news sources, such as the People’s Daily newspaper and Chinese Central Television (CCTV) programs. Since the beginning of the reform period, it has generally been used as a catch- all label for any states of affairs desired by the state: it “was always presented in a nominalized form that served to ‘mystify’ its definition and thus allowed it to be discursively flexible” (Sandby- Thomas, 2011, p. 155). Rather than having much to