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With a communication-centered framework that brings together communication studies, sociology, and political science, this book explains how people adopt and maneuver mobile technologies as tactics of contention for political mobilization in contentious moments and everyday resistance in contemporary China.

With a communication-centered framework that brings together communication studies, sociology, and political science, this book explains how people adopt and maneuver mobile technologies as tactics of contention for political mobilization in contentious moments and everyday resistance in contemporary China.

Observers of the Chinese political landscape have noted significant changes with the widespread adoption of the internet. Existing studies on the internet and contentious politics in China often fall into same old tunes like "authoritarianism vs. liberal democracy" and "liberation vs. control." This reflection reviews selected work on the internet and politics in China and beyond, proposing a more sophisticated and critical examination through (a) a temporal dimension to pinpoint changes introduced by the internet's adoption, (b) a mundane dimension that recognizes (contentious) politics in broader life contexts, and (c) a cross-demographical dimension that acknowledges the internet's role as diverse and complex. The three proposals serve as a crucial first step toward achieving more sophisticated explanations and a deeper understanding of the internet in China for Chinese internet scholars in the coming decade.

Despite the fruitful insights articulated by existing scholarship on internet censorship in China, the lack of a systematic overview of the field not only hinders reciprocal dialogue across different studies, but also prevents a reflective consideration of directions that could shed further light on the topic. To fill the gap, this study introduces the concept of "categorisation" as the analytical lens to scrutinise and synthesise the extant studies on censorship. It proposed two possible ways of categorising the current development of the topic: one is the macro–meso–micro level of analysis, and the other is about data and metadata. Our discussion addresses three contributions to studying internet censorship in China: the emerging computational methods for exploring censorship deletion practices on the micro level, the relevance of hard-to-observe, organisation-specific factors to understand the operationalisation of censorship, and method triangulation to strengthen the validity and reliability of studies of censorship phenomena.

AbstractThis study advances an original theoretical framework to understand the deployment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in political contention. It argues that we should not look only at the use of ICTs in contention, as technologies are not "born" to be used in and for political activism. Rather, people appropriate and manoeuvre technologies—some but not others—for such purposes, in specific contexts. This study proposes a relational understanding of ICT uses in contention, taking into account their technicalities and their sociality, as well as the transformation and actualisation that occurs between them. It suggests that an investigation necessitates the perception of communication technologies as a repertoire of contention on the basis of affordances that structure the possibilities of the use of technology. The study further presents an application of the framework in cases of protests in mainland China. Through fieldwork and in-depth interviews, this study indicates that the choice of (certain functions of) mobile phones as protest repertoire derives from a confluence of (a) a given social group's habitus of media use that manifests particular affordances, and (b) the learned experience of the contested means of the past in official mass communication. It concludes that what people do and do not do with ICTs in political contention is significantly shaped by affordances and habitus, thereby revealing the dynamics behind repertoire selection and constraint.

with the rapid development of the "national economy", the development of the city by leaps and bounds, held in the "the" form of interactive activities become more and more, people are more and more requirem Ents for city planning standards for the requirements of industrial development are increasingly demanding Ransportation Service in the industrial field, its effect is more and more obvious. Urban planning is regarded by the government and leaders as a city ' s development. Instead, the role of general layout and transportation design in urban planning are more prominent, but it can ' t get the de Served attention. The role of the general map transportation makes more people realize this urban planning is vividly shown. The author mainly discusses the relationship between city planning and modern transportation Ion of these directions, fundamentally elaborated the general layout and transportation design effect to be more obvious, This paper is aimed at the "city planning and" problems related to thinking, make the following CL Arification.

This study examines the characteristics and nature of rumors via mobile communication in contemporary China. By focusing on six case studies along with 50+ in-depth interviews, this study observes that mobile phone-mediated rumors have evolved into a special form of popular resistance at grassroots level. The low-cost and user-friendly mobile device lowers the average protest threshold, creating an unprecedented opportunity for people, especially those without good communication skills, to organize, coordinate, or participate in resistance. The mutual visibility through a guanxi-embedded mobile network greatly increases both the credibility of information and a sense of security for participation. Additionally, the synchronous mobile communication builds up rumor discourse and converts it into resistance in a very short amount of time. As a new kind of contentious politics, rumor dissemination via mobile phones shows opposition to government censorship and control of communications, and, most importantly, resistance against the use of the accusation of "rumor" by authorities to stifle any voices of dissent. By using the case of mobile rumors, this study also aims to broaden understanding of (political) participation in contemporary China.

AbstractRecent studies have shown what indispensable role mobile phones play as means of mobilization in contentious politics around the world. Nevertheless, there has been no clear elaboration of how mobile phone uses translate into mobilization in contentious politics. To fill this gap, the current study employs Passy's (2003) framework of the threefold function of social ties as channels of mobilization to examine how mobile communication, embedding the dynamics of social ties, influences protest mobilization. It investigates two cases in rural and urban China in which Chinese people employed their mobile phones to mobilize participants for protests, and conducts 24 in-depth interviews with participants in these protests. Findings suggest that using mobile phones for mobilization registers the relational dynamics of social ties, which shapes participants' perceptions of given protest issues, ensures the safety of protest recruitment and mobilization in a repressive context, and generates pressure on participation, all of which contributes to the mechanism of mobilization. This study concludes with the concept of 'relational mobilization', which addresses the embedment and relevance of social ties in the process of mobile-phone-mediated mobilization and its implication for Asian countries.

Digital telecommunication technology has expanded the mobile phone's role for being increasingly used as a weapon against authoritarian regimes around the world in recent years. The proliferation of mobile phones in China also nurtures growing mobile-phone–facilitated popular protests, with the increasing use of mobile media as a key resource for not just proliferating censored information, but also facilitating demonstrations and triggering "mass incidents" (quntixing shijian). Nevertheless, very few studies address systematically the role of mobile phones in conventional forms of popular protests, let alone communication via mobile phones and its political implications for contentious activities and public engagement in contemporary China. To fill this void, this study examines spontaneous mobilization via mobile phones, with a focus on several concrete popular protests in rural and urban areas. It investigates how Chinese citizens have expanded the political uses of mobile phones to initiate, facilitate, and empower offline popular protests. Drawing upon more than 40 in-depth interviews, this study demonstrates that the dynamic of mobile-communication–facilitated contentious activities lies both in the incorporation of more interpersonal, horizontal communication and in the articulation of social experience in people's everyday lives. It concludes and theorizes that the dynamic of mobile activism lies both in the incorporation of more interpersonal, horizontal communication and in the articulation of social experience in everyday lives.

This dissertation examines the use of the mobile phone in contentious politics in contemporary China. It undertakes a qualitative analysis of multiple cases to investigate how Chinese people adopt and appropriate mobile media to meet their communication needs, struggle against the authorities, and facilitate an inexpensive counter-public sphere. Drawing on Negt and Kluge's conceptual framework of the counter-public sphere, specifically, this study addresses the role of the mobile phone in guaranteeing the right to communication, which not only articulates the lived experiences of social and political exclusion but also ensures a relatively independent communicative sphere for counter-publics beyond the dominant public sphere in contemporary China.

Digital telecommunication technology has expanded the potential of the mobile phone to be increasingly used as a weapon against authoritarian rule and censorship. Since the content of mobile communication is unpredictable and unregulated, mobile phones have the potential to breach state-sponsored information blockage. This in turn helps the Chinese people to maintain contact with each other, receive information from outside the country, and make political waves in an aggressive battle for control over information. This paper examines spontaneous mobilization via mobile phones, with a focus on two concrete popular protests in rural and urban areas, demonstrating how Chinese citizens have expanded the political uses of mobile phones in their struggle for freedom of information flow, social justice, and the rule of law, while seeking to build an inexpensive counter-public sphere. These processes destabilize China's conventional national public sphere by shaping political identities on the individual level as well as the notion of citizenship within the evolving counter-public sphere. The political significance of mobile phones in the context of contemporary China's political environment can be observed by various social forces that communicate their struggles with the aid of this technology, pose challenges in governance, and force the authorities to engage in new kinds of media practices.