Employing Digital Technologies in Environmental Communication Campaigns in China: A Capacity-Building Perspective

Abstract

Digital technologies are instrumental in helping Chinese environmental non-government organizations (ENGOs) to tackle local environmental problems. Technologies such as mobile social media and QR Code have the capacity to integrate, involve, initiate, and individualize environmental communication campaigns to create more effective local impacts. From an organizational capacity-building perspective, this chapter demonstrates how these emerging digital technologies have helped Chinese ENGOs to enhance environmental activism, engagement, and networking with other ENGOs, and increase political participation among local stakeholders. Our work describes social media and QR Code applications among these ENGOs to better understand how digital technologies have created a seamless integration with other media platforms. This integration supports collaboration with other ENGOs, mobilization of financial and human resources, volunteer recruitment, and stakeholder education at the local level. We propose a technology-enabled capacity-building framework where ENGOs take into consideration China’s political-social-cultural factors so that the full potential of digital technologies can be realized.