Platformed antagonism: Gendered discourses in Chinese social media’s fragmented public sphere

Abstract

This study examines how gender antagonism is discursively produced, normalized and contested across three distinct Chinese social media ecologies: Weibo, Zhihu and Xiaohongshu (Rednote). Drawing on a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, it integrates computational mapping of sentiment and thematic patterns with feminist critical discourse analysis of high-engagement posts. Based on 102,347 posts and comments collected between 2022 and 2025, the analysis suggests that gender antagonism is not a uniform outcome of online polarization, but a platform-mediated discursive formation shaped by interactions among discourse, affordances, community norms, and governance. While Weibo amplifies confrontational visibility and affective polarization, Zhihu legitimizes antagonism through rationalist framings and appeals to social cohesion and Xiaohongshu enables adaptive, coded feminist expression within semipublic counterpublics. The study advances a cross-platform model for analyzing how digital platforms simultaneously reproduce and reconfigure feminist discourse and gendered power relations.