Online Discussions in China: The Collaborative Development of Specific Norms for Individual Expression

Abstract

Web 2.0 services such as video sharing or tagging are very popular among the 210 million Internet users in China. They provide a new kind of platform for self-expression, content production and opinion exchange. In China, Internet users most frequently discuss their car, flat, salary or dog, in other words their lifestyle and values. This is related to the rise of an urban and connected "middle class". I argue that although these discussions are seldom of political nature, they are leading people to develop new forms of expression and adopt shared discussion rules. Rationality and tolerance are increasingly required, whilst the large majority of discussions are still spoilt by personal and sometimes abusive attacks. A fieldwork stay in Beijing in 2006 and 2007 saw a wide range of popular debates on morality issues, corruption and other social scandals. Between harsh nationalism and moral indignation, self-regulation and responsibility, moderators as well as users are collectively elaborating formal and informal rules of politeness, and setting new criteria of objectivity. It can be argued that the Internet offers an unprecedented platform for this peer negotiation of common rules and values, which is even more meaningful in China where top-down decisionmaking is the norm. Nevertheless, it is still too early to call this phenomenon a real deliberation process. The in-depth interviews with Internet users that were carried out will help us understand how the users themselves perceive the characteristics of these blooming online discussions.