Humor as a Form of Networked Practice in the Chinese Cyber Public Sphere

• In Event: 579 - Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. Personal

Abstract

Received wisdom views political humor, viz. egao, in the Chinese cyber public sphere as an acute form of resistance and/or a reaction to rampant state control in an authoritarian environment. This study creates and tests a framework that best conceptualizes how different functions or facets of egao are connected with one another: to analyze the patterns of ties that link the different facets of the phenomenon together. The study contends that only by framing egao within network society theory can we adequately appreciate its fluidity and hence begin to understand its online ubiquity. Analysis of survey data suggests that it is not the content, but the networked practice of egao that dictates its true function. Namely, that the networked practices of netizens (internet citizens) have a formative relationship with their perceptions of and interactions with egao. The connectivity netizens feel from engaging in the practice supersedes its content in terms of value to cyber culture.

Authors

• Mathew Yates, University of Oxford

• Reza Hasmath, University of Alberta