Digital commons in online feminist movement: case in China

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Building Movements and Elevating Voices: Efforts to Engage Mobilization and Promote Discussion on LGBTQ+ Issues in Education

Proposal

Affected by Covid-19 and related regulations, some social movements in China have turned into online since 2019. However, this trend presents new problems. In April 2021, nearly 10 feminism groups on an online forum in China were banned due to their posts containing extremist, radical current politics and ideological content, with members ranging from 40000 to 50000 to a few hundred. This made the use and impact of digital commons in online social movements an important issue that needs to be explored. In the past few years, many have criticized the centralized and unaccountable governance of prominent online social platforms. Meanwhile, digital commons were seen as resources to counter the tendency for centralization of economic and political power (Goldstein et al., 2018). However, there is little known about the sources, operation, potential impact and governance boundary of digital commons in online social movements within specific communities. David Bollier in his work “Think like a commoner” (2014) mentions that the three elements of the commons are: a resource + a community + management rules. Therefore, this study considers online feminist movement as a community that collectively manages information resources under rules of sharing, collaboration, and collective participation. This study will present the digital commons in the development trend of the Chinese feminist movement from 2019 within a selected forum group, investigated through digital ethnography.

This study examines specific main question of “How has the collective actions of Chinese feminists been affected under the model of the digital commons?”, with following sub questions:
Q1: What kind of digital information they choose?
Q2: How do they use the information?
Q3: What are impacts of external governance on their use of information in feminist movement?
For this study, I choose symbolic interactionism as theoretical framework. Drawing from this specific theory, I propose that this study could figure out (a) how they select specific information; (b) how they endow information resources with meaning in interaction; (c) how external governance affects their interaction.

For the analysis, data will be collected from one of the biggest online forums (Douban.com), studied through digital ethnography. According to Robert V. Kuzinets' basic process of implementing digital ethnography, this study selects a Douban group named "growth of women" as a virtual field (Douban Group is an online forum where people with common interests, hobbies and group characteristics gather in different groups to communicate through posting and commenting). The group selected for this study was established in March 2010. As of July 10 2023, there were a total of 42115 group members, mainly feminists and those who are concerned about gender equality. I plan to collect data through participatory observation by entering this group. Using a qualitative approach of digital ethnography, I plan to identify the digital resources of the Chinese feminist movement by analyzing its information resources (how is the information they use); its digital practices (what they do with the information); and its collective actions and organization in digital networks (how they use the information for their strategies).

This study aims to introduce reflections on digital commons and their relationship with social movements through their collective actions based on digital practices of collaboration and participation. The findings will (a) characterize the diversity or tendency of information resources (types, formats, and contents) used by the Chinese feminist. (b) contribute to the study of digital commons in the social movement field by presenting an analysis focused on the role of information as a common. (c) provide new insights to discuss in what way digital commons offer to social movements an alternative model of collective organization and how collective actions can be based on the use of digital commons.

Author

• Zhuoyan Han, 1.Beijing Normal University