From Cyber-Nationalism to Fandom Nationalism: The Case of Diba Expedition In China [1° ed.] 1138330647, 9781138330641

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Chinese Perspectives on Journalism and Communication

FROM CYBER-NATIONALISM TO FANDOM NATIONALISM THE CASE OF DIBA EXPEDITION IN CHINA Edited by Hailong Liu

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From Cyber-​Nationalism to Fandom Nationalism

This book gives a deep description of a new trend in Chinese cyber-nationalism through an examination of Diba Expedition in 2016. The eight chapters, written by researchers from the United States and China, touch on the topics of history, mobilization, and the organization of new cyber-nationalism; the evolution of symbolic devices; and the impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs), consumerism, fan culture, and Internet subcultures on cyber-nationalism and the political consequences of it. The authors have embedded Diba Expedition and new cyber-nationalism, which may be called fandom nationalism, in the media ecology of social media, the mobile Internet, the smartphone, and a new generation of ICTs. They also try to explain the change in Chinese political culture from the turn of the twenty-​ first century up to now under the impact of official nationalistic education, commercial culture, and the grassroots Internet culture. Readers interested in political culture, Internet culture, and youth culture will find this book helpful in understanding why traditional nationalism, with hatred, anger, and actions in the real world, has evolved into fandom nationalism, with love, satire, and actions in the virtual world, as illustrated in Diba Expedition. Hailong Liu, PhD, is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Renmin University of China, in Beijing. Liu is the chief editor of the Chinese Journal of Journalism and Communication. He is the author of Revisiting the Grey Area: Narration and Memories in the History of Communication Studies and Propaganda:  Ideas, Discourse and Legitimation. His research interests include political communication, the history of Chinese communication study, and intellectual history of communication.

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Chinese Perspectives on Journalism and Communication

With the increasing impact of China on global affairs, Chinese perspectives on journalism and communication are on the growing global demand. This series focuses on theory and research-​oriented scholarship on journalism and communication broadly defined from Chinese perspectives, aided by a variety of methods, and informed by indigenous, interdisciplinary, intercultural, or global approaches. Series Editor: Wenshan Jia is Professor of Communication at Renmin University of China and Chapman University. Titles in this series currently include: Transformation of Chinese Newspaper Companies Management, Production and Administration Miao Huang A History of Journalism and Communication in China Yunze Zhao and Ping Sun The Idea of Propaganda in China A History in China Hailong Liu From Cyber-​Nationalism to Fandom Nationalism The Case of Diba Expedition in China Hailong Liu, ed. Immersive Communication The Communication Paradigm of the Third Media Age Qin Li For more information, please visit https://​www.routledge.com/​Chinese-​ Perspectives-​on-​Journalism-​and-​Communication-​Series/​book-​series/​CPJC

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From Cyber-​Nationalism to Fandom Nationalism The Case of Diba Expedition in China

Edited by Hailong Liu

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First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Hailong Liu, individual chapters, the contributors The right of Hailong Liu to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Liu, Hailong, editor. Title: From cyber-nationalism to fandom nationalism : the case of Diba expedition in China / edited by Liu Hailong. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Chinese perspectives on journalism and communication Identifiers: LCCN 2018040160 (print) | LCCN 2018046850 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429447754 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138330641 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Internet–Social aspects–China. | Internet and youth–China. | Social media–China. | Nationalism–China. Classification: LCC HN740.Z9 (ebook) | LCC HN740.Z9 I56726 2019 (print) | DDC 302.23/10951–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018040160 ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​33064-​1  (hbk) ISBN: 978-​0-​429-​44775-​4  (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK The research of this book is supported by the National Social Science Fund: “New media technology and cyber-nationalism” (No. 17AXW011)

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Contents

List of figures and tables  List of contributors  1 Performing cyber-​nationalism in twenty-​first-​century China: The case of Diba Expedition 

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1

Guobin Yang

2 Understanding Chinese nationalism: A historical perspective 

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Hongmei Li

3 From fans to “Little Pink”: The production and mobilization mechanism of national identity under new media commercial culture 

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Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang

4 “We are all Diba members tonight”: Cyber-nationalism as emotional and playful actions online 

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Zhe Wang

5 Memetic communication and consensus mobilization in the cyber nationalist movement 

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Xiaoan Guo and Shaoting Yang

6 Collective action as interaction ritual in cyberspace 

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Guoqiang Liu

7 Contested visual activism: Cyber-nationalism in China from a visual communication perspective  Kui Zhou and Weishan Miao

109

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vi Contents

8 Love your nation the way you love an idol: New media and the emergence of fandom nationalism 

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Hailong Liu

Index 

148

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Figures and tables

Figures 4 .1 5.1 5.2 6.1 7.1 7 .2 7.3 7 .4 7.5 7.6

Trend of top ten template comments within 48 hours Organizational structure of “Diba Expedition” Strong memes and their variants Model of Collins’ interaction ritual theory Controversial Japanese Ukiyo-​e about captured Qing soldiers being beheaded by the Japanese army Image-​driven cyber-nationalism model Cyber-nationalism under the mechanism of image-​contesting visual activism Political communication under new visual rhetoric Cartoon The Rabbit and His Stories, written by a military fan with the nickname Fly into the Light Through polysemy visual text combining descriptive words, netizens aim at what the signified points to, and regard the diverted signifier as a strategic direction

59 82 86 94 114 114 116 119 120 120

Tables 3 .1 4.1 4.2 5.1

Interviewee features Word frequency of no-​repeat comments (top 40) Co-​occurrences of no-​repeat comments (top 30) The form, content, and structural elements of memes in “Diba Expedition” 5.2 The division of labor in each column 5 .3 The form of consensus

46 60 61 79 83 83

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Contributors

Xiaoan Guo is a professor at the School of Journalism at Chongqing University, China. He has an interest in political communication. Hongmei Li is Associate Professor of Strategic Communication at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Her research focuses on advertising and consumer culture, globalization, national branding and public diplomacy, gender and sexuality, Chinese culture and society, and the culture of new communication technologies. She is the author of Advertising and Consumer Culture in China (2016)  and co-​editor of The Middle Class in Emerging Societies (2015, with Dr. Leslie Marsh) and a special journal issue titled Building the BRICS: Media, Nation Branding and Global Citizenship (2016, International Journal of Communication, with Dr. Leslie Marsh). Simin Li is Assistant Professor of Journalism at Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, China. Her research interests include media and social change, cyberculture studies, alternative media studies, and qualitative research methods. Guoqiang Liu is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at the School of Journalism and Communication, Sichuan International Studies University, China. His research focuses on international communication, film and television, media culture, and media discourse studies. Hailong Liu is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of the Renmin University of China, Beijing. Dr. Liu is the Chief Editor of Chinese Journal of Journalism and Communication and the Associate Director for the Institute of Communication Study at the Center of News and Social Development at Renmin University, Beijing. He is the author of Revisiting the Grey Area:  Narration and Memories in the History of Communication Studies (2015), Propaganda:  Idea, Discourse and Legitimation (2013), and Mass Communication Theories: Paradigms and Schools (2008). His research interests include political communication, the history of Chinese communication study, and intellectual history of communication.

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List of contributors ix Weishan Miao is an assistant professor at the institute of Journalism and Communication, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His research interests focus on new media, technology, and social change in China. Hongzhe Wang is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University, China. His research interests include digital technology, media history, cyberculture, and class-related issues. He is working on a book called Machine for a Long Revolution: Computer as the Nexus of Technology and Class Politics in China 1955–​1984. Zhe Wang is an assistant professor at Zhejiang University of Media and Communication, China. Her main research areas are social media studies, political communication, and science, technology, and society studies (STS). Jing Wu is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University, China. She got her PhD in Communication from the Department of Communication Studies, The University of Iowa in 2002. Her research areas are media and cultural studies, social theories of mass communication, media and the public sphere, identity and ideology, media and modernity, etc. She has published articles both in Chinese and English on topics concerning various aspects of media, culture, and society. Her recent book is entitled Visual Expressions of Cultural Modernity: Ways of Seeing and Communication. Guobin Yang is the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and Department of Sociology. He is the author of The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (2009) and The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China (2016). He has also edited books on media activism, collective memory, and Internet politics. Shaoting Yang is PhD candidate at the Law School of Chongqing University, China. Her main research area is visual rhetoric. Kui Zhou is an associate professor in the Faculty of Journalism and Communication, Communication University of China. His research interests focus on political communication, global communication, and visual communication. He worked with Hong Kong–​based Phoenix Satellite TV as a documentary journalist, where he won the Silver Hugo Award of 2009 Chicago International Film Festival for his documentary of Sichuan earthquake of 2008.

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1  Performing cyber-​nationalism in twenty-​first-​century  China The case of Diba Expedition Guobin Yang*

Every country has its patriots, but the ways of expressing patriotism may differ. A kind of patriotic and nationalistic action was the so-​called Diba Expedition that happened in cyberspace on January 20, 2016. A  variety of insights are discussed in the following chapters, which show that major participants in the “expedition” were youth born in and after the 1990s. Many of them were online gamers and members of online fandom communities. The main platform where the action was launched was Baidu’s online forum “Diba”, although there were also activities on other major social media platforms ranging from Sina Weibo, to Douban, to the Tianya Club, to AcFun, to Bilibili, and to QQ groups. The targets of attack included Tsai Ing-​wen’s Facebook page and the websites of several Taiwanese newspapers. The main “weapons” used by the participants were known as emoji packs (biaoqing bao), which typically show facial expressions and other images in exaggerated and humorous forms. The most popular biaoqing bao became viral memes widely circulated online. “Warriors” in Diba Expedition would bombard the targeted websites by posting biaoqing bao on them. According to Guo and Yang in Chapter 5 of this volume, biaoqing bao consists of two varieties, the visual and the linguistic. The linguistic ones further fall under three categories based on their functions—​those used to educate and lecture, those used to mock and deride, and those used to attack and threaten. In her chapter, Zhe Wang finds that from 00:00 hours on January 20, 2016 to 24:00 hours on January 21, 2016, a total of 13,684 comments were left on Tsai Ing-​wen’s Facebook page. Of these comments, over 2,000 were a slogan often used in public morality education in mainland China, called “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces”. In addition, 447 comments expressed longing for the homeland, 276 comments were the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and 245 comments were slogans in praise of the motherland. They were, in other words, repetitive. In analyzing the causes of Diba Expedition, the authors in this volume emphasize the influence of the Internet subculture, of commercial culture, of

* Guobin Yang is Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, [email protected].

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2  Guobin Yang emotional expression, and of visual memes in mobilization and communication. Focusing on the analysis of visual memes, Zhou Kui and Miao Weishan argue that Diba Expedition is a case of cyber-​nationalism made possible through the competitive use of visual symbols. Guo Xiaoan and Yang Shaoting similarly focus on the visual aspect of the incident, while Li Hongmei argues that Diba Expedition is consistent with a model of nationalism in modern Chinese history characterized as reactive, because it happens in response to Western media bashing of China. Liu Guoqiang uses sociologist Randall Collins’s (2004) theory of interaction chain to argue that Diba Expedition was a performance made possible through collective emotional interaction. Based on interviews with participants, Wu Jing, Li Simin, and Wang Hongzhe argue that Diba Expedition reflects the identity concerns and cultural habits of contemporary youth who are immersed in digital and postmodern commercial cultures in their daily lives. They contend that the participants were not ignorant or irrational, but were informed nationalists. Wang Zhe argues that Diba Expedition was like an online game of war on behalf of the nation. Decentralized and messy, it was driven primarily by the expression of strong collective emotions. Finally, Liu Hailong proposes that Diba Expedition is a case of fandom nationalism, which is the product of a unique combination of nationalism with digital culture and commercial culture. Taken together, the chapters in this volume offer new theoretical insights and rich empirical descriptions about the most recent wave of cyber-​nationalism in China. which have made important contribution to the study of digital culture and Internet politics. In recent English-​language scholarship on digital and online activism, the emphasis has been on changing organizational forms and structures, while there is a shortage of analysis of actors’ motives, the meaning of media practices, online narrative and stylistic forms, and their cultural resources and repertoires. This is where the chapters in this volume fill a gap. In the remainder of this chapter, I  highlight several features of Diba Expedition that I believe offer some additional insights into the changing character of cyber-​nationalism in contemporary China.

Self-​performance Diba Expedition is commonly viewed as a case of cyber-​nationalism. But what does it mean to say so? Does the concept of cyber-​nationalism exhaust its meaning or are there other possible explanations? In her chapter, Wang Zhe calls it an “emotional game”. This is very revealing. A game is a show, a performance. With its dramatic and sensationalizing visual memes, the “Expedition” certainly has the distinct features of a public performance, but it is a performance of the self more than a performance for its alleged audience in Taiwan. If, as Guo Xiaoan and Yang Shaoting argue, the purpose of the “Expedition” was, literally, to punish its target and teach a lesson, we would

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Performing cyber-nationalism 3 expect to know its effects on the target audience, especially how Taiwanese responded to it. Yet, reports about the “Expedition” in Chinese media and on social media platforms contain little information about the effects. Those who were interviewed in Chinese media hardly ever refer to the responses of the Taiwanese. Instead, participants were preoccupied with their self-​image. They enjoyed talking about their biaoqing bao memes—​how these memes were made, how they were circulated. Chinese media stories also discussed the meticulous organization of the “Expedition”—​how participants set up teams in charge of intelligence, translation, logistics, publicity, weapons, slogans, and so forth. We are left with the impression that the participants imagined themselves to be engaged in a real war, and that they themselves were military strategists planning it. Interestingly, there is little evidence that the numerous biaoqing bao memes online were all posted on the targeted websites in Taiwan. Instead, they were seen mostly on websites in mainland China. Since Tsai Ing-​wen’s Facebook page was the main target of the “Expedition”, we might be led to believe that it was bombarded with many of the biaoqing bao memes. Yet as Wang Zhe notes in her chapter, in fact, the functionality to post images on Tsai Ing-​wen’s Facebook page had been closed before the “Expedition” started, so that it was mainly textual comments, not visual images, that were posted on her Facebook page by China’s cyber warriors. The real targeted audience of Diba Expedition was not necessarily Taiwanese. Rather, the real audience was PRC Internet users and the participants themselves. Put differently, a key motivating force of Diba Expedition was not to bombard the websites on the other side of the Taiwan Straits so much as to stage a drama of self-​pride, self-​glorification, and self-​performance. We see revealing evidence of this in the popular hashtag “I’m deeply in love with this country” on Sina Weibo in the days immediately following the “Expedition”. One of these hashtagged passages goes as follows: Tomorrow I’m going to leave China for another country. I  feel low the whole day today, sunk in an unnamable kind of feeling. And then I thought of the #D8 fb Expedition which I had forgotten in the past two days. So from 9pm to now, I have been reading this hashtag. The acts of the expedition warriors and those moving poems and passages make me feel like…I can no longer contain the primordial powers within my body!! January 23, 2016, Sina Weibo Note how the person was deeply moved by “the acts of the expedition warriors and those moving poems and passages”. Examples like this show that the slogans and memes of Diba Expedition worked to move none other than the participants themselves and their fellow netizens in the PRC. It is in this sense that Diba Expedition may best be viewed as a self-​performance. Of course, all politics has a performative character (Alexander, Giesen, & Mast, 2006). What is significant about claiming that Diba Expedition was

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4  Guobin Yang an event of self-​performance? To answer this question, it is necessary to look back at the earlier history of Internet culture in China and its relation to social change.

Disenchantment and re-​enchantment Chinese Internet culture started to develop in the mid-​1990s. At that time, Chinese society was going through a period of unprecedented disenchantment. With accelerated transformation of the market economy and the upsurge of commercial culture, the moral orientation of Chinese society began to swing dramatically toward individualism. This is the study of the individualization of Chinese society investigated by anthropologist Yunxiang Yan (2009). It is also in this period that a new crisis of faith appeared. In the late 1990s, when the material conditions of life had significantly improved, people began to rediscover questions about the meaning of life and personal happiness. This was a rediscovery, because barely 20 years earlier, in 1980, a national debate about the meaning of life occurred in China that was triggered by a letter to the editor, now known as Pan Xiao’s Letter (Yang, 2009). In the late 1990s, the question returned to the public sphere with a vengeance. Whereas in 1980, the debate focused on the damaging consequences of rigid Mao-​era collective life on the individual, in the late 1990s, the question became the consequences of individualization for personal and collective identities. The debate in 1980 was a reflection of a disenchantment with extreme collective life; in the late 1990s, it reflected a disenchantment with the meaning of excessive individualism. In this context, the development of the Internet took on special social and cultural significance. The Internet provided a new space for the work of the imagination (Appadurai, 1996) and for cultivating a new social imaginary (Taylor, 2004). The radical newness of the Internet at that time gave it a special technological aura, or charisma. For many people, it became a space for finding meaning, or re-​enchantment, in a world of disenchantment. In the late 1990s, the BBS forums and online communities became very popular, bringing together large crowds of active participants in online conversations. Part of the appeal of these new Internet spaces is that people can explore alternative visions about their lives, identities, and society. Three of the dominant images of the Internet in the online discourses of that time were images of home, freedom, and romantic heroism of the martial arts world (Yang, 2009, p. 156). Many of the contentious events that happened in Chinese cyberspace at that time similarly reflected yearnings for freedom, solidarity, and community. It is in this sense that the Internet provided a site for re-​enchantment. As self-​performance, Diba Expedition reflected a collective yearning for grandeur and heroism in a postheroic, disenchanted world. Despite the abundance of humorous and funny slogans and memes, the most notable, and certainly the most widely circulated, images in the “Expedition” express yearnings for a romantic heroism. For example, one Internet meme used in the Expedition is called “Expedition for the Sake of Yourself ”. Taken from Robert

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Performing cyber-nationalism 5 Fisher’s popular novel The Knight in Rusty Armor, the image conveys the sense of a solitary but brave warrior in search of his self—​a fitting metaphor for the meaning of Diba Expedition. Another image, showing Spartacus in a fierce battle cry and taken directly from the Hollywood film 300, about Spartacus, even more clearly expresses a sense of bravery and heroism, again a fitting image of the symbolic meaning of Diba Expedition to its participants. One of the social functions of nationalism is that it provides strong emotional resources for personal identity and a sense of belonging. Benedict Anderson’s (1991) work shows that nationalism arose at a time when religion was on the decline. The waning of religion as a system of belief and enchantment thus made way for the rise of nationalism as a new form of enchantment. Cyber-​nationalism of Diba Expedition type is similar to the nationalism in Anderson’s study in that it provided an occasion for strong emotional experience and for imagining a sense of collective identity and solidarity.

The style of performance To view Diba Expedition as an event of self-​performance is to invite an analysis of its style. Dramatic performances have styles. As acts of dramatic performance, online activism also has its political styles (Yang, 2009; Yang & Wang, 2016). Style is a distinct feature in the media-​saturated politics of the contemporary world. Pels (2003) defines style as “a heterogeneous ensemble of ways of speaking, acting, looking, displaying, and handling things, which merge into a symbolic whole that immediately fuses matter and manner, message and package, argument and ritual” (p. 45). Stressing the centrality of media to political practices in their study of contemporary populism, Moffitt and Tormey (2013, p.  7) argue that “politicians have become pseudo-​celebrities, political events like protests often gain attention for their novel stylistic features”. They define political style as “the repertoires of performance that are used to create political relations” (Moffitt & Tormey, 2013, p. 7). The concept of style is both similar to and different from the concept of repertoires in social movement theory. Political style resembles repertoire of contention when it is used to identify the common patterns of action across multiple cases. Political style, however, highlights the outward appearances, tones, aesthetic features, and manner of action (Ankersmit, 1997; Hebdige, 1979), whereas the concept of repertoire as used by Tilly (1995) refers mainly to an ensemble of tactics from which activists can pick and choose. Political style is what unifies an ensemble of political tactics, just as literary style unifies different works by the same author or by the same “school” of authors. In a recent study, Yang and Wang (2016) identify four political styles of online activism in China, namely, the playful, the subversive, the confrontational, and consensus:

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6  Guobin Yang In the consensus style, activists work with, rather than against, government authorities to achieve social change. In the playful style, netizens participate in contentious activities through the use of online humour, jokes, parody, cartoons, and other playful activities. The confrontational style targets individual government officials or agencies through direct action without challenging the political system. Finally, a subversive style generates a discourse directly challenging the legitimacy of the Chinese political system. The four styles are not mutually exclusive and elements of one may be mixed in another. Yang and Wang, 2016, p. 193 Although by and large, authors of the chapters in this volume do not use the notion of style as their analytical concept, their detailed empirical anatomy of the visual and symbolic features of Diba Expedition provides insights into the Expedition’s stylistic features. Zhou and Miao, Liu Hailong, Guo Xiaoan and Yang Shaoting, and Wang Zhe, among others, draw attention to the playful and colorful expressions. Guo and Yang emphasize the consensus character of its mobilization. Liu Hailong further points to the slightly subversive flavor of a subcultural style. All this suggests that although Diba Expedition seems to manifest a mixed political style, it is clearly dominated by the playful. It is its playful style that distinguishes it most clearly from earlier waves of nationalism in China. Think about the cases of cyber-​nationalism enumerated in Xu Wu’s (2007) study. Whether it was the “Say No to Indonesia’s Anti-​Chinese Riot” protest from 1997 to 1999 or the Sino-​US cyber wars from 1999 to 2011, or the online and offline anti-​Japanese protests from 2001 to 2003, the dominant style of protest at that time was angry earnestness and somberness, not playfulness.

Cultural skills and cyber-​nationalism Why did Diba Expedition assume a predominantly playful political style in the twenty-​first century? It has everything to do with contemporary culture, which is a culture of consumerism plus Internet play and bantering. This is a theme that emerges clearly from most of the chapters in this volume, especially those by Wang Zhe, Liu Hailong, and Wu Jing, Li Simin and Wang Hongzhe. Instead of dwelling further on this point, I wish to add that understanding the peculiar style of Diba Expedition calls for an analysis of its dramatic repertoires and the cultural skills of its “actors”. Adapting the language of drama and performance, Tilly (1995, p. 41) coined the concept of “repertoire of contention” to refer to forms of action in social protest. In his words, repertoire of contention refers to “the ways that people act together in pursuit of shared interest”. How people act together, however, depends on the cultural resources available to them and their cultural skills and habitus. If we grant that contemporary Internet culture is the habitus of the cyber-​nationalists, what are their cultural skills? What do I mean by cultural skills?

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Performing cyber-nationalism 7 Sociologists Fligstein and McAdam (2011) emphasize the importance of social skills in mobilizing collective action. They define social skills as people’s “cognitive capacity for reading people and environments, framing lines of action, and mobilizing people in the service of these action ‘frames’ ” (p. 7). In the online context, however, cultural skills are more important than social skills. The ability to participate and engage in action and interaction on the Internet, other things being equal, depends on linguistic competence; rhetorical ingenuity; media literacy; computer know-​how; familiarity with Internet idioms, neologisms, and etiquette; and competence in the use of new network platforms and functions (e.g., Twitter and Instagram) and software and digital gadgets (e.g., iPhone, digital cameras, and recorders). These are cultural, not social, skills. The proverbial computer nerd or hacker, who is often represented as lacking social skills in popular culture, is nevertheless unusually competent in their cultural skills at using (or hacking) the Internet. In Chinese digital spaces, cultural skills may also include the skills to use circumvention software to overcome censorship and website blocking. Cultural skills are cultivated in particular cultural and social environments, but at the same time are constrained by environments. The Internet cultures of the late 1990s, for example, enabled a set of skills for people to interact in online bulletin boards known as BBS forums. There were ways of interactions (including linguistic and emoji forms) peculiar to BBS forums. For one thing, visuals and videos were not common in BBS forums and in earlier cases of cyber-​nationalism. As Jack Qiu notes, “the main mode of communication was textual, partly because of the limited Internet bandwidth” (Qiu, 2015, p. 148). Chinese youth cultures of the twenty-​first century are a far cry from the 1990s (de Kloet and Fung, 2016). The main participants in Diba Expedition, dubbed “Little Pink” (xiao fen hong), are of the post-​1990s cohort or are millennials. They are China’s digital natives, immersed as they are in a digital culture of online gaming and fandom communities and on social media. If the language of cyber-​nationalism in the 1990s was dominated by serious and outrageous protestations such as in the online protests in the “Strengthening the Nation” forum in 1999 (Yang, 2003; Wu, 2007), the playful style language and symbols of Diba Expedition reflect the new Internet cultures of the twenty-​first century. That the main participants in the Expedition are called “Little Pink” is itself revealing—​it is because one of the online communities where mobilization took place has pink as its background color. The website in question is the popular online literature community Jinjiang Literature City (晋江文学城), which has produced, among others, the popular Internet novel Startling by Each Step (步步惊心) and an even more popular television adaption (Guo, 2015). As Wu Jing, Li Simin and Wang Hongzhe note in their chapter, in online fandom communities like Jinjiang Literature City, fans are often divided into competing factions engaged in online “wars” fighting on behalf of their own idols. Liu Hailong’s chapter reaffirms the point that Diba Expedition was in a sense a transplantation of Internet fans’ idol wars and war skills into the realm of nationalism.

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8  Guobin Yang

The political opportunities of cyber-​nationalism An additional condition has to be analyzed in order to understand the peculiar style of Diba Expedition. Its success in large-​scale online mobilization was not just a matter of skillful organizing or emotional appeal. It was also because its politics—​nationalism and patriotism—​enjoy legitimacy in China’s political environment, where a confrontational style usually does not benefit from the same degree of legitimacy. Political opportunities matter for cyber-​nationalism as they do for contentious politics in general (McAdam, 1982). An important reason why nationalistic protests could happen in China when other forms of popular protests are likely to meet with repression is that nationalism is a legitimate ideology, as it is in other countries. As a specific form of online activism, cyber-​nationalism is one of the most common issues found in the history of online activism in China (Wu, 2007; Yang, 2009). Diba Expedition represents not an exception but the norm. It is entirely consistent with our expectations about the nature of nationalism in China. In fact, when we survey the landscape of online activism in China in recent years, Diba Expedition may raise some uneasy questions, because it happened at a time when online activism has been significantly contained by government authorities. China has had a history of contentious online activism ever since the late 1990s. Until recently, ongoing censorship efforts have largely failed to contain China’s contentious and wild web (Herold & Marolt, 2011). Online protests have happened despite, and sometimes because of, tightening censorship policies. Yet since 2013, things have changed in notable ways. Although Internet protest events continue to appear, they are not as frequent as before. Surveys by Chinese Internet research and monitoring institutions show that the overall number of online incidents has declined, while the number of online incidents with “positive” public sentiments has increased—​positive meaning voices in support of government agendas (People’s Daily Online, 2015; Xie, 2015). That Diba Expedition could have happened at a time when contentious online activism is on the decline is telling. It suggests that the “Expedition” might be in line with official political agendas. In this sense, it was less an event of popular protest than one of popular support of the party-​state. Judging from the praise that such important official media channels as the People’s Daily heaped on the participants of the “Expedition”, Diba Expedition clearly enjoyed some degree of official support. Immediately after it happened, it received explicit positive media coverage, a clear sign of official support. In short, while recognizing what the “Expedition” accomplished as a successful case of online collective action—​its meticulous online organizing, the large scale of its mobilization, and its visible social impact, analysts must also acknowledge that it was by and large not a contentious event but a case of “consensus mobilization” (McCarthy & Wolfson, 1992). An additional question arises if Diba Expedition is indeed aligned with official agendas:  what impact does it have on online public expression?

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Performing cyber-nationalism 9 Participants in Diba are nicknamed “Little Pink”, so named because the background color of one of the popular websites of the fandom communities allegedly involved in organizing Diba is pink. Little Pink have been compared to Mao’s Red Guards and called “online mobs” in the mass media. Although these comparisons are problematic—​after all “pink” is not “red”—​there is one thing about “Little Pink” that is reminiscent of Red Guard behavior: a tendency to shut out different opinions, such as those that are critical of Diba and its nationalistic discourse. The discourse of Diba cannot tolerate the so-​called “negative energy” online. In this respect, Diba Expedition endorses rather than dissents from recent government efforts to contain and manage online speech by inhibiting rather than opening up online speech. A central feature of recent government efforts to contain online speech may be characterized as productive rather than repressive, or rather, a productive approach to achieving results that have not been achieved through repressive means of censorship. The new methods characteristic of this productive approach include, among others, the mobilization of social forces in support of government agendas, the production of so-​called “positive energy” as a way of countering and undermining “negative energy”, and the use of a discourse of civility and civilization to undermine critical online discourse. Willy-​ nilly, Little Pink, and cyber-​nationalists in general are more likely to produce “positive” rather than “negative” energy in the government-​sponsored metrics and classifications of online public opinion. This is not to claim that Diba Expedition is a form of official nationalism (Anderson, 1991). It is not official, but popular. It does suggest, however, that popular nationalism is in an ambivalent relationship with official nationalism.

Discourses of empire As Li Hongmei shows in her chapter, Chinese nationalism is sometimes viewed as reactive, not proactive or aggressive. It is reactive in the sense that nationalistic events in China take place in response to external threats or the stigmatization of China. The implication is that this kind of reactive behavior is a legitimate response to harms inflicted on the image of the Chinese nation. Discourses produced in the middle of Diba Expedition, however, reveal some intriguing ambivalence. One ambivalent aspect concerns its gestures of cosmopolitanism as evidenced in its use of English translations for its slogans and emoji packs. The organizers of the Expedition set up a translation team for translating its slogans into foreign languages. A  popular Chinese song called “Missing Home” (乡愁), with lyrics like “My wandering son, do you still remember the sweetness of our land”, was rendered into multiple languages and used as an emoji weapon. An official Chinese slogan about socialist morality called “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces” (八荣八耻) was translated into English and bilingual versions of it were posted on Tsai Ing-​wen’s Facebook page. The first of these “eight things” reads: “Honor to those who love the motherland, shame on those who harm the motherland”.

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10  Guobin Yang A Confucian saying meaning “Develop morality first, then one turns into a person” (先成德, 再成人) was erroneously translated as “First into Germany, then adults”, apparently the product of Google Translate. Slogans like these, in readable or not-​so-​readable English translations, are condescending at best. At their worst, they reveal a hidden itch for the glory of empire. The vocabularies and tones used in the slogans cited above are reminiscent of the language of “cherishing men from afar” in the tribute system of the Qing court. “Cherishing men from afar” meant treating foreigners according to rituals set in the tributary system. Thus treated, foreign vassal states would in turn acknowledge their subject positions vis-​à-​vis the Qing emperor (such as by performing kowtow to the Qing emperor (Hevia, 1995; Esherick, 1998). Ritual was a way of maintaining symbolic supremacy. I  am not arguing that Diba Expedition was an imperialist adventure. My point is that even as it claimed to be a “civil” campaign to voice patriotic sentiments such as through the display of scenery and cuisine, the language and imagery it employed betrayed traces of a discourse characteristic of past empires. If this is true, then Diba Expedition as a case of contemporary cyber-​nationalism must be viewed critically from the lens of empire as well as from the lens of nationalism.

References Chinese references People’s Daily Online. (2015, July 10). Internet consensus report for June 2015 issued by the Media Monitoring Office of People’s Daily Online. Accessed from:  http://​ yuqing.people.com.cn/​n/​2015/​0710/​c210107-​27283825.html [人民网(2015).人民网舆情监测室发布6月网络舆论共识度报告。] Qiu, Jack L. C., & Chen, T. W. (2011). Preface: Marching towards new media events research. In J. L. C. Qiu & T. W. Chen (Eds.), New media events research (pp. 1–​16). Beijing: China Renmin University Press. [邱林川, 陈韬文(2011).前言: 迈向新媒体实践研究.载邱林川, 陈韬文(主编), 《新媒事 件研究》。北京: 中国人民大学出版社。] Wu, S. W. (2014). Turn to new media events research:  Theoretical naming, research horizon and theoretical issues. Modern Communication, 4, 132–​136. [吴世文(2014).转向新媒体事件研究:  理论命名、研究视域与理论问题.《现代传播》, 4, 132–​136.]

English references Alexander, J. C., Giesen, B., & Mast, J. L. (Eds.). (2006). Social performance: Symbolic action, cultural pragmatics, and ritual. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities. London: Verso. Ankersmit, F. R. (1997). Aesthetic politics: Political philosophy beyond fact and value. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Appadurai, Arjun. (1996). Modernity at large. Minneapolis, MN:  University of Minnesota Press.

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Performing cyber-nationalism 11 Cai, Y. (2010). Collective resistance in China:  Why popular protests succeed or fail. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Calhoun, C. (1997). Nationalism. Buckingham: Open University Press. Colins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press. De Kloet, J., & Fung, A. Y.  H. (2016). Youth cultures in China. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Esherick, J. (1998). Cherishing sources from afar. Modern China, 24(2), 135–​161. Fligstein, N., & McAdam, D. (2011). Toward a general theory of strategic action fields. Sociological Theory, 29, 1−26. Guo, S. (2015). Startling by each click: ‘word-​of-​mouse’ publicity and critically manufacturing time-​travel romance online. Chinese Literature Today, 5(1),  74–​83. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The meaning of style. London: Methuen. Herold, D. K., & Marolt, P. (2011). Online society in China: Creating, celebrating, and instrumentalising the online carnival. New York, NY: Routledge. Hevia, J. (1995). Cherishing men from afar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hildebrandt, T. (2013). Social organizations and the authoritarian state in China. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Ho, P., & Edmonds, R. L. (2008). China’s embedded activism:  Opportunities and constraints of a social movement. New York, NY: Routledge. McAdam, D. (1982). Political process and the development of black insurgency 1930–​ 1970. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. McCarthy, J., & Wolfson, M. (1992). Consensus movements, conflict movements, and the cooperation of civic and state infrastructures. In A. Morris & C. Mueller (Eds.), Frontiers in social movement theory (pp. 273–​297). New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press. Moffitt, B., & Tormey, S. (2013). Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and political style. Political Studies, 62, 381−397. doi:10.1111/​1467–​9248.12032 O’Brien, K. J., & Li, L. (2006). Rightful resistance in rural China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pels, D. (2003). Aesthetic representation and political style:  Re-​balancing identity and difference in media democracy. In J. Corner & D. Pels (Eds.), Media and the restyling of politics:  Consumerism, celebrity and cynicism (pp. 41–​66). London: Sage. Qiu, J. (2015). Go Baobao! Image-​driven nationalism, generation post-​1980s, and mainland students in Hong Kong. positions, 23, 145–​165. Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Tilly, C. (1995). Popular contention in Great Britain, 1758−1834. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wu, X (2007). Chinese cyber nationalism:  Evolution, characteristics, and implications. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Xie, Y. G. (2015). 2014 nian zhongguo wangluo yuqing yanjiu baogao [Survey report on Internet public opinion in 2014 in China]. Journalism Review, 2,  21–​28. Yan, Y. (2009). The individualization of Chinese society. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic. Yang, G. (2003). The Internet and the rise of a transnational Chinese cultural sphere. Media, Culture & Society, 25(4), 469–​490.

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12  Guobin Yang Yang, G. B. (2013). The power of the Internet in China: Citizen activism online. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Yang, G., & Wang, W. (2016). The political styles of online activism in China. In D. Black, O. Khoo, & K. Iwabuchi (Eds.), Contemporary culture and media in Asia (pp. 191–​205). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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2  Understanding Chinese nationalism A historical perspective Hongmei Li*

Introduction On November 21, 2015, Taiwanese singer Chou Tzu-​yu and member of the Korean pop group Twice—​an entity of the South Korean JYP Entertainment—​ was shown holding the flag of the Republic of China when she appeared on a TV show in South Korea. Mainland-​based Taiwanese singer Huang An, who is well known for his anti-​independence stance, exposed this incident through his Sina Weibo account. While this incident was covered by Taiwanese media and discussed in online forums, it was rarely noticed by mainland Chinese netizens. Huang later deleted his Weibo post after a fan of Chou explained that the display of the flag was arranged by the Korean company. In January 2016, there were rumors that Beijing TV and An-​Hui TV had invited Twice—​consisting of Chou and three Japanese dancers—​for the annual spring festival gala shows. On January 8, 2016, Huang published another Weibo entry that reiterated his criticism because Chou Tzu-​yu had waved the Taiwanese flag in Korea. His entry mentioned his first exposure of the incident and explained his reason for the initial deletion. Huang further criticized the pro-​independence Sanlih TV for using this incident to make Chou a symbol of Taiwan independence. Huang thus asked his followers and others to widely share the message and requested that Chou publicly acknowledge her Chinese identity if she disagreed with his accusation. Huang’s Weibo entry was forwarded more than 15,000 times. Netizens on Tianya, China’s largest online community, picked up this issue. Many netizens strongly criticized Chou and An-​Hui TV. Later, netizens also learned that Chou was an advertising spokesperson for Huawei Cellphone Y6. Under pressure, Huawei canceled the contract and An-​Hui TV removed the troupe from its program. Beijing TV did not publicly acknowledge the original invitation, and instead quietly removed Twice from its program schedule. On January 13, Twice’s parent company, JYP, made a public statement, explaining, “Chou has not yet formed her own political views given her young age and inexperience”. However, Chinese netizens felt the statement * Hongmei Li is Associate Professor of Strategic Communication at Miami University, [email protected].

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14  Hongmei Li was insincere, which negatively impacted other JYP performers.1 On January 14, JYP’s stock value dropped by more than 6 million dollars. JYP immediately made another public apology, stating that Chou firmly supported and respected the One-China policy, and that her love for Taiwan as her hometown did not mean she supported Taiwan’s independence. JYP further changed Chou’s online profile from “Taiwan as nationality” to “Taiwan as birthplace”, which was later modified to “Taiwan, China”. However, these measures did not lessen the criticism directed toward Chou and JYP. On January 15, the CEO of JYP posted Chou’s apology video on the company website, YouTube, and Weibo. The video features Chou holding her script and bowing to the camera, stating, I should have apologized earlier, but I was scared of facing everyone and the unknown situation. There is only one China. The two sides across the Strait are the same and one. I always feel proud of being a Chinese. As a Chinese, my inappropriate behaviors abroad have hurt the company and the feelings of netizens across the Strait. I feel very, very sorry and regretful. I have decided to suspend my activities in China and do serious self-​reflection. I once again apologize to everyone. This apology drew sharp criticism from human rights groups in Taiwan (Initium, Jan. 16, 2016). Media in Taiwan and mainland China covered the development of the event. Because this case happened a few days before Taiwan’s election day, presidential candidates, politicians, and other groups also actively participated in shaping the discourse, thus intensifying the incident’s political, cultural, and social significance. Facing the controversy, Baidu Diba, a discussion forum formed in 2004 with more than 20 million registered users, mobilized its participants to bypass the firewall and occupy the Facebook pages of the Apple Daily, Sanlih TV, and Taiwanese presidential candidate Tsai Ing-​wen by taking coordinated actions starting exactly at 7 p.m. on January 20, 2016. Using the slogan “When Diba goes for battle, no grass will survive”, participants posted more than 26,000 entries on Tsai’s Facebook page in three hours. “Diba Expedition” immediately became trendy on Weibo, WeChat, QQ, Baidu discussion forums, and other social media platforms. By 5 p.m. the next day, Sina Weibo # Diba FB chuzheng (Diba FB march) reached 610 million views. While some criticized this action as “blatant nationalism”, others viewed this as a way to demonstrate power, patriotism, and rational political participation. How do we understand the online nationalism in this case? What is the relationship between online nationalism and other forms of nationalism? This chapter situates the understanding of nationalism in the broader context of Chinese history, society, and geopolitics. It first discusses Chinese nationalism in relation to China’s contact with Western modernity since the nineteenth century. It then analyzes the recent rising nationalism and its various manifestations, which is followed by an investigation into the case of

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 15 Diba Expedition in connection with Taiwan’s search for national identity. The chapter ends with reflections on nationalism in general and online nationalism in particular.

Historicizing nationalism in China There is no single definition of nationalism. People generally view it as a way to identify with their nation. Nationalism may include dimensions such as a sense of belonging, collective identity, and loyalty to a nation (He & Guo, 2000). A distinction is often made between nation, nation-​state, and nationalism (e.g., Gellner, 1983; Giddens, 1985; Anderson, 1991; Duara, 1993). The term “the nation” can be defined as a group of people sharing the same origin, ancestry, language, religion, or geography. A nation is different from a nation-​state in that a nation will not necessarily become a state. There are nations that spread across different states, and there are nations that are stateless. Some scholars (e.g., Gellner, 1964, 1983; Anderson, 1991; Duara, 1993, 1997) highlight the imaginary aspect of the three concepts and stress that nationalism precedes the formation of a nation-​state. For example, Anderson (1991) defines nation as “an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (p. 3). Communicative practices support the construction of the nation, the nation-​state, and nationalism. Media and mass communication produce common experience, thus engineering a shared affect and experience. In particular, Anderson (1991) argues that print media played an important role in producing nationalism and the nation-​state in the West. Currently, any mass media forms—​such as TV, film, radio, magazine, advertising, and the Internet—​are essential in producing shared imaginations of commonality. Understanding nationalism in China requires us to understand how China constructs its own identity and the dynamic relationship between China and other countries, especially the West. While China’s history is different from that of Europe and nationalism was imported in the late nineteenth century after China encountered Western colonialism (Pusey, 1983), modern China has been similarly constructed based on the imagined commonality of culture and the lineage among its people through textbooks, media programs, and official and popular discourses. China’s colonial history since the First Opium War (1839–​1842) has greatly shaped how China views itself and how China is viewed. The Qing dynasty’s military defeats resulted in ceding territories, paying indemnities, opening trade ports, and granting foreigners extraterritoriality. China’s repeated losses forced Chinese intellectuals to find ways to save the country. China’s Self-​ Strengthening movement (1860s–​1890s) represented the most systematic effort during the Qing dynasty. However, China’s attempt largely failed, which was marked by the country’s defeat in the Sino-​Japanese War in 1894–​1895. The failure produced “a new national mode of unparalleled apprehension, frustration, and anger” (Pusey, 1983, p. 5), resulting in the painful conclusion that China was inferior in armaments as well as in political institutions, culture, and

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16  Hongmei Li civilization. Pusey (1983) argues, “this was a loss of ‘faith in our fathers’, probably more traumatic for the Chinese than the post-​Darwinian loss of ‘faith of our fathers’ was for so many nineteenth-​century Westerners” (p. 201). As a consequence, many educated elites advocated for the full embrace of Western cultures. China’s traumatic experience with Western modernity thus produced an inferiority complex. But underlying the inferiority complex was also a superiority complex originating from China’s glorious history and civilization (Li, 2016). A key question was how to make China stronger by learning from the West. Thus, China has an ambivalent attitude toward the West and its own history. Gries (2005) argues that official nationalism in twentieth-​century China is a mixture of victory and victimization narratives. These two narratives work together to create a national consciousness that is often used to interpret China’s history, present, and future. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has constantly stressed and reinforced its role as the savior of the Chinese nation from Western colonial powers, thus portraying China as a victor against imperialism. Underlying the victor narrative is also a victim narrative that portrays the West as the penetrator. Such popular resentment is often used by the ruling party to reinforce its rule and advance its political agenda, ranging from anti-​capitalism in the 1960s to the various recent reactive nationalistic movements.

Rising nationalism in reform-​era China China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement (also called the June Fourth movement) in 1989 deeply changed China’s politics, society, and culture. While China in the 1980s was relatively more open politically, with scholars enjoying more freedom to critique the Cultural Revolution (1966–​1976) and Chinese tradition and to explore Western ideas such as freedom and democracy, the 1990s leaned more toward nationalism and the revival of tradition (Li, 2016). Since the democracy movement, the Chinese government has relied on economic development to justify its control. The economy has been gradually liberalized, while the government still maintains tight political control. In the economy, neoliberalism has been implemented as a key policy that has led to deregulation, privatization, and the development of a market economy (Harvey, 2005; Wang, 2003). However, economic integration with global capitalism is accompanied by the ruling party’s attempts to use newly achieved wealth and technological means—​such as various new technologies and the Great Firewall—​to tighten control and political participation. In addition to ideological propaganda, the government has also launched various programs to promote patriotism and Chinese tradition, which has produced exceptionalism, nationalism, and pride in the midst of cultural globalization. Two examples (one in the 1980s and one in the 1990s) offer a sharp contrast between the 1980s and 1990s regarding how China viewed itself and the West.

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 17 River Elegy (He Shang) was an extremely popular show that aired on CCTV in 1988. The show, directed and scripted by Su Xiaokang and others, strongly criticized Chinese culture and tradition but eulogized Western civilization. It contrasted China’s “yellow land culture”, symbolized by decadence, incompetence, superstition, and icons of the distant past, with the “azure blue ocean culture” of the West, representing “youthfulness, adventure, energy, power, technology, and modernity” (Chen, 1995, p. 31). Cultural symbols such as the Yellow River, the Great Wall, and the dragon were reinterpreted to mean backwardness. This example shows a strong critical stance among the educated elites toward Chinese tradition in the 1980s. However, the 1990s witnessed a huge shift toward Chinese culture and tradition. This can be seen in the bestseller China Can Say No (Song, Zhang, Qiao, Tang & Gu, 1996). The book, compiled by five authors in a month, included many materials previously published in magazines and newspapers, and sold four million copies. It used populist language to cater to emotions and intuitive feelings. It promoted nationalism, criticized US society for its domestic racism and global hegemony, and condemned some Chinese people’s blind admiration for the United States. The book further praised Cuba’s courage in standing up against the United States and criticizes Japan’s past invasion of China and its failure to pay indemnity for the war, among other issues. The River Elegy and China Can Say No represent different views toward China’s traditions, politics, and future. While River Elegy inherited the tradition of scholars during the New Cultural Movement (1915–​1919), hoping that China would embrace Western civilization and political democracy, China Can Say No stood with the government and endorses nationalism as a way to gain cultural and political autonomy in order to increase China’s voice in global affairs. Indeed, because of the traumatic experience of the June Fourth movement, many elites shifted away from politics to business and money making. At the same time, there has emerged a group of scholars, often called the New Leftists, who criticize capitalism and support some aspects of Mao-​style socialism and collectivism. They condemn the increasing inequality in China and call for the government to exert more control in economic development and distribution. These scholars often side with the government to promote nationalism, socialism, and Chinese traditions.2 Furthermore, the end of the communist rule in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s deepened the elite’s anxiety about China’s future. The CCP spent a lot of resources trying to strengthen its legitimacy and reinforce Marxism and nationalism while simultaneously continuing China’s economic development. For example, former president Jiang Zemin in a 2000 speech specifically stated that the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union were serious setbacks for global socialism, and called for China to strengthen its belief in socialism and in China’s own socialist road with Chinese characteristics (Jiang, June 28, 2000).

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18  Hongmei Li China’s deepening of global participation—economic, political, and c­ ultural—​and its rising power are also accompanied by increasing clashes with the United States. For example, in 1993, the United States accused a Chinese container ship of carrying illegal chemical weapons to Iran. However, a subsequent examination by a US-​Saudi team did not find any chemical weapons, but the United States refused to apologize or compensate for China’s loss. This made many Chinese nationalists furious and they called the incident “the shame of China’s navy”. Many Chinese also viewed China’s loss of the 2000 Olympics bid to Sydney as the result of American intervention and its “unfair” criticism of China’s human rights issues. Thus, since the 1990s a common theme in Chinese media has been that the United States aims to contain China’s development. The two countries’ different views toward China’s human rights and sovereignty pertaining to Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen have further exacerbated the tense relationship. Since 2016, the US-China relation has been dominated by an ongoing trade war between the two countries. Therefore, geopolitics, different ideologies, and national interests contribute to the rise of China’s nationalism. The rising nationalism in China demonstrates the following characteristics. First, Japan and the United States are the two major targets. China opposes Japan due to its invasion of China during World War II. Many Chinese believe that Japan has not shown adequate remorse nor provided appropriate indemnity. Specific criticisms include that Japan has not yet officially apologized to China, and that Japan continues to whitewash its history by revising its textbooks and paying tribute to war criminals. Moreover, the territorial disputes between the two countries over the Diaoyu Islands continue to trigger nationalist reactions in China. In addition, the United States has a complicated role in these disputes:  the United States managed the Ryukyu Islands after World War II, and when it returned Okinawa (part of the Ryukyu Islands) to Japan in 1971, it also returned the Diaoyu Islands to Japan. Furthermore, the US and Japanese security arrangement and US-​Taiwan relations often make Chinese nationalists anxious. China frequently views any military actions and exchanges between these parties as targeting China. Even though China and the United States enjoyed a honeymoon period in the 1980s when both countries opposed the Soviet Union, these two countries have had more conflicts since the June Fourth movement in 1989. With China’s rising economic power, China and the United States are in direct competition in many areas, making the relationship more like that of “frenemies” rather than “strategic collaborators”. Despite its reluctant support, the Chinese government also harbors an ambivalent attitude toward nationalism because nationalism is a double-​edged sword. Oftentimes, it condones or implicitly encourages nationalism initially. Once the situation is out of control, the authorities then take actions to crack down on or arrest active participants or leaders.3 Such an approach results from the fear that nationalism may threaten the rule of the CCP because many nationalist movements later turn to criticizing domestic issues.

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 19 Nationalism since the 1990s also represents China’s response to economic and cultural globalization (Zhang, 2001). While information and media flows from the West allow Chinese people to realize the gaps between China and the West, the CCP has staunchly promoted the idea that China cannot blindly imitate the West. Various setbacks China has encountered in global affairs, China’s rapid economic growth, and, more importantly, the global financial crisis in 2008 have made Chinese more assertive in claiming Chineseness. Younger generations in particular who benefit from China’s economic prosperity generally have a positive view of China. Also, China’s economic reforms have greatly benefited China’s expanding middle class. In contrast to what is expected among Western politicians and media, the Chinese middle class, instead of seeking more democracy and political freedom, is conservative and generally supports the establishment (Chen & Dickson, 2010). Information control in China also contributes to nationalism. Chinese views about Japan and the West are constructed by the media, which are controlled by the state and the CCP. The extent to which Chinese people believe in official discourses depends on whether they trust the sources and whether they have alternative information access. Given that China’s past suffering at the hands of colonial powers is always prominently featured in textbooks, TV shows, and films, it is not surprising that nationalism is a common lens through which Chinese view the outside world.

Consumer nationalism Consumer nationalism has also become an important component of Chinese nationalism (Li, 2008, 2009; Wang, 2005, 2006). Purchasing national products or refusing foreign products can be viewed as an expression of consumer nationalism. Wang (2005) defines consumer nationalism as “the invocation of individuals’ collective national identities in the process of consumption to favor or reject products from other countries” (p. 225). There are various cases where Chinese consumers have demanded that global marketers show more respect to Chinese cultural symbols such as the dragon and the lion and treat Chinese consumers similarly to those in developed markets (Li, 2009, 2016). To a large extent, consumer nationalism in China means the convergence of commercialism and politics. It is also a performance of geopolitics and cultural identity. Moreover, consumer nationalism is closely related to the decline of traditional media and the increasing importance of new communication technologies that invite consumer-​citizens to participate in cultural production, circulation, and consumption. However, we must not essentialize nationalism because (1)  China benefits from economic globalization, and nationalism is more likely related to the unfair treatment that China faces in the process of globalization and (2) nationalism is often a marketing tool for companies to make profits. For example, many advertisers in China not only sell nationalism but also cosmopolitanism in order to cater to different

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20  Hongmei Li sentiments at different times (Li, 2006, 2008, 2016). Not only do Chinese companies use nationalism to sell their products, but transnational companies also use such strategies. This was especially obvious during the 2008 Beijing Olympics when both Chinese and transnational companies employed nationalistic marketing strategies. In the case of Diba, there is an obvious influence of consumer culture. First, many words and images used come from popular culture and figures. For example, memetic images of celebrities such as Huang Zitao (a controversial 22-​year-​old idol who is simultaneously criticized and adored in the entertainment circle) and Erkang (played by Zhou Jie, a prince of the Qing dynasty featured in the popular TV show My Fair Princess) were widely used to express Chinese netizens’ sense of cultural superiority, mischief, identity, and emotion. Netizens capitalized on the popularity of these images and participated in online media production and cultural exchange. Precisely because these celebrities had flawed personalities, netizens could freely add new meanings. These flawed celebrities were viewed as continuing to maintain touch with the common people. What is more, such images had already been used as online emoticons before Diba Expedition, making it easier to reproduce, popularize, and understand them. Because of new software and technologies, these images can be imitated, circulated, transformed, and repackaged without much effort to create new meanings. Various images from films and TV shows were repurposed in the movement. A common strategy was to use an image and then insert words of their own to show humor, China’s cultural superiority, and versatility. Given that popularity has become the new online currency, Huang Zitao and Zhou Jie are said to be the winners of Diba Expedition. Commercial images and exchanges are also appropriated for political purposes. For example, a netizen posted a map of China and stated, “when you use Taobao, you have no option but [to] choose Taiwan as a province [under China] in a well-​behaving way”. Thus, Taobao’s global expansion is given political significance. Another example is that netizens pressured Hua Wei, the largest telecommunication company in China, to cancel its ad contract with Chou, as discussed previously. Thus, netizens were aware of China’s increasing political power based on its economic success. Netizens also collected images of Chinese cuisine and scenery and welcomed Taiwanese to travel to China, hoping that the material bonds and imagery could draw the two sides closer. These strategies were meant to construct “an imagined community” and transcend political boundaries. By contrast, examples of misunderstanding of China’s economy, material development, and standard of living were ridiculed. There was a widely circulated online anecdote claiming that a professor in Taiwan thought that people in poor mainland China could not afford tea-​boiled eggs. Online parodies were produced to laugh at Taiwanese who lack knowledge about mainland China.

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 21

Contentious identity issue in Taiwan Diba Expedition also has to be understood in the context of Taiwan’s search for identity. The identity issue has been the most contentious in Taiwan’s domestic politics, one that influences the cross-​Strait relationship and regional and global stability (Schubert & Damm, 2011a). The concern over identity can be traced back to a historic event, the 2.28 Incident, in 1947, when the corrupt Nationalist government led by the Kuomintang (KMT) bloodily cracked down on Taiwanese protests (Jacobs, 2005). After the KMT fled to Taiwan following its defeat by the CCP in the civil war in 1949, approximately a million mainlanders migrated to Taiwan. For the first few decades, mainlanders occupied important leadership and political positions, which alienated local elites. And the KMT implemented policies supporting Chinese nationalism and claiming that the Republic of China (ROC) was not only the inheritor of Chinese culture but was also the only legitimate representative of China (Schubert & Damm, 2011b). Even though the KMT only ruled Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu, the mainland was still considered under its jurisdiction and Chinese all over the world were considered ROC compatriots (Damm, 2011). In 1971, the PRC replaced the ROC and became the only legitimate representative at the United Nations and on the United Nations Security Council. After that, more and more countries recognized Beijing and broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In 1979, the United States and the PRC established formal diplomatic relations. Based on the One-China principle, any country has to choose between the PRC and the ROC in establishing diplomatic ties. With the PRC’s increasing influence, the ROC has been increasingly marginalized in international affairs. After martial law was lifted in 1987, the Nationalist government made greater efforts to embrace local elites as party leaders. Democratization in Taiwan has been accompanied by a quest for bentuhua, which can be translated as localization, indigenization, and Taiwanization (Jacobs, 2005). A  China-​ centric politics has thus been gradually replaced by a Taiwan-​centric politics (Wang, 2005). At the center is a quest for “a distinct Taiwanese identity” with the people in Taiwan having the autonomy to determine its character and content (Makeham & Hsiau, 2005). Various government policies have been implemented to produce a Taiwanese consciousness, including but not limited to the revision of Taiwan’s history, textbooks, and reorientation toward indigenous culture, language, education, and research (Heylen, 2011; Schubert & Braig, 2011). Generally speaking, people in Taiwan can be classified into three rough categories: pro-​unification, pro-​status quo, and pro-​independence. While the KMT generally supported the tendency of eventual unification with mainland China, Lee Teng-​hui took various steps to desinicize Taiwan when he was president from 1988 to 2000. Ever since the establishment of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan, the independence versus unification

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22  Hongmei Li question has been one of the primary issues by which political parties establish their identities and distinguish themselves from one another. In 2000, the DPP leader Chen Shui-​bian was elected president, and since then more measures have been taken to promote a Taiwanese identity, resulting in more and more Taiwanese supporting independence or the status quo. Despite the fact that the KMT has been promoting closer economic integration with mainland China, even the KMT can be found to have shifted its stance from pro-​unification to a more centrist position, especially during election times, in order to maximize votes (Wu, 2011). Despite the economic integration, various factors such as geopolitics, different political systems, and bentuhua have caused Taiwan to shift further away from mainland China in national identification. Even though over 90 percent of the population in Taiwan is Han Chinese, more and more people now identify with Taiwan instead of China. For example, a survey released by National Chengchi University in 2014 suggested that 23.8  percent of respondents leaned toward independence or s​ upported independence; 60.4 percent identified as only Taiwanese, and 32.7 percent viewed themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese, while only 3.5 percent viewed themselves as only Chinese (Yan, 2014). Thus, support for Taiwan’s independence and identification with Taiwan have reached an unprecedented level. The survey also symbolizes a deep divide between the blue coalition (those supporting the status quo or eventual unification) and the green coalition (those supporting independence). Even mainlanders—​whose parents or who themselves were born in China—​have changed their attitude and become more likely to acknowledge their Taiwanese identity (Corcuff, 2011). Taiwan’s search for independence has led to huge conflicts with the PRC, which considers Taiwan only as a highly autonomous local government/​province under Beijing’s command, like Hong Kong and Macao. What is more, many mainland Chinese mistakenly believe that economic development will naturally draw Taiwan closer to the mainland. In the eyes of many Chinese, China can have economic and other forms of freedom as long as people do not challenge the CCP. The younger generation born into middle-​class  Chinese families generally support the regime and thus demonstrate a lot of national pride. Also, neoliberalism has been widely accepted in China since the 1990s, resulting in people using economic logic to see other issues, political, cultural, or social. Many proud Chinese nationalists misperceive that Taiwan’s lack of identification with China is due to misunderstanding or the manipulation of the elites, media, politicians, and opportunists. It was against such a backdrop that the Diba Expedition occurred.

Online nationalism and Diba Expedition The Internet plays an important role in producing and selling nationalism. In June 2016, Chinese netizens reached 710 million—​including 520 million urban residents and 190 million rural residents—​and 656 million use cell phones to

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 23 access the Internet. Among Internet users, 53 percent were men and 47 percent were women, which corresponded with the gender ratio of the Chinese population. Most Internet users were young: 75 percent were between 10 and 39 years old, and 30 percent were between 20 and 29 years old, with the majority of users being students, self-​employed, and freelancers (CNNIC, 2016). Specific to the Diba Expedition, not only netizens in China but also many overseas Chinese students participated. These students have more opportunities to know about Taiwanese through personal experience and uncensored media reports. To their surprise, they have gradually learned that many Taiwanese do not identify with people from mainland China, which produces a sense of frustration. The collective Diba Expedition thus provided an opportunity to reaffirm their Chineseness far away from home. The Internet is crucial in organizing, mobilizing, guiding, and shaping nationalism. For example, in 2005, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in many Chinese cities and protested against Japan’s effort to become a member of the United Nations Security Council, and these protests were organized through the Internet, cell phones, and text messages (Gries, 2005; Shirk, 2007). Because the Internet and cell phones are now integrated into the lives of Chinese netizens, these communication technologies play a key role in organizing protests, spreading information, shaping discourse, and producing identification. Social media, such as Weibo and WeChat, and various online communities, are now essential in producing nationalistic discourses and identity. Extreme views can be magnified online, which may result in a misperception of the impact of nationalist views (Wu, 2005). Diba Expedition shares several similarities with past nationalistic movements. First, nationalists are concerned with China’s territory and sovereignty. Issues of Taiwan, Tibet, the Diaoyu Islands, and the South China Sea can easily trigger nationalistic reactions. The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan (signed in January 1960), the Taiwan Relations Act (signed in January 1979), the recent Trans-​Pacific Partnership, and the interests of the United States in the Pacific region are viewed as threats to China’s national interests. While hoping that Taiwanese will collectively support Chinese interests, Chinese nationalists are disappointed and disillusioned by the desinicization movement in Taiwan. Thus, they often view Taiwan as an American pawn aiming to contain China. Second, during the Diba Expedition, netizens stressed “cultural identification”, emotional connection, and collective action. The actions were carefully planned and organized. As the most popular discussion forum (tieba), Diba had already organized several collective actions and formed its own rules and practices. Past experience made this movement more effective. Specific to this expedition, Diba organized six units under the general management group:  the vanguard unit, the intelligence unit (responsible for collecting words and images of Taiwan independence), the propaganda and organizing unit (for recruiting new users), the weaponry and equipment unit (responsible for producing anti-​Taiwan independence slogans and images), the external

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24  Hongmei Li communication unit (mainly consisting of overseas Chinese and those who did language translations), and the field cleanup unit (responsible for posting likes and comments on Facebook). The participants were asked to use “civil language”, avoid any “sexual/​pornographic images”, and “oppose Taiwan independence but not Taiwanese”. Templates were also released so that users could appropriate and repurpose them. Such collective actions not only symbolically overwhelmed Taiwan independence supporters but also provided the participants with limited space for self-​expression and identity reinforcement. These participants stressed nonviolence and rationality, and thus hoped to distinguish themselves from those who used violent expression and irrationality in the movement. Although the participants originally employed military language and imagery such as “march” and “holy war” (jihad), they later shifted to more affective interactions and emotional influence. Contrary to a common perception that nationalists are men, a large number of young women participated in the movement, thus giving them the name “Little Pink”. Also, Diba Expedition was viewed by some scholars as the third wave of nationalism derivative of the online subculture and fan-​based economy (Wang, Li, & Wu, 2016). Furthermore, these participants hoped to make known their sense of national pride and their disapproval of desinicization through promoting normative behavior, nostalgia, and the attraction of mainland China as a territory, a culture, and a people. Between 19:00–​20:00 on January 20, several common templates reached the highest level of use on Tsai Ing-​wen’s Facebook page. For example, they appropriated Hu Jintao’s “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces”, pointing out that Chinese should “love the country and do it no harm; serve the people, never betray them”. These virtues were prescribed for every Chinese to follow. Participants posted mainland China-​born Taiwanese writer Yu Kuang-​chung’s poem “Nostalgia” (or “Homesick”) and called for Taiwan patriots to “come back home”. They further used “Song of Seven Sons”, a patriotic song written by Chinese poet Wen Yiduo in the 1920s, when he was a student in the United States, in which the seven sons refer to seven Chinese cities—​such as Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan—​colonized by foreign powers at the time. With a paternalistic attitude, they remarked that “the seventh son was only confused by evil spirits”, suggesting that any disassociation from China was temporary and illusionary. Other templates included PRC’s national anthem “March of the Volunteers”, and the patriotic song “Sing in Praise of Our Motherland” and other slogans created for the event. While mainland netizens would like Taiwan and the mainland to live peacefully and harmoniously, they also simultaneously expressed a paternalistic attitude toward Taiwan. They constructed a father-​son relationship that prioritized PRC symbols, such as its red flag, national anthem, and geographic attractions, and treated Taiwan as existing on the margins. They intentionally repurposed images of delicious foods and beautiful scenery in different provinces in order to link Taiwan with other provinces, thus reaffirming the official position that Taiwan is only a Chinese province. Interestingly, these

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 25 participants simultaneously politicized and depoliticized their own actions by using nonpolitical images. Third, similar to other nationalistic events in China, this incident was also reactive. Many Chinese netizens started to join the conversation only after they learned that Chou and JYP initially treated the issue in a dismissive way. Furthermore, there was mutual reinforcement between official media and netizen participation. Chinese media generally supported Chinese netizens’ stance and viewed this as a victory. For example, on January 15, the People’s Daily’s Weibo account, which has more than 43 million followers, wrote, Facing the Korean company that acts dumb, [Chinese] fans prioritized the importance of the country over that of idols. Even though Chou and the Korean company have both apologized, their public image cannot be easily restored. In fact, fans do not necessarily want to politicize entertainment(…)No matter how you use PR tactics, the One China principle is there that cannot be challenged. Every heart that loves the country is worth being treated with care. (Feng Chuanmei, January 16, 2016) The Global Times, a tabloid belonging to the People’s Daily, also sided with netizens on its Weibo, stating, “Our patriotism is not just ‘temporary mood’(…)It is a strong belief that exists in the hearts of Chinese netizens that accompanies China to prosperity”. In another editorial, the Global Times wrote, “Facing the pro-​independence force, Chinese netizens won a complete victory”. It claimed that Chou was used as a pawn to challenge the bottom line of 1.3 billion patriots. The essay further encouraged Chou not to be afraid of the separatists but rather try to be “a shining light of China” (ET today, January 16, 2016). This phrase obviously alluded to her label as “the light of Taiwan” coined by Taiwanese media. The spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council also warned that patriots should be aware of how political forces used the case to divide people across the Strait. After Chou apologized, some media and netizens in Taiwan expressed outrage. For example, the Sanlih website and the Liberty Times compared this with the Islamic State requiring hostages to make scripted statements before being beheaded (Liberty Times, January 16, 2016; Sanlih News Site, January 15, 2016). Sanlih further criticized JYP for “kneeling down for RMB”. The Liberty Times remarked, “This is a pillory of shame for the Ma Ying-​jeou government that claims the past eight years as the best time for the two sides”. The DPP politicized the event and criticized the KMT for political gain. Fourth, the Diba Expedition symbolizes anxiety for the identity issue both in mainland China and Taiwan. The contention was shown even before the Diba Exhibition. For example, mainland actor Lin Gengxin was attacked for stating that “the apology was too sudden and [Chou] did not have time to memorize the script”. Many Taiwanese netizens viewed this as “adding insult to injury” and thus posted critical comments on his Facebook page. Some even asked the Taiwanese to push Lin out of the Taiwan market. In response, many mainland netizens went

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26  Hongmei Li to Lin’s Facebook page to show support. Many specifically stressed that Taiwan is part of China. Another Taiwanese actor, Show Lo, was also attacked by Taiwanese netizens because he stated, “We are all Chinese”. Obviously, the identity issue is a highly contentious one among mainland Chinese and Taiwanese netizens and even among people in Taiwan, as discussed previously. Precisely because the controversy happened before Taiwan’s election day, it attracted a lot of attention. Given that the KMT tend to shift toward a more centrist position regarding the identity issue during the election years (Wu, 2011), Ma Ying-​jeon stressed that the feelings between the two sides should not be alienated; that Taiwanese feelings toward the flag should not be hurt; and that “those who sincerely embrace the Republic of China do not support Taiwan independence” (BBC Chinese Website, January 16, 2016). Obviously, Ma was walking a fine line between not offending the voters and not challenging the One-China policy. On the other hand, the pro-​independence DPP party leader, Tsai Ing-​wen, remarked just one day prior to the election that “raising the flag is everyone’s right”. Tsai was elected president with the largest winning margin (25.08 percent) since the first direct presidential election in 1996. Tsai, at a news conference after the election, stated that the Chou Tzu-​yu case “triggered general dissatisfaction among Taiwanese regardless of party affiliations” (Chu & Wang, January 17, 2016). Tsai benefited from her strong position, and the Chou controversy reportedly helped her win at least half a million votes. This suggests that nationalism does not necessarily serve China’s national interest. Nevertheless, the outpouring of nationalism was celebrated by some Chinese official media and netizens, who felt that the event showed China’s collective symbolic power against Taiwan independence. Some participants proudly claimed, “as long as pro-​independence exists, Diba will not die out. As long as there are human beings, there are Dibas”. Fifth, the Diba Expedition means the convergence between politics and entertainment. In the digital age, technologies enabled Chinese netizens to produce various online parodies to resist authorities, and confirm and share their own identity through ridicule and mockery (Li, 2011b). Chinese participants performed their Chinese identity through emojis (memetic images, lyrics, poems, and words). Many in the Diba Expedition (mis) perceived their actions to have historical significance. Not only did they stress the manner but also drastically exaggerated the historical role of their participation. They situated themselves in a grand historical narrative and thought that the history they were making would be as significant as other cultural movements. For example, one widely circulated post listed the imagined contents of the “cultural movements” in a textbook of a few decades later: “Self-​strengthening Movement (1861–​1895), the Constitutional Reform (1898), the Xinhai Revolution (1911), the New Cultural Movement (1910s–​1920s), and the FB[Facebook] Emoji War”. Finally, the Internet became a contesting space for national identity performance. Because of the participation of a large number of overseas students, the emojis were translated into multiple languages. This implies that these participants

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 27 were aware of the transnational and cross-​linguistic nature of their identity performance. While overseas Chinese students may symbolize the fluidity of identity construction, interestingly some still cling to their nationalistic views. It is not uncommon to hear overseas Chinese narrate how they become more patriotic after going overseas. Nationalists hoped to capitalize on such imaginative identity of these overseas Chinese to make their own claim more legitimate. In the case of the Diba Expedition, such nationalism was meant to be seen not only by nationalists in China but also by people from other cultures and places. Precisely because overseas students sometimes encounter misunder­ standings, racism, and injustice, they are likely to resort to nationalism as a lens through which they view the relationship between an increasingly powerful China and other countries. Also, a rich reservoir of audiovisual media products and historical materials allowed participants to appropriate, repurpose, and remix existing images. The Diba Expedition used Chinese video and visual materials to overwhelm pro-​independence supporters and flood their screens. Participants also strategically placed a virtual stamp on these images using the slogan “specially used for anti-​Taiwan independence” so that their images would not be reappropriated by their opponents. Also, these participants claimed that they marched for themselves and stressed their own autonomy in decision-​making in order to demonstrate that they were not used by the Chinese authorities. This incident did provide a limited platform for both parties to communicate and exchange ideas, sometimes in a civil and sometimes in a heated manner. Given media censorship in China, participants had to learn at least how to bypass the Great Firewall. However, after the incident calmed down, mainland Chinese again withdrew into the Great Firewall that prevented Taiwan and mainland China from communicating freely. Thus, the short exchange only had some temporary impact. Of course, it is necessary to realize that Taiwanese netizens were not the same. Some were receptive and others were more hostile to the movement. For example, some Taiwanese welcomed the exchanges with mainland Chinese and hoped to visit mainland China in the future. But many others laughed at the oversensitivity of mainland Chinese, stating, “People of a powerful country have a heart made of [easily-broken] glass”.

Conclusion This chapter attempts to understand Chinese nationalism and Internet nationalism from a macro-​perspective. It argues that Chinese nationalism must be historicized and understood in the context of global geopolitics. As a historical product, Chinese nationalism has been associated with China’s semicolonial past. Nationalism can be a control mechanism. While nationalism has been instrumental in producing national cohesion, it has also been utilized to maintain the CCP’s rule. To some extent, it has become a safety valve through which

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28  Hongmei Li people vent their dissatisfaction. Such a mechanism helps support the current political order and ease societal tensions. Bauman (1995) argues that nationalism is an instrument for the elites to control the public. He points out that nationalism shares the following characteristics: “belonging as the only right, loyalty as the supreme duty; dignity as basking in collective glory; self-​interest as partaking of collective welfare” (Bauman, 1995, p. 147). As a limited space that allows the public to express their views and participate in social and political activities, the Internet unavoidably reflects predominant social values. But it is important to be aware that the Internet also magnifies differences and that online opinions do not necessarily reflect public opinion. Thus, online nationalism does not reflect Chinese nationalism as a whole. While the Internet has produced some unique dimensions of nationalism, online nationalism should be situated in the broader social and historical context. Online nationalism reflects political performance that is influenced by consumerism and global geopolitics. Such a performance is not only rooted in historical memory that is selectively retained but also in the discursive power that Chinese nationalists imagine China and Chinese should embody. Thus, online nationalism mixes local and global forces, politics and economy, and official and popular nationalism.

Notes 1 For example, a Hong Kong performer working for JYP was removed from the Hunan TV show Day Day UP (Tian Tian Xiang Shang) because he was found by netizens to not directly acknowledge his Chinese identity in a program. 2 However, New Leftists are also suppressed when their ideas differ from the interests of the CCP. A  typical example is the rise and fall of Wuyouzhixiang, a political website founded in 2003 that supported the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong’s thoughts. This website not only published essays on nationalism, Mao Zedong, and the Cultural Revolution but also organized offline activities. The controversial website was closed down in 2012. Other leftist websites such as Mao Zedong Qizhi Wang, Maozedong Wang, Siyue Wang, and Red China encountered similar fates. The examples suggest that the government views Mao and socialism with ambivalence. On the one hand, as the PRC founder, Mao symbolizes the legitimate continuation of the party. But on the other hand, China’s current policies are completely different from those implemented when the PRC was founded. Thus, the CCP only selectively applies ideals of social justice, equality, and other rights. Another example is the Red Campaign that extolled the CCP and combated corruption, which was launched by Chongqing governor Bo Xilai from 2008 to 2012. While many participated in and liked the campaign, it also drew criticism from official media, some intellectuals, and officials. It was eventually cracked down upon in 2012, and Bo was then imprisoned. 3 For example, there were large anti-​Japan protests in China in early 2015, triggered by Japan’s textbook published by Fusosha that attempted to whitewash Japan’s invasion of Asia, and triggered by Japan’s effort to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Even though the Chinese government permitted the protest initially, it later arrested dozens of organizers. In 2012, Chinese

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 29 people held street protests against Japan’s announcement that it would buy the Diaoyu Islands. While the government silently allowed the protests at first, when the situation seemed out of control, the government arrested the organizers.

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Understanding Chinese nationalism 31 Li, H. (2009). Marketing Japanese products in the context of Chinese nationalism. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 26(5), 435–​456. Li, H. (2010). Chinese diaspora, the internet, and the image of China: A case study of the Beijing Olympic torch relay. In J. Wang (Ed.), Soft power in China: Public diplomacy through communication (pp. 135–​ 156). New  York, NY:  Palgrave Macmillan. Li, H. (2011a). The gendered performance at the Beijing Olympics: The construction of Olympic misses and cheerleaders. Communication Theory, 21, 368–​391. Li, H. (2011b). Parody and resistance on the Chinese Internet. In D. Herold & P. W. Marolt (Eds.), Online society in China (pp. 71–​88). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Li, H. (2012). The Chinese diaspora and China’s public diplomacy: Contentious politics for the Beijing Olympic float in the Pasadena Rose Parade. International Journal of Communication, 6, 2245–​2279. Li, H. (2016). Advertising and consumer culture in China. Oxford, UK: Polity Press. Makeham, J., & Hsiau, A. (Eds.). (2005). Cultural, ethnic and political nationalism in contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Pusey, J. R. (1983). China and Charles Darwin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schubert, G., & Braig, S. (2011). How to face an embracing China? The DPP’s identity politics and cross-​Strait relations during and after the Chen Shui bian era. In G. Schubert & J. Damm (Eds.), Taiwanese identity in the 21st century: Domestic, regional and global perspectives (pp. 72–​94). Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis. Schubert, G., & Damm, J. (2011a). Introduction. In G. Schubert & J. Damm (Eds.), Taiwanese identity in the 21st century: Domestic, regional and global perspectives (pp. 1–​14). Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis. Schubert, G., & Gamm, J. (2011b) (Eds.). Taiwanese identity in the 21st century: Domestic, regional and global perspectives. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis. Shirk, S. (2007). China: Fragile superpower. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Wang, H. (2003). China’s new order. Theodore Huters (Ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wang, J. (2005). Consumer nationalism and corporate reputation management in the global era. Corporate Communications, 10(3), 223–​239. Wang, J. (2006). The politics of goods:  A case study of consumer nationalism and media discourse in contemporary China. Asian Journal of Communication, 16(2), 187–​206. Wang, Z. (2016). Di Ba bhu zheng, cun cao bu sheng. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication, 11,  75–​90. Wu, X. (2005, August). Cyber nationalism: Nationalism as a McLuhanite message at the information age. Paper presented at the 88th Annual Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), August 10–​13, 2005, San Antonio, TX. Wu, Y. S. (2011). The evolution of the KMT’s stance on the One China principle: Nationalism in flux. In G. Schubert & J. Damm (Eds.), Taiwanese identity in the 21st century: Domestic, regional and global perspectives (pp. 51–​71). Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis. Zhang, X. (2001). The making of the post-​Tiananmen intellectual field: A critical overview. In X. Zhang (Ed.), Whither China? Intellectual politics in contemporary China (pp. 1–​75). Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press.

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3  From Fans to “Little Pink” The production and mobilization mechanism of national identity under new media commercial culture Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang* Introduction At the beginning of 2016, the “Diba Expedition to Facebook” event created shock waves to public opinion about the shape and strength of China’s so-​ called Internet nationalism. This nationalist dynamic also spread to various news events like “the South China Sea issue”, the “Zhao Wei incident”, the “Horton event”, “THAAD dispute”, etc.1 Especially after the THAAD dispute, Korean pop culture fans from China claimed that “no idol can be as important as our nation”, which broke with the traditional assumption that pop culture fans are usually apolitical and care nothing about nationalism and international relations. All these events in the aftermath of Diba Expedition pushed the phenomenon of Internet nationalism and the nickname “Little Pink”, a somewhat derogative label for the young generation of Internet patriotic groups, to the foreground. Thus, the Diba Expedition has become a significant case for analyzing and understanding the thoughts and forms of political mobilization among the new generation of young patriots. The most common elitist interpretation framework usually employs such labels as “irrational” and “maniac” with the image of “Cyber Boxers” to describe young netizens as a digital age group that uses emotional persuasiveness at the expense of reason (Zou, 2016; Shi, 2016). There are also comments that go beyond a simple mass society framework and seek to conceptualize patriotic youth’s behavior and motivational mechanisms from political and cultural perspectives. One angle of interpretation, mostly from overseas Chinese observers, likens the Internet patriotic activism by Chinese youth to the Russian youth organization “Nashi”, believing that official public organizations such as the Communist Youth League of China are imitating Russian social movements (Bai, 2016). Some commentators within China’s mainstream media also put the

* Jing Wu is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University. Simin Li is a PhD candidate at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University. Hongzhe Wang is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University.

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 33 “Little Pink” activism into the larger picture of rising conservatism and populism in the global arena, and link the Communist Youth League’s support of the “Little Pink” with the rise of conservative political parties or figures. One commentator from the People’s Daily compares supporters of Donald Trump with the “Little Pink” who participated in the Diba Expedition. He argues that the new right-​wing trend of thought in this generation of young people in China is, of course, different from American white populists in terms of political identification. However, what links the two together is the similar linking “temperament” of nationalism, which constitute a rising conservative culture among youth all over the world (Hong, 2016). Interestingly, though the above-​ quoted commentators belong to quite opposite ideological alliances, they share a common framework and value judgment when analyzing Diba Expedition and the “Little Pink”, which represents the populism, conservatism, and irrational character of Internet patriotic groups. However, none of these observations can delve more deeply into the life experience and structure of feelings, as well as the consumption behaviors in their everyday life, in order to bring about some understanding of the style and cultural rationale behind their seemingly surprising actions. In other words, without empirical studies of the changing Internet practices among netizens of different generations or sociocultural groupings in China, and merely drawing conclusions based on formal and abstract similarities among conservative movements in Russia or America, does not constitute valid academic analysis. In analyzing this emerging Internet patriotic group, the authors hope to use historical as well as ethnographical methods to understand their evolution and their forms and genres of activism. We specifically want to include the study of “fandom” and youth subculture in order to understand the connections between consumption and political participation.

Methods and research questions Generally speaking, the most classic research method of subculture studies is ethnographic observation and the interviewing of subculture groups. In the context of Internet communication and virtual communities, data and information that cannot be collected through traditional ethnography should be approached through the use of more flexible “guerrilla ethnography” tools (Yang, 2003). The whole process of the Diba Expedition, from brainstorming to communication and participation, demonstrates typical Internet “flash mob” characteristics such as disintermediation and anonymization (Etling, Faris, & Palfrey, 2010). Therefore, we locate participants and invite interviewees through various means, such as by following media reports, mobilizing social networks offline, following active social media accounts, and so on. Because the “Expedition” happened in cyberspace, we thought it would be easy for us to find people willing to talk to us by contacting them through social media. However, we were quite mistaken. People were quite cautious and reluctant in responding to inquiries from strangers, contrary to what we had expected

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34  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang from younger netizens. So we were only able to have face-​to-​face interview with people we found using our offline social networks. And we soon changed our strategy to online observation of active members’ social media activities. The reluctance to speak to “outsiders” openly, especially the refusal to answer questions concerning the Expedition by strangers from cyberspace, without “real” social connections, tells us something about the level of seriousness and the media literacy of this group of people. They know very well the conflicting value judgments of their activities made by mainstream and elite society, are cautious about the dangers involved, and have a high level of consciousness and skills regarding the protection of privacy. This observation is repeatedly verified through our offline interviews and online ethnographic observations. This demonstration of high-​level digital media literacy also reminds us to have more understanding of the life stories of these participants rather than merely paying attention to their activities during the Expedition, in order to understand the social history behind this accidental event. Most of our interviewees told us that they did not and would not talk about their participation in the Expedition within their real-​name social media communities. As the event leader on Weibo, the ID “赵日天233号” had posted a notice to participants reminding them of the importance of protecting their own privacy: @赵日天233号: Everyone, the official Diba Expedition only has organized activities on selected FB accounts! If you act alone, please do not use the Diba brand! Please have good protection of your own private information, do not add people or post photos carelessly! We already had friends’ private information exposed on weibo. I think you all understand who did it! Just exchange culture and show our country’s beautiful scenery on FB, and do not reveal your own personal information! The difficulty the researchers encountered in their effort to contact participants offline using the snowballing method also shows that the Diba Expedition was a well-​ coordinated action among strangers. Even though reports indicate that they had several QQ groups and subgroups, and a very clear division of tasks such as information collection, emoticon production, cleaning the battlefield, etc. (Chen & Lin, 2016), the real participants were far outside those QQ groups, and “comrades” who fought side by side were mostly anonymous to each other in real life.2 This situation says a lot about the nature of this event. Though seemingly well orchestrated, the spontaneity demonstrated during the whole process of the collective action is quite clearly testified to by both news reports and our research findings. There is something structural and generational in the dispositions and cultural values of the Diba participants, which we hope to explore through this study. Combing through the whole process of the event, we found that fans of Korean pop culture actually played a significant role in bringing the issue into the larger public arena in the first place. Zhou Ziyu, one of the nine members of the Korean group TWICE, is from Taiwan and waved a Taiwanese flag

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 35 in a video, which was bragged about by the independent-​leaning Taiwan TV station San Li News. The whole incident happened as early as November 2015 and did not turn into a big public event despite constant protests by fans from mainland China. However, the Korean company JYP that owns the group, made a public relations mistake by refusing to clarify the nationality of Zhou Ziyu and issued an “insincere” apology in the eyes of Chinese fans. So Chinese fan groups started to declare a boycott of the whole group and even the company.3 Chinese TV stations also followed suit to cancel contracts with these Korean performers. The whole situation thus created bigger conflicts between pro-​independent Taiwan media and mainland Chinese fans over social media. When the fans reposted fierce words of conflict on Weibo, it caused the larger public to notice and get angry, which ultimately lead to the Diba Expedition after the election of the pro-​independent leader, Cai Yingwen, in Taiwan. When we try to observe the Expedition participants’ daily use of social media, we find that they are not at all politically engaged in any sense of the word. Their Weibo accounts are full of discussions of popular culture and stars. The account of the leader @赵日天233号 was only a personal ID talking about games and online novels. It turned into the official “Diba public communication account” on January 20 after it applied to become a Weibo topic coordinator.4 By tracing the tag #Diba Expedition FB#, we also followed some of the other participants’ daily Weibo content and found that their public appearance on social media is that of a typical “fan”. The Weibo account “@金聃龄”5 introduced herself directly as a fan of Korean pop stars and the content of her account is full of activities related to fandom. Yet after the “FB emoticon war” began, she started to follow and repost content concerning the issue. During the Expedition, she actively participated in topic discussions and various jobs such as retweeting content from Facebook (FB) to Weibo. During the Rio Olympic Games, this account was also actively engaged in posting news and comments of the Chinese teams’ performance. This smooth mixture of the identities of a Korean pop culture fan and an ardent patriot of China is also confirmed by the observations of some journalists (Yan, July 22, 2016). If the online data shows that the “Expedition” participants demonstrate certain features of nationalism that are beyond traditional understanding, the offline interviews further clarify the research question on which we focus. Through interviews, we find that the well-​organized, disciplined, and rational manner of “Expedition” participants that surprised mainstream society are actually the result of long-​time practices and experiences related to fandom activities. Those who took up the leadership role with efficiency and good effect were exactly those who had good training in media literacy and Internet activism in fandom activities. In the framework of this paper, Korean pop culture fans single themselves out much more than fans of other subcultures, mainly because the Korean culture industry is the most sophisticated in incorporating fandom into the production of idols and media products. It has nothing to do with Korean culture or Korean politics per se.

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36  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang Thus, based on this clarification of our research question, the study is not aimed at an overall and detailed report of the Expedition event itself but rather tries to understand a previously invisible group in mainstream research, who are nonetheless very important movers and participants in the Diba Expedition. We need to understand their life stories, motivations, structure of feeling, and identity formation in relationship to the nation’s recent history and their own life experiences. Chinese Internet nationalism already has a pretty long and complicated history (Wu, 2007). Therefore, before we present a contextual analysis of the current event, it is necessary to briefly revisit the historical background in order to bring to light some important issues such as generational differences, a changing political environment, and media contexts.

The rehistoricization of Chinese Internet nationalism In understanding contemporary Chinese nationalism, there is a long-​standing liberal tradition of “Party and elite constructionism” (Zhao, 2000), which says that China’s political and cultural elites intentionally invoke nationalist emotions in the masses for the purpose of political manipulation. However, this framework for understanding nationalism oversimplifies the issue into “party propaganda” or “rationality versus emotionalism”, which is not helpful in explaining the rise of Internet nationalism in China and its role in social governance and China’s foreign policy considerations. Gries (2004, p.  133) points out that to understand contemporary Chinese nationalism, researchers have to move their gaze from party propaganda to the daily life and structures of feeling of the public. Compared to the more unified identification of the Party, the people’s revolution, and the nation during the Mao’s era, contemporary popular nationalists are more concerned with concepts such as the “motherland” or “the Chinese nation”. Because expressions of anti-​West rhetoric are similar between popular and state nationalisms, mainstream analysis often tends to believe that they are the result of top-​down propaganda and are a political culprit. But this is a serious misreading of the situation. In today’s China, nationalism from the public and from civil society are challenging the state’s monopoly on articulating patriotism or nationalism. Civil society is playing an increasingly larger role in national politics, especially the definition and interpretation of patriotism and the legitimacy of the government. Therefore, the party-​state has to rearticulate its foreign policy in order to respond to popular requests (Gries, 2004). Also, the “party propaganda thesis” assumes a dichotomy between emotional nationalists and a rational public, or between passion and reason—​the stronger the passion, the weaker the critical and reasoning capacities. However, for Chinese Internet nationalists, the coexistence of passion and reason is a basic underlying structure of feeling. In his empirical and quantitative studies of Internet public opinion in China, Min Dahong draws an important conclusion that China’s Internet public opinion has two coexisting features, that is, nationalism when targeting the “outside” world, and “critical realism” when

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 37 discussing domestic affairs. That is to say, the “patriots” online are at the same time active critics of Chinese society.6 So he argues that one of the important research questions concerning Internet culture in China should be “to study the relationship between Internet nationalism and critical realism, and other factors and manifestations of this phenomenon” (Min, 2009). Thus, we can use “people’s nationalism” and “critical realism” as conceptual prisms to try to reorganize the historical logic of the evolution of China’s Internet nationalism. According to generational characteristics, mobilization features, and time period, this process can roughly be marked by two waves. Internet-​driven people’s nationalism: The first wave (1998–​2005) The occurrence of Internet nationalism was basically concurrent with the early adoption of the Internet in China. The earliest nationalist mobilization online can be traced to the May 1998 riots in Indonesia, during which racial violence was directed against Chinese immigrants. The Chinese government did not interfere in the internal politics of Indonesia, but provided humanitarian aid to the country for riot control and rescue. This caused anger among Chinese netizens. Peking University students and hacker groups used BBS to exchange information and organize appeals and protests at the Indonesia Embassy, but these were later intercepted by the government. This was the first time Internet nationalism came onto the world stage (Wu, 2007, p. 35). The discourse of “party propaganda” also started to occur. Hughes’ Wall Street Journal article says that beginning in 1998, China controlled this “nationalist cyber-​tiger” in order to solve the dilemma of public opinion chaos brought about by the development of the Internet economy (Hughes, 2000). Moreover, with the help of the Internet, patriotic online activities were transnational from the very beginning, and the Internet coordinated offline petitions across the globe with Chinese communities. The concept of “cultural China”, which went beyond the geographical borders of the nation, integrated more diverse identifications (Yang, 2009, pp. 497–​498). In 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade directly led to the founding of the Strong Nation BBS, China’s first online news commentary platform run by a traditional print media, The People’s Daily (Li & Huang, 2003). It is worth mentioning that the originally proposed name of the BBS was “Strong protest against NATO bombing of Chinese Embassy forum”. Around June 2, countless posts about student movements in Chinese history, especially during the late 1980s, appeared on the forum. The management deleted many of them, which caused fury among netizens. The People’s Daily online later decided to change the name to “Strong Nation Forum”7 (Min, 2009). Even after the name change, however, active participants in this forum continued their dedication to serious, independent, and critical discussions of social issues and international affairs. In 2001, 17-​year-​old Tsinghua University student Jiang Lei opened a new online forum for military fans, the “Iron Blood Community”. In 2002, an “Air Force One” event broke out,8 and the Chinese government did not

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38  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang react strongly enough, leading to protest on “Strong Nation Forum”. Since the forum management kept on deleting posts, the netizens moved to the “Iron Blood Community”. After that, the “Strong Nation Forum” became more or less official, and the latter became the new home of hawkish patriotic netizens. When two Internet communities, the “Patriotic Alliance” and “918 Patriots”, initiated the “Defending Diaoyu Island” movement in 2003,9 a journalist named Li Mujin, from the International Herald, coined the term “Internet nationalism”, and claimed that 2003 was the first year of Internet nationalism in China. He argued that nationalism developed out of the new Internet platform in 2003, which is obviously different from old forms of nationalism based on print media: During the 1990s, nationalism was articulated through print media. The publication of the three books, China Can Say No, Behind the Demonization of China, and The Chinese Way under the Shadow of Globalization, signified the heightened nationalist passion of intellectuals. In 2003 however, the Internet based nationalism showed more critical reflections on narrow xenophobia and was more well organized and strategically mobilizing a community of patriots in taking steps against the Japanese right wing. So this can be named as Internet nationalism. Li (2003) Another observer, Li (2006), also realizes that Internet nationalism, instead of generating mobs, actually provides a new form of civic participation. Therefore, when we look at the first wave of Internet nationalism (1998–​ 2005), we can find the following features: the majority of the participants are post-​’70s college students; they are critical of the official position on international relations; they are strongly active in participating in civil society affairs; and they are very critical of social reality. Patriots as “informed public” and “game players”: The second wave (2008–​2010) From 2008 to 2010, with the coming of age of the post-​ ’80s generation netizens, who became the mainstream of Chinese Internet public opinion, Internet nationalism welcomed the second wave. Different from the earlier generation, the new generation of netizens showed a mixture of features. On the one hand, they partially inherited the post-​’70s critical realism and patriotism. On the other hand, however, they were the first generation of consumers of KUSO culture (a culture of parody and sarcasm) and the animation and comic subculture. Among them features of postmodern commercialism began to be seen. Through analyzing several milestone nationalist events in 2008—​ the 3.14 Event, the Olympic torch relay, the boycotting of Carrefour—​ Zhao (2013) finds that netizens have broken through the limits set up by official

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 39 and commercial media agendas, developed more diversified discourses, and become an independent force in the field of public opinion. At the same time, during these events, there emerged several opinion leaders among post-​’80s Internet patriots. One is Tsinghua University graduate Yao Jin, who created the “AC-​April” website. Another leader is Ren Chonghao, who graduated with a road and bridge engineering major from Tongji University. In 2012, Ren published a book with several other co-​authors, Grand Mission: The Political Negotiation between Us and the World, in which they claim that this is the historical declaration of the birth of the “Industrial Party”.10 Ren is now a columnist for the famous Guancha.cn, and is also a hot ID in the Chinese version of Quora, Zhihu. The third leader, Tang Jie, is even more typical. He is a doctoral student of philosophy from Fudan University. In 2008, he was one of the co-​founders of AC-​April, and then left to establish his own video website, “Du Jia (Exclusive)” (http://​www.dooo.cc/​). His more famous job now involves producing a series of animations called “Me and My Country Engine”, which explain political concepts such as the five-​ year plan, mobilization of the people, communism, and so on using animations and Internet language, and that enjoys a pretty high readership online. In 2008, the New Yorker’s Evan Osnos featured Tang Jie in his long report “Angry Youth:  The New Generation’s Neocon Nationalists” (Osnos, 2008). Until today, this is still the most detailed and well-​known article about Chinese Internet patriotic youth written by overseas media. People like Tang Jie are called neocons because, besides a strong patriotic passion, they have a complete system of analysis of Chinese history, of China’s relationship with the world, and of international relations, based on rich information and a game theory framework. Thus, we can see that the post-​’80s patriots have the characteristics of the first wave of Internet nationalism, and that their behaviors fit with the description “informed nationalists”, coined by anthropologist Zhou Yongming, when he studied the Iron Blood Community. Many of these netizens are fluent in both Chinese and English, and some overseas members have full access to Western media. However, they did not rely on Western media as many people expected (Zhou, 2006, p. 208). The rise of Internet nationalism in China is not necessarily connected to a lack of information about the outside world. On the contrary, the more contact with the Western world, the greater the possibility that some intellectually mobilized people will become nationalists. But the new generation of nationalists has a second feature, which links them more directly to Diba Expedition. In 2010, an Internet event occurred, called “June 9 Jihad”. We can conveniently call it the prequel to Diba Expedition. During this event, there was a widely circulated slogan, “Jihad will not stop, until the ‘mentally crippled’ die out”. This was called “a war launched by the post-​80s otaku boys against the post-​90s girl fans”. At the World Expo of 2010, fans of the Korean pop culture group Super Junior fought for tickets to see their idols and engaged in violent actions against police and volunteers who were on duty to maintain public safety. After the event, the

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40  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang online game WOW’s discussion community organized an expedition to attack Korean fans’ online communities. They called on other male and post-​’80s-​ dominated online communities such as Tianya, Douban, Iron Blood, Chinese Hackers, and so on to attack Korean pop stars’ home page or fan communities. When we interviewed some post-​’90s Korean pop idol fans for this research, many of them said that they remembered this event clearly, and that they had learned a lesson, which is that if they do not pay attention to the higher value of patriotism, fans and their idols will all be hurt. In this regard, the forms of nationalism diversified greatly among netizens after 2010. On the other hand, however, the motivation for generating nationalist feelings for the post-​’80s netizens represented by the WOW players is also different from that of the post-​’70s. Also in 2010, someone posted a video on WOW’s online community, called “The War on Internet Addiction” (https://​ www.youtube.com/​playlist?list=PL69D01072BF7588A3), which triggered a sensation. The video was produced by a WOW player, and its theme is protesting against the delay of the new game due to licensing disputes among many government institutions, and also against a notorious business of treating juvenile Internet addiction by electric shock (Wang, 2016). The most famous part of the video is the following monologue: During the whole year, I, like other people who love the game, cried over floods and earthquakes, and cheered for the Olympic Games. From the deepest part of our heart, we do not want our nation to be inferior to other nations in the world in any way. But for a whole year, because of people like you, we could not play with all the other players in the world. We were forced to leave and went illegally to American and European servers and they called us coin peasants. We went to the Taiwan server, and they called us mainland locusts. They are very humiliating names and we silently bore them. Why couldn’t we enjoy cheap entertainment for 40 cents an hour?11 These events provide interesting cases for us to understand how commercial entertainment and politics interact and mutually construct the world of the Internet. The conflict during the World Expo led many Korean pop culture fans to realize that entertainment and politics are not entirely independent of each other. Fandom also needs knowledge about patriotism and political correctness that exists in the mainstream society. In “The War on Internet Addiction”, however, it is the disruption of the subculture of game consumption that invokes resistance among the players. In this protest video, the producer connects consumer service to justice in society. He believes that a law-​abiding patriotic citizen is entitled to legal sources of entertainment, and this in turn is promoting more nationalist identification. At the same time, the player mentions that through playing with overseas players, he becomes more conscious of his own national identity. Gaming itself has a strong feature of competition and the production of collective identity. Players who play on global game platforms naturally form fighting teams based on nationality.

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 41 For example, in the famous electronic game DOTA2 World Championship, the Chinese team Wings beat the American team DC three to one. The kind of national pride invoked is quite similar to the Olympics. There was also ritualized flag waving and players cried out, “CN DOTA! BEST DODA!”12 during the awards ceremony. Therefore, even though they are unlike the traditional patriots who articulate concerns and Diba te over international politics in online communities, they develop a certain type of patriotic feelings and political consciousness related to nationalism during everyday subcultural consumption.

The fan-​led expedition: Third wave of internet nationalism Based on the above historical recount, Internet nationalist activism, symbolized by the Diba Expedition and populated by post-​’90s youth, can be called the third wave of “Internet nationalism”. The present study hopes to find some middle-​range interpretation of the phenomenon based on historical comparison and to provide some analysis of the new generation of patriotic netizens and consumers. Compared to the earlier generations of educated youth, post-​ ’80s m ­ ilitary fans, and other male-​dominated “informed nationalists”, the post-​’90s generation are fans of pop culture, are more diversified in gender composition, and the formation and articulation of their nationalist emotions are directly related to the new transnational commercial culture and global mobility. If any construction of nationalist emotion is necessarily based on self versus other, insider versus outsider, and a semiotic system of “imagined community”, then the new repertoire of “emoticons” of nationalism should be found in the daily entertainment activities of the younger generation. The groups that are nicknamed “Little Pink”, or those who participated in the Diba Expedition, though they got together very suddenly through various Internet communities and applications, and are strangers to each other offline, show a natural and strong sense of identification and solidarity. The strength and tenacity of the collective identity, is similar to those formed in the online fandom culture. The commercial strategies of Internet fandom construction are to actively promote group identification. The cultural industry benefits from conspicuous and wasteful consumption for idols by fans through deep emotional mobilization. One important source of happiness from consumption is identification, for example, group competition among game players, fans’ emotional dedication to a certain idol, identity projection in Internet novels, and so on. Identification with idols and ritualized collective actions that happen frequently are the basic reason why these young netizens can mobilize and organize immediately. From the interviews, it can be seen that fans’ love for their idols not only remains at the level of consumption for them but also considers the competition between idols and other artists as the internal affairs of fan groups. They feel obliged to help their idols gain a better position and move up the ladder in professional circles. They may become sad and angry if their idols fail to secure

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42  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang a leading role. In their internal jargon, this is called “grabbing the ranking position”(争番位). In their online communities, they often get into fights like “whose idol is the bigger star”, and “my leading actor ranks higher in status than your leading actress”. Within the same idol group, fans of different members also make comparisons and have competition. “The hottest group in Korea now is EXO. They have as many as twelve members, but three of them withdrew, so there left nine. So if you follow all nine members, that is called a group fan; if you follow one of them, it is called a single-​member fan; if you follow two that you imagine to be a couple, it is called a CP fan. Among these fans of the same group, they compete with each other, not to say with fans of other groups”. This strong emotional involvement causes frequent and fierce virtual wars online. “Fan circle fights” become a normal part of fans’ daily life. This long-​time condition of “war” leads fans to organize, cooperate with others, and form a collective force. The organizational sophistication of fan communities is also demonstrated by their effort to inform new members about the media environment and enhance their media literacy. They help newcomers analyze and understand any negative news concerning their idols. This, on the one hand, reduces the rate of withdrawal due to disappointment, and, on the other hand, helps newcomers mature quickly and join the public opinion fights for their idols. This kind of well-​organized, preplanned, and rational approach to Internet activities is based on years of experience. Interviewee C told us, “The response to negative news by Korean pop culture fans at the beginning of the new millennium was pretty naïve. Without doing substantial work of making the facts clear, they usually jumped into defending their idols with passion. Yet this would incur more negative public opinion against the idol and discrimination against fans as ‘mentally crippled’ ”. After some interviews, we realized that these fans have very different dispositions from those who have participated in traditional “expeditions”. Our interviewees include men who used to hang around Diba. According to their description, the old Diba style was to engage in a sudden large-​scale attack and stun the “enemy” instantly. Their language was vulgar and violent. That is, they did not want to “argue with reason”. However, during this recent Diba Expedition to Facebook, “to let Taiwan Internet friends know about a true mainland” is a widely communicated intention. The language style is no longer a personal attack but introduces food, scenery, and uses humorous emoticons. It is already well reported that organizers took pains to repeat the mission, the rules, and code of conduct before launching the expedition. During the action, there were also people in charge of discipline, persuading people not to use foul language or kicking out people who do not comply with the orders out of QQ groups. This quite conversational style is believed to be brought in by the entrance of the “Little Pink”. The older Diba members we interviewed are quite appreciative of this new feature. They think that the old Diba style is only violent language and the venting of anger, with little social effect, while

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 43 the rationality and civilized feature of the “Little Pink” can earn more public acceptance and recognition. Furthermore, the core members who lead this Expedition show a high level of media literacy and knowledge of political communication. The new generation of subcultural youth are digital natives, and their media literacy and political consciousness have developed out of the environment of mediatized politics, the global transmission of news, and omnipresent commercial messages. Through constant participation in media activities and mobilization, the group has gained considerable media literacy and media knowledge. For example, regarding their daily task of image maintenance for idols, this is not done simply in the belief that their idol is better than others, but involves knowing a whole set of knowledge about public relations (PR), marketing, opinion manipulation, and even ways of spreading rumors. “My idea is that marketing accounts are just taking money to serve whoever pays. If someone pays you to defame a star, then the articles from this account will only have negative news, and the thing will be the contrary if it is the other way around”. Some of our interviewees told us in detail how they analyze various entertainment news from the Weibo and Wechat social media accounts, and that they hold internal meetings to make evaluations of a situation and see if some of the negative news about their idols is created by “competitors” or some other entertainment companies: A while ago, the group that I’m a fan of, had news that led to the throwing of cigarette butts at bars after their concert in Shenzhen, which caused public attention. We do believe that it was their fault, but the marketing accounts had non-​stop exaggeration of the event even after repeated apologies from the members. So our judgment is that they must have taken money from competitors. And I went to closely follow the historical content of the account and believe that my judgment is accurate. This ability to apply strategic analysis is fully mobilized during the Diba Expedition to understand the logic behind the Zhou Ziyu incident and the Taiwan pro-​independent media. Mass media reports also show their familiarity with the Taiwan pro-​independent (green) media. “Sanli News often use ‘strong countrymen’ and ‘glass hearted people’ to defame our people, so it is our main target. The second one is Apple Daily. It is the creator of ‘Goddess of Independence’ ”. Still others tell the media that mainstream society should be more “objective about this Expedition”, and that “I think this is a very meaningful act. If you go over the firewall to see Taiwan media’s daily reporting of the mainland, you will realize that they are very hostile and constantly demonizing the mainland. This causes the Taiwan youths’ misunderstanding and hostility toward the mainland and they are also lacking a broader historical perspective. So, we must let our voice be heard, no matter whether they are willing to listen or not. We should try our best to disseminate knowledge about mainland culture”13 (January 20, 2016). The Expedition, which in the

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44  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang eyes of the onlookers is spontaneous and whimsical, is actually produced by some strategic thinking. These fans who often seem emotionally out of control online, are in the offline world very cautious and know the virtue of self-​control. They are able to understand the position and activity of the “opposite” side and take measures to contain conflicts. If someone is a TFBOYS fan and her friend a Korean pop culture fan, the two of them may avoid discussing questions such as “why to like”, in order to avoid disputes over “TFBOYS just a bunch of little boys or you Korean duds”. Therefore, wars between fans are almost media activism in the context of the Internet. Years of fights have helped fans accumulate media knowledge and literacy, and rational understanding of the PR strategies of entertainment companies. Thus, these practical interactions online teach fans lessons and provide them with experiences. They habitually analyze public psychology, public opinion, and hot spots and their development during any crisis for the stars, based on which they launch well-​thought-​out and well-​organized media response strategies. Some of our interviewees sum up their response as follows: When there occurs a scandal, there are many different kinds of fan reactions. The first is of course blindly providing excuse and trust for the idol. The second is to use some evidence to defend, which is called ‘white washing’. And the third one is quiet support. This can be found mostly among older fans, as they are more mature and experienced. This kind of literacy and ability can also be extended to analyzing political issues when their idols are involved. They try their best to find a balance between love for the idol and love for the country, in order to avoid the predicament of “either idol or country”. So they will, on the one hand, follow up and do research about relevant news, hoping that they can remove confrontation between their idol and their nation through presenting evidence. For example, after the “Zhou Ziyu incident” quieted down, some fans did a detailed review of the entire process, pointing out that Taiwan Sanli News orchestrated the whole chaotic situation, and that Zhou Ziyu was more of a puppet of her company.14 On the other hand, if negative news concerning an idol is confirmed, or he or she is implicated in complex national and international political issues, then Korean idol fans will try to keep silent and not to let the event get out of control. Our interviewees told us, “when there was a sick Korean man travelling to China regardless of warring about epidemics, we fans stood together to condemn this act. We told each other that this would contaminate the reputation of our idols, but our idols are not people like that. Under such circumstances, the whole fan community should keep a low profile, avoiding public attention”. The interaction between entertainment and politics has something to do with transnational fandom itself, but is also closely connected to the mediatization of global politics. For digital natives of the post-​’90s generation, their main sources of information are from the Internet and social media rather than the

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 45 well-​scripted and edited mainstream media. In the global mediascape, political games and entertainment competitions are structurally similar to each other. The uses of media campaigns, idol effects, PR, event marketing, image management, and so on are exactly the same and even mobilize the same professional groups and technical measures. Fans have a very similar framework or vocabulary for discussing political issues to those they frequently use when talking about fandom. Moreover, the global popularity of realism-​based political dramas, such as House of Cards, 24 Hours, Homeland, and so forth, also provides a repertoire of languages of game theory, conspiracy theory, and strategic communication for people to mobilize when understanding news events in life. To some degree, global political news and the cultural industry’s representation of politics together shape fans’ framework of understanding about political issues. Thus, this seemingly apolitical subcultural group actually acquires quite a bit of political knowledge and confidence in talking about political matters, through participating in popular culture. In our interview, when we mentioned the Hillary Clinton scandals on mass media during the presidential election season, they quickly responded, “This is just like House of Cards”. Last, besides having contact with the outside world through the Internet, the post-​’90s generation has much more transnational experience than the older generations. International tourism, academic exchanges, and study abroad have become somewhat widespread and common life experiences of the new generation from urban middle-​class families. Further, different from the past, the new global mobility is carried out by more active subjects. They are more self-​assured and confident, leaving home to see the broader world, rather than leaving the country due to poverty or anger, or to seek a better life or better education. Growing up in a relatively peaceful and prosperous environment, these digital natives do not have the old structure of feelings of backwardness, self-​contempt, and bitterness. They are usually quite open-​minded and feel they are equals with the outside world. Therefore, the global mobility engaged in by these younger generations actually opens up a much less ideal world than what they have learned about in the mainstream media. They are more sensitive to the lack of balanced reporting on China by Western media and are tired of the repeated dichotomies between civilization versus barbarianism, and universal values and freedom versus dictatorship. They feel more equal with Western society based on their own experiences, and this is very different from the defensive attitude of the older generations based more on unpleasant history. In our interviews, we often hear these kinds of comments: “When we go out, we find that Taiwan, America, or Europe are not as good as imagined”. “People in Taiwan know so little about history. When I  try to Diba te with them, their mobilization of information and evidence is so poor”. Among the people who participated in Diba Expedition were a considerable number of overseas students and people who happened to be living outside of China. In their Internet discussions, they call themselves the “time-​lag party” (see Table 3.1).

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46  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang Table 3.1 Interviewee features Coding

Interview Time

Interview Form

Features

International Experience

M

2016/​01/​30

face to face

R

2016/​3/​27

face to face

X

2016/​3/​29

face to face

tourism in Japan, Korea, and Europe exchange in Japan, Korea; tourism in Taiwan unknown

D

2016/​3/​29

face to face

L

2016/​4/​15

Wechat

Y

2016/​4/​19

face to face

S

2016/​6/​21

Wechat

J

2016/​6/​23

Wechat

C

2016/​7/​19

Wechat

Z

2016/​8/​13

Wechat

F, post-​85 Master’s degree F, 95 undergraduate student F, post-​90 undergraduate student F, post-​90 undergraduate student M, post-​90 undergraduate student M, post-​90 undergraduate student M, post-​85 Master’s student F, post-​90 Master’s student F, post-​90 undergraduate student M, post-​90 master student

exchange in Taiwan unknown exchange in Taiwan, Japan exchange in Europe exchange in Korea, Taiwan exchange in Korea unknown

A large-​scale rise in patriotic feeling and action among overseas Chinese students has emerged since the 2008 Olympic torch relay.15 This kind of emotional pattern is certainly cultivated continuously during the increased international interactions in transnational social media networks, which allows us to see another side of global mobility and multicultural interaction. That is, overseas experiences contribute to the awakening of national identity among young students. Even among cross-​border fan communities, this invocation of national identity is also embodied as a common experience. As a matter of fact, seemingly apolitical fans may encounter the emotional border of national distinction more frequently than most netizens in daily life. In our interviews, we heard that “Korean pop culture fans are more patriotic”, and asked why. One of the interviewees used the example of the Korean pop group Super Junior: Fans from China are often marginalized. Fans from Korea think that Chinese fans take away their resources, and Chinese fans think that since you are already in Korea, you already have more opportunities, and why

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 47 you are so bossy all the time. Every activity, voting, buying records, etc. is always marked by nationality. The more competition and differences among groups, the greater the need for group identification. Big Bang fans also have similar feelings. Their idols come to China only for concerts and with few other activities. But on the Japanese market, they will offer Japanese language records and communicate with fans in Japanese. This kind of national hierarchy is caricatured among fans as “Korean fans are the princess, Japanese fans are beloved concubines, and Chinese fans are mistresses”. Interestingly, within this unfair environment of entertainment resources distribution, Chinese Korean pop culture fans develop neither a “narrow nationalism” nor a “thorough self hate”, but accumulate more mature, active, and multiple abilities of participation. For example, during the emoticon war, participants emphasize that their strategy is different from traditional “war”. “We just poke a façade of war, but find that everyone brought bread not bricks. The headquarters has already briefed us, that we’d better send more food and entertainment, only attack ‘Taiwan independence’, not ‘Taiwan people’, and that we should communicate with foreigners with patience and politeness”. “We are here to persuade brothers to come back, not drive them away” (January 20). This kind of confident and passionate activism is seen very often in fans’ daily life. To participate in fandom activities, fans join all kinds of competitions for their idols. In order to promote the international profile of their idols, they collectively use VPN to transgress the firewall on YouTube to add to the click rate or register many FB accounts to vote. Thus, while mainstream media were surprised that so many people were able to get over the Great Firewall and guessed it must have to do with government consent and encouragement, the Expedition participants would say that it is very easy for them to use VPN and register different social media accounts. In their fan communities, they often share various Internet techniques in order to help newcomers become more capable fans. Therefore, Chinese fans of Super Junior are called “mainland big sisters” because they are “so powerful and capable of doing a lot of things”. This, on the one hand, has a lot to do with the buying power of Chinese fans, but, on the other, it also shows their strong organizing and problem-​solving abilities. These skills help them develop a mentality of calmness and openness when facing the outside world. They observe that Korean fans are loosely organized but explain that it has something to do with their resourcefulness and that they do not need to fight for opportunities. Their nationalism involves national pride and national comparison, with no need for Diba sing other cultures. The strong sense of national identity that develops out of commercial activities leads us to reflect on the common sense that more international interaction may bring, along with cosmopolitanism and a weakening of national consciousness. However, what we see is that in many circumstances, commercial

48

48  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang media’s operations are based on ethnic or national distinctions or even hierarchies. It is a structural problem of the capitalist market that leads it to differentiate people according to nation, ethnicity, class, religion, and other identity markers in order to tailor services.

Concluding discussion: How did new media commercial subjects become politicized? Up to this point, the discussion opened up by this study is becoming clear: if we call the new round of Internet nationalism the third wave, then what are the new features of subcultural youth? Furthermore, a transnational question arises:  how do these postmodern commercial cultural subjects become politicized? What is the nature of these newly emerged political subjects? The chapter concludes with some discussion of this question. First, the discussion of political participation and identity formation under commercial culture follows the track of what Jenkins (2006, p. 219) pointed out regarding the political potential of fan consumers In the Chinese context, Zhang (2016) also notices a route toward politicization taken by subcultural groups in Internet virtual communities. Compared with these discussions, the current study of patriotic activism has brought back the dimension of political economy as a basic starting point in talking about new media commercial culture. Cultural commodities are never without “homeland”. The constant encountering of national or other kinds of group boundaries in transnational consumption forces the seemingly postmodern crowd to acknowledge or locate their own community and identity. Next, borrowing Zhou Yongming’s concept of “informed nationalism”, the chapter discusses the emergence of a “postmodern informed nationalist group”. The kind of nationalist Internet group Zhou (2005, 2006) brought up is mostly populated by military fans. They form an interesting comparison and contrast with the fan communities examined in the current study. First, both are Internet subcultural groups. The former is “military fans”, and the latter is “fan sisters”. Though the word “fan” appears in the name of both groups, people attached quite different assumptions of gender and political value to the two groups. Military fans signify male, rational, and politically mobilized Internet actions, and the public image of fan sisters is female, emotional, and apolitical or politically unconscious. Our study to some extent overthrows this dichotomy and points out that “fan sisters” in their commercial activities also develop a relevant group identity, media literacy, political knowledge, and organizational capacity. However, further observation shows that their understanding of politics is quite different from what Zhou Yongming recognizes as borrowing the discourses of game theory, geopolitics, and the like from the West, which developed from the twentieth-​century hot and cold wars. Feminine patriotic expressions were invisible in previous waves of patriotic nationalism. During Diba Expedition, however, the discursive Internet attack experienced a

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 49 sudden paradigm shift, from aggressive language to emoticons of sharing food and scenery, of patriotic poetry and friend making, full of postmodern features of playfulness, irony, and sarcasm. Most people notice the Expedition group’s discipline, good strategy, strict organization, and strong will to fight, which are mostly masculine characteristics, but ignore this new type of nationalist expression. They have knowledge of international politics (through commercial media, though) on the one hand, and deconstruct geopolitical militarism through discourse on the other. During the Expedition, there is not much strategic analysis of international power relations or important social issues, and a lot of “small talks”, “friendship”, and “good food, beautiful scenery”. What is significant is that the participants intentionally brand this as a new form of united front. In postmodern commercial culture, especially fandom and animation cultures, nationalist discourse must be recoded into affective and “cute” symbol systems, using “love” and “idea” imaginatively to replace “war” and “conspiracy” in international politics. Their communicative strategies are neither aggressive nor defensive, and they are full of respect but consciously keep a distance from the authorities. This is quite different from the neoconservatives who have a stable worldview, and also quite different in disposition from American Donald Trump supporters. Last, it is also worth noticing that both “military fans” and “fan sisters” shape themselves through discursive resources of Western modernity. The former is based on realism and geopolitics, and the latter is a Chinese imitation of the “East Asian urban modernity” developed through military defense during the Cold War (Wu & Yun, 2007). In the future, it is a meaningful point to observe whether or not young patriotic groups are able to go beyond this postcolonial world and national imagination, and develop a self-​sustained and embodied emotional identification and knowledge system toward China and the developing world. The complexity of China’s Internet nationalism is one in which different generations, historical memories, and life experiences coexist in the contemporary Chinese Internet because of its fast distribution. Different generations, memories and life experiences co-​ evolve, develop with different features, and interact with each other in complex ways (Yang, 2009, p. 37). It must be observed and analyzed carefully whether in the future new media commercial culture, the traditional political spectrum and political measurement will still be effective or explanatory.

Notes 1 The “South China Sea issue” refers to the Internet nationalist discourse that arose due to the South China Sea arbitration case. During the dispute, some pop stars in China also posted patriotic content on social media accounts like Weibo, and some fans criticized those who said nothing. http://​ent.sina.com.cn/​s/​m/​2016-​07-​12/​doc-​ ifxtwihq0128958.shtml

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50  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang Zhao Wei is a famous film star and director, whose new film starred a Taiwan actor who is said to support Taiwan independence. During the dispute on social media, a message criticizing Zhao Wei through the official Weibo account of the Chinese Communist Youth League was also shortly deleted, supposedly by as a PR action taken by Zhao Wei’s company. https://​www.zhihu.com/​question/​48459238 https://​zhuanlan.zhihu.com/​p/​21624605 Horton is the Australian swimming champion who attacked his Chinese counterpart, Sun Yang, as a “drug cheat” during the Rio Olympics and created controversy on Chinese social media. https://​www.zhihu.com/​question/​49334640 The THAAD crisis caused tension between China and Korea, and there was also news about official or civil society initiating a boycott of Korean products and cultural industries. http://​baike.baidu.com/​link?url=tKyQOgpYqIHODEUBKWz 7TuvI5O8VUgVRlG_​BOUIkryC4UsZ3WM2UNJJikrftcndIjopj2Ih_​IQiwdJnqF 13ZaIoovgc9lnO3Ldef3opyQAa 2 One of our interviewee, R20160327, discovered that one of her friends also participated in the expedition only after seeing a screenshot sent to her by the friend. 3 The Baidu “Zhou Ziyu Bar” issued a public announcement to close down the discussion community and had more than 720,000 clicks. http://​weibo.com/​p/​ 1001603930905445051071 4 赵日天’s own narrative about the whole process, http://​weibo.com/​ttarticle/​p/​show ?id=2309403986428244711663 5 Weibo account, http://​weibo.com/​u/​3707461853?is_​all=1&stat_​date=201601& page=4#feedtop 6 The coexistence of patriotism and critical realism is also a characteristic of “old Diba”. Min Dahong thinks that when critical realism is oppressed, a nationalistic side comes out. But in fact, through long-​time experiences of playing with censorship, Chinese netizens have developed a kind of double-​talk culture. See 何瑫, 《帝吧风云：被互联网培植的愤怒》, 智族GQ, 2016年6月刊[He Tao. “Diba Adventures:  Anger cultivated by the Internet”, GQ, June,  2016]. http://​www. gq.com.cn/​celebrity/​news_​1543c2f369a5900a.html 7 See Min Dahong’s June 20, 1999, article, published in the China Daily web version, http://​chinamediaresearch.cn/​article/​109/​ 8 Chinese intelligence officers found many interceptors in the American-​made Boeing 767, serving as “Air Force One” for the then-​Chinese president Jiang Zemin. See http://​news.china.com/​zh_​cn/​focus/​eavesdrop/​news/​10003041/​20020123/​10197383. html http://​blog.sina.com.cn/​s/​blog_​6d83d5540100unvd.html 9 Civil society members collected money online and went out to sea to the Diaoyu Islands to declare Chinese sovereignty. This is the first time civil society independently participated in defending the Diaoyu Islands movement. http://​baike.baidu. com/​view/​1296921.htm 10 See http://​www.guancha.cn/​MaPing/​2012_​08_​24_​93081.shtml 11 https://​www.youtube.com/​playlist?list=PL69D01072BF7588A3 12 http://​www.dota2.com.cn/​article/​details/​20160814/​187411.html 13 What Does It Feel Like Taking Part in the Diba Emoticon Expedition? PNGWEST, January 20, 2016. 14 JYP event recap, http://​weibo.com/​p/​1001603932847655271358?sudaref=passport. weibo.com

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From Fans to “Little Pink” 51 15 The attack on a Chinese paralympic athlete, Jin Jing, by Tibetan independence groups during the torch relay caused large-​scale anger among overseas Chinese students and generated movements to protect the Olympic torch. http://​tieba. baidu.com/​p/​4672592864 https://​www.douban.com/​group/​topic/​87993932/​

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52  Jing Wu, Simin Li, and Hongzhe Wang [吴靖、云国强 (2007)。迷人的父权制—​—​韩国家庭剧中的现代性与男性气质。 《新闻大学》, 2(92), 84–​89。] Yan, Q. (2016). Patriotic little pinks, fandom wars and nationalist cyborgs—​who is in charge of representing the identities of ‘little pink’? Retrieved July 22, from https://​ theinitium.com/​article/​20160722-​opinion-​yanqiang-​pink-​cyborg/​ [严蔷(2016)。《爱国小粉红、粉丝战争, 与天朝主义赛博格—​—​“小粉红”身份, 到底由谁, 如何来表述？》, 端传媒, 观点, July 22. https://​theinitium.com/​article/​ 20160722-​opinion-​yanqiang-​pink-​cyborg/​] Zhao, J. (2013). State, market and the internet: Critical discourse analysis to China’s nationalistic discourse in 2008. 2013 Chinese Communication Society Conference, July 2013, Furen University, Taiwan, China. [赵菁(2013)。国家、市场、互联网:  对零八年中国大陆民族主义话语的批判性分析 。中华传播学会2013年年会。] Zou, S. (2016). How to understand Internet Expedition. Jan. 26. http://www.chinesepen. org/blog/archives/45586.

English references Etling, B., Faris, R., & Palfrey, J. (2010). Political change in the digital age: The fragility and promise of online organizing. SAIS Review, 30(2), 37–​49. http://​doi.org/​ 10.1353/​sais.2010.0016 Gries, P. H. (2004). China’s new nationalism: Pride, politics, and diplomacy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hughes, C. R. (2000). Beijing rides a nationalist cyber-​tiger. Retrieved October 7, 2016, from http://​www.wsj.com/​articles/​SB969481844862316960 Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, NY: NYU Press. Liu, S. (2006). China’s popular nationalism on the internet: Report on the 2005 anti-​ Japan network struggles. Inter-​Asia Cultural Studies, 7(1), 144–​155. Osnos, E. (2008, July 8). Angry youth: The new generation’s neocon nationalists. The New Yorker. Wu, X. (2007). Chinese cyber nationalism: Evolution, characteristics, and implications. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Yang, G. (2003). The internet and the rise of a transnational Chinese cultural sphere. Media, Culture & Society, 25(4), 469–​490. Yang, G. (2009). The power of the internet in China: Citizen activism online. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Zhang, W. (2016). The internet and new social formation in China: Fandom publics in the making. New York, NY: Routledge. Zhao, S. (2000). Chinese nationalism and its international orientations. Political Science Quarterly, 115(1), 1–​33. http://​doi.org/​10.2307/​2658031 Zhou, Y. (2005). Informed nationalism:  Military websites in Chinese cyberspace. Journal of Contemporary China, 14(44), 543–​562. Zhou, Y. (2006). Historicizing online politics: Telegraphy, the internet, and political participation in China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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4  “We are all Diba members tonight” Cyber-​nationalism as emotional and playful actions online Zhe Wang*

Introduction As a researcher, “Diba Expedition” interests me for its particularity and research value: first, during this online collective action, several social media have emerged as new fields for nationalism, which urges us to redefine and reexamine cyber-​nationalism. Second, the action of “Burst the Bar”, which used to be described as cyber subculture, has now turned into a trans-​ border, trans-​ media action acknowledged by mainstream voices. Third, some participants claimed their action was not due to “brainwashing” when they were interviewed by the media afterward. This reminds us of “active audiences”, and Morley’s (1999) criticism of this kind of active approach. The structure behind audiences’ active reception may be ignored when attention is only paid to audiences’ agency. In the context of cyber-​nationalism, the relationship between agency and structure still requires empirical examination and discussion. Therefore, this chapter attempts to interpret the digital traces of participants during “Diba Expedition”, especially their comments left on Ingwen Tsai’s Facebook page, in order to discuss the following questions:  from “Diba Expedition”, what kind of continuation and variance of cyber-​nationalism can be revealed? How can netizens’ construction of self-​ identity during “Diba Expedition” be understood and interpreted? What are the contextual structures behind this collective action?

Literature review The evolution of cyber-​nationalism In terms of tracing the origin of nationalism, Gellner (1983, p. 55) said, Once general social conditions have gradually marched towards standardization and homogenization and the high-​level culture supported by the central * Zhe Wang is an assistant professor at Zhejiang University of Media and Communi­ cation, China, [email protected].

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54  Zhe Wang authorities have become popular among the masses rather than the elite class only, we find the time, to some extent, is ripe for that the consistent culture identified by the educated people has formed a kind of mechanism, which has been accepted ardently and proactively by the people. It seems that culture matters to the legitimacy of political rule. Since then any forms of violation of cultural boundary of this kind would be regarded as shameful by any political power. After Ernest Gellner published Nations and Nationalism (1983), Benedict Anderson (1991) published Imagined Communities, in which he defined a nation as an imagined political community known to scholars. The reason why it is imagined is that “even if it is the least populated nation, people of that nation cannot know, meet or even hear of most of his/​her compatriots; however, there is a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group” (Anderson, 1991, p. 6). These expositions have become the classic expositions of nationalism, which are, perhaps, different to some extent, but it turns out that nationalism is the fruit of the past few years. It can be seen as a kind of ideology, which can be connected with some convictions and principles systematically as well as has the potential of being practical (Jiang, 1998, pp. 36–​37). The popular medium and form of expression will shape this kind of imagination and then become the channel to this kind of imagination. Although changes in the times and the media cannot change the nature of nationalism, its best carrier of practice will always be assigned when it has been applied in practice. In the Chinese context, “nationalism” (Min Zu Zhu Yi) can first date back to the year 1902, when Qichao Liang defined it as “the desire by a group of people of the same race, language, religion and custom etc. to form an independent country to seek public good and resist foreign aggression”. Zhang (1995) noticed that Liang’s idea of nationalism stifled individualism, for he paid central attention to state rather than civil liberties by laying stress on the distinction between the home and the foreign country. The Word List created by Liang exercised an invisible and formative influence on later generations. As a result, it came very naturally for Zemin Jiang to deliver an address entitled “Fighting Continuously to Promote the Accomplishment of the Great Cause of the Reunification of the Motherland” by citing a quotation from Yat-​sen Sun, “Reunification is the hope of the people across China. Reunification will make people live in ease and comfort, while inability to reunify will make the people suffer injury”. However, patriotism replaced nationalism in Jiang’s discourse system. After quoting the above words from Sun, Jiang (1995) then said, “we appeal to all the Chinese people to unite together, hold high the great banner of patriotism, persist in reunification, oppose separation, render full support to push forward relations across the Taiwan Straits and promote the unification of China”. This address witnessed a series of patriotic collective action later. For example, common Chinese people spontaneously marched through the streets due to the May 8th incident in 1999, the battle plane crash incident between China and the United States in 2001, the anti-​Japanese demonstrations in 2005, and the Carrefour incident in 2008. With the development of the Internet,

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“We are all Diba members tonight” 55 nationalistic collective action is no longer and cannot be confined offline. The enormous contrast between the imagined global village and the reality of the boundary of the nation-​state has not yet disappeared. “Since the bbs.People.cn has been launched in the People’s Daily, the Internet has played nonnegligible role in molding the public opinion, especially on the topic of nationalism” (Huang & Lee, 2003). According to Hughes (2001), the “war talk” of the cyber citizen in the bbs.People.cn demonstrates the rise of Chinese nationalism. In terms of concrete collective action, the first united appearance of Chinese hackers attacking the website of the Indonesian government and commercial companies was aimed at protesting against a Chinese genocide incident instigated by President Raden Suharto (Qiu, 2006). The Chinese hackers began to call themselves Honker (Hong Ke) soon after. Moreover, the “Taiwan Blitz” aimed to combat Shuibian Chen assuming power had made a hacker organization named the China Eagle Club stand out. Cynical cyber-​nationalism tends to be expressed under a unified dominant organization by hard technological means. Wong (2010, pp. 109–​128) summed up Chinese nationalists’ customary attitude toward Taiwan in terms of a cyberattack on Taiwan, describing it as “hostility, hegemony and patriarchy”. Both the Young Cynic (Fen Qing) and Honker have been code words for all the action agents in the BBS and similar cyberattacks. If the economic transformation and ensuing social change in China had not been carried out, popular nationalism from below would never have become so active, which had even integrated itself with the internal norms of the younger generation (Lagerkvist, 2005). Besides those official forums, nationalism is nothing new currently in the BBS of colleges and universities, business portals, and urban community websites (Qiu, 2006). The agents of cyber-​nationalism As seen in the discussion of cyber-​nationalism above, cyber-​nationalism tends to be seen as self-​organized from below with great anger, and its agents display an extremely masculine national consciousness. However, we have to determine whether or not cyber-​nationalism comes completely from below and is spontaneous. It deserves to reexamine its structural reasons and contexts for every cyber-​nationalism action. At this point, agents who engage in those actions are the breakthrough points for grasping the essence of the structure as well as the most appropriate object of observation and interpretation. At this time, “Diba Expedition” is a continuation of cyber-​nationalism as well as a variant to some extent. Obviously, the agents in this action were called Little Pink widely by the media and public opinion, which refers to a number of anime, comics, and games (ACG) girls who lack common sense and seem to be excitable when it comes to a topic related to patriotism or a popular star. Although whether or not the action agents is labeled Little Pink or a member of the Diba is in question, it more or less shows that new discourse features and an action strategy involved with cyber-​nationalism have

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56  Zhe Wang appeared. Hence, nuanced adjustments might be carried out in terms of “hostility, hegemony and patriarchy”. It can be determined that either Little Pink or Diba, as agents participating in “Diba Expedition”, belong to the consumer group of subculture, who cannot be overlooked among Chinese young netizens, as well as the younger generation that are influenced by nationalism. At first, defining subculture is mainly dominated by studying the young working class, whose behavior and appearance are different from that of mainstream groups. In terms of the cyber subculture group, the most attractive part lies in quoting, creating, and applying the network buzzwords first. For example, the word “loser” (Diao Si) created and used by “Diba” is seen as the distinctiveness of postmodern culture for its marginality, criticalness, opposability, openness, and entertainment (Li & Li, 2013). From the perspective of Hebdige (1979), language application of this kind is done with stylized characterization, which has provided the space for an alternative identity for this group. In the development of “Diba”, the online action of “Burst the Bar” has played the same role, although it has been seen as a kind of alienation of public participation and expression because it can destroy the normal network order and hurt others’ psychology or mentality (Luo & Zhao, 2012). However, some scholars have deemed that the current subculture no longer confronts mainstream culture as before in a heroic manner in follow-​ up studies on subculture. For example, Clark (2003, pp. 223–​236) suggested that the current subculture is reconfigured as a product through political action, and that the images of rebellion and deviation are only one of its strategies and a marketable style for cooperation. In addition, in Thornton’s (1995) opinion, subculture has shown its resistance to the mainstream culture as well as compromise, which is a more complicated relation. Accordingly, in “Diba Expedition”, the reason why nationalism is available to be applied in the cyber subculture is due to the complicated relations between the subculture and mainstream ideology. Nevertheless, the discussion of cyber subculture tends to see the action process carried out by agents as a single-​line process from the individual to a certain collective mass. With regard to describing the agents in contemporary society, Bauman (2001), as well as Beck and Beck-​Gernsheim (2002), aimed at understanding them through “individualization”. In discussing the contradiction between freedom and safety, Bauman (2001) said that the group is the “peg community” in the liquid modernity, who will come at the sound of a whistle. However, the individual characteristic of the peg community’s non-​ commitment fails to explain the cohesive strength of nationalism during “Diba Expedition”. More precisely, the netizens, who establish the virtual community and then gather together to create ramblings on the Internet, tend to seek a sense of satisfaction and then form a liquid group (Huang & Lin, 2013). This kind of cyber group cannot be seen as a solidified group but rather a “collective effervescence” (Huang & Lin, 2013) because it has transcended the

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“We are all Diba members tonight” 57 dilemma of individualism-​collectivism. In addition, the labeled Diba and Little Pink are more like a kind of naming strategy and the logic of differentiation. On the one hand, the participants in “Diba Expedition” have been liberated from communal forms in the real world through the virtues of networks, and the fundamental impulse of the individual is no longer restrained by family, school, or other homogeneous collective forces. However, behind the leaving of comments for fun and for the ride (for example, “Diba Goes to Battle, Nothing Will Grow. The sightseeing party arrives, not to flame but just for fun!”), the demand of human beings for the endurance of community is evident. Not all the participants in “Diba Expedition” come from the existing Diba communities (it is not based on the premise of a primary group), and most of them come from among netizens without strong ties. However, these participants have established many QQ groups in an organized way, such as “Fight Club” and “Facebook Diba Base”, which have gathered the individualized participants together at earlier and later stages. Nevertheless, this kind of community is liquid and variable. For example, members of the “Facebook Diba Base” were still talking about the “Reunification and Independence Problem” of Taiwan on January 24, but their topics later changed to entertainment, daily life, and social life rather than politics or current social events. Moreover, its group name also changed to “Upright FB Mainlanders” through removing the label Diba. On the other hand, cyber-​nationalism aims to gather netizens together by establishing a unified target and a certain enemy. Meanwhile, it tries to integrate the individual social psychology with the collective social psychology and also leaves netizens a space to show off their individuality. As a result, netizens are able to mingle their love and hatred, innovation and popularization of language, and meme culture within the collective voice. The cyber subculture is definitely accomplished through this kind of emotional and playful style. In accordance with the late theories of Durkheim (1995) religion, as the constitution foundation of morality, is still needed by modern society, or at least regular ceremonies are necessary to arouse people’s emotional interaction. The collective excitement generated during ceremonies and festivals reflects the common belief of members of society and then maintains the existence of the society itself. In “Diba Expedition”, cyberspace, making use of the features of “simultaneously online” and large-​scale high-​density group interaction, has provided a wonderful stage for the bursting out of existing collective excitement phenomena. Due to the common affordances of social media, showing the quantity of spamming comments, duplicated contents, and likes of each other among “Battle Companions” and “Putting the Enemy” to “Flight” can easily excite the participants. The common belief and social cohesive force of nationalism have been updated and strengthened in this kind of collective emotional interaction.

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58  Zhe Wang Research method All of the comments on Ingwen Tsai’s Facebook page during “Diba Expedition” (from January 20, 00:00 to January 21, 24:00) were captured via API designed by this study on March 9, 2016, of which the total number was 13,684. The information from all comments were classified as time, content, account, and the number of likes. In addition, the researcher had joined the “Diba Central Division” that was established after the above-​mentioned Facebook incident and the corresponding QQ group for the sake of practical observation and to get a complete overview of this incident. After browsing all of the comments, the researcher defined the “template comments” are those with 80 percent similarity and whose number of replications is more than ten, by the machine sorting method, and found out 57 types of templates in total. Because of the limited space for data visualization, the top ten templates in terms of repetition were chosen, and their variation trends within 48 hours are as shown in Figure 4.1: “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces” (N = 2,096), Homesick (N = 447), March of the Volunteers (N = 276), Ode to the Motherland (N = 245), the Name of Taiwan (N = 195), Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory (N = 172), Diba Goes to Battle, Nothing Will Grow (N = 95), the Macau Song (N = 78), We have taken Macau home in 1999 (N  =  77), and Closely unite around the CPC central committee (N = 73). The total number of those top ten comments is 3,727, which accounts for 27 percent of all of the comments within 48 hours. The number of no-​repeat comments is 5,749 among all of the comments, which accounts for 42 percent of that within 48 hours. As for these no-​repeat comments, their word frequency and co-​occurrence were calculated in this research. Moreover, the first 40 high-​frequency words are shown in Table 4.1, while the first 30 high-​frequency words’ co-​occurrences are shown in Table 4.2 for future interpretative analyses.

Research results The time pattern of “Diba Expedition” Judging from the variation trend of the top ten pattern comments, it is not hard to see that the peak of this collective action actually lasted only one hour (January 20, 9:00–​20:00), during which six of the top ten reached the peak value within 48 hours: “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces” (N = 580), March of the Volunteers (N  =  214), Homesick (N  =  179), Ode to the Motherland (N = 99), the Macau Song (N = 46), Diba Expedition (N = 22). The above six templates were released in Weibo when “Diba Expedition” called on people to take part in the action. However, as for the template related to historical narration and political value, the name Taiwan (N = 40) and Closely unite around the CPC central committee (N  =  31) reached the peak value within one hour later (January 20, 20:00–​21:00), whose overall quantity was

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newgenrtpdf

8 honors & 8 disgraces

march of the volunteers homesickness ode to the motherland the name of Taiwan 8 honors & 8 disgraces homesickness march of the volunteers ode to the motherland the name of Taiwan Taiwan is an inalienable... D8 goes to battle the Macau song we have taken Macau... closely unite around CPC

Figure 4.1 Trend of top ten template comments within 48 hours.

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newgenrtpdf

Table 4.1 Word frequency of no-​repeat comments (top 40) Word

Frequency Word

Frequency Word

Frequency

Word

Frequency

Taiwan Mainland

5743 3777

politics economy

486 474

378 375

announce gangs of CCP

286 277

China Taiwan Independence democracy cross-​strait Ingwen Tsai America Independence president

2771 1093 858 607 606 597 505 496

Japan unity world government motherland ROC KMT history

465 450 424 411 397 396 392 388

359 358 345 338 334 323 320 302

commodity produce CCP future traditional Chinese Mao Zedong morality technology

272 255 255 242 240 237 237 228

compatriot governor of a province freedom culture against support education society value media

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“We are all Diba members tonight” 61 Table 4.2 Co-​occurrences of no-​repeat comments (top 30) word 1

word 2

co-​ word 1 occurrence

word 2

Taiwan Mainland Taiwan Independence Taiwan economy democracy Mainland Taiwan Mainland Taiwan

China Taiwan Taiwan

1312 1219 385

independence Taiwan world Taiwan world China

288 280 263

compatriot Taiwan Taiwan culture culture economy unity

381 331 322 311 302 297 296

Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan America nationality unity Taiwan

247 230 226 222 223 204 185

government politics Ingwen Tsai Taiwan Chinese China freedom

co​occurrence

smaller than that in the first hour, which might have been posted by other netizens who had received the message of “Diba Expedition” from other channels. Moreover, “Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory” and “We have taken Macau home in 1999” reached the peak value respectively in January 21, 20:00–​21:00 and January 21 21:00–​22:00 as 43 and 25. The number of comments was far from that on the first day, and there was not an obvious rush hour of peak value, even if someone were inclined to carry out the spamming action again the next day in the name of “Diba Expedition”. The time pattern of this kind of pattern comment proved that the agents of the cyber-​nationalism action made a feature of a liquid group rather than a lasting and fixed organization. If the earlier cyber-​nationalism attack was a network approach involving hackers’ techniques, “Diba Expedition” this time seems more like a game of war that all people can participate in. In fact, it is decentered and complicated, although it seems to be well organized. For example, the Communist Youth League’s micro-​blog account released The Long March in order to support “Diba Expedition”, and one of the participants posted a message at 20:10 that said, “Comrades, if there is anyone who wants to go to the front, it is time to post the Long March in accordance with the introduction of the Central Committee of the Communist Young League”. However, there were hardly any respondents, and only 32 messages related to the Long March were posted in an hour, with the peak value within 48 hours reaching a total of 56 messages. Most of the netizens preferred to indulge in a game of war on an unknown battleground and create their own enemies rather than follow the existing power center; therefore, collective excitement was the only motive for action, As Guobin Yang (2013) pointed out regarding emotional mobilization in a study on Internet events, “the emotion in collective action is not the source or tool simply, but the power of struggle” (p. 257).

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62  Zhe Wang Positive emotional comments In terms of the content of the pattern comments with a repetition of more than ten times, 91 percent of them are discourses involving Love (patriotism, poem, and song). Only five pattern comments involve abusive language, such as “Nuke the Damn Pro-​independence in Taiwan” and “Patio Spring·Green Frog”, which appear intensively within one hour, which might be posted by individuals, and which are not the result of collective action, just like the top ten pattern comments. The pattern comment, which takes positive emotion as its main appeal, has shown strategic rationality in “Diba Expedition”. “Rationality” lies in keeping the individual participant from bearing collective violence; therefore, the psychological threshold is decreased. The huge-​crowd strategy based on digital logic can be seen as a kind of cyberbullying. However, in the mind of participants or onlookers, copying the content, such as “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces”, “Homesick”, and Ode to the Motherland, is not a kind of violence but the expression of “love”, a love for both our motherland and for patriotic Taiwanese people. Besides loving the motherland and patriotic Taiwanese people, this expedition game has also integrated itself into people’s daily life. Although the participants are not allowed to post pictures, the name of delicacies with regional characteristics appear among the comments frequently, such as “Hebei people will give a warm welcome to Taiwan compatriots, since ancient times Hebei is endowed with gentlemen who chant in a heroic but mournful tone and boast diversified scenic spots and historical monuments! If mainland China and Taiwan were at war, the Hebei people would like to shelter the Taiwan compatriots!”; “On behalf of the Hubei hot-​ and-​dry noodles/​Northeast Double Cooked Pork Slices, I give my greetings to you”; and other comments of this kind. In terms of word frequency, the place name at the top is Hong Kong (N = 134), Beijing (N = 122), Fujian (N = 105), Guangdong (N = 68), Henan (N = 48), Nanjing (N = 40), Zhejiang (N = 31), Jiangsu (N = 31), and so on. Hence, we can determine that the netizens want to make the comments they post become more “individualized”, although it is only an anonymous collective action. When rational and nonviolent participants have seen abusive comments in the process of spamming (such as the above-​mentioned “Nuke the Damn Pro-​ independence in Taiwan” and “Patio Spring·Green Frog”), they made a clean break with these abusive comments, such as saying, “Why did the Democratic Progressive Party’s cyber army disguise themselves as mainlanders again? Come on!”, or “Auntie Tsai, you’d better employ Internet armies who are rational, and we are not here to beat the so-​called ‘Damn Pro-​independence in Taiwan’. You said that Taiwan is a region of freedom and democracy, therefore we hope you can hear our voices. However, some people are intensively posting ‘Beat the Damn Pro-​independence in Taiwan here’, and we know they are Internet armies. Please behave yourself! Don’t make weird trouble and break the Cross-​Straits people’s heart”, or “It is such a mess. I just can’t tell

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“We are all Diba members tonight” 63 friend from foe!” A clear distinction between good and evil has been made to avoid the conflict between rationality and sensibility among participants, in order to maintain the participants’ world outlook (especially for the younger generation, who have grown up with ACG culture), which is in sharp contrast to a black and white perspective. However, the nationalistic words in the no-​repeat comments show the customary attitudes of mainland Chinese toward Taiwan, which are hegemony and patriarchy. For example, there are statements like the following: “Your Chinese dad doesn’t even deign to call your names!”; “Don’t scold them strongly! After all, they are the son”; “As my daughter, you have to know independence means disloyalty! If you dare to forget your dad, you will be an unfilial daughter without universal love and regardless of overall national interest. Although you are such a daughter, Dad still wants to teach you with love! Dad knows well you have arrived at puberty. You will be beaten to make an apology!”; “If you dare to proclaim independence, I will beat you. Westerners don’t beat their kids, but Chinese people have always been so!” This kind of patricentric love appears widely in the non-​pattern comments, which express a kind of superiority complex that views mainland China as the center of the world in terms of politics, economy, and culture. The nationalism of “power rise” logic is concealed by the emotional template comments in the process of “Diba Expedition”. Game-​like strategy of the expedition When news of “Diba Expedition” spread swiftly, some netizens left comments on Ingwen Tsai’s Facebook page as early as January 20, 19:00, such as “Take up a vantage point to see what will happen”; “Will Diba come here? Tour groups from both Weibo and Tianya have gotten ready”; “It is said that Diba will go to battle soon, and I have prepared sunflower seeds and wooden bench to see what will happen! I’m a sofa!”; and “The Guangdong People begin warming up for Diba! Damn Pro-​independence in Taiwan”. The whole process is just like a strategy game that the younger generation knows well: “Report my compatriots! The rear of Rocket Force has assembled! The countdown has begun!”; “The Bear Army arrives in”; “Wo8 friend is eager to see what will happen”; “Caution: the third group of force of local organization of Diba led by Lecheng Youth League Committee of Chinese Communist Youth League is in place”; “I have already recited Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces, Homesick, and March of the Volunteers and just want to play Mahjong”; “You must be not happy playing the stand-​alone game, and I actually would like to see the Emoticon Meme Game”; “A great number of pro-​independence Taisanese have appeared, a plea for help!!!”; “Warden Tsai, opening four accounts, I am tired. Besides tip-​offs, what else can Taiwanese people do? Hehe, it’s nothing, I wasn’t going to give in!” Japanese soccer fans during the World Cup went wild just like the participants in “Diba Expedition”. As Japanese psychologist Rika Kayama

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64  Zhe Wang asserted, this kind of national hate behavior and speech (for example, some old nationalistic signs have been posted at sports festivals) were used as express cultural solidarity, which is without serious meaning and nothing but a game (Kayama, 2002, quoted from Mori, 2004). “Diba Expedition” can be seen as a strategy game, because it is available to allow its participants play the part of “patriotic warrior”. Hence, people can take part in the game just for fun (such as “I am just looking on”; “Send me emoticon”). However, it can also involve collective responsibility like that of war commanders, although its attitude toward Taiwan is patricentric and charitable like that of a superior. For example, there are comments such as “When we are spamming, if Taiwan babies have sworn at us, we have to calm down, because our country is a state of ceremonies and we have to convince them by reasoning. We don’t want them to blame us for bad manners. After all, they are our wild kids, and we have to show the bearing of great power to foreigners” and “As the superior nation of the Celestial Empire, we shall never lose our bearing”. The participants try their best to endow this playful game with more cultural functions and social significance in a legitimate and justified manner. “Diba Expedition” seems like an expedition in which a command center gives an order aiming to conquer a specific space. Actually, it is a game, in which the participants have constructed a mutual national identity (“Diba Expedition, I am a dignified Chinese tonight, and I pride myself on being a Chinese”; “Governor Tsai, I found out I became more patriotic after this incident. I do hope the members of Diba can organize this kind of activity regularly”) by forming a transitional subject (“We are all Diba people tonight!!”). Subjectivity must be promised and affirmed by other subjects, and this then brings out a kind of intersubjectivity between each subject and other subjects. In a similar way, if one wants to form a valid self-​identification, he or she has to identify with others who are pursuing similar identification. As a result, “the unified imagination” of nationalism is available to be reproduced in cyberspace.

Contextual structure behind “Diba Expedition” Why then have the agents of “Diba Expedition” practiced nationalism in the manner of emotional and playful action? What are the contextual structures behind this collective action? Since 1995, the Chinese government has undertaken efforts to popularize patriotism in education, which is one of the four basic components of education in the socialist core value system:  “the education of Marxism and the values of the Communist Party of China; the education of a common ideal for socialism with Chinese characteristics; the education of the national value with patriotism at its core and the value of the time with reform and innovation at its core; the education of the Socialist concept of honor and disgrace”, whose “Love” has become the nurturing background of the major group of “Diba Expedition”. Meanwhile, on account of the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 and the transfer of sovereignty over Macau in 1999, Taiwan has become the last inalienable part of

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“We are all Diba members tonight” 65 China’s territory: “Taiwanese people, there is no need for you to convert yourself to socialist, because we can adopt a ‘one country, two system’ policy. Hong Kong and Macau have now led a good life”. In the comments collected in the present research, we have found a kind of historical intertextuality by imitating the Macau song and “We have taken Macau home in 1999”, and some participants have even posted their personal experience that was connected to historical events: “I was born in 1997 when the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong was carried out; I  became a college student in 2016, when the ‘Diba Expedition’ was carried out”; “When I was in kindergarten, I came to know that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory and the son of China; “Homesick”, written by Yu Kwang-​chung, depicted the homesickness of the Taiwanese people for the Chinese mainland, and China is the irrefutable root of Taiwan since ancient times”. In “Diba Expedition”, the reason why this complicated nationalistic emotion is expressed like a playful carnival is closely linked with the upbringing of the agents. Due to the appearance of a network, especially the rise of SNS, governments have realized that “patriotic propaganda will be simple but profound, diversified, vivid, and practical”. It means that cyber culture begins to gain its own theme: a pan-​politicization core and a pan-​entertainment form of expression. By integrating complicated nationalistic words with triumphant emotion directly, the collective action has changed into an online game. Now there are no conflicts between mainstream education and the subculture, since they both employ the express form pan-​entertainment. For example, That Rabbit and Those Things in That Year hit the jackpot in the comic and animation market, yet its capital investment has nothing to do with the government. However, its content is identical with that of a textbook, both of which have constructed “the historical knowledge” of the participants in “Diba Expedition”:  “Taiwanese people, have you ever read the book entitled That Rabbit and Those Things in That Year? Mr. Chiang once said his body belonged to China, who had never thought of separation. Aunt Tsai, you have to see the current situation clearly, even if you are the party boss of the Democratic Progressive Party. If you dare to carry out Taiwan’s independence, no one can save you from separation”. Meanwhile, the popular carnival on the network has directly influenced the “game props” in “Diba Expedition”, which includes an emoticon package, images, poems, and spoof. However, since the picture function on Ingwen Tsai’s Facebook page has been closed, some of the participants complained this act is “undemocratic”: “For the sake of better communication, please open the democratic and free picture function. Democracy and freedom are invincible, aren’t they?”; “To tell the truth, that’s sick. Many emoticon packages I collected from Kenny Lin just lack scope for their skills”; “I have no spoof to copy now”. As a result, the scattered “hostility, hegemony and patriarchy” are concealed by this collective carnival that is filled with joviality. And this playful enjoyment also became a label of self-​identification of the participants in “Diba Expedition” and tended to be collected by most interpreters and

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66  Zhe Wang journalists after the event. Hence, in terms of the style of performance, it has made a clear distinction between cyber-​nationalistic discourses during “Diba Expedition” and previous collective acts of cyber-​nationalism. In general, in this shared new-​ interest-​ driven gaming paradigm, cyber-​ nationalism keeps undertaking the active planning of different interest parties, which are interactive with each other. Since 1995, the Internet in China has been immersed into people’s daily lives commercially through the fields of the military and education. When authoritarian politics have no choice but to face the results brought by network technology, they have to adjust themselves continually, which has been called networked authoritarianism by MacKinnon (2011), also known as the networked authoritarian state, in which the ordinary people feel that they have become free to a greater extent when a large number of comments appear on the Internet and SNS. For example, the agents of “Diba Expedition” proved that they are enabled to carry out “an expedition” and surmount the Great Firewall. However, this kind of freedom and individual rights is without any guarantee, and the ruling party is still holding the real power in its hands: on the one hand, it has to try its best to catch up with the trends, while on the other hand, it has to avoid the political noise brought by new technologies; and on the one hand, it would like to listen to opinions and improve online public service, while on the other hand, it has made an attempt to keep the people’s fervent expression and mania under control. Although “Diba Expedition” has surmounted the firewall technologically, as Yonggang Li (2008, pp.  79 and 87)  observed, the national fire wall, in a sense, “is not only an technology in existence, but also the best metaphor to express the ruling party’s supervisory intentions”. Only when there is uniformity between the collective action and this metaphor, can the technological barrier be surmounted collectively. In terms of the dominant power of Internet control, central government, executor, Internet company operators, and netizens, “all parties choose to cooperate with each other by weighing the pros and cons. Thus, “the national fire wall is not merely designed in laws and technologies, but also built in people’s hearts”. “Diba Expedition” can be seen as an attack on the international negotiable cyberspace based on the commercial cyberspace controlled by the Chinese government. Moreover, different fields of public opinion have since formed in the public cyberspace and in the central government’s propaganda cyberspace respectively. Commercial network companies in China have figured out the official red line again, in order to take precautions against the “ill-​intentioned force” that may put pressure on the government by virtue of the resources of the popular will on the Internet. After “Diba Expedition”, by investigating the shielded messages on Sina Weibo in HKU’s WeiboScope, we have found that a large number of messages related to “VPN” on Weibo were deleted, such as “as a former league member, I  firmly support the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China. Please make the Chinese people surmount the fire wall every day”. At the same time, although “Diba Expedition” in its early stage attracted a great number of followers on Weibo, the major live

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“We are all Diba members tonight” 67 broadcast platforms deleted live video related to the expedition quite soon. The new technology of live broadcast definitely entailed more risk. First, the object of the Diba live broadcast is Facebook, which is an external social networking platform with small controllability. Second, this kind live broadcast platform is a newcomer to the Internet, which faces commercial risks due to “pornography” that is transmitted at ordinary times. As a result, network companies do not want to be involved in any political events. For Internet-​focused technology companies, if all users can be transformed into manageable activists, they will have more commercial value, because a larger quantity of traffic and profits will be produced through their actions. Moreover, emotional expression is deemed to strike the maximum responsive chord (such as repost, comment, and discuss), which is the simplest, the most rapid, and the most direct way to transmit. The Internet has become a source of emotional fermentation for the younger generation. In the game of cyber-​ nationalism, these companies’ motivation is to get more commercial opportunities and exposure effect without offending the government. And for “Diba Expedition”, the symbolic meaning of authoritarian is greater than the rest. “Diba” once carried out a wide range of vehement and joking “Burst The Bar” activities, and has finished its “evolution” at the same time in the process of continuously upgrading its activities. It has even begun to become a mainstream platform for the ideological education and publicity of teenagers in a more “lawful” manner: “We will hold on to send positive energy and inherit the bar culture” (Yingsanjiage, the host of Baidu Diba, on December 2, 2015). “Diba Expedition” is a practice that transforms the traditional bar culture (for example, “Burst the Bar”) into a tame practice.

Structure of feelings and feeling structuralization For “Diba Expedition”, the structure of feelings regarding the young generation can be reflected in this emotional game of cyber-​nationalism. When Anderson (1991) argued in terms of imagined communities, no profound investigations had been undertaken into how such imagination could be implemented into the structure of feelings in detailed practices and daily life experience. However, Williams (1977) holds the perspective that in a social structure with various layers overlapping each other, emotions and identification that are jointly felt by the entire society can be summarized, and such feelings possess an endogenous momentum, which can form into novel thinking and thereafter be manifested through cultural texts. Regarding the internal discourses of “Diba Expedition” as cultural texts, the most prominent parts in the “structure of feelings” conveyed are the “love” that is full of delightful emotions as well as the playful sense of games. Such a “structure of feelings” originates from the social life experienced by the agents, in addition to the growth and educational background of this generation and their usage of the Internet. Beyond the structure, the process of structuring such feelings is equally significant. As previously mentioned, joint efforts from

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68  Zhe Wang national institutions and technology firms have been dedicated to shaping the “love” of pan-​entertainment. Since cyber-​nationalism can generate follow-​up influence not only externally but also internally, in order to ensure that it will not lose control internally, such an emergence of “structure of feelings” still needs constant control interventions from both domestic institutions and technology firms, as well as the incorporation of official media afterward. Those different parties have shaped an “intrinsic” tradition, meanwhile creating certain “enemies”. As Handelman (2007, pp. 119–​140) indicated when speaking of nationalism, emotions that can easily lose control in nationalism need to be rationally instrumentalized, which can also make nationalistic countries become a “machine of feelings” that can shape juveniles’ common sense of patriotism both at the macro and the micro level. If nationalism is seen as emotions that are bodily and sentimental, it cannot be isolated in practice from national administration work with a “brain” function. Generally speaking, cyber-​nationalism is still in its very nature a sort of imagination belonging to a common community, which is implemented into the terms and behavioral practices of various cyber communities. Completely different from previous cyberattacks regarding “hostility, hegemony and patriarchy”, the current cyber-​nationalism is more easily combined with the cyber subculture and implemented into “Diba Expedition” with emotional and playful forms of practice and performance. On the one hand, the main message templates the agents have chosen are filled with demands focused on positive emotions, addressing delightful “love” and veiling other complicated nationalistic feelings that are activated in chaotic comments. On the other hand, the active agents have adopted the action strategy of digital games, utilized the combination of numerical logic and rationality-​ emotionality existing in social media, and effectively organized a group of cyber citizens who have been seeking a satisfactory place between collectivization and individualization. From a holistic view, individual nationalistic feelings have been jointly shaped by the networked authoritarianism from national institutions and the commercial pursuit of pan-​entertainment from technology firms, and cyber-​nationalism can only arouse a large scale of spamming actions with its connections to the upbringing background and daily usage of the Internet from cyber citizens. Cyber-​nationalism such as “Diba Expedition” will never be merely a single case since its first occurrence. However, the regret for sure is that “Diba Expedition” this time has not achieved any social communication due to a lack of sincere conversations. Again, the wall of Internet control in China has differentiated the public cyber domain. The majority of fighters did not remain on the “battlefield” of Facebook:  “Dear everyone, maybe because I  am so unsophisticated and shy I  almost trapped myself when arguing about democracy with Taiwan independence advocators, thus I decided to quit Facebook, come on darlings, stand on your ground for your faith, and we will be proud of you for ever”. Respondents also suggested, “Train yourself in the Taiwan version of Tianya Forum first before coming back”. Fighters who once used VPN services have

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“We are all Diba members tonight” 69 returned to their cyber spaces they were familiar with, and the majority who have continued with their posts on Facebook are diaspora netizens. In addition, in the current study, “Diba Expedition” has also enabled researchers to reconsider the research methods related to cyber-​nationalism. “Diba Expedition” is just a single node in the line of time, and there have emerged a large number of nationalism communities and we-​media in the name of “Diba” on social media such as Facebook, Weibo, and so on. Besides “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces” and “Homesick”, more nationalistic discourses were constructed around education, democracy, and technology that were not prominent as those template comments. For instance, it is possible to see comments like “one country, two wisdoms”; the “Chinese economy has risen rapidly from a poor and weak state to a strong and prosperous status(…)They [referring to Taiwanese] have been receiving the education of ‘democracy’ ever since an early age, which must be better than ‘autocracy’. However, in fact, such ‘autocracy’ that they have been hating as what they have been taught in their education since an early age, is leading the entire Chinese nation to step rapidly forward to the top of the nation-​states”; “Why could Taiwanese be so proud of their access to Facebook? They even fail to develop any decent software by themselves, and they are feeling so great about themselves”. It is difficult to systematically capture and analyze these various cyber-​nationalism terms, which will also become a more specific topic for further prospective research.

Acknowledgments This work was supported by the Research Fund for the Humanities and Social Science Project of Chinese Ministry of Education (Grant No. 17YJC860025). The author also gratefully thanks Dr. Linchuan Jack Qiu and Dr. Pailin Chen for their helpful instructions and comments.

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70  Zhe Wang Lee, Chin-​chuan, & Huang, Yu (2003). Media construction of Chinese nationalism in the 1990s. Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies, 50,  49–​79. [李金铨、黄煜(2003)。90年代中国大陆民族主义的媒体建构。《台湾社会研究 季刊》, 第50期, 页49–​79。] Li, Yonggang (2008). The state-​run firewall: The logic behind Internet regulations in China. Twenty-​First Century, 4,  79–​87. [李永刚(2008)。国家防火墙:  中国互联网的监管逻辑。《二十一世纪》, 4月号, 页79–​87。]` Li, Chaomin, & Li, Li (2013). The postmodern discourses of Diaosi phenomenon. China Youth Study, 1,  13–​16. [李超民、李礼(2013)。“屌丝”现象的后现代话语检视。《中国青年研究》, 第1期, 页13–​16。] Luo, Yicheng, & Zhao, Pingxi (2012). The practice and rules of citizen participation in the collective action of burst the bar: 69 Holy War as an example. Modern Communication, 34(12),  22–​27. [罗以澄、赵平喜(2012)。“爆吧”集体行动中公民参与表达的实现及其规制—​—​ 以“69圣战”事件为例。《现代传播》, 第34(12)期, 页22–​27。] Yang, Guobin (2013). The power of the Internet in China:  Citizen activism online (Trans.). Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press. (Original work published 2009.) [杨国斌(2013)。《连线力:  中国网民在行动》, 邓燕华译。桂林:  广西师范大学出 版社。] Yingsanjiage (2015, December 2). Congratulations! Liyi Ba has more than 20 million fans. Retrieved from http://​tieba.baidu.com/​p/​4192611197. [英三嘉哥(2015年12月2日), 《【帝吧威武】恭贺李毅吧突破2000W粉丝》.检索于ht tp://​tieba.baidu.com/​p/​4192611197.] Zhang, Hao (1995). Liang Chi-​chao and intellectual transition in China (1890–​1907) (Trans.). Nanjing: Jiangsu People Press. (Original work published 1971.) 张灏(1995)。《梁启超与中国思想的过渡(1890–​1907)》, 崔志海、葛夫平译。南京: 江苏人民出版社。

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5  Memetic communication and consensus mobilization in the cyber nationalist movement Xiaoan Guo and Shaoting Yang*

Introduction As the imagined community (Anderson, 2005), the nation embodies the common feelings, memories, and value demands of groups, and the corresponding emotions are the “feelings of satisfaction” aroused by the fulfillment of principle, or the “feeling of anger” aroused by its violation (Gellner, 1983, p. 1). Xiao (1994) regarded nationalism as the strongest and most emotional ideology in the world. Therefore, a nationalist movement is accompanied by strong emotional expression and violent conflict (An &Yang, 2011; Chen, 2011; Yang &Wang, 2010), thus making the related emotions difficult to control. However, “Diba Expedition”, which happened at the beginning of 2016, is an illustration of another type: although there was intense emotional expression and catharsis in its mobilization process, it has been softened by memetic communication, and with strict discipline to achieve emotional control and emotional management. It is particularly important that memes were used in the campaign, both by the organization to provide a unified and large-​scale production, and also by the netizens to create personalized forums in a large number of political, cultural and hot spots of society, to a certain extent to achieve meaning construction, value transfer, education, admonition, and emotional communication. Based on the above discussion, this chapter attempts to analyze the strategies and effects of the memetic communication and consensus mobilization of “Diba Expedition” campaign from the static and dynamic dimensions and to provide a mobilization model as the new analytical framework for a cyber nationalist movement.

* Guo Xiaoan is a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the School of Journalism at Chongqing University. Yang Shaoting is a doctoral student majoring in press law at the School of Law at Chongqing University.

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Memetic communication 73

Literature review and research methods Meme: A new type of political participation and mobilization The word “meme” comes from the Greek minema, signifying “something imitated”. The term “mimema” was simplified to “meme” by the British biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, in which he formally put forward the concept of “meme”. Dawkins (2006/1976, p. 192) defined a meme as a small unit of cultural transmission, and the transmission process of meme is the transmission of language, ideas, beliefs, and behavior (Dawkins, 2006). Blackmore (1999), in The Meme Machine, examined the spread and evolution of culture from the perspective of the meme and summed up the cultural imitation and independent creation of memetic communication. Since then, more and more scholars have been looking into the cultural connotation of the Internet meme (such as Burgess, 2008; Knobel & Lankshear, 2007; Milner, 2012), and using the meme as a prism for understanding certain aspects of contemporary culture (Shifman, 2012). Lankshear and Knobel (2007, p. 202) describe a meme as “a particular idea presented as a written text, language ‘move’, or some other unit of culture ‘stuff’ ”. Compared with virality, memetic communication tends to reflect more of the initiation, creativity, and participation of users. The main difference between Internet memes and virals thus relates to variability:  whereas the viral comprises a single cultural unit (such as a video, photo, or joke) that propagates in many copies, an Internet meme is always a collection of texts (Shifman, 2013, p. 56). Carey (1989) summarizes the difference between the spread of virals and of memes as “communication as transmission and communication as ritual”. He pointed out that the function of ritual communication is not to reproduce information but to construct and represent some common beliefs. This type of communication emphasizes the sharing of values, symbols, and cultures. In this process, identity, senses of belonging, and value consensus are continually established and strengthened. It can be seen that meme is an important form of emotional communication and expression, including the user’s choice of tendencies and meaning construction as well as the projection of social mentality. There are scholars who have spread the function of memes from cultural sphere to social and political fields. Milner (2012) argues that the meme is a new form of political participation that constitutes spaces for the expression of different voices so that various opinions can be exchanged and negotiated. Shifman (2013, pp. 122–​123) makes the point that the Internet-​based political meme plays an important role in building universal values. Its use in political participation is reflected in three interwoven aspects: memes as forms of persuasion or political advocacy, memes as grassroots action, memes as modes of expression and public discussion. Jenkins (2006) argues that the operability of the meme comes from digital technology and participatory culture. Rentschler and Thrift (2015) took the “Binders Full of Women” meme as an example, finding that this feminist meme raised the political awareness of cyberspace

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74  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang and the speed of community establishment. Mina (2014) proposes the concept of “social change memes”, believing that the meme is a medium of political communication and social criticism. The Internet has greatly contributed to the study of the meme. Shifman (2013, p. 41) defined the Internet meme as: (a) a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and /​or stance, which (b)  were created with awareness of each other, and (c) were circulated, imitated, and/​or transformed via the Internet by many users. With the advent of the visual communication era, an increasing number of scholars are paying attention to the meme’s emotional mobilization function. Especially in social movements, the meme is considered as having the ability to reach cohesive consensus, unify participants, and empower action. Blair (2004) pointed out that the persuasion of image symbols will gradually replace more abstract text symbols. DeLuca (1999, p. 45) examined how radical environmental groups use images to promote discourse and pointed out that “images is more powerful than words in social mobilization”. Qiu (2015) coined the term “image-​driven nationalism” and observed that visual images play a significant role in Chinese cyber-​nationalism and cyber youth politics. In comparison, domestic research on the meme has just begun. This research topic is mainly focused on the introduction of the meme’s concept, features, and linguistics (Wu, 2009), with some researchers beginning to pay attention to the relationship between the meme and net-​speak (Cao & Jin, 2016), buzzwords (Zeng & Wei, 2016), and social psychology (Dou & Liu, 2013). However, few studies have considered the meme and political participation and social movements together. Some scholars have focused on symbolic resistance and visual communication, but there is no direct use of the meme as an analytical tool. Lei and Wang (2012), based on a study of “micro-​resistance” in popular culture, pointed out that within text, music, visual, and other forms of symbols, this resistance formed the current popular culture in China. Liu (2016) analyzed performing resistance through the context extracted from the semiotic matrix, suggesting that performing resistance is essentially a kind of image event, while underclass resistance with semiotic connotation presents to be visual resistance. Wang (2011) and Shi and Wu (2013) pointed out that image discourse has become a fixed repertoire in rights-​defending performing resistance. Cyber-​nationalism and consensus movement: Strategies and consequences The concept of consensus mobilization is derived from the consensus movements. Social movements are divided into two basic types: conflict movements and consensus movements (McCarthy & Wolfson, 1988). In general, conflict movements have a clear request that participants should provide financial or other resources and commitment to take action for the movement. These movements will face organized resistance in the process of trying to change the social structure, current policy, or to break the balance between each group. Consensus movements are characterized by public welfare, morality, and justice, and have a high degree

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Memetic communication 75 of emotional identity and generally obtain extensive support from more than 80 percent of the population in a certain community. There is less organized and sustained opposition, and sometimes this kind of movement will get support within the system, in the sense the consensus movement is a persuasive communication practice (McCarthy & Wolfson, 1988; McCarthy, Britt & Wolfson, 1991). Compared with conflict movements, consensus movements mainly focus on environmental protests, on defending rights, and on nationalism. It is easy to absorb resources from existing institutions, without the need for participants making large contributions. It is regarded as an ideal method of mobilization (McCarthy & Wolfson, 1988). However, consensus movements are prone to the dilemma of the “free rider”: it is difficult to mobilize the enthusiasm of participants in the movement, and to transfer the will to give support into practical action. It is challenging to obtain sustained motivation (Lofland, 1989). The traditional consensus movement is confined to a certain geographic space, and is generally “subsocial or subnational”, subject to various conditions. The consensus movement rarely reaches the national level, except in the case of a nationalist movement (McCarthy & Wolfson, cited in Morris, 2002). With the development of new technologies, the Internet has become both a mobilization tool and a place for the consensus movement. Especially in the case of cyber-​nationalism, it is a strong mobilization pattern that can use the convenience of the Internet to overcome the “free rider” problem. The coexistence of conflict movement and consensus movement is often transformed:  “the consensus movement may develop into a conflict movement, and the conflict movement will occasionally develop into consensus movement” (McCarthy & Wolfson, cited in Morris, 2002). Therefore, as a representative of consensus movements, the nationalist movement, which is not necessarily a persuasive communication-​based model of consensus, may transformed in some specific circumstances into violent resistance. A series of humiliating symbols in modern Chinese history such as “the Opium War”, the “Burning of the Imperial Palace”, the “ceding of territory and the pay of indemnities”, the “slaughtering of the Chinese”, the “Sick man of East Asia”, and “Japan’s war of aggression against China” became part of the collective memory, which created a national nationalist mentality of the “grief plot” (Zhu, 2007), leading to the coexistence of arrogance, xenophobia, and oversensitivity to a public mentality (Zhao & Yang, 2013). With the advent of the Internet, rather than diminish as a result of changes in the media, long-​ term internalized national emotions and collective memory have been intensified to some extent, leading to “group polarization” (Sunstein, 2001 /​2003, p. 50). As a result, cyber nationalist movements are always accompanied by intense discourse confrontation and “radical electronic contention” (Yang, 2013/2009, p. 36) The most common mobilization measures are “Baoba” (such as the bursting out of “Yang Chenlin’s Baidu post bar” in 2007, the “69 Jihad” event in 2010); network boycotts, including the boycott of a country’s goods (such as boycotts against Japanese products), a country’s company (such as the boycott against the Carrefour event in 2008), a country’s project (such as

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76  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang 80,000 netizens boycotting the Beijing-​Shanghai high-​speed rail that adopted Japanese Shinkansen technology in 2003), or a specific person (such as actor Dai Liren in the film There Is No Other Love directed by Zhao Wei in 2016); and a cyber signature boycott (such as a cyber petition against Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2005, some network organization launched” against the arbitration results issued by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on South China Sea Arbitration in 2016). A cyber nationalist movement may also vent negative emotions such as anger, hatred toward the “unspecified object”, and become an event for releasing anger events (Chen, 2009; Yu, 2013). Some people do not fully grasp the external information due to limitations in language, culture, and technology. Coupled with domestic contradictions, this kind of movement is prone to causing violence conflict in the name of the “patriotic” (Bu, 2011). In this regard, many scholars (Liu, 2016; Niu, 2013; Yu, 2013; Zhao, 2007) have proposed to “be particularly alert to populists’ manipulation of people’s patriotic enthusiasm”. Though they take place in the name of “patriotism”, nationalist events are mainly “social dissatisfaction expressed by the underclass” (Ye, 2010; Li, 2010; Zhao, 2013). Min (2009) looked at the cyber nationalist movement from an alternative perspective view, believing that netizens often resort to intense confrontation when involved in issues of national sovereignty or national interest. However, when facing cultural friction, netizens are more likely to spoof in the form of ridicule, disparage each other, including expressing contempt, swearing, and remixing images, audios, or videos. In general, the cyber nationalist movement is a complex model that is patriotism to other countries and real criticism domestically. Case selection and research methods The current chapter on cyber-​nationalism events is mainly focused on the two dimensions of “sympathy” and “anger” in the analysis of emotional motives. The research perspective is mainly concentrated in sociology and politics. The research topic is mainly limited to the macro level, such as the concept, characteristics, hazards, incentives, and governance of cyber-​ nationalism. There are few research studies that expose the dynamic process from the micro level. Based on the above, this chapter examines “Diba Expedition” event as a case study, describes and analyzes the mobilization process through memetic communication of this event, and extracts the elements and framework of the consensus mobilization. The reason why this case is selected is due to its high degree of self-​ organization, the unique way of participation, and the novel form of the mobilization process: participants in the campaign were organized by the passionate post-​1990s generation, and the method of participation was “using virtual private networks (VPNs) to expedition” and memetic communication. This event got rid of the traditional emotional and rational dichotomy in mobilization. It contained not only intense emotional expression but also emotional control

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Memetic communication 77 and emotional management under the political structure of opportunities. It has both an organizational, hierarchical system guarantee and a powerful process of resource mobilization. As to the research method, this chapter employs text analysis and the in-​ depth interview. First, to carry out the text analysis of “Diba Expedition”, we established an archival log. Second, we used the snowball sampling screening research method and randomly selected 21 students at the School of Journalism in Chongqing University as the initial interviewees. After conducting in-​depth interviews with them, we asked these 21 participants to recommend another 17 students who had participated in “Diba Expedition” and we conducted cyber interviews (by WeChat) with them. As the interviewees were in Taiwan, we commissioned six exchange students from Chongqing University who were studying in Taiwan to conduct a thorough questionnaire at their schools and districts nearby to identify 12 people who were participants in this event and were willing to engage in our in-​depth interview, and then we carried out cyber interviews (by WeChat) with them.

The production and metaphor of memes and the formation of consensus in “Diba Expedition” “Diba”, also called the “Baidu Louvre”, is the abbreviation of Li Yi’s (a former Chinese soccer player) Baidu post bar, which was founded in 2004, and has more than 20  million registered users. After ten years of development, “Diba” gradually developed into a cradle of a network subculture from a soccer player’s Baidu post bar, which launched several “holy wars” on the Internet. “Diba goes to battle, nothing will grow” is its most famous slogan. The tipping point of this event is the mainland actor Lin Gengxin making fun of Zhou Ziyu’s apology video “there is not enough time to recite draft” on his Sina Weibo page, which caused Taiwan netizens to collectively lay siege to Lin’s Facebook page. At 20:00 on January 20, 2016, the “expeditioners” organized by “Diba” jumped the Great Firewall to flood the official Facebook pages of Sanlih E-​ Television, Apple Daily, Liberty Times, Tsai Ing-​Wen, and Ho Wan-​see with pro-​China comments. This action ended with Sanlih E-​Television, Apple Daily, and Tsai Ing-​Wen deleting their posts. Compared with the violent nationalist actions in the past, “Diba Expedition” resulted in a different effect by using the memetic communication strategy and creating a visual impact comments. The form, content, and structure elements of memes A meme is made up of a specific form, content, and structure. Memes in “Diba Expedition” comprise two types: image macros made up of “image + text” and text only. The content of memes contains political and popular cultural elements, and these become political memes and culture memes. In the visual era, this kind of communication within text and popular culture has

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78  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang more transmissibility. “Pictures contribute to the visual image structure of the discourse, concise slogans are conducive to the understanding and cognition of visual image, and the recreation of familiar stars, cartoon images contain the meaning of a prototype narrative” (Tang, 2016). The political meme is a new type of political participation that provides a large space for the expression of different sounds, allowing different opinions and understanding to be negotiated (Milner, 2012). The materials of political memes production in this event are mainly retrieved from political propaganda paintings, which are full of themes from the early days of the People’s Republic of China. Some examples are “Do not mess with me, I have a hundred kinds of ways to let you stand on the patriotic united front with me”; “If we still have any slightest connection, probably we are the successors of socialism”; “I live at one head of the Yangtze River while you live at the tail. Day after day of missing you, but you are not in view. Let’s build a socialist new countryside together”. While at Tsai Ing-​Wen’s official Facebook page, Diba expeditioners using “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces” and its English edition as weapons to swamp her official Facebook page. As for why “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces” was chosen, one interviewee explained, “Those administrators of the QQ groups made the decision after discussion. In fact, we cannot recite ‘Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces’ completely, but its first sentence: ‘honor to the love for the motherland, shame to the harm to the motherland’, which is quite simple and straightforward. This is what we want to tell Taiwan’s pro-​ independence that China is a unified country, and allowed no secession”. It can be seen that this is a rational consideration under the specific political opportunity structure to produce political memes, which extract elements from political propaganda slogans and mainstream ideology that can create value identity and avoid the political risk of jumping the “Great Firewall”. A culture meme is not only a form of emotional interaction, but also has the ability of to suggest an admonition. Shifman (2013, p. 54) suggested that memes will be more humorous, entertaining, and attract more fans if they are integrated with popular cultural elements. In this event, examples of the production of memes derived from cultural resources are as follows: 1) poems looking forward to Taiwan’s return to the motherland, such as the poem “Homesick,” by the poet Yu Kwang-​chung, and the “Song of Seven Sons” by Wen Yiduo; 2) introduction to the history of Taiwan, such as the different names from dynasty to dynasty; 3) touching discourse, the “expeditioners” created a series of emotional words: “Wan Wan, the Spring Festival is coming, do you want to go home with me to have New Year’s Eve dinner together” and “You are still messing around, but as an older brother, I have never changed my love for you”. In addition to the text, the “expeditioners” also used image macros created from a large number of popular elements, ranging from popular stars, to hotshots in TV series and comics, such as Huang Zitao, Er Kang, Kumamom, the Teletubbies, Jacky Cheung, Mr. Kim, and so on. The artist Huang Zitao (“Wuli Tao Tao”) has been described as “the biggest winner”, as the “general of image macros”, and a “national hero” in the “image macros wars”. His

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Memetic communication 79 Table 5.1 The form, content, and structural elements of memes in “Diba Expedition”

I

II

III

Image

Text

stars’ exaggerated stills, performance photos or cartoon images. For instance: Huang Zitao, Er Kang, Jacky Cheung, Kumamom, Mr. Kim and so on. political propaganda paintings full of era sensation and mainland China characteristics

network catchwords, playing words For instance: “Er Kang will keep you company to the end”; “I will not easily go die”; “I am confident that your population can’t rival my image macros”; “I stepped forward hit them with one Tao Te Ching”.

yummy delicacies and scenery photos of mainland China

political propaganda slogans, network catchwords For instance: “If we still have any slightest connection, probably we are the successors of socialism”; “All I mean is that not only the United States but also all of you here are rubbish”; “Do not mess with me, I have a hundred kinds of ways to let you stand on the patriotic united front with me” friendly invitation, playing words For instance: “I treat you to barbecue/​spicy shrimp/​Cross Bridge Rice Noodles”;“There are so many yummy delicacies in the motherland, do you really refuse to come back?”; “Shanghai /​Ningbo /​Chengdu /​Wuhan can’t afford to tea eggs “

“I will not easily go die” memes instantly went viral due to the exaggerated facial expressions they displayed. Generally speaking, memes in “Diba Expedition” event are made in the form of “image + text”, and mainly divided into three categories: The type and metaphor of meme A meme has the function of meaning construction, as Melucci (1994, pp. 109–​ 110) said:  “In the information society, the production and competition of meaning seems to become the center of contemporary social conflict”. The parties involved in the campaign of making image macros were also part of the campaign of discourse power in this event. Memes used in the “expedition” are image macros made in the form of “image + text”; they comprise visual codes and verbal codes. The visual codes, the pictures, focus on playing and ridiculing, while the verbal codes, the texts, focus on metaphor, reasoning, and expressing opinions. Through choosing a large number of corpora from image macros to research microcosmically, it was found that the results show mainly three types of verbal codes: educate and admonish, satire and irony, attack and threaten.

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80  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang Educate and admonish This kind of meme in the narrative highlighted a condescending attitude and authority as the “father”, “brother”, or “commander”. Some memes introduce the different names of Taiwan in different dynasties, “the Three Kingdoms period(…)Yizhou (Taiwan); the Sui dynasty(…)Ryukyu (Taiwan); the Yuan dynasty(…)Penghu(Taiwan); the Qing dynasty(…) The Taiwan prefecture”, aiming to point out that Taiwan is Chinese territory from ancient times. Some memes embody a condescending admonition in the discourse style, for example:  “Brother, do not let yourself be fooled by monsters”; “Get out, you are not my son any more”; “Shame on you for forgetting who your father is”; “Dad feels disappointed in you for doing disgraceful things outside all day long”; “The special expression for a Chinese father watching his Taiwan son”; “Who allows you to talk to me (the emperor) in that way?” The narratives behind “brother and brother”, “father and son”, and “king and courtiers” imply a reaffirmation of the relationship between central and local, a whole and its parts. Satire and irony These kinds of memes are mainly used to attack or counterattack in a satirical way, for instance, comparing the population in Taiwan with the number of Huang Zitao’s image macros, fans of a pet dog named Niu Niu in Sina Weibo, or Lin Gengxin’s 28.54 million fans: “With respect, the population in Taiwan can’t rival the number of my image macros”; “Your population [of Taiwan] is less than the fans of a dog”; “Ban him (Lin Gengxin)? but your population [of Taiwan] is less than his fans”. Diba expeditioners encoded their attitude by saying, “Hi, Taiwanese; I’m Zhejiangnese” when people who support the independence of Taiwan call themselves “Taiwanese”. In order to respond to a professor in Taiwan who said mainland Chinese can’t afford to tea eggs, expeditioners Photoshopped the night scene of many cities with texts: “Shanghai /​Ningbo /​Chengdu /​Wuhan can’t afford to tea eggs”. This kind of ironic word making and sentence making with a flood comments created a formidable momentum. Attack and threaten These kinds of memes with fighting words are mainly aimed at Taiwan’s pro-​ independence supporters. The fighting atmosphere can be seen in the expedition slogan, “Diba goes to battle, nothing will grow”, and texts in image macros, such as “swat you to death by a manure scoop”; “hitting you to death with a bag”; “do you need watering your head?”; “do you believe that I will strangle you to death?”; “beat me if you have the ability”. On the one hand, words reflecting a personal attack express anger toward people who support the independence of Taiwan and the determination to reduce their arrogance. On the other hand, in this mode of presentation, image macros made up of “image+ text” softened the fighting atmosphere to a certain extent.

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Memetic communication 81 Process of organized production and resource mobilization of memes The success or failure of consensus movement depends not only on emotional mobilization and meaning construction but also on the ability to mobilize social resources and establish an efficient organization. The resources of social movement are mainly about moral resources, cultural resources, social organization resources, human resources, and material resources (Edwards & McCarthy, 2004). Due to having successfully planned several large-​scale “expeditions” before Diba, the organizer and leader of this campaign, was able to form a transaction team combining hierarchy and function with fairly efficient network mobilization (Chen & Lin, 2016). The organization mobilization of this event is mainly reflected in the following aspects: Human resources mobilization Organizers associated with several social networks, such as Douban, Tianya, Anime Comic Fun, bilibili, and so on, absorbed a large number of participants through online recruitment, and assigned them to different groups in accordance with different needs. In the in-​depth interview, the interviewees said that some of them got the “expedition” information from Diba, some of them from Sina Weibo: “Diba decided to set out an expedition to Facebook for the arrogant Taiwan’s pro-​independence on it! Now we are recruiting members who have powerful image macros, outstanding literary talent, masterful Photoshop skills, or are filled with determination in defeating Taiwan’s pro-​independence”. The QQ groups reached a maximum combined number quickly. Some interviewees said, “Every QQ group was packed with participants, I  had no way to join them, so have only to be a bystander through Douyu, bilibili, and Sina Weibo”. Organization mobilization The organization of social movements plays an important role in linking social groups, mobilizing participants, disseminating information, and other aspects (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). Compared with the scattered participants of the nationalist movement, as happened in the past, this “expedition” carried out extensive mobilization and has a fine division of labor. “Expeditioners” communicated with each other through the QQ groups, and administrators of groups enforced strict discipline and defined divisions and guiding rules to regulate behavior. There were two QQ groups and one “front-​line troop” in the “Expedition” team, and each QQ group was divided into six columns, with each column taking a different responsibility: Technology mobilization The cyber-​nationalism movement is facing high barriers of technology, culture, and politics. Because the expedition area is Facebook, which is a foreign social media, the textual materials written in Chinese need to be translated and the “expedition weapon” needs to be produced. The mobilization trajectory

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82  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang

Figure 5.1 Organizational structure of “Diba Expedition”.

was as follows: on the one hand, the third column is in charge of producing weapons, or the image macros. Members who have no Photoshop skills in this column took responsibility for selecting pictures and textual materials related to anti-​Taiwan independence for image macros. Then, members who could use Photoshop produced image macros with those materials. Finally, they uploaded the packaged image macros to the QQ groups for the “expeditioners”. The image macros included more than ten types, such as Huang Zitao, Jacky Cheung, Mr. Kim, Er Kang, Kumamom, Teletubbies, socialism, and so on. The contents of the text include multilanguage versions of “Homesick”, an anti-​ Taiwan independence statement, a description of the “Zhou Ziyu” incident, Chinese and English versions of “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces”, and so on. On the other hand, limited by the Internet censorship, mainland China netizens have to use VPNs to access most Western social media sites. Therefore, the QQ groups added another column named “technology”, for which the main duties included sharing VPNs, providing Facebook accounts, and verifying the

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Memetic communication 83 Table 5.2 The division of labor in each column division of labor

concrete content

1

intelligence collection

2

4

propaganda and mobilization “expedition” weapon production translation

5

promotion

6

Cantonese translation

collecting remarks and pictures of Taiwan’s pro-​ independence movement recruiting participants from social networks, Baidu post bars, online groups making graphics or image macros about anti-​Taiwan independence In order to expand influence, a translation team formed by overseas students takes the responsibility to translate textual materials into English, Japanese, Korean, German, French, and Classical Chinese versions. clicking “like” and commenting posts for “our troops”, and guiding them to the Facebook pages of Taiwan’s pro-​independence movement translating textual materials into Cantonese

3

Table 5.3 The form of consensus weapons

time slogan profile picture

targets rules

image macros, Homesick, Song of Seven Sons, Ode to the mother, Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces, core socialist values, quotations from chairman Mao Zedong, anti-​Taiwan independence statement, and so on 7 pm January 21, 2016 Diba goes to battle, nothing will grow A white China map on a black background, writing in both English and Chinese: “TWAIWAN BELONGS TO MY COUNTRY 台湾属于我国; Taiwan is an inalienable part of China 台湾是中国不可分割的一部分“ the Facebook pages of Apple Daily, Sanlih E-​Television, Tsai Ing-​ Wen, and so on 1. no dirty words; 2. post no insulting, pornographic pictures, nor leaders’ photos; 3. anti-​Taiwan independence only, no people of Taiwan; 4. obey orders in all actions

safety of external links. When talking about the organizational structure of the “Expedition”, one interviewee said, “During the expedition, netizens from QQ groups, Sina Weibo, and WeChat shared technical guidance about how to jump the Great Firewall and VPNs”. Another interviewee said, “I would like to join the expedition group at first, unfortunately, due to the increasing number of participants and a lot of VPNs being banned, I failed to bypass the firewall”. After the human resources mobilization, organization mobilization, and technology mobilization, the expedition reached a basic consensus about the targets, methods, slogan, battlefields, and rules of attack. At the same time, Diba members were mostly active at other post bars, so they became intergroup nodes in different communities. The approach to common organization

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84  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang mobilization and expression as a group also affected the participation of other communities, which expanded the scope of consensus.

The formation of strategy adjustment and persuasive communication in “Diba Expedition” The nature of consensus mobilization is a persuasive communication practice. Klandermans (cited in Morris, 2002) divides the mobilization of social movements into “consensus movement” and “action movement”: the former is defined as the effort of a social actor consciously to create a consensus in a certain subgroup of the whole group; the latter refers to those who activate the position and opinions of the movement, namely the legalization of specific methods and actions. In the early stage of the “expedition”, facing the opponents’ “countermemes”, “Diba expeditioners” proposed several strategies to counterattack, such as watermarking the image macros, flooding posts with “strong memes”, webcasting to achieve momentum, and so on. In the later stage, emotion was intensified due to the appearance of topics changing and “communication-​oriented memes”. Countermemes and image macros with watermark Memes are divided into memes and countermemes. Manufacturing “countermemes” is done to resist the memes created by a certain group, and countermemes have subversive characteristics (Shifman, 2013, p.  136). Competition and game playing between memes and countermemes during the period of expedition can be clearly found. For instance, when the “expeditioners” used educate and admonish image macros that embodied the patriarchy and hegemony of premodern discourse, netizens of Taiwan in return responded with modern discourse such as democracy, rule of law, and freedom. Not only that, they counterattacked with “countermemes” produced by imitation, reference, and direct copy. It appears that, flooded by image macros, Sanlih E-​ Television posted an image macro stolen from expeditioners: “Er Kang doesn’t mind keeping your company to the end”. In order to avoid memes being oppositionally decoded by “countermemes”, the rules stated quite definitely that participants should “post no insulting pictures nor leaders’ photos”. When memes were stolen, and used by counterparts, the strategies that “expeditioners” adopted was to watermark the image macros to assert sovereignty; stamp photos along with captions, such as “Chinese Only”, “People’s Republic of China Only”, “mainland father only”, “made in China”, “special stamp of Diba fight with Taiwan pro-​ independence”; and so on. In addition to counterattacking expeditioners’ image macros, avoiding picture censorship was also a method of “countermemes”. Due to being flooded with image macros, Tsai Ying-​wen closed the picture comments function of her official Facebook page. In order to cope with that, expeditioners invented

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Memetic communication 85 the “pure text meme”—​imitated and produced with the “text + image format”, such as “Rong Momo needling.gif”, “Anut Xue’s taunt face.jpg”, “French belittle. jpg”. These comments with “file name” triggered another round of spam in an orderly way. The formation of strong memes Like genes, the replication of meme goes through the process of variation, competition, selection, and retention. Only those that adapt to the social environment and culture can be communicated successfully, and others will be eliminated. In general, image macros that are full of playfulness, humor, and are integrated with pop culture elements are more likely to become “strong memes”, which leads to “viral infection”. When discussing Internet strong memes, Cao Jin and Jin Yan (2016) pointed out that emotion memes easily become strong memes due to their humor, convenient-​to-​imitate quality, irony, polite characteristics, and so on. In the Meme Machine, Blackmore (1999) makes the point that, in the process of being reproduced, namely through evolution, memes face tremendous selection pressure and fierce competition. Only a few of them can be successfully copied from one person’s mind to another’s. These survivors are strong memes or success memes. During “Diba Expedition”, the image macros of Huang Zitao and Mr. Kim stood out from dozens of others and became strong memes. Some people even described Huang Zitao (“Wuli Tao Tao”) as “the biggest winner”. His “I will not easily go die” memes instantly went viral due to the exaggerated facial expressions they contained. Shifman (2013, pp. 89–​94) suggested that strong memetic photos share two prevalent features:  image juxtaposition, which refers to the people featured in memetic photos appearing to be out of context, and frozen motion, which refers to those who are captured during an intense movement that is “frozen in time” through photography. In the Diba campaign, Huang Zitao’s exaggerated performance photos showed obvious characteristics of frozen motion. “Hosts” exercised their creativity in imitating and recirculating Huang Zitao’s pictures with vivid and interesting captions, for instance, “I am confident that your population can’t rival my image macros”; “Don’t let me to pay for the upkeep for you”; or remixing the original pictures—​mostly using Photoshop to repack and imitate—​to transplant Huang Zitao’s face into Rage Comic along with captions like “go die”, “you, don’t stop rap”, and so on. Mr. Kim’s exaggerated smiling face in the Mr. Kim VS Mr. Kim VS Mr. Kim serial was screen-​captured by expeditioners and Photoshopped words—​“哈哈哈哈 (laugh out loud)” to this “frozen motion”; captions were added while remixing, to produce a “professor version” and a “nurse version” along with playful words. It can thus be seen that the original pictures of the “strong memes” in this campaign gradually became more entertaining and humorous in the development of memes.

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86  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang

Figure 5.2 Strong memes and their variants.

Classification and “communication-​oriented memes” In addition to memes of attack and satire, the emergence of “communication-​ oriented memes” was the turning point of “Diba Expedition”. Jakobson (1960) proposed the “verbal communication theory”, in which he pointed out six basic functions of human communication: referential, emotive, conative, phatic, metalingual, and poetic. On this basis, Shifman (2013, pp. 41–​40) proposed the concept of a “communication-​oriented meme”, considering it as a medium of communication, with the meme process having the function of imparting information and emotion. Since mainland China and Taiwan are a homology and separated only by a strip of water, the consensus before the expedition was classification, attacking people who support the independence of Taiwan only and promoting emotional communication with Taiwan compatriots who did not belong to the pro-​independence movement. In the interview, when asked “why this expedition was not malicious as usual?”, one interviewee explained, “The compatriots on both sides are bound together like brothers, the expeditioners will certainly treat them in different ways. In addition to attacking people who support the independence of Taiwan, we cannot forget that our fundamental goal is to pull our compatriots back. Accordingly, we won’t treat them like expedition to Japan, South Korea online with dirty words”. Therefore, at the end of the expedition, the “expeditioners” began to promote emotional communication with Taiwan netizens, including playing jokes with image macros, sharing them, explaining the mainland’s local customs and practices, promoting the scenery and delicious food, talking about TV series and life, and even carry out blind dates. Some expeditioners posted photos of delicious meals: “I treat you to the fish with Chinese sauerkraut”; “I treat

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Memetic communication 87 you to hot pot”; “I treat you to Lanzhou hand-​pulled noodles”; “Wan Wan, the mainland China treat you to dinner”; and so on. Some posted photos of gorgeous tourism spots: “I come from Shaanxi province, I represent my family and hometown to invite sincerely all Taiwan compatriots to be our guests. The scenery here will certainly make you unable to tear yourself away from them. This is my home, also your home”. Subsequently, the “expeditioners” changed the “Shaanxi” to their hometown “Zhejiang /​Guangdong /​Sichuan /​Hubei” in succession, along with tourism spots. There were also people who used remixed discourse to express concern and warmth: “Listen, people of Taiwan, no matter what political proposition, wear more clothes, it is cold outside. Taiwan media Etttoday reported, “It had been thought that the recent political issues will make the Facebook a Diba te area between cross-​strait netizens, counter to expectation, it became place of exchanging food”.1 When talking about the most impressive thing in this cross-​strait interaction, one participant told Phoenix New Media, “Once I quarreled with a young man from Taiwan, he said that Taiwan is a country, then I  started to quote from the classics and discussed with other students from the community. Somehow, we began to discuss how Taiwan and mainland could unite. The topic became what they cannot accept in mainland, and I explained and analysis of the pros and cons to him. Finally, he said, he hopes one day he will take a trip to the mainland and play with us”.2 One Taiwan interviewee told us, “I found that after the ‘expedition’, some Taiwan netizens appeared in Sina Weibo to do further communication with the mainlanders, it is quite interesting to become friends after a quarrel. In short, a variety of flexibility mobilization strategies were used in “Diba Expedition”. Three types of verbal codes:  educate and admonish, satire and irony, attack and threaten, were used to attack people who support the independence of Taiwan; “strong memes” were used to counterattack “countermemes”; and “communication-​oriented memes” were used to communicate with Taiwan compatriots who were not pro-​independence.

Conclusion and reflection The cyber-​nationalism movement is facing high barriers of technology, culture, and politics. Because of distance and uncertain targets, the fury of passion and public outrage will easily break out at home. Especially in the background of serious class differentiation, social contradictions, and underclass dissatisfaction, the cyber-​nationalism movement can be easily combined with populism, triggering violent clashes and even social indulgence. The logic of the rumors exposed in the Soulstealers by Philip Alden Kuhn is equally applicable to nationalism. In some cases, because the less power a group wields, the more erratic power they favor, nationalist sentiment may become the “weapon of the weak”. Moreover, the ideology of nationalism appears to offer a natural sense of security, which brings participants the illusion of exercising power. Therefore, the nationalist movement will be transformed into retaliation and profit-​making action in the name of “legal” and “patriotic”.

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88  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang However, “Diba Expedition”, as a cyber nationalist movement, presented another scene:  it achieved consensus mobilization by adopting the memetic communication strategy, hiding expression in playful symbols, producing memes on a large scale, counterattacking with countermemes, spamming with strong memes, and topics changing with “communication-​oriented memes”. It should be pointed out that in the era of media and a scarcity of attention, consensus mobilization is not only found in human, material, and organizational resources, but is also reflected in symbolic presentation and meaning construction. Memetic communication is no doubt a magic weapon to attract attention, and it is also close to the expression of the young generation, which always use playing words. It can be predicted that the young generation will form their own logic of collective action and become a political force that cannot be ignored. The limitations of memetic communication should be paid attention to:  first, flooding social media with posts through a huge-​crowd strategy poses enormous challenges in the mobilization of human resources, material resources, and organization. What is more, participants are easily caught in the image carnival due to selective memory about the images and the selective filtering of texts. As DeLuca (2006, p. 87) says, “In the ceaseless circulation of images, speed annihilates contemplation, distraction disrupts attention, affect eclipses meaning, the glance replaces the gaze, reiteration erases originals, and the public screen displaces the public sphere”. Second, different subcultural digital memetic backgrounds hinder the depth of interaction and political communication. Creating and understanding memes requires complex “meme literacy” (Milner, 2012): that is, based on the subculture derived from the meme rules and paradigms, some meme genres can be understood and created by almost anyone, while others require a deep understanding of the digital meme subculture (Shifman, 2013, p. 100). The differences and barriers in the culture background can undoubtedly lead to a communication gap. Nine interviewees from Taiwan directly pointed out that they found it difficult to understand the meaning of image macros, which seemed interesting but odd. And another two Taiwan interviewees thought the approach of spamming with posts “was not polite, and difficult to understand”. It can be seen that this kind of playing with the display of collective symbols and their visual impact reflects from another way that participants lack rational and depth interaction. The results may be “symbols produce unchecked and become signifier spree of copy—​paste, and the expressive effect will disappear during the process” (Chen & Lin, 2016). Therefore, how to avoid the entertainment and playing level, and step into in-​depth communication, not only requires the enhancement of participants’ rational communication awareness, but also depends on the system design and strategy at the national level. It must be clear that if the Internet public sphere is limited excessively and blocked, gentle cyber-​nationalism may translate into conflict movement.

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Notes 1 What are the mainland China netizens’ favorite flooding posts? Loads of mutton and bread pieces in soup and hometown dishes. 2016.1.21, Et today, http://​www.ettoday. net/​news/​20160121/​634784.htm. 2 What is the expression of taking part in an image macros war on Facebook? Narrative by the Diba’s “soldier”.2016.1.21, Phoenix New Media, http://​news.ifeng. com/​a/​20160121/​47164977_​0.shtml.

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90  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang Liu, Qiang (2016). The international and domestic harm of online populist. People’s Tribune, 13,  34–​36. [刘强(2016)。网络民粹主义国际与国内危害。《人民论坛》, 13, 34–​36。] Liu, Tao (2016). Visual resistance:  the structure of the repertoires and the symbolic matrix in the performing resistance. Journal of Northwest Normal University (Social Sciences), 4,  5–​15. [刘涛(2016)。视觉抗争:表演式抗争的剧目结构与符号矩阵。《西北师大学报》(社 会科学版), 4,  5–​15。] Min, Dahong (2009). The observation and analysis on Chinese online nationalism—​ With the relations of Sino-​Japanese and Sino-​Korea. China Computer-​Mediated Communication Studies, 3, 131–​143. [ 闵 大 洪 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 。 对 中 国 网 络 民 族 主 义 的 观 察 、 分 析 — ​—​ 以中日、中韩关系为对象。《中国网络传播研究》, 131–​143.] Shi, Yibin, & Wu, Dingming (2013):  The struggle of the image discourse:  From the perspective of civil society theory. Wuhan University Journal (Humanity Sciences), 4, 109–​113. [ 石 义 彬 、 吴 鼎 铭 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 。 影 像 话 语 的 抗 争 — ​—​ 以公民社会理论为视角。《武汉大学学报》(人文科学版), 4, 109–​113。] Tang, Jingtai (2016). Political participation and collective action of the online community: take “expression package wars “as a case. Journalism Bimonthly, 3, 96–​101. [ 汤 景 泰 ( 2 0 1 6 ) 。 网 络 社 群 的 政 治 参 与 与 集 体 行 动 — ​—​ 以FB“表情包大战”为例。《新闻大学》, 3, 96–​101。] Wang, Hexin (2011). The image struggle—​A case study of Yihuang demolitions event. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication, 6,  28–​34. [王贺新(2011)。影像抗争—​—对 ​ “宜黄强拆事件”的个案研究。《国际新闻界》, 6, 28–​34。] Wu, Yanqiong (2009):  A review of the research on the theory of the memetics for the last five years in China. Journal of Fuzhou University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), 3,  81–​84. [吴燕琼(2009)。国内近五年来模因论研究述评。《福州大学学报》(哲学社会科 学版), 3, 81–​84。] Xiao, Gongqin (1994). Nationalism and ideology during the period of transition in China. Strategy and Management, 4,  21–​25. [萧功秦(1994)。民族主义与中国转型时期的意识形态。《战略与管理》, 4, 21–​25。] Yang, G. B. (2013). The power of the Internet in China: citizen activism online. (Trans.) Nanning: Guangxi Normal University Press (Original work published 2009). [杨国斌(2013)。《连线力:  中国网民在行动》(邓燕华译)。南宁:广西师范大学出版 社(原著出版于2009年)。] Yang, Feilong, & Wang, Jun (2010). Mobilization and guidance of Chinese popular nationalism in cyberspace. Heilongjiang National Series, 1, 23–​29. [杨飞龙, 王军(2010)。网络空间下中国大众民族主义的动员与疏导。《黑龙江民族 丛刊》(01), 23–​29。] Ye, Min (2010). The Internet and the development of democratic politics in China: Opportunities and challenges. Forward Position, 23, 24–​28. [叶敏(2010)。互联网与中国民主政治发展: 机遇与挑战。《前沿》, 23, 24–​28。] Yu, Jianrong (2013). The dilemma of public participation in the media age: a case study of the major group evens in 2012. Journal of Shanghai University (Social Sciences Edition), 4,  1–​8.

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English references Anderson, B. (2005). Imagined communities:  Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (Trans). Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House. (Original work published 1983.) Blackmore, S. (1999). The meme machine. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Blair, J. A. (2004). The rhetoric of visual arguments. In C. A. Hill and M. Helmers (Eds.), Defining visual rhetoric. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Burgess, J. (2008) All your chocolate rain are belong to us? Viral video, YouTube and the dynamics of participatory culture. In G. Lovink & S. Niederer (Eds.), Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube (pp. 101–​ 109). Amsterdam:  Institute of Network Cultures. Carey, J. W. (1989). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. Boston, MA: Hyman. Dawkins, R. (2006). The selfish gene. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1976.) DeLuca, K. M. (1999). Image politics:  The new rhetoric of environmental activism. Mahwah, NJ: Guilford Press. DeLuca, K. M. (2006). The speed of immanent images:  The dangers of reading photographs. In D. S. Hope (Ed.), Visual communication: Perception, rhetoric, and technology (pp. 79–​90). New York, NY: Hampton Press. Edwards, B., & McCarthy, J. (2004). Resources and social movements mobilization. In D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, & H. Kriesi (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to social movements (pp.116–​152). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

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92  Xiaoan Guo, Shaoting Yang Jakobson, R. (1960). Closing statement:  Linguistics and poetics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, NY: New York University Press. Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2007). A new literacies sampler. New  York, NY: Peter Lang. Lofland, J. (1989). Consensus movements:  City twinning and derailed dissent in the American eighties. Research in Social Movements:  Conflict and Change, 11, 163–​196. McCarthy, J. D., & Wolfson, M. (1988). Exploring sources of rapid social movement growth: The role of organizational form, consensus support, and elements of the American State. Paper presented at the workshop on Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, Ann Arbor, MI, June 8–​10. McCarthy, J. D., Britt, D. & Wolfson, M. (1991) The institutional channeling of social movements by the State in the United States. In L. Kriesberg (Eds.), Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change.Vol. 13. (pp. 45–76). Greenwich Conn.: JAI Press Inc. McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1977). The trend of social movements in America. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Corporation. Melucci, A. (1994). A strange kind of newness: What’s “new” in new social movements? Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Milner, R. (2012). The world made meme: Discourse and identity in participatory media (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. Mina, An Xiao (2014). Batman, Pandaman and the Blind Man:  A case study in social change memes and Internet censorship in China. Journal of Visual Culture, 13(3): 359–​375. Morris, A. D. (2002). Frontiers in social movement theory (Trans.). Beijing:  Peking University Press. (Original work published 1992.) Niu, Hongbao (2013). National nationalism and cultural nationalism:  Trends of Chinese nationalism in 2012. People’s Tribune, 3,18–​19. Qiu, Jack (2015). Go baobao! Image-​driven nationalism, generation post-​1980s, and mainland students in Hong Kong. Positions:  East Asia Cultures Critique, 23(1), 145–​165. Rentschler, C. A., & Thrift, S. C. (2015). Doing feminism in the network: Networked laughter and the “Binders Full of Women” meme. Feminist Theory, 16(3): 329–​359. Shifman, L. (2012). An anatomy of a YouTube meme. New Media & Society, 14(2), 187–​203. Shifman, L. (2013). Memes in digital culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sunstein, C. (2003). Popublic com (Trans.). Shanghai:  Shanghai People’s Publishing House. (Original work published 2001.)

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6  Collective action as interaction ritual in cyberspace Guoqiang Liu*

Introduction After Tsai Ing-​wen claimed victory in the Taiwan presidential election, “Liyi Bar”, the giant of Baidu Tieba, declared “FB Holy War” by bombarding Facebook fan pages of such Taiwan pro-​independence mediums as SET News and Apple Daily, in which the online expeditioners of the online community Diba were major fighters. It was also known as Diba Expedition because one must circumvent Internet censorship for posting, and the “FB Emoji War” used a lot of eye-​catching emoji packages in the action. As a collective action in cyberspace, it means a lot in terms of collective mobilization, intergroup conflict, self-​ identification, social cognition and so on, leading to many different comments and even conflicts. Thus, in what way does collective action in cyberspace like this happen? And how does it relate to social realistic views and power structures? This chapter gives an explanation of this action by adopting the interaction ritual theory proposed by Durkheim, Goffman, and Collins.

Theoretical framework and concept definition Based on Durkheim’s religious sociology theory, social ritual theory was developed by Erving Goffman, Anne Warfield Rawls, Randall Collins and David Kertzer. Rawls claimed that Durkheim’s social empiricism focused on the relationship between the group participants in ritual society and the social process in which they acted (Rawls, 1996, p. 482). Since then, scholars in many different fields have begun to study how religious rites work on social solidarity. It was Goffman who first applied this idea to daily life. By analyzing the microcosmic social process of social solidarity, Collins developed a complete interactive ritual theory (Heider & Warner, 2010, p. 78). In his opinion, interactive ritual theory provides an explanation of the changes in individual motivation from one context to another, and what social life all about is the circumstances that people experience in daily life. Therefore, this is a powerful * Guoqiang Lio is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, [email protected].

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Figure 6.1 Model of Collins’ interaction ritual theory.

and widely used model on what will happen in these contexts (Collins, 2009, pp. 79–​81). Figure  6.1 shows a model diagram of Collins’ interaction ritual theory designed by Craig Matheson (Matheson, 2016, p. 3). The model diagram above presents the collective effervescence of high-​ intensity factors through the external stimulus of emotion based on group aggregation, intragroup emotional reinforcement, intergroup boundary, and other ceremonial elements, which gives rise to collective unity, individual emotional energy, the sacred, and moral standards. On the basis of this model, this chapter mainly interprets Diba Expedition through the analysis of related news and participants’ discourse and the emoticons they use, combined with the interpretation of discourse patterns. Although the interaction ritual theory is based on the presence of individual bodies in the collective ceremony, its collective action in cyberspace is still well illustrated. The concept of “ritual” in this chapter refers to normal and repetitive symbolization in general sense (Kertzer, 2015, p. 13). Several other important concepts are also explained here. The name of this event is “Diba Expedition”, and Diba corresponds to Tieba, instead of its original name, “Liyi Bar”. Tieba belongs to a network community. However, given the collective participants and their remarkably unanimous behavior in the event, and the fact that it will be discussed in this chapter just once, it is described here as a “collective action” rather than “collective behavior” or “group behavior”, while the following analysis also involves the concept of

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Collective action as interaction ritual 95 “group” or “behavior”. Guided by the interaction ritual theory, this chapter analyzes identity consciousness, the motive mechanism, and the discourse logic of collective action.

Identity consciousness of collective action Since cyberspace can be regarded as a social group composed of different emotions, ideas, and lifestyles, collective behavior in cyberspace must be characterized by group identity. As Durkheim reveals, “society is a kind of ritual order, and the collective conscience based on the emotional foundation of people’s interaction” (Collins, Makovsky, 2006, p. 160). This collective consciousness often manifests itself as identity consciousness, which is the basic element of group construction. It is not only the driving force of collective behavior but also a perspective for interpreting the collective behavior. However, identity consciousness is a complicated process influenced by social psychology and individual psychology. According to the symbolic interactionism of Cooley and Mead (Matheson, 2016, p. 2), people build their own personalities by internalizing the feedback of others in social interactions. Goffman’s dramaturgical theory argues that personality is the role people play in a particular environment and the technical mechanism that they use to manage the impression they give to observers (Matheson, 2016, p. 2), while Collins (2006) insists that culture is the product of power and identity, which are also the main ritual types. In addition, social individuals differ in four dimensions of their membership:  ritualistic intensity, ritualistic concentration, social density, and social difference (Matheson, 2016, pp. 2–​3). In Collins’ interaction ritual theory (2006), identity consciousness is associated with the search for and arousal of emotional energy. Through the aspects of self-​identity consciousness of the participants in the collective action and the social identification of the participants, the identity and consciousness of the participants can be divided into self-​identity consciousness and social identity establishment. Self-​identity consciousness Identity first appears as a kind of self-​categorization. “It is attractive enough to add people the identity of a common group of members” (Turner, 2011, p.  30). People are self-​classified and subordinate to groups, thus leading to concerted collective action. Therefore, differentiated group behavior often reflects people’s identification with different groups. From the perspective of the self-​identity of the actors in Diba Expedition, there are two main aspects proposed in the study. First, the identity of online expeditioners of the online community Diba Since this is the most direct identity of the network group, those who participated in the collective action saw it as a sign of an “expedition”. Through

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96  Guoqiang Liu communication in cyberspace among online expeditioners, a specific space for aggregation and interaction comes into being, with the appearance of a mutual psychological field. According to Asch (1952), the primary condition for a group is a mutual psychological field, and there will be group behavior only when each participant has the features of the relationship between others’ behavior and theirs (p.  251). In such an online community of more than 20 million, it seems that countless individual actions happen naturally without regard to physical boundary, form of organization, Tieba rules, and so on. But the group is translated into reality, in fact, because subjective individuals are able to consult with each other, to understand the interrelationships between them, and to see themselves as co-​members of a shared social field. They can adjust their behaviors from the perspective of common understanding (Turner, 2011, p.  17). Judging from the popularity of the Diba and its previous collective actions that blew up the Internet, Diba formed an identity group with relatively high social density, ceremonial strength, and ritual concentration compared with other Tiebas. Second, the national identity consciousness The consciousness of national identity has been expressed by participants in the event as “mainland netizens”. During the online war of words, there are quite a few expressions like “lovely and civilized mainland netizens” and “the mainland netizens come together to give their opinions”, which can be seen as a generalization of Diba online expeditioners’ identity. Of course, in essence, it seems that any expression of identity consciousness of an individual has the trend to be generalized, and people always define themselves through a group concept. Given that this is a collective action mobilized by the online community Diba, the identity of individual participants has the legitimacy of collective authority, while generalization of the concept is made through self-​ empowerment. Although this kind of self-​empowerment is not legitimate in the extension of the concept, which finally leads to criticism from people outside of this group, from the psychological aspect of the participants, this identity consciousness is “real” collective consciousness and the most prominent identity symbol in the interactive ritual process. Attention should be paid to the expression strategy of this identity consciousness. This identity is often referred to as “we”, which constitutes the correspondingly opposite concept “you”—​ Taiwan netizens, or especially “Taiwan independence” advocates. It also embodies the imagination of my community and others’. However, the “we” and “you” all belong to the concept of “nation”, thus giving birth to the local identity consciousness, such as “I am from Chongqing” and “I come from Henan Province”. These local identities do not emphasize the difference in identity consciousness but the collective consciousness of the larger group concept composed by differences. Its function is to soften the conflict brought by the unified “we” as “the mainland netizens”.

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Collective action as interaction ritual 97 Goffman (2008) believes that the role-​play of identity is a ritual itself and the representation and restatement of the community’s moral values (pp.  29–​30). This self-​identity consciousness is a result of self-​classification. It increases the similarity between group members and themselves, resulting in self-​stereotyping (Hogg & Abrams, 2011, p. 27) and the generalization of other members. Therefore, this self-​identity consciousness is not the individual consciousness of the participants but the result of identity negotiation through mutual recognition. The strong expression of national consciousness aroused by national symbols and ritual actions stems from their unique emphasis on citizenship as a member of the state (Schatz & Lavine, 2007). Social identity establishment Self-​classification is the result of social construction itself. But in the collective action of Diba, some social actors did not have self-​awareness during the ritual interaction but formed the identity of actors in the presentation of events after what happened. The identity of actors can be divided into two types. First is the post-​’90s generation. In Tieba, most members are part of the post-​’90s generation. In the rebellious youth subculture, age identity is often emphasized. It represents that a generation fights for social concerns and social discourse as they grow up, usually forming a wide-​ranging collective action through the mobilization and accumulation of some social events. From the beginning in the transition stage of adolescence to adulthood, the post-​’90s are always regarded as not normally good young people. ‘Diba Expedition to FB: Behind the Subculture, the Post-​90s Are Gaining the Voice of the World’, published by People’s Daily, tried to take this opportunity to justify the post-​’90s. This justification also means that involuntary subculture resistance is being consciously catalogued by ideology. This expedition is this kind of collective action itself. However, participants in this event rarely express directly the collective consciousness of those after the ’90s. Thus, this is about the establishment of social actors’ identity rather than their identity consciousness and identification. It is constructed in two extremely opposite ways:  a generation that begins to shoulder social responsibility, and a generation that continues to be “brainless”. “Since the post-​90s grow up at a time when China is rising up, they are more likely to be proud of China’s economic power and national status”, stated the Global Times (Bai, 2016). Moreover, People’s Daily once wrote a commentary titled “The Post-​’90s, We Trust You”. However, there are opposite opinions, too, with some arguing that this kind of action reflects the blind arrogance and self-​satisfaction of this generation. From another point of view, the post-​’90s, or mainland youth, generation may be the identity symbol most easily generated outside the world. It is hard for them to distinguish the difference between the online expeditioners and

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98  Guoqiang Liu other online groups. Instead, they tend to attribute this event to the nationalist awareness of contemporary Chinese youth. Second is the patriotic youth This is the most generalized identity. The definition tends to be based on the affirmation of behavior-​related words and actions, and backtracks from the behavioral motivation to the abstract notions level. With the non-​irony rhetoric, the discourse of patriotic youth is a typical mainstream one. It is a commendatory term of social ideology, which lacks the rebellious color of youth subculture, but it has been recognized by many young people as network nationalism prospers. For this collective action, some participants expressed their motives as directly issuing from a feeling of patriotism, such as “a powerful China needs the efforts of every one of us”. Thus, based on the national consciousness of the actors, People’s Daily honored them as “patriotic youths”. But in the discourse struggle reflected by the current concept, the contest of symbols like this is its foundation. In addition to the ironic use of the term “patriotic youth”, as well as the disparaging term “50-​cent army”, the latest popular concept is “Little Pink” and this event is also known as “the collective performance of Little Pink”. The two levels of self-​ identity and social identity cannot be completely separated. According to identity negotiation theory, identity consciousness is a dynamic process of constantly adjusting and changing, and they are unified into the individual’s self-​cognition and the coordination of actions. As a guide and feedback mechanism, social identity establishment will have different effects on the redefinition of the participant’s self-​identity. While emotional factors play a crucial role in identity recognition and maintenance, the reciprocation of information in social interaction is a reflection of an ideal “I”, and therefore it involves self-​perception management (Svensson, 2014, p. 19). But on a more macro level, identity consciousness has many more complex social causes, including a similarity to group consistency (according to Anderson), common knowledge based on tradition, and historical memory (Chwe, 2001, p. 88). Dynamic mechanism of collective behaviors Identity consciousness serves as a corresponding psychological mechanism for collective actions. But regarding the collective actions of interaction rituals, they possess their own unique dynamic mechanism, which mainly includes the following several aspects. Group assembly in cyberspace and emergence of collective effervescence The emergency of rituals requires a co-​presence in the same situation. Durkheim (Collins, 2009, p.  69) underlines the physical assembly of a group of people. Through intent interaction, physical co-​presence will be

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Collective action as interaction ritual 99 transformed into all-​around fortune, leading to the intensifying of common experience that Durkheim calls the formation of collective effervescence or collective consciousness. It can be seen as one of the factors for the improvement of intersubjectivity (Collins, 2009, p. 70). Therefore, the most important features of rituals include formation of an assembly, boundary with that outside world, spatial material arrangement, and action design as well as the leading attention on common goals. Rituals enable everyone in the group to focus on the same thing and be aware of what they are doing (Collins, 2009, p. 122). Though Durkheim (cited in Collins, 2009, p. 69) underscores the physical presence in interaction rituals, his theories can still be applied to cyberspace, where the physical assembly of crowds and their interactive feelings do not exist but a similar interactive situation is provided. As a normal rather than a non-​normal state, the crowd assembly in cyberspace may do not like the crowd assembly in reality that is built on the basis of the preset psychological and emotional experience but that also possesses the same psychological structure that prompts collective actions. In cyberspace, visual focus is weakened greatly, but it can be made up for by imagination and daily experience so as to build a high-​level focus and emotional bond. James Carey holds that the goal of dissemination is not to acquire information but to arouse a dramatic performance in which readers participate as spectators in this world full of power struggles (Carey, 2009, p. 9). Under the view of virtual dissemination, with readers being replaced by netizens, it can be concluded that behaviors in cyberspace are mainly about a ritual process along with expressing self-​identity, gaining acceptance, and sharing significance. Miller (2008) believes that as friends are the most important list on a social network, the essence of it is the building and showing of one’s relationship network rather than dialoguing and communicating (p. 293). Before Diba Expedition, the hot news of the “Public Apology of Zhou Ziyu” and the “Taiwan election results” attracted the wide attention of mainland Chinese people. But if not aided by the congregate nature of cyberspace, such events are hard to trigger as collective actions in reality. In Diba Expedition, when notices were posted on Baidu Tieba, a congregate effect was produced in a short time with scattered concerns being gathered together. And the nation as a sacred symbol was manifested in this process and became a sign of the group. Collins (2009) considers that when group of people focusing on the same thing are active participants, and not positive spectators, a collective effervescence tends to develop gradually (p. 130). In collective actions in cyberspace, this collective effervescence is generated almost immediately. The notice of an expedition directly sublimates the event to the level of group rituals, which does not require emotional interaction and a developing process with physical assembly. A number of actions of bar bursting before this serve as models for the ritual building of Diba Expedition.

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100  Guoqiang Liu Production of symbolic solidity of crowds The essence of social rituals lies in social solidarity. Rituals tend to surpass the significance of the event itself and lead to social aggregation and group solidarity, of which Durkheim made an exhaustive analysis. The collective rituals of Diba seem to go through the following three changes. The first is the gaining of group solidarity through rebellious expression rituals. Diba is named for mocking the nickname—​“the Great”—​of football player Li Yi, from which salient cultural characteristics with a mocking “connotation” is developed. Prevalent Internet catchwords such as “屌丝” (Diaos), “女神” (goddess), and “逆袭” (counterattack) coined by barers become an interactive ritual of their unity manifested by interaction and a carnival of Internet catchwords rather than concrete collective actions. The second is the gaining of group solidarity through violent collective actions. As a large number of post-​’90s join in, cultural characteristics with a mocking “connotation” begin to collapse gradually and the grassroots feature of Diba becomes more prominent. At this time, unknown masses tend to resort to collective actions so that the involved individuals can acquire a sense of being accepted and empowered. Typical of this sort of collective action is passing identical or similar comments under a post repeatedly to express an opinion. Therefrom, Diba possesses an internal mechanism to deal with intergroup conflict through collective action, that is, the generally called bar bursting. Such actions no longer have the previous cultural rebellious characteristics but take group identification as psychological motivation, naturally leading to the third stage, in which social interactive rituals advance to political rituals. In this context, the only difference between the country and Tieba is that the former one is a wider identity symbol and can produce a greater collective action effect and a stronger sense of psychological belonging. This is a universal individual psychological mechanism that also reflects the social psychology mirrored from social and political perceptions, that is, the political ideology of great unity and the reality perception of being threatened by secession. According to a survey on Ndembu society conducted by Turner, the role played by rituals is “getting all people converged together as an unity and sanctifying it so as to compensate those separation tendencies that impose harm on people’s daily life” (Turner, 1957, p. 290). Therefore, rituals are able to promote social solidarity without the need to indicate that people have common values or the same views toward rituals (Kertzer, 2015, p. 80). In this connection, collective action becomes the symbol of Diba’s power and is an indispensable approach to maintaining its “invincible” legend and an essential interactive ritual to improve group identity and solidarity. At the point of group solidarity, the ritual of joint action itself is far more important than the expression of protests against Taiwan’s independence. However, such rituals are not engaged in voluntarily. The process of the organization and initiation of Diba Expedition indicates that it is a well-​ organized movement. With the administrator of Diba as the initiator of the

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Collective action as interaction ritual 101 expedition, the whole movement was planned and organized elaborately. The expedition team sets up a main group chat, which is subordinated by six groups, including one group of forwards and five groups of backup safeguards in charge of gathering information (speeches and pictures about the independence of Taiwan), advocating (posting for recruiting), preparing “weapons” (processing images and preparing corresponding remarks), communicating (translating foreign languages), and cleaning the “battlefield” (reporting on FB). Actions are initiated through notices in the group without soliciting opinions from barers, which indicates that the organizer is confident not only about the appeal of collective actions but also the evident stratification among participants. Playing two roles in stratification, rituals divide insiders into outsiders and leaders with followers of rituals (Collins, 2009, p. 79). According to the dramaturigical theory of Goffman, the background for performance is not invisible. As the group-​level solidarity ritual of Diba netizens has been advanced to the state-​level solidarity of country, the background for Diba’s performance group should have extended to a higher level. Certainly, actions that people take in the social environment may be based on pressure from a situation rather than internal faith (Snyder & Svann, 1976, p. 1041). In these rituals, people unite with each other closely and incompatible people will be abandoned by the group (Kertzer, 2015, p. 112). Therefore, rituals of unity reproduce and reconfirm group consensus from the aspect of groups. It is common knowledge that solves problems concerning coordination among participants and evokes group participation rituals (Chwe, 2001, p. 3). From this, this kind of ritual will strengthen internal consistency and divergence in Internet groups. For Diba, such group activities are directly followed with tides of the retreat of original netizens and the participation of new netizens. Exchange of emotional energy and moral imagination For individuals, emotions will shape our nature and experience during our being in the world, for which the form of the world presence will be changed in front of people, and perception of time and space will also be affected. Self-​ awareness is constantly molded and remolded by people’s feelings. For groups, emotional bonds form tightly among members of a group, while one’s social identity refers to the emotional association between a single person and the society. Tajfel (1972, p. 31) defines social identification as the individual recognizing he/​she belongs to one specific social group, and acquires a certain significance of emotion and value for his/​her social identity. Durkheim (2011) reminded us long ago how people’s emotions are intensified through groups. Rituals and groups interplay with each other. The converged emotion often turns to become more intense. People incite and stimulate themselves into a fierce state so as to identify themselves, which is totally delivered through a corresponding gesture that is as fierce as the expression of these emotions (Durkheim, 2011, p. 559).

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102  Guoqiang Liu Durkheim (2011) holds that ritual is a much more effective source of social vigor than belief, for it is based on the emotion evoked by collective actions (Mellor, 1998). Collins (2009) said that emotional energy is the key factor in interaction rituals. The core mechanism in interaction rituals is high attention to each other, or high intersubjectivity, which integrates with highly emotional bonds to form the feeling of identity for group members related to recognition signs. Meanwhile, it also brings emotional energy to each participant who feels confident, enthusiastic, and is glad to devote himself to activities which are morally permissible. Diba Expedition presents images and situations throughout the emotional reaction process. First, the similarity of Diba netizens and cyber life as an important element of daily life leads them to a common emotional base for group unity and identity reliance. This is just emotional energy with storage. In this group, nation, as a sacred sign, remains highly coherent with group identity. Durkheim (2011, p. 287) believes that the source of this sacredness is not mysterious. “In general, the society is bound to arouse sacred feeling in people’s deep heart just with its power overriding people”. Therefore, sacredness also identifies the moral obligations of restricting one’s behaviors as well as moral expectations for others to behave the same way (Goffman, 1956, p. 473). When the Taiwan election campaign resulted in a frustrating collective emotion, it held a psychological mechanism with potential that might transform into certain behavioral expression. And then, induced by the event of the “Public Apology of Zhou Ziyu”, it transformed into legitimate indignation for defending sacredness. But this emotion “evokes organized network set before with violence” (Collins, 2009, p. 185). When the impulse to punish is changed into action, collective actions for a “war for holiness” form. This is a ritual revenge and also an emotional peak that participating individuals experience. Emotional energy is what individuals seek, whether the situation attracts them or not relies on the successful offer of emotional energy through interactive rituals (Collins, 2019, p. 81). What relates to emotions is the sense of morality in interactive rituals, because emotional energy for groups has a controlling nature, which Durkheim calls “moral sentiment”. It includes a sense of correctness and error, morality and immorality (Collins, 2009, p.  162). Durkheim holds that if people get along with their partners morally and harmoniously, their behaviors will reflect more confidence, courage, and bravery (Durkheim, 1912/​1965, p. 178). This sense of morality endows participants with the energy to take actions and enables them to feel it is great, lofty, and that what they are doing is most important and valuable (Collins, 2009, p. 77). In collective interactive rituals, this emotion is a subjective emotion of individuals, and also relates to responsibility and morality imposed by the group on individuals. Its form is much more important than actual contents. It is just like the emotional expression of people’s sadness in Durkheim’s analysis of funeral rituals. “Mourning is not natural expressions of personal emotion for feeling hurt when kinsfolk bereaved, but responsibility forced by the group”

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Collective action as interaction ritual 103 (Durkheim, 2011, p. 547). Rituals are to the positive operation of our moral life what food is to the maintenance of our material life. Only through rituals will groups be strengthened and maintained. Also, as is known, ritual is quite important to individuals (Durkheim, 2011, p. 525). Bellah (2003, p. 39) said that only rituals can save us from pursuing our own benefits and hold the possibility of creating a social world.

Discourse logic of the collective action The Expedition is teeming with contradictory statements at the discourse level, not to mention procedural discourse conversions. An analysis of this phenomenon can reveal the deep group mind and social concept within this interaction ritual. Conquering, lecturing, and communicating: Three major discourse patterns The event mainly presented three main discourse patterns. The first is the “conquering discourse”, from which a war-​related metaphorical system is constructed. Examples are related statements on the event like “出征” (Go out to conquer), “远征” (Expedition), “表情包大战” (Memes combat), “圣战” (Holy war), “讨伐” (Punitive expedition), and so forth. Besides, the mobilizing organizations of this post bar also employed militarized terminology—​the first Internet expeditioners who scaled the wall hacked into the target account and left comments they earned for themselves under the title “spearheads”, the memes or emojis were called “weapons” and backstage support “supplies” or “backup force”. Amid the memes employed, weapon symbols like knives and swords were frequently used. The introduction of the mobilization order read, “7 o’clock sharp tonight, we will wage an Internet war on the Facebook, fighting against pro-​Taiwan independence separatist force! DIBA is unstoppable!” Such discourses are emblems of hostile relations, which reflect the hard-​line attitude of the people in mainland China toward “pro-​Taiwan independence separatists. The second is the lecturing discourse, upon which a metaphorical system about Confucianism family ethics has been constructed. Typical metaphors such as the relations between young and old, family order, parental authority, and so on, along with widely quoted patriotic verses or songs like the late poet Yu Kwang-​chung’s “乡愁” (“Homesick”) and Wen Yiduo’s “七子之歌” (“Songs of the Seven Sons”) are the embodiment of such discourse. Moreover, memes worked just the same. One meme was featured like this:  a cartoon image holding an overly sharp sword, with the caption “It is time to show our fatherly love”, in which, “Fatherly Love” is shown by inoculating their “unfilial son” with what is seen as correct thoughts. In the “Memes’ War”, messages posted on the board were nothing short of “Steal our memes? Daddy is so gonna spank you”, “Never allowed to defame China, your Father”, and so on. These words imply the historical imagination constructed by the society,

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104  Guoqiang Liu the structural cognition of the cross-​Strait relations built on this foundation, and they are also replicas of the humiliating conventional discourse used in civic society. This cognitive and emotional expressions here would mutually reinforce each other and are one of the motivations for attracting participants to the collective action. The third is the communicating discourse. Such discourse is mainly manifested in displaying cuisine and tourist attractions in mainland China and inviting the targeted side to visit, but it rarely involved a rational discussion of political concepts. Communication discourse shows equality, and therefore has relatively personal characteristics. However, this discourse cannot sidestep serving the main purpose of collective rituals, that is, a national imagination for unity. The “Expedition Event” embodies the fantastic interweaving of these three discourses, which is both procedural and strategic. From a procedural point of view, the initial collective mobilization emphasizes words of conquest, while in the process of “conquest”, a gradual discourse shift from lecturing to communicating has been obtained. From a strategic point of view, the words of “conquest” are provocative, embodying the typical collective ritual tradition among the participating groups in the DIBA—​爆吧(overwhelm the post bar) so that it is suitable for collective mobilization. The discourse of lecturing is a social consensus based upon historical memory constructed by means of metaphorical rhetoric. It not only has a cognitive form but also embodies a strong emotional and moral force. The communicating discourse is mirrored by the strategy of converting non-​rational emotions into “rational expression” and is also proof of the rationality of this “Expedition Event”. Repetitive discourse strategy Diba Expedition, in terms of discourse confrontation tactics, is noteworthy because, although the online expeditioners were supplied incessantly from the “memes arsenal”, the meanings of those symbols are monotonous. “Homesick”, “The Song of the Seven Sons”, and “Eight Honors, and Eight Disgraces” were overwhelmingly employed to occupy the message board. Participants lined up to post messages on the board, which stuck out as a rare scene. For instance, in the follow-​up comments on the gourmet food in mainland China, coupled with corresponding memes, the message was neatly expressed as “Please take the mutton rice noodle”, “Please take the Cantonese-​ style bacon”, “Please take the pan-​fried dumplings”, “Please take the Sichuan hot pot”, and “Please take the Wushan grilled fish”. Ceremonial languages tend to be stereotyped and repetitive (Chwe, 2001, p.  6). Collins (2009) argues that collective symbols are often reused in well-​ conditioned groups of interaction rituals (IRs) and are thus endowed with a sense of unity: symbols and interactions are linked over time (p. 212), which gives expression to the existing norms and even the specific provisions of collective action. It presets the order for participants so that collective action does not go astray for personal reasons. In collective action, cluttered personal

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Collective action as interaction ritual 105 expression is invalid, while repeatable content should be concise, vivid, and rhythmic, and it should be able to complete the reconstruction of the community’s imagination and memory in the simplest form. This simplification and selection is left up to the organizers of the action, and the netizens in the Tieba were only to do as told. The consistency and discipline demonstrated by this repetition greatly reinforces the sense of ritual of the collective action. The effect it finally achieved was this: the Tieba IDs were employed as shields to guard against the sporadically inserted different voices and to eliminate any possible space for personal communication so as to secure an “overwhelming victory” over an abstract concept. Metaphors of “Wall”: Discourse paradox of the Expedition Words and expressions like “going out to battle” and “expeditions” connote a kind of geospatial meaning of distance and danger. However, the network itself is an all-​reaching open exchange space. But if there were not the existence of a “wall”, the “expeditionary discourse” would lose its foundation. Apart from the connotation of “conquest”, the more direct meaning of “expedition” is to “scale the wall”. As a metaphor for information control, the main function of the “wall” is to defend, and to keep the social solidarity within a confined space from being intruded upon. Regardless of the legitimacy of “scaling the wall”, there are still two problems lurking in the “expedition”: on the one hand, it is unreasonable to abandon the inherent defense function of “the wall” because of the act of “scaling the wall”. To get rid of its inherent value requires that “expedition” be a unilateral “attack” so that rational exchange cannot be reached. On the other hand, the other side has been in the state of an “unlatched wall gate”, which stripped the so-​called expedition from the connotations of “bursting into the fortress”. In spite of this, the “wall” has transformed the network interaction into an attack-​and-​ defense relation. The metaphors of war were all fruits of the metaphor of the “wall”. As a result, once the “expeditions” discourse was activated, the way of expressing it was changed into a discourse of lecturing, in order to persuade and educate Taiwan-​independence separatists. This is a logical self-​consistency of the implied “wall”. While the transition from “expedition” to an authentic exchange between individuals happened, the significance of it had been reversed. Communicative discourse crossed the originally set boundaries of collective action, so that the group discipline and the legitimacy of the Expedition were subject to impact. It is an irony to the “Wall”, for “scaling the wall” without violating the rules set by the “wall” itself was the most fundamental essence of this collective action. Therefore, communication is only a gesture of “rational expression”. It was deemed fundamentally impossible by the organizers of the Diba Tieba to establish a rational platform for voices and exchanges between the people of the mainland and those cross the Taiwan Strait through the “expedition”. After a short period of collective action, the Diba netizens retreated to the

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106  Guoqiang Liu other side of the wall and continued to wait for the next “Baoba” (Bursting the tieba) ceremony. As such, the discourse problems caused by this collective action were left behind. What is highly affirmative is that the most striking aspect of political rhetoric lies in the ability to bring all kinds of contradictory things together, and the blend of contradictions is politically effective even in the face of extreme opposites and even embarrassment (Kertzer, 2015, p. 181). The discourse paradox maps the leading role of mainstream political ideas and the participant’s strong sense of identity and the ritual significance of emotional energy exchange.

Conclusion Poster pointed out long ago that the Internet is no longer just a tool for people to use but the social environment in which people live (Poster, 1997). After more than two decades of research, the reality of cyberspace and the authenticity of the social interaction situations in the absence of a physical presence are no longer the focus of discussion. “We should discuss the new model of embodiment and coherence in the network interaction, and should not always talk about the ‘de-​bodying’ ” (Benski & Fisher, 2014, p. 3). Despite that Collins’s interactive ritual theory is mainly based on the common presence of the body, according to his own opinion, interactive rituals are equally applicable to cyberspace, but at the same time, he also believes that the effect is relatively weakened in that the collective effervescence, group unity, and loyalty to the symbols cannot reach the same strength and level as they do in the circumstance of the common presence of the body (Collins, 2011). Judging from the emotional energy exchange within the group of Diba Expedition, what Collins (2011) suggests may not be unreasonable. In recent years, cyber-​nationalism in our country has drawn more attention from academic circles, which can easily be seen as a spontaneous and short-​term “flash-​like” action. As a network collective action of interactive ceremonies, the rituality of group unity is greater than that of national imaginations, but as Lefebvre (1976) argues, space as a whole has become the site of the reproduction of production relations, and it has also become a great place of confrontation (p. 85). From a macroscopic sociological point of view, Diba Expedition also poses a wide spectrum of problems like personal feelings under social atomization, open and closed space conflicts under the globalization landscape, and subjective consciousness and intersubjectivity construction of the group interaction with the change in the information mode. These are worth a further probe.

References Asch, S. E. (1952). Social psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-​Hall. Bai, Yunyi (2016, January 25). Understanding the national view of the generation after 90s from “Diba Expedition” event. Global Times, p. 7.

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Collective action as interaction ritual 107 Bellah, R. (2003). The ritual roots of society and culture. In M. Dillon (Ed.), Handbook of the sociology of religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Benski, T., & Fisher, E. (2014). Internet and emotions. New York, NY: Routledge. Carey, James (2009). Communication as culture (Trans.by Ding Wei). Beijing: Huaxia Publishing House. Original work published 1989. Chwe, M. S. Y. (2001). Rational ritual: Culture, coordination, and common knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Collins, R. (2009). Interaction ritual chains (Trans.). Beijing:  The Commercial Press. (Original work published 2004.) Collins, R. (2011). The sociological eye:  Interaction ritual and the new technology. Retrieved from http://​sociological-​eye.blogspot.co.il/​2011_​01_​01_​archive.html Nov. 6, 2016. Collins, R., & Makovsky, M. (2006). The discovery of society (Trans.). Beijing: Zhong Hua Book Company.(Original work published 1993.) Durkheim, E. (1965). The elementary forms of religious life. New  York:  Free Press. (Original work published 1912.) Durkheim, E. (2011). The elementary forms of the religious life (Trans.). Beijing: The Commercial Press. (Original work published 1912.) Goffman, E. (1956). The nature of deference and demeanor. American Anthropologist, 58(3), 473–​502. Goffman, E. (2008). The presentation of self in every day life (Trans.). Beijing:  The Beijing University Press. (Original work published 1956.) Heider, A., & Warner, S. (2010). Bodies in sync:  Interaction ritual theory applied to sacred harp singing. Sociology of Religion, 71(1),  76–​97. Hogg, A. M., & Abrams, D. (2011). Social identifications:  A social psychology of intergroup relation and group processes (Trans.). Beijing: China Renmin University Press. (Original work published 1998.) Kertzer, D. (2015). Ritual, politics and power (Trans.). Nanjing:  Jiangsu People’s Publishing. Lefebvre, H. (1976). The survival of capitalism. London: Allison & Busby. Matheson, C. (2016). Identifying and explaining organizational cultures in the public sector: A study of the Australian public service using the interaction ritual theory of Randall Collins. Administration & Society, May 6, 1–​34. Retrieved from https://​doi. org/​10.1177/​0095399716647151 Nov. 18, 2016. Mellor, P. A. (1998). Sacred contagion and social vitality: Collective effervescence in les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Durkheimian Studies, 4, 87–​114. Miller, V. (2008). New media, networking and phatic culture. Convergence:  The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 14(4), 387–​400. Poster, M. (1997). Cyberdemocracy: The internet and the public sphere. In D. Pirter (Ed.), Internet culture. New York, NY: Routledge. Rawls, A. W. (1996). Durkheim’s epistemology:  The neglected argument. American Journal of Sociology, 102, 430–​482. Schatz, R. T., & Lavine, H. (2007). Waving the flag: National symbolism, social identity, and political engagement. Political Psychology, 28(3), 329–​355. Snyder, M., & Svann, W. (1976). When action reflect attitudes: The politics of impression management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(5), 1034–​1042. Svensson, J. (2014). Power, identity, and feelings in digital late modernity: The rationality of reflexive emotion displays online. In Tova Benski and Eran Fisher (Eds.), Internet and Emotions. New York, NY: Routledge.

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108  Guoqiang Liu Tajfel, H. (1972). Social categorization:  English manuscript of “La catégorisation sociale”. In S. Moscovici (Ed.), Introduction a la psychologie sociale. Paris: Larousse. Turner, J., et  al. (2011). Rediscovering the social group:  A self-​categorization theory (Trans.). Beijing: China Renmin University Press. (Original work published 1989.) Turner, V. (1957). Schism and continuity in an African society. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

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7  Contested visual activism Cyber-​nationalism in China from a visual communication perspective Kui Zhou and Weishan Miao*

Introduction There has always been an intimate connection between visual text and nationalism. Visual symbols, for example, territory maps, national totems, and leaders’ images, become essential resources for the establishment of territory boundaries, collective identity, and social mobilization of the imagined community. In contemporary China, nationalism and identity politics have been core issues entangled with China’s modernity. Numerous scholars have attempted to define “nationality” and “nationalism” in China based on the complex dynamics of ethnic and racial identity. With the development and popularization of the Internet, the virtual cyber world has become a new battlefield for nationalism. Since the mid-​1990s, news events have been disseminated though Usenet and online forums (e.g., the Strong Nation Forum and QQ groups). Examples are plentiful, such as the book China Can Say “No”, which became a bestseller in 1996; the anti-​Chinese movement in Indonesia in 1998; and the American bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999. Despite the fact that words and text (e.g., news reports, comments, follow-​up posts, and responding posts) remained as the majority form of expression during the early stage, visual text became increasingly prevalent. For instance, photos of victims in Indonesia’s anti-​Chinese movement were spread all over the Internet, directly resulting in protest from Chinese netizens. As online commercial news portals like Sina, Sohu, and Netease grew in popularity in China, especially when the blog began to thrive in 2004, public enthusiasm for participating in this form of online communication increased. The influence of cyber-​nationalism expanded from elites gathering in online college forums and technical communities in the twentieth century to the general public, taking on new traits. The Sino-​American plane crash in 2001, the anti-​Japanese protest in 2005, and the boycott of Carrefour in 2008 stirred * Kui Zhou is Associate Professor at the Communication University of China, [email protected]. Weishan Miao is Assistant Researcher at the Journalism and Communication Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Science, [email protected].

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110  Kui Zhou, Weishan Miao increasing enthusiasm in the grassroots for joining the cyber-​ nationalism movement by uploading images and videos. Jack Qiu believes that this phenomenon is closely related to the growing Internet visual culture of “seeing is believing”, the popularization of cell phones and digital cameras, and Generation X’s (people who were born in the 1980s) preference for visual expression at the same time. In order to highlight the significant role visual symbols have played in cyber-​nationalism incidents, Qiu (2015) put forward the concept of “image-​driven nationalism”. The emergence of Weibo in 2009 and WeChat in 2011 drove China into the social media era. New media platforms generated new ways of social interaction, enhancing the frequency and influence of cyber-​nationalism as well. Visual symbols started to play an increasingly significant role in the following incidents:  the anti-​Japanese protest and the June 9th Online Jihad in 2010,1 the Diaoyu Islands protests in 2012, the Cyber War of Stickers on Facebook (also known as the War of Memes “表情包大战”),2 and the South China Sea Arbitration in 2016. Following this trend, the recent cyber-​nationalism incidents reveal a new arena surrounded by the construction and deconstruction of visual texts. Online visual discourse, in the era of Web 2.0 and with the emergence of user generated content (UGC), is not only an arousal mechanism of image-​driven nationalism but also a construction built upon cyber-​nationalism discourse resources from the grassroots rather than traditional nation-​state mythological narratives. The construction process of online discourse has a new characteristic of pluralistic subjectivity, and is combined with several new communication mechanisms like visual remix, online subculture, and Internet memes. This chapter tries to determine the way visual resources have been used by pluralistic subjects to conduct contesting narratives, and the dynamic mechanisms and strategies of cyber activism in the context of the technical evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.

Literature review Cyber-​nationalism from the perspective of multiple contesting subjects Traditional research on nationalism has focused on influence from nations, governments, and elites (Breuilly, 1993; Brass, 1991). Nationalism is used by elites as a tool to actuate the public, achieve national independence, enhance the legitimacy of their regime, or set public agendas (Nairn, 2003; Kedourie, 1993; Levy, 1989). However, this top-​down research approach neglects the initiative of the public. Therefore, some scholars have appealed more to the idea of the grassroots’ influence on nationalism (Smith, 2001). In the Internet era, the bottom-​up approach of studying nationalism stands out, for the Internet allows the public to escape from the manipulation of political elites, leaving the traditional hegemonic discourse under challenge from grassroots expression and promoting relatively independent personal beliefs from popular nationalism (Gries, 2005). Hence, in the new Internet era, nationalism is redefined,

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Contested visual activism 111 expressed, and practiced (Zhou, 2005). Scholars then have conducted research on popular nationalistic incidents spontaneously organized by netizens in the environment of new media, for example, the anti-​Japanese protest in 2005 (Liu, 2006), the June 9th Online Jihad in 2009 (Shi, 2010), and the Cyber War of Stickers on Facebook in 2016 (Chen & Lin, 2016). Nonetheless, as Yang (2009) put it, Chinese cyber activism is based on the interactive process of multiple subjects. This characteristic also fits cyber-​nationalism. in the era of social media, state-​led patriotic education movements, traditional cultural nationalism, and cyber-​nationalism collectively shape China’s public nationalism. Nationalism in contemporary China has already merged with individualism, transnationalism, universalism, and other contesting elements combined (Du, 2014). If cyber-​nationalism is regarded as a discourse practice, then nationalism faces a tension between different expressions from the state and the public, or from different ethnicities. How do actors, in terms of the Internet, launch narrative competition, compromise, or cooperation? What media resources, strategy, or operation do they apply to each other? How do they avoid misappropriation by other subjects and new meanings given to the same resource? The contest-​based perspective above has transcended the conventional one-​way approach of top-​down or bottom-​up, assisting us in examining the dynamic game process in the Internet space. The visual imagination of nationalism Treating cyber-​nationalism as a kind of narrative discourse includes information flow, topic discussion, identity construction, and action organization of nationalism (Ma, 2014). Most past research concentrated on textual discourse while ignoring visual expression. During the construction of imagined community, visual communication can make the boundary of one’s imagination visible. Some scholars have studied the relationship between nationalism and maps that serve as constructed territories (Batuman, 2010). Maps not only represent scientific abstractions of reality but also in history, precede reality. For new national powers, their administrative and military operations not only exemplify the discourse of mapping but also offer service for this apotheosis (Anderson, 2006, p. 163). From the perspective of image history, researchers have explored the presentation of nationalism among popular art (Hargrove & McWilliam, 2005). Also, some have scholars examined the relationship between nationalism and national totems serving as visual symbols (Dominguez, 1993). Peter Burke discussed the way Louis XIV promoted himself though visual communication in the seventeenth century, employing visual art in the form of oil painting, woodcuts, sculpture, literature, badges, drama, ballet, and opera. He demonstrated how to dress up sovereignty through advertising and the manipulation of ideology, manifesting the interaction between political power and the visual arts. Visual expression has long been an essential part of China’s nationalism. During revolutionary times, visual publicity like woodcuts and posters became

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112  Kui Zhou, Weishan Miao a crucial method to motivate people and eliminate illiterates (Zhou, 2013). After 1949, government propaganda turned communist and socialist ideology toward everyday life scenarios on a visual and narrative level, and thus the political function of visual culture was fully performed (Zhu, 2015). In the Internet era, visual expression not only serves as a crucial channel for information (e.g., images, videos, animation, games, virtual reality, etc.) but also greatly transforms the way netizens communicate and socialize, as well as their collective actions and historical memories, which draw huge academic attention from the fields of journalism and communication (Barnhurst et al., 2004; Barnhurst & Quinn, 2012; Müller, 2007; Griffin et al., 2013). In recent years, visual expression has gradually become the communication symbol with the greatest impact on cyber-​nationalism incidents. In events such as the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999, the Tibetan separatists’ interruption of the 2008 Olympic torch rally, and the Diaoyu Islands protests in 2012, a great number of visual symbols and expressions emerged, which served as an important tool to stir public sentiment and shape identity. As explicit, distinctive, and appealing as it is, visual expression is endowed with a communication capacity, and becomes an essential incitement for nationalism. Therefore, some scholars believe that cyber-​nationalism in recent years can be considered “image-​driven nationalism” (Qiu, 2015).

Methodology The data in this paper is collected from the ethnographies of the two authors, which include the following: 1) We conducted regular interviews with the staff of several major websites in the fields of government, commerce, and self-​media in the past six years; weekly archives of cyber-​nationalism incidents that are related to the topic, along with the collection of related information, images, videos, comments, and feedback from the netizens. 2) We undertook Internet participatory observation by which we observed, recorded, and researched netizens’ main viewpoints, channels of communication, and interactions, in websites, Internet forums, and groups where cyber-​nationalism incidents frequently take place (including Baidu Tieba, “Iron Blood Forum”, “Strong Nation Forum”, and Tianya.cn). 3) We established a visual database consisting of search results from Baidu and Google for each of the cyber-​nationalism incidents, in order to search for images and videos related to a certain issue as comprehensively as possible. 4) Related people or groups were also tracked and communicated with, such as producers of the images and videos, experts and professionals, as well as some supporting groups. For example, regarding the popular success of The Rabbit and His Stories, in-​depth observation was carried out on its supporters’ gathering sites like Baidu BBS, Weibo Interest Group, and Douban Group. The Internet interaction and communication with related people and groups built a trustworthy and close relationship, through which more profound and personal data regarding visual communication were acquired.

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Contested visual activism 113 Traditional model of visual nationalism: Image-​driven nationalism As mentioned above, cyber-​nationalism is a defensive action resulting from stimulation by historical and contemporary politics. Explicit, distinctive, and appealing visual expression is endowed with communication capacity, becoming an essential motivation for nationalism. Therefore, Qiu (2015) believes that cyber-​nationalism in recent years can be considered “image-​ driven nationalism”. The year 1998 is regarded as the beginning of the Internet era. According to statistics of the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the number of Internet users exceeded 1 million for the first time. In the same year, the anti-​China protest broke out in Indonesia. In 1999, the “Strong Nation Forum” was established after the Americans bombed the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, which is a milestone of cyber-​nationalism’s activity (Wang, 2006). Numerous pictures with bloody and brutal contents spread over the Internet and manifested on nationalistic online forums, stimulating the early stage of cyber-​nationalism in mainland China. At the time of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999 and the South China Sea Collision in 2001, related images were widely disseminated among the primary virtual domain of the Chinese Internet and rapidly became global topics. Cyber-​nationalism came to be a widespread social and political phenomenon from 2003 to 2006, during which the Sino-​Japanese economic relation was strengthened, although tension still grew between the two nations related to sensitive issues and historical friction. For example, in August 2001, former Japanese prime minister Koizumi initiated his first visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which severely damaged the relationship between China and Japan. In 2003, massive protests against the Japanese broke out among the Chinese. On August 4, 2003, chemical weapons left in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province, by the Japanese Kwantung Army during World War II poisoned 36 Chinese workers, with one dead. Koizumi’s fifth and sixth visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in 2005 and 2006 provoked intense dissatisfaction among Chinese netizens. According to a survey conducted by the China Youth Daily from September 7 to October 5 that year, 83 percent of the participants believed that this ­incident harmed the Japanese image, and 86 percent regarded the unsettled compensation issues as the Japanese avoiding their responsibility for World War II. Several websites collected signatures from more than 1 million people to condemn the Japanese government’s ignorance of their role in World War  II, marking cyber-​nationalism’s first appearance in a news report (Kui, 2015). In 2004, in a massive open online course (MOOC) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called “Visualizing Culture”, some engravings were presented with elements that were considered humiliating for China. This incident brought cyber nationalistic enthusiasm to a peak. When static historical images became the material for an Internet open course, and when the historical and academic context encountered the “de-​contextualization” of Internet communication and the “recontextualization” of the political tension between

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114  Kui Zhou, Weishan Miao China and Japan, the ancient engravings turned into the motivation for an international incident that stirred up agitation among Chinese students both domestic and from abroad (see Figure 7.1). Under the technical features of Web 1.0, the mode of the first phase of Chinese cyber-​nationalism is shown in Figure 7.2. Under this mode, the trigger and communication mechanism of cyber-​ nationalism have the following features: (1) In the context of collective traumatic historical memory, visual text becomes a vital source to stimulate cyber-​nationalism. In other words, it is an image-​driven defensive reaction. Most cyber-​nationalism incidents are caused by external stimulation during this phase, with visual text playing a vital role in arousing sentiment. (2) Stimulation from visual text can cause a strong emotional reaction among the public. Furthermore, it motivated them to take part in online cyber-​ nationalistic actions and even offline protests under certain circumstances.

Figure 7.1 Controversial Japanese Ukiyo-​ e about captured Qing soldiers being beheaded by the Japanese Army.

Figure 7.2 Image-​driven cyber-​nationalism  model.

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Contested visual activism 115 (3) Due to the time course of the popularization of Internet technology, most of the initial cyber nationalists were information and communication technologies elites, who were active in their college BBSs, technology communities, and other typical virtual communities in the era of Web 1.0. The names of some of the virtual communities had strong nationalistic implications, such as “Strong Nation Forum”, “Iron Blood Forum”, and so on. Yet with the popularization of the Internet, grassroots users became new participants in cyber-​nationalism, marking a transition from elite nationalism to popular nationalism. (4) Distortion and misinterpretation in visual communication:  emotional arousal through visual communication is endowed with irrationality. Visual texts like bloody pictures with unknown sources and so-​ called “facts” without verification usually catch people’s attention through exaggeration in a decontextualized environment. They cater to the “humiliating” history rooted deeply in the collective memory of the Chinese, forming a huge cyber-​nationalism wave secretly driven by contemporary politics. (5) The government usually appropriates these visual texts, trying to include them in its official patriotism narrative and cautiously incorporate popular nationalism, including cyber-​nationalism, into their official value system. Nonetheless, cyber-​nationalism is endowed with grass-​roots’ attributes and always challenges the status quo, thus resulting in a contested relationship with official patriotism.

A new model of visual nationalism: Contested visual activism among multiple subjects Most current studies only focus on the aforementioned first phase of Chinese cyber-​nationalism. Only a few explore cyber-​nationalism in the era of social media, when Twitter, Facebook, and WeChat became the major communication platforms. The interaction between visual communication and nationalism has continued during the era of Web 2.0. With new features such as online subcultures and Internet memes, visual text not only announces the commencement of modern cyber-​nationalism but also serves as the arsenal in Internet battles, which has seldom been covered in previous research. Examined from the perspective of resistance, not only visual expression shapes the public’s political attitude (Edelman, 2001), but also even the resistant process itself can be regarded as an endless process of scrambling, changing, eliminating, and replacing images (Khatib, 2013). From the “V-​ masks” worn by protesters uniformly in the Occupy Wall Street movement, to the antigovernment “Red Shirt” movement in Thailand; from the Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan, to the Umbrella Movement that occupied the Central district in Hong Kong; as well as in the visual movement “We are all Khalid Saïd” in Egypt, the rich meaning of visual expression during these social protests inspired a large number of studies on image events and image politics (Delicath & DeLuca, 2003; Grabe & Bucy, 2009). In fact, visual expression

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Figure 7.3 Cyber-​ nationalism under the mechanism of image-​ contesting visual activism. A1, A2, A3, …, An represent multiple authorities, P1, P2, P3, …, Pn represent multiple public groups, V1, V2, V3, …, Vn refer to multiple visual symbol resources.

and public resistance movements are inseparable: protesters first express themselves with visual symbols, which then reappear through photos and videos of their movements and finally lead to exposure in a larger social scale (Doerr et al., 2013). In the contesting discourse practice in China, interactions between visual text-​oriented public opinions and government propaganda are more complex than pure text. Based on the above, this chapter puts forward a new model of cyber-​nationalism under the mechanism of image-​contesting visual activism (See Figure 7.3). Pluralism in image-​contesting narrative subjects China’s cyber activism is an interaction process among multiple subjects (Yang, 2009). This pluralistic subjectivity is demonstrated by both authorities and public groups in the contesting process of expressing new visual rhetoric. In stark contrast with the previous emphasis on “consensus” in terms of nationalism or patriotism, the divergence in public opinion is increasingly obvious in recent incidents like the South China Sea Arbitration, protests against KFC, and so on. Multiple public subjects From the perspective of pluralistic public subjectivity, many scholars try to distinguish nationalism from national identity in terms of typology, the most

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Contested visual activism 117 prominent of which is the distinction between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism. Civic nationalists believe that the legitimacy of national identity originated from people’s voluntary subscription to a series of political principles and an organizational system. On the contrary, ethnic nationalists insist that the legitimacy of national identity roots in people’s self-​identity is determined by natural factors, including a common language, character, ancestry, and so forth. Therefore, civic national identity comes from acquired intentional judgments, while ethnic national identity is the result of a long-​term natural evolution of culture and history. However, some scholars point out that this dichotomy fails to describe the dynamic formation process of national identity, and thus propose the theory of boundary mechanism and symbolic resource. During the dynamic and contested construction of civic nationalism and ethic nationalism, both sides tend to mobilize symbolic resources, including culture, value, history, and geography. Zimmer (2003) believes that the construction of national identity is related not only to what symbolic resources people mobilize but also to how they utilize these resources. In previous discussions on cyber-​nationalism, similar distinctions between the values of multiple subjects have long been the core. Civic identity emphasizes voluntary subscription to certain political values and systems, resulting from the individual’s subjective selection. However, ethic identity stresses the ancestry and blood relationship, with a discourse strategy usually involving “brotherly friendship”, “blood is thicker than water”, and so on. This divergence of identity is reflected not only in related discussions within mainland China but also in discussions involving “image contesting” among mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In the example of the Cyber War of Stickers on Facebook, participants from mainland China resorted to a visual narrative strategy that utilized symbolic image resources like “the beautiful scenery of motherland”, “delicacy everywhere”, and “patriarchal metaphor”, while Taiwan netizens applied civic symbolic resources like institutional identity as their strategy. Multiple authority subjects The pluralistic subjectivity of authority organizations is an increasingly notable problem. Traditionally, the official patriotism narrative is regarded as a united and single voice. However, with the structural transformation of the power system, the evolution of inner connections within the system, and the entering of new power subjects, the “united voice” has been diversified, shifting from “hidden pluralism” to “manifest pluralism”. Almost all the cyber-​nationalism issues demonstrate the following phenomenon: in order to express the subjectivity respectively, the central government, the local governments, and different levels of other authoritative departments compete to apply the latest narrative resources in new channels and platforms with innovative strategies. Within the frame of nationalism, the interpretation and actions related to certain nationalistic incidents, as well as the official response strategies and evaluations,

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118  Kui Zhou, Weishan Miao would collectively form a complicated and contested expression of pluralistic subjectivity. A major reason for this situation is the authorities’ use of social media. The unified channel and rules of propaganda are now replaced by multiple channels and multiple subjective expressions. In a series of nationalistic events caused by the recent South China Sea Arbitration, opinions from the official Weibo account of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and the official WeChat account of the People’s Daily were so divergent that some followers of the former accused the latter of being a “Putian Organization” (an organization of private hospitals that jeopardize the health system through mal advertising and poor medical quality). Another example is the Lei Yang case,3 in which the social media of the police system became the main response platform for criticism and questions from the public. In China, the authority, as an “imagined community”, has turned its pluralistic subjectivity dominant several times. From the central to local governments, among different authority systems and at different levels within, the expression of subjectivity is being carried out through social media, with new narrative resources and strategies. Pluralism in the image-​contesting narrative strategies Negotiation In the era of Web 2.0 with UGC, it is impossible for governments to monopolize all the symbolic resources as they used to do. The pretentious style, bureaucratic tone, and stiff stereotypes are so repelling that the public gradually turns away, even abandoning the so-​called mainstream media. Currently, the most urgent problem for the Chinese government is to connect official mainstream media with social media, enhancing the guidance of public opinion in order to reinforce its own legitimacy. Under the appeal of “connecting official media with social media”, authority has to give up their original discourse mode and patterned routine, and reshape and regain new symbolic resources and narrative methods in a dynamic negotiation process. In 2013, Road of Rejuvenation Studio, a video group with an official background issued a short video titled “How the Leaders Were Tempered”. And in late 2015, the studio released an English song, “Shi San Wu” (the song of the 13th Five-​Year Plan), drawing massive attention both domestically and from abroad. Its country music style and vivid visual narration attracted foreign media’s attention, serving as a prominent example of the transformation in the rhetorical strategy of political communication. The “five-​year plan” of China is a strategy for social and economic development, which was taken from the former Soviet Union in the People’s Republic of China’s early years. Thus, it shares many features with the former Soviet Union in terms of its design and publicity. Yet from the publicity strategy of the thirteenth five-​year plan, we can sense that unprecedented changes have taken place.

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Figure 7.4 Political communication under new visual rhetoric.

On December 28, 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping walked into Qingfeng, a steamed bun restaurant. He queued up, ordered his meal, paid the bill, and had lunch while chatting and taking pictures with the other customers. At 1:20 p.m. on that day, a Weibo account first released this message, texting with excitement, “I cannot believe it! President Xi is here for Qingfeng steamed bun! Take a look at the photos”. A minute later, “Xinhua Viewpoint”, the official account of the Xinhua News Agency, with 9  million followers, reposted it. Generally speaking, even though it was an improvisatory act by the national leader, the first media platform to report it must have been a central media channel like the Xinhua News Agency or CCTV. But for the first time, Weibo and other social media revealed and spread President Xi’s surprise visit to the steamed bun shop. Incorporation The Chinese authorities are trying to incorporate more and more pro-​ institutional visual resources that have emerged from the Internet into their own discourse system. For example, a military fan nicknamed “fly into the light” originated a cartoon with a theme of patriotism, “The Rabbit and His Stories”, which demonstrates important military and political events that happened in the modern history of China. The cartoon has drawn wide attention since 2011, promoting the rabbit as a new image symbol for patriots, and nearly invalidating the common and traditional national totems such as Chinese dragons, lions, and pandas. Not only has this cartoon itself received compliments from the official media, but also the symbol of rabbits has been incorporated into the official expression of patriotism (see Figure 7.5). As the official Weibo account of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League says, “Why do Chinese netizens relate China with rabbits? Because the patriotism and nationalism represented by the rabbits and the expression in the cartoon can only appear in the contemporary world. It’s an intriguing resonance between official discourse and Internet language, a combination of the ‘Main Theme’ and the ‘Meng’ (Internet language for ‘cute’) culture”. Another Weibo writes, “These are all cyber literatures and arts, which emerged together with the Internet 20 years ago. The rabbit icon is increasingly popular now. On September 11, a proposal regarding the development and

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Figure 7.5 Cartoon The Rabbit and His Stories, written by a military fan with the nickname Fly into the Light.

Figure 7.6 Through polysemy visual text combining descriptive words, netizens aim at what the signified points to, and regard the diverted signifier as a strategic direction.

prosperity of socialist literature and art has been approved in the meeting of Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CPC). This document emphasizes the development of cyber literature and art in particular”. Appropriation The polysemic character of visual text makes it possible that the same visual symbol can be applied for different themes and in subjective interpretations that meet different values. A  case in point is the Cyber War of Stickers on Facebook, where mainland Chinese netizens used memes that contained Tsai Ing-​wen, the chairwoman of the Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party; Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister; the popular singer Huang Zitao; and even Kumamon, the local mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture of Japan. They mixed these visual text “for their own use”, indicating a split between the signifier meaning and the signified meaning of these visual symbols. Under certain circumstances, what originally is for antagonists can also be taken as a benefit for protagonists. In the meme war, with a combination of polysemic visual texts and descriptive words, netizens reinvented the meaning of the signified and took the diverted signifier as the target of strategy.

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Contested visual activism 121 Resistance Since it is much harder to censor images than text, the difficulties for traditional official nationalism in incorporating popular nationalism are increased. Meanwhile, visual text is an alternative path for communication among society members in the cyber world. With the tension between the public and authorities, visual images, because of their ability to temporarily circumvent Internet censorship centering on text, now has become a common means of Internet communication.

Conclusion This chapter tries to determine how multiple subjects in cyber-​nationalism use visual resources for contesting narrative from the perspective of visual communication. Inspired by Qiu’s concept of image-​driven nationalism, this research argues that, in the era of Web 1.0, most cyber-​nationalism incidents were caused by external stimulation, during which visual symbols appealed to emotion, and the strong emotional reactions led to responses from both online and offline. During this phase, under the decontextualization environment and with strong impacts and emotional appeals, visual images resonated with the collective memory of the society, inspiring an emotional wave of cyber-​ nationalism. The main participants were the government and the public, who constructed official patriotism and cyber-​nationalism respectively, contesting for authority. However, in the era of Web 2.0, due to the pluralization of participant subjects and the scramble for visual symbol resources, a new paradigm of “image-​ contesting nationalism” has emerged. The relationship within the multi-​element competition becomes subtler with more implications. On the one hand, the public distinguishes between civility and ethnicity, demonstrating different preferences toward visual symbols, while on the other hand, governments, instead of being “one authority, one voice”, are given an opportunity to spread the voices of various subjects through new media, reflecting the complexities inside its system. When fighting for visual resources, these multiple subjects have transcended the binary mode of “control-​resist” in the stage of Web 1.0 with such strategies as negotiation, incorporation, appropriation, and resistance based on the social context, topic type, and their relations with each other. Taking visual image as a starting point, this chapter is organized along the lines of the history of Chinese cyber-​nationalism. Based on the existing “image-​ driven nationalism”, we proposed the idea of “image-​ contesting nationalism”, highlighting the competition of symbolic visual resources among multiple subjects. In recent years, with the growth of the new generation of netizens, the support of new technology to visual materials, and the increasingly active Internet culture, visual images have opened up a new arena for cyber-​nationalism competition, with demands receiving more attention from academia.

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Notes 1 Hundreds of thousands of Chinese Internet users collectively scheduled attacks (spamming and condemning) on well-​ known forums and websites of Korean celebrity stars and their fans at 7 p.m. on June 9, 2010. The slogan “69 Jihad” was “NC don’t die, Jihad never ends”. (NC: 脑残, which means mentally ill and brain damaged.) Now “69 Jihad” has become an significant incident of the Chinese Internet culture conflict in 2010. 2 China’s Cyber War of Stickers on Facebook (also known as the War of Memes “表情包大战”) is an online campaign to flood the Facebook home pages of Taiwan president-​elect Tsai Ing-​wen, Apple Daily (蘋果日報), and SET News (三立新聞) with pro-​China messages protesting against the Taiwan independence movement. The action was mainly organized by the popular Chinese online forum “Li Yi Tieba” (李毅吧), also called “Diba” (帝吧), which has a membership of 21 million netizens. A large group of self-​proclaimed organized “warriors” made a concerted effort to circumvent Internet controls and posted thousands of messages, in a campaign that lasted for weeks. 3 Lei Yang (Chinese: 雷洋) was a Chinese environmental scientist who died following an altercation with police in Changping District, Beijing. Lei was detained on suspicion of soliciting prostitution at a foot massage parlor. After being taken to a police vehicle, Lei felt ill and was sent to a hospital, where he died later that night. The unclear circumstances surrounding his death led to accusations of police brutality, resulting in a law enforcement official providing a description of events on state television. An online petition launched by students at Renmin University, Lei’s alma mater, questioned various aspects of the police’s account and called for an investigation into his death.

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Contested visual activism 123 English references Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities:  Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso Books. Barnhurst, K. G., & Quinn, K. (2012). Political visions: Visual studies in political communication. In H. A. Semetko & M. Scammell (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of political communication (pp. 276–​291). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Barnhurst, K. G., Vari, M., & Rodríguez, Í. (2004). Mapping visual studies in communication. Journal of Communication, 54(4), 616–​644. Batuman, B. (2010). The shape of the nation: Visual production of nationalism through maps in Turkey. Political Geography, 29(4), 220–234. Brass, P. R. (1991). Ethnicity and nationalism: Theory and comparison. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Breuilly, J. (1993). Nationalism and the state. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Delicath, J. W., & Deluca, K. M. (2003). Image events, the public sphere, and argumentative practice: The case of radical environmental groups. Argumentation, 17(3), 315–​333. Doerr, N., Mattoni, A., & Teune, S. (Eds.). (2013). Research in social movements, conflicts and change. Bingley: Emerald JAI. Dominguez, V. R. (1993). Visual nationalism: On looking at “national symbols”. Public Culture, 5(3), 451–​455. Du, S. (2014). Social media and the transformation of “Chinese nationalism”: “Igniting positive energy” in China since the 2012 London Olympics (Respond to this article at http://​www. therai. org. uk/​at/​Diba te). Anthropology Today, 30(1), 5–​8. Edelman, M. (2001). The politics of misinformation. Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press. Grabe, M. E., & Bucy, E. P. (2009). Image bite politics: News and the visual framing of elections. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Gries, P. H. (2005). Chinese nationalism:  Challenging the state? Current History, 104(683), 251–​263. Griffin, M., Barnhust, K., & Craig, R. (2013). Visual communication. In P. Moy (Ed.), Oxford bibliographies online:  communication. New  York, NY:  Oxford University 184–185. Hargrove, J. E., & McWilliam, N. (Eds.). (2005). Nationalism and French visual culture, 1870–​1914. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art. Kedourie, E. (1993). Nationalism, 4th expanded ed. Oxford, Cambridge:  Blackwell, p. 1966. Khatib, L. (2013). Image politics in the Middle East: The role of the visual in political struggle. London: I.B. Tauris. Kui, Z. (2015). The misplaced “apology”:  Rethinking China’s internet patriotism. positions: east asia cultures critique, 23(1),  49–​58. Levy, J. S. (1989). The diversionary theory of war: A critique. Handbook of War Studies, 1, 259–​288. Liu, S. D. (2006). China’s popular nationalism on the internet. Report on the 2005 anti-​ Japan network struggles. Inter-​Asia Cultural Studies, 7(1), 144–​155. Ma, Y. (2014). The discursive construction of online Chinese nationalism. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds.

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8  Love your nation the way you love an idol New media and the emergence of fandom nationalism Hailong Liu* Introduction Diba launched an attack on several Facebook home pages on January 20, 2016, with a war chant: “When Diba goes for battle, nothing brainless will grow”. If this social media war has aroused the curiosity of the mass media and people unfamiliar with network subcultures, Diba Expedition is now growing into a mainstream day-​to-​day ritual. Diba is an online community on Baidu Post Bar, which was initially established by the fans of Chinese soccer striker Yi Li. In 2005, Li was said to boast that his ball shielding was comparable to FIFA World Cup winner Thierry Henry, arousing great controversy and criticism among home fans who were disappointed at the poor-​performing Chinese national soccer team. The unconfirmed claim earned him a satirical nickname, Imperator Yi Li the Great, in accordance with which his online fan community was called “Diba”, or “the Imperator’s Bar” in Mandarin. This fan community has changed into an online forum where netizens ironically incarnate Yi Li and the Chinese soccer sport, and give full vent to their discontentment and has gradually turned from a sports community into China’s biggest online club (27m+ users and 960m+ posts) with a unique, satirical subculture. In support of Ming-jen Wei, Diba went on to battle against Facebook again at 9:30  p.m. Beijing time on December 31, 2016, and inundated his home page as well as those of Ing-wen Tsai, SET News, Apple Daily, Liberty Times, and the Army Command Headquarters of Taiwan with posts. This was all because Wei, a local of Nantou County, Taiwan, called on the public to attend the flag-​raising ceremony of 5P.R. China’s national flag and the flag of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held on January 1, 2017, in Changhua County. Later, on the afternoon of January 20, 2017, @JiuersYouth (Jiuers青年, former organizer of Diba Expedition) posted a proposal for another network battle against Japanese hotel chain APA Group for its refusal to remove * Hailong Liu is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Renmin University of China, [email protected].

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126  Hailong Liu the right-​wing books in guest rooms denying the Nanjing Massacre and other historical events as exposed on Weibo. It also targeted Shoheijuku, a school founded by the APA’s CEO, Toshio Motoya, to propagate right-​wing politics, plus the Facebook home pages of several Japanese right-​wingers, including Naoki Hyakuta and Ping Shi (石平). However, this action was no longer labeled with any war-​related concepts (such as “expedition”); instead, it was described in a more serious and mainstream manner as the “Chinese youth voice for history”, which even engaged Taiwan netizens. For more than a decade, Diba has basically limited its tradition of furious social media wars within the Baidu Tieba forum; however, it started to “go abroad” in the beginning of 2016. Angered by “pro-​Taiwan independence” entertainer Tzu-yu Chou and DPP candidate Ing-wen Cai’s victory in the “presidential election”, Diba users called on netizens to crusade and flood into the Facebook home pages of Tsai, SET News, Apple Daily, Liberty Times, and so on. This online campaign drew much attention and created a new pattern of nationalistic campaigns. Since then the pattern, known as “Diba Expedition”, has been reappearing in several events including boycotting Virgin Atlantic for its alleged racism against a Chinese female passenger, boycotting pro-​Taiwan-​ independence actor Leon Dai, and protesting against the “control of public opinion by the capital-​supporting actress Wei Zhao”, as well as the two events at the start of 2017 that were previously mentioned. It has become a regular repertoire of nationalistic campaigns. Scholars have examined Diba’s 2016 expeditions and provided inspiring analyses in terms of the logic of participants, the use of symbols, the mobilization of sentiment, and the organization of actions. Based on these discussions and other related studies, this chapter aims to examine the relationship between new media technologies and nationalism from the perspective of communication studies. Key questions are: 1) What changes has nationalism gone through under the condition of new information and communication technologies (ICTs)? and 2) What is the role played by new ICTs in this process? This chapter proposes that new media, especially social media, has deconstructed and then reconstructed the behavioral context of Chinese young nationalists, and connected previously unrelated mindsets and behavioral logic, therefore altering the symbols and forms adopted in nationalistic expression. It has also equipped a new generation of nationalists with a platform to mobilize, organize, and conduct their campaigns, while, more importantly, facilitating the transformation of nationalism itself. With the transformation of nationalism from being based in mass media to being based in new media, participants have managed to domesticate new media into a vehicle of national identity, whose behavior has been altered in turn by new media. It turns out that new media, instead of eliminating divergence and misunderstanding among nations, has given rise to “fandom nationalism”, which means people love their nation the way fans love their idols.

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Communication technologies and nationalism Nationalism and cyber-​nationalism The concept “nationalism” here should first be clarified. People tend to discriminate between “good nationalism” (patriotism) and “bad nationalism” (Shavinism) in everyday discourse. However, nationalism is used in this case as a neutral academic concept, despite that it might be stigmatized under some circumstances. Nationalism is a vague concept endowed with a tremendous variation of ideas. However, its fundamental goals are national autonomy, national unity, and national identity. The core concepts of nationalism are authenticity, continuity, dignity, destiny, attachment (“love”), and homeland (Smith, 2013). According to traditional theories of nationalism, the key question of nationalism is political legitimacy, holding that political and national units should be congruent, namely, “one state, one nation” (Kedourie, 1993; Gellner, 2008). Despite the lingering issue of national autonomy after the third wave of colonial nationalistic movements (Anderson, 2006), it is no longer the only focus. Core issues of nationalism are not only territorial and political ones but also those concerning national identity and culture (Calhoun, 1997). The real nationalistic ghost functioning behind official nationalistic politics are the “bygone” nationalistic ideologies aroused by cultural issues and daily consumption, which are quite distant from traditional politics. This is the reason why this chapter pays more attention to grassroots nationalistic campaigns and how individual cultural experience is connected with grand politics, rather than nationalistic movements on a national level. A distinction between Chinese and foreign or barbarian races (华夷之辨) has emerged since ancient times in 5,000-​year-​old China. Under the invasion and challenge of foreign races, a unique “Chinese nationality” took shape. Some historians maintain that the traditional Chinese consciousness of Han ethnicity is nothing like national consciousness in the Western context (Pye, 1993). Just like other types of nationalism, these symbols, myths, memories, values, and traditions, among other aspects of nationalistic ideological heritage, have already been reconstructed and reinterpreted to serve current political goals. Thus “nationalism” in this chapter mainly refers to modern nationalism stimulated by Western invasions of China since the Opium War in 1840 (Anderson, 2006). Western powers aroused nationalistic consciousness in China in two aspects. First, they strengthened the solidarity of the Chinese people, who put aside their internal disputes in defense against foreign invasion. Second, these reluctant encounters with Western powers introduced the concept of the modern nation-​state to China and set an example for Chinese nationalism with their national independence. In addition, traditional anti-​Manchu sentiments since the collapse of the Ming dynasty were once again exploited by the revolutionists. Thus, nationalism in the modern sense emerged in China

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128  Hailong Liu at the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries (Fitzgerald, 1996). Nationalism aiming at national independence has been one of the principle appeals of the modern Chinese revolution, not only in the propaganda of Sun Yat-​sen’s Kuomintang (KMT, nationalist party), but also in the anti-​feudal and anti-​imperialist propaganda of the CPC. The CPC has been quite nationalistic since its very establishment. Its nationalistic ideology sometimes even overrides communist belief. In defense of national independence and unity, China even engaged in military conflicts with countries adopting a communist ideology, such as the Soviet Union and Vietnam. Though recognizing the slogans of internationalism since 1949, the CPC did not discard a nationalistic discourse in either internal or external propaganda. When there was a conflict between ideology and reality, nationalism would be the fundamental evidence for political legitimacy. Especially when the communist ideology was at its ebb following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, nationalism was the dominant ideological resource for the solidarity of the Chinese people. That is why some scholars believe that Chinese nationalism was a product of intentional propaganda and cultivation by political elites to maintain their political legitimacy (Zhao, 2000). However, this elite-​ dominated explanation ignores the grassroots tradition of nationalistic sentiments in China. Besides official nationalism and elite nationalism, grassroots nationalism has been a persistent bass resonating in Chinese society as a result of traditional culture and education. Though grassroots nationalism seems to follow official nationalism, the former is no simple duplication of the latter, and is even in conflict with national foreign policy at times. Moreover, from the perspective of political economy, an elite-​ dominated explanation also overlooks the intentional agitation of nationalistic sentiments by media producers for economic profit since media marketization in the 1990s (Huang & Li, 2003). Cyber-​nationalism in this chapter mainly refers to grassroots nationalism. Though the Chinese term for “cyber-​nationalism” only appeared in 2003 (Li, 2003), it emerged as a political phenomenon at the end of the 1990s when the Internet was introduced into China. It first appeared in 1999 in the Protesting against NATO Barbarism Forum (抗议北约暴行论坛), which later became Strengthening the Nation Forum (强国论坛), regarding NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in the former Yugoslavia. Moreover, there followed waves of cyber-​nationalism in succeeding political events. Dahong Min finds that from the 1990s to the beginning of the twenty-​first century, Chinese netizens have been largely taking a critical-​realistic stance toward internal affairs, while taking a nationalistic one toward foreign affairs (Min, 2009). Yongnian Zheng explains the emergence of cyber-​nationalism in China from the perspective of international relations, believing that it is related to China’s rise and the restructuring of the international order (Zheng, 1999).

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Love your nation the way you love an idol 129 Communication technologies and nationalism According to Smith (2013), nationalism is not primordial, nor was it invented out of nothing by the power elite. Rather, it is shaped by the reinterpretation of specific resources chosen from culture-​historical tradition. That is to say, it is discourses of nationalism that construct the imagination of the nation. In this regard, a perspective of communication is more than important for understanding nationalism. Furthermore, communication technologies as a technical/​cultural complex also play an essential role in structuring nationalistic discourses. Nevertheless, communication technologies have usually been neglected in previous studies on nationalism. McLuhan was the first to connect communication technologies with nationalism. In the chapter titled “The Printed Word:  Architect of Nationalism” in his Understanding Media, he maintains that printed books are easy to spread, and that the repeatability and uniformity of print turned vernacular into an extensive mass medium and homogenized diverse regions. The tribe, an extended form of a family of blood relatives, was then replaced by an association of men homogeneously trained to be individuals (McLuhan, 1994) No theorist of nationalism pays more attention to communication technologies than Anderson. In his Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, he agreed with Eisenstein, a historian of print culture, in believing that printing is a key element in cultivating the imagined community of strange groups beyond face-​to-​face community. Presses of new type produced a great volume of newspapers and novels in a certain vernacular, which allowed people to awaken and exploit collective memories, as well as use plural nouns (i.e., “we Chinese”) to construct the imagination of group identity. Nonetheless, printing technology alone is not adequate. It must be facilitated by a capitalist mode of operation. Only when those printed products that bore the national imagination became profitable commodities, would they be copied in large volume and spread. He also took China as an example. Though China had long been equipped with extensive printing technologies, the lack of capitalistic production suffocated the formation of “print capitalism”, in Anderson’s term, thus causing the country to lag behind Europe in developing modern nationalism (Anderson, 2006). Of course, this explanation might be a little bit simplistic, since the print industry in ancient China also reached as certain scale (McDermott, 2006). Regarding China, print culture might not even be the most important element in forming an “imagined community”. Duara (1996) finds that the influence of oral culture and myths was neglected by Anderson. But it is noteworthy that Anderson did not take communication technologies as an isolated factor, yet maintained that the relations of production must be taken into consideration as well. However, while emphasizing cultural elements, he improperly separated technology from the relations of production without realizing that technology, as a technical/​cultural complex,

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130  Hailong Liu is a relation of production as well. Only when there has been a social need for the press, will there be a social impact. Similarly, only when printed products have been endowed with certain functions and meaning, will mass print as a relation of production become a reality. This is a common defect in existing theories of nationalism concerning communication technologies. They either believe that communication technologies decide or define nationalistic ideologies and practices unilaterally, or they see technologies as mere tools to spread nationalism. Both undermine the complexity between communication technologies and nationalistic ideologies and practices. Only when a communication technology has been domesticated and endowed with a certain meaning can it become part of our daily life as a technical/​cultural complex. The social meaning with which users endow the media limits the realization of the affordability of the latter. When technology as a cultural form becomes a part of cultural construction and daily interaction, it will in turn mediate perception, experience, and even behavior. Viewing the mutual domestication of media and social relations from a cultural perspective is illuminating in understanding the relation between communication technologies and nationalism (Silverstone, 1994). Before this issue is discussed further, it is necessary to sketch the changes in the characteristics of Chinese nationalism in the current media context. First, there is a sharp difference between cyber-​nationalism nowadays and that described by Xu Wu at the beginning of the twenty-​first century. Topics related to early cyber-​nationalism basically came from political events or the mass media, while new cyber-​nationalistic campaigns usually stem from the bottom-​ up agenda set by the Internet. For example, the Tzuyu Chou event and the incident of rightist history books in the APA hotel, both acting as the blasting fuse of Diba Expedition, started from Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter) and were fermented in cyberspace. The decentered, grassroots expressions on the Internet provide a vast number of symbolic resources for the reification of nationalistic ideologies. This kind of bottom-​up self-​mobilization has made nationalism easier to access and get connected to daily life and personal identity. This new pattern of agenda setting is not unique in nationalism, or, rather, it is quite common in the era of new media. In comparison, the nationalistic mobilization and symbols of expression in the new media context are more noteworthy.

New media and nationalistic expression New media and the formation of Diba’s style of expression According to McLuhan (1994), the medium is the message, which will eventually change perception and expression. The media field and discourse networks taking shape surrounding certain media technology will bring profound changes to the expression structure of society (Régis, 1991; Kittler, 1992). In comparison, the Sapir-​Whorf hypothesis proposes that language will shape the

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Love your nation the way you love an idol 131 perception of the world and the way of thinking. With more than two decades’ development, the Internet in China has contributed not only to the production of a large number of new words but also to the formation of unique ways of verbal expression and the worldviews of online subcultures. Diba Expeditions have reflected both traditional ironic, bantering, and patriarchal ways of expression and the more noteworthy diversification of styles. The language is no longer radical as it used to be and has generally become more civilized and gentler. The collective memory of the humiliating history of China since the Opium War in 1840 has led to nationalistic campaigns featuring resentment, anger, and hatred with a strong, or even radical, mood. Since the start of the Internet era at the turn of the twentieth to the twenty-​first century, this kind of emotion and expression has continued in nationalistic campaigns. From the book China Can Say No (1996) to the protest against NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in the former Yugoslavia, cyber-​nationalism was mainly expressed in a tough and angry way. However, in Diba Expedition since the start of 2016, the expression and symbols have undergone fundamental changes, different from both traditional nationalistic expression and those used in previous “bar bursting” actions. First, the strong emotions underlined by resentment are replaced by irony, parody, and banter with a lighter tone. The theme “love” even dominates the communication with “compatriots who do not know about the truth”. According to content analysis, 91 percent of the comments templates used by Diba crusaders on Ing-wen Tsai’s Facebook home page more than ten times are themes about “love” (Wang, 2016). In addition, in terms of the use of symbols, monotonous political slogans are replaced by an extravagant, parodic, and ambiguous “expression pack” (表情包). There are still political slogans such as Ba Rong Ba Chi (“Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces”), but when used in an expression pack, this ethical motto for CPC members has lost its original meaning and becomes satirical. Some scholars used the concept of “meme” coined by Dawkins to describe these online visual symbols, which are ambiguous, attractive, and easy to replicate (Guo and Yang, 2016). These symbols, which deviate from the norms of daily expression, are so contagious that even editors from the media that is being attacked, started to strike back with the same ironic and self-​deprecating expression pack. However, they forgot to remove the watermarks before using Diba’s expression pack, which triggered another wave of ridicule from the crusaders. Many factors have contributed to the changing way of expression, such as the overall upward trend in cross-​strait relations since the start of the twenty-​ first century, strengthened cultural exchanges between the young generation on both sides, and even the intergenerational cultural differences between the ’90s, the ’00s, and generations prior to them. But there is no denying that changes in communication technology itself play an essential role. Even the previously mentioned intergenerational differences are influenced by communication technology as well.

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132  Hailong Liu The formation of Diba’s culture is tightly related to the emergence of Internet technologies. Baidu Tieba (Baidu Post Bar), an Internet commodity that features user-​created topics and established online communities based on these topics, has broken through over a long period of time the limit of concrete and simple classification of topics while instead developing a complex system of social group classification. It has also embraced the “structure of feeling”, in Williams’ (1977) term, and finally formed emotional communities. Previously isolated people are now connected. Youth from the lower class or who are dissatisfied with the status quo label themselves with the word Diaosi (an indecent way of saying “loser”), which is usually used by others to mock them, amusing themselves through self-​deprecation and irony. Were it not for the Internet, mass media and mainstream institutions would have neglected them. But within an open system like Baidu Tieba, they gather together and distinguish themselves from other groups by unique spoof, sarcasm, self-​deprecation, and cynicism. For example, Diba got its very name by bantering about Chinese soccer player Yi Li’s boast. The emotion implied by this ironic name “Bar of Imperator Yi Li the Great” should have been negation and detestation, yet turns out to be seemingly real worship. For example, someone imitated The Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian, the father of Chinese history in the second century BC, and wrote “The Annals of Imperator Yi Li the Great” in a unique satirical style. However, the target of sarcasm turns from Chinese soccer to public affairs and personal experience, and the style of expression is connected to counterculture in an obscure way in order to evade Internet censorship. These users also invent compounds following the example of “Diaosi”, for instance “poor ugly dwarf ” or “Poor silly dwarf ” (“矮丑穷”, “矮矬穷”), “fat country pumpkin” (土肥圆), “female loser” (女屌丝), “tall rich and handsome guy” (高富帅), “white rich beauty” (白富美), “black fungus” (黑木耳), “pink fungus” (粉木耳), or endow words such as “goddess” (女神), “green daddy” (喜当爹) and “winning loser” (逆袭) that are already popular in cyberspace with new meanings. They create a unique symbolic system, and with the symbols, vulgar articles are composed to bear the collective social imagination and values of this very subculture. Their pet phrases include “I am on my knees, you tall rich and handsome guy”, “I am already on my knees and please say no more to save my face”, “I am scared to pee my pants”, and “kneel and lick”. In their “spiritual failure” by self-​deprecation and surrender, they find a way to express and deal with a structural cultural conflict in contemporary China, that is, the sharp conflict between the call of middle-​class ideologies and the social reality of stratification or even solidification. Lin (n.d.) In “I Used to Be a Network Management”, a popular satire among Diba members, the author often considers himself a loser at the bottom of society,

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Love your nation the way you love an idol 133 helpless and self-​deprecating regarding his or her plight, but disgusted at the conspiracies and unscrupulousness of the successful, and full of moral superiority resulting from grassroots sadness. This self-​positioning is the reason why they are hostile to the lofty celebrities and their blind followers, and take anti-​ fan actions by frequently flooding and sabotaging celebrities’ bar. The changes in Diba’s operators have shifted its slogan from “Yi Si Bu Gua” (“Yi Li’s fans would not die”, also the same pronunciation as “naked” in Chinese) to “Everyone is emperor”, which sounds more positive. However, the expression style featuring “originality and spoof ” has been largely retained. A grassroots sense of inferiority and rebellious spirit are blended into a unique style of expression, which is then spread through various campaigns and finally becomes a part of Chinese cyber culture. This way of expression characterized by banter, parody, irony, self-​deprecation, cynicism, deliberate vulgarity, a sense of justice, patriarchal ideologies, and populism has also been reflected in symbols used in Diba Expedition. Floating ambiguity and gameplay In Diba Expedition at the beginning of 2016, the positive and tender side, in addition to banter and sarcasm, was integrated with surprisingly positive and mild elements, as reflected by the pictures of historical sites, scenic landscapes, and local delicacies used for “moving” Taiwanese pro-​ independence netizens. Many observers attribute these changes to the participation of the so-​called post-​’90s “Little Pink” (Wang et al., 2016). However, if interpreted in a specific context, there is also a satirical element to these seemingly harmonious images of landscape and delicacies. Some Taiwanese entertainers criticized the mainland years ago in variety shows for its bad city environment and unbearable sanitary conditions of public toilets, and they even believed that mainland Chinese were unable to afford tea eggs. These remarks provoked collective rage among mainland netizens. In such a context, images showing the rapid development of mainland cities and abundant delicacies in fact have satirical implications. Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is hard to anchor the meaning of Diba’s expression due to the ambiguity resulting from those half-​truths, subtle jokes, and self-​deprecation. For instance, some observers believe it was an expedition, while the participants think that it was simply a game of badinage (fengshangyue, n.d.), and some researchers see the uniform expression pack as radically patriarchal, while female users maintain that they were teasing and achieving self-​empowerment (Yan, n.d.). Likewise, in addition to the satirical implications, there are also conservative connotations in images of scenery and delicacies that are usually expressed by traditional nationalists, since the relation between national landscape and national identity has been noted by researchers for quite some time. The landscape represents national territory. Far from being purely objective and natural, it reflects the decision-​making

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134  Hailong Liu and meaning construction of a certain group and mediates their political identity (Smith, 2013). In addition to the ambiguity of symbols, new cyber-​nationalism also has the features of communication play. Communication play is a key concept coined by Stephenson (1967) in constructing the play theory of mass communication. Stephenson (1967) believes that, besides communication for utility (communication as work), there is communication for the purpose for communication itself, which is non-​utilitarianism and the pursuit of self-​amusement and enhancement (communication as play). In the latter, the transmission of information is no longer the main purpose. What matters more is the pleasure and freedom of communicators. It is noteworthy that, apart from constructing a uniform identity among the crusaders themselves (Wang, 2016), Diba’s communication play also fulfills the purpose of external communication and relationship development. Many crusaders used the word “flirt”, indicating that it is communication play at least to Diba users, if its male chauvinism is ignored. User “Maqianzu” (foot soldier) of Zhihu, the Chinese counterpart of Quora, remarks, As far as the expedition is concerned, mainland netizens are apparently better at combining ideologies with witticisms. Hong Kong, Macao, and overseas Chinese netizens are segregated from mainland netizens, which harms the cultural creativity and shallows their discussion on serious issues. In terms of development of the internet structure of the Chinese language, they are, rather than mainland Chinese, those blocked by the Great Firewall. Maqianzu (2016) In the eyes of mainland netizens represented by Diba members, skill in playful expression is the sort of cultural capital that would generate psychological superiority. Its essence is humor at one’s fingertips, subtle sarcasm, and the exhibition of wisdom in “crushing” enemies by an image fight. It is a pure language (including images) game. From a realistic perspective, it is nothing more than a spiritual victory, but in participants’ eyes, it has also fulfilled the purpose of communication. Taiwanese social media editors gradually got used to mainland youth’s way of expression and realized that it was a game. They learned to neglect the ideologies and paid mainland netizens back with their own coins. One participant commented, “We just pretended to come to fight, but we brought with us bread instead of bricks”. The most terrible thing in communication is not about whether the content is right or wrong, but the loss of desire. It is like a fight between lovers. If they do not even bother to quarrel, it will be the end of the relationship. I do not expect that we can arouse many pro-​independence youths in this way, move the united front forward, or even improve the public’s impression of another nation. But here is the thing, as we have already discussed,

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Love your nation the way you love an idol 135 the whole battle and image fight ended up in talking about scenery and delicacies. That is to say, as long as we have the desire to communicate, it is better than keeping silent after all. The battle on Facebook did not mean to persuade either side, but to help both sides to realize that they should not treat each other as labeled enemies. They are real people. fengshangyue (n.d.) Of course, whether the wishful dreams of “dialogue” can really facilitate communication as expected should be examined from the receivers’ perspective. Expression and text in images used by crusaders at the beginning of 2016 are all in simplified Chinese characters, while the Taiwanese still use traditional Chinese characters. They had never considered the effect of communication from the perspective of the receivers, quite the same way as they believe it is people from the other side of the strait, the receivers themselves rather than senders, who should be blamed for not understanding their subcultural language. The hegemony and symbolic violence beneath the satire in expression of cyber-​nationalism are worthy of notice.

Mobilization, organization, and implementation through new media Internet researcher Rheingold (2002) has noticed that the “crowd”, with the facilitation of Internet technologies, is able to establish effective mechanisms of cooperation in a new way. Shirky (2008) invented the concept of “organizing without organizations”, holding that under given rules and bonus-​penalty mechanisms, seemingly unconnected Internet users can be strictly organized to achieve certain goals. We can find similar mechanisms working in Diba Expedition. Those crusaders were “called up” from Tieba, Weibo, QQ groups, and other social media, and cooperated with a division of labor through QQ groups. There were two general groups and a vanguard, and six columns under each general group with their respective responsibilities, namely, information gathering (gathering pro-​Taiwan independence opinions and images); promotion and organizing (posting to recruit members; munitions manufacturing (creating images and writing opinions); foreign exchanges (overseas Chinese and translators); battlefield cleaning (miscellaneous Facebook tasks such as liking posts, reports); and Cantonese. They also set up rules such as using civilized language only, no humiliating images, no images of heads of state, no porn pictures, and discussing fighting against Taiwan independence not Taiwanese people. Though strictly organized, the group did not last long and was dismissed as soon as the attack ended. Mobilized, organized, and carried out online through a series of communication behaviors, the “flash” actions, which started and ended all of a sudden, had gone beyond the organization and mobilization of traditional nationalism. Of course, this is nothing new in Internet-​mediated social movements. However, it is noteworthy that the training of crusaders’ behavior pattern was accomplished in commercialized fan clubs and online games rather than traditional political movements.

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136  Hailong Liu Researchers noticed a new force among Diba’s crusaders, “Little Pink” as many observers called them, which means young and patriotic fan groups, not pure red communist descendants. The majority of them are post-​’90s females interested in entertainment news and online literature more than politics, are crazy for celebrities and idols, and involved in spontaneous participation in cyber-​nationalistic campaigns. Compared with previous nationalism, which is generally viewed as a male phenomenon (Özkirimli, 2010), with the participation of Little Pink, Diba Expedition reflected femininity to some degree. This might be true according to preliminary research, not only because Diba’s style of expression in the expedition has softened apparently compared with previous webpage-​flooding actions, but its behavioral logic has also become similar to that of fan groups. First, besides consuming the works of celebrities in a passive manner, fans also see idols as a “transitional object” between internal and external reality and take an active role in constructing their image. They take their idols’ life and work as their own career, protect their idols’ interests, speak out if their adored stars are not getting satisfactory roles to play or are suffering injustice in life, and fight word battles against other celebrities and their fans. Second, strict organization and division of labor are established within fan groups, since there are often fights among fan groups in cyberspace as well as activities to show idols’ popularity, such as organizing performances, meeting idols at airports, canvassing, and holding birthday parties for them. All of these features are quite obvious in Diba Expedition (Sandvoss, 2005). During frequent transnational and transregional fan activities, fan groups often experience injustice and discord with local fans. Moreover, patriotism has become a weapon of celebrities and their fans against competitors. Fans of mainland entertainers often charge entertainers from other regions with “disgracing China”, so as to elevate the status of their idols. These are the reasons why “Little Pink” have blurred the boundaries among state, nation, and personal identity in everyday commercial consumption. It is only one step further on the logical chain from “when it comes to our nation, there is no idol” to “my motherland is my dearest idol”. However, it is because of this one small step that opposite sides of the former “69 sacred war” (one of Diba’s famous expeditions against the Chinese fans of a Korean male band named Super Junior in 2010) are now in the same camp and share the same “idol”. Chinese fans who failed to express for themselves and to defend their position of adoring foreign idols then are now borrowing this strategy and openly worship their nation as “the highest idol” over all the other specific idols. An (2017) Beside the behavioral logic of fan groups, we should not underestimate the influence of online games on the organizing and mobilizing of cyber-​ nationalistic campaigns. Quite the same as transnational fan activities, online games, especially transnational online games, are a breeding ground for

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Love your nation the way you love an idol 137 national identity. People are more likely to perceive national boundaries due to language and cultural differences in these games. Under competition and threats, they turn to geo-​related groups for protection, and thus start to feel their national identity (Wang et al., 2016). An administrative approval system of foreign online games would result in a similar experience of national identity. The Provisions on Network Publication Services Administration specifies contents that are not allowed to be published online, which means administrative approval is a must in order for new games to be imported, and thus their release in China is often later than in other countries or even postponed indefinitely. Hence, some savvy gamers in China are often driven to play on servers of other regions. Sneered at and excluded, they may feel the humiliation of lodging under a foreign roof. That is why national identity is more sensible in commercial games, which supposedly have nothing to do with politics, than in the real world. For instance, in 2010, the release of “World of Warcraft” in China was delayed again and again due to the long administrative approval procedure. In response to that, Baidu Warcraft Bar made a video, “War on Internet Addiction”, which ended with a sad monologue: Like other lovers of this game, I have cried my heart out this year for those who suffered in floods and earthquakes and cheered for our achievements in manned spaceflight and the Olympic Games. We, from the bottom of our heart, do not want to be left behind in any respect by any nation in the world. But in the very same year, thanks to you guys, we have not yet been able to slug it out with gamers from other countries. For the game we love, we have to leave and to compromise. We played on US server or European server against the risk of getting our accounts blocked and were debased as gold farmers. We played on Taiwan server against 10,000+ msec time lag and were cursed as mainland locusts. We have been bearing those depreciatory labels without complaint. Why do you have to deprive us of the cheap entertainment that is only 0.4 RMB/​hour? Wang et al. (2016) Online game players, compared with fan groups, are conversant in mobilization and organization (Salter, 2011), which for them are not much different from banding in games. With daily practice in games, they are already familiar with such a way of engaging in collective action. That is why they have appeared to be highly organized and disciplined in a series of Diba Expeditions. In a word, a previously remote nation would become close and concrete in the daily experience of online fan groups and online game players. Online commercial consumption has merged individuals with the nation. In turn, the Internet generation has been turned into a nationalistic subject by projecting the nation onto their self-​identity. Meanwhile, the daily practice of online consumption has prepared them for cyber-​nationalistic campaigns with various resources and skills, all of which have been reflected in the thinking patterns and behavioral logic in Diba Expeditions.

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New media and the emergence of fandom nationalism Disappearing boundary and domestication The previous sections in this chapter have offered a preliminary description of changes in Chinese nationalism in recent years. Then how should these changes be understood? What do they imply? What are the reasons behind them? And what are the roles the media have played during these changes? These are the questions to be addressed in the conclusion. Chinese cyber-​nationalism emerged in the mid-​1990s with China’s access to the Internet. First, the Internet was simply a reflection of or a tool for the international relationship and for nationalism in reality, and that means the Internet was only playing a supporting role for nationalism. An early monograph that systematically discussed Chinese cyber-​nationalism found that the development of cyber-​nationalism was basically dominated by political affairs, which demonstrated the logic of cyber-​nationalism at that time (Wang et  al., 2016). But then, as the generation of Internet natives, namely, the post-​’90s generation, stepped to the center of the stage, the Internet started to change nationalism. In fact, this trend had started when the post-​’80s generation entered the stage of nationalistic campaigns. In Age of Ambition, Osnos (2014) has pointed out this change in his description of nationalism emerging among young netizens around 2008. Wang et  al. (2016) found that intergenerational differences, instead of political events in the real world, is now a main criterion for cyber-​nationalism in China. They summed up the characteristics of cyber-​nationalism according to participants’ generational belonging, to be specific, post-​’70s, post-​’80s, and post-​’90s. Post-​’60s and post-​’70s participants (1998–​2005) were more concerned with international relations and more critical of reality; however, from the informed post-​’80s gamers on (2008–​2010), grassroots nationalism was born out of the scope of consumption far from politics. Rather than eliminating regional identity, globalized commercial and cultural consumption has instead strengthened national sentiment and identity when the post-​’90s generation became the actors (2010–​). They have been applying the ways of expressing, acting, and organizing in fan activities and online games to cyber-​nationalistic campaigns, and thus changing the whole landscape of online campaigns. It is quite illuminating to examine cyber-​nationalism in China from the perspective of intergenerational difference instead of real political events. However, intergenerational is only a convenient label to help understand cyber-​nationalism. It is a consequence, not a reason, and a variable that needs to be explained, not a variable that explains. Intergenerational difference is a result of multiple complicated factors. Generations from the post-​’60s to the post-​’90s have witnessed rapid development and social changes since the implementation of the reform and opening-​up policy, and thus have been inevitably imprinted by the hallmark of the times. Thus, besides multiple political,

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Love your nation the way you love an idol 139 economic, cultural, and social factors, communication technologies also play an undeniable role. According to Meyrowitz (1986), communication technology is a special mechanism that shapes a situation. Taking television as an example, he believes that the biggest effect of electronic media is that it is ruining the sense of social space long established by print. Representation of the world through print must first be mediated by language. Thus a segregation of social situations was created between the literate and the illiterate, and between those who had and who had no interest in reading certain texts. As a result, different imaginings of reality by children and adults, males and females, the elites and the masses, whites and blacks were constructed by media space. According to the dramaturgical theory proposed by Goffman, the perception of space constitutes a social situation for individual behaviors, so people with different habits of media use would have different behavioral patterns. The invention of television broke the sense of space established by the print and blurred the boundaries among various behavioral situations, therefore changing the behaviors of different social groups (e.g., the adultification of children), and even triggering social reform (e.g., human rights movements and the feminist movement). Meyrowitz’s (1986) discussion is basically limited to television, but if considered in the longer term, both television and the print are mass media, and the only difference between them lies in the threshold of consumption. However, the emergence of the Internet has not only broken the sense of space created and maintained by the mass media, but also integrated information acquisition, entertainment, commercial consumption, education, social interaction, organization management, political mobilization, and other functions that used to be carried out through different social mechanisms into the same platform. The post-​’60s and post-​’70s generations have basically merged the Internet with their preexisting lifestyle, while the “Internet natives”, namely, the post-​’80s and post-​’90s generations, are letting the Internet shape their lifestyle once and for all, and fulfill their need for education, social interaction, game playing, news acquisition, consumption, emotional communication, and so on. For their predecessors, politics is realistic and serious, while for them, there is no substantial difference between politics and celebrity worship, game playing, and other forms of entertainment. They will encounter problems of national identity during celebrity chasing and game playing, and in turn political issues can be solved through the behavioral and expression style of game playing and fandom activities. In the end, the behavioral logic of fan groups and online games are naturally articulated and integrated with the logic of nationalism on the same screen and then constitute behaviors of the “middle region”, to use Meyrowitz’s term. As previously discussed, the relation between communication technologies and nationalism is not a one-​way influence but a mutual domestication. Media is not merely a tool for nationalism, nor does it simply determine the forms of nationalism. Users see the Internet as a space to live their daily life, and an interface to imagine and get connected to the world. It is as natural as air and water.

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140  Hailong Liu Thus, the Internet has mediated or constructed young netizens’ imagination of the nation. In turn, users have also altered the media by endowing the latter with meanings. As a decentralized, egalitarian, and utopian communication technology that transcends geographical space and culture, the Internet has somehow played a contrary role in Diba Expeditions and become the breeding ground for nationalism. Teenage Internet users feel national sentiment and confirm their national identity through actions in cyber space. Thus, nationalism and the Internet interact with each other. To be more specific, the domestication of new Internet technologies by young cyber-​nationalists is reflected in three dimensions, namely, space, time, and language. With regard to space, it was the first time for quite a few “Little Pink” to violate government regulations and get over the firewall that symbolizes a national sovereign border in cyberspace to land in the strange foreign space, Facebook. They complained that they could not get used to Facebook, or that its user experience was no better than domestic websites. Following is a highly cited anecdote about Diba Expeditions. Some crusaders targeting SET News strayed to the Facebook home page of SETN Entertainment and were guided by its enthusiastic online editor to finally find the home page of SEN News (hansey, 2016). Just as Anderson and Calhoun have observed, maps have been playing an important role in constructing the imagination of nations since the nineteenth century. The map drawer’s perspective, which is totally different from daily experience, the accurately sketched national borders, blocks of various colors for different countries, all of these “scientific” inventions help create or strengthen national ideologies. Young crusaders in Diba’s battles marched over the Great Firewall of cyberspace and were for the first time led to the Facebook home page of the Pan-​ Green Camp where they left their own traces. This kind of experience or even adventure in foreign space in turn intensified participants’ national sentiments. The word “expedition” was used as a metaphor for Diba’s online nationalistic campaigns because the visual effect was mainly reflected by flooding certain web pages around a particular time, and even overloading the server to crash. Meanwhile, by broadcasting the whole process through live video streaming platforms, the participants further visualized the campaigns into concrete images. The reification of synchronic collective campaigns aroused the crowd’s specific experience of physical aggregation. Collective comments left at the same time and pre-​campaign mobilization in QQ groups and Baidu Post Bar stimulated “the imagined community” of strangers, as Anderson (2006) called it. Some scholars consider it to be Collins’ “interaction ritual chains”, which leads to collective effervescence and emotional energy through participation (Liu, 2016). That explains why quite a few participants, when they came to recall the campaigns, believed that they had become more patriotic after the Expedition (Wang, 2016). The identity and differences in languages is an important clue for the ­imagination of communities. The “Little Pink” got over the firewall and flooded the home pages of Taiwan media and leaders with a uniform expression pack and Diba’s unique spoofing. Their self-​performance greatly confused people

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Love your nation the way you love an idol 141 from the other side of the strait and strengthened their identity as subcultural group members. Then they found a new target to mock in Taiwan people’s dull response, which did not conform to the Internet expression style in mainland China, and were fascinated by the illusion of a “successful attack”. A  self-​ fulfilled prophecy was thus achieved. However, the hegemonic language superiority reinforced differences, segregation, and antagonism among ethnic groups, which is discrepant with the goal of national unity. Did the video of Tzuyu Chou apologizing form a consensus and bring about change? Or did it, on the contrary, stir more anger and antagonism? That is to say, there is still tension between official nationalistic politics and fandom nationalism based on identity politics, and the latter may not associate oneself with the former as a subordinate, which aims to unite Taiwan with mainland China. Simply equating the two will neglect their difference in terms of thinking and behavioral logic. The emergence of fandom nationalism To conclude, for cyber-​nationalists composed mainly of members of the post-​ ’90s generation, the previously unrelated Internet technologies and nationalism have been merged into one during their construction of identity, which has altered the basic characteristics of cyber-​nationalism. The concept of “fandom nationalism” has been coined for this new type of cyber-​nationalism, which, to put it simply, is to “love your nation the way you love an idol”. What is different from previous nationalists is that these Little Pink apply what they have learned from celebrity worship to their relationship with the nation. They presume their ownership of the nation, get emotionally engaged, assume responsibility to help their nation win in all competitions against others in the world, and rise up against competitors when their nation is suffering injustice. They personalize the nation as equal subjects and get engaged rather than admire or worship it. From a psychological perspective, this is much the same way they deal with their idols, because they regard the nation as a “transitional object” between internal and external reality to accomplish communication with the external world and to construct self-​identities. “For nationalistic ‘Little Pink’, the nation is merely another idol, or ‘the dearest idol’. Loving their nation may simply mean loving the most righteous one among all their idols. Meanwhile, just like a great idol, the nation has to battle with equally mighty competitors. The stronger the enemy and the fiercer the battle, the more they prove themselves right in following the idol” (Yan, 2016). Based on a previous analysis, there are eight features of fandom nationalism: (1) It grows from Web 2.0 technologies, especially social media as platforms of organization, mobilization, and action. (2) Most of its participants are young netizens who have only a slight interest in politics in their daily life, including some female fan groups called the “Little Pink”.

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142  Hailong Liu (3) Its expression style is imprinted with Internet subcultures. Emotions no longer are hatred and anger, which were quite common in traditional nationalistic expression, but are mostly sarcasm, irony, and even positive feelings. (4) Participants’ feelings of attachment to the nation are much like those of fans to their idols. Namely, they love their nation the way they love an idol. (5) They are mobilized, organized, and take joint actions in the same way as online game players and fan groups. (6) Rather than passively accept propaganda by social elites, they take an active part in constructing and producing meanings of the nation and project their imaginings to the nation. (7) Just like members of youth subcultures, the participants are rebellious in order to obtain a certain status and social recognition. They imagine their patriotic campaigns to be based on behaviors of idealism and heroism contrary to mainstream utilitarianism and cynicism. (8) Under the influence of a global culture, not all of the participants in cyber-​nationalistic campaigns are narrow-​minded. Quite a few are highly educated teenagers who are familiar with Western culture or even have studied abroad.

Discussion: The rebellious obedience After discussing the emergence of fandom nationalism and its relation with communication technologies, it is naturally coming to the question of how to understand and evaluate it, which, though it may not be the focus of this chapter, is still worth discussing. Here are some questions to consider. First, it is better not rush to the conclusion that subjects of fandom nationalism are all idiots or angry youth who have been brainwashed. It is necessary to understand their behaviors in a social context. Youth are born rebels, but when the mainstream comes to rebel, obedience then becomes a form of rebellion. Patriotism was once a mainstream value. However, when utilitarianism and cynicism deconstructed idealism and heroism as propagated by the authorities and that prevailed in society, and when liberalism and individualism defeated collectivism and became the mainstream, plain patriotism, collectivism, idealism, and heroism, on the contrary, now became rebellious. Under the logic of negation, youth subcultures that aim to obtain an independent identity have instead expressed their obedience to national authorities. Therefore, the real motivation lurking behind Little Pink’s behaviors might be the desire to obtain social recognition rather than love for their country. As pointed out by Yang (2016), Diba Expedition is more an act of self-​ performance than an intercultural crusade. The real recipients of this sort of intercultural communication, for instance China’s publicity ads in Times Square, are in fact the participants themselves who have built their identity and the imagination of an anonymous community of patriotic youth through unique expressions in this carnival. It is just like chasing a celebrity. What

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Love your nation the way you love an idol 143 matters is not the idol but the exploration of the ego, in this case, the conjunction of one’s inner mind to the external world through a transitional illusion (Winnicott, 1953). The subjects of fandom nationalism are quite young on average, but that does not mean that they are irrational or shallow. On the contrary, they are well-​educated people with a broad vision, and have their own opinions on politics, consumer culture, and male hegemony. Some of them are even college students or graduates studying abroad (“jet laggers”). Zhou (2006) coined the concept “informed nationalism” based on his analysis of military fans on the Tiexue Luntan (literally the Iron and Blood Forum, one of China’s biggest military fan sites). Similar phenomena can be found among the Little Pink. They are media-​literate people who know how to create hot events, and at the same time are aware of the limited communication effect of Diba Expedition campaigns. Though they have participated with great enthusiasm, they do not believe that the expeditions can really make any difference in the status quo, nor are they optimistic about the propagation and educational functions as the advocates of these campaigns claim. After Diba Expedition, an anthropologist expressed her pity for female fans who adopted patriarchal expressions (e.g., referring to the nation as their father and pro-​independence Taiwanese as sons). However, it did not take a long time for a user of Jinjiang Literature City (one of China’s earliest and most influential women’s literature websites where the concept of “Little Pink” originated) to correct her remarks. The latter maintained that they were not yielding to the patriarchy. Quite the contrary, they were trying to deconstruct it in a teasing way for the purpose of self-​empowerment (Yan, 2016). Though reservations about this explanation remain, it at least illustrates that the Little Pink are quite sensitive to power issues. Third, it is necessary to consider the influence of global consumer culture. As already discussed, instead of blurring national boundaries, nonpolitical fan cultures, international online games, and the personal consumption of commodities have in effect aroused participants’ national sentiments. Though consumers are quite aware of the capitalistic manipulation behind celebrities and the commercial operation of the media, what cannot be ignored is the possibility that the nationalistic experience in commercial consumption could turn into political populism and that it could blend serious politics with consumer logic. Finally, here is a controversial issue: how do we evaluate fandom nationalism? After Diba Expedition in 2016, the government was faced with a challenge in responding to this spontaneous campaign that violated China’s network control with the firewall. Nevertheless, the official media basically approved, though in a low-​key way, of the crusade and young participants’ patriotic enthusiasm without mentioning their violation of state regulations. The public’s opinions are quite divided over the campaign, which reflects the fragmentation of political ideologies in contemporary China. Here, instead of judging between right and wrong, we attempt to go beyond a simplistic way of

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144  Hailong Liu thinking and unfold the neglected dimensions of this issue from the perspective of communication studies. On December 24, 2016, a video of Taiwan renown writer Ying-tai Lung speaking at Hong Kong University on the title of “One Song, One Era” was released online. Lung invited the audience to name the most inspiring song in their memory, and Dr. Albert Wai-lap Chau, vice president of Hong Kong Baptist University, answered, “My Motherland”, which is a well-​known patriotic movie theme song from the 1950s representing the red culture of the CPC. Lung did not know this song and asked Chau to sing the opening lines, and the request was answered, from faint to strong, by 1,000 teachers and students in the Grand Hall, who sang not just the first lines but the entire song. Considering the cultural and political conflicts between Hong Kong and mainland China in recent years, this video challenged people’s “common sense”. For instance, nationalism is not necessarily a pure political concept, but might be everyday memories of individuals or certain groups. The song has a lyrical melody and an artistic description of the landscape. Though there is no explicit mention of nation and politics, put in the context of brutal trench warfare in the Shanggan Mountain Battle in the Korean War, the song acquires an intense political connotation. With reference to the connection between the national landscape and identity, as discussed, “a big river” and other scenic landscapes are metaphors of the nation and its sovereignty even outside of the context of warfare. Because the correlation between cultural products and politics is ambiguous, the former has the potential to embed politics in various individual memories. Thus interpretation by a single logic is inevitably biased. The same is true for fandom nationalism. When the nation is seen as a “transitional object” between the subjective world and the objective world, it will then be endowed with ambiguity and fluidity. It might be a patriotic political campaign or a blind political crusade, as well as communication play and fan activity. Cyber-​nationalists are not mere consumers of meanings of the nation produced by elites. Rather, they take an active part in the reproduction of nationalism and have started their grassroots, pluralistic construction of its significance. In doing so, they have escaped from the official interpretations and constructed an ideal image of China, which is open, powerful, independent, peaceful, tolerant, and so on, and then they have project their self-​expectations onto it. The construction is illusory to some degree, but discourses on the nation also provide a space of imagination for the construction of the real China and its image. The reinterpretation of national identity has to be open rather than closed, pluralistic rather than unitary, supplementary to other identities rather than suppressing them. Fans will grow up some day and shift their life focus from the illusory “transitional object” to the real world. So instead of jumping to simplistic conclusions about their contemporary attitudes, it is better to pay more attention to their memories of fandom nationalism in the future, and how they turn these memories into more positive attitudes toward reality.

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146  Hailong Liu Maqianzu (2009). Observation and analysis of Internet nationalism in China—​Based on China-​Japan and China-​ROK relationships. Review of Internet Communication in China 1, 131–​143. [ 闵 大 洪 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 。 对 中 国 网 络 民 族 主 义 的 观 察 、 分 析 — ​—​ 以中日、中韩关系为对象。《中国网络传播研究》 , 1, 131–​143。] Pan, Z. (2014). “Play with my iPhone to surprise my world!”—​Discussion on the mediation and domestication in application of new communication technologies. Journal of Suzhou University (Psychology and Social Science), 4, 153–​162. [潘忠党(2014)。“玩转我的iPhone,搞掂我的世界!”—​—​探讨新传媒技术应用中的“中 介化”和“驯化”。《苏州大学学报》(哲学社会科学版), (04), 153–​162。] Wang, Z. (2016) “Tonight we are all Diba’s people”:  Internet nationalism as emotionalized games. Journal of International Communication, 11,  75–​90. [王喆(2016)。“今晚我们都是帝吧人”:作为情感化游戏的网络民族主义。《国际新 闻界》, (11), 75–​90] Wang, H., Li, S., and Wu, J. (2016). From crazy fans to Little Pink: Research on emergence of national identity and mobilization mechanism in new media commercial and cultural context. Journal of International Communication, 11,  33–​53. [王洪喆, 李思闽, 吴靖(2016)。从“迷妹”到“小粉红”:新媒介商业文化环境下的国族身 份生产和动员机制研究。《国际新闻界》(11), 33-​53。] Yan, Q. (2016). Patriotic Little Pink, fans battle and cyborg in China. Initium Media. Retrieved January 20, 2017, from https://​theinitium.com/​article/​20160722​opinion-​yanqiang-​pink-​cyborg/​ [严蔷(2016)。爱国小粉红、粉丝战争, 与天朝主义赛博格。端传媒, https://​theinitium. com/​article/​20160722-​opinion-​yanqiang-​pink-​cyborg/​] Yang, G. (2016). Heroic nationalist fans. Journal of International Communication, 11,  25–​32. [杨国斌(2016)。英雄的民族主义粉丝。《国际新闻界》(11), 25–​32。]

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Index

2.28 Incident 21 918 Patriots 38 AC-​April website  39 action movement 84 active audiences 53 agents of cyber-​nationalism 55–​57 “Air Force One” 37 Anderson, Benedict 5, 15, 54, 67, 129, 140 An-​Hui  TV  13 animation culture 49 anime, comics, and games (ACG) girls 55 anti-​Japanese protests 28–​29n3, 110, 111 anti-​Taiwan independence statement 23, 27, 81–​82 APA Group 125 Apple Daily 14, 43, 77, 93, 122n2, 126 Asch, S. E. 96 Baidu Diba 14, 67 Baidu Tieba (Baidu Post Bar) 93, 99, 125–​126, 132, 140 Baidu Warcraft Bar 137 “Baoba” 75, 106 Bauman, Z. 28, 56 BBS forums 4, 7, 55 bbs.people.cn 55 Beck, U. 56 Beck-​Gernsheim,  E.  56 Beijing Olympics 2008 20 Beijing TV 13 Bellah, R. 103 Big Bang fans 47 “Binders Full of Women” meme 73 Blackmore, S. 73, 85 Blair, J. A. 74 Bo, Xilai 28n2 Burke, Peter 111 “Burst the Bar” 53, 56, 67

Calhoun, C. 140 Cao, Jin 85 Carey, James 73, 99 CCTV 17, 119 Central Committee of the Communist Youth League 61, 66, 118, 119 Chen, Shui-​bian  22 China Can Say No 17, 131 China Eagle Club 55 China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) 113 Chinese Communist Party (CPC) 16, 17, 18–​19, 27, 28n2, 120, 128, 144 Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia in 113 Chinese Internet culture 4 Chinese Internet nationalism: first wave 37–​38; rehistoricization of 36–​41; second wave 38–​41; third wave of internet nationalism 41–​48 Chou, Tzu-​yu 13–​14, 25, 26, 126, 130, 141 civic nationalism 117 civil society 36, 38, 50n9 Clark, D. 56 collective action 7, 8, 23–​24, 34, 41, 53, 54–​55, 58, 62, 64–​66, 88, 93–​106, 112, 137 collective behaviors, dynamic mechanism of: exchange of emotional energy and moral imagination 101–​103; group assembly in cyberspace and emergence of collective effervescence 98–​99; production of symbolic solidity of crowds 100–​101 collective consciousness 95, 96–​97, 99 collective effervescence 56, 94, 98–​99, 106, 140 collective emotional interaction 2, 57 collective excitement phenomena 57

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Index 149 collective identity 4, 5, 15, 40–​41, 109 collectivization 68 Collins, Randall 2, 93, 95, 99, 102, 104, 106, 140 commercial activities 47–​48 commercial images and exchanges 20 communicating discourse 104 communication-​oriented memes 84, 86–​87, 88 communication play 134, 144 communication technologies 139; and nationalism 129–​130 communicative discourse 105 Communist Party of China see Chinese Communist Party (CPC) Communist Youth League of China 32, 61 conflict movements 74, 75, 88 conquering discourse 103 consensus movement 74–​76, 81–​84, 88 consumer nationalism 19–​20 Cooley, C.H. 95 counterculture 132 countermemes 84–​85, 87, 88 CP fan 42 critical realism 36–​37, 38, 50n6, 128 cultural commodities 48, 143 cultural habits of contemporary youth 2 cultural identification 19, 23 Cultural Revolution 16, 28n2 cultural skills 6–​7 culture memes 77, 78 cyber signature boycott 76 cyber subculture 53, 56, 57, 68 Cyber War of Stickers on Facebook (War of Memes) 110, 111, 117, 120, 122n2 Dai, Leon 126 Dawkins, Richard 73, 131 “Defending Diaoyu Island” movement 38 DeLuca, K. M. 74, 88 Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) 21, 25 Diaoyu Islands 18, 50n9, 110 Diba Expedition 1–​2, 14, 32, 41, 42, 43–​44, 49, 53, 55, 56–​57, 125, 126; consumer culture 20; contextual structure 64–​67; cultural skills 6–​7; disenchantment 4–​5; game-​like strategy  63–​64; human resources mobilization 81; language

style 42–​43; memes (see memes); and new media (see new media); and online nationalism 22–​27; organization mobilization 81; overseas participants 45–​46; performance style 5–​6; persuasive communication in (see persuasive communication); political opportunities 8–​9; privacy 33–​34; rationality in 62; re-​ enchantment 4; self-​performance 2–​4, 140–​141; structure of feelings 67–​68; and Taiwan’s identity issues 21–​22; technology mobilization 81–​83; time pattern 58–​61 discourse logic, of collective action 103–​106; conquering, lecturing, and communicating 103–​104; metaphors of “wall” 105–​106; repetitive discourse strategy 104–​105 discourses of empire 9–​10 Donald Trump supporters 33, 49 DOTA2 World Championship 41 double-​talk culture  50n6 Duara, P. 129 Du Jia (Exclusive) website 39 Durkheim, E. 57, 93, 95, 98–​99, 100, 101–​103 economic development 16, 17, 22, 118 “Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces” 1, 24, 63, 69, 78, 82, 104 emoji packs (biaoqing bao) 1, 3; linguistic variety 1; visual variety 1 emoticons of nationalism 41 emotional connection 23 emotional energy 94, 95, 106, 140; and moral imagination, exchange of 101–​103 emotional expression 2, 67, 72, 76–​77, 102, 104 empire, discourses of 9–​10 entertainment and politics, interaction between 26, 44–​45 ethnic nationalism 117 evolution of cyber-​nationalism 53–​55 EXO 42 “Expedition for the Sake of Yourself ” 4 Facebook 68–​69, 81, 140 “Facebook Diba Base” 57 fan: circle fights 42; groups 136–​ 137, 139; -​led expedition 41–​48; fan sisters 48, 49 fandom 1, 7, 9, 35, 40, 41, 44, 47, 49, 139

150

150 Index fandom nationalism 2; emergence of 141–​142; evaluation of 143–​144; rebellious obedience 142–​144 “FB Holy War” 93 “Fight Club” 57 First Opium War 15 Fisher, Robert 4–​5 Fligstein, N. 7 frozen motion 85 Gellner, Ernest 53, 54 Global Times 25, 97 Goffman, Erving 93, 97, 101, 139 Great Firewall 27, 47, 78, 140 Gries, P. H. 16, 36 group assembly in cyberspace 98–​99 group fan 42 group polarization 75 group solidarity 100–​101 Handelman 68 Hebdige, D. 56 Henry, Thierry 125 “Homesick” 24, 58, 62, 63, 69, 78, 82, 103, 104 Honker (Hong Ke) 55 Huang, An 13 Huang, Zitao 20, 79, 80, 85, 120 Huawei 13 Hughes, C. R. 37, 55 Hu, Jintao 24 human resources mobilization 81 identification, with idols 41–​42 identity consciousness, of collective action 95–​103; dynamic mechanism of collective behaviors 98–​103; self-​ identity consciousness 95–​97; social identity establishment 97–​98 image-​contesting nationalism  121 image-​driven nationalism 74, 110, 112, 113–​115, 121 image juxtaposition 85 image macros 77, 78–​79, 79–​80, 82, 84, 88; with watermark 84 image + text format 77, 79, 80, 85 individualism 4, 54, 57, 111, 142 individualization 4, 56, 68 Indonesia, May 1998 riots in 37 information control 19, 105 informed nationalism 2, 39, 48, 143 interaction chain theory 2 interaction ritual theory 93–​94, 95, 106, 140

intergenerational difference 131, 138 Internet censorship 82, 93, 121, 132 Internet-​driven people’s nationalism 37–​38 Internet meme 73–​74 Internet public opinion 36, 38 “Iron Blood Community” 37, 38 Jakobson, R. 86 Japanese soccer fans 63–​64 Jenkins, H. 48, 73 Jiang, Lei 37, 54 Jiang, Zemin 17, 54 Jinjiang Literature City 7 Jin, Jing 51n15 Jin, Yan 85 June 9th Online Jihad 39, 75, 110, 111, 122n1 June Fourth movement 17, 18 JYP 13–​14, 25, 35 Kayama, Rika 63–​64 Kertzer, David 93 Knobel, M. 73 Koizumi, Junichiro 113 Korean pop culture 34–​35 Kuhn, Philip Alden 87 Kumamon 120 Kuomintang (KMT) 21–​22, 25, 26, 128 KUSO culture 38 languages: identity and differences in 140; style 42–​43 Lankshear, C. 73 lecturing discourse 103–​104 Lee, Teng-​hui  21 Lefebvre, H. 106 Lei, Yang 118, 122n3 Lei, Yuzhen 74 Liberty Times 25 Liang, Qichao 54 Li, Mujin 38 Lin, Gengxin 25 literary style 5 Little Pink 7, 9, 24, 32, 33, 41, 55–​56, 57, 98, 133, 136, 140–​141, 143 Liu, Qiang 90 live broadcast 67 Li, Yi 125, 132 “Liyi Bar” 93 Li, Yonggang 66 Long March 61 Louis XIV 111 Lung, Ying-​tai  144

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Index 151 MacKinnon, R. 66 mainland big sisters 47 Mao, Zedong 28n2 massive open online course (MOOC) 113 mass media 15, 43, 139 Matheson, Craig 94 Ma, Ying-​jeon  26 McAdam, D. 7 McLuhan, M. 129, 130 Mead, G.H. 95 “Me and My Country Engine” 39 Melucci, A. 79 memes 73–​74, 88, 120, 131; attack and threaten codes 80; communication-​oriented 76, 86–​87; countermemes 84–​85; educate and admonish codes 80; form, content, and structure 77–​79; satire and irony codes 80; strong memes formation 85–​86; type and metaphor of 79–​80 Meyrowitz, J. 139 micro-​resistance in popular culture, 74 military fans 37, 41, 48, 49, 119, 143 Miller, V. 99 Milner, R. 73 Mina An Xiao 74 Min, Dahong 36–​37, 50n7, 76, 128 Moffitt, B. 5 moral sentiment 102 Morley, D. 53 Mr. Kim 79, 82, 85 multiple contesting subjects, perspective of 110–​111 Naoki Hyakuta 126 “Nashi” 32 national fire wall 66 national identity consciousness 96–​97 nationalism 5, 27–​28, 127–​128; definition of 15; emotions of 41; Western influence 15–​16, 127 nationalism, in China: reform-​era 16–​19; historical context 15–​16 nation, definition of 15 nation-​state, definition of 15 negative energy 9 neoliberalism 16, 22 Netease 109 network boycotts 56, 75–​76, 125 networked authoritarianism 66, 68 New Cultural Movement 17, 26 New Leftists 17, 28n2

new media: disappearing boundary and domestication 138–​141; and emergence of fandom nationalism 138–​142; fandom nationalism, emergence of 141–​142; floating ambiguity and gameplay 133–​135; and formation of Diba’s style of expression 130–​133; mobilization, organization, and implementation through 135–​137 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing of the Chinese Embassy 37 online activism 8; political styles of 5–​6 online fandom communities 7 online games 1, 2, 40, 65, 136–​137, 138, 139, 143 organization mobilization 81 Osnos, Evan 39, 138 Pan-​Green Camp  140 Pan Xiao’s Letter 4 party propaganda 36, 37 “Patriotic Alliance” 38 patriotic youth 98 patriotism 1, 14, 16, 36, 40, 50n6, 54, 64, 76, 98, 119 patriots, as informed public and game players 38–​41 peg community 56 Pels, D. 5 People’s Daily 25, 37, 97, 98 performing resistance 74 persuasive communication 84–​87; classification and communication-​ oriented memes 86–​87; countermemes 84–​85; image macros with watermark 84; strong memes formation 85–​86 Phoenix New Media 87 playful style 6, 7, 57 pluralism, in image-​contesting narrative strategies: appropriation 120; incorporation 119–​120; negotiation 118–​119; resistance 121 pluralism, in image-​contesting narrative subjects 116; multiple authority subjects 117–​118; multiple public subjects 116–​117 political memes 73, 77–​79 political opportunities 8–​9 political propaganda 78

152

152 Index political slogans 131 political styles 5–​6 populism 5, 33, 87, 133, 143 pornography 24, 67 positive emotional comments 62–​63 positive energy 9 post-​’90s generation  97–​98 postmodern commercial culture 49 postmodern informed nationalist group 48 print capitalism 129 pro-​Taiwan independence  126 Protesting against NATO Barbarism Forum 128 Provisions on Network Publication Services Administration 137 “Public Apology of Zhou Ziyu” 102 Pusey, J. R. 15–​16 Qing dynasty 15 Qiu, Jack 7, 74, 110, 113, 121 QQ groups 1, 34, 42, 57–​58, 78, 81–​82, 135, 140 “The Rabbit and His Stories” 119–​120 Rawls, Anne Warfield 93 reactive incident 25 realism-​based political dramas 45 Red Campaign 28n2 Ren Chonghao 39 Rentschler, C. A. 73 repertoires 5–​6 repetitive discourse strategy 104–​105 Republic of China (ROC) 21 Rheingold, H. 135 River Elegy (He Shang) 17 Road of Rejuvenation Studio 118 romantic heroism 4–​5 Ryukyu Islands 18 Sanlih website 25 San Li News 35, 44 Sapir-​Whorf hypothesis  130 “seeing is believing” culture 110 self-​awareness  101 self-​empowerment  96 self-​identity consciousness  95; identity of online expeditioners of Diba community 95–​96; national identity consciousness 96–​97 Self-​Strengthening movement  15 SEN News 140 SETN Entertainment 140 SET News 140

Shifman, L. 73–​74, 78, 85, 86 Shinzo Abe 120 Shi, Ping 126 Shirky, C. 135 “Shi San Wu” 118 Shi Yibin 74 Shoheijuku 126 Show Lo 26 Shuibian Chen 55 Sima Qian 132 Sina 13, 109 single-​member  fan  42 Sino-​Japanese  War  15 Smith, A. D. 129 Social Networking Services 65, 66 social change memes 74 social identity establishment: patriotic youth 98; post-​’90s generation 97–​98 social movements 5, 32, 74–​76, 81, 84, 135 social ritual theory 93, 100 social skills 7 Sohu 109 “Song of the Seven Sons” 24, 78, 103 South China Sea Arbitration 110, 118 South China Sea Collision 113 “South China Sea issue” 50n1 Stephenson, W. 134 Strengthening the Nation Forum 128 Strong Nation BBS 37 Strong Nation Forum 38, 113 style of performance 4–​6, 64–​66 Suharto, Raden 55 Sun, Yang 50n1 Sun, Yat-​sen 54, 128 Super Junior (pop group) 46–​47 Su, Xiaokang 17 symbolic solidity 100–​101 Taiwan: democratization in 21; identity issues 21–​22 “Taiwan Blitz” 55 Tajfel, H. 101 Tang, Jie 39 technology mobilization 81–​82 text + image format see image + text format THAAD crisis 50n1 That Rabbit and Those Things in That Year 65 Thornton, S. 56 Thrift, S. C. 73 Tiananmen Square democracy movement 16

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Index 153 Tianya 1, 40, 63, 68, 81 Tiexue Luntan 143 Tilly, C. 5, 6 Tormey, S. 5 Toshio Motoya 126 transnational fandom 44–​45 Trump, Donald 33 Tsai, Ing-​wen 3, 9, 14, 24, 26, 53, 65, 78, 120, 122n2, 126, 131 Twice (pop group) 13, 34 United States 17–​18, 21 “Upright FB Mainlanders” 57 user generated content (UGC) 110 verbal communication theory 86 virals 73 virtual dissemination 99 virtual private networks (VPNs) 47, 76 visual communication 111 visual expression 111–​112 visual imagination of nationalism 111–​112 “Visualizing Culture” 113 visual memes 2 visual nationalism: new model of 115–​121; pluralism in image-​ contesting narrative subjects 116–​118; Pluralism in the image-​contesting narrative strategies 118–​121; traditional model of 113–​115 visual symbols 109, 110, 121 Wai-​lap, Albert Chau 144 “wall” metaphors 105–​106 Wang, H. 19 Wang, Longkun 74

Wang, W. 5 Wang, Z. 138 War of Memes see Cyber War of Stickers on Facebook (War of Memes) “War on Internet Addiction” 137 WeChat 43, 77, 110, 118 Weibo 13–​14, 23, 34–​35, 43, 50n1, 63, 66, 69, 110, 119, 126, 135 Wei, Ming-​jen  125 Wen, Yiduo 24, 103 Western modernity, and Chinese nationalism 15–​16, 127 Williams, R. 67, 132 Wong, B. W. 55 World Expo of 2010, conflict during 39–​40 WOW 40 Wu, Dingming 74 Wu, Xu 6, 130 Wuyouzhixiang 28n2 Xi Jinping 119 Xinhua News Agency 119 Yang, Guobin 5, 61, 111, 142 Yan, Yunxiang 4 Yao, Jin 39 Yat-​sen  Sun  54 Young Cynic (Fen Qing) 55 Yu, Kwang-​chung 24, 65, 78, 103 Zhang, W. 48 Zhao, Wei 38–​39, 50n1 Zheng, Yongnian 128 Zhou, Jie 20 Zhou, Yongming 39, 48, 143 Zhou, Ziyu 34–​35, 44, 82 Zimmer, O. 117

154