Mobile phones,social ties and collective action mobilization in China

Abstract

To provide a better understanding of mobile phones as a recruitment tool in collective actions, this study explores the use of mobile phones for mobilizing protest in China. Using in-depth interviews and investigating four cases in which Chinese people employed mobile devices to recruit participants for protests, this study observes that mobile communication in China embodies guanxi, the indigenous social tie in Chinese society that introduces reciprocity as an influential facilitator of collective actions. The embedment of reciprocity facilitates the proliferation of mobilizing calls, legitimizes mobilizing appeals, generates obligations and consolidates solidarity for collective actions. The study concludes with a consideration of the relevance of mobile phones for the embedment of reciprocity in social ties in the mobilization of collective action in authoritarian regimes such as China.

Keywords

mobile communication collective action mobilization social tie reciprocity China guanxi

Introduction

Computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as e-mail, internet-based social networking and mobile phone-mediated interaction, has been galvanizing and shaping the organization, mobilization and coordination of recent collective actions (e.g., Bennett and Segerberg, 2012; Castells, 2012; Howard and Hussain, 2013; van de Donk et al., 2004). In the CMC-facilitated waves of collective action that have swept across the globe over the past decade, the mobile phone has become an increasingly indispensable instrument for political mobilization (e.g., Liu, 2013a; Hussain and Howard, 2013; Rafael, 2003; Suárez, 2006). However, research on the mobile phone as a means of mobilization for collective action is still best described as inchoate. While current scholarship focuses mainly on the analysis of discrete contentious events (e.g., Goggin and Hjorth, 2014: 407-438; Neumayer and Stald, 2014; Rheingold, 2008; Suárez, 2006), it fails to establish a conceptual framework to dissect possible similarities between these mobile phone-mediated protests. To understand better and theorize further the role mobile phones play in collective action, this study examines the use of mobile phones in organizing contentious movements in China. It investigates some of the ways in which Chinese people employ mobile devices to facilitate the recruitment, mobilization and organization of collective action. This study specifies the effect of social ties on this collective action, employing the Chinese term ‘guanxi’, interpreted as ‘personal connections’ or ‘social networks’. More precisely, this study scrutinizes the influence of reciprocity in social ties, embodied in mobile communication, on the participation and recruitment of collective action. It addresses the relevance and effectiveness of mobile communication in exhorting bonds of reciprocity to legitimate collective action and generate social cohesion during contentious movements, particularly in the absence of social mobilization organizations (SMOs) in authoritarian regimes.

Mobile phones, collective action and social ties

CMC, collective action and social ties

With the proliferation of digital technologies, CMC has not only served as an emerging resource for social movements, but has also led to considerable discussion of its capability to mobilize collective actions or ‘connective action’ (e.g., Bennett and Segerberg, 2012; Diani, 2000; Howard and Hussain, 2013; Robertson, 2015). Functions in which CMC engages, such as the reduction of communication and brokerage costs (e.g., Earl and Kimport, 2011; Mercea, 2012), the cultivation of collective identity (Rafael, 2003; Yang, 2009), the diversity of participatory styles (Bimber et al., 2012), and the encouragement of transnational movement organizations (Bennett, 2003; Bennett et al., 2008), are considered to lower the barrier to the mobilization of collective action, offering unprecedented opportunities to exhort existing and recruit potential movement members. Nevertheless, the question of whether – and to what extent – CMC affects or revolutionizes the mobilizing mechanism of collective action is still far from clear and is even highly contested (e.g., Diani, 2000; McAdam et al., 1996). Among many debates, the contribution of social ties to communication technology-mediated mobilization emerges as a valuable topic of controversy.

The social tie was seen as a basic but relevant recruitment agent before CMC became affordable and accessible (e.g., Diani and McAdam, 2003; McAdam, 1986; Tilly, 1978). Such ties integrate ‘networks of trust’ (Tilly, 2005), identify shared individual preferences and perceptions (Passy, 2003; McAdam, 1988), engender movement identity (Friedman and McAdam, 1992), and exercise social control during movement actions (Jasper, 1998; Snow et al., 1980). Although CMC offers the possibility of organizing collective action across geographical, cultural, ideological and issue boundaries, social ties within extant activist networks still strongly influence effective mobilization. Diani (2000) emphasized the existing bonds and solidarities in virtual networks that are necessary for effective mobilization to evaluate CMC’s capability to expand or create new cohesive networks from existing strong ties and trust. Bennett (2003) demonstrated the relevance of personal network ties to individual activists who wish to activate their political resources and to overcome the vulnerabilities of network politics. CMC’s function in mobilization still depends on existing social ties that generate the mechanisms accounting for its mobilizing affect.

Previous research, however, is vulnerable on three fronts. First, researchers accept CMC as a unified concept, failing to differentiate the properties of various forms of digital technologies and their respective impacts on the mobilization of collective action (e.g., Diani 2000). CMC is shorthand for a wide range of different digital media and technological modalities, making it a complex plurality of networked communicative capacities. Different digital media and modalities, each with their own communication characteristics, are subject to various conditions of use and, significantly, have different network infrastructures and mobilization affordances for political activism.¹ In addition, most studies that claim to analyze CMC deal only with the internet, and as such, they fail to capture and differentiate the distinctiveness between internet- and mobile phone-facilitated mobilization in collective action (e.g., Thurlow et al., 2004). This study addresses the distinctiveness of mobile phone use for collective action mobilization.

Second, previous research has been largely developed in liberal and democratic contexts such as North America and Europe (e.g., Bimber et al., 2012; Neumayer and Stald, 2014). In such settings, SMOs enjoy relative autonomy from the state and contribute fundamentally to the organization and coordination of collective action.² The social ties and networks forming the underlying social and material supports of movement organizations have acted as a key legitimating mechanism for collective action.³ However, in authoritarian regimes such as China, social organizations are situated in a different set of relations, falling under the stern control of, and restriction by, governmental and ideological authorities (Teets, 2013). Against this backdrop, social organizations have been largely missing in the process of political mobilization in places such as China, due to political pressure and surveillance (e.g., Liu, 2015; Rheingold, 2008: 231). What source of power, then, will legitimate mobilization efforts via mobile phones in such a repressive, ‘high-risk’ (McAdam, 1986) situation? In particular, while a few scholars have acknowledged communication enabled by CMC as the pivotal part of organizational structure that alters the dynamics of mobilization by replacing the central role of SMOs, their discussions are still drawn from cases that involved SMOs (e.g., Bennett and Segerberg, 2012; Earl and Kimport, 2011). Exploring the mechanism of mobilization for digital communication technologies in authoritarian regimes and, particularly, in the absence of SMOs, therefore yields a clearer understanding of the effects of CMC on collective action mobilization.

Third, while research on collective action has addressed the relevance of social ties in individual recruitment, the precise dimensions of social ties that account for their role as facilitators of mobilization remain unspecified and require explication (Passy, 2003: 22; Gould, 2003: 237). For digital media and collective action, scholars call for more refined investigations to understand ‘…the kinds of communication that individuals use to activate personal networks’ at a finer-grained level (Bennett et al., 2008: 286). By interrogating the mobile phone-mediated interpersonal communication that took place during collective action, we present a nuanced and more precise portrait of their linkages.

Mobile communication as a specific CMC for mobilization

To understand the role mobile phones play in movement mobilization, it is necessary to distinguish mobile communication from other forms of CMCs and mass communication, especially from more strictly internet-based communication, by underscoring its unique technological and social affordances. First, mobile communication features mobility, which means that mobile phones can be used anytime, anywhere (Ling, 2004): mobility facilitates flexibility when using mobile devices for movement mobilization. Second, mobile interaction – voice calls, for instance – establishes synchronous communication.⁴ Studies have acknowledged that the instantaneousness of mobile communication facilitates flash mobilizations, making it difficult for the authorities to predict or suppress collective actions (e.g., Suárez, 2006; Rheingold, 2008). Third, mobile communication embodies personalization, giving rise to new forms of networking and social coordination, new definitions of the private–public sphere and of time, and new expressions of culture (Ling, 2004, 2008; Castells et al., 2007). Being a direct, interpersonal means of communication on the basis of pre-existing social ties, mobile interaction – functioning as social glue – enhances the credibility of information and strengthens social cohesion (Ling, 2008), which can support individual members and aid collective action. The personalization of mobile communication and the embedment of social ties into mobile interactions and (micro-) coordination (Ling and Yttri, 2002) establish an underlying foundation for recruitment and mobilization for collective action.

Reciprocity, guanxi as social ties, and mobile phone-mediated collective action in China: a research agenda

Interrogation of which specific dimension(s) of the social tie, mediated by mobile phones, contribute to the mobilization of collective actions is of crucial importance. Among various dimensions of the social tie, Gouldner’s work on ‘the norm of reciprocity’ (Gouldner, 1960) provides a valuable yet underdeveloped framework for investigating the effectiveness of social ties as facilitators of collective action. As a universal and relevant ‘causal force’ (Uehara, 1995) in social life, reciprocity refers to the dynamic through which the mutual dependence of individuals is realized, reassured and reproduced. Besides reciprocity as a pattern of exchange, Gouldner emphasizes ‘a generalized moral norm of reciprocity which defines certain actions and obligations as repayments for benefits received’ (Gouldner, 1960: 170, emphasis in original). Specifically, being a general moral norm rather than a specific one, reciprocity ‘…evokes obligation toward others on the basis of their past behavior’ (Gouldner, 1960: 170) without the inducement of material incentives or special normative mechanisms. Here, as a self-perpetuating phenomenon regarding social support, reciprocity implies the connotation that ‘each party has rights and duties’ to support others with whom they share social ties (Gouldner, 1960: 169, emphasis in original). As such, the reciprocity norm of social support systems, as a sort of moral belief, acknowledges, motivates, and guarantees ‘a mutually gratifying pattern of exchanging goods and services … in the long run’ (Gouldner, 1960: 170). People who fail to return benefits as repayments will instead suffer from certain social penalties. The feeling of moral obligation to respond to the request from those who offer benefits, therefore, maintains the reciprocal dependency of the social tie and further contribute to social cohesion in social life.

Reciprocity, as the dynamic of social support binding social ties, serves as a reservoir or resource for recruitment and mobilization. For Tilly (1978), reciprocity from ‘netness’, or relational connectedness, was crucial in engendering mutual obligation and encouraging collective action. Given norms of reciprocity, Putnam (2000) believed that such networks facilitate coordination and communication for collective action. Yet, we ask, how will the reciprocity of the social tie affect the mobilization process through the mobile phone, an indispensable social networking and interpersonal communication device in contemporary society?

Mobile phones, collective action, and guanxi: the case of China

To answer the above question, we turn to collective action that has been mobilized by mobile phones in China as an example. The discussion entails a brief overview of information communication technologies (ICTs) and collective action in contemporary China.

Since the 1980s, China has witnessed vibrant investment in and development of ICTs, driven by the state, as a key component of economic growth, industrial advancement and social ‘informatization’ (Zheng, 2008: 17-40). Together with the widespread adoption of ICTs (CNNIC, 2015), the use of digital technologies for collective action has emerged as a substantial focus in the studies of ICTs in China (e.g., Yang, 2009; Zheng, 2008). A wealth of studies have elaborated the increasingly prominent role of CMC in collective action in the processes of information distribution (Zheng, 2008), claims-making (Yang, 2009), network-bridging (Bondes and Schucher, 2014), resource accumulation (Yang, 2005), repertoire diversification (Yang, 2009), and movement collaboration and mobilization (Liu, 2013b, 2015). Scholars have also identified an intensive mechanism of censorship established by the authorities, in particular to eradicate the ‘weeds’ of online discussion that might trigger offline collective actions (e.g., King et al., 2013).

While most of the scholarship on this issue addresses the role of CMC – largely the internet and Twitter-like microblog Weibo – in political contentions, in practice the proliferation of mobile phones has also expanded their utilization in collective action mobilization (e.g., Barboza and Bradsher, 2010; Chan and Ngai, 2009; Liu, 2013a, 2015). Many of these movements have been organized spontaneously by individuals, differentiating from those initiated by non-governmental organizations (e.g., Yang, 2005). However, the question then arises about the extent to which mobile communication serves to legitimate and encourage participation in collective actions in the absence of social organizations in a repressive context like China.

Meanwhile, guanxi – a basic but key concept involved in the intricate matrix of social ties constituting Chinese culture – has a special emphasis on reciprocity (Yan, 1996; Yang, 1994: 139–145). Guan signifies ‘to connect’ or ‘to close up’, while xi denotes a chain, ‘to tie up’, or ‘to link’. The combination, guanxi, connotes the system of pervasive social ties among parties that make up a social network in Chinese society (Gold et al., 2002; Kipnis, 1997; Yan, 1996; Yang, 1994).

Similar to the ‘old boy network’ in the West, guanxi involves more complex, unwritten and implicit rules than most relationship systems. Beyond its literal translations as ‘relation’ or ‘personal connections’, guanxi implies intangible emotional bonds and ethical obligations established by reciprocity between two or more individuals (Christensen and Levinson, 2003: 573; Yang, 1994: 139–142). In particular, the moral force of reciprocity is of central importance to the conduct and maintenance of guanxi (Yang, 1994: 70), because it underlines proper exchange behaviors as not only instrumental but also ethical and essential performance of indebtedness and obligation (see also the discussions of ‘renqing’ and ‘mianzi’, Hwang, 1987; Park and Luo, 2001). In this sense, the nature of a person is ‘a relational being, socially situated and defined within an interactive context’ (Bond and Hwang, 1986: 215) in the Confucian view. Consequently, the individual in Chinese society is always considered an entity within a network of guanxi, the social ecology of relational interdependence and reciprocity, which necessitates proper and moral ways of relating to others in social practices.

Moreover, Chinese society is characterized by weak legal institutions that have failed to provide ‘a trusted third party adjudication and enforcement of private agreements’ (So and Walker, 2006: 114) with concomitant ‘unpredictable risks of arbitrary bureaucratic intervention’ (Smart, 1993: 404). Against this backdrop, the reciprocity entailed in guanxi brings reliability and credibility into personal networks and social supports, including trustworthiness and solidarity. In practice, reciprocity in guanxi denotes a mutual obligation for both sides to respond to requests for help. Those who failed to fulfill their obligations would be isolated in society, suffer from losing face, and even risk the ultimate price of being deprived of their guanxi resources and social ties (e.g., Hwang, 1987; Smart, 1993). Chinese people therefore not only rely heavily on guanxi to obtain social resources to meet their needs and adapt to changing environments, but also actively engage in guanxi to perform reciprocity, fulfill obligations and anchor their roles in social networks.

While the widespread proliferation of new communication technologies shapes individuals as the focus and portal of numerous networks to which they are attached, in China the dynamic of guanxi as a social tie still largely dominates contemporary social life. The decline of social trust in recent years reinforces the role of guanxi in everyday life, leading ‘…one to trust only those individuals in one’s personal networks and to behave in accordance with a particularistic morality’ (Yan, 2009: 286). Consequently, ‘ [t]o seek a new safety net, or to re-embed, the Chinese individual is forced to fall back to the family and personal network or guanxi’ (Yan, 2009: 288, emphasis added). Meanwhile, as a potent asset to survive in Chinese society, guanxi is naturally imbricated in mobile interactions (e.g., Chu et al., 2012). Liu’s concept of a ‘guanxi-embedded mobile social network’ (2013b: 175-177) emphasizes that guanxi dynamics have been incorporated into both mobile communication and interpersonal networks in the wake of the increasing popularity of mobile devices and the huge rise of mobile phone use in maintaining social relations in Chinese society. Wallis (2013: 105) revealed female migrants’ heavy reliance on existing social ties – guanxi – and, particularly, the participants’ norms of reciprocity in mobile communication practices. Thus, mobile phone-mediated collective actions in China offer an appropriate opportunity to scrutinize how the reciprocity in social ties mediated by mobile phones affects collective action mobilization. The overarching research question is: What is the role of the mobile phone in collective action mobilization in China?

Different aspects of the question are examined as follows.

How do people use their mobile phones for collective action mobilization?;

How does mobile communication, embedding the dynamic of social ties – guanxi in China – legitimate mobilization in the absence of SMOs?; and

How does the reciprocity of the social tie, mediated by mobile phones, affect the mobilization and participation of collective action?

It is argued that an exploration of these questions should provide a nuanced and important approach to the understanding of mobilization under the influence of mobile communication.

Method

This study employs a multiple-case study design to explore the role of mobile phones as a recruitment agent for collective action. The result of using this broad-based, multiple-case study approach proved to be sufficient to ‘provide compelling support for the initial set of propositions’ (Yin, 2009: 54). It also allowed researchers to qualify, synthesize, and generalize commonalities across cases.

Sampled cases were drawn from events involving the use of mobile phones as a key resource for mobilizations, including a text messaging-fueled, anti-paraxylene (hereafter anti-PX) demonstration in Xiamen in 2007; a mobile communication-facilitated mass protest in Weng’an in 2008 (Xie and Zhao, 2007; Liu 2013a); and two separate taxi driver strikes, in Fuzhou and Shenzhen respectively, in 2010 (China Daily, 2010). Whether a case succeeded in changing the government’s policies through protests is not a necessary criterion for selection because (i) we focus on the role of the mobile phone as a mobilization tool rather than the results of collective actions; and (ii) there are too many other contingent factors influencing government decisions to adopt a specific plan. Such a focus not only addresses how and why the exemplary outcomes (i.e., using mobile phones for mobilization) might have occurred, but also allows for theoretical replication and complementarity from different types of conditions in individual cases.

The anti-PX demonstration in Xiamen, a city that has rarely witnessed protests, became one of the largest middle-class protests in recent years. More than 1,000 local residents challenged a petrochemical factory they perceived as a health threat. This was the first time that a demonstration was organized primarily with the use of mobile phones. Credited as ‘the power of text messaging’ (Xie and Zhao, 2007), the role of mobile phones and mobile text messaging was highlighted in collective mobilization and political action. Similarly, on 28 June 2008, thousands of mobile phone-mobilized local residents set fire to a police station and smashed county government office buildings in southwest China’s Guizhou Province. The unrest was triggered by allegations of a cover-up of a 16-year-old girl’s ‘unusual death’ and the injustice her relatives suffered at the hands of the government and policemen (Yu, 2008). The cases in Xiamen and Weng’an have become prototypes of the use of mobile phones to mobilize civilians in contentious politics in China.⁵

The taxi drivers’ strikes provide further exemplification of mobile phone-mediated mobilization. Discontented with the rigid enforcement of regulations and increasing fuel prices and rental fees, taxi drivers staged consecutive strikes in more than ten cities between 2008 and 2011 primarily by calling and texting with mobile phones (e.g., Branigan, 2008; Huang and Wills, 2011). This study investigates the strikes in Fuzhou (China Daily, 2010) and Shenzhen (eChinacities.com, 2010) to examine how taxi drivers used their mobile devices as a means of mobilizing strike actions.

A snowball sampling strategy was applied to locate protest participants. Snowball sampling is a network-based approach to recruit ‘hidden populations’ that are difficult to access using other sampling strategies (Salganik and Heckathorn, 2004). As an increasingly indispensable interpersonal communication channel for social connectivity, mobile phones enable individuals within one’s network to be accessed fairly easily and directly. Sampling through mobile connections on the basis of pre-existing social ties also helps to ensure the building of rapport and trust with interviewees. Snowball sampling of mobile social networks thus allowed us to locate participants in mobile phone-mediated protests and carry out interviews on a politically sensitive topic – protest participation – in China. The initial ‘seeds’ for sampling were provided by local journalists, who were personal contacts of the author.

After sampling, 37 face-to-face interviews were conducted for data collection. Each interview, conducted in Chinese, lasted around one-and-a-half hours. Interviewees were asked to discuss how they used their mobile phones for the purposes of mobilization and to evaluate their own responses to mobilizing texts or calls, and the impact of these messages. Interviewees were also asked to explain how they perceived the role of mobile phones in these events. The findings for the study are drawn from the fourth and fifth sections of the interview guide,⁶ because the last two sections specifically delved into the guanxi (i.e., reciprocal) dimension of mobile communication in protest mobilization. After data collection, an explanation-building approach and cross-case syntheses (Yin, 2009: 156–160) were used to evaluate ‘how’ participants adopted their mobile devices as a resource to activate their social ties and resources – guanxi – against authorities in the process of collective action.

Findings and discussion

Politicizing the use of mobile phones: a mundane tool as a means of mobilization

Most studies of mobile phones and collective action begin with a discussion of the use of mobile phones for mobilization without taking into account in detail the context in which people maneuver to appropriate their mobile devices as facilitators for activism (e.g., Rafael, 2003; Rheingold, 2002). Only by investigating the specific context of mobilization can one develop a comprehensive understanding of the emerging role of mobile phones in collective actions.

The Chinese government has long been struggling to keep a tight grip on both traditional and new media to prevent challenges to its authority or legitimacy. With the increasing popularity of digital media, the authorities are working even harder to tighten their control over both CMC and social organizations in order to curtail the possibilities of collection action (e.g., King et al., 2013). The interviews showed that none of the four cases involved any pre-planning or organization in the process of mobilization. Rather, it was the mobile phone itself that played an essential role in protest mobilization in all four cases. All interviewees emphasized that calls and texts through their mobile phones⁷ acted as ‘the primary channels’ for them to obtain information about the events and allowed participants to circulate mobilizing messages and facilitate protest against government censorship and suppression (participants in the Xiamen case and taxi drivers in Fuzhou and Shenzhen, October 2010, personal communications).

In the Xiamen case, local government officials tried to prevent residents from knowing or denouncing the controversial PX project by banning news broadcasts, blocking related words online, and shutting down online forums that engaged in discussing the project (residents in Xiamen, December 2010, personal communications). Furthermore, asserting that the negative messages about the project were ‘rumors’ (residents in Xiamen, September 2010, personal communications), the local government launched a crackdown on so-called ‘rumor-mongers’. This move had a chilling effect on public communication platforms, especially online forums, making ‘…the [online] discussion on the PX issue reduce significantly’ in the face of such intimidation from the government (residents in Xiamen, September 2010, personal communications).

Subsequently, mobile phones played a key role in both circulating a ‘warning’ message about the PX plant and proliferating a ‘mobilizing text’⁸ for later demonstrations. Residents spread the messages via mobile phones as interpersonal communication channels, to avoid censorship, by calling upon relatives, friends, and social connections to ‘…distribute information as quickly as possible to as many people as possible’ (residents in Xiamen, December 2010, personal communication). With the help of the flexibility of mobile text messaging, one interviewee noted, ‘you just need to twiddle the keyboard with your thumbs’ (residents in Xiamen, December 2010, personal communication) to forward mobilizing calls. These types of messages were transmitted so widely that the phrase ‘did you receive the [PX-related] SMS?’ became the opening remark when Xiamen citizens met each other in the following three months (residents in Xiamen, December 2007, personal communication). Reportedly, the mobilizing text had been repeated ‘more than 1 million times’ until it had reached practically every citizen in Xiamen (Lan and Zhang, 2007).

A similar situation was observed in the Weng’an case. The authorities’ monopoly over public communication channels (Ma, 2008) left rural residents with their mobile phones as the only available tool to communicate ‘…with their own voices’ (residents in Weng’an, December 2010, personal communications) beyond mouth-to-ear interactions about the grievance of the girl’s family. To make such grievances heard, local residents circulated messages through their mobile devices, claiming that instead of serving justice the local government and police had assaulted the victim’s relatives. Such messages eventually mobilized about 10,000 people to go to the public security bureau building where they smashed and burned all the police vehicles parked there.

The situations in the two strikes exhibit similarities to the above descriptions of the control over public communication, though in different contexts. Taxi drivers have long shown widespread discontent about the increased operating costs and traffic fines from taxi companies and the government. Nevertheless, their discontentment had largely been ignored, and local media were not allowed to discuss drivers’ grievances and anger. Protests were brewing and mobile phones provided heat for the pot. In both strikes, mobile interaction functioned as the sole means to spread strike messages and to call for strikes (taxi drivers in Fuzhou, April 2010, and in Shenzhen, October 2010, personal communications). Specifically, voice calls played a fundamental role in circulating strike information and in recruiting colleagues. As one interviewee explained,

…The reason [for using mobile phones to organize strikes] is very simple: [calling] is very easy….It is impossible to text while driving, let alone surfing the internet [to post something online]. But driving while talking is possible…and convenient. For us, the earlier [we mobilize], the better. (34-year-old taxi driver in Fuzhou, April 2010, personal communication)

In this way, mobile phones encouraged the dissemination of strike messages within a short time, enabling ‘flash strikes’.

In summary, the Chinese people rely on mobile phones – everyday, personal communication channels – as a platform for the exchange of unofficial or censored information, the voicing of grievances, and the mobilization messages. In addition to the functional advantages of mobile phones, such as ease of use and instantaneity, the crucial reason why people used their mobile phones as a mobilizing tool was that the mobile phone as a personal communication device is in effect the only available means for them to express their discontentment or air their grievances when the authorities have seized control of public communication channels. Close observation of mobile phone use for the mobilization of protests in our case studies revealed that the affordances of mobile phones shape collective action mobilization in terms of the following three characteristics.

First, the (self-defining) mobility of mobile communication releases people from fixed locations to maintain, activate, and mobilize their connectivity – to exchange information, interact with other people, or access resources embedded in their social network. Accordingly, mobile phones make recruitment and mobilization feasible even when people are busy with their daily work routine (e.g., driving). Such convenience contributes to the flexibility to organize and coordinate collective actions.

Second, the basic functions of the mobile phone – calling or text messaging – rather than more complex ones (e.g., mobile internet) facilitate communication for collective mobilization. Stated differently, the political affordance of the mobile phone is largely based on its basic function in mundane communication. The mundane functions of mobile devices enable communication for mobilization, lowering the threshold of initiating and coordinating collective action in particular for non-tech-savvy populations such as taxi drivers and rural residents. Here, mundanity does not equate to triviality. Instead, it means that the mobilization affordance is at hand around us, always available and easily accessible for contentious activities, which entails familiarity, for the appropriation for political mobilization.

Third, as the follow-up discussion will show, it is through the use of mobile phones that people articulate and mobilize their social ties and networks – guanxi in China – for recruitment and mobilization.

Mobilizing guanxi via mobile communication: reciprocity as duty, obligation and solidarity in social tie-based mobilization

While mobile phones allow people to disseminate mobilizing messages beyond the reach of censorship, the question of how the communication process via mobile phones encourages people to follow such messages and to engage in protests remains a key issue regarding an understanding of mobilization of collective action. The interviews revealed that in the process of mobile interactions people activated and mobilized their guanxi, or social ties, for mobilization beyond the proliferation of messages. The involvement of guanxi as the mobilization agent and, precisely, a strong sense of moral duty and reciprocal obligation from guanxi, acted as the driving force for both recruitment and participation in protests. The reciprocity in guanxi accordingly guarantees reliability, reinforces obligations, legitimates mobilization appeals, strengthens empathy and consolidates solidarity for mobilization.

With the reciprocity of guanxi, mobile communication first of all entails mutual reliability during collective mobilization. More specifically, participants started the process of mobilization by selecting recipient(s) of the mobilizing calls (using data stored in their mobile phones) on their own. They chose to send the calls to those among their social ties with whom they had the most reliable relationships, in order to reduce the possibility of being identified and exposed as they distributed politically sensitive information. Reliability of reciprocity therefore overcomes anxiety and fear and guarantees low potential risk in making mobilization public.

Reliability also shapes significantly the response to the mobilizing message as soon as it arrives, because receivers view the message as an appeal from their guanxi networks rather than as a simple piece of mobilizing information per se. Interviewees reported how they perceived the influence from their guanxi networks when they exchanged messages through mobile communication. One interviewee noted,

[mobilizing] texts show care and kindness from my friends network, as they wanted to inform me of the potential pollution from the [PX] project. It also shows that they are asking me to increase [the text’s] dissemination….it is my duty to forward this information to my friends, as I also care about them and hope they are aware of this issue and spread it within their [mobile] social network to get more support. (23-year-old, female undergraduate in Xiamen, December 2010, personal communication, emphasis added)

This statement suggests that when people received messages via their mobile devices, what they understood and acknowledged was more than just being informed about the content of the messages. Rather, the message reminded the receiver of the guanxi between senders and themselves, as well as their mutual duties and the reliability in their guanxi network regarding such relevant information. This feeling, largely self-perceived given the basic reciprocal nature of guanxi, urged recipients to respond positively to (mobilizing) requests from their mobile social networks.

Moreover, the self-perceived responsibility encourages recipients, as morally good and reliable people, to disperse mobilizing messages throughout their guanxi networks as both a form of social support and a fulfillment of their duties and responsibilities in guanxi. As one individual explained, mobilizing the network resources by disseminating messages via mobile device ‘…is a crucial way to demonstrate that you are a reliable friend, even if it concerns joining a demonstration [i.e. a politically sensitive issue]’ (37-year-old taxi driver in Fuzhou, October 2011, personal communication).

Furthermore, when people distributed mobilizing calls within their guanxi network via mobile phones, they believed that the recipients would respond to their requests because of the reliability in guanxi. For instance, participants in the anti-PX event asserted that when they sent messages to their best friends, they trusted that, ‘given our guanxi’, friends would ‘definitely respond to their requests and provide help [to them], regardless of the [politically sensitive] reason’ (participants in the Xiamen and Fuzhou cases, October 2010, personal communications).

In contrast, those who declined to respond to mobilizing messages or recruitment for collective action were considered to have failed to fulfill their duties to others within their guanxi network. The refusal to participate in mobilization is no longer the focus of the issue here. Instead, inaction implies ‘…a refusal to fulfill your duty and moral obligation in guanxi relation’ (43-year-old male taxi driver in Fuzhou, October 2011, personal communication), consequently eroding one’s social networks in a long term. Thus interviewees distributed mobilizing messages via their mobile phones while both engaging themselves and recruiting other people in their guanxi networks into collective actions. In this way the proliferation of mobilizing messages expanded the influence of the collective action not only by informing more individuals, but also by recruiting broader guanxi networks into the diffusion practice. In the Xiamen case, for instance, government agents ‘never anticipated that mobile users involved in spreading…calls [would] surge past [a] million people within only three days’ (26-year-old civil serviceman in Xiamen government, September 2010, personal communication), when they had already taken measures to prevent collective action from occurring. In short, circulating messages through one’s mobile phone has become a crucial way to activate one’s guanxi resources as social support. In this process, the sense of reliability – the idea that individuals appeal to and draw strength from their social ties – has been an essential part of what makes mobilization via mobile phones a continuously expanding process.

Second, reciprocity legitimates the practice of distributing politically mobilizing messages and participating in protests in a repressive context such as China. Technology alone is not sufficient to legitimate mobilization practices; rather, the external forces beyond technology play a key role in the process of legitimating mobilization (e.g., Diani, 2000; Rafael, 2003). In the absence of social organizations, reciprocity from social ties legitimates mobilization appeals by underlying the norm of responding to support requests from one’s social networks in social life.

In practice, beyond delivering mobilizing messages, the activation of guanxi via mobile communication pushes and encourages people to join protests to fulfill their obligations. According to the interviews, these mobilizing messages implied an invitation to participate with others in the activity. Nevertheless, the embedment of guanxi largely places attention on the relevance of social ties instead of the politically sensitive nature of this activity. Typically,

…[a]part from the mobilizing initiative, the [mobilizing] message is, more relevantly, an appeal from your guanxi network…the people you knew or have a close relationship with are seeking your response, help, and support. How could you thrust aside this kind of appeal? (33-year-old male taxi driver in Fuzhou, October 2011, personal communication)

This emphasis clearly shifts the attention from ‘should I respond to – and participate in – the call for collective action?’ to ‘should I respond to the request for help/support from my social network?’ Then, as the recipients perceive it, how they deal with the request clearly affects the way in which the senders handle appeals from them in the future. This feeling, generated by self-perceived duties and responsibilities given the basis of the reciprocal nature of guanxi, legitimates the mobilization initiative by encouraging people to respond positively to the request at once as a sort of moral support and ethical fulfillment of their duties in a social relationship. In other words, the reciprocal duty and obligation inherited from guanxi generates pressure to respond to the request to participate in collective action. Consequently, given the duty and obligation from reciprocity, in particular the fear of losing social support in the long term, the answer to the (mobilizing) request is always ‘yes’. As such, the norm of reciprocity decisively exerts influence on people’s decisions concerning recruitment and participation in collective action.

Third, reciprocity nurtures a ‘shared awareness’ (Shirky, 2011) through mobile communication, which embodies empathy and consolidates solidarity for participation in collective action. Shared awareness allows people to be aware of the thoughts and feelings of those within their social network, further engendering a sense of togetherness during the process of mobilization (Shirky, 2011). In our case studies, through engaging themselves in the process of participation and recruitment, individuals conveyed their attitudes towards mobilization and shared their feelings about mobilization: the implicit meta-communication was ‘I agree with and support this action’. Mobilization through mobile phones consequently articulates a sense of shared awareness. Such awareness enables mobile phone users to recognize that others in their social network have a common understanding of certain situations which every individual in the same social network may have to face. Individuals in the same [mobile] network would thus expect that they were not alone when disseminating mobilizing messages. The empathy accordingly engenders a sense of solidarity and cohesion in participants during mobilization, because people know that those in their personal networks are ‘…in the same camp’ (54-year-old male driver in Xiamen, October 2011, personal communication).

Furthermore, the more times people received mobilizing messages from their social networks, the more likely they were to distribute these messages and join collective actions. As one interviewee explained,

The multiple [mobilizing] messages illustrate that the people you know all agree with this issue [to participate in strikes or protests]. And they are urging you to be one of them…So we [both senders and receivers] are ‘comrades-in-arms in the same trench’ and need to consolidate against the authorities. (35-year-old male taxi driver in Shenzhen, October 2011, personal communication)

As such, the idea of collective cohesion also plays to the dynamics of mobilization. The more people receive and distribute the messages via mobile communication, the stronger their sense of solidarity grows.

To summarize: the embedment of social ties in processes of mobile communication and, in particular, the reciprocity obligated by it, is a pivotal facilitator of engagement in and recruitment for collective action. During mobile interaction, the reciprocal nature of social ties generates mutual reliability, legitimates mobilization appeals, addresses obligations for both sides, and engenders solidarity – a combination of which facilitates collective action mobilization and participation. In this way, the cultural importance of reciprocity from guanxi acts as a key force for the expansion of the technological affordances of mobile phones in the case of collective action mobilization. Nevertheless, the embedding of reciprocity also makes mobilization of participation in protest via mobile phones fundamentally guanxi-driven practices. Participants are concerned more about the maintenance of their social ties instead of the protest per se. This could restrict the long-running impact of contentious activities on China’s society.

Conclusion

This study contributes to those of mobile phones and collective action from the following three perspectives. First, we differentiate mobile communication from other CMCs, highlighting the embedment of social ties as a vital resource for collective action mobilization. Second, we argue that mobile communication activates communicators’ social ties for recruitment and mobilization, particularly in authoritarian regimes where social organizations have been under harsh suppression. Third, we emphasize that it is the dynamic of reciprocity in social ties that strengthens reliability, legitimates mobilization appeals, endangers empathy, reinforces obligations, and nurtures a sense of solidarity, which energizes and consolidates recruitment and participation in collective action. The mobile phone establishes itself as a relevant means of mobilization in the absence of SMOs in authoritarian regimes like China.

It should be noted that our conclusions are not necessarily applicable to all collective actions or all kinds of activism initiated by mobile phones. However, we believe they help to elucidate an important category of collective action characterized by spontaneous mobilizations in authoritarian regimes. This study thus calls for further comparative studies concerning mobile communication and reciprocity in social ties for collective actions in different contexts beyond China. Future research may also benefit from a network-diffusion approach to observe the geographical expansion of mobilization messages in order to understand its dissemination route in a particular society.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author expresses appreciation for comments from Rich Ling, the anonymous reviewers and the editors of Acta Sociologica for improving the manuscript.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author acknowledges receipt financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article from the Carlsberg Foundation (grant number CF14–0385) and SC Van Fonden (reference numbers 1267 and 1503).

Notes

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