WeChat and civil society in China

Understanding of civil society

Edwards (2014) proposed three important dimensions of civil society: associational life, the public sphere, and the good society. Following his logic, I define civil society as an eco-system where citizens build solidarity through associational life, deliberate in the public sphere, and aim to identify common goods and to solve collective problems. The eco-system emphasizes the coexistence of a plurality of associations which foster a balanced civil society. Associational life addresses civil society through voluntary activities and everyday interactions through which, solidarity and common culture can be built up. The public sphere is a mechanism for deliberation, where people debate with claims, reasons, and evidences and feel comfortable to compromise whenever needed. Finally, the goal for civil society lies in defining what are common goods, finding and defining collective problems, and addressing and solving them collectively and peacefully.

Yang argued that there are four central components of civil society: the public sphere, social organizations, popular protests, and individual autonomy. He demonstrated that the Internet contributes to the first three of them. First of all, Internet breeds an online public sphere which he defines as an open space for interaction, for articulating or debating social problems, and for monitoring the government. The Internet can also accelerate information distribution and provide a platform to organize offline protests. Furthermore, Internet blurs geographical boundaries and enables social organizations to develop new ways to involve the public in associational life, such as, virtual communities (Yang, 2013).

Yang’s understanding of civil society and those discussed in the section above both include the public sphere. In comparison, Yang emphasizes social organizations, which is one dimension in my understanding of associational life. In addition, Yang’s highlight of popular protest can be considered an action for the common good. Adjusting Yang’s framework with my understanding of civil society, this study analyzes the possibilities and limitations of WeChat in facilitating civil society in China in three aspects: public sphere, the relationship with the state, and associational life.

What is WeChat?

WeChat took China by storm, when it was launched in 2011. An online commentator described it as a “better WhatsApp crossed with the social features of Facebook, and Instagram, mixed with Skype and a walkie-talkie” (Svensson, 2013). In other words, it is a messaging and calling app bundled with diverse social features that makes it a social media platform. Distinctive features on WeChat include group chat, public account platform, and moments (similar to the Facebook wall). Users can send both voice and text messages, make voice or video calls, make payments, post photos, play mobile phone games, and connect with nearby strangers.

WeChat now has 600 million monthly active users (“Tencent Shares,” 2015) which is almost three times the 198 million monthly active users on Sina Weibo (“Weibo Reports,” 2015), a Twitter-like social media platform. There are nearly 668 million Internet users, 594 million mobile phone users in China (China Internet Network Information Center, 2015). Therefore, almost every mobile phone user in China has WeChat installed on her phone today.

“WeChat, a new lifestyle,” is the slogan of WeChat. A depiction of a day of a typical WeChat user published in the WeChat White Paper (Tencent, 2015b) reveals how WeChat penetrates into daily life. In that typical day, the user checks friends’ updates on WeChat right after she wakes up. Then on the way to work, the user reads two articles from public accounts on WeChat and plays several rounds of WeChat games. At 8:30 a.m., the user buys breakfast through WeChat payment. At 9 a.m., she starts working and deals with work-related WeChat group information. At 10 a.m., she takes a rest from work, checks friends’ updates, or replies to WeChat short messages. At 12 p.m., she rushes for a “red envelope” [hong bao, a gift of money discussed below] and uses that to pay for lunch … By 10 p.m., she chats with friends in a WeChat group, “likes” friends’ posts, reads articles from public accounts, tries for another red envelope, and says good night to family members through WeChat before going to bed. As its slogan says, WeChat has truly become a way of living. It mediates information diffusion, public discussion, thus promoting the public sphere; it negotiates the relationship between the civil society and the state, and creates new forms of daily interactions.

Public sphere

According to Habermas, the public sphere provides an opinion space for public debate, disregarding social status, and it is a realm that breeds political action (Calhoun, 1992). The institutional design of the public sphere includes three elements: “shared text, room for conversation, and a place for discussion” (Howard, 2011, p.40). When talking about the Internet and the public sphere in China, scholars previously focused primarily on the Bulletin Board System (BBS), and Twitter-like social media platform, Sina Weibo (Chen, 2015; Schlæger & Jiang, 2014; Svensson, 2014; Yang, 2013). Users today are moving to WeChat. WeChat is different from the Weibo platform, which allows it to be a large-scale forum of information and for brewing national debate. Rather, WeChat is built on comparatively closed personal networks. Although WeChat users are constrained into small and dispersed groups which limits its role in providing a nation-wide virtual public sphere like the BBS and Sina Weibo do (Ng, 2015), it is this closed network that allows WeChat to create an eco-system of closely connected alternative spheres, in which a plurality of interests can be represented and coexist. In addition, two technical features in WeChat, public account and group chat function, fulfill the aforementioned three elements of public sphere.

The public account platform in WeChat, introduced on 23 August 2012, functions as a media outlet and allows mass audiences to receive some degree of shared text. Both individuals and organizations are allowed to register for a public account after which they can send out postings of text, pictures, recordings, and videos to their followers. Media organizations, such as People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, social and commercial institutions, and many individuals are public account owners. These public accounts have been considered as a fount of “grassroots media,” an idea that people began to talk about only after the popularization of mobile web technology in China (Hu, 2014).

Apart from public accounts, the group chat function facilitates some degree of public debate on WeChat. Each WeChat group can accommodate as few as 3 people to as many as 500 (Tencent, 2015a). A group chat can be created for family members, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), interest groups, or simply for collaborative group planning of events or activities. In order to join these groups, someone inside the group needs to act as a “bridge” and send an invitation to people outside the group. Therefore, a WeChat group has a high degree of privacy. Inside the group, people have freedom to distribute information, debate issues, and extend their relationships offline.

Admittedly, many of the groups are simply created for social purposes, such as planning for a dinner, rather than for political intentions. But talking about politics can become a byproduct when people initiate interactions for pleasure. Mansbridge (1999) argued that everyday talk is “not always self-conscious, reflective, or considered” (p. 211). If not purely expressive, it is very likely that some discussions about public affairs occur organically when we connect with other for pleasure, affection, inclusion, escape, and relaxation (Rubin, Perse, & Barbato, 1988; Schutz, 1966). Take the experience of my feminist friend as an example. She intended to keep WeChat as a private network for daily issues and use Sina Weibo for political discussion. But she failed, because her WeChat friends’ circle includes many friends who share same political interests with her. They originally met through Weibo and extended their relationship to WeChat. These friends always post political information and discuss with her on WeChat; thus, political issues indirectly penetrate into her WeChat network.

Moreover, although not all groups are politically oriented, most people belong to multiple groups. Therefore, a linked eco-system may evolve on WeChat. Different from Weibo, where discussions are mostly dominated by opinion leaders, the private ego-centric network of WeChat creates a comfortable, honest, and equal space for individuals to express. This is especially true when we take into account that WeChat has a more private and secure information transmission process since it is a closed network. Discussions on small WeChat networks could have similar advantages as the alternative public spheres suggested by Nancy Fraser (1992). Therefore, although WeChat does not allow a nation-wide public sphere, it has the potential of creating an eco-system of closely connected alternative spheres.

There are also questions about WeChat as public sphere. The first is the problem of homophily. Connections on WeChat are mostly developed from the geo-physical places in which we live and with those who share similar background with us. Therefore, people are more likely to talk to similar minds on WeChat. This presents the problem that closed networks may become echo-chambers. The second (related) problem is that of ego-centric networks. Since ego-centric networks filter what and how we perceive the world around us (Rojas, 2015), people are less likely to be exposed to diverse viewpoints which is a crucial characteristic for public spheres. Third, when large incidents happen, people have a tendency to rely on their private network for fact-checking, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, information transmitted on WeChat is hard to control, thus turning WeChat to a hotbed for virally transferred rumors. On the other hand, since information is harder to control by the state, private information sharing on WeChat also allows room for deconstructing the power of authority.

The relationship between the state and WeChat

Different from the Western conceptualization that civil society is a distinct sphere from the state and market (Alexander, 1998), China’s civil society lacks autonomy from the state. It plays a role in monitoring state power, but depends on the state for legitimacy and institutional protection. This permeable boundary between state and civil society is even more complicated by the Internet, especially social media platforms, where actors from different spheres are interacting. The following discussion demonstrates WeChat’s role in the contentious relationship between the state and China’s civil society.

The popularity of WeChat is partially due to tighter censorship on Weibo. The Chinese government strengthened Internet control from 2010 (State Council Information Office, 2010). Tighter Internet control was implemented after President Xi Jinping took over in 2013. In the summer of 2013, there was a massive crack down on opinion leaders on Sina Weibo (“From Weibo to WeChat,” 2014). Following that was the release of a tough regulation targeting Weibo: if a rumor is retweeted 500 times or been viewed 5000 times, the creator is liable to be sentenced to 3 years in jail (Kaiman, 2013). The tightening government control of Weibo made Weibo less and less interesting to many people; therefore, many users left Weibo for a more private and secure platform, WeChat.

WeChat is not immune from censorship, but its technical features provide opportunities to get around it. Strict rules were also published for administering WeChat in 2014 (Hu, 2014), yet compared with censorship of 16.25% of Weibo posts (Bamman, O’Connor, & Smith, 2012), censorship of WeChat is lighter. On WeChat, 1.5% of public accounts’ posts were censored by the state, and another 2.44% posts were self-censored. Information related to collective action, pornography, government policy, and corruption are on the top of the censorship list. Rumors, fake news, and superstitious information are also highly censored, since online rumors can be considered as a form of social protest against official news.

But censorship on WeChat concentrates on public accounts, leaving other features of communication on WeChat safer. In addition, people have ways to get around censorship, even for public accounts. For example, the public account of an investigative journalist, Luo Changping, was blocked when he tried to post a new chapter of his work. He then sent a message to his followers informing them that they can retrieve his new chapter by replying “Chapter Seventeen.” In this way, the followers got around censorship and received the post of “Chapter Seventeen” on their mobile phones (“From Weibo to WeChat,” 2014). In addition, censorship has a delayed effect. Most of the time, before a post was deleted, it may have already gained enough attention in WeChat friends’ cycle. Last, besides public accounts, messages transmitted through other features of communication on WeChat are difficult to censor. Although some sensitive keywords can be blocked in text messages, content of voice messages is hard to detect. In general, it is difficult for the government to track and block short messages and group chats. In this way, the closed network of WeChat cultivates a comparatively safe discussion environment.

Apart from governing the Internet by implementing coercive censorship, the Chinese government is trying to govern more subtly through the Internet (Schlæger & Jiang, 2014). Admitting that the government does not have the ability to block all sensitive information, Chinese government agencies and official media institutions are trying to “occupy the online frontier” and to increase their voice and presence online. For example, People’s Daily, now has both Weibo and WeChat accounts, each with millions of followers. It responds quickly to emergent issues and public opinion using an unofficial tone in a way that is intimate and vivid to netizens. Besides official media institutions, many government agencies also seek e-governance and have set up Weibo accounts (Schlæger & Jiang, 2014). Now they are extending e-governance to WeChat.

Finally, WeChat also provides the channel for communicating protest information and for organizing offline protest. Examining WeChat usage in an environmental movement in China, Lee and Ho (2014) found that WeChat was the only platform that was comparatively free from censorship. Although the private network on WeChat limits the speed and scope of information diffusion, the network of acquaintances makes the diffusion more effective and reliable (Centola & Macy, 2007).

Regarding state censorship, it is easy to fall into a pessimistic view that the fate of a media platform in China is fully controlled by the will of the state. However, this is only a partial view. First of all, if the state wants to allow information flow for business and technology, it must also allow certain degrees of information flow for social and political discussion. Second, communication on WeChat is less censored and more private, giving it great potential for free online debate and for organizing popular protest. Finally, with a lucrative market of millions of mobile device users, commercial forces are fiercely competing for users’ time and attention; therefore, alternative platforms should always be available. When Sina became boring and more controlled, WeChat was prepared to welcome its users; and it is possible to imagine that if WeChat disappoints its users in the future, a second generation of WeChat or Weibo will emerge. The relationship between business, technology, and the state creates a subtle and interactive online environment that is overall beneficial for the public.

Associational life

The importance of associational life was first addressed by de Tocqueville when he argued that voluntary activities are powerful in directing individual Americans to fight for the common good (Ehrenberg, 2011). Associational life in the Chinese context means NGOs formed for a variety of purposes. However, I want to emphasize another important, but largely ignored dimension of associational life: everyday interactions. Industrialization radically degraded traditional forms of communities including kin relationships and pushing Chinese toward individual isolation. Additionally, global immigration and the penetration of a multi-media system further accentuated cultural heterogeneity, fractured the boundaries of nationality, and gave rise to complex barriers for social integration and culture formation (Howard, 2011). Since everyday interactions are crucial for the formation of solidarity and common culture which are the basis for actions for the common good, this study examines potentials that WeChat can contribute to everyday interactions.

WeChat generates new forms for associational life mainly in two ways. The first is creating new ways for social organizations to engage the public. In the public sphere section above, I showed how public accounts and group chat serve the function of distributing shared information and cultivating online debates. Here, I claim that many NGOs also open public accounts to connect with a mass audience. The public account of an international environmental organization, Green Peace, is a case in point. After the 2015 Tianjin explosion, Green Peace posted a series of original investigative reports and commentaries on WeChat to push the investigation of the incident. The public account of Green Peace also has a special focus on air pollution in China, illegal forest cutting in Sichuan (southwest China), and the 2015 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Paris. It sent out posts to keep subscribers informed on these topics. The Greenpeace public account also frequently posts offline activities and invites people to register and join them.

In addition, group chat can serve the role of “bonding,” “bridging,” and “linking.” Bonding accounts for the solidarity inside a group that focuses on particular interests. For example, I am currently in a group of “Chinese communication scholars,” where 391 students and professors in the communication field discuss varieties of communication-related issues, share information, coordinate conferences, and offline meetings together. “Binding” refers to the relationships between groups, it aims to lower inter-group distinctions and promote the formation of community goods on a larger scale. And “linking” is conceived as civil society’s connections with the state and the market. An example of binding and linking functions of group chat is an “Environmental Policy Advocacy group,” where government officials, journalists, and NGOs discuss current problems and policy issues related to the environment in China.

Second, WeChat enhances associational life by strengthening solidary and common culture and by reconstructing our communities through daily communications in personal networks. Previous section has mentioned how WeChat penetrates into our daily life. In addition to that, WeChat creates new ways to be connected. Sending a “red envelope” (hong bao) through WeChat is one example. In Chinese tradition, elders usually pass money wrapped in red paper bags (hong bao) to the young in New Year time to send out good blessings, encouragement, and expectations. WeChat digitalized this tradition of giving away red envelopes during the New Year of 2014 and encourages people to send red envelopes to anyone else. To post a red envelope in group chat, users insert a certain amount of money and specify how many shares the sum will be split into (namely, how many people can receive the money). It is first come first serve, only the first few who act quick enough may snatch a red envelope. In this way, WeChat has turned sending red envelopes into a social game of rushing for lucky money. Many users, just for fun, allocate small amounts of money to group members who they would otherwise never give lucky money to. Soon after it was created, it became an immediate hit. More than 5 million users exchanged 20 million red envelopes in the first 2 days of Spring Festival. In peak time, more than 121,000 red envelopes were sent in a 5-minute period, during which users tried to snatch those red envelopes more than 585,000 times (Tencent, 2015c). It became a cultural phenomenon and extended the meaning of red envelope from its traditional one. And now, in addition to the New Year, people send red envelopes for almost any festival or even on a daily basis (Tencent, 2015c). Apart from sending red envelopes, other new forms of interaction based on WeChat include forwarding a health-related, informational or humorous post to friends and family members, sending funny stickers, commenting on friends’ posts or “liking” friends’ posts. These actions allow people to maintain relationships more easily.

However, the claim that people build up strong solidarity through WeChat needs to be made cautiously. Although WeChat allows people to build connections more easily, they can be comparatively loose. At the same time, market forces are competing for the audiences’ time and attention on WeChat (business organizations are pushing the “red envelope” drive). Therefore, more research is needed to determine the amount of effort and attention that people devote to each of their connections. But one point is certain. Similar to Wellman’s (2001) argument of networked individualism, WeChat develops and maintains tangible social capital for its users. The connections embedded and maintained in WeChat become weak ties, even though loosely connected. When emergency or collective action breaks out, these connections can be reactivated.

Conclusion

This article explores the potentials that WeChat contributes to the development of civil society in China. By incorporating and adapting Yang’s understanding of civil society, this article claims that WeChat contributes to civil society in three aspects: the public sphere, the relationship with the state, and associational life. First of all, WeChat promotes an online public sphere. Although WeChat network is comparatively closed and small, the ego-centric networks create a more comfortable, honest, and equal space for individuals to discuss freely. Admittedly, some of the groups do not originate for political discussion, but being in multiple groups gives rise to an eco-system of public opinion. Second, the relationship between state and WeChat is interactive and contentious. Although the government is strengthening Internet censorship and more prone to govern through the Internet by magnifying its own online voices, private networks on WeChat give it a great deal of potential for online debate and for organizing popular protest. Finally, WeChat creates new ways for people to be associated. NGOs develop new ways to push the development of social and political issues through advocating on WeChat. And WeChat allows ordinary people to build solidarity and keep connections more easily.

However, apart from all these benefits of WeChat for Chinese civil society, the inherent character of WeChat is diversity and destabilization. It is a platform where market, state, civil society, and other social spheres merge, compete, and develop. Each of the spheres penetrate on WeChat, but none of them have been a dominant force. Therefore, the influence of WeChat on Chinese civil society is mixed. The connective power and solidarity associated with WeChat can be used to facilitate civil society and repair collective problems and to constitute obstacles for civil society. As Lu Wei, the minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China (a leader who can decide what Chinese people see on the internet) said in a press conference, “the unknown part for the Internet far exceeds that of the known part. I’m afraid no country could boast it has brought the Internet totally under its control” (World Internet Conference, 2015). For the present, WeChat is one driver of this unstable and uncontrollable Internet.