The Political Cultures of Forwarding on Chinese Social Media: Lessons From Hong Kong Chief Executive Election

Abstract

This research draws on De Maeyer’s three-level mixed methodological framework and examines how, and to what extent social media users interpret their ideological use of “forwarding” for political participation with explicit and implicit political purposes on social media. It does so by examining the case of the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election. Quantitative content analysis (N = 22,172) and semi-structured interviews (N = 150) are combined to examine the rise of a new and distinctly multifactorial political discourse—“forwarding”—as used by both Hong Kong and Mainland China users. In doing so, an attempt is made to explore the premises and consequences of this implicit discourse. This research finds that the interpretation of forwarding is convoluted, but it can be seen to accelerate the much-desired prospect of Chinese social media’s ability, on one hand, to amplify citizens’ political deliberative participation and extend their political influence and, on the other hand, to be representative of the political extremes and to refer to critiques of specific political realities. Thus, this article discusses four dimensions of the political culture of forwarding that perform the function of Chinese-style surrogate democracy: These dimensions are particularly attributable to the statuses and geographical backgrounds of the users of the social media website Weibo.

Keywords

forwarding digital democracy citizenship political rhetoric Hong Kong election Weibo

Introduction

The nature of social networking sites has prompted a shift in technology and practice through “imagined affordances” that provide for the meaning of technology to be (re)negotiated in relation to users’ perceptions, mediation, and materiality (Ellison & Boyd, 2013; Nagy & Neff, 2015). As social networking sites can “publicly articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others,” they motivate an increasing number of individuals to participate online—particularly via social media (Ellison & Boyd, 2013). Studies have identified that social media users retweet for egoistic reasons, and they aim to disseminate information to attract new or specific followers or to gain reciprocity, including from the poster of the original tweet (Boyd, Golder, & Lotan, 2010; Holmberg & Thelwall, 2014).

An authoritarian system such as that of China cannot be excluded from this wave of technocracy and affordance, but it has been profoundly neglected by scholarship because of access issues. In this regard, 2017 is the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover; the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive (HKCE) election was a distinct state-level political campaign in which a popular social media platform, Sina Weibo (commonly known as Weibo), was opened up to political participation for users in Mainland China and Hong Kong, enabling them to engage with this topic of discussion. Notably, the campaign offered a great opportunity to investigate the effects of this social media platform (as employed by mainland and Hong Kong users) in terms of representing the political “ideology struggle between the advocates for a more Western-style democratic system and the supporters of a more Chinese-style democracy” (Lo, 2017, p. 100).

Chinese social media users who have integrated Chinese online censorship into their routine lives (Lu & Zhao, 2018) prefer to forward rather than directly comment. This research, which draws on De Maeyer’s (2012) three-level mixed methodological framework of the hyperlinked society, examines how and to what extent grassroots interpret the use of “forwarding” to engage in political participation with explicit and implicit political purposes. An examination of the 2017 HKCE election shows that forwarding generated skepticism toward democracy and an accompanying rise in dissidence toward online censorship in China. Quantitative content analysis and semi-structured interviews are combined in this research to represent the rise of the new political discourse of “forwarding” as being distinctly multifactorial and to explore its premises and consequences. This research focuses on the interplay between the media’s intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which are closely associated with political changes in political discourse, due to technological assistance that drives the proliferation of the forms of participation and nontextual production among media users and audiences. Thus, this article aims to argue that the quality, transformation, and logic of forwarding constitute a mediatized politics that could represent a deliberate potential for democracy, or could cause users to behave only as Internet onlookers.

Literature Review

Retweeting, Communication, and De Maeyer’s Framework

Forwarding tends to involve reposting topics or information completion with added micro-messages (Boyd, Golder, & Lotan, 2010) or assisting posts in becoming popular (Holmberg & Thelwall, 2014). Moreover, hyperlinking is used in bridging/bonding in the context of offline social capital and to express power and legitimacy (De Maeyer, 2012). Forwarding/retweeting thus emerges as a substitute for social behavior and is technically supported by hyperlinking, which has a certain sociological meaning (De Maeyer, 2012; Hsu & Park, 2011; Rogers, 2010; Rudat & Buder, 2015; Tsatsou, 2014).

Specifically, hyperlinking shapes the virtual community and functions as an online actor by offering certain types of associations and everyday politics (Tsatsou, 2014) or the “politics of association”(Rogers & Anat, 2008): “Making a link to another site, not making a link, or removing a link, may be viewed as acts of association, non-association or disassociation, respectively” (Rogers, 2010, p. 117). In unpacking this sense of association, Lomicka and Lord (2012) found that citizens often feel kinship with other Internet users and follow the norms of interactions in virtual society; in Varnali and Gorgulu’s (2014) words, they “share norms of behavior or certain defining practices, actively enforce certain moral standards, and coexist in close proximity to one another” (p. 4). Lomicka and Lord employ Short, Williams, and Christie’s (1976) theory of social presence to illustrate that individuals choose which type of online communication to use based on their perception of the size of the potential audience. The theory posits that where there is a strong sense of audience, interactions are likely to be more dynamic and discussions are more likely to have depth.

More recently, studies scrutinizing the public opinion generated through forwarding on social media in China have turned to collective action (Tsatsou & Zhao, 2016) and Internet governance (Cao, Li, Ji, He, & Guo, 2016; Mou, Wu, & Atkin, 2016), while studies of the political ideology associated with linking have been lacking. The means and social significance of forwarding can be argued to be good examples that can be used to examine how important the giving and receiving of hyperlinks are in relation to the popularity of political actors, under the serious implementation of online censorship in China. This research argues that neither the link itself nor the resources that are linked can fully reflect the intentions and meanings of the users who are (doing the) forwarding, especially in terms of how the distinct functional properties of social media “work” in relation to ideological affiliations, either by lesser known grassroots community building or through opinion leaders’ sociopolitical practices.

De Maeyer’s (2012) work is used in the present study because it considers how links are interpreted by many different fields, including information sciences, media studies, sociology, and politics. This consideration demonstrates that there is a unified, common, transversal framework that implicitly and explicitly emerges from the ad hoc approaches of the reviewed research. This framework contains “quantitative link counts, qualitative inquiries and valuation of field expertise to support link interpretation” (De Maeyer, 2012, p. 747). Clearly, the nature of linking is equivocal and refers either to praise or to criticism; simply analyzing the link itself is too vague and cannot guarantee the specific intention. De Maeyer (2012) concludes that this shared and mixed but adaptive framework suggests that link counting should be exploited to make sense of social datasets. Thus, this study seeks to evaluate the quality, usage, and value of De Maeyer’s (2012) methodological framework in studying (hyper)linking in a broader context.

(Digital)Democracy, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and China

Hague and Loader (1999) noted that “democracy has at its heart self-determination, participation, voice and autonomy. It is a political culture that includes a wide range of realms for self-development and mutual collective expression” (pp. 6-8). However, Held (1996) argued that Hague and Loader’s (1999) perspective focuses on one simple aspect and is too idealized. He suggested that democracy should be perceived as a “double-sided phenomenon”: it not only “re-form[s] state power” but also “restructur[es] civil society” (p. 316). Moreover, the essential elements of democracy are well summarized by two aspects put forward by Van Dijk (2000); the first aspect demonstrates that the central goal of democracy is to compare opinion making with decision making, while the second aspect refers to the manner of democracy (i.e., representative compared with direct democracy). However, it has generally been argued that a broader approach should be adopted that considers the entire process of information provision and discussion rather than only the decision making of political institutions (Voltmer, 2006).

Since the emergence of computers and ICT, the term “digital democracy” is popularly used and aims to render democracy more participatory—to involve citizens more in the political process and to strengthen the political community (Slaton, 1992). In the past, the concepts of digital democracy have been argued to be rhetorical weapons that represent an ideal rather than something concrete (Boler, 2008). However, even around 20 years ago, Hacker and Van Dijk (2000) defined digital democracy as “a collection of attempts to practice democracy without the limits of time, space and other physical conditions, using ICT or CMC [computer-mediated communication] instead, as an addition, not a replacement for traditional analogue political practices” (p. 1). Some 10 years after that, Van Dijk (2000) claimed that ICT had the power to revolutionize the democratization of politics and society, but he warned that digital democracy represents both opportunities and risks. It is widely perceived as a form of democratic revolution, although some are more skeptical; Siapera (2012), for example, argues that “the Internet is mainly used for efficiency rather than to add to accountability, transparency and participation, or in other words to broaden democracy” (p. 25). Similarly, Dahlberg and Siapera (2007) argue that the success of the signifier, by which they mean the democracy of political legitimacy, “has far exceeded the success of actual democratic practice” (p. 38). Conversely, Schudson (2003) counters this criticism by arguing that digital democracy facilitates information dissemination by citizens, which is one of the measures of democracy, and calls for attentions to new media, which not only helps to change citizens’ political perspectives but also allows them to become actively involved in political discourse (Marshall, 2006); typically, throughout history, bottom-up online social movements have come about as a result of citizens participating in democratic decision making through civil organizations and community (Marshall, 2006).

In China, a series of laws and regulations of state governance has been launched to scrutinize content, expressions, and services.¹ On one hand, online censorship may be good for forbidding pornographic content and violent terrorist information and containing the spread of rumors; in fact, online censorship in China neither “kills” the use of the Internet nor slows the spread of information (Lu & Zhao, 2018), and alternatively, it could ease the relationship between citizens and authorities (Greitens, 2013; Roberts, 2014). Therefore, the establishment of a vigorous civil society online may promote the growth of democratic politics, as the “new form” of membership offered by ICT encourages ordinary citizens to actively participate in online political communication (Wu, 2012). “New” in this research refers to the possibility of citizens using different online outlets to represent their online identity in different ways; it also demonstrates dynamic possibilities for such new arenas to support citizens’ participation through uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes, and values. This stance can be summarized by Hermes (2005), who put forward an influential branch of the new form of digital democracy—specifically, what she refers to as “less formal everyday practices of identity construction, representation and ideology and implicit moral obligations and rights” (p. 4).

The Chinese context has seen comparable examples of the demonstration of political identity and political participation both within and outside mainland China; issues that have spurred debate include the return of Hong Kong and Macau to China, which is worthy of examination in its own right on account of China’s unique history (Perry, 2012). Hong Kong has implemented “one country, two systems” as a special administrative region of China, a constitutional principle formulated by Deng Xiaoping, the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC); since 1980s, despite the practice of socialism in mainland China, Hong Kong has retained its own capitalist economic and administrative systems for 50 years, which was the same when it was colonized by United Kingdom. Therefore, the current criteria for Hong Kong citizens’ identity vary and depend on complex political systems; since its handover in 1997, considering the case of China as well, reports have illustrated the increasing and urgent crisis of social justice resulting from the enlarging social gaps between different groups of citizens (Wang & Yang, 2011). These reports have identified that some citizens self-identify with a less powerful and lower social class. The grudge maintained by these citizens permeates into social discourse, including via texts that play on words to provide entertainment. This perceived disempowerment (both mainland and Hong Kong citizens) is one of the rationales for exploring the digital membership represented via social media in China (e.g., different status of Weibo users), as well as how social media plays a role making these people into these citizens and how these citizens exercise their membership in their political discussions (Wu, 2012). Notably, 2017 was the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover, and the 2017 HKCE election was a distinct political campaign to unpack both mainland Chinese and Hong Kong citizens’ perceptions of HKCE issues.

Research Questions

This research considers how forwarding with ideological intent “worked” in the case of an election in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China. In other words, in epistemological terms, this research considers the following questions:

How are the signifiers of forwarding interpreted by different status of Weibo users who participated in the 2017 HKCE election on Weibo?

Which discursive and/or rhetorical strategies are employed to justify the use of these signifiers?

Method

This research employed a combination of quantitative content analysis and semi-structured interviews to explore the nature and the extent of forwarding in relation to the political participation and deliberation of social media users on Weibo who were in the mainland and Hong Kong in response to the 2017 HKCE election. An advanced search of the top 10 media sources (Breaking News, CCTV News, Renmin News, Sino Entertainment, Caijing Website, Morning News, Southern City, Sino Finance, New Weekly, and China News Weekly) using the terms “Hong Kong” and “election” showed that these Weibo users collectively produced 124 new posts between March 20 and March 31, 2017. The 10 most powerful posts were selected based on Weibo’s own formula: effect = activity + propagation force + coverage. Activity was determined by the number of daily posts, the number of posts actively forwarded, and the number of active comments. Propagation force referred to the extent of the user’s influence based on the number of passively forwarded posts and the number of passively commented on posts. Coverage was determined by the number of active followers.

Evaluating comments made in response to the most powerful media sources can help to identify representative and in-depth insights behind the number of forwards. These posts generated 22,172 responses (excluding advertising and messages unrelated to the topic), which were gathered for coding. The data were subjected to a unit analysis using the SPSS software package. The content analysis concentrated on comparing and contrasting the retweets posted in response to these top 10 media sources. These comparisons and contrasts were then used to categorize the posts according to four variables: type of contribution made by the user (forward, comment, or comment on comment), the political orientations of the discussion topics, user locations (mainland or Hong Kong), and Weibo user status (VIP, Weibo Got Talent, or casual user). The semi-structured interviews focused on 150 participants’ self-interpretations of forwarding use and analyzed their motivations for using Weibo for political participation.

Content Analysis

Dependent Variable 1: Type of contribution

Forwarding occurs when a user forwards and shares a post that was originally generated by another author, with or without adding additional content. In a comment, a user may express his or her own view or enter into a discussion with other followers who have also commented. The “comment on comment” type of contribution can be viewed by clicking on “the Dialog” button, which shows what the user has discussed, when he or she discussed it, and with whom. This research mainly focuses on the nature of forwarding and also compares how and to what extent the three types of contribution (forward, comment, or comment on comment) relate to the political discussion in terms of the different Weibo statuses and geographical locations of users.

Independent Variable 1: Discussion topics

This study deployed both deductive and inductive content analysis to examine the topics of discussion of Weibo users according to a range of online statuses and different geographical locations. The codes that were used are displayed in Table 1.

Table 1.

Inductive and Deductive Codes of Topic Discussion Relating to the 2017 HKCE Election.

Inductive codes	A1	The Election Committee
	A2	Universal Suffrage
	B1	The Communist Party of China
	B2	Chief Carrie Lam
	B3	Candidates Tsang and Woo
	C1	Democratization in Hong Kong
	C2	“One Country, Two Systems” Policy
	C3	The Fall of Hong Kong
	C4	Mock Election
	C5	Political Movement in Hong Kong
Deductive codes	D1	Internet Censorship of Weibo
	D2	Weibo’s Role in the Dissemination of Information
	D3	Free Political Communication on Weibo

Note. HKCE = Hong Kong Chief Executive.

The three orientation categories were (a) explicit support, (b) neutral or unclear, and (c) explicit opposition. This research focused on any words, terms, or phrases that explicitly express these orientations.

Independent Variable 2: Geographical locations of users

The categorization of topics of discussion on Weibo provided the potential to compare and contrast the responses of Hong Kong and mainland users. Specifically, according to Weibo official database (China Internet Watch, 2011), there were 2 million users registered in Hong Kong when Weibo was released to its users in Hong Kong in 2011. In 2017, there were 376 million users per day active on Weibo; 18.8 millions of them were active Hong Kong/Macau-based users (Webtech, 2017), which constituted 5% of all active daily users on Weibo.

Independent Variable 3: Weibo user status

Weibo users may choose to be casual users, Weibo Got Talent activists, or VIPs, which are the main focus in this study. The definition of a casual user is a user who is not a member. Individuals could apply for VIP status by submitting official documents to prove their social position or the monetary value of their business. Celebrities and politicians were the most likely to apply for individual VIP status, which is marked with a yellow “V” on the site. The other categories included casual users and users with Weibo Got Talent status. Weibo Got Talent users are particularly active Weibo users; they must be non-VIPs, they must use a genuine photo and no pseudonyms, their account name must be registered to connect with their phone number, and they must have at least 100 followers and more than 30 r-followers (i.e., where the user and their own followers follow each other). People who achieve this status can earn privileges depending on the number of Weibo Got Talent credits that they have. These credits are earned according to the number of pictures and messages that they post, how many discussions they participate in, the time that they spend on Weibo, and the number of posts they forward or comments they make. The more credits that users accrue, the more privileges they have. For example, Weibo might give them additional information about other users who live in the same city or who have the same habits.

Semi-Structured Interviews

Following the quantitative content analysis of the Weibo discussion posts in the 2017 HKCE election, 150 participants were selected to be observed online and for offline analysis. The participants were aged between 21 and 35 years. All of the participants were checked through their Weibo profiles to ensure that their online activities in the 2017 HKCE election were closely connected to forwarding. The interview sample comprised 50 VIPs, 50 casual users, and 50 Weibo Got Talent activists. Within each group, half came from Hong Kong and half came from the mainland. All of the participants remained anonymous. NVivo 10.0 was used to organize the collected data by topic, Weibo user status, and location and then to identify insights and to outline the key concepts, topics, opinions, and patterns.

Findings

This research finds that the interpretation of forwarding is convoluted, but forwarding can be seen to accelerate the much-desired prospect of Chinese social media’s ability: on one hand, to amplify both Hong Kong and mainland citizens’ political deliberative participation and extend their political influence and, on the other hand, to be representative of Hong Kong users’ political extremes and to refer to critiques of the specific political realities of “one country, two systems.” Thus, the signifiers of forwarding have been interpreted through four dimensions: explicit endorsements; interactivity and visibility; rhetorical activism; depoliticized, related discursive, and rhetorical strategies employed by both Hong Kong and mainland users, and the differential status of Weibo users is introduced followingly.

Explicit Endorsements: “Forwarding Disseminates My Support”

A broad picture started to emerge from the content analysis regarding the types of contribution made by Weibo users in different geographical locations. In general, the total contributions made by the three user groups were as follows: the VIP group made a total of 3,003 forwarding posts, Weibo Got Talent members made 3,824 forwarding posts, and casual users made 8,530 forwarding posts. There were far fewer comments on comments, with the VIP, Weibo Got Talent, and casual user groups making 20, 100, and 500 contributions of this type, respectively. However, the VIP, Weibo Got Talent, and casual user groups left more original comments (1,045, 1,851, and 3,112, respectively). The same trend was evident when different geographical locations were examined. In total, mainland users contributed 14,723 forwards, 5,812 comments, and 686 comments on comments, and Hong Kong users contributed 220 forwards, 80 comments, and three comments on comments (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Types of Contribution by Different Weibo Statuses From Mainland China and Hong Kong.

	VIP	WGT	Casual	Mainland	Hong Kong
Forward	3,003	3,824	8,530	14,723	220
Comment on Comment	20	100	500	686	80
Comment	1,045	1,851	3,112	5,812	3

Note. The significance of values given in box refer to the number of times.

Accordingly, forwarding was the most popular type of contribution among all user groups (VIPs, Weibo Got Talent members, and casual users). The largest gap was between forwards by casual users from the mainland and comments on comments by VIP users from Hong Kong (see Table 2). This outcome echoes the findings of Yu, Asur, and Huberman (2012) who noted that “retweets are much more common [than other types of contribution] in Sina Weibo and contribute a lot to creating trends” (p. 1).

In terms of the forwarding (N = 15,357) and how it related to discussion topics, the quantitative content analysis revealed that significant numbers of posts were forwarded in response to the topics “Executive Chief Carrie Lam,”² “the other candidates Tsang and Woo,” the public will for “universal suffrage,” and the “One Country, Two Systems” policy. Differences in attitudes toward the topics can be seen via the discussions of “Hong Kong citizens’ appeal for universal suffrage” (100% explicit support compared with 0% explicit opposition) and “Internet censorship” (0% explicit support compared with 100% explicit opposition), which not only revealed Weibo users who explicitly supported democratic political movements such as 7.1 but also indicated that some users believed political parades should occur regularly and with support in Hong Kong. All participants explicitly opposed the mechanism of Internet censorship in China. In addition to this result, the quantitative content analysis revealed that the most balanced political orientations were found in discussions of “the Election Committee system” and “the other candidates Tsang and Woo.” “The Election Committee system” had 49.5% explicit support, 39.2% explicit opposition, and 11.3% neutrality, while “the other candidates Tsang and Woo” had 49.3% explicit support, 33% explicit opposition, and 17.7% neutrality. Thus, forwarding is used for more than simply information dissemination; it is a social media “voice” that serves social functions and has a political purpose in China.

Forwarding can have both explicit and implicit purposes. Forwarding was seen by most of the participants not only as the best way to disseminate information widely but also as an indirect means of indicating support or endorsement of another user’s post. This opinion was mostly supported by Weibo VIPs either from Hong Kong or the mainland, who considered forwarding the most appropriate way to express a point of view and emphasize their support (e.g., MVU1,³ MVU2-MVU20, HVU1-HVU15). More specifically, this study found that the network surrounding “explicit support” forwarding is much more decentralized when it involves a topic-centric endorsement rather than a geo-linguistic preference. For instance, the most supported topics in the inductive analysis included “Hong Kong’s political movements” (100%), “the fall of Hong Kong” (96.6%), “universal suffrage” (95%), and “democratization in Hong Kong” (90.5%). According to the output of the content analysis concerning whether netizens supported the democratization of Hong Kong, 80% expressed explicit support by Hong Kong users, which was more than 7 times the number that expressed explicit opposition, it is almost the same the case in 2012 HKCE (Zhao, Campbell, & Touri, 2016). Comparatively, the mainland citizens who opposed “democratization in Hong Kong” did not want Hong Kong to be democratic anymore, and they believed that “Hong Kong should not maintain the democratic system and that the system should be the same as it was before the handover” (MCU25). “They [Hong Kong’s citizens] are diasporic and [Hong Kong] has never been democratic” (MVU40). Some users (from both Hong Kong and the mainland) stated that their choice of what to support was driven by topics and that they would not forward posts simply because their followers had forwarded them; they also said that the choice of topic was more important to them than supporting users who employed the same style of dialect (e.g., Mandarin or Cantonese) or who came from the same place as them. Other mainland users (e.g., MVU13, MVU21) felt that “forwarding in itself was sufficient to express support”—they saw “commenting as more likely to be employed by users who want to express extreme political views.” This view was inconsistent with the perspective of one VIP user from Hong Kong (HVU2), who asserted that “forwarding represents a more formal and stronger attitude than commenting.” Therefore, the signifiers of forwarding interpreted by mainland and Hong Kong users not only refer to explicitly helping to spread messages online, but also indicate explicit and implicit endorsement, according to users who participated in the 2017 HKCE election on Weibo.

Interactivity and Visibility: “Forwarding Protects My Civic Rights!”

This research found that forwarding with interactivity helps to create a shared sense of online community within which Weibo users can digitize and broaden their sense of membership. In turn, the Hong Kong participants perceived Weibo—and more specifically forwarding—as a means of shaping the dynamics of their participation in the 2017 HKCE election. One of the most important factors suggested by the Hong Kong participants in support of this outcome was a “technique of revolutionary hyperlinking, which involved forwarding and played a role in tracing our debates and helping us to understand the climate of mainland opinions online” (HWU14). Arguably, this supports the idea of hyperlinks’ social significance, which has been relatively less studied, as also suggested by mainland interviewee MWU78: “Forwarding is a strategy for actors like me and my friends, who represent our social grievances through hyperlinking . . . we aim to participate with outsiders by establishing equivalent links.” Thus, forwarding can be positioned as a strategic social behavior promoted by the technical revolution of the hyperlink. As another interviewee stated,

Hyperlinking is magic, you know . . . online censorship might delete or block the key words I have used, but people still have a chance to see the evidence due to forwarding; thus, I at least have a way to leave some messages. (A Mainland Casual User No. 23)

Simultaneously, most of the Hong Kong participants employed forwarding as a metaphor to express their civic involvement in various ways. Numerous casual and Weibo Got Talent users from Hong Kong suggested that forwarding made them more visible to other users, which both strengthened their sense of belonging with mainland and increased their digital citizenship in China; for instance, “I have the right to say,” “I want them [the call for university suffrage] to get heard,” “this is my name [account],” “everyone deserves such an opportunity,” and “I look forward to someone agreeing with me” (e.g., HCU11, HWU41, MCU33, MCU22, MWU37, MWU49). Another Hong Kong user stated,

I am surprised that mainland citizens care about what happens in Hong Kong, especially when I find some sensitive critique either of universal suffrage or of the fall of Hong Kong, so I forward their comments because it is netiquette to show respect, and it is so exciting to be united. (A Hong Kong Weibo Got Talent No. 46)

It is interesting to note users’ insistence on maintaining their own online statuses in light of their consensus of opinion regarding the “visibility” of forwarding. Both Hong Kong and mainland users perceived that their current Weibo statuses enabled them to participate politically, and none of them wanted to change or update their online identities. For them, forwarding served to support and appeal to the collective voice and actions of “the people,” and this perception reinforced their sense of commitment to a cause and their sense of empowerment. This was exemplified by some responses from mainland participants—particularly ones with large numbers of followers—indicating that they were careful of which memes they forwarded. Comparatively, Hong Kong users believed that, over time, their visibility as users could provide pragmatic possibilities for solving the political issues in Hong Kong. For example, Hong Kong user indicates,

I am an opinion leader on Weibo. I have more than 300,000 followers. I feel wary of commenting directly . . . forwarding is a novel way that virtually helps me to creatively and independently participate in the process of deliberation. I have faith that it will affect the [election’s] outcome; the central government cares about what citizens are discussing there [on Weibo] . . . but nevertheless . . . what I mostly care about is that I know that my followers would understand why I support “universal suffrage.” (A Hong Kong VIP User No. 4)

Moreover, it is interesting to note that almost a third of the casual and Weibo Got Talent participants shortened their messages by deleting several words from the original posts when forwarding. This practice not only saves space so that users can add their own comments but may also cause the meaning of the original post to change. Mainland users referred to this behavior as a type of “visibility,” or 火钳刘明 (huoqian liuming). 火钳刘明 (huoqian liuming) is an online buzzword that is homophonic to the words 火前留明 (huoqian liuming). Many websites and software packages automatically recommend the words 火前留明 when a user types the Chinese Pinyin huoqian liuming, which refers to users wishing to attach their names to posts before the posts become popular and, in such a way, contribute to exchanging and sharing their deliberations through their own identities.

Rhetorical Activism: “Forwarding as Nixi (逆袭)”

Forwarding is perceived as a rhetorical mode through which to practice political activism; it is structurally engrained in implicit critique and refers to political realities. For instance, the results of this study indicated that the posts from casual users in Hong Kong that discussed controversial issues (e.g., “universal suffrage,” “One Country, Two Systems,” and “democratization in Hong Kong” in this study) related to the central and Hong Kong government were considerably more likely to be retweeted. This trend was borne out in the 2017 HKCE election campaign:

These more popular items included pieces on the scandals surrounding the three candidates . . . the likelihood of an abortive election if the majority of the Election Committee members returned blank voting papers and whether it is necessary to have another vote right away . . . the announcement by the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong that it would support candidate Lam due to she was the only candidate nominated by pro-Beijing faction . . . and the restriction of the vote to 1,200 committee members. (A Hong Kong Weibo Got Talent No. 1)

The logic of forwarding thus implies ideological affiliation. This not only results in intense debate among users but also was considered by a third of mainland and almost half of Hong Kong participants as an act of civic revolution in relation to Hong Kong’s direct democracy (e.g., HCU12, HWU33, MCU15, MWU23, MWU35, MWU41).

I have an underground team to spread the opposition to “One Country, Two Systems”; the teammates are all technocratic, and each of us has more than ten accounts that undertake actions according to a serious schedule. We normally forward within five minutes. It is a revolution that fights for our democracy. (A Mainland Weibo Got Talent No. 3)

MWU3 continued to call their (team’s) actions 逆袭 (nixi), which is a popular term that originates from online games in China and means a counterattack that is conducted by grassroots Chinese organizations that eventually succeed over adversity. It, therefore, has a positive spirit and the connotation of constantly striving to be stronger.

More specifically, it is surprising to find that forwarding information against the Community Party of China (CCP) is a popular discourse style and political logic of antagonism. Some participants forwarded opposition to the CCP only when it was expressed implicitly through political rhetoric—for instance, satire or irony.

Social media, normally unintentionally but easily intentionally, raises popular sentiments and contributes to the climates of opinion, which could easily tune in to anti-government, and anti-CCP rhetoric utilized by populist forces and grassroots organizations. (A Mainland Casual User No. 4)

Arguably, to the extent that citizens preferred to forward rather than comment in this case study and aimed to enrich the forms of democratic representation, the process of deliberative participation could be affected and measured by participants who concentrate on “completing” information through forwarding. “Completing information” here refers to a rhetorical way of finalizing the information to be delivered (Schudson, 2003); Weibo users claim that it expresses implicit sentiments or invites other users to participate in offline activism (e.g., MVU1, MVU3, MVU4). However, regarding the social and ideological activism of forwarding, the majority of VIPs demonstrated that the risk involved in forwarding a post is proportionate to the importance of the information it contains; thus, forwarding is effective by means of a hegemonic logic that empowers users’ civic participation. In this regard,

Both explicit and implicit aims and effects, as well as the large populations who forward, have already attracted the mainland government’s attention. Regulations will be announced soon, and this shows that the state wishes to extend its control over the expression of public opinion and especially limit information dissemination through the Internet, particularly social media. (A Mainland User No. 4)

In an effort to avert nixi (逆袭), which the government sees as constituting “tangible threats to social order” at “society’s meso-level” (e.g., HWU3, HWU4, MCU4, MWU1, MVU1), an announcement was made by the government in 2014⁴: Any untrue posts that were clicked and viewed more than 5,000 times or reposted more than 500 times on Weibo would be regarded as serious defamation, which generally is punishable by 3 or more years in prison (Dimitrov, 2017). This censorship action by the mainland government has begun to shape citizens’ political participation through social media forwarding. In this way, the government has begun to limit the power of forwarding due to the fact that it serves as far more than just information dissemination.

Depoliticized: “I Just Da Jiangyou (打酱油)”

In contrast, there are some casual users from the mainland who use forwarding simply to “stand out” or “look on”—a way of depoliticizing their participation on social media. They perceive their forwarding as 打酱油 (da jiangyou), 围观 (weiguan), 路过 (luguo), or 飘过 (piaoguo) because they forward without commenting, either simply to bring attention to themselves or to observe what is happening online. It is interesting to unpack the implications of their depoliticized actions: 打酱油 (da jiangyou) and 酱油 (jiangyou) refer to soy sauce in Chinese, and the story of their origin goes back to a local TV interview in 2012 that was conducted by Guangzhou (PRC) TV during which a journalist randomly selected interviewees who were walking down the street to determine how the citizens would respond to the so-called erotic picture scandal. One of the interviewees answered rudely, “I came along to buy soy sauce.” Later, this sentence became popular online. In addition, da jiangyou invited a new round of discussion, giving rise to what was claimed to be a “new morality” indicating that when individuals are at war with a network of violence, they should employ da jiangyou to help remove the spotlight and prevent themselves from being hurt.

One of this study’s respondents explained that the Chinese have a fondness for watching bustling scenes, either online or on the street, but “what really happens there [on Weibo] has nothing to do with me—I am just passing by” (MCU1). Thus, these casual users employed forwarding as Internet onlookers and demonstrated that its consequences had nothing to do with any political appeal; participants who were aware of populist politics and/or the very broad notion of deliberative democracy were particularly keen to separate their forwarding activity from these concepts.

In contrast, some casual users from the mainland perceived forwarding as zhaijie (斋戒), equivalent to the English word “fasting”; these users only forwarded without commenting, typically adding a “shut up” emoji. They did not see “sharing” as an aggressive practice or a means of attempting to win an online argument. However, such “fasting” and da jiangyou modes of participation have alternatively been perceived by democratic activists (e.g., HCU13-17, MWU24-29) as helpful means of support: “We actually appreciate them . . . such civic engagement is positively related to helpful onlooker behaviors.”

Discussion

Forwarding is a new political language in China, and, even if it was originally neutral, the practice is discussed in 2017 HKCE election strategically deployed by Chinese social media users and their followers, who have developed a tacit, symbiotic relationship according to mutually beneficial formulations: This research contributes to understanding the signifiers of forwarding by employing De Maeyer’s (2012) framework, supporting her pragmatic conclusion that “a univocal, unambiguous interpretation of the link does not exist” (p. 747). Therefore, the second and third levels of De Maeyer’s framework can be used to unpack the various interpretations of forwarding, eventually offering multiple perspectives on the political panorama of Chinese hyperlinked society, which is summarized in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Forwarding, social functions, and ideological flow.

More specifically, the discursive and/or rhetorical strategies (e.g., irony or satire) employed to interpret forwarding relating to the 2017 HKCE election by Weibo users reveals four distinct dimensions to the political culture of forwarding. First, most Weibo VIPs, either from mainland or Hong Kong, see forwarding as the most appropriate way to show their support and emphasize their endorsement of specific political topics (e.g., Hong Kong universal suffrage); it is best exemplified by explicit support by most Hong Kong users or opposition by most of the mainland users for “democratization in Hong Kong” as sentiment completion. Second, numerous casual and Weibo Got Talent users, either from Hong Kong or the mainland, suggest that interactivity and visibility of forwarding help to create an online community within which Weibo users can digitize and strengthen their sense of expressive membership and voice their civic involvement. Third, forwarding is a strategy employed by a third of mainland and almost half of Hong Kong political actors who represent their social grievances and engage in intense debate for completing deliberate democracy, which is a rhetorical mode of activism often termed nixi (逆袭). Fourth, it is noteworthy that some casual users from mainland employ forwarding as Internet onlookers and are perceived as helpful jiangyou (酱油).

Supported by what previous research highlighted (De Maeyer, 2012; Hsu & Park, 2011; Rogers, 2010; Rudat & Buder, 2015; Tsatsou, 2014; Yu et al., 2012), this research serves to understand how forwarding has emerged as a substitute for social behavior, to express power and legitimacy in context-bound. Interestingly, it has been claimed that forwarding is a progressive grassroots movement that performs the function of surrogate democracy in China, has changed the top-down nature of political discourse, and has eroded the boundaries between popular communication and deliberative democracy. In turn, social media users (typically from Hong Kong participants) who employ forwarding as a network practice represent a will to deliberate via their empowerment through simple but emotionally replete forwarding. These idealized practices have concretized the so-called imagined community that strives to be political, and “completing information” (Schudson, 2003) that has already helped to enrich the understanding of deliberative democracy in the Chinese context.

Numerous studies have examined the public opinion generated by forwarding on social media (Cao et al., 2016; Mou et al., 2016; Tsatsou & Zhao, 2016). This research concentrates on the forwarding itself and its ideological association, which has been much neglected, and found that neither the link itself nor the resources that are linked can fully reflect the intentions and meanings of the users who are (doing the) forwarding. Although there is a large population of users who express explicit support through forwarding political topics, the populist turn that motivates the use of forwarding cannot be disregarded, which deserves a future study. This study argues that rhetoric as well as contextual conditions will be important for future studies aiming to understand the mechanisms of the populist discourse of forwarding.

Conclusion

Regarding the extrinsic factors of Chinese online censorship, Chinese social media users who have integrated online censorship into their routine lives prefer to forward rather than directly comment, and they walk a delicate line in terms of their own protection from the dangers of participating in sensitive political topics. This hyperlinked society not only formulates ways to evade the risk of being censored in cases of crossing official-designed boundaries but also provides comparable perspectives from the mainland and Hong Kong, as well as from VIPs, Weibo Got Talent members, and casual users in the transformation of political discourse, participation, and electoral behaviors. Thus, this research argues in favor of the influence of forwarding on the social media site Weibo, suggesting that the practice of digital democracy, namely, deliberative discussions, is particularly attributable to Weibo users’ statuses, including their demographic backgrounds and online identities.

De Maeyer’s (2012) framework is adaptable and may be used by future studies to develop insights into the development of hyperlinked societies into “super-linked” societies in China, given that “sharing,” “forwarding,” and “liking” are sweeping over social media. This framework facilitates an understanding of the extent to which the “glue” that binds mechanisms of both populist and democratic discourse to the Chinese contexts also invites a rethinking of the boundary between populist practices and acts of deliberative democracy—a boundary that is actually quite blurred, complex, and illusory in this research. The “success” of the use of forwarding, which operates as a technocracy, without mutual and objective discussion and without engaging with the processes of political communication as a whole, is merely a way to reflect social cleavage, which is called “the populist turn” discussed above. Conversely, forwarding, along with sufficient political discussion, deliberates upon, integrates, and transforms a plurality of individual appeals into a unified picture, which suggests democratic potential. Therefore, forwarding, which lies between a hyper-politicized mode of media populism and a depoliticized mode of technocracy, is inextricably linked to how it is deployed as political mediation for digital participation hand in hand with self-censorship practices in an authoritarian system. Hence, forwarding contributes to the understanding that China’s sophisticated apparatus of Internet censorship and its manipulation of the free flow of information are far from complete.

Finally, it is significant to recognize the nature of sampling limitations. First, the influence of online censorship has also revealed the potential limitations of this research. For instance, the full access of all data collection or the nature and the characteristics of online discussion by Chinese citizens, as well as their perspectives on Chinese digital democracy, might be affected by online censorship. In addition, even if there are large of numbers of WhatsApp and Facebook users in Hong Kong instead of on Weibo, this research aims to unpack the quality, transformation, and logic of forwarding that constitute a mediatized politics interpreted by both Hong Kong and mainland citizens, including their interactivity. Thus, Weibo has already provided a way to show the discrepancies that are salient in a comparative political discourse.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research has been supported by the Humanities and Social Science Youth Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 19YJC860027), and “Media Populism and Hong Kong Political Rhetoric” by Institute of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Development Studies, Sun Yat-sen University (Funding No. 99132-41230044).

Notes

ORCID iD

Yupei Zhao

Author Biographies

Yupei Zhao (PhD, University of Leicester) is an assistant professor in the School of Marxism and Institute of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Development Studies at the Sun Yat-Sen University (People’s Republic of China). Her research interests widely include communication theory, new media and civil society, and incultural communication. Her research has appeared in International Journal of Communication, Social Media + Society, Social Science Quarterly, and so on.

Zhongxuan Lin (PhD) is an associate research fellow at the School of Communication and Design, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong, China. His research interests include cultural studies and communication studies. His work has appeared in New Media & Society, International Journal of Communication, Disability & Society, Gender, Place & Culture, Chinese Journal of Communication, among others.

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