Presentation slides for the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) 15th Annual Meeting on 23-25 October 2014, @ Daegu, Korea

1. Searching Guangzhou
Regionalizing China’s Weibo
Prepared for IR15 2014
Wilfred Yang Wang
wilfred.wang@hdr.qut.edu.au
Queensland University of Technology

2. 2
The study
•A study about the formation of geo-identity on the
Internet
•Ask:
How geography intersects with new media technologies;
- How do we learn about a place (nature and humanity)
from digital information and data
-How do we understand new media practices through
the lens of human/cultural geography
* Today: why geographic places

3. 10/28/14
Sina Weibo
• Launch by Sina Corporation in 2009
• 280 million users by the end of 2013
• 140 Chinese characters input per post
• Basic functions include: follow, post, repost,
LIKE, comment, favour, IM, inbox; upload
image, video, URLs …

4. Sina Weibo
• Launch by Sina Corporation in 2009
• 280 million users by the end of 2013
• 140 Chinese characters input per post
• Basic functions include: follow, post, repost,
LIKE, comment, favour, IM, inbox; upload
image, video, URLs …
10/28/14 4

5. Why ‘geography’?
• The myth of a borderless cyberspace
• Recent scholarships shows otherwise
• Sub-national region is always part of China’s
Internet
• Local-central is historical
• Weibo is located within China’s asymmetric
spatial structure between local places and the
central state.
10/28/14

6. Place as a historical logic
‘That which is long divided must unify; that which is
long unified must divide.’
10/28/14

7. A CCP’s paradox
• The Chinese Dream as a unified Chinese ethnicity--- Xi
Jinping (2012);
• Linguistic law: tuipu (promoting Mandarin);
• Standardised text books;
• Historical genre film and TV productions (collective
memories).
BUT…
• Household registration system (Hukou) since Mao;
• Regional economy and development;
• Decentralised administration;
• Sub-national region as the container of identity.
10/28/14

8. Place as an Internet logic
10/28/14
Baidu Index

9. BBS
10/28/14
Regional
Forums

10. Guangzhou – the place

11. Guangzhou (Canton)
• Capital city of the Guangdong Province
• Population: 14 million (2014)
• Dialect: Cantonese
• Climate: humid subtropical (68% humidity)
• Economy: first to reform; hospitality and trade-driven: ‘China’s southern
gate’. One of the wealthiest regions in China (GDP)
• Geographic: close to HK and Macau
• Media: outspoken (Nanfang Media Group)
• Recent Histories: Opium Wars; Taiping Revolution; the Nationalist
Revolution and the Communist Revolution (nationalism)
• Social changes: rapid population growth rate since 2000s due to migrants
(workers, new settlers, investors) ... But very mobile population … a rapid
shifting sense of cultural identity
• Some issues: social inequalities, cheap labor, unemployment, inflation (if
not hyper-inflation)

12. ‘How we think of China’
Northern
People

13. Pro-Cantonese Protest in 2010
•A proposal to abolish Cantonese broadcasting at local
TV station’s news and current affairs programs in July
2010; change to Mandarin
•Public uproar and anger
•A street protest on 25 July, with more than thousands
participants; another protest on 1 August at HK.
•The provincial governmet withdrawn the proposal

14. A linguistic war
Type in Cantonese instead of Mandarin
For example:
蚊 = mosquito (Mandarin)
= Dollar (Cantonese)
You first go (Mandarin) 你先走
You go first (Cantonese) 你行先
政府 (government) = zf, 天朝(the heaven Dynasty)/ 正虎 (square
tiger)
公安部 (police department) = gong an bu / gung on bou

16. Visualise dissents

17. GZ-HK Cultural Identity
• Woai Feisinai (18:48, 25/07/2013): ‘pro-
Cantonese is a common course for
Guangzhouers and Hong Kongers!’.

18. Why geography?
• The interaction between the shared virtual and
geographic spaces;
• Place defines online practices and culture, and is
being reproduced by the online contents;
• Allow for interregional perspective of the
Internet;
• Historical and social continuity
• The formation of a local subjectivity, hence,
sense of right (of ownership) and responsibility
(to defend) to the local place. 10/28/14

19. Geo-identity framework
10/28/14

20. 10/28/14
A note on Methodology
• Case study approach
• Three case-studies:
1. The pro-Cantonese protest in 2012 (key word)
2. Guangzhou's Weibo group (Weibo group)
3. The anti-Japan protest in 2012 (opinion
leader)
Geo-identity as the central concern

21. 10/28/14
Data
• Maually collected, no free API
• None of the 'big data' software work
• Locative based instead of event based
• Time specific
• Key words not #tag
• Embedded search function not API
• Opinion leaders (individual and online groups)
• Approached with framing analysis

22. 10/28/14

23. Categories
Label/Code Counts
Information
Protest Information 149
Personal plan on protest day 55
Future actions (second protest in HK) 7
Information about censorship 16
Rationale
Cultural and historical uniqueness of Cantonese 38
Linguistic and identity right 22
Seeking external supports 19
Alternative actions 21
Slogan 66
N=393

24. THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?