This document summarizes a presentation about defending the Cantonese language through collective action on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform. In 2010, a proposal to abolish Cantonese broadcasting in Guangzhou sparked public uproar. Activists used Weibo to organize protests, sharing information about the event and facing censorship. Analysis of Weibo posts found people visually representing their cultural identity and citing external media support. The movement demonstrated how digital platforms facilitate new forms of geographically flexible and symbolic collective action against state repression.

1. DEFENDING CANTONESE
WEIBO AND GEO-IDENTITY
POLITICS IN GUANGZHOU,
CHINA
Impact of War on Modern Chinese Society
Conference, UQ 2013
Wilfred Yang Wang (QUT)
Wilfred.wang@student.qut.edu.au

2. PRESENTATION OUTLINE
1.
Collective action in digital age
- The changing (movement) network structure
- Weibo: interfaces and relevant functions
2. Data collection and analysis
3. Findings and discussions
-
Perform Cantonese
-
An image war
-
Translocal network structure
-
Direct confrontation

3. DIGITAL COLLECTIVE ACTION
•
Personalised network
•
Horizontal and flat network
•
Private and semi-private network and
communication
•
Spatially and geographically flexible
•
Portability, Mobility - technical convergence
between platforms and services (Facebook
and Twitter apps)

4. A DIFFERENT TWITTER …
WEIBO
•
Weibo (micro blogs), entry up to 140 Chinese
characters;
•
Launched in 2009, by Sina.com;
•
5-6 different versions of weibo, a very
competitive market.
•
Reached 331 million users by June 2013
•
Nearly 50% used it through smart-phone

8. DATATIFICATION
Information now become:
•
More actively approaching users
•
Visualised
•
Encourage users’ participation (reports, LIKE,
promote, and comments)
•
Instantaneousness (news feed and chat)
•
Emotional (visual and audio materials) and
personal (cover picture and profile photo)
•
Networking (connectivity), not dissemination
(order)

9. PRO-CANTONESE PROTEST IN
2010
•
Guangzhou (Canton) is a major southern city in China
•
Home of Cantonese (language); close to HK and
Macau
•
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.

10. HOW IT UNFOLDED ON
WEIBO…
•
A group of activists used Weibo to organised
the protest, recruit members and publish news
and updates for the protest;
•
Guangzhou authorities disapproved the
protest application
•
Organisers were dismantled; called off the
protest through weibo
•
News media were prohibited to report
•
Online censorship (date, location, slogan)

11. QUESTIONS
How are information communicated and
transmitted with the presence of staterepression (censorship), and the absence of
protest leader-follower structure?

12. METHODS
•
Collected 1,648 Weibo entries through keyword
search ‘support Cantonese’ （撑粤语）between 23
– 27 July 2010.
•
Location: Guangzhou
•
Further filter by excluding all reposts, data down to
393, for framing analysis
•
Approached with framing analysis

13. 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

14. FRAMING ANALYSIS
Guiding questions:
•
Solidarity frame:
1. How Guangzhouers frame their culture and language?
2. How do they perceive outsiders?
•
1.
2.
3.
Participation frame (what makes people walk on the street or
protest online?):
The sense of severity and urgency (the gravity of the crisis and
the needs to take action);
The assurance to minimize personal risks of participation;
The legitimacy to take action.

15. FINDINGS
•
Typing Cantonese;
•
Visualise local culture and language;
•
Citing mainstream media as moral supports;
•
Citing Hong Kong supports to create a crossborder cultural identity (against CCP’s effort
of national identity);
•
Screenshots and live updates (texts);
•
Directly confronting the censorship.

16. 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

17. VISUALISE IDENTITY

18. GEO-IDENTITY TO MOVEMENT
IDENTITY

19. 袁崇焕 (YUAN CHONGHUAN)

20. VISUALISE DISSENTS

21. MAINSTREAM MEDIA

22. AN IMAGE WAR
Internet contention is radical communicative
action conducted in words and images … the
most obvious feature of internet contention is
its symbolic and discursive form (Guobin Yang,
2008)
Mobilisation and framing:
Geo-solidarity
Needs to participate
Citing external supports

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

24. ALTERNATIVE POLITICAL
SPHERE

25. SCREEN CAPTURE
•
A practice to evade online censorship
•
Information
•
.jpg File can get around the ‘sensitive word
detection’ (敏感词) system
visualised (not textualised)

26. EYE WITNESSING

28. ONLINE PROTEST
•
Many complains their posts are removed
•
Accuse the service being disgraceful and weibo took away their
legal rights：
‘let’s see how many posts can they (SNSs and the government)
delete!?’
‘look, the government starts removing posts (relating to proCantonese movement), do they really think that will shattered our
determination to support Cantonese?’
‘zf has censored the term ‘Jiangnanxi’ (protest location) on
search engineers!’

29. AFTER-MATCH
•
The proposal was not even submitted for
consideration
•
Proliferation of local, Cantonese communities
on Weibo

30. CONCLUDING…
•
The nature of collective action is changing in
the digital age … in terms of the
communicative structures;
•
Collective action becomes part of the
everyday practice rather than an exceptional
historical moment;
•
Self-participation and engagement not
systematic coordination
•
‘Who we are’ not ‘what we want’

31. THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?