Understanding China’s Digital Politics

This book examines the impact of China’s move to the digital sphere of public deliberation and discourse. It recognizes that although there were great hopes that the Internet, not just in China, would bring pluralism, tolerance, civility, and rationality to public debates, and enhance the prospects for democracy in authoritarian countries, in practice the Internet has, besides encouraging these virtues, also enabled much deplorable behavior. Based on extensive original research, this book explores these more negative aspects of Internet discourse in China, including polarization, conspiratorial discourses, disinformation, populist communication, and hate speech, outlining their nature and considering their consequences. As such, this book goes further than many other books on the Chinese Internet, which focus on the censorship versus resistance perspective.

Tianru Guan, is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Wuhan University, China