The emergence of the Human Flesh Search Engine and political protest in China: exploring the Internet and online collective action

Abstract

For scholars with an interest in Chinese society and politics, protest is not a new subject, especially rural resistance and urban strikes. Numerous studies have been conducted which focus on social movements and popular protests, but the online protests by Chinese Internet users have not received the same amount of attention. The focus of this article is on how Chinese citizens use the Internet as a platform to protest against official misconduct or more specifically the emergence of a type of online protest called the Human Flesh Search Engine (HFSE). This type of protest has largely been overlooked by the literature on protest in China. This study aims to provide an appropriate and comprehensive definition of HFSE as a form of online protest via exploring its structural characteristics and general contexts. Drawing on the findings, I argue that a full understanding of protest in the digital age is possible only when the Internet and online forms of protest are taken into account.

Keywords

China Internet media politics power protest

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