While the presence of cameras in courtrooms is controversial in the West, the Chinese government has promoted the live broadcasting of court trials via digital media platforms. This study situates the practice under China’s responsive authoritarianism and sees it as part of a broader governing strategy aiming at enhancing the legitimacy of the regime. An analysis of a trial surrounding the online video software QvodPlayer, supplemented with analyses of other cases, reveals the production and the possible tension involved in the live broadcast process. The analysis illustrates how court trials are typically narrated as non-eventful episodes in the official live streams, but it also demonstrates the possibility of Internet users exercising their agency through poaching the official live stream, thereby turning a trial into a real-time ‘satirefest’. Implications of the analysis on China’s evolving governing techniques and on understandings of liveness in the digital media environment are discussed.
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