China, social media, and environmental protest: Civic engagement on networks of screens and streets

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Title China, social media, and environmental protest: Civic engagement on networks of screens and streets
Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Humanities
Department Communication
Author Brunner, Elizabneth Ann
Date 2016
Description This dissertation advances a networked approach to social movements via the study of contemporary environmental protests in China. Specifically, I examine anti- paraxylene protests that occurred in 2007 in Xiamen, in 2011 in Dalian, and in 2014 in Maoming via news reports, social media feeds, and conversations with witnesses and participants in the protests. In so doing, I contribute two important concepts for social movement scholars. The first is the treatment of protests as forces majeure that disrupt networks and force the renegotiation of relationships. This turn helps scholars to trace the movement of the social via changes in human consciousness as well as changes in relationships. The second concept I advance is wild public networks, which take seriously new media as making possible different forms of protest. This concept is especially important in studies of social movement in China where censorship and surveillance are widespread. By advancing these two concepts, I offer scholars new tools to trace the movement of the social beyond instrumental successes in terms of relationships and renegotiations.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Communication; Rhetoric
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management (c) Elizabeth Ann Brunner
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
ARK ark:/87278/s6wx2jjf
Setname ir_etd
ID 1500757
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6wx2jjf
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