Smart radio and audio apps: the politics and paradoxes of listening to (anti-) social media

The recent crop of vocal social media applications tends to appeal to users in terms of getting their voices heard loud and clear. Indeed, it is striking how often verbs like ‘shout’ and ‘boast’ and ‘brag’ are associated with microcasting platforms with such noisy names as Shoutcast, Audioboom, Hubbub, Yappie, Boast and ShoutOmatic. In other words, these audio social media are often promoted in rather unsociable terms, appealing less to the promise of a new communicative exchange than to the fantasy that we will each can be at the centre of attention of an infinite audience. Meanwhile, many of the new forms of online radio sell their services to listeners as offering ‘bespoke’ or ‘responsive’ programming (or ‘audiofeeds’), building up a personal listening experience that meets their individual needs and predilictions. The role of listening in this new media ecology is characterised, then, by similarly contradictory trends. Listening is increasingly personalised, privatised, masterable and measurable, but also newly shareable, networked and, potentially, public. The promotional framing of these new media suggests a key contradiction at play in these new forms of radio and audio, speaking to a neo-liberal desire for a decentralization of broadcasting to the point where every individual has a voice, but where the idea of the audience is invoked as a mass network of anonymous and yet thoroughly privatised listeners. Focusing on the promotion and affordances of these various new radio- and radio-like applications for sharing speech online, this article seeks to interrogate what is at stake in these contradictions in terms of the ongoing politics, experience and ethics of listening in a mediated world

Visual Social Media and Vernacular Responses to Environmental Issues in China

This thesis investigates the role of visual social media in providing ordinary Chinese with an alternative space to articulate their opinions on environmental issues. By studying three notable environmental cases, this thesis explores how ordinary Chinese adopt visual social media practices as a response to environmental issues, and to aid in the fight for environmental justice. This thesis provides a new perspective to understand China’s visual social media practices and its networked civic engagement

Which Social Media Facilitate Online Public Opinion in China?

Why does online public opinion emerge in some social media more easily than in others? Building on research on authoritarian deliberation, we describe spaces for political discussion in Chinese cyberspace in terms of interactivity, which results in different forms of political discussion. Drawing on semi-structured qualitative expert interviews with information and communications technology professionals at Tencent, Weibo, and Baidu, we explain how major social media differ in terms of their structure and the company’s motivation. We specify which features are more likely to facilitate the emergence of online public opinion in Chinese social media and provide preliminary evidence from 92 semi-structured interviews with Internet users

Promoting Public Participation in Post-Disaster Construction through Wechat Platform

Purpose - How could memory, heritage and post-disaster construction integrated in practice? The purpose of this paper is to introduce our approach in public participation of reconstruction plan, after a raging fire destroyed part of the historic town of Shangri-la, China. Approach – We develop two kind of crowd sourcing platform to collect and also present memory of the vanishing streets which were distroyed completely by fire. One is on Wechat platform. Through secondary development on Wechat Platform, we built a public service account that allowed users to upload photos, hand-painted pictures, and text, all of the files can be saved automaticly in our database. The other platform in on web. The website is designed for users to upload photos based on location where they were taken. All the images collected from the two platforms can be open accessed viewed with location information, which had been sort out by volunteers. The wechat platform is also used to communicate and provide education and information of the historic town to promote awareness of the heritage value. Users can send text to the public account, without privacy risk. Findings – Spreading with help from a local non-government organization, the invations of the wechat public service account received amazing amount of attention, which, according to automatic web statistics, reached up to 40,000. About 150 people followed the Wechat public account. At last we received nearly 1000 photos and hand-painted pictures. About half of our users are from Shangrila local community, Their uploaded files including historical photos of the community, providing us local perspective with long period of concern. The other half users come from travlers from all over the world, mostly from China but also european people. Their photos and paintings also contribute to the memory construction. Implications –The widespread use of smart mobile devices can make individuals more active as participants of public fairs, with the premise of carefully designed infrastructure. In this way, new technologies may contribute to a people centred principle in our conservation and design process. Value – Our approach is so-called Volunteered Geographic Information(VGI)(Goodchild,2007) in collecting memory fragments for post-disaster construction. By convenience of uploading photos and texts from mobile devices, we successfully involved local people and travlers‘participation. The case might bring insight into the field of public participation practice

"Internet Plus" medical services based on total quality management theory: an empirical research in public hospital outpatient services in Guangzhou, China

China is a large country with a population of more than 1.3 billion people, so public places are always full of people. The large public hospitals in China are even more overcrowded with a widespread medical treatment dilemma of "three longs and one short" in outpatient departments, which refers to “long waiting time of registration and payment, long waiting time of fetching medicine, long waiting time of treatment and short time of diagnosis”. This medical dilemma has long plagued medical workers as well as patients seeking treatment in outpatient departments and their families. Based on the theory of total quality management, this research is carried out in accordance with the Juran Trilogy –"Quality Planning – Quality Control – Quality Improvement" and the “European Quality Award Logical Model”. With the prevalent phenomenon of “three longs and one short” as the orientation, this research reviews the relevant literature, illustrates the historical reason for the occurrence of the dilemma and the practical significance of solving it, proposes the hypothesis to improve outpatient medical experience through the “Internet + medical service” model, achieves outpatient treatment process reengineering through empirical research on the “WeChat + outpatient medical service” platform developed by T hospital, and realizes the goal of improving satisfaction of patients and the medical staff with quality as the key and the medical staff participating from the beginning to the end to work continuously to improve outpatient service quality. Through practice, combined with methods such as questionnaire, interview, expert consultation, and group discussion, it has been proven that the “WeChat + outpatient service” platform can effectively alleviate or solve the dilemma of "three longs", but there is no improvement for the “one short”. Through the five dimensions of service quality (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) and service quality gap analysis, it can be seen that the construction of "WeChat + outpatient service" platform has improved the patient’s medical experience, increased satisfaction of patients and the medical staff, and promoted employees’ awareness of active service.A China é um país de grande dimensão, com uma população de mais de 1,3 mil milhões de habitantes, e por isso os lugares públicos estão sempre cheios de pessoas. Os grandes hospitais públicos na China estão ainda mais superlotados com um dilema de tratamento médico generalizado de "três longos e um curto" em departamentos ambulatoriais, que se refere a “longo tempo de espera de registro e pagamento, longo tempo de espera de busca de medicamentos, longo tempo de espera de tratamento e tempo curto de diagnóstico". Este dilema médico há muito atormenta o pessoal médico, bem como os pacientes que procuram tratamento em departamentos ambulatoriais e suas famílias. Com base na teoria da gestão da qualidade total, esta pesquisa é realizada de acordo com a Trilogia Juran - "Planeamento da Qualidade - Controlo da Qualidade - Melhoria da Qualidade" e o "Modelo Lógico do Prêmio Europeu da Qualidade". Com o fenómeno prevalente de "três longos e um curto" como a orientação, esta pesquisa revisa a literatura pertinente, ilustra a razão histórica para a ocorrência do dilema e o significado prático de resolvê-lo, propõe a hipótese de melhorar a experiência médica ambulatorial por meio o modelo "Internet + serviço médico", realiza a reengenharia do processo de tratamento ambulatorial através da pesquisa empírica sobre a plataforma "WeChat + outpatient service" desenvolvida pelo hospital T, e realiza o objetivo de melhorar a satisfação dos pacientes e equipa médica com qualidade, tendo como chave a equipa médica que participa do começo ao fim para trabalhar continuamente para melhorar a qualidade do atendimento ambulatorial. Através da prática, combinada com métodos como questionário, entrevista, consulta com especialistas e discussão em grupo, foi provado que a plataforma "WeChat + outpatient service" pode efetivamente aliviar ou resolver o dilema de "três longos", mas não há melhoria para o "um curto". Através das cinco dimensões de qualidade de serviço (tangibilidade, confiabilidade, responsabilidade, garantia e empatia) e análise de lacunas de qualidade de serviço, pode ser visto que a construção da plataforma "WeChat +outpatient service" melhorou a experiência médica do paciente, aumentou a satisfação de pacientes e equipa médica, e promoveu a consciencialização dos funcionários sobre o serviço ativo

#MeToo as connective action: a study of the anti-sexual violence and anti-sexual harassment campaign on Chinese social media in 2018

In January, 2018, the global anti-sexual violence and anti-sexual harassment movement – popularly known as #MeToo – had its Chinese nascence. This study drew upon the theory of connective actions to investigate how digital technologies shift the way in which feminist activism takes place. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were employed to systematically analyse over 36,000 online articles related to the campaign. The study identified 48 cases of sexual violence and harassment allegations. Findings from time series analysis show that China's #MeToo campaign first emerged within educational institutions before gradually spreading to other sectors of society. Based on qualitative findings from the ten most controversial cases, this paper identifies a series of counter-censorship strategies. The study of how the #MeToo movement in China emerged, adapted, and grew within an authoritarian context reveals unique insights into how connective actions traverse various platforms and cultural contexts. Methodologically, this study demonstrates how mixed methods can be utilised to study connective actions on social media in China

Conflicts and order : controversies over municipal solid waste incineration in China

Au cours des dernières décennies, nous avons été témoins de la croissance des controverses relatives à l’incinération des déchets solides municipaux dans de nombreuses villes du monde. Cela est particulièrement vrai pour les grandes et moyennes villes en Chine. Diverses catégories d’acteurs, y compris l’État, les autorités locales, les acteurs du marché économique et de la société civile, tentent d’exercer leur influence sur la construction, l’extension et/ou l’opération des incinérateurs. Même si les controverses relatives à l’incinération des déchets solides municipaux abordées par le passé dans plusieurs disciplines, nous ne sommes pas en présence d’une véritable compréhension collective suffisante de la stabilité et du changement à l’échelle méso. La thèse traite de la question suivante: dans les débats et les affrontements autour de l’incinération, comment et jusqu’à quel point les interactions et les compétitions entre contestataires et adversaires contribuent-elles à définir un champ d’action stratégique où la structure industrielle et les politiques de gestion des déchets dominées par l’incinération sont remises en question ou reconduites ? Pour répondre à cette question, cette étude considère l’incinération des déchets solides municipaux en Chine sous l’angle d’un champ d’action stratégique. Elle essaie de clarifier ce qui se passe dans ce champ sous trois aspects: les acteurs, les actions stratégiques et les retombées politiques. Faisant appel à une démarche de recherche qualitative, un grand volume de données primaires et secondaires a été amassé, y compris 42 entretiens semi-structurés, 557 posts en ligne, des rapports de recherche, des documents d’archives, des rapports d’évaluation de l’impact sur l’environnement, des nouvelles en ligne, des données statistiques et des documents de politique. À l’aide de ces données, cette étude approfondi la compréhension des relations entre, d’un côté les acteurs s’opposant aux activités découlant de l’incinération – les contestataires – et, de l’autre, les adversaires dans le champ d’action stratégique, mettant en lumière leurs arguments respectifs. En outre, le processus par lequel les militants utilisent les réseaux sociaux pour la mobilisation du consensus a reçu une attention supplémentaire. De plus, cette étude a analysé l’évolution des interactions entre les militants et les décideurs politiques et a contextualisé la transformation du champ au cours des dernières décennies. Les résultats ont montré que les controverses autour de l’incinération des déchets solides municipaux sont allées au-delà des préoccupations pour les intérêts personnels et le bien-être environnemental. Cela permet d’introduire des explications plus nuancées comparativement aux discours conventionnels concernant les protestations contre l’incinération, fournissant une compréhension systématique de l’activisme local. Cette analyse exploratoire a permis également de mieux comprendre la signification politique et sociale des controverses publiques à travers des pratiques locales de gestion des déchets. Dans un sens plus large, la thèse permet de revoir les notions usuelles à l’égard des relations entre conflits et ordre.The past few decades have witnessed the growth of controversies regarding municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration in many cities around the world. This is especially true when it comes to large and medium-sized cities in China. Various categories of actors—including the state, local authorities, market actors, and the civil society—seek to exert their influence on the construction, expansion, and/or operation of incinerators. Even though the controversies over MSW incineration have been discussed across a range of disciplines in previous literature, we are not in the presence of a sufficient collective understanding of stability and change of the meso-level social order. This dissertation addresses the following question: How and to what extent do interactions and competition between pro-incineration and anti-incineration groups contributes to defining a strategic action field (SAF) where the incineration-dominated industrial structure and waste disposal policies are challenged or maintained? To answer the question, this study considers MSW incineration in China an SAF and attempts to clarify what is happening in this SAF from three aspects: actors, strategic action, and policy impacts. Based on a qualitative research design, a great volume of primary and secondary data were collected, including 42 semi-structured interviews, 557 online posts, research reports, archival materials, environmental impact assessment reports, online news, statistical data, and policy documents. With the help of collected data, this study deepened the understanding of the relationship between proponents and opponents in the field of incineration and shed light on their respective arguments. In addition, the process through which activists used social media for consensus mobilization was given additional attention. Moreover, by analyzing the dynamics of the interplay between activists and policy makers, this study revealed and contextualized the evolution of the SAF over the past few decades. The findings showed that controversies around MSW incineration had gone beyond the concerns for personal interests and environmental well-being. This allows to introduce more refined explanations compared to conventional discourses regarding anti-incineration protests and provide a more nuanced understanding of local activism. This exploratory analysis also helped to better understand the political and social significance of public controversies through local practices of MSW management. In a broad sense, this dissertation makes it possible to review the usual conceptions with regard to the relations between conflict and order

Friend Network as Gatekeeper: A Study of WeChat Users' Consumption of Friend-Curated Contents

Social media enables users to publish, disseminate, and access information easily. The downside is that it has fewer gatekeepers of what content is allowed to enter public circulation than the traditional media. In this paper, we present preliminary empirical findings from WeChat, a popular messaging app of the Chinese, indicating that social media users leverage their friend networks collectively as latent, dynamic gatekeepers for content consumption. Taking a mixed-methods approach, we analyze over seven million users' information consumption behaviors on WeChat and conduct an online survey of $216$ users. Both quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests that friend network indeed acts as a gatekeeper in social media. Shifting from what should be produced that gatekeepers used to decide, friend network helps separate the worthy from the unworthy for individual information consumption, and its structure and dynamics that play an important role in gatekeeping may inspire the future design of socio-technical systems