"To advance interdisciplinary understanding, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age outlines a communication-centered framework that articulates the intricate relationship between technology, communication, and contention. It systematically explores the influence of mobile technology on ... political contention in China, the country with the world's largest number of mobile and internet users. Using first-hand in-depth interview and fieldwork data, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age tracks the strategic choice of mobile phones as repertoires of contention, illustrates the effective mobilization of mobile communication on the basis of its strong and reciprocal social ties, and identifies the communicative practice of forwarding officially alleged "rumors" as a form of everyday resistance. Through this groundbreaking study, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age presents a nuanced portrayal of an emerging dynamics of contention--both its strengths and limitations- through the embedding of mobile communication into Chinese society and politics." (Publisher description) more

"This study explores the influence of social media on the (re)formation of social memory and the production of historical knowledge in society. It takes several contested debates over historical events and figures on Weibo, one of the most widely used social media, as the case to investigate how soc ... ial media enable people to articulate previously unspoken experiences and memories, question the authenticity and accuracy of official history, and shape social recollection in China. This study argues that social media embrace a wide variety of diverse individuals as subjects who contribute to various mnemonic practices, facilitate the crowdsourcing and aggregation of alternative or counternarratives of the past, and cultivate the production of historical knowledge as a retrievable and reactivatable process. The contestation facilitated by social media over mnemonic knowledge transcends what happened in history and memory and sheds light on the complex political and cultural contentions in contemporary China." (Abstract) more

"This paper provides one of the first studies on the role of social media in articulating individuals’ experiences and memories and (re-)shaping collective memory in contemporary China. It investigates how social media enable and facilitate the participation of ordinary citizens in distributing an ... d accumulating alternative narratives and memories of the past against the authoritarian version by taking the debate over China’s Great Famine – a topic long considered a political taboo – on Sina Weibo, one of the country’s most popular social media sites, as the case study. This study demonstrates that weibo provides people with an alternative communicative sphere for sharing previously suppressed, marginalised, “unofficial” memories as civil disobedience and accumulating them into an alternative collective memory that is relevant to the changing socio-political context of China." (Abstract) more