Measuring political debate on the Chinese Internet forum

Mei, Wu (author)

This paper addresses the methodological issue of how to quantify and measure seemingly chaotic, crude and impulsive online interactions in Chinese Internet forums, which have played an increasingly important role in shaping the country's political spectrum. It introduces an integrated research methodology, designed and developed specifically in a four-year project conducted by this author on the Chinese Internet forums, the first of its kind which scrutinises the interactive content of 14 major political forums inChina and overseas over a one-year period, consisting of over 450,000 postings. Using commercial and self-developed online content analysis tools, this methodology features a series of computer-assisted data collection, quantitative analysis, and qualitative approaches. It investigates fi rst froma wide range of mega data extracted online to capture the general dynamicsof the Chinese Forum. It then focuses on the selected categories of text data to delineate the linkage of global connectivity among forum networksand reveal the spectrum of discourse and pattern of deliberation. The paper, which conceptualises Chinese Internet forums as discursive public spaces mediated by the new online conversational media, aims to establish a series of applicable methods to study the publicly accessed interactive content of online political talk in the global network of the Chinese Internet.

• Language: English
• Work type: Not categorized
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Year: 2008
• Number of pages: Str. 93-110
• Numbering: Vol. 15, no. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-44898
• UDC: 316.77:32
• ISSN on article: 1318-3222
• COBISS.SI-ID: 27438429
• Publication date in RUL: 10.07.2015

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Javnost = The public
• Shortened title: Javnost
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis, European Institute for Communication and Culture
• ISSN: 1318-3222
• COBISS.SI-ID: 40119808

Secondary language

• Language: Unknown

Abstract

Članek obravnava metodološka vprašanja kvantifikacije in merjenja navidez kaotičih, grobih in impulzivnih online interakcij na kitajskih internetnih forumih, ki igrajo vse pomembnejšo vlogo v oblikovanju političnega spektra države. Metodologija je bila razvita za enoletno analizo interaktivnih vsebin 14 glavnih političnih forumov na Kitajskem in v diaspori, skupaj 450 tisoč objav. Metode analize vključujejo vrsto pristopov za računalniško podprto zbiranje podatkov, kvantitativno in kvalitativno analizo. Članek, ki konceptualizira kitajske internetne forume kot diskurzivne javne prostore, mediatiriane z novimi online konverzacijskimi mediji, poskuša oblikovati aplikativne metode za raziskovanje javno dostopnih interaktivnih vsebin online političnega govora v globalnem omrežju kitajskega interneta.