Table Of ContentMicro-blogging Memories
Weibo and Collective Remembering in
Contemporary China
Eileen Le Han
palgrave macmillan memory studies
Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies
Series Editors
Andrew Hoskins
University of Glasgow
Glasgow , United Kingdom
John Sutton
Macquarie University
Macquarie , Australia
The nascent fi eld of Memory Studies emerges from contemporary trends
that include a shift from concern with historical knowledge of events to
that of memory, from ‘what we know’ to ‘how we remember it’; changes
in generational memory; the rapid advance of technologies of memory;
panics over declining powers of memory, which mirror our fascination
with the possibilities of memory enhancement; and the development of
trauma narratives in reshaping the past. These factors have contributed
to an intensifi cation of public discourses on our past over the last thirty
years. Technological, political, interpersonal, social and cultural shifts
affect what, how and why people and societies remember and forget. This
groundbreaking new series tackles questions such as: What is ‘memory’
under these conditions? What are its prospects, and also the prospects for
its interdisciplinary and systematic study? What are the conceptual, theo-
retical and methodological tools for its investigation and illumination?
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14682
Eileen Le H an
Micro-blogging
Memories
Weibo and Collective Remembering in
Contemporary China
Eileen Le Han
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
USA
Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies
ISBN 978-1-137-59880-6 ISBN 978-1-137-59881-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59881-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953474
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To Sidney
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENT
Writing this book is a long journey. This is a painful subject to write about,
but I am grateful that I had the opportunity to witness the social transi-
tion in China through the writing process and had better understanding
of how memory matters in everyday life. Through such a long and some-
times painful journey, I did not feel lonely because of so many people’s
support and company. This space is too limited for me to express my grati-
tude to them.
At the University of Pennsylvania, I would like to express my sincere
appreciation to Barbie Zelizer, who has walked with me through the entire
process of writing a dissertation and turning it into a book. She read every-
thing I wrote, and offered valuable and insightful comments and sugges-
tions for the dissertation and then the book to take shape. From her, I
have learned to have faith in what I am doing, and always push further
than where the limits seem to be. I am equally blessed to have the support
and guidance of Guobin Yang. His work on social theories, activism and
digital media, as well as his insightful observations about China has tre-
mendously inspired me in this project and in many ways transformed my
research. I am also grateful to have worked with wonderful scholars such
as Marwan Kraidy and Sharonna Pearl who have offered me great advices
at different points of my doctorate study and the completion of the book.
I am also very grateful for having a wonderful cohort and fellow doctoral
students. Having studied together with them at the Annenberg School for
Communication is my most cherished memory on my academic journey.
Elsewhere in the United States, I am blessed to have the support of
many friends, who are young and promising scholars, especially Miao Feng,
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Zehui Dai, and Yu Xu. Although we are not at the same geographical loca-
tion, our conversations are fun and mind-refreshing, and never failed to
revitalize me after a long-time writing that seemed to lead nowhere.
In China, I want to thank Qin Wang, Fei Jiang, and Lushan Shi, for
helping me arranging interviews. I also want to thank the seventeen par-
ticipants of the interviews in my research.
At Palgrave Macmillan, my gratitude goes to the series editors of
Memory Studies Series, Andrew Hoskins and John Sutton, for consid-
ering this book as part of the series. My editor Felicity Plester and her
assistant Sophie Auld are always so responsive and effi cient. They offered
me a lot of guidance for the publication process. I also want to thank the
anonymous reader for providing such helpful comments, suggestions, and
most importantly, encouragement.
My special thanks to Tian Huang, for her intellectual inputs that even-
tually gave this book a new look. It was always very inspiring to see her
comments not only on the things I wrote but also on what was happening
in social media.
Finally, I would like to express my gratefulness to my family. My mother
Xuemei Peng and my father Hui Han have always had faith in me. Their
understanding, care, and love always give me hope and strength. My hus-
band Sidney Lu is the one who has witnessed the daily struggles I had in
writing this book. I cannot be thankful enough for having his patience,
encouragement, and sacrifi ce.
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
Weibo, Collective Memory, and Social Tensions 1
Weibo as a Research Site 5
Materials and Methodological Approaches 8
Organization of This Book 11
2 Weibo and Memory: Analyzing an Event-O riented Platform
with a Three-D imensional Framework 1 7
Conceptualizing Collective Memory in Social Media: A Three-
Dimensional Framework 1 8
Weibo as an Event-Oriented Platform and the “7.23” Accident 22
Remembering Topical Events in Entangled Interests: Control
and Resistance 3 0
Remembering Topical Events in the Blurring Past–Present
Distinction 3 4
Remembering Topical Events in the Global–Local News Flows 3 8
Event-Oriented Platforms and Collective Remembering 42
3 Control and Resistance: Remembering and Forgetting
in the Changing Dynamics of State, Market, and Individuals 5 1
Tightening Control of the Chinese Internet 5 2
Weibo as a News Platform: Constructing a Community of
Interests 5 3
ix
