Inhabitants of a National Walled Garden: Digital Nationalism in China [ECR]

The Manchester China Institute (MCI)promotes excellence in China studies at the University of Manchester. MCI hosts in-person talks, workshops, and roundtables, and well as webinars with a global reach. Our public events are free and open to all. The University of Manchester is committed to academic independence and thefreedom of speech. The views speakers present are entirely their own, and do not represent those of the University of Manchester or the Manchester China Institute and its directors.

Manchester China Institute

In this Early Career Researcher workshop, Ruoning Chen from Loughborough University will explore digital nationalism in China.

In recent years, the surge of populist politics and nationalism has affected many parts of the world. It also provoked a rise in scholarly interest in the relationship between nationalism and digital media. Much research has already explored the more overt, aggressive forms of nationalism online (e.g., Boulianne et al., 2020; Fuchs, 2020); however, limited scholarly attention has been drawn to the banal and everyday reproduction of the nation (Mihelj &amp; Jiménez‐Martínez, 2021; Skey, 2022). This unbalanced examination can also be found in existing literature on Chinese nationalism; the majority of the literature tends to focus on its historical origins, top-down processes, or a small group of nationalist actors, which could generate a partial and limited understanding of nationalism in China (Stroup, 2023). Drawing on insights from banal and everyday approaches (Fox &amp; Miller-Idriss, 2008; Skey, 2011; Skey &amp; Antonsich, 2017), this research focuses on individual’s agency and seeks to understand how ordinary people maintain their sense of national belonging through media use in everyday times as well as eventful times. By adopting a combination of media diaries and semi-structured interviews, my data shows that these taken-for-granted uses of Chinese media platforms unreflectively sustain shared Chinese nationhood in routine periods. In contrast, during the eventful periods, their digital media practices construct a diverse yet shared national experience, contributing to a more overt and visible mediated nationhood.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERRuoning Chen is a postgraduate research student at Loughborough University. Her research examines digital nationalism in China from a bottom-up perspective. By focusing on ordinary people and everyday media practices, her project provides an alternative perspective of understanding contemporary Chinese nationalism, as it shifts attention to emphasise the everyday reproduction nature of nationhood which sustains the ‘imagined’ Chinese community in the digital era. She is currently a member of Loughborough University Nationalism Network (LUNN). Previously, she was on the organising committee of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) conference in 2023.

NotesMCI’s ECR Workshops are lunchtime seminars held in person at the <a href="https://www.mci.manchester.ac.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Manchester China Institute</a>. They seek to bring together students, faculty, and staff who can best provide feedback as Early Career Researchers develop their ideas. Free lunch will be provided.Accessibility: Please note that the Manchester China Institute is a listed building, and therefore does not have any lifts. All toilets are located on the first floor.

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Inhabitants of a National Walled Garden: Digital Nationalism in China [ECR]

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Inhabitants of a National Walled Garden: Digital Nationalism in China [ECR]

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