Polyglot Incarnate

gusbruggeman:

I had never really thought about there being different styles to playing soccer. I thought it was interesting how you traced this cultural aspect. I was surprised by its widespread impact.

A study titled: “The Political Consequences of the Rise of the Internet: Political Beliefs and Practices of Chinese Netizens” done by Ya-Wen Lei has come to my attention recently. It provides evidence that “netizens,” as Lei calls the Chinese who are active online, “[…] are more likely to embrace the norms of democracy, be more critical of of political conditions and the party-state, and be willing to engage in politics. […] [And] are also more likely to have experience in collective action.” (Lei). The most interesting parts of Lei’s findings, to me at least, is the willingness to engage and criticize the government and involvement in collective action. 

Collective action to me signals a development of nationalism. This is because collective action requires cooperating and coordinating with large groups of other people, who all share at least one common interest. This common interest serves to unite these Chinese netizens. This is a start when trying to create a sense of nationalism and uniting a nation, which is desperately needed in China because of all the minorities and historical division.

Here I’ll insert a brief definition of nationalism that I found here:

The term “nationalism” is generally used to describe two phenomena: (1) the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity, and (2) the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination. (1) raises questions about the concept of a nation (or national identity), which is often defined in terms of common origin, ethnicity, or cultural ties, and while an individual’s membership in a nation is often regarded as involuntary, it is sometimes regarded as voluntary…

Part of the struggle of developing nationalism is defining what it means to be a citizen. This is especially difficult for China because for many years the government has fostered ethnic pride rather than a unifying pride in being a citizen of China. However, the online community in China rally together in support of the Tibetan struggles for independence (or at least better treatment by the Chinese government).I think that for Chinese netizens part of being Chinese is political activism. Many of the posts I have seen on Twitter have centered around various political issues such as: human rights, Tibetan self-immolations, Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei.

Nationalism is also built by having national heros, or powerful leaders that citizens can unite around. For Chinese netizens, currently, these are Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei. Unfortunately for the Chinese government these “national heros” are Chinese dissidents. Liu Xiaobo was instrumental in writing and spreading Charter 08, which I think will become a landmark in not only Chinese human rights literature, but human rights literature in gerneral. Ai Weiwei is a famous artist who crossed the line with the government somehow. The Chinese government today largely relies on artists to self-censor themselves, and so art is not as regulated today in China has it has been previously. However, Ai Weiwei found out recently where that line is. He is now having trouble being accused of tax evasion/fraud and more recently pornography (hence the posting of nude photos online by Chinese netizens in protest).

This brings me to my next thought. What’s interesting to me is how Chinese nationalism is being created by Chinese netizens and not by the government, that would ideally be creating Chinese nationalism and defining what it means to be Chinese. The other interesting part of this is how the sense of nationalism being created is not pro-government. The outrage on Twitter is about the unlawful actions (as perceived by Chinese netizens) of the Chinese government against its own citizens. Tweets complain and broadcast about censorship on Weibo, spread links to information on Tibetan self-immoations and information on a bank account to send money to to help Ai Weiwei meet bail.  

Yet, perhaps this fits under the second definition of nationalism: “actions taken to achieve self-determination.” The older generation of Chinese tend to be apolitical because they lived during a time when one had to have political opinions, which if they did not line up with the people in power could get one thrown in jail, beaten and/or sent to a work camp. However, the younger generation is being more active via the internet. This shows a desire to have their voice heard and a desire to have some say in how the government functions. This is what self-determination is all about.

I think it’s fascinating that social media in China, specifically Twitter, is bringing about a rise in nationalism on two fronts: defining what it means to be Chinese and a larger role in determining the place of the government in Chinese society.

Signing off-

Alice

Here’s a Tumblr blog dedicated to statistics jokes. It’s pretty funny. I think it’s an interesting application of social media in the statistics field. My Stats professor is a huge fan. 

Enjoy!

Singing off-

Alice

(via biostatisticsryangosling-deacti)

ltulgren:

Storify Presentation-DIS Boards

I thought it was intriguing all of the different things spawning from this one forum. Choosing to focus on just one social media page is an interesting choice and it was really neat to hear about all of your different observations about this one forum.

malloryfyw:

<script src=”http://storify.com/MUndestad/big-bang-theory.js?template=slideshow”></script><noscript><a href=”http://storify.com/MUndestad/big-bang-theory” target=”_blank”>View the story “The Big Bang Theory” on Storify</a>]</noscript>

Did you know that The Big Bang Theory is actually very popular in China. Your presentation made me wonder what the social media scene for The Big Bang Theory looks like in China.

dkirkhoff:

I thought it was really neat that you went after specific characteristics of a community in your presentation. It was an idea I had never thought of, what defines a community.

Social media has not only been at the core of major protest stories, but drove some of 2011’s biggest news, from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring. Digital tools such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have defined this year’s social movements by giving rise to a new generation of activism. …

I’ll just go ahead and add some of my thoughts here, but it’s really interesting the impact social media has on societies. When I was in China we got to have lunch with an Egyptian diplomat and we heard some of his [censored/diplomatic] perspectives on the Revolution in Egypt. The one thing that stuck out to me was how he was put in a Catch 22: it was his government that was falling-the government he worked for, and yet I think he probably supported the rebels to an extent. He was in China during that whole time and he and his co-workers/friends weren’t quite sure what they could post online or how they should respond exactly. 

I don’t even remember quite how I found this link, but I think it’s worth pondering.

Signing off-

Alice

I read one of the articles that Professor Westerman posted, here’s the link: http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2011/06/23/cant-skepticism-be-cool-anymore/

So anyway I thought it was really interesting how he pointed out that the internet could be causing depression or vice versa. It seems like a “Which came first the chicken or the egg?”-type question. 

I also thought it was important that he talked about how studies on this topic have failed to uncover a significant p-value. While this may be largely because these studies are preliminary, the author points out that people shouldn’t wait for science to back up certain trends in society. If there is some evidence, but it’s not substantiated enough, we shouldn’t wait to make changes in our lives. 

If we become addicted to the internet, when it crashes (or we have temporary inability to access it) there could be a lot of problems.

Signing off-

Alice

lampert19:

It was really interesting to see how people use social media to self-promote in the Sabermetrics field. Most projects don’t look at this idea of self-promotion through social media.

erinnk:

I thought it was really interesting how Etsy is its own type of social media. I thought it was neat how you brought up how other social media/websites/organisations use Etsy.

(via erinnk-deactivated20120229)