Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has revolutionized popular expression in China, enabling users to organize, protest, and influence public opinion in unprecedented ways. Despite efforts to control these activities, online activism has been an agent of immense social change, allowing common citizens to disseminate content and openly challenge the authority of political and economic elites. Guobin Yang’s pioneering study follows the rise of this dynamic protest and the forces that keep it relevant and unique. Online activism encompasses an innovative range of rituals, genres, and styles, and state efforts to constrain it have only led to more creative acts of subversion. Internet businesses have encouraged these contentious activities, generating an unusual synergy between capitalism and civil organizations that sponsor critique. Based on ten years of meticulous research and grounded in theories of social movements and the public sphere, Yang’s study emphasizes the mutual shaping of technology and society and highlights the important role of a transnational diaspora in the making of a Chinese Internet culture. In conclusion, Yang argues that online activism reflects important structural changes in contemporary China and points to a new era of informational politics.

《连线力》，最关切我们未来的“思想@网络.中国”丛书之一，互联网中国传媒参考书。 中国网民在行动。在中国的广大网民中，普遍存在着对正义的渴望和追求，对弱者和小人物的同情， 对贪官污吏的痛恶，对政府的失望， 对权贵的嘲讽，对沟通的渴望，甚至对革命的呼唤。这些因素有着共同的内在逻辑，即情感逻辑。在这个意义上，情感汹涌的网络事件，是整个中国社会情感结构的脉络。 1994年，中国开通了全功能的网络连接。在近20年的发展过程中，诞生了一个充满活力与矛盾的网络文化。它富有想象力，充满幽默，抨击社会不公。普通人通过网络进行交流、获取信息、参与维权与抗争，从而获得自我实现、社群团结以及草根赋权的新体验。与此同时，网络的管制也日益收紧。发生在大变革时代的网络行动, 与宏观的社会、经济、政治、和文化的变迁紧密相连。本书展示的，是互联网时代的网民如何克服客观条件的限制，拓展表达和参与的空间，构建新时代的电子公民行动。连线的力量，依赖网络但根源于民众，凝聚了人民对自由与正义的渴望和追求。