Definitions and Boundaries of an Online Chinese Public Sphere

Abstract

This paper offers a definition and description of an emerging online Chinese public sphere. It shows that Habermas' "bourgeois public sphere" can be modified slightly to fit the ideology and reality of Chinese political life. In an era of rapid growth of Internet use, a public sphere must also be understood to exist in online spaces. This paper argues that public sphere discourse happens online in a transnational universe of spaces that have diverse regulatory and cultural characteristics.

Keywords: public sphere, China, civil society, Internet