Electronic Social Capital and Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community 369International Journal of China Studies
Vol. 2, No. 2, August/September 2011, pp. 369-388
The Politics of Electronic Social Capital and
Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community:
Implications for Civil Society+
Chin-fu Hung*
National Cheng Kung University
Abstract
This article explores the politics of cyber-networks and cyber social bonds in
the Chinese lesbian community. It further discusses the implications of these
networks and the online mediation of social bonds for Chinese civil society.
Underlying this article are two analytical concepts – the public sphere and
electronic social capital. Both concepts define the realm wherein social and
political initiatives and movements from below may grow. It is argued in
this article that, as the Lala community continues to develop, more and more
homosexuals and same-sex couples are being awakened to promote and assert
their civic rights in a country which has for decades virtually denied them
the full protection and assurance of fundamental human rights. This paper
maintains that the Internet has helped liberate the Chinese lesbian community
in the sense that the cyberspace as a gendered platform has facilitated the
emergence, formation, and development of electronic social capital and the
public sphere, albeit it is still in the incipient stage.
Keywords: Lala community, electronic social capital, public sphere, Internet,
China, civil society
JEL classification: D83, K42, P37, Z13
1. Introduction
There is a relatively developed literature in the West, particularly in the
US, that suggests that the Internet may enhance or facilitate social capital
and develop what Jürgen Habermas originally called the “public sphere”.
In particular, most of the literature that deals with the impact of the Internet
on democracy and democratization has tended to focus upon what might be
described as the long-term consequences; the ways in which the Internet and
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370 Chin-fu Hung
innovative information technology may facilitate greater civic engagement
and political participation by reducing the costs of entry, making it easier
for new political parties or opposition groups to be created and enter the
political scene (Smith, 2009; Bimber, 2003; Coleman and Blumler, 2009;
Hill and Sen, 2005). This seems, however, a premature issue for the People’s
Republic of China since it is far from any of the situations we have witnessed
in the West – the unease about the weaknesses of representative democracy,
crisis of democracy and the erosion of the sense of community in the West,
particularly in the US (Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki, 1975; Putnam,
1995: 65-78; Pharr, Putnam and Dalton, 2000: 5-25; Norris, 1999; Pharr and
Putnam, 2000).
A growing literature on the Internet in developing and undemocratic
countries has suggested that the Internet may play a rather different role
from that in developed democracies. Instead of a mediating role boosting the
emergence of public/political participation and the evolution of electronic
social capital as well as a virtual public sphere, it may be compatible with,
even strengthen, authoritarian regimes (MacKinnon, 2010; Margolis and
Moreno-Riaño, 2009). Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas, for instance,
explore Internet use in their book on eight non-democratic countries: two
semi-authoritarian (Egypt and Singapore) and six fully authoritarian (China,
Cuba, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia), and
four areas of Internet use: civil society, politics and state, the economy and
the international sphere. They concluded that the Internet is serving less as
a catalyst for democratization and more as a tool to fortify these regimes
(Kalathil and Boas, 2003). Similarly, Christopher R. Hughes and Gudrun
Wacker in their edited book on China and the Internet further argue that China
is achieving a high degree of success in monitoring the information and even
using it as a means of control and influence (Hughes and Wacker, 2003). Both
works suggest that “(semi-)authoritarian states”1 such as China are likely to
marginalize the role of the Internet in moulding the public space and online
social capital.
The Internet, however, may still have an impact upon authoritarian
regimes like China. One dimension of this is the use of web sites to disseminate
government information and allow feedback from citizens. Another
alternate dimension could be horizontal communication between citizens
on discussion boards and through social media. In Howard Rheingold’s
argument, “the political significance of computer-mediated communication
lies in its capacity to challenge the existing political hierarchy’s monopoly
on power communications media, and perhaps thus revitalise citizen-based
democracy.” (Rheingold, 1994: 14) Although he was primarily focusing on
the opportunities in the US, the same argument can be extended to China.
The Bulletin Board System (BBS), discussion boards, listservs and online
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Electronic Social Capital and Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community 371
social media sites, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, Myspace,
and YouTube, may be utilized to share information, exchange ideas, debate
issues, mobilize opinion, and eventually to build lasting relationships and
social bonds. Acknowledging that non-democratic regimes have to a differing
degree exhibited more concerted efforts to control the Internet even as they
simultaneously expand the presence of the new media within their borders,
Geoffry Taubmann has further wondered whether there is any built-in
incompatibility between non-democratic rule and the Internet (Taubmann,
1998: 255-272).
This article explores the politics of cyber-networks and cyber social
bonds in the Chinese lesbian community. The implications of these networks
and social bonds mediated online for China’s civil society are also discussed.
Underlying this article are two analytical concepts – the public sphere
and electronic social capital. Both concepts define in this article the realm
wherein social and political initiatives and movements from below may
grow. This paper argues that the Internet has helped liberate the Chinese
lesbian community in the sense that the cyberspace as a gendered platform
has facilitated the emergence, formation, and development of electronic social
capital and public sphere, albeit it is still in the incipient stage.
2. Internet, e-Social Capital and the Public Sphere
The notions of the public sphere and social capital have usually been
addressed and debated separately in the social sciences. Rarely have they
been studied jointly together with the Internet. Since the Internet has led
to both media and sociopolitical revolutions in developed and developing
countries since the mid-1990s,2 I propose linking together the public sphere,
social capital and the Internet to deepen the analysis of the sociopolitical
impact of the Internet upon any given state context, whilst adding a normative
dimension to the analysis.
Jürgen Habermas defined the concept of public sphere in Between Facts
and Norms as a network for communicating information and points of view,
where the streams of communication are filtered and synthesized in such
a way that they coalesce into bundles of topically specified public opinion
(Habermas, 1996: 360). To him, association life is the material from which
the public sphere emerges (Young, 2000: 170). In fact such association life
does not necessarily imply physical proximity, as the classical example of
café bars suggests.3 W. Lance Bennett and Robert M. Entman have argued
that the public sphere refers to the areas of informal life – ranging from cafés,
Internet chat rooms, or any place where the exchange of public opinion is held
– where ideas and feelings relevant to politics are transmitted or exchanged
openly (Bennett and Entman, 2000: 2-3).
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372 Chin-fu Hung
In this regard, like-minded citizens may be able to gain a voice in public
affairs outside formal democratic institutions (Tocqueville, 1945; Dahlberg,
2001: 615-633; Poster, 1996: 201-217; Kellner, 1998: 167-186; Dahlberg,
2001). Interactive communication mediated by the Internet and other informational
technologies represents not merely a two-way process, but also a
many-to-many channel of sharing, disseminating, relaying and exchanging
information, whether top-down, bottom-up, vertically or horizontally. Hence
by providing a new technology for public forums, the Internet opens new
possibilities for citizen associations (Klein, 1999: 213-220). Robert Putnam
further links civic associations and voluntary associations with what he terms
“social capital” for public/political participation and effective governance,
after he has documented a long-term decline in American civic involvement
from the 1960s (Putnam, 1995: 65-78; Putnam, 2000; Putnam, 2002). He
explains that social capital refers to connections among individuals, through
social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise
from them (Putnam, 2001: 19), that enable participants to act together more
effectively to pursue shared objectives (Putnam, 1996: 34-48).
A growing literature from the late 1990s has begun to connect the role
of the Internet with the concepts of social capital and the public sphere in
advanced industrial democracies (Wellman, Haase, Witte and Hampton,
2001: 436-455). Relatively few works, however, have applied the same
approach to less developed democracies and undemocratic countries. Those
few works that have been written tend to treat the Internet as an isolated
socioeconomic phenomenon without considering how interactions on the
Net may form together with other societal impacts and influence ordinary
people’s political participation. Christopher Marsh and Laura Whalen are
among the few who have conducted research on e-social capital and the
Internet with regard to the Chinese context. Building upon the concept of
“social capital” which is borrowed from James Coleman and is defined as
a form of social organization that facilitates the achievement of goals that
otherwise might not be achieved, Marsh and Laura postulate that the Internet
and cyberspace allow for a “new and unique” form of social organization that
can be used to generate an electronic form of social capital in the Chinese
context.4
Whilst some scholars have argued that cyberspace holds an enormous
potential for the creation and development of social networks which provide
the necessary grassroots for the strengthening and intensifying of social
mobilization and eventual social transformation, others have seen the Internet
and its associated communities with more scepticism, arguing it creates
passivity and provokes isolation which actually corrodes social activism.5
After examining Chinese people’s access to and use of the Internet, together
with the government’s (in)ability to control this medium, they come to the
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Electronic Social Capital and Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community 373
conclusion that the Internet users undermine state control and contribute to
the formation of a civil society (Marsh and Whalen, 2000: 61-81).
In the issue of homosexuality, scholarship on the impact and sociopolitical
meanings of Chinese same-sex relationships first emerged during
the 1990s. It is partly driven by a newly found academic interest in the
possibilities of gay and lesbian civil action and their alternative or dissenting
voices vis-à-vis sexual “correctness” in traditional Chinese context. The
deepening economic reform has also helped carve out more dynamic and
competing media practices, in a liberal way contributing to a more dynamic
atmosphere debating or contesting Chinese homoerotica. Such an issue was
previously uncharted terrain of scholarly discourse, remaining either ignored
or barely probed by the academic community.
After all, the politics of homosexuality still remains a marginalized theme
of China’s gender studies. In a way, the meanings, influences, and politics
of female same-sex desire, their collective identity, and cyber networks and
social bonds continue to be underexplored whilst the country’s economy
becomes globally interconnected and wired.
It is, consequently, that the Chinese lesbian community is worth studying
primarily for two reasons: firstly, authoritarian China has persistently
maintained a broad control and censorship over the mass media during the
reform and opening period, and has been relentless in repressing defiant
and dissenting voices and opinions. Homosexuality has been predominantly
suppressed as it has been considered to make up a potential sociopolitical
nuance and a threat to the purity of the Communist rule. Thereby, homosexuals
had been historically perceived as sexual deviants in China; over the past few
decades they were treated as mentally disturbed or even criminals. The advent
of new communication technology, especially the Internet, has provided one
of the few spaces where these same-sex individuals may be able to identify
and express themselves, and to develop their sense of belonging by creating
“virtual” communities and networks in which their common sexual identity,
attachment, and bond may be built. Therefore, the possibilities, implications,
and limits with which the new information technology provides in the creation
of communal identity, social mobilization, and activism are of academic
interest if we are to look at the issue from a comparative perspective of
economic and sociopolitical transitions in (post-)communist regimes.
Secondly, it is also worth researching in the sense that the lesbian
community, as it develops and progresses, is neither established for political
purposes, nor as a means of dissension; many of these different sets of samesex
communities have effectively organized and mobilized communities of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer to advocate their rights and
freedoms. The gay and lesbian communities had been largely underground
but are now developing in Chinese cyberspace in which an even wider range
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374 Chin-fu Hung
and scope of information and advocacy are more available. From time to time,
they are moving their (regular) meetings from more secure cyberspace to
offline “real” encounters, such as public meetings, conferences, and festivals
to enhance their bonds as well as address their concerns. A milestone event
of the Lala community was the 2001 Lesbian Cultural Festival in which
hundreds of lesbians and gays from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan,
participated in this self-organized activity. Despite its objectives of simply
holding a series of conferences, film series and other cultural events, the
Chinese government responded to the Festival by assigning (cyber)police to
interrogate participants and record their names in official police documents,
causing fear and anxiety amongst organizers and attendees (Wang, 2004).
Considering these developments, an exploration of Chinese Lala community
may make a de facto contribution to an understanding of the influence and
politics of these marginalized people/communities in transitional China as
these Internet-based and -enabled Lala communities should reveal deep
implications for China’s civil society and democratic development.
In short, the reintegration of China into the international arena that is
set in motion by the development of a market economy has triggered a new
wave of gender and cultural study, especially during the information age. The
sociopolitical meanings and impact of female homoeroticism and its online
presence have become a significant object of discussion, contention, and study
in both the Chinese public and academic arenas.6
3. Chinese Lala Community in Cyberspace
The term Lala (拉拉) is a simplified form of the word lesbian which originally
appeared in Taiwan in 1998 and was introduced to mainland China
through “feminist”7 and LGBTQ networking.8 Lala is intimately attached
to the lesbian community to denote women’s same-sex love and collective
identification. It is also commonly applied to the notions of “women-lovingwomen”
gendered sexuality along a masculine-feminine grid in individual
subjective identification. Within the Lala or queer sexuality, these lesbian
are known as T (tomboy) and P (po 婆), which means “wife” in Mandarin
Chinese. It now refers mostly to the Internet-based communities whose
interests centre on the subject of female same-sex mentality, desires, and
sexuality. Compared with the experiences of Taiwan and Hong Kong, the TP
roles are, nonetheless, relatively recent to mainland China.
In retrospect, “homosexuality” (tongxinglian 同性恋) was suggested to be
popular in China’s Song (宋, 960-1279), Ming (明, 1368-1644), and Qing (清,
1644-1911) dynasties. Chinese homosexuals did not actually experience highprofile
persecution when compared to their counterparts in Europe during the
Middle Ages.9 In fact, there were actually certain degrees of cultural tolerance
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Electronic Social Capital and Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community 375
of homosexuals in ancient China (van Gulik, 1961). Yet, homo/bisexuality
began to be treated as the “colonial importation of modern Western sexology,
Christian homophobia, and the medicalisation of homosexuality” in modern
China, in particular around 1920s and 1930s (Chou, 2000: 42). Specifically, it
is argued that “it was the sexologist’s pathologisation of homosexuality rather
than the Christian homophobic attitude that was selectively and strategically
adopted by Chinese intellectuals who had their own sociopolitical agenda in
mind.” (Chou, 2000: 49) Same-sex eroticism had since then been regarded as
pathological by Chinese intellectuals since they were enlightened by Western
scientific discourses. Political elites as well as the intelligentsia began to
demonstrate intolerance towards homosexuality as they repeatedly addressed
it as a “diseased state” (bingtai 病态) or “metamorphosis” (biantai 变态), and
thereby viewing homosexuality as an aberration and a mental disease.
After the Communist Party came to power in 1949, the government has
given more emphasis on social and moral orders, and as a result, resulting in
the intensification of prosecution and imprisonment of homosexuals since the
1950s onwards. Mao Zedong 毛泽东 prominently considered homosexuals
products of a “mouldering lifestyle of capitalism” (Contreras, 2007).10 Homosexual
acts and conduct were then deemed as “illegal” and would be severely
punished under the statutes of “hooliganism” (liumangzui 流氓罪) within
the Chinese criminal code. The situation was further aggravated during the
Cultural Revolution (wenhua dageming 文化大革命) between 1966 and 1976,
at which time homosexuals were penalized by re-education in labour camps
(laodong jiaoyu 劳动教育; laojiao 劳教), public humiliation and torture, or
rural exile (xiafang 下放). Sometimes, they were executed secretly (Laurent,
2005: 179-180). Individual sexual preferences had accordingly given way to
lofty revolutionary ideals. To some extent, sex was treated as a political tool
for social control. To advance one’s career, he or she had to be sexually wellbehaved
during China’s revolutionary period.
Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embarked on the so-called
“reform and opening-up” (gaige kaifang 改革开放) policy in the late
1970s, Chinese society has undergone a series of dramatic transformations
in almost all realms of social, cultural, economic and political life. Despite
the increasing trend of polarization, the majority of the Chinese people have
benefited from economic reform. Some have inevitably benefited more than
others. Against the backdrop of rising social discontents and mass popular
protests (Wu and Lansdowne, 2009), China’s post-1978 transition from
“socialist planning” to “market socialism” has been effectively accompanied
by subtle crucial shifts on people’s sex lives.
The CCP made a fateful decision thirty years ago to allow newspapers,
magazines, television, and radio stations to compete in the marketplace
instead of being financed exclusively by the Party and Government. Thanks
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376 Chin-fu Hung
to the intensified media globalization, commercialization and conglomeration,
China’s media sector, once merely the Communist Party’s mouthpiece (houshe
喉舌), is today becoming a media industry that covers more stories directly
relevant to ordinary people’s lives and caters for their needs. Apart from
that, a few of the media outlets are somehow reshaping themselves from a
pure propaganda machine into an agent of watchdog journalism. In short,
newspapers, magazines, and Web-based news sites navigate the cross-currents
between the open marketplace and the CCP censors (Shirk, 2011; Lee, 2000;
Zhao, 1998). Whilst many media conduits still principally toe the Party line
for editorials and for some sensitive political or socio-ethnic issues/stories,
they, nevertheless, enjoy more operating autonomy than they were before on
occasions of reporting negative news and conducting investigative journalism
in order for their publications and coverage to be more readable, reliable, and
eventually profitable in the competitive media markets.
Admittedly, globalization and increased economic wealth have jointly
set in motion in China’s online media, making the media practices further
commercialized and from time to time, stirring up for sensational news or
blog articles in their virtual presence. These increasingly commercialized
media practices bear implication for the transitional Chinese society. One
topical case is that of Mu Zimei 木子美, a 25-year-old sex columnist on
City Pictorial. Mu was small-fry until she became a household name in the
Internet community on account of her most controversial work – diaries of
sexual encounters which appeared online from mid-June 2003. Sina.com (新
浪) has carried the serialization since November 11, 2003. One of Sina’s
managers explained their action thus: “Sina.com normally attracts 20 million
hits daily. However, the number immediately jumped to 30 million and stayed
there for 10 days soon after the serialisation of Mu Zimei was online.”11 Sina.
com therefore credited Mu with attracting 10 million extra hit a day. Sohu.
com (搜狐) has claimed that Mu Zimei is the name most often typed into its
Internet search engine, surpassing one occasional runner-up, Mao Zedong.12
Mu’s writings have fuelled a wide-ranging debate about sexuality and gender
on the Internet, and inspired more people to write weblogs full of various
personal experiences. Sina.com was later attacked by Beijing Wanbao 北京晚
報 (Beijing Evening News) for its lack of social responsibility and excessive
pursuit of online popularity for commercial gain.13 As a result, Sina.com has
reduced its coverage and moved related reports from an eye-catching layout
spot to a less noticeable position in response to some of these criticisms.
By this kind of coverage, commercial Internet outlets like Sina.com are
helping to emancipate a relatively fettered society and allowing once-taboo
subjects to be more openly discussed, both online and offline. The Internet is
now impacting on China’s sociopolitical environment, creating a pluralized
society where diversified public interests may coexist. The private Internet
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Electronic Social Capital and Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community 377
entrepreneurs have provided a loosely regulated platform that serves a wide
range of these interests. Despite some negative impacts on society, there is no
doubt that different public interests and needs may now converge in Chinese
cyberspace.
The enhanced education has also played a role in China’s ongoing sexual
liberation and revolution. The end of the Cultural Revolution marked the
normalization of Chinese higher education development. By 2009, China’s
college enrolment rate has roared to 62 per cent, which is a substantial
increase from 6.1 per cent in 1979.14 Normally younger people tend to adopt
different sexual orientation identity from their elder generation as they are
more geared towards the pursuit of equality, freedom and self-realization.
Reform and opening-up policies in China have equally seen the change in the
reorganization of social stratification (shehui jieceng 社会阶层) from previous
social class (shehui jieji 社会阶级) discourse.15 This considerable change is
intimately associated with China’s ongoing socioeconomic transformative
processes, coupled with many forces of globalization and regionalization.
Globalization is as such referred to as the process by which regional
economies, societies, and cultures have become more integrated through
sophisticated information and communication technologies, advanced and
convenient transportation, and intensified international trade. Globalization
can, in other words, be argued as being driven by a combination of economic,
technological, sociocultural, political, and biological factors (Croucher,
2003: 10). Apparently, globalization has already set forth changing mentality
of consumerism, secularization and pop culture amongst Chinese people,
including intellectuals (Yan, 2009; Yu, 2010).
Through the intimate exchanges and assistances from international
academic communities, non-profit international organizations, Chinese rights
activists as well as academics are endeavouring to raise people’s awareness
through various socio-gender projects, workshops and conferences
on (homo)sexuality, health, and AIDS prevention programmes (Liu, 2008:
104-113). AIDS prevention has particularly been emphasized by global
human rights activists and civil society organizations as well as the Chinese
government. Sexual education and health has been the important theme that
needs to be repeatedly and openly addressed and debated so as to better tackle
the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in China (Parry, 2006: 261-262). In this
regard, China Central Television (CCTV), for instance, widely discussed about
homosexuality and AIDS in TV shows in December 2004 and March 2005,
entitled, “Homosexuality: Confronting is Better than Evading” (tongxinglian:
huibi buru zhengshi 同性恋：回避不如正视) and “People in the News: What
I know about Chinese Gays” (xinwen huiketing: wo liaojie de Zhongguo nan
tongxinglian 新闻会客厅：我了解的中国男同性恋), respectively. Chinese
homosexuals have even made their debut on local and central TV from the
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378 Chin-fu Hung
late 1990s. The first homosexual studies course opened for graduate students
at Fudan University as early as in September 2003.16 And the first Chinese
gay marriage took place in Chengdu in January 2010 as well.17
In this globalized world, more Chinese people can now travel across
countries and from one region to another. Data sharing and exchange of
electronic information have likewise become much easier through modern
information technology and the Internet-enabled social media, such as the
Short Messaging Service (SMS), cyber-based chat rooms, facebook and online
blogs, such as Sina Mini-blog (新浪微博). Their conducts in cyberspace
and the physical world are to facilitate public understanding and discussions
regarding (homo)sexual issues and to promote gender equality and gay rights.
All this information, good and bad, has indeed helped push aside many of
China’s traditional sexual taboos and hence is undermining conventional
norms and perceptions of sexual practice, despite the fact that the Chinese
authorities periodically hunt down the authors of subversive verses.18
Although the exact number of Chinese who identify themselves as
homosexual is not very clear, China’s health authority, the Ministry of
Health (weisheng bu 卫生部), estimates that there are around 30-40 million
homosexual men and women in total.19 Chinese sociologist Li Yinhe 李银
河 conducted an opinion survey in 2008 in which 91 per cent of respondents
claimed to agree with homosexuals having equal employment rights. The
respondents claimed that “employment is how people make a living and feed
their families … [we] don’t want to take away the homosexual community’s
means of survival.” (Li, 2008)
Gender equality is officially proclaimed to be one of China’s national
policies and is enshrined in PRC’s Constitution. However, to a large extent,
mainstream discourse still tends to ignore or play down sexual issues and
gender inequality/injustice. In a nutshell, the mainstream media usually
treats sexuality and related issues as insignificant, let alone gay and lesbian
employment rights, same-sex marriage, women’s sexual rights, diversity of
sexualities amongst Chinese women and their sociopolitical participation in
public affairs.
As far back as 1997, China’s Criminal Law decriminalized sodomy.
Homosexuality was in 2001 removed from the list of mental disorders by
the Ministry of Health. In other words, there is no apparent law against
homosexuality or same-sex acts between consenting adults. Together with
the Ministry of Health, China’s Psychological Association has also removed
homosexuality from the “Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders and
Diagnostic Criteria” (Zhongguo jingshen jibing fenlei ji zhenduan biaozhun
中国精神疾病分类及诊断标准) on 20th April 2001.20 This in part reflects
the official discourse on homosexuality beyond a strictly political (Western
decadence, xifang tuifei 西方颓废), legal (crime, fanzui 犯罪) or psychiatric
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Electronic Social Capital and Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community 379
(illness, jibing 疾病) framing (Fang, 1995; Li, 1998). Yet, under the current
repressive political atmosphere, it is believed that the Chinese policy towards
the gay and lesbian issues adopts the “Three Nos” (san bu 三不) policy: no
approval (bu zhichi 不支持), no disapproval (bu fandui 不反对), and no
promotion (bu tichang 不提倡). Sexual minorities, mostly referring to gays
and lesbians, are under-respected and under-protected in social and legal
terms.
China’s economic success for the past three decades has also seen the
emergence of a middle class. Some members of this middle class have
homosexual preferences and seek to protect and expand their socioeconomic
freedom by cautiously pressing for legal reform/justice and diligently
enhancing the consciousness amongst LGBTQ. As Chinese society becomes
more open and globalized, the rising (middle) class of lesbian and gay are
becoming more assertive socially and politically in the sense that these
activists have begun to challenge the prevalent sexual ideologies and have
striven for better access to media of public communication. By way of using
the power of the mainstream media, they attempt to publicize their voices and
to mobilize and recruit in order for them to win the alliance of sympathetic
Chinese third parties. Nonetheless, Chinese homosexual activists are in most
cases denied from entering the mass media and are being portrayed negatively
in the current sexually biased mainstream mediaspace. Accordingly, they have
turned to alternative channels of communication to foster public knowledge,
awareness and understanding about homosexuality, aiming to achieve both
recognition and legal protection of the civil rights of same-sex individuals
on a par with cross-sex people in China. The new media is in this regard
transforming into one of the most potent catalytic agents of sexual liberation,
revolution, and rights protection for LGBTQ in China.
The key to China’s dramatic transformation of sexual revolution hinges
on the Internet. Social scientist Howard Rheingold argues that, by creating
“smart mobs” or “associations of amateurs”, Internet-related technologies
“enable people to act together in new ways and in new situations where
collective action was not possible before” (2003: xviii). In this aspect, the
Internet wields influence on sexual behaviour through promoting alliances,
sharing knowledge, and providing a platform where diverse voices may
be better heard and forcibly respected. Many informal homosexual social
networks have developed through both the Internet and blogosphere. There
are many stories of individuals who have come to accept and/or revealed their
sexual identity mainly because of the Internet. It is obvious that the Internet is
a powerful channel for people to find sexual partners, to organize on- and offline
activities, and to have access to gender knowledge and information. The
Internet does provide a level of anonymity that is otherwise rare in Chinese
society. In short, Chinese cyberspace is being utilized by Lala and gay
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380 Chin-fu Hung
groups as a conduit to conduct “virtual” communication and cyber-activity,
hence facilitating self-expression and the formation of sexual identity, and
mobilizing and organizing to assert their rights in the physical world.
Lala collective spaces were virtually non-existent until the mid-nineties.
Amongst other things, a combination of international efforts, such as the
1995 UN Women’s Conference, the formations of HIV/AIDS networks,
and some other local events, have made the emergence of (semi-)public
venues for LGBTQ possible. By 2011, China is experiencing a dynamic
upsurge in semi-public community building that is diversifying into not
only a greater variety of bars but also semi-public and Lala-identified
organizations, conferences, research projects, free zones, and mainstream
media exposure. Some Lala activists have even managed to appropriate their
state-designated organizational structures and turned them into resources for
cyber mobilization and collective identity building. The relational dynamics
of mutual constitution of the electronic social capital and Lala communities in
Chinese cyberspace are now emerging and impacting on transitional society.
This argument is per se an extension to what Guobing Yang has previously
argued that “the interactions between civic associations and the Internet have
produced a ‘web’ of civic associations in China and that this ‘web’ is civilly
engaged.” (Yang, 2009: 154) One cannot, however, expect the Internet and
ICTs alone to be the sole agent of the prospects of democratic transformation
in China. It is effectively the actual utilization of the Internet by real people
and civil society groups, particularly LGBT rights activists in this case, both
in cyberspace and in the physical world, to further advance gay rights by not
only publication and conferences, but also by social awakening, legal action/
petition, and eventually political reform. Zixue Tai has rightly reminded us
that, “As the Internet further penetrates every aspect of life in Chinese society
and as it becomes deeply ingrained into the everyday life of ordinary Chinese
citizens, the revolutionary effects of the Internet on Chinese civil society will
be more earthshaking.” (Tai, 2006: 292)
4. Conclusion
Over the past few decades, social and political communications have been
extensively transformed by accelerated processes of globalization, liberalization
and deregulation as well as by the diffusion of information and
communication technologies (Stanyer, 2003: 385-394). The forces of media
commercialization and conglomeration have also given rise to a series of
general tendencies at the level of national politics – altering the ways in which
political actors attempt to communicate with one another (Hong and Hsu,
1999: 225-242; Morris and Waisbord, 2001). Manuel Castells vividly argues
that all politics now subsist within the frame of electronic media (Castells,
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Electronic Social Capital and Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community 381
2000: 391-392). The Internet has indeed emerged and spread exponentially,
constituting a media revolution in both the developed and most developing
countries from the mid-1990s (Castells, 2000: 77-162).
From the 1980s onwards, we have seen a dramatic rise in alternative
sources of information and news report in China. Access to alternative
information and dissenting opinion has not only been pivotal in allowing
individuals to find and adjudicate amongst different accounts of event and
news stories; it has also enabled and encouraged individuals to discourse and
deliberate on public issues. Under the circumstances, the development and
propagation of the Internet throughout the world has resulted in enormous
social, political and cultural changes, and authoritarian China is not an
exception. The networked medium of the Internet has provided a newer mode
of communication and enlarged a wider scope of information dissemination;
it has also created new platforms for voicing opinions, mobilizing people and
organizing communities. It signifies the Internet has effectively empowered
individuals as well as the society as a whole by diversifying newer sources
of alternative/dissenting information and channels for civic association and
engagement (Zheng, 2008). Likewise, Chinese cyberspace continues to
develop through “a series of complex interactions between the state, market
mechanism, intellectual establishments, and new technologies” (Zhou, 2006:
177).
In this respect, the phenomenon of the Lala community is an interesting
subject in that it examines the ways in which social organization is developed,
social activism/movement is nurtured, public empowerment and dissent are
formed and mediated on- and off-line. An examination of the Lala community,
both as a non-political space of self-identity creation, and as a political space
of dissent and community organization, may serve to explore many of the
potentials of the Internet in the development of homosexual civil rights
development. The Internet and its affiliated chat rooms make information
relatively accessible from and amongst the grassroots level. Such horizontal
communication and civil organizations have the potential to challenge those
assertions made by authoritarian governments about their sociopolitical
control. Cyber publics like Lala community are now better enjoying the
relative ease of (horizontal) communication just as easily as the process can be
performed through China’s top-down propaganda channels by the Party-State,
such as Internet versions of state-owned media coverage and the electronic
government projects. In other words, with the Internet, marginalized people
like Lala groups can now speak more freely amongst themselves, debate and
consult with ideas and public issues more easily, and gradually engage with
the mainstream generators of news and opinions such as the official media and
propaganda machine, resulting in far-reaching social and political influences
in the transitional Chinese society.
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382 Chin-fu Hung
With the rising expectations and public demands for an improved quality
of life and protection of social, economic, and political rights, Lala citizens
as well as other (middle) class may not merely want the Communist regime
to address their demands through (state-owned) mass media or other official
apparatus, such as legal complaint letter (xinfang 信访) or visit system
(shangfang 上访), but also request adequate channels to proactively articulate
them in the first place and safeguard their rights (weiquan 维权) (Hung, 2010:
331-349) in appropriate manners. This bottom-up force and pressure derived
from the general public and LGBTQ may facilitate and reinforce a favourable
social basis of the twin effects: the increasingly dynamic civic society and
Internet diffusion. It means this incipient online civic engagement as well
as fledging public space serves as a precondition for civil society, which
in turn is both the foundation of and a necessary ingredient for any future
democracy/democratization in China. A nascent public space for “virtual”
civic engagement, albeit with Chinese characteristics, can indeed be found in
online forums and offline community in Chinese society.
China cannot be fully immune from the influence of global lesbian and
gay rights movement and the changing dynamics of Internet politics. Chinese
Lala communities are coming to terms with and protecting their homosexual
rights and freedoms today in the information age, as what Manuel Castells
has suggested:
In fact, freedom is never a given. It is a constant struggle; it is the ability
to redefine autonomy and enact democracy in each social and technological
context. The Internet offers extraordinary potential for the expression of
citizen rights, and for the communication of human values. Certainly,
it cannot substitute for social change or political reform. However, by
relatively levelling the ground of symbolic manipulation, and by broadening
the sources of communication, it does contribute to democratisation. The
Internet brings people into contact in a public agora, to voice their concerns
and share their hopes. This is why people’s control of this public agora is
perhaps the most fundamental political issue raised by the development of
the Internet.
(Castells, 2001: 164-165)
Notes
+ 		 This work was financially supported by Taiwan’s National Science Council
(NSC), under the research project title The Interplay of State and Society in
Contemporary China: Analysis of the Core Governing Structural – Internet
Politics and Society (當代中國國家與社會的相互構成: 以治理結構為核心
的分析 —— 網路政治與國家社會關係).
* 		 Dr Chin-fu Hung 洪敬富 is Associate Professor at the Department of Political
Science and Graduate Institute of Political Economy, National Cheng Kung
IJCS 2-2 combined text final 04-382 382 10/4/2011 12:50:12 PM
Electronic Social Capital and Public Sphere in Chinese Lala Community 383
University (NCKU), Taiwan. He holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies
from the University of Warwick, UK. Dr Hung’s main research interests include
the political and economic transition of China, the impact of the information and
communication technologies upon political development and democratization, and
the sociopolitical development in East and Southeast Asia. He has written several
articles on topics of cyber participation and the Internet politics of democratic and
(semi-)authoritarian states in Asia. <Email: bcfhung@mail.ncku.edu.tw; Personal
web site: https://sites.google.com/site/bernardhung/>
1. 		 China remains “an essentially Leninist party-state (党国) in the sense that the
members of the Standing Committee and Politburo of the Central Committee of
Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党中央政治局常务委员会) continue to
enjoy de facto monopoly power and are not accountable to political or judicial
constraints.” See Preston and Haacke (2003: 10).
2. 		 The most recent example of the Internet-enabled revolution took place in Tunisia
in which President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced out of the presidency
by people power and popular protests in late 2010. The 2010-2011 Tunisian
Revolution is also called “the Jasmine Revolution” by many media organizations,
and which was the impetus of the Arab Spring. See “North Africa: Tunisia’s
‘Jasmine Revolution’”, Africa Research Bulletin, Vol. 48, Issue 1, pp. 18675A-
18685C, February 2011.
3. 		 As Antje Gimmler has pointed out, Habermas was pessimistic about the return
of a critical public sphere in his earlier work (1962 German versions and 1989
English version). Nonetheless he changed his mind and argued that the return of
such a sphere is possible within the resurgence of civil society itself. See Gimmler
(2001: 25); Curran (2002: 234).
4. 		 Traditionally, social capital must be formed in civil society where it is a relatively
autonomous sphere in a society which rests between the state and the private
sector. The “new and unique” environment afforded by cyberspace provides the
form of social organization that can be used by democratization movements in
authoritarian regimes, despite these regimes’ best efforts to control civil society
and organized opposition. See Marsh and Whalen (2000: 62, 66 and 67). Besides,
for Coleman’s concept of social capital, see Coleman (1990: 304).
5. 		 For a general review of the discourses and theories regarding the possibilities and
potential of the Internet, see Slane (2007: 81-105); DiMaggio, Hargittai, Robinson
and Newuman (2001: 307-336); Crossley and Roberts (2004).
6. 		 See further discussions at Sang (2003).
7. 		 It is usually argued that feminism and female homosexuality came about in the
development of lesbian feminist theory during the 1970s, where “Feminism at
heart is a massive complaint. Lesbianism is the solution.” See Johnston (1973:
166).
8. 		 LGBTQ is a conceptual shorthand for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
queer.
9. 		 It is generally believed that prior to the secularization of sodomy prohibitions in
the sixteenth century, lesbian and homosexuality is regarded as a distinctively
unmentionable crime. See Calhoun (2000: 83-84).
10. 	Joseph Contreras, “Legal in Unlikely Places”, Newsweek, 17th September 2007.
IJCS 2-2 combined text final 04-383 383 10/4/2011 12:50:12 PM
384 Chin-fu Hung
11. 	 Jim Yardley, “Internet Sex Column Thrills, and Inflames, China”, New York
Times, 30th November 2003.
12. 	Jim Yardley, “Internet Sex Column Thrills, and Inflames, China”, New York
Times, 30th November 2003.
13. 	“Zenme Kan Mu Zimei 怎么看木子美” [How to look upon Mu Zimei], Beijing
Wanbao 北京晚报, 16th November 2003.
14. 	Liu Shinan, “Unqualified Colleges Must be Shut Down”, China Daily, 12th
March 2010.
15. 	In a collaborative work conducted by sociologists from the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences (CASS), ten strata were noted: (1) national and social
management, (2) managers, (3) private enterprise-owners, (4) professional
technicians, (5) clerks, (6) industrial and commercial individuals, (7) business
service staff, (8) industrial workers, (9) agricultural labourers, and (10) city
unemployed, laid-off, and half laid-off vagrants in urban areas. See Lu (2002).
16. 	Jiao Xiaoyang and Jin Jing, “Fudan Offers Homosexual Studies”, China Daily,
16th August 2005.
17. 	Huang Zhiling and Zhang Ao, “In a ‘First’, Gay Couple Tie the Knot in China”,
China Daily, 3rd January 2010.
18. 	According to China’s Internet regulations, nine categories of information
are banned in creating, replicating, retrieving, and transmitting: (1) materials
that oppose the basic principles established by the Constitution; (2) materials
that jeopardize national security, reveal state secrets, subvert state power, or
undermine national unity; (3) materials that harm the prosperity and interests of
the state; (4) materials that arouse ethnic animosities, ethnic discrimination, or
undermine ethnic solidarity; (5) materials that undermine state religious policies,
or promote cults and feudal superstitions; (6) materials that spread rumours,
disturb social order, or undermine social stability; (7) materials that spread
obscenities, pornography, gambling, violence, murder, terror, or instigate crime;
(8) materials that insult or slander others or violate the legal rights and interests of
others; (9) materials that have other contents prohibited by laws or administrative
regulations. See The State Council (2000).
19. 	Raymond Zhou, “Gays Live a Difficult Life under Social Bias”, China Daily, 6th
September 2005.
20. 	“Quiet Pink Revolution in Dark Before Dawn”, Xinhua News Agency (新华社),
26th December 2005.
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