Here to be Heard : Digital feminist engagement with #MeTooinChina

Abstract: This study analyses Chinese people's engagement in #MeTooinChina against sexual assault and patriarchal norms in Chinese society by asking three main research questions: 1) Why and how do Chinese people engage with #MeTooinChina? 2) What challenges are they faced with in their engagement and how do these challenges influence their continuous engagement with #MeTooinChina? 3) How do they reflect on their engagement and evaluate the outcomes of #MeTooinChina? Theoretically the thesis draws on research into digital social movements, in particular in relation to feminist movements, as well as theories on the network society and how social media is used for political engagement. The notion of political engagement as based in emotions and affects is discussed in particular. The analysis shows that the interviewees have a range of motivations as to why they engaged, from affective impulses to discontent with the system. The use of new media technologies has also promoted new modes of engagement and the various practices that they have performed are built on their previous skills and communicative competence like law, IT, sex education, and journalism. The interviewees stories also expose the overwhelming pressure of the world's most sophisticated system for censoring of the media. The black-box logic and unpredictability nature of the censorship creates mental pressure for the participants of #MeTooinChina which results in internalized censoring and disengagement among the interviewees. As a resistance to the harsh censorship, the participants of #MeTooinChina have however also adapted and reinvented media technologies to prevent their voice and engagement from being erased from the Internet, for example, building online archives of #MeTooinChina so that the incidents and articles that emerged in the movement can kept being updated and saved forever online.