The Other Digital China by Jing Wang makes a very important contribution to the study of China's cyberspace as pluralistic, fluid, and fraught with gray zones, with change makers—including grassroots NGOs, corporate sectors, IT companies, millennials, and tech communities—constantly pushing boundaries and building coalitions to bring about incremental changes for the social good. Blending firsthand experience of working with China's NGOs and critical reflections on theories of cultural studies, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and participatory action research, particularly their contingencies when applied to the analysis of China's digital politics, Wang's book offers fresh perspectives on how social media in China intersect with politics, the market, and civic society.
Wang dedicates four chapters (introduction, chapter 1, chapter 6, and conclusion) to establishing the concept of “nonconfrontational activism,” justifying social action–centered research, and reasoning why “Tech4Good” can illuminate how digital technology facilitates civic engagements in China. Chapters 2–5 each focus on a group of change makers and their distinctive nonconfrontational strategies. Combining theoretical erudition and cultural sensitivities, Wang's book includes aptly historicized case studies and rigorous contextualization, putting itself on the must-read list for students in the fields of China studies, media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, political science, and sociology.
Wang joins a growing number of scholars who study the internet of China to challenge the binary thinking of citizens in authoritarian regimes as either brainwashed or complicit. The book sets about conceptualizing and documenting how social media activism, or “Activism 2.0,” has helped carve out “breathing spaces” (p. 223) within, rather than outside, the space largely controlled by the party-state by making noises, mobilizing resources, and diversifying participatory modes. Wang's book distinguishes itself from other studies in its focus on NGOs, particularly the more than 1,600 NGOs trained by NGO2.0, a grassroots organization founded by Wang in 2009 that specializes in technology-driven activism. Gathering a decade's data and insider knowledge, the book is both a recap of Wang's activist engagement and a reflection of her application of Western theories as an established scholar of China's media and culture.
Wang's book is gripping in its rigorous contextualization of how China's grassroots NGOs get things done. Although we should not underestimate the Chinese government's willingness to adopt the liberal discourse of modern governance—as reflected in its new policy discourses, such as “the separation of government from society,” and the shift of state's role from social management to “social governance” (p. 36)—we also must not overestimate its willingness to give full agency to NGOs. Wang contrasts Chinese NGOs with their Western counterparts, noting that Chinese NGOs do not aim to contest government policies and instead “serve as informal social service or welfare relief organizations” (p. 82). Social services should be considered equally valuable as social changes (p. 83), Wang insists; nonconfrontational activism works in the middle ground to make incremental yet significant changes. Wang further demonstrates how social media, as one of the few options left for smaller, local-bound, and emerging grassroots NGOs, helps these organizations overcome bottleneck of growth and accomplish socially beneficial causes.
When unpacking social media and activism, Wang is justifiably suspicious of “digital solutionism,” which considers media inherently liberatory yet remains cautiously optimistic about potentials unleashed from ICTs for NGOs. The book offers historicization and participatory analysis of Chinese NGOs’ adoption of social media.
Chapter 2 introduces the history of NGOs in China (since 1995), related government legislation and its ramifications, and the NGO2.0 model to help its members “improve their transparency, sustain growth, and trigger real change on the ground” (p. 92). Chapter 3 describes how Sina's Micro Charity Program and Tencent's Monthly Donation Project, both launched in 2012, helped NGOs raise funds publicly, something not allowed before, and fostered the rise of peer-to-peer philanthropy.
Wang credits the early 2010s as the “heyday of creative activism enabled by blogging and microblogging” (p. 88), highlighting the effectiveness of hashtag marketing and celerity engagement. Wang disfavors the shift of interactive communication for NGOs from Weibo to WeChat, which took place in 2014, pointing out that WeChat's compartmented virtual spaces may harm the growth of NGOs. However, given Weibo's degeneration into a cyberspace dominated by celebrity fan groups and political drones, one can also argue that the adoption of WeChat by NGOs is less a choice. Moreover, WeChat's smaller and better peer-supported digital communities could also facilitate the growth of smaller and local-bound NGOs that may otherwise be invisible in more open platforms.
Chapter 4, the most lighthearted of the chapters, proposes that China's post-1980s and post-1990s generations—in their performative engagement with spoof subculture, playful clicktivism, crowdsourcing, and “consumer-as-citizen” culture—are effective at blending entertainment with politics and holding corporate sectors accountable for their social responsibilities. Wang's point that virtual spectatorship and parody can lead to social good may appear idealistic, but the firsthand examples she gives—Ecotonoha, the Talking Tree, and GamesThatGive—convincingly support the argument that China's millennials contribute to social good as volunteers, virtual spectators, consumers, and donors in their own distinctive fashion.
In chapter 5, Wang suggests that design-thinking workshops for NGOs can be a more productive alternative to hackathons because they focus on the collaborative and creative design of user-centric, pleasure-generating experience. She further cites NGO2.0-sponsored projects to illustrate the importance of prizing process over product and notes that China's maker movement is state co-cosigned.
Wang's book is bold in claiming that Western theories about NGOs, censorship, ICTs, and participatory action research need to be localized to make sense of China's digital politics. She takes care to argue that social practice can be prioritized in academic writings and first-person narrative should not be considered incompatible with scholarly pursuits. As she confesses, “the insider/outsider question is one I struggle with constantly” (p. 93), but Wang's daring and thoughtful embracing of her activist/scholar's double persona through a book-length project is precisely what makes The Other Digital China unique, timely, and fascinating.
