In Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age, Jun Liu studies digitally enabled contention in China. His book bridges disciplinary divides and establishes “a communication-centred framework that articulates the intricate relationship between technology, communication, and contention” (p. 2, emphasis in the original). Liu's argument is that scholarship on social movements needs to ask how “the (radical) changes in our ability to communicate with one another, introduced, underpinned, and afforded by ICTs, (re)structure and articulate interrelated elements of movements and actions” (p. 17). To progress this research agenda, Liu walks readers through five chapters of conceptually sophisticated and empirically grounded ethnographic work that illustrates the role that mobile technology plays in Chinese social movements.

Liu's exploration starts with a theoretical discussion in chapter two, which introduces core concerns in communication scholarship. Liu develops a communication model that captures face-to-face, mass and networked communication, and he establishes how each communicative dimension contributes to collective action. This framework then leads him to launch his own empirical studies. Liu draws on rich ethnographic data that he collected over the course of a decade (2003–2013), covering cases as diverse as citizen concerns over the SARS outbreak to numerous protests against Peroxidase Pyroxenes (PX) factories and more. Through field notes and a total of 37 in-depth interviews, Liu explores what role mobile technology played in these cases.

Chapter three starts with a conceptual discussion of “technological affordance” and “repertoires of contention.” Liu presents technology as a precondition but not a guarantee that actors will integrate specific tactics into their contentious strategy. He goes on to illustrate this by exploring two practical cases: the various protests against new PX plants and strikes by taxi drivers. He asks why the anti-PX movements used one set of mobile-phone functions (text messaging, digital cameras and social network integration) while the cab drivers eschewed those functions in favour of others (chiefly voice messaging). Liu evokes Bourdieu to show that these differences derive from “habitus,” so from patterned behaviours that are grounded in the respective actors’ lived experiences within certain segments of society.

Liu's book is filled with such nuanced and insightful discussions. Chapter four continues by introducing debates about “micro-mobilization.” Liu again confronts established conceptual issues with his own work on China, illustrating how the use of “reciprocal” technologies like mobile phones relies on close-knit guanxi networks, which creates peer pressures that contribute to mobilization. Participants are often primarily interesting in helping people in their social network rather than creating a sustainable movement in the service of a cause. Yet Liu ultimately remains optimistic about the potential of guanxi mobilization to create meaningful change. Reciprocity, he contends, creates an additional layer of social structures that subverts other institutions, for instance those of the state. Refreshingly, Liu stresses that while guanxi dynamics are certainly grounded in local Chinese specificities, the overarching issue of reciprocity nevertheless translates to other contexts. This side-steps culturally deterministic arguments about guanxi and opens the door for fruitful comparative studies.

The final empirical chapter (five) turns to online rumours. It explores how rumouring redefines politics in China, and how especially the government's insistence on curbing “false rumours” ironically prompts ever more rumour-mongering. Liu revisits the cases he explored in previous chapters while adding earthquake rumours from Shanxi, a pollution scare from Jiangsu, and a mass incident from Guangdong. He concludes that rumouring practices are not, as is sometimes assumed, an ineffective, low-energy form of “slacktivism.” They instead inspire solidarity, create “rumouring publics,” and ultimately serve as a frequently gleeful critique of pervasive official attempts to discredit citizens who spread politically inconvenient information.

In his conclusion, Liu summarizes his main findings and relates them to popular questions and theoretical arguments about mobilization, technology and democratization. Maybe most importantly, Liu concludes by showing how his syncretic framework for understanding contentious communication can be applied comparatively. To this end, Liu contrasts American civil-rights activities from 1964 with the 2011 Egyptian uprising and the high-profile Wukan protests of 2011. Liu unpacks the striking continuities in these cases: he shows how his communication-centred approach avoids technological determinism while illustrating that “it is people that take different contexts into consideration, then strategically leverage new advantages while minimizing disadvantages from ICTs for communicative, collective purposes” (p. 167).

This is a compelling study, and a powerful argument in favour of a holistic approach to social movement research. There is then only very little to criticize about this impressive monograph. Scholars favouring media-centric or technology-focused approaches to understanding “affordance” may contend that Liu's concerns about technological determinism may not be as pronounced in the literature as he suggests, especially in fields like science and technology studies. A more general shortcoming of the book is that its cases predate the Xi administration's attempts to regulate digital communication and mobility more rigidly. Of course, the book could not have anticipated later developments, so this is mainly a wish to see the approach of this monograph extended to newer cases. Shifting Dynamics of Contention certainly spells out a promising path for precisely such follow-up work, and that makes it essential reading, certainly for graduate and post-graduate students of contention and digital technology in China, but also for scholars hoping to contrast the frequently Euro- and US-centric literature on social movements with original, comparative work from China.