Insights
Democracy and protesting against authorities have always been "sensitive" issues in Chinese society. In pre-Internet times, most protesting activities ended in either dismissing, disregard, or bloody tragedies caused by irresistible power. Moreover, many protesting activities are not known by national wide people until several years later because of the constraints of information technology.
Since social media platforms get more and more popular after 2010, this new kind of media gives us various opportunities on collective protest activities as well as taking part in social issues. As Samidh Chakrabarti, the product manager of Facebook says, "If there’s one fundamental truth about social media’s impact on democracy it’s that it amplifies human intent — both good and bad. At its best, it allows us to express ourselves and take action. At its worst, it allows people to spread misinformation and corrode democracy."
In the past seven years, dominant social media in China such as Sina Weibo and WeChat have already made great changes on how public opinions are expressed, shared, and spread. By 2017, Sina Weibo has over 370 million monthly active users, while Twitter has 330 million. All the users are distributed among first-tire cities through fourth-tire cities, which makes a relatively even area distribution. Thanks to its large amount of users and nation-wide distribution, Weibo becomes a platform where people can spread their ideas and connect to each other faster and easier than ever before. What's more, when all the activities happen online, there are relatively more freedom and less controllability out there.
I took two examples from research which demonstrate how people from different social classes take advantage of social media to protect themselves, fight against power, and defend their own rights.
Concept
I want to create a project that tells the audience about the rising voice of vulnerable people with the help of social media platforms in China. By representing this idea, I want to either call people’s attention to the power of social media in politics, or to encourage them to speak out in a reasonable, effective, and safe way.
Questions
How to narrow down my goal?
Whom would be my target audience?
How largely does social media effect democracy?
How do vulnerable groups use social media to fight against authorities?
How does the Internet influence the way government communicate with people?
How does the interface / UX design of a social media platform impact its functionality on public expression?
Prototype
“Open and informative,
polarized and fragmented”
- Use visual effect to demonstrate the transparency of public opinions brought by social media.
"The Internet has empowered Chinese citizens by removing one major constraint on their political activism: the need for strong organizational backing."
-- Yiyi Lu
live demo: https://iristy318.github.io/particles_0324/
References