What is Weibo & how does it work?

Weibo was launched in August 2009 as the micro-blogging service of Sina.com, one of China’s leading technology companies. It has since played an essential part in the public life of the Chinese people, reflecting China’s socio-political transition in the post-Olympics decade.

How many Weibo fans are there?

With the 2018 Weibo Fan White Paper projecting that the total number of entertainment star Weibo fans reached 16.7 billion in 2018, an increase of 3.9 billion persons compared to 2017, fandoms today are enormous groupings of people.

Does the government use Weibo?

While Weibo has successfully exposed scandals and mobilized opinions that challenge the power abuse or non-transparency of the officials, the government is also using Weibo in the service of its own purposes (Sullivan, 2014). Weibo is also seen as a contentious space between official authorities and individuals (Nip & Fu, 2016).

What happened to a 'comeback' fan on Weibo?

Fans in “Fan circle” B were alerted and swarmed the “comeback” fan with a massive amount of comments and private messages for three days until the attacked fan was mentally and physically exhausted and had to delete his Weibo post and close his account.

Is Weibo a networked public?

Weibo as “networked publics”—both a public space and collectives (boyd, 2010)—have amplified the visibility and social impact of public events, and enabled individuals to gather on this public “square” to participate.

Did Weibo polarize social media?

However, the split of “Chinese characteristics” and “universal values” did capture the polarization of networked publics with escalated contentions and the party-state’s more aggressive taking over of social media. Weibo enhanced public visibility of both sides of the ideological contention (“universal values” versus “Chinese characteristics”).