The Collective Action As A Ritual

In the era of globalization,the national identity in China today is facing challenges.In recent years,incidents which refer to damaging the sovereignty and interest of China easily triggered collective actions in cyber space.Some netizens discuss the political issues and express their patriotic emotions on Weibo and other social media platforms overseas,which also show their national identity.However,the academic researches on national identity mainly focus on theory construction which lack detailed and practical conclusion.Besides,Chinese society is in the process of transformation which influences the cyberspace.Thus the action and identity of Chinese young netizens become more complicated which need to be examined in the new era.This study takes the collective action summoned by “Di ba” official Weibo account on 17 August 2019,and the collective action summoned by Baidu “Di ba” on 18 August2019 as cases.Through the approach of content analysis,virtual ethnography and interview,this thesis examines the construction of national identity within the communication process among young netizens in China.The finding firstly shows that those who were born in the 90 s especially after 1995 play an important role in the collective action.Also,the way of their expressions become more entertaining,which shaped by fans culture.Secondly,participants construct their national identity through the communication and interaction in collective actions.This research found that collective actions fit in the interaction ritual chains,which plays a key role in the construction process of national identity.Finally,building a sense of belonging,reducing a sense of impermanence,and searching for existence value in the cyber space all contribute to the motivations of netizens who take part in collective actions.And the interaction communication that happened in collective actions could be a starting point of national identity construction.