| This dissertation looks at the online presence of a Chinese ethnic minority, the Manchus, examining how people of a particular marginalized and underprivileged social group make meaning by using the new communication technologies of the Internet in their daily lives, and how the Internet creates a new space of hope for these people and may bring about social change. Focusing on the second largest ethnic minority group in China, it employs textual analysis, online survey, virtual ethnography, and onsite interview and observation to explore the ways Manchu Internet users create community, appropriate and construct alternative cultural sources to resist the dominant ideologies of a monolithic Chineseness, and negotiating the meaning of being simultaneously Manchu and Chinese in a globalizing world and particular historical and cultural context. This study illustrates the potential the Internet creates for sub-national groups to interact with national and transnational dynamics in processes of identity formation. |
