Research On The Formation Mechanism Of Feminist Collective Action In Social Media

Since the mid-nineteenth century,there have been many waves of feminism in the world.The fourth wave of feminism that has just started in the past decade is characterized by the use of social media to appeal for women’s rights.In this context,many feminist issues have also emerged on Chinese social media.A large number of netizens express their opinions through social media and fight for the injustices faced by women.The collective action in Kris Wu’s sex scandal promoted the development of Chinese feminist movement.The whole event clearly reflected the characteristics of the fourth wave of feminist movement: firstly,it pushed feminism to the level of deeper labor relations and class struggle;Secondly,social media played an important role in the whole struggle;Finally,it shows the new viewpoint put forward by feminism--"the form of raising consciousness based on personal experience".On July 8,2021,Meizhu Du exposed Kris Wu sexually assaulted minors,and the public opinion ferment rapidly on social media.On July 31,Wu Yifan was detained.This is the period when feminist collective action began and concentrated outbreak.Therefore,This study captures the data related to wu’s detention on Sina Weibo from July 8 to August 1,2021(since the announcement of Wu’s detention was released on Weibo after 21 o ’clock on July 31,2021,it was postponed by one day to August 1).In order to study the formation mechanism of feminist collective action in more detail,the data was divided into three main types,common users,professional media and opinion leaders separately captured the data of these three parts and processed the acquired data in different ways.It was found that ordinary netizens,opinion leaders,and professional media influence each other in the social media space to construct feminist collective action.At the same time,the author uses value-added theory to further analyze the problem.First of all,the network environment on which social media relies provides a natural breeding ground for collective action.First,the anonymity of the Internet gives the people the courage to participate in collective action,and it also frees netizens and opinion leaders from the shackles of morality to arbitrarily induce other netizens.;Second,the Internet breaks the boundaries of time and space,and also reduces the cost of people participating in collective actions;third,the Internet can develop multiple weak ties,providing those who are originally marginalized in the real social network social connection.In addition,feminist issues that frequently appear on social media also provide a public opinion environment for the outbreak of feminist collective action.Secondly,the imbalance of gender power that exists in the real society has always caused women’s dissatisfaction.In addition,social media has exacerbated the relative deprivation of women,because social media has broadened the public’s access to information,and disadvantaged groups can use social networking.Sharing in the media,judging one’s position,and being aware of the difficulties faced by the group to which one belongs,will create a sense of double deprivation.This creates structural tension.Thirdly,professional media is shaping people’s perception of events by virtue of its authority,while opinion leaders conceptualize ideology through four framework strategies: framework communication,framework transformation,framework elaboration,and framework expansion,thereby causing the general public to generate general ideology.Faith.Then,when the three conditions of environmental conditions,structural tensions,and generalized beliefs are met,any small inducing factors will lead to collective action.When the predisposing factors appeared,ordinary netizens,opinion leaders,and professional media jointly completed the action mobilization,which expanded the scale of collective action: professional media clarified the truth and named positions;opinion leaders played different roles in collective actions according to their own functions.Role,mobilize actions from multiple dimensions;ordinary netizens also express their views in this process,showing a strong ability to set their own agenda.Finally,the lack of social control has exacerbated the possibility of collective action,because in social media,national legislation faces many issues such as freedom of speech and Internet space sovereignty;on the other hand,it is difficult for the state to include all opinion leaders in social media.The scope of control,these have increased the difficulty of national control in the social media space.In short,this research points out the formation mechanism of feminist collective action in social media,and also combines theory with the practice of women’s movements in China today to construct a structural model that is more in line with the status quo of domestic feminist collective action.