MA Thesis: Fandom Nationalism

Keywords: Web Scraping, Time-Series Analysis, Content Analysis, Online Ethnography

Problem

How is nationalism constructed? Scholars have theorized the construction of the idea of nationalism in contrasting ways. While modernization theorists have emphasized nationalism as political projects engineered by political groups during “unsettled” times, others have emphasized nationalism as a practice that involves everyday people making meanings about the nation during settled times.

Team

I worked independently on this project. 

Context

Scholars have historicized fan-led expeditions as the third wave of online nationalism and termed it fandom nationalism, arguing that this new group of online nationalists comprised of young people born after the 1990s, and that the Diba expedition symbolized the start of this online nationalism wave. Their work points to the distinctive nature of this third wave online nationalism. That is, different from the second wave, it is made up of community of fans of (mostly) Korean pop idols. Their work also suggests particular incidents such as the “June 9 Jihad” in 2010 as a key event that led normally apolitical fans of idols to realize the importance of being patriotic and politically correct to avoid hurting their idols’ public image.

Using two datasets scraped from Weibo, the Chinese microblogging site, I explored three questions about this new group of online nationalists. First, how to see the 814 expedition in the lens of fandom nationalism as termed by Wu, Li, and Wang (2019) and what is the relation between the 814 expedition and the Diba expedition? Second, how is the 814 expedition different from traditional state-sponsored nationalism and whether it incorporates liberal values as scholars have argued nationalists often incorporate democratic values (Zhang et al., 2018; Zhao, 2002). Third, how did the state or institutions of state respond to this event and what was the relation between the expedition and the Chinese government?

Method

First, using a dataset of Weibo posts I collected under fandom nationalism, I explored the general trend of online nationalism on Weibo by examining the time series of keywords. Secondly, using the dataset scraped on Weibo about the 814 expedition, as well as through online ethnography, I examined the various content generated during this expedition and analyzed its particular features, as well as how fandom nationalism differs from a traditional state-sponsored nationalism or nationalism that incorporates liberal values. Lastly, I examined how state institutions responded to this event and its aftermath on Weibo.

Key Findings

Through a case study of the “814 expedition”, I found the type of nationalism demonstrated in the 814 expedition did not fall into this rigid dichotomy. By exploring the interactions between the state actors, national identity, and fandom culture, I argue for a relational understanding of nationalism. While fandom nationalism as demonstrated in the 814 expedition did not serve a political purpose but only acted as a confirmation of Chinese identity and expression of patriotism, the efforts of the state actors in capitalizing on the expedition’s nationalistic content underlies the entanglement between patriotic expressions as an affirmation of pride and Chinese identity versus conservative state-supporting nationalism.

Limitations

This analysis only provides an overview of what happened before, during, and after the 814 expedition through web scraping and online ethnography. Qualitative interviews would be a great complement data source to cross-validate the findings in this paper and could provide additional insights on the experiences of those who participated in the 814 expedition. Further, interviewing participants could also provide additional insights on how the expedition was organized internally, as well as the age, gender, and educational level of the participants since the demographic information is not always useful on Weibo as users sometime do not disclose age on Weibo.