Worker Web Sites and Activism in China

After the recent worker unrest in China, I received media queries about the role of the internet in labor protests, specifically about workers web sites. Below are some of my responses:

There are some worker web sites and blogs, but the number is not in proportion to the number of workers. These web sites mostly focus on social and cultural issues. For example, some web sites publish literary works written by migrant workers. A few such sites may be devoted to issues related to labor rights and consumer rights, but overall, politically-oriented labor web sites are few and far between.

One reason is that the Chinese government seems to be especially worried about independent worker organizations, yet web sites could serve as an important forum for such organizing. State monitoring and control of worker web sites may be especially tight. One example is the forced closure of the influential worker web site “Chinese Workers Web” in 2006.

Another reason is the relative lack of worker presence in Chinese cyberspace. Young students and professionals still make up the vast majority of Chinese internet users. There is still a huge digital divide in China.

The dissemination of information about the suicide of Sun Danyong (the Foxconn worker) and the online controversy surrounding it seem to be typical in two ways. First is the issue – it is about the death of a vulnerable individual in a confrontation with a powerful institution (in this case a business corporation). Numerous cases of internet protest in recent years are about such vulnerable persons.

Second is the logic of information dissemination. Stories about the case appeared in both mainstream newspapers and the internet, but it was stories and interactions on the internet that drove the controversy. As far as I can tell, part of the popular anger comes from the chat records between Sun and his college friend (who was a student in France) and the text messages Sun exchanged with his girl friend not long before his death. These records were posted and circulated online, thus provoking interest in the details of Sun’s death.

It’s hard to assess the relative importance of foxlife.cn vs other social networking sites in the circulation of the story. Foxlife.cn seems to be more active than the few worker web sites I know, but as in so many other cases, postings about Sun’s death seemed to have first appeared in large and popular online communities (in this case Tianya.cn). Following the appearance of these postings, other web sites such as Sohu.com set up special sections devoted to the case. The case then was rapidly pushed into the public limelight. Mainstream media were also involved, but public debate and protest happened online.

The logic of information dissemination behind this case is thus typical. Social media are crucial, but it is the more influential online communities that matter most. These web sites first provoked public interest in the case by breaking news and leaking information and then promoted public controversy by encouraging online interaction. As I argued in my book The Power of the Internet in China, all kinds of web sites, including official web sites, encourage contentious online interaction because such interaction pumps up the web traffic.

The recent case of steel workers’ protest in Tonghua, Jilin shows that the government is ready to make concessions in order to prevent large-scale worker unrest. When workers take to the streets, it's like adding the oil of class struggle to the fire of ethnic conflicts and rural protests. For party leaders, a class struggle is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. As sociologist Ching Kwan Lee has argued, labor activism is mostly contained because it is isolated and fragmented. Nevertheless, web activism may have the potential of helping workers to overcome such fragmentation and build coalitions. State authorities must be very concerned with worker web sites.