Miljöinformation i vardagen : representationer av luftföroreningar på den kinesiska mikrobloggsajten Sina Weibo
(2017) ABMM54 20171Division of ALM and Digital Cultures
- Abstract
- This study explores how micro-bloggers on the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo have come to represent air pollution. By bringing visual and textual narratives on social media to the forefront, the aim of my study is to highlight an understudied everyday information aspect of pollution – the digital flow of visual and textual representations – which citizens encounter and co-produce in their everyday life. Furthermore, the study aims to explore what the representations of air pollution disclose about human-environmental relations and, by extension, how such ideas fit into the Chinese political vision of creating an ecological civilization. Following a practice theory approach, where information is seen as a practice produced in specific... (More)
- This study explores how micro-bloggers on the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo have come to represent air pollution. By bringing visual and textual narratives on social media to the forefront, the aim of my study is to highlight an understudied everyday information aspect of pollution – the digital flow of visual and textual representations – which citizens encounter and co-produce in their everyday life. Furthermore, the study aims to explore what the representations of air pollution disclose about human-environmental relations and, by extension, how such ideas fit into the Chinese political vision of creating an ecological civilization. Following a practice theory approach, where information is seen as a practice produced in specific social contexts and consisting of activities, objects and interactions, I look at how representations of objects, activities and conceptions on social media form “information clusters”. I use an ethnographic approach applied to an online setting to explore and collect posts on Sina Weibo. The ethnographic approach includes observation of the social context that the blog posts are part of. I arrange the collected data into categories based on objects, activities and conceptions, and I analyse my data in more detail by using a multi-modal analysis, which combines the analysis of both images and texts. My results show that several types of representations of air pollution form a normative cluster. Despite their narrative differences, the representations have an underlying factor in common, namely the acceptance of air pollution as a normal and natural feature in daily life. Yet, a smaller cluster of narratives tentatively breaks with the idea of air pollution as something normal. In the discussion, I relate the findings to political, theoretical, social and technical issues and discuss what factors influence how information is formed on Sina Weibo. I especially highlight the representation of a digital object, the air quality app, as central in a wider nexus of integrated elements. Finally, I conclude that air pollution is primarily presented on Sina Weibo as an issue that is self-contained and is not part of a larger narrative of human and environmental relations. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8910225
- author
- Graminius, Carin LU
- supervisor
-
- Jutta Haider LU
- organization
- alternative title
- Environmental Information in Everyday Life : representations of Air Pollution on the Chinese Micro-blogging Site Sina Weibo
- course
- ABMM54 20171
- year
- 2017
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Air pollution, Smog, Information practices, Everyday Practices, China, Sina Weibo, PM2.5, Anthropocene, ALM, Library and Information Science luftföroreningar, informationspraktiker, vardagspraktiker, Kina, antropocen, ABM, biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 8910225
- date added to LUP
- 2017-06-16 13:08:12
- date last changed
- 2017-06-16 13:08:12
@misc{8910225,
abstract = {{This study explores how micro-bloggers on the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo have come to represent air pollution. By bringing visual and textual narratives on social media to the forefront, the aim of my study is to highlight an understudied everyday information aspect of pollution – the digital flow of visual and textual representations – which citizens encounter and co-produce in their everyday life. Furthermore, the study aims to explore what the representations of air pollution disclose about human-environmental relations and, by extension, how such ideas fit into the Chinese political vision of creating an ecological civilization. Following a practice theory approach, where information is seen as a practice produced in specific social contexts and consisting of activities, objects and interactions, I look at how representations of objects, activities and conceptions on social media form “information clusters”. I use an ethnographic approach applied to an online setting to explore and collect posts on Sina Weibo. The ethnographic approach includes observation of the social context that the blog posts are part of. I arrange the collected data into categories based on objects, activities and conceptions, and I analyse my data in more detail by using a multi-modal analysis, which combines the analysis of both images and texts. My results show that several types of representations of air pollution form a normative cluster. Despite their narrative differences, the representations have an underlying factor in common, namely the acceptance of air pollution as a normal and natural feature in daily life. Yet, a smaller cluster of narratives tentatively breaks with the idea of air pollution as something normal. In the discussion, I relate the findings to political, theoretical, social and technical issues and discuss what factors influence how information is formed on Sina Weibo. I especially highlight the representation of a digital object, the air quality app, as central in a wider nexus of integrated elements. Finally, I conclude that air pollution is primarily presented on Sina Weibo as an issue that is self-contained and is not part of a larger narrative of human and environmental relations.}},
author = {{Graminius, Carin}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Miljöinformation i vardagen : representationer av luftföroreningar på den kinesiska mikrobloggsajten Sina Weibo}},
year = {{2017}},
}