Eileen Le Han, “Micro-Blogging Memories: Weibo and Collective Remembering in Contemporary China” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)

Since its invention, the Internet has become a fundamental part of our lives. Since the invention of social media, communicative technologies have changed our lives and influenced journalism and politics in ways that were unimaginable just ten years ago. In her book, Micro-blogging Memories: Weibo and Collective Remembering in Contemporary China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), Eileen Le Han explores how the social media site Weibo has influenced Chinese culture and politics. By analysing the relationship between three key tensions: control-resistance, past-present, and global-local, Le Han provides a unique and in-depth account on how social media is used in an increasingly globalising China. By focusing on specific events and how they were reported on, and more significantly, how they are remembered, Le Han explores the contentious topics of state-sponsored censorship, increasing nationalism and the collectivisation of memory. The first five years of Weibo were a turning point in Chinese society, a time in which the anxieties and uncertainties over remembering, were confronted by journalists, media professionals, pundits and ordinary citizens. Five years on how is Weibo fairing? And what does the future hold for Chinese journalism?

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