The cyberpolitics of the governed
2013; Routledge; Volume: 14; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14649373.2013.769755
ISSN1469-8447
Autores Tópico(s)Social Media and Politics
ResumoAbstract How do governed postcolonial subjects perform resistance in the age of the internet? What are their oppositional practices, networks and creativity? This paper offers an empirical analysis of the emerging network politics in Macau, the former colony of Portugal whose sovereignty was returned to China in 1999, by focusing on netizens' engagement with the postcolonial governance. This research considers "government" as consisting of not only power but freedom. It starts with an interest in the "failure" of the government—that is, how the new regime, which attempts to insert the postcolonial subject into a new power structure, actually fails to produce a completely uniform and obedient subjectivity. Instead, its rule is saturated with a multiplicity of "netwars" which take advantage of the opportunities and resources offered by the new media environment. The network struggle, which is not unified under any single authority, enables a segment of the governed population to do politics and constitute subjectivity otherwise. In particular, I illustrate how egao, which opens official icons of the administration to negotiation and contestation, allows the governed to make their own political statements. The postcolonial cyberpolitics is simultaneously agonistic and playful, expressing what Foucault calls the refusal "to be ruled in such manners", or the desire for alternative mode of governing. Keywords: Network struggle egao governmentpostcolonial resistanceMacau Acknowledgment This paper is part of the project funded by the Research Committee of the University of Macau (Project title: Antagonistic public spheres; MYRG121(Y1-L1)-FSH11-LSD). I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers, and to Lin Chia-Hsuan, Lou Lai-Chu, Lin Zhongxuan, and Shi Wei for their insights and help. Notes The paper's title is inspired by Partha Chatterjee's (2004) Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. The Politics of the Governed, New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar] The Politics of the Governed. His persuasive account of India's postcolonial governmentality and subjective intervention offers a lens through which to project my own research. The annual Decorations, Medals and Certifications Merit Awards Ceremony is, to paraphrase Mbembe (2001 Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 131), a "political act through which bureaucratic relations are transformed into clientelist networks". The TV station, owned by the government, has been criticized for abusing public money and not being accountable. For an excellent analysis of the practice and strategies of the governed population groups in negotiation with postcolonial administration, see Chatterjee (2004) Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. The Politics of the Governed, New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar]. This contradicts Best and Kellner's (2001, 78) account of postmodern "cyberwar" in the context of North America. For a systematic account of user as producer in the network, see Bruns (2008) Bruns, Axel. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond, New York: Peter Lang. [Google Scholar]. "Production today", according to Hardt and Negri (2004 Hardt, Michael and Antonio, Negri. 2004. Multitude, New York: The Penguin Press. [Google Scholar], xv), "has to be conceived not merely in economic terms but more generally as social production—not only the production of material goods but also the production of communications, relationships, and forms of life". For Debord (2002) Debord, Guy. 2002. The Society of the Spectacle, New York: Zone Books. [Google Scholar], the spectacle is alienation. But this article suggests the spectacle constitutes a field of cultural struggle that has transformative potentials to the passive attitude Debord criticizes. Visual spoof can be seen as a peculiar form of "inter-textuality" (Hall 1997 Hall, Stuart. 1997. "The Spectacle of the 'other'". In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, 223–290. London: Sage. [Google Scholar]) that draws on different texts and alters their meanings in new contexts. Through "transcoding" and arbitrary juxtaposition, the original meanings of these elements are altered. Egao is certainly not a "Chinese" thing: at the time of revising this article, the so-called "Photoshop justice" is being waged against the pepper-spraying cop John Pike, who used the pepper spray in the midst of the global Occupy movement (Jardin 2011 Jardin, Xeni. 2011. "The Pepper-Spraying Cop Gets Photoshop Justice." The Guardian, 23 November. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/23/pepper-spraying-cop-photoshop-justice?newsfeed=true [Google Scholar]). In 2006, a spoof video entitled "The bloody case of a steamed bun", which parodied the blockbuster film "The Promise" for its alleged superficial content, won acclaim among Chinese netizens and spawned a flood of egao works in Chinese cyberspace. One of the cases regarding an ordinary person is Xiaopang, "little fatty". Jameson (1991 Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Taipei: Tonsan. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 17) defined "pastiche" with a derogatory sense. He dismissed late capitalism's pastiche as a blind, superficial, and meaningless form of imitation, nothing but a "blank parody" devoid of the sense of humor. But my empirical object does not support such a claim; instead, some images of egao are not just humorous and funny in themselves, but carry a profound sense of defiance or skepticism. One reason for the popularity, of course, is egao's evasion of censorship that designates certain words as unacceptable and simply prohibits their use online. Compared with traditional text, spoof is less tightly policed. However, as one reviewer points out, the "newness" of egao should not be exaggerated—in the history of modern Chinese political culture, jokes, irony, puns, hyperbole, metaphors and comics are widely used to convey sarcasm and ridicule. Mainland China's pi zi literature and Hong Kong's wu li tou films can also be seen as the longstanding tradition in which egao is rooted. In fact the phenomenon has increasingly spread to the media sphere. The liberal-minded Southern Metropolitan Weekly, for example, devoted an issue that made up fake news in 2006 to show support for egao culture's subversion of authorities (Martinsen 2006 Martinsen, Joel. 2006. "2006: the Year in Spoofs." Danwei, 29 December. http://www.danwei.org/magazines/2Martinsen, Joel. 2006. "2006: the Year in Spoofs." Danwei, 29 December. http://www.danwei.org/magazines/2006_the_year_in_spoofs.php [Google Scholar]). A notable example is seen in a widely-circulated post entitled "Self-created English vocabularies with Chinese characteristics", which remade a range of political vocabularies with satirical meanings (http://lightson.blog.hexun.com/46024651_d.html, accessed 4 October 2011). The distinction I am drawing out here should not obscure their mutual dependence and overlapping. On the use of popular culture in political process, see Jenkins (2006) Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture, New York: New York University Press. [Google Scholar]. When I analyze these images, I am less interested in their formal qualities and features or in the attempt to read their semiotic meanings, than in their construction of official otherness. My goal is to demonstrate how the aesthetic expression is articulated as a political expression and endowed with a sense of disapproval or skepticism. I owe this insight to Jenkins (2006) Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture, New York: New York University Press. [Google Scholar]. I have used examples that emerged in the wake of these two events, but it is not meant to exclude others that are no less significant to the political terrain. Additional informationNotes on contributorsShih-Diing LiuContact address: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Macau, Av. Padre Tomás Pereira, Taipa, Macau, China
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