Speaker
Prof Kecheng FANG (方可成)
Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Abstract
The rise of the “alt-right” (alternative right) is not unique to the West. There is also a significant presence of racist, misogynistic, and Islamophobic discourse on Chinese social media. This study follows a mixed-methods approach combining topic modeling, social network analysis, and discourse analysis to analyze the discursive and network structure of an online Chinese alt-right community on Weibo. We summarize the topics Chinese alt-right influencers discuss and examine how these topics are interrelated. We find that the Chinese alt-right discourse can be deemed as both an extension and localization of the global alt-right: they frequently discuss global alt-right issues and also hold alt-right ideologies on domestic issues. Meanwhile, influencers in the community are densely connected, suggesting a high level of coordination and cooperation. These findings provide insights into the transnational aspect of the rise of global alt-right.
Bio
Kecheng FANG (方可成) is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include journalism, political communication, and digital media. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining academia, he worked as a political journalist at the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly. His work has appeared in New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, International Journal of Press/Politics, China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, among others.