Domestiquer la visibilité: l'internet chinois entre travail et praxis

Abstract

The less we question the technical and semiotic properties of the so-called social media, the more oblivious we remain to their political agency. The media transformations, which occurred in China at incredible speed and depth, must lead us to question the ways in which ‘new media’ affect the sites and forms of power. This article offers a reading into the economic and theoretical dynamics of what is commonly referred to as the ‘Chinese Internet’. Its history is marked by strategic attempts to shape, constrain and leverage social visibility. Thus, the author uses the notion of computerized media and invokes Hannah Arendt’s conception of visibility to describe what appears in China to be a new form of globalized media capitalism.