The Collective Action as Interaction Ritual in Cyber Space
Liu Guoqiang, professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing. Email: liugq@vip.126.com.
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Liu Guoqiang, professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing. Email: liugq@vip.126.com.
The core opinion of this article is that the D8 Expedition Event, which was caused by the across-Taiwang-Strait political issues, is a performance of intercaction ritual. In terms of identity, the author argues that the original self-identity of participants was mainly the barer of the online community D8, which then converted to national identity during the collective action. And their identity was socially constructed as the after 90’s and the patriotic youth. In regards to dynamic mechanism, the group assembly in cyber space and collective effervescence, the produce of group solidarity and the moral imagination and exchange of emotional energy between participants were the main motives of this collective action. During the process, three discourses including conquering, lessoning and communicating interweaved with one another and were presented contradictorily. According to the article, physical assemblies in interaction rituals have the same process characteristics in both cyber space and reality. The construction of national sacred symbol is as homogeneous as the building of mainstream political ideas in reality. And in such a collective action, the rituality of group solidarity is greater than the ideational content of nationstate imagination. Therefore, it poses more problems which worthy discussing in the perspective of macro-sociology.