Digital Aesthetics: How China Employs Digital Authoritarian Methods to Control Personal Expression Online
Kristýna Kociànovà was selected among the ten shortlisted essays to be published on Asia Centre’s website, following her submission to the Asia Centre Essay Challenge first edition “China Geopolitics”.
Find the full essay via the Digital Aesthetics PDF button above.
Digital Authoritarianism (and numerous sister terms, such as digital repression) as a term has been used for a very long time and in various contexts, even in relation to China and its modern authoritarian policies. Digital Authoritarianism generally refers to the tendency of authoritarian states (as well as some backsliding democracies) to “surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations” (Polyakova & Meserole, 2019, p. 2). It is a very broad term encompassing many types of policies that can be easily divided into three separate categories, namely obstacles to access, limits on content and violations on rights (Freedom House, 2018).
While some scholars emphasize only focusing on countries deemed authoritarian, such as Russia or China, others, like Glasius, appeal to authors to centre their attention to illiberal practices in democracies, in order to curb their spread and development (2018, p. 515-533).
As the spread of Digital Authoritarianism in China continues, there is a growing tendency of China to manipulate the image it projects abroad through the internet. Despite the smaller strength of China’s soft power, China does have a large arsenal of Digital Authoritarian tools it can use to spread its influence in the future, especially its Great Firewall, however, even more traditional ways such as basic government interference can be used along with the Digital Authoritarian tools China has available to make its effect greater.
For example, there has been a push of curating the public image of famous publicly-known people in the last few years. In 2021, a campaign to curb the appearance of more “feminine-presenting” male celebrities, called the “Campaign Against Girlie Guns” (fan niangpao 反娘炮) (referred to as Campaign for simplicity from now on) was launched. All this falls under Xi Jinping him self’s more universal call for national rejuvenation. This call is hardly new, as a similar call was made by a leader dissimilar to Xi, Sun Yat-sen, during the Qing era. As the Campaign primarily targets the concept of masculinity, the notions like prosperity and strength (fuqiang 富强), advanced culture (wenming 文明) and beauty (meili 美麗) (The Centre for Strategic Translation, 2022), fit perfectly under this wider call with many of its aspects.
Systematic studies on Digital Authoritarianism reveal a gap in scholarship on the convergence between Digital Authoritarianism and the attempts to control the image China is trying to project abroad. This essay attempts to rectify that and fill this small gap by trying to stress that those two concepts interject smoothly. After all, the need to continuously broaden the definition is also pointed out by the systematic review written by Roberts & Oosterom (2024), this essay just happens to take a more interdisciplinary approach by looking into Chinese Soft Power and its influence on other countries, by doing a small case study on one of the popular Chinese online dramas and a literature review.
The point of this essay is to argue that the regulation of celebrity image and gender presentation is not only a form of Digital Authoritarianism, but also a foreign policy signal. Through its dissemination of its aesthetics, China is attempting to influence foreign perceptions of itself abroad and assert its ideological model on the global stage.
Summary of the essay:
- Rethinking Digital Authoritarianism: Digital Authoritarianism in a Broader Sense
- China’s Crackdown on “Feminine-presenting” idols (2021)
- Exporting the Authoritarian Aesthetic
- Authoritarian Aesthetic as Foreign Policy Signal: Implications for Digital Governance
Digital Aesthetics: How China Employs Digital Authoritarian Methods to Control Personal Expression Online