THE INFLUENCE OF CHINESE SOCIAL NETWORKS ON THE FORMATION OF THE DISCOURSE OF FEMINISM OF THE YOUNGER GENERATION

Ma Lan

The purpose of this article is to determine the influence of Chinese social networks on the formation of the discourse of feminism of the younger generation. To this end, I present an original case study that collects empirical data from the most popular website of the Chinese Answer Community (CQA) Zhihu. Using a mixed research method consisting of content analysis (CA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA), I investigated the gender debate between Chinese Internet users. The analysis shows how such debates lead to a division of opinion between female and male Internet users, and how misogynistic men use nationalist discourse to distort the debate.

Keywords:China, social networks, feminism, messengers, content analysis