Emotion Politics: An Analysis Of Emotion Protest In Online Railway Competing Event

Through the empirical study of Xinye online contentious activity fighting for high-speed railway that fully reveals the complexity of internet-based protest in current Chinese context,this paper tries to examine emotion logic followed by the disadvantaged groups in order to achieve their appeals.Internet,as a new media technology,exerts structural influence on shaping the online protests.By applying the methods of case analysis and text analysis,this paper examines how the emotional narration strategies work behind the expressions used in related website posts and how the corresponding emotions serve as the original cause and continuous dynamics for this online contentious activity.Simultaneously,this paper pays attention to the evolution of the activity and reveals the unheeded role that emotions play in the protests by figuring out the complicated association and interaction between rationality and emotion.Although the Internet technology has served as a communication tool for the public,it remains a challenge for them to recruit participants,attract others' attention and achieve their appeals in the situation of information fragmentation,since they are still in lack of institutionalized ways of expression and necessary resources for protest.Emotion,as an effective weapon for the disadvantaged groups,starts to play its full role in online protests.It is not barely a tool used by the protesters,but also a mechanism that directs the evolution of the online contentious activity,and emotion instead of material ends serves as the original motive power of the online protests.However,although the publicity and liberation potential of emotion cannot be ignored,the boundary of its effectiveness should be noticed.On the one hand,the negative influence that transient and fragmented emotion exerts on the political participation remains to be discussed.On the other hand,the generation and application of emotion in the online protest is still constrained by the macro social and political environment.