Angry youth or realistic idealist? The formation of subjectivity in online political participation of young adults in urban China

Abstract

This article examines the formation of Chinese young people’s political subjectivity through exploring their everyday online political participation. Drawing on qualitative data collected from 31 Chinese young people, it identifies three dispositions apparent in their online participatory activities in different circumstances: ‘angry youth’, ‘powerless cynics’, and ‘realistic idealists’. Reflecting their accounts of these participatory activities, these dispositions as manifestations of subjectivities are shaped by the contingent participatory circumstances of the young people and are connected to their previous history of participation. Their online political participation serves as a vehicle for the formation of their subjectivity in the distinctively Chinese context. In this way, the internet facilitates the formation of the subjectivities of young people by providing a space for them to interact with other collective subjectivities, enabling a new form of engagement within which the formation of new subjectivities can develop.