Digital Resilience in Social Media Feminist Activism: Reactance Theory Applied to Weibo and Zhihu

Past studies have shown the value of social media for feminist activism in China. Yet, activists encounter strict censorship, negatively impacting their mobilization efforts. Existing studies have documented the strategies activists use to circumvent censorship by analyzing digital trace data but have not yet examined their censorship experiences. To fill this gap, the present study draws on reactance theory to investigate the experiences of social media feminist activists in China through 19 in-depth interviews. Following calls to examine digital resilience in the era of polycrisis, this study also contributes to rethinking digital resilience as not only resistance to censorship, but as an adaptive capacity to maintain agency and continuity in activism. We conducted a cross-platform comparison contrasting activists’ censorship experiences across Weibo and Zhihu. We found a hierarchy of concerns underlying censorship mechanisms. We identified five types of cognitive reactance: ambiguity, disagreement, unfairness, believing in a lack of control, and critical questioning of the positive energy motto. Affective reactance manifested through feelings of anger and irritation toward haphazard censorship enforcement. Digital resilience was visible in both cognitive and affective reactance, which motivated participants to restore their freedom. Participants used two types of direct means to regain their lost freedom: seeking and disseminating censored information. A few participants engaged in indirect restoration by reinterpreting the state’s motto of positive energy. The findings suggest activists developed different forms of digital resilience on Zhihu and Weibo that reflect unique platform affordances and regulations. We outline implications for reactance theory and future research.