Weibo and Memory: Analyzing an Event-Oriented Platform with a Three-Dimensional Framework

Abstract

This chapter provides a detailed analysis of one specific event, a defining moment of Weibo as an event-oriented social media platform that also serves the making of collective memory: a high-speed train accident near Wenzhou in southeast China on July 23, 2011. The analytical framework—three axes of social tension in the dynamics of social media, namely control and resistance, past and present, and global and local—is introduced through a detailed analysis of this event. The “7.23” high-speed train accident has set a pattern of collective remembering, in which journalism plays a significant part in narrating the ongoing event, drawing on symbolic resources from the past and facilitating mnemonic practices within the contentious meanings of the event.