Leiden University Student Repository

Groenewoud, Melanie (2018)

Chinese Dream: Individual Dream or Dream of the Nation?

Master thesis | Asian Studies (60 EC) (MA)

It has been five years since Xi Jinping introduced the concept of ‘Chinese Dream’ and it is still a hot topic, also online. While some scholars regarded this new concept of the Chinese Dream as a positive development for China, others considered it as a rather strategic narrative of the CCP to influence the image of China domestically and international (Boc, 2015; Callahan, 2015; Mahoney, 2013; Lu, 2015; Wang, 2016). However, most academic researches concluded that the concept ‘Chinese Dream’ is rather vague and does not imply for who it is meant (Li, 2015). As bloggers are also a part of the ‘citizen intellectuals’ that can reshape the future of China, I analyzed the blogposts of common users on the microblogging platform Sina Weibo and how they perceive this concept (Callahan, 2013; Gleiss, 2015). This thesis concludes that even though the government gives space to talk about the Chinese Dream, the narrative online is still lead by the Chinese government rhetoric.

Chinese Dream

citizen intellectual

censorship

Sina Weibo

propaganda

Author

Groenewoud, Melanie

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

MA Asian Studies: Politics, Society and Economy

Supervisors

Kharchenkova, S.S.

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en