Project Overview
The Social Credit System and the Generation Gap in China
Department(s)
Sociology and Anthropology
Asian Studies
Abstract
Over the last several years, the Chinese state has been rolling out a social credit system (SCS). The SCS is a mass surviellance system, implemented on the national level, which hypothetically gives each citizen a score based on their behavior. On the most basic level, the purpose of the SCS is to promote the Chinese Communist Party's version of good citizenship: obedient, hard-working, competitive. At the same time, on Chinese social media, young people have been offering critiques of these expectations. Using humor, they instead promote "lying flat" and dropping out.
The goal of this project is to examine citizen views of the SCS, as well as SCS effects on citizen behavior, over time and by age, using longitudinal survey data from the Civil Participation in China Survey (CPCS). The student worker would be asked to help with literature review and content analyses of social media/news sources in Chinese. THey will not be expected to do to survey data analysis.
Student Qualifications
Chinese reading language proficiency - fluent enough to read Chinese scholarly sources and social media.
Ideal candidates will have taken a social science research methods course and have experience with content analysis.
Number of Student Researchers
1 student
Project Length
8 weeks