Hashtag IAmGay campaign on Sina Weibo: a case study of the online activism and discourse of LGBT community in China

This study aims to analyze the characteristics of the online activism and discourse of the Chinese LGBT community in hashtag IAmGay campaign through content and discourse analysis. The case of this essay, hashtag IAmGay campaign, is a representation of the digital contention of Chinese society. Online activism has changed the passive position of Chinese netizens and built multiple connections with Chinese government. Chinese LGBT online activism is cultural and social, through which Chinese LGBT community challenged the government in an indirect way. By using appealing and challenging online discourse, Chinese LGBT community is trying to forge a nascent social movement and put forward demands for policy and official attitude change. Based on the content and discourse analysis, this study concludes with the discussion that there is possibility for China to constitute an emergent subaltern public sphere for LGBT community in cyberspace under the premise of not challenging the stability of the regime.