Online diaries are the digital reincarnation of the conventional diary form. While retaining the features of serialization and repetition of the conventional form, they afford new features of interactivity and connectivity, thus turning the online diary form into an affect machine with great social and political potential. This talk examines the power and limits of the online diary form with examples from—and contextualized in—different historical periods of the Chinese internet.

Bio: Guobin Yang is the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School for Communication and Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Center on Digital Culture and Society and serves as Deputy Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China.

Yang is the author of The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (2009), The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China (2016), and The Wuhan Lockdown (2022). His current work focuses on digital activism, civic storytelling, and the digital politics of emotions.