Storytelling and Networking on Tibet: Relationships between narratives, framing and networks within and between two oppositional issue networks

Abstract

This study is centered on issues of storytelling, persuasion, and politics on websites: how stories are made accessible on the web and how these stories are asserted as truths. This study analyzes these issues through researching shared and contested online narratives in two competing issue networks concerning Tibet, Tibetan refugees and the Tibet Movement: an issue network in support of the Tibet Movement and an issue network based in the People's Republic of China (PRC) that generates English language propaganda in support of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) policies regarding the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Tibetan refugee relations. This dissertation project combines hyperlink network analysis (HNA) and website narrative analysis to analyze these two issue networks and the relationship between each issue network's narratives, framing strategies, network characteristics and linking practices. The results of this study will shed light on how narratives and frames are shared, contested and countered across and between issue networks and how narrative practices of persuasion are used to establish hyperlink network ties that construct web networks with specific political functions.