Production of solidarities in YouTube: a visual study of Uyghur nationalism

The uprising in Tibet, which gained the attention of the global media during the preparation for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and the ethnic riots in Xinjiang in 2009 showed Western audiences the extent of the ethnic conflict between China’s Han ethnic majority and its ethnic minority groups, the Uyghurs being one of them. In the late twentieth century, Uyghur diaspora communities formed their own cultural and political associations in Central Asia, Russia, Turkey, Europe, and North America, while Uyghur political activists have been increasingly using the Internet for spreading political messages promoting Uyghur national ideas. Among their efforts, different Uyghur organizations and individuals have created YouTube channels in order to generate interest in the Uyghur question, to internationalize Xinjiang issues, and to seek support from a variety of audiences. The aim of this research is to examine the structure of political communication about the Han–Uyghur conflict on YouTube, taking into consideration the contents of the videos and available information about authors and audiences. This study combines quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis and offers insights into how the Internet is used by dispersed political actors within a framework of a single nationalist movement. It also provides a unique window into ethnic relations in Xinjiang and elucidates on how ethnic minority and transnational activist networks search for discourses that could serve as the basis for ethnic mobilization.