Network Power and Social Media: Reshaping Power Dynamics in Collaborative Planning in China

This thesis examines how social media reshapes collaborative planning by reconfiguring power dynamics in digital environments. Rather than serving as a purely democratizing tool, social media functions as a double-edged sword. It enables diverse actors to mobilize resources, coordinate actions, and contest planning decisions, yet power asymmetries persist and new forms of state control and platform-mediated governance emerge. Online information flows are often dominated by specific actors, while ordinary citizens strategically use digital tools to exert influence. This raises a central question: does social media redistribute power in urban planning and governance, or does it produce new hierarchies? Drawing on case studies from Beijing and Guangzhou, the research investigates how digital platforms transform power relations in planning and beyond. While social media opens new opportunities for civic engagement, it also intensifies risks of manipulation, centralization, polarization, and behind-the-scenes distortion. The thesis therefore asks: how does social media shape civic participation and governmental decision-making? Under what conditions can informal digital negotiations translate into formal policy change? What role does citizens’ agency play in enabling such translation? To address these questions, the study develops an analytical framework rooted in network science to assess power relations within social media networks. It treats power as mediated through two intertwined dimensions: network and discourse. Methodologically, it introduces an integrated toolkit that combines node-based social network analysis, edge-based social network analysis, network resilience simulations, and networked discourse analysis. Together, these methods capture the fluid, multi-layered character of digital interactions while bridging quantitative and qualitative approaches to reveal how power is produced, circulated, and contested online. The thesis advances collaborative planning research by critically revisiting the concept of power and operationalizing it in the context of social media. It bridges collaborative planning theory, network theory, and computational methods to propose a relational and empirically grounded framework for analyzing power in digitally mediated planning processes. It contributes (1) by extending collaborative planning theory to account for social media’s influence on informal participation and power shifts; (2) by linking network power perspectives to communicative activities in planning practice; and (3) by translating network metaphors of power into measurable analytical constructs through network science. Practically, the thesis argues that social media is no longer peripheral to public participation; it is embedded in the formation, dissemination, and contestation of planning discourse. Yet digital participation is marked by new forms of asymmetry, procedural ambiguity, algorithmic mediation, and institutional inertia, particularly during implementation. The findings call for planners, institutions, and participatory technology designers to rethink how public input and discursive power are recognized and translated into decisions. The thesis recommends strengthening institutional linkages between participation and decision-making, expanding professional competencies for digital engagement, and redesigning participatory processes and infrastructures with explicit attention to power. These steps can support more inclusive, adaptive, and democratic planning in the digital era.