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This article explores the usefulness of the notion of “frames” (Goffman) to analyze online mobilizations in authoritarian countries. As most of the existing research is based on the idea that citizens are opposed to the State, it can not explain the relative weakness of political dissent online, apart from censorship. The notion of “frames” enables one to solve this apparent paradox in a nuanced way. Indeed it highlights the participation of the individuals in the definition and maintaining of social order, as well as such subtle phenomena as misunderstandings, double meanings and interpretation conflicts, or the dramatic dimensions of mobilizations. This idea is tested through a series of in-depth interviews in China.
