Constructing a Rational Platform? A Platform Analysis on the Q&A Site Zhihu

Abstract

Zhihu is a question-and-answer site with the slogan of “rational, rigorous, and professional”, which has arisen some scholars’ interest that whether Zhihu could become an example of the public sphere in China. In this thesis, I have given an overview of the academic debate of applying the notion of the public sphere into the Chinese context. In order to see how Zhihu seeks to construct a rational platform as it claims, I conducted a platform analysis with a walkthrough method, to see how Zhihu seeks to construct a rational platform as it claims. I started by looking at Zhihu’s vision and business model, finding that Zhihu is more likely to be a commercial platform for knowledge sharing rather than a public sphere. Next, I analyzed the community guidelines of Zhihu based on Gillespie’s theory on content moderation. The result shows that, on the one hand, Zhihu has an intention of building a rational community for public discussion; on the other hand, Zhihu values the friendly way of discussion and the quality content more than free expression, which can also harm the rational debate. Finally, I used a technical walkthrough to analyze how Zhihu involves its users in building the community. The sorting system shows that Zhihu believes these professional users play an important role in public discussion and expects the public debate can reach a consensus with the help of these professionals. The Court of Arbitration offers a new way for content moderation by inviting users to participate in the process of dealing with flags, which delegates the power of governance to users.