Social media have been viewed as an important channel through which dissenting and marginalized voices can be disseminated and discussed in authoritarian political settings, such as Cambodia. Drawing on a case study of viral discussions on Facebook concerning a hit-and-run traffic accident that took place in March 2019 in Cambodia, this paper explores (1) the key themes that arose from the online conversations and whether they constituted counterpublic discourse, (2) the discursive strategies used by online discussants, and (3) the political implications of such online phenomena. Based on a thematic and discourse analysis of 5000 Facebook comments generated from 100 widely shared public posts about the incident, the study uncovered a number of recurrent themes emerging from the online interactions, most of which were critical of the authoritarian establishment. The study also identified three key discursive strategies employed by Facebook users to discuss and question the status quo: satire, direct criticism and rumour. In addition, guided by Fraser (1990) and Warner (2002)’s concepts of “counterpublics” and boyd (2010)’s recent notion of “networked publics”, the study argues that, through such online discursive interactions, a new social identity in the form of online counterpublics has been formed.

社交媒体已被视为重要的渠道，通过它可以在诸如柬埔寨的专制政治环境中传播和讨论异议和边缘化的声音。本文以Facebook在2019年3月在柬埔寨发生的一场交通事故为主题的病毒式讨论的案例研究为基础，研究（1）在线对话产生的关键主题以及它们是否构成了反公共话语， （2）在线讨论者使用的话语策略，以及（3）这种在线现象的政治含义。根据对有关该事件的100条广泛共享的公共帖子所产生的5000条Facebook评论的主题和话语分析，该研究发现了在线互动中出现的许多重复主题，其中大多数是对专制建立的批评。该研究还确定了Facebook用户用来讨论和质疑现状的三种主要的话语策略：讽刺，直接批评和谣言。此外，在弗雷泽（1990）和华纳（2002）的“反公共”概念和博伊德（2010）的“网络公共”概念的指导下，该研究认为，通过这种在线话语互动，新的社会在线反抗形式的身份已经形成。