Reconceptualizing the Mechanism of Internet Human Flesh Search: A Review of the Literature

The development of Internet technologies and popularity of social network enable the netizens to search, process, broadcast, and share information in a more efficient and collaborative way. Opinions of netizens in the cyberspace have emerged and become one of the major public opinions in the real world. One of the phenomenon rising recently over the Internet that most represent the influence between the virtual and real world is human flesh search (HFS). Usually, the HFS object is incompatible with social justice or violation of the mainstream moral characters, or events. This "violation of moral" triggers the HFS process either in the cyberspace or in the real world. HFS has arose numerous controversies, especially the dilemmas between privacy violation and public opinion. Literatures and studies of HSF are mainly from China. International journals or periodical literatures target on this issue are very few. In addition, current studies are mainly qualitative studies lacking of quantitative and theoretical model building and empirical research. Therefore, it is necessary to acquire better understanding of HSF structure and evolving process. The purpose of this paper is to provide a broad discussion and summarized attributes of HFS. Based on reviews of more than twenty journal papers and articles regarding HFS, this study hopes to formulate a reference framework for future HFS studies.