Social networks play a unique role in the mobilizing and participation of China's collective actions.This paper reviews and analyzes the 40-year research status both at home and abroad，focusing on the relationship between social networks and collective actions，the advantages of social networks on the participation of collective actions，and the dynamic mechanism concerned.Then，it shows the progressive research findings in the field and makes suggestions on the research scope，innovative research method and the way of speeding up the process of localization in the future.