Pub Date : 2022-11-23DOI: 10.1177/20594364221140820
C. Chan, M. Zhao, P. S. Lee
This study aims to understand the determinants of escape from echo chambers. Social media users can control the content to which they are exposed by confining their contacts to like-minded individuals. The resulting echo chamber effect can reinforce existing views and discourage rational discussion. We conducted a survey with a representative sample of 1969 respondents in 2020. Contrary to common expectation, a liberal political orientation was insignificant in predicting reference to differing views, but political partisanship, media trust, time spent on social media, education levels, and gender were significant. Those who spent more time on social media and had lower trust in media were found to refer to other views more frequently and were less susceptible to the echo chamber effect. The results of this study suggest that open-mindedness, independence, critical scepticism, and social activeness are significant resources for one to escape from the echo chamber.
{"title":"Determinants of escape from echo chambers: The predictive power of political orientation, social media use, and demographics","authors":"C. Chan, M. Zhao, P. S. Lee","doi":"10.1177/20594364221140820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221140820","url":null,"abstract":"This study aims to understand the determinants of escape from echo chambers. Social media users can control the content to which they are exposed by confining their contacts to like-minded individuals. The resulting echo chamber effect can reinforce existing views and discourage rational discussion. We conducted a survey with a representative sample of 1969 respondents in 2020. Contrary to common expectation, a liberal political orientation was insignificant in predicting reference to differing views, but political partisanship, media trust, time spent on social media, education levels, and gender were significant. Those who spent more time on social media and had lower trust in media were found to refer to other views more frequently and were less susceptible to the echo chamber effect. The results of this study suggest that open-mindedness, independence, critical scepticism, and social activeness are significant resources for one to escape from the echo chamber.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"44 1","pages":"155 - 173"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86737388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-14DOI: 10.1177/20594364221140812
T. W. Whyke, Z. Chen, Joaquin Lopez-Mugica, Aiqing Wang
This paper situates the ‘Blind Box’ consumption, collection and prosumption practices in China within globalisation and the ‘media-mix’ fandom, which is to consume and resell media merchandise in opaque packages as probability goods. We re-centre the focus of fandom studies on the then much neglected ‘missing child’ and now the ‘emerging adult’ in a globalising world. We argue the Chinese emerging adult consumes, collects and resells Blind Boxes as a generative and agentic collection and fandom practice, defined as ‘probabilistic and elastic prosumption’ in a quasi-social and quasi-individual manner. We then critically examine and unpack the cultural production and meaning making process undertook by collectors who also accumulate sociality and form identity through affective and economic investments, mediated collection and exchange of figurines in a post-socialist and consumerist society.
{"title":"Unboxing the Chinese Blind Boxes among China’s grown-up missing children: Probabilistic and elastic prosumption through mediated collection, exchange and resale of figurines","authors":"T. W. Whyke, Z. Chen, Joaquin Lopez-Mugica, Aiqing Wang","doi":"10.1177/20594364221140812","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221140812","url":null,"abstract":"This paper situates the ‘Blind Box’ consumption, collection and prosumption practices in China within globalisation and the ‘media-mix’ fandom, which is to consume and resell media merchandise in opaque packages as probability goods. We re-centre the focus of fandom studies on the then much neglected ‘missing child’ and now the ‘emerging adult’ in a globalising world. We argue the Chinese emerging adult consumes, collects and resells Blind Boxes as a generative and agentic collection and fandom practice, defined as ‘probabilistic and elastic prosumption’ in a quasi-social and quasi-individual manner. We then critically examine and unpack the cultural production and meaning making process undertook by collectors who also accumulate sociality and form identity through affective and economic investments, mediated collection and exchange of figurines in a post-socialist and consumerist society.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"35 1","pages":"93 - 111"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91223354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-12DOI: 10.1177/20594364221139729
Juan Ortiz Freuler
In the early 1990s, US leaders promoted the internet as post-nation “global information infrastructure.” However, throughout the 2000s, critical internet infrastructure became centralized under the tight control of a handful of US-based multinational companies. This paper examines the US government’s willingness to leverage its regulatory control over privately run critical infrastructure to exercise massive internet surveillance (pulling information from sovereign states), massive influence campaigns (pushing information into sovereign states), and, increasingly, to levy unilateral cyber-sanctions on other sovereign states (cutting information flows through blockages and digital lock-outs). The US government is now asserting its territorial sovereignty over what it had presented as global infrastructure in order to advance its narrow national goals. I argue that the weaponization of corporate internet infrastructure by the US government marks a new era of internet governance and is one of the key drivers of what is often discussed as internet fragmentation in internet governance forums.
{"title":"The weaponization of private corporate infrastructure: Internet fragmentation and coercive diplomacy in the 21st century","authors":"Juan Ortiz Freuler","doi":"10.1177/20594364221139729","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221139729","url":null,"abstract":"In the early 1990s, US leaders promoted the internet as post-nation “global information infrastructure.” However, throughout the 2000s, critical internet infrastructure became centralized under the tight control of a handful of US-based multinational companies. This paper examines the US government’s willingness to leverage its regulatory control over privately run critical infrastructure to exercise massive internet surveillance (pulling information from sovereign states), massive influence campaigns (pushing information into sovereign states), and, increasingly, to levy unilateral cyber-sanctions on other sovereign states (cutting information flows through blockages and digital lock-outs). The US government is now asserting its territorial sovereignty over what it had presented as global infrastructure in order to advance its narrow national goals. I argue that the weaponization of corporate internet infrastructure by the US government marks a new era of internet governance and is one of the key drivers of what is often discussed as internet fragmentation in internet governance forums.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"133 5 1","pages":"6 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86477243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-10DOI: 10.1177/20594364221133536
Xiaoxian Wang
Vlogging culture has experienced rapid growth in China since 2018. Central to this expansion, social media platforms have played a dominant role in popularising vlogging culture. By conducting a digital ethnography of the Chinese user-generated content platform Bilibili from September 2019 to May 2022, this article explores the institutional power of platforms in promoting and shaping vlogging production and practices in China. Beyond the function of intermediating, Bilibili shapes vlogging as an intensive production and interactive practice with high performativity to compete for visibility. This article theorises four ways that Bilibili popularises vlogging culture in China: pillarising discourses, metric-based monetisation, advertising mediation and vlog-focused campaigns. In taking this approach, this study sheds light on the institutional power of platforms in promoting and shaping cultural production. In addition, it uncovers the precarity embedded in the promotion strategies, notably the interplay with the platform economy in the context of China.
{"title":"Popularising Vlogging in China: Bilibili’s Institutional Promotion of Vlogging Culture","authors":"Xiaoxian Wang","doi":"10.1177/20594364221133536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221133536","url":null,"abstract":"Vlogging culture has experienced rapid growth in China since 2018. Central to this expansion, social media platforms have played a dominant role in popularising vlogging culture. By conducting a digital ethnography of the Chinese user-generated content platform Bilibili from September 2019 to May 2022, this article explores the institutional power of platforms in promoting and shaping vlogging production and practices in China. Beyond the function of intermediating, Bilibili shapes vlogging as an intensive production and interactive practice with high performativity to compete for visibility. This article theorises four ways that Bilibili popularises vlogging culture in China: pillarising discourses, metric-based monetisation, advertising mediation and vlog-focused campaigns. In taking this approach, this study sheds light on the institutional power of platforms in promoting and shaping cultural production. In addition, it uncovers the precarity embedded in the promotion strategies, notably the interplay with the platform economy in the context of China.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"18 1","pages":"441 - 462"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78460097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1177/20594364221133132
Weiwei Lu, Han Li
China’s industrial development and accompanying urbanization since the 1970s established an urban-rural power dichotomy. However, in recent years, this “urban-rural” as “center-periphery” binary has been constantly re-examined and re-imagined. The emergence of rural short videos since 2016 has arguably led the “voices” of periphery to be heard. However, along with these seemingly heteroglossic and de-centralizing narratives of rural China, it is also observed that the state seeks to reclaim the ownership of rural storytelling. This paper looks into My People, My Homeland (2020) and Coffee or Tea? (2020) and examines how these two (quasi-) “main melody” films depict rural revitalization in the social media age. By unpacking the two films’ narrative strategies in portraying Chinese countryside as well as the intertextual relations they form with other macro cinematic texts and micro grassroot storytelling of the “periphery,” this article demonstrates how the state re-establishes the discursive power in representing and interpreting the countryside.
{"title":"Reclaiming the Periphery in the Age of Social Media: Power and Narrative of Rural China in My People, My Homeland (2020) and Coffee or Tea? (2020)","authors":"Weiwei Lu, Han Li","doi":"10.1177/20594364221133132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221133132","url":null,"abstract":"China’s industrial development and accompanying urbanization since the 1970s established an urban-rural power dichotomy. However, in recent years, this “urban-rural” as “center-periphery” binary has been constantly re-examined and re-imagined. The emergence of rural short videos since 2016 has arguably led the “voices” of periphery to be heard. However, along with these seemingly heteroglossic and de-centralizing narratives of rural China, it is also observed that the state seeks to reclaim the ownership of rural storytelling. This paper looks into My People, My Homeland (2020) and Coffee or Tea? (2020) and examines how these two (quasi-) “main melody” films depict rural revitalization in the social media age. By unpacking the two films’ narrative strategies in portraying Chinese countryside as well as the intertextual relations they form with other macro cinematic texts and micro grassroot storytelling of the “periphery,” this article demonstrates how the state re-establishes the discursive power in representing and interpreting the countryside.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"35 1","pages":"422 - 440"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84487949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-03DOI: 10.1177/20594364221131134
Yamin Liang, Sungjoon Yoon
With the consumption of user generated online contents content increasing rapidly, the short clip market in China is fast growing. TikTok, a leading short clip platform, has achieved great business success. However, there is not much research done on TikTok platform from the current customers’ social and psychological viewpoints. Against this background, this study aims to verify the cognitive, emotional and behavioral pre-cursors of platform reuse decision by focusing on the platform’s informational contents, users’ network traits, user attachment, user engagement, psychological distance, and social identity. This way, this study extends the current understanding on the antecedent factors affecting users’ behavioral intention of TikTok through broader perspectives including social and psychological predictors. During October 2021, an online questionnaire survey was administered in China. On the subject of TikTok platform. Firstly, the study found that both information characteristics and social network traits significantly affect the user engagement as well as attachment. Secondly, both the user attachment and engagement have a significant impact on reuse intention. Thirdly, the psychological distance plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between bridging network and attachment. Finally, the social identity significantly moderates the relationship between bridging network and user engagement. The study result is expected to add to the current literature which has not examined the antecedent factors affecting users’ reuse intention of TikTok from broader aspects including social and psychological variables.
{"title":"Uncovering the Cognitive, Psychological, and Social Mechanisms Affecting TikTok’s Reuse Intention: Verifying the Role of Platform Characteristics, Psychological Distance, and Social Identity","authors":"Yamin Liang, Sungjoon Yoon","doi":"10.1177/20594364221131134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221131134","url":null,"abstract":"With the consumption of user generated online contents content increasing rapidly, the short clip market in China is fast growing. TikTok, a leading short clip platform, has achieved great business success. However, there is not much research done on TikTok platform from the current customers’ social and psychological viewpoints. Against this background, this study aims to verify the cognitive, emotional and behavioral pre-cursors of platform reuse decision by focusing on the platform’s informational contents, users’ network traits, user attachment, user engagement, psychological distance, and social identity. This way, this study extends the current understanding on the antecedent factors affecting users’ behavioral intention of TikTok through broader perspectives including social and psychological predictors. During October 2021, an online questionnaire survey was administered in China. On the subject of TikTok platform. Firstly, the study found that both information characteristics and social network traits significantly affect the user engagement as well as attachment. Secondly, both the user attachment and engagement have a significant impact on reuse intention. Thirdly, the psychological distance plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between bridging network and attachment. Finally, the social identity significantly moderates the relationship between bridging network and user engagement. The study result is expected to add to the current literature which has not examined the antecedent factors affecting users’ reuse intention of TikTok from broader aspects including social and psychological variables.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"30 1","pages":"400 - 421"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79130982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-03DOI: 10.1177/20594364221132150
A. Nauta, Jeroen de Kloet, Qiong Xu, Y. Chow
In 2013, Hunan Television, one of China’s most successful provincial satellite television stations, debuted a reality TV series featuring celebrity fathers and their children. A localized version of a Korean-developed format, Where Are We Going, Dad (baba quna’er) brought dads and kids together to different locations in the countryside, usually very remote and exotic, to complete certain assignments. This inquiry takes Where Are We Going, Dad as its focus; it seeks to understand how and how far notions of fatherhood are being constructed and circulated in contemporary China. It does so by way of audiences. While the show was evidently configuring and promoting their versions of fatherhood, we wanted to find out what viewers thought of the show, and of fatherhood. Located in the juncture of fatherhood and reality show studies, this exploratory inquiry identifies three themes from the conversations of four families in urban China. First, they articulate the difficulty of being a good father in a rapidly changing China and the concomitant longing to a return of traditional Chinese fatherhood. A second recurring theme concerns the ways in which they accept this tension between tradition and modernity. Finally, they demonstrate savviness in their viewing of the show. We build on the three themes to argue that such reality shows do impact on Chinese families’ understanding of fatherhood, but their savvy viewership points to the limit of such media impact.
{"title":"Becoming a Good Chinese Father – Reality TV in China and its Reception","authors":"A. Nauta, Jeroen de Kloet, Qiong Xu, Y. Chow","doi":"10.1177/20594364221132150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221132150","url":null,"abstract":"In 2013, Hunan Television, one of China’s most successful provincial satellite television stations, debuted a reality TV series featuring celebrity fathers and their children. A localized version of a Korean-developed format, Where Are We Going, Dad (baba quna’er) brought dads and kids together to different locations in the countryside, usually very remote and exotic, to complete certain assignments. This inquiry takes Where Are We Going, Dad as its focus; it seeks to understand how and how far notions of fatherhood are being constructed and circulated in contemporary China. It does so by way of audiences. While the show was evidently configuring and promoting their versions of fatherhood, we wanted to find out what viewers thought of the show, and of fatherhood. Located in the juncture of fatherhood and reality show studies, this exploratory inquiry identifies three themes from the conversations of four families in urban China. First, they articulate the difficulty of being a good father in a rapidly changing China and the concomitant longing to a return of traditional Chinese fatherhood. A second recurring theme concerns the ways in which they accept this tension between tradition and modernity. Finally, they demonstrate savviness in their viewing of the show. We build on the three themes to argue that such reality shows do impact on Chinese families’ understanding of fatherhood, but their savvy viewership points to the limit of such media impact.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"59 1","pages":"385 - 399"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72720666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-26DOI: 10.1177/20594364221123841
Haiqing Yu, Jian Xu, P. Sun
The special issue, “Chinese Platforms and Entrepreneurial Labour,” examines entrepreneurial labor and its relationship with the platformization of Chinese society and economy. The introduction to the special issue sums up three key issues pertinent to the broad field of platform entrepreneurial labor: class, power, and gender. It also contextualizes the platforms—Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and TikTok—that are discussed in five articles by authors from China, India, Japan, Australia, and UK.
{"title":"Introduction: Platformization of entrepreneurial labor via Chinese digital networks","authors":"Haiqing Yu, Jian Xu, P. Sun","doi":"10.1177/20594364221123841","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221123841","url":null,"abstract":"The special issue, “Chinese Platforms and Entrepreneurial Labour,” examines entrepreneurial labor and its relationship with the platformization of Chinese society and economy. The introduction to the special issue sums up three key issues pertinent to the broad field of platform entrepreneurial labor: class, power, and gender. It also contextualizes the platforms—Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and TikTok—that are discussed in five articles by authors from China, India, Japan, Australia, and UK.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"4 1","pages":"253 - 262"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79978958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-11DOI: 10.1177/20594364221115270
P. Xu, Yinjiao Ye, Mingxin Zhang
Although there is a consensus that mass media play an important role in the rise and fall of political trust in Western democracies, existing research on media use and political trust in China achieved relatively inconclusive findings. By using two surveys conducted in China in 2013 and 2018, we examine the effects of media use, including traditional media, social media, and foreign media, on Chinese citizens’ trust in their central and local governments. Our research shows that traditional media usage such as watching TV and reading newspapers is positively associated with citizens’ trust in the central government but is not related to their trust in local governments. Social media usage is negatively associated with trust in local governments but not with trust in the central government. Using VPNs to access foreign media is negatively associated with Chinese citizens’ trust in the central government but does not affect their trust in local governments. We explain why different types of media have such contrasting effects on political trust in central versus local Chinese governments and discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of these findings.
{"title":"Exploring the effects of traditional media, social media, and foreign media on hierarchical levels of political trust in China","authors":"P. Xu, Yinjiao Ye, Mingxin Zhang","doi":"10.1177/20594364221115270","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221115270","url":null,"abstract":"Although there is a consensus that mass media play an important role in the rise and fall of political trust in Western democracies, existing research on media use and political trust in China achieved relatively inconclusive findings. By using two surveys conducted in China in 2013 and 2018, we examine the effects of media use, including traditional media, social media, and foreign media, on Chinese citizens’ trust in their central and local governments. Our research shows that traditional media usage such as watching TV and reading newspapers is positively associated with citizens’ trust in the central government but is not related to their trust in local governments. Social media usage is negatively associated with trust in local governments but not with trust in the central government. Using VPNs to access foreign media is negatively associated with Chinese citizens’ trust in the central government but does not affect their trust in local governments. We explain why different types of media have such contrasting effects on political trust in central versus local Chinese governments and discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of these findings.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"128 1","pages":"357 - 377"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77510761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-06DOI: 10.1177/20594364221116018
Suruchi Mazumdar
This article addresses how the Chinese short video-sharing platform TikTok, a key actor of global platform economy and its disconnect or subsequent ban influenced and changed ideas of creativity in India. Through qualitative interviews and content analysis of TikTok videos (available on YouTube), YouTube interviews of content creators and newspaper articles of the app ban, this paper suggests that TikTok, as a ‘memetic text’ and a site of ‘vernacular creativity’, encourages both ‘everyday acts of resistance’ and professionalism/entrepreneurial citizenship. While the app ban signposts digital ‘imitation’ publics’ transition from ‘low’ to ‘high’ technology environments, the values of professionalism and entrepreneurship remain constant. The paper shows the tension between professionalism/entrepreneurship and the ‘everyday acts of resistance’ to state-led technocratic vision. It argues against the disconnect between democratisation and ‘demoticisation’ of technology.
{"title":"Loving the enemy app: Resistance versus professionalism in ‘post-TikTok’ India","authors":"Suruchi Mazumdar","doi":"10.1177/20594364221116018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364221116018","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses how the Chinese short video-sharing platform TikTok, a key actor of global platform economy and its disconnect or subsequent ban influenced and changed ideas of creativity in India. Through qualitative interviews and content analysis of TikTok videos (available on YouTube), YouTube interviews of content creators and newspaper articles of the app ban, this paper suggests that TikTok, as a ‘memetic text’ and a site of ‘vernacular creativity’, encourages both ‘everyday acts of resistance’ and professionalism/entrepreneurial citizenship. While the app ban signposts digital ‘imitation’ publics’ transition from ‘low’ to ‘high’ technology environments, the values of professionalism and entrepreneurship remain constant. The paper shows the tension between professionalism/entrepreneurship and the ‘everyday acts of resistance’ to state-led technocratic vision. It argues against the disconnect between democratisation and ‘demoticisation’ of technology.","PeriodicalId":42637,"journal":{"name":"Global Media and China","volume":"2 1","pages":"340 - 356"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87419121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}