Shaohua Guo

The Evolution of the Chinese Internet

Creative Visibility in the Digital Public

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Despite the widespread consensus that China's digital revolution was sure to bring about massive democratic reforms, such changes have not come to pass. While scholars and policy makers alternate between predicting change and disparaging a stubbornly authoritarian regime, in this book Shaohua Guo argues that this dichotomy misses the far more complex reality. The Evolution of the Chinese Internet traces the emergence and maturation of one of the most creative digital cultures in the world, through four major technological platforms that have marked trends in internet use over the past two decades: the bulletin board system, the blog, the microblog, and WeChat. Guo transcends typical narratives, structured around the binaries of freedom and control, to argue that Chinese internet culture displays a uniquely sophisticated interplay between multiple extremes, and that its vibrancy is dependent on these complex negotiations. In contrast to the flourishing of research findings on what is made invisible online, this book examines the driving mechanisms that grant visibility to particular kinds of user-generated content, offering a systematic account of how and why an ingenious internet culture has been able to flourish. Guo highlights the pivotal roles that media institutions, technological platforms, and creative practices of Chinese netizens have played in shaping culture on- and offline.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 328
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. Dezember 2020
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 228mm x 152mm x 22mm
• Gewicht: 500g
• ISBN-13: 9781503614437
• ISBN-10: 1503614433
• Artikelnr.: 59415400

Autorenporträt

Shaohua Guo is Associate Professor of Chinese at Carleton College.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1A Cultural Revolution in China's Digital Age
chapter abstract
Beginning with a discussion of major paradoxes on entertainment, control,
and innovation surrounding the Chinese Internet, chapter 1 introduces the
puzzle that the rest of the book addresses: how and why has a seemingly
repressive authoritarian regime been able to catalyze an ingenious Internet
culture in China. It proposes "the network of visibility" as an analytical
lens to delve into the mechanisms behind the vibrancy of online culture in
China. The network of visibility is analyzed through the process of
competition for (1) user attention, and (2) content authority among
Internet corporations, media outlets, and individual players in the
cultural realm. Consequently, the vitality of the Chinese digital culture
is rooted in this dynamic process of negotiation, collaboration, and
contestation enacted by the interplay of diverse agents, including the
state, cultural institutions, commercial corporations, and Internet users.
2A Historical Overview through Technological Platforms
chapter abstract
Chapter 2 delineates the developmental history of the Internet in China
through the four predominant platforms: bulletin board system (BBS), the
blog, the microblog, and WeChat. Proceeding chronologically, this chapter
addresses how the defining features of these platforms and competition
among major players in the field have contributed to shaping public culture
and publicity strategies emerging in the technology-mediated sphere.
Special attention is paid to the role that the Chinese government and
commercial portals play in building research and education networks,
creating business models, and continuously expanding into new markets.
3Tracking Playfulness
chapter abstract
Chapter 3 investigates the playfulness of the Chinese Internet and its
symbiotic relationship with a culture of contention. Much has been written
about the ingenuity of Chinese netizens in appropriating humor, parody, and
satire to mock authorities, seek entertainment, and organize networked
resistance. However, little scholarly work has addressed how playfulness
came to dominate the Chinese Internet in the first place. Taking Internet
celebrities as case studies, this chapter attributes the predominant
fun-seeking mode to the rudimentary formation of elitist netizen
communities in the late 1990s. It addresses the ways in which BBS, as an
affective content platform, cultivated the symbiotic relationship between
frivolity and serious political engagement among early Internet adopters.
This collective spirit of fun-seeking also paved the way for the Internet
industry's continuous experiments with comedic mechanisms in the years to
come.
4National Blogging and Cultural Entrepreneurship
chapter abstract
Chapter 4 focuses on the intersection of the entertainment industry,
entrepreneurial culture, and the golden age of blogging in China. It probes
the rise of cultural entrepreneurs, who quickly aligned themselves with
enterprises seeking to develop culture-related business and transformed the
ways that cultural works are produced and publicized. The chapter examines
four phenomenally successful, yet understudied cases: television host and
producer Yang Lan; star-cum-director Xu Jinglei; publisher Hong Huang; and
writer, publisher, and director Guo Jingming. These celebrities, as
"attention-haves," due in large part to their fame already established
through other channels, innovatively capitalized on digital media to
explore new modes of cultural production and to build personal brands.
Their trailblazing activities illuminate the ways in which China's nascent
entertainment industry, with the backing of Internet corporations, has
reinvigorated writing practices, cultivated middle-class aspirations, and
aligned with entrepreneurial initiatives in the age of neoliberalism.
5Taboo Breakers and Microcultural Contention
chapter abstract
Taking the blogs of Mu Zimei and Han Han as case studies, this chapter
investigates how an entertainment-oriented blogosphere has catalyzed the
rise of opinion leaders who tactically disrupt preset parameters of social,
moral, and political norms. It argues that style-defined as a
conglomeration of diverse elements, including language, subject matter,
online sociality, and the structure and layout of webpages-is essential to
these taboo breakers' strategies of contention. In turn, the divergent
responses these bloggers evoke fulfill the dual function of enlightenment
and entertainment, and catalyze the forging of politically minded citizens
at a micro level.
6Digital Witnessing on Weibo
chapter abstract
This chapter spells out the multifarious function of the microblogging
platform in China. Delving into representative Weibo-based incidents from
2009 to 2018, it examines the role that digital witnessing plays in
promoting citizen activism and shaping public culture on Chinese
microblogosphere. These cases exemplify the evolving transition of digital
witnessing on Weibo, from an emphasis on responsibilities of spectators to
multifarious forms of collective spectating mobilized by a diverse range of
social actors. Taken together, digital witnessing on Weibo demonstrates how
the technological features, business operations, the state, and Internet
users have jointly shaped the sociocultural meanings of this platform.
7WeChat: An Inflorescence of Content Production
chapter abstract
This chapter analyzes how WeChat public accounts have revolutionized the
ways in which original content is distributed and commodified. It examines
the rise and fall of Mi Meng, owner of one of the most popular public
accounts up until February 2019, when she closed her account due to public
pressure. Mi Meng's writings not only struck a chord with economically
disadvantaged groups but also resonated with the anxiety of a middle-class
audience who felt their status becoming increasingly precarious. More
important, the management of Mi Meng's account exemplified a changing mode
of writing from an author-centered model to a model of team production that
involved fan labor, personal branding, and a focus on networking capacity.
At the same time, the sudden downfall of Mi Meng illustrates the same kind
of unpredictability and precariousness that contributed to her sensational
rise in the first place.
8Ambivalent Revolution
chapter abstract
Chapter 8 discusses the implications of this book's findings and pinpoints
areas for future research. Essentially, this book investigates digital
cultural formation through the four most dynamic discursive spaces to
emerge over the past two decades in China (1994-2019): the bulletin board
system (BBS), the blog, the microblog (Weibo), and WeChat (Weixin). The
creation of these digital platforms not only showcases the local
appropriation of global technologies in China but also exemplifies how
Internet users' mundane activities online hold significant potential for
forging politically minded citizens at a micro level. By delineating the
process by which user-generated content has been produced, promoted, and
received, this book historicizes the study of digital media and sheds light
on understanding emerging platforms.