SOCIAL MEDIA INTERACTIONS AND
CHINESE IDENTITIES: A COMPARATIVE
ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF CHINESE
YOUTH AND RURAL WOMEN’S IDENTITY
CONSTRUCTIONS
Yini Wang
School of Creative Industries
Faculty of Education and Arts
University of Newcastle
This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
November 2018
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
I hereby certify that the work embodied in the thesis is my own work, conducted under normal supervision. The thesis contains no material which has been accepted, or is being examined, for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the University’s Digital Repository, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 and any approved embargo.
Signed:______Yini Wang______
Date:______09.17.2018______
Yini Wang BA (Advertising)
The University of Newcastle
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I hereby certify that the work embodied in this thesis contains published papers of which I am a joint author. I have included a written declaration below endorsed in writing by my supervisor, attesting to my contribution to the joint publication.
By signing below I confirm that Yini Wang was the primary contributor to the following publication:
I JUDITH SANDNER attest that Higher Degree Research candidate YINI WANG was the principal contributor to the conception, design, writing and revision of the paper/publication: Wang, Y., & Balnaves, M. (2017). Intersubjective benevolence in youth online Chinese communities. In J. Fulton & P. McIntyre (Eds.), Creating space in the fifth estate (pp. 89-109). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Dr. Judith Sandner
Date: 18/9/18
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ABSTRACT
The contemporary political and economic context in China has shown strong momentum for the development of information and communications technologies. The impacts of these technological developments have drawn wide discussion by both Chinese and western intellectuals. However, current research on Chinese identity practices in these contexts focuses mostly on the political aspects of Chinese online participations and the activities of the younger generation. Yet alterative groups of emerging Internet and social media users, especially older rural women have rarely been looked at. The polemics of Chinese identity constructions in online spaces is therefore open for investigation. This thesis meets this challenge by contributing to an understanding of Chinese identity played out in ordinary contexts through social media integrated as part of everyday life activities. Specifically, it interprets how Chinese youth and older rural women engage with social media, thereby making sense of themselves and their identity roles. The research has been enlightened by social phenomenology and social constructionism theories and adopted an ethnographic methodology. The methods involved 5.5 months of fieldwork in Hunan University and Hanpu Town in Changsha, China in 2015. Accounts were collected from 26 final-year university students who were aged between 21-25, and 25 rural women who were aged between 40-52, and were based on both online and offline participant observations, in-depth interviews, informal interviews, participants’ diaries and questionnaires. The evidence uncovered from the fieldwork demonstrates that Confucian cultural values and norms have been unreservedly cultivated in Chinese online self- presentations for both the younger cohort’s and the older women’s everyday identity performances. The thesis proposes a new model of the differential mode of association proposed by the Chinese anthropologist Xiaotong Fei (2012) adding new interpretations of the Chinese ‘situational self’ that speak to the transformations brought about by social media within the current dynamic of Chinese social, cultural and political contexts.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work would not have been possible without the joint financial support of the China Scholarship Council and the University of Newcastle.
I am deeply grateful to my supervisor Professor Mark Balnaves who believed in this project from the very beginning and who ushered me into the philosophical journey of social phenomenology and social constructionism. He has been supportive since the day I landed on Australia. I am especially indebted to Dr. Judith Sandner, who took up the stressful supervisory role midway. Thank you for your encouragement and the extensive invaluable feedback you provided.
A special thanks to my fellow doctoral students who I worked with in the ‘Vegas Room’ at the University of Newcastle. Dr. Robert W. Taylor, Dr. Victoria Jack, Dr. Denise Mohan Tan, Dr. Caitlin Parr, Dr. Leicha Stewart, Ed Reddin, Karen Nobes, Ngaio Stobbs, and Kurt Sengul. Ta, for your ‘bloody’ supportive ‘no worries’, the fun ‘drinky-poos’ and heaps of unforgettable Aussie cultural experiences!
To my colleagues in the School of Creative Industries at the University of Newcastle, Associate Professor Phillip McIntyre, Associate Professor Craig Hight, Associate Professor Susan Kerrigan, Dr. Janet Fulton, Dr. Michael Meany, Dr. Simon Weaving, Dr. Harry Criticos, Dr. Deb Wise, Dr. Melanie James, thank you for your support. Many thanks also to other members of staff that were so kind to me, Leanne Fitzgibbon, Deb Cook, George Hyde, Daniel Conway and previous staff Dr. Kyle Holmes.
My heartfelt thanks also go to other staff and fellow doctoral students from the IT department at the University of Newcastle. Dr. Raymond Chiong, Dr. Marc Adams, Dr. Xin Gu, Philipp Rouast, Hussain M. AI Jaroodi, Mehdi Abedi, Hamid Heydarian, Zongwen Fan, and Xinyu Li.
I am also grateful to Professor Rosalind Smith, my supervisor when I worked at the Centre for 21st Century Humanities at the University of Newcastle. Thank you for your mentorship. Also, many thanks to Amanda Hall-Griffin, Kristy Atkins, Linda Hutchinson, Jenny Noble and other staff who I worked with at the centre.
I have special lovely friends to thank. Geoff Hookham and his family! Steven Moore, Thilani Hasanthi Dias, Nashwa Najib, Jiexi Hou, Guichao Wang, Jun Li and Hanghe Zhang. I’m fortunate to have met you and have your love and support throughout my PhD candidature.
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My sincere thanks to the people who participated in my research. My research would have been impossible without the aid and support of you.
To my parents and relatives in China, you’ve always been a source of love and energy in my life.
Finally, to my boyfriend, thank you for your companionship, your tolerance, and your love.
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In memory of my grandparents.
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CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 2 DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE IN CHINA ...... 8
2.1 THE “INTERNET PLUS” AND CHINA’S INFORMATION ECONOMY ...... 8
2.2 THE URBAN-RURAL DIVIDE ...... 13 2.2.1 Urbanisation and the “Hukou” System ...... 13 2.2.2 Internet Use in Rural China ...... 16 2.2.3 Digital Divide ...... 17
2.3 SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE ...... 19 2.3.1 QQ ...... 21 2.3.2 WeChat ...... 25 2.3.3 Sina Weibo ...... 30
2.4 CONCLUSION ...... 31 3 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 33
3.1 IDEAS ABOUT IDENTITY ...... 33 3.1.1 Identity Theories Across Disciplines ...... 33 3.1.2 Self-Presentation ...... 35 3.1.3 Self and Identity in Online Contexts ...... 38 3.1.4 Self-Presentation and Privacy ...... 40 3.1.5 Social Constructionism and Identity ...... 42 3.1.6 Social Media and Online Identity Management ...... 44
3.2 CHINESE IDENTITY ...... 47 3.2.1 Collectivism ...... 47 3.2.2 Individualism ...... 49 3.2.3 Confucian “Collectivism” and “Individualism” ...... 53 3.2.4 Situational Self ...... 56 3.2.5 Elastic Self ...... 61
3.3 ONLINE IDENTITY RESEARCH IN CHINA ...... 63 4 METHODOLOGY ...... 70
4.1 SOCIAL PHENOMENOLOGY AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM ...... 70
4.2 ETHNOGRAPHY & FIELDWORK ...... 73 4.2.1 The Primary Field Site ...... 75 4.2.2 Final Year University Students in Hunan University ...... 76
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4.2.3 Rural Women in Hanpu Town ...... 78 4.2.4 The Researcher’s Role ...... 80 4.2.5 Setting Up a Research Blog ...... 81 4.2.6 Recruitment and Sampling ...... 83
4.3 HOW WERE ‘ACCOUNTS’ AND INTERACTIONS CAPTURED? ITERATIVE PROCESSES OF
INFORMATION GATHERING...... 85 4.3.1 Participant Observation ...... 85 4.3.2 Fieldwork Observations Offline ...... 92 4.3.3 Face-to-Face In-depth Interviews ...... 94 4.3.4 Informal Interviews ...... 96 4.3.5 Field Notes ...... 98 4.3.6 Participants’ Diaries ...... 100
4.4 PROCESSES OF DATA ANALYSIS ...... 101 5 ONLINE IDENTITY MANAGEMENT: FINDINGS FROM STUDENTS ...... 104
5.1 BECOMING MATURE WITH SOCIAL MEDIA ...... 104 5.1.1 “People Who Have Half a Foot in the Society” (banzhijiao taru shehui de ren ) ...... 104 5.1.2 Constructing an Elite Middle-Class Identity ...... 110 5.1.3 Positioning One’s Self through a Range of Social Media Types ...... 119
5.2 POSITIVE ONLINE IDENTITY ...... 125 5.2.1 Reciprocity and Strategic Self-Presentation ...... 125
5.3 ONLINE IDENTITY AS A BUSINESS CARD ...... 158 5.3.1 Managing Mixed Networks ...... 165
5.4 PERFORMING AN ONLINE IDENTITY AS A MICRO-BUSINESS WOMAN ...... 171
5.5 CONCLUSION ...... 184 6 TRANSFORMATIONS OF RURAL IDENTITIES: FINDINGS FROM RURAL WOMEN ...... 186
6.1 RURAL WOMEN’S STATUS ...... 186 6.1.1 Identifying “nongcun funu ” (Rural Women) ...... 186 6.1.2 Rural Women’s Profiles ...... 192
6.2 INTERACTING WITH STRANGERS IN SOCIAL MEDIA ...... 203
6.3 ‘FRONT-STAGE’ PERFORMANCES ...... 206 6.3.1 At Home in Hanpu ...... 206 6.3.2 At Work in Hanpu ...... 211
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6.4 MANAGING EMOTIONS WITH SOCIAL MEDIA ...... 220 6.4.1 “Keep a Diary” ...... 220 6.4.2 Positive Moments ...... 225 6.4.3 “Talk to Dispel Your Mind” ...... 231 6.4.4 “Like a Frog in a Well.” ...... 240 6.4.5 Reading into Being ...... 251
6.5 CONCLUSION ...... 259 7 COMPARATIVE USES OF SOCIAL MEDIA ...... 261
7.1 SHARING ‘NEWS’ AND THE WECHAT ECONOMY: EVERYDAY CULTURE,
SENSATIONALISM, AND CIRCULATING INFORMATION USERS THINK IS IN THE PUBLIC
INTEREST ...... 261 7.1.1 Choosing to Share “Something Good-Looking and Positive Energy” ...... 261 7.1.2 “I Share What it Wants You to Share”: Circulating Commercialised Content on WeChat ...... 267 7.1.3 How did HNU Youth Share Information on WeChat? ...... 273
7.2 POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA ...... 276 7.2.1 Inefficacy, Concern and Nationalism among Rural Chinese Women ...... 276 7.2.2 Chinese Youth Concern about the Online Public Sphere and Impression Management ...... 287
7.3 ONLINE PRIVACY AND IDENTITY PERFORMANCE ...... 310 7.3.1 Public Online Privacy ...... 313 7.3.2 “I Don’t Have Any Privacy.” ...... 317
7.4 CONCLUSION ...... 320 8 CONCLUSION ...... 322
8.1 CONFUCIANISM AND THE OFFICIAL DISCOURSE ...... 322
8.2 INTERSUBJECTIVE BENEVOLENCE AND RECIPROCITY ...... 325
8.3 STRANGERS’ ROLES ...... 332
8.4 THE INCLUSIVENESS OF THE SITUATIONAL SELF ...... 334
8.5 LIMITATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ...... 336 9 REFERENCES ...... 338 10 APPENDICES ...... 379
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LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 3.1 FORMAL AND INFORMAL MODES OF INTERACTION ...... 61
TABLE 4.1 DIARY LOGSHEET ...... 100
TABLE 5.1 PROFILE OF HNU PARTICIPANTS ...... 108
TABLE 5.2 POSITIONING ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS ...... 123
TABLE 5.3 COMPARISON BETWEEN XIAOJIN’S PARODY MOTTO AND THE ORIGINAL MOTTO
FROM POKÉMON ...... 146
TABLE 5.4 XIAOLEI’S WECHAT PROFILE ...... 160
TABLE 6.1 RURAL WOMEN’S PROFILES ...... 192
TABLE 6.2 THE SCOPE OF DIFFERENT CATEGORIES AND THE NUMBERS OF SHARED LINKS
FROM OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS BY HANPU TOWN WOMEN ...... 245
TABLE 7.1 PUBLIC LINKS SHARED BY HNU STUDENTS ON WECHAT MOMENTS ...... 273
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LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 2.1 TIMELINE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEADING INTERNET COMPANIES IN CHINA 11
FIGURE 2.2 THE SCOPE OF CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE ...... 20
FIGURE 2.3 INTERFACE OF QQ PROFILE ...... 22
FIGURE 2.4 INTERFACE OF WECHAT MOMENTS ...... 27
FIGURE 2.5 INTERFACE OF WECHAT CONTACTS AND DISCOVER ...... 27
FIGURE 3.1 THE DIFFERENTIAL MODE OF ASSOCIATION ...... 58
FIGURE 4.1 HNU STUDENT ACCOMMODATION (LEFT) AND STREET OUTSIDE HNU STUDENT
ACCOMMODATION (RIGHT) ...... 77
FIGURE 4.2 SHOPPING MALL NEXT TO HNU STUDENT ACCOMMODATION SITE ...... 77
FIGURE 4.3 THE FIRST HOUSES BUILT IN SHIZILU (LEFT) AND HOUSES BUILT IN THE 2000S
(RIGHT) ...... 79
FIGURE 4.4 THE CROSSROADS IN SHIZILU ...... 80
FIGURE 4.5 DIAGRAM OF SAMPLING PROCESS ...... 84
FIGURE 4.6 INTERFACE OF LINKS DELETED BY CONTENT PRODUCER ...... 88
FIGURE 4.7 INTERFACE OF LINKS BLOCKED BY WECHAT ...... 88
FIGURE 4.8 MY RESEARCH IDENTITY ON WECHAT (LEFT), QQ (MIDDLE), WEIBO (RIGHT) ... 90
FIGURE 4.9 INTERVIEW WITH STUDENT XIAOQIAN IN A CAMPUS CAFÉ ...... 96
FIGURE 4.10 INTERVIEW WITH RURAL WOMAN CHANG LIU AT HER HOME ...... 96
FIGURE 5.1 ...... 127
FIGURE 5.2 EXAMPLES OF POSITIVE POSTS ON WECHAT ...... 129
FIGURE 5.3 ...... 131
FIGURE 5.4 ...... 132
FIGURE 5.5 ...... 133
FIGURE 5.6 ...... 133
FIGURE 5.7 ...... 136
FIGURE 5.8 ...... 136
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FIGURE 5.9 XIAOYUN’S SELF-MOCKERY POST ...... 138
FIGURE 5.10 PHOTOS OF CHINESE RURAL MIGRANTS SLEEPING AT TRAIN STATIONS ...... 139
FIGURE 5.11 XIAOYUN’S POST MOCKING XIAOQIANG ...... 141
FIGURE 5.12 XIAOYUN’S SELF-MOCKERY POST ABOUT DOG ...... 143
FIGURE 5.13 SCREENSHOT OF COMMENTS LEFT ON XIAOYUN’S SELF-MOCKERY POST ABOUT
DOG ...... 144
FIGURE 5.14 ...... 146
FIGURE 5.15 ...... 148
FIGURE 5.16 ...... 149
FIGURE 5.17 ...... 150
FIGURE 5.18 ...... 150
FIGURE 5.19 ...... 151
FIGURE 5.20 ...... 151
FIGURE 5.21 ...... 152
FIGURE 5.22 XIAOBEI’S POST MOCKING HIS CLASSMATES’ ABSENCE ...... 153
FIGURE 5.23 XIAOBEI’S SELF-MOCKERY POST ...... 156
FIGURE 5.24 ...... 166
FIGURE 5.25 ...... 168
FIGURE 5.26 ...... 168
FIGURE 5.27 ...... 170
FIGURE 5.28 ...... 170
FIGURE 5.29 ...... 172
FIGURE 5.30 ...... 176
FIGURE 5.31 ...... 177
FIGURE 5.32 ...... 178
FIGURE 5.33 ...... 178
FIGURE 5.34 XIAOOU’S WECHAT POST OFFERING A PROMOTION ...... 179
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FIGURE 5.35 ...... 180
FIGURE 5.36 SCREENSHOT OF COMMENTS LEFT IN XIAOOU’S POST ON MOMENTS ...... 181
FIGURE 5.37 ...... 182
FIGURE 5.38 ...... 183
FIGURE 6.1 VEGETABLE FIELDS AT THE BACK OF THE HOUSES IN SHIZILU ...... 187
FIGURE 6.2 PADDY FIELDS IN ZHIZIGANG VILLAGE ...... 188
FIGURE 6.3 SMALL GARDENS AT THE FRONT, BACK OR THE SIDE OF PEASANTS’ HOUSES IN
ZHIZIGANG VILLAGE ...... 188
FIGURE 6.4 NOODLE SHOP (LEFT) AND HARDWARE STORE (RIGHT) IN SHIZILU ...... 189
FIGURE 6.5 A MAH-JONG PARLOUR IN ZHIZIGANG VILLAGE ...... 190
FIGURE 6.6 PUBLIC HEALTH CENTRE IN ZHIZIGANG VILLAGE ...... 191
FIGURE 6.7 FLOWERS PLANTED BY A SMALL BUSINESS OWNER, A PURE HOUSEWIFE AND A
PEASANT ...... 192
FIGURE 6.8 JING PENG’S COMPUTER ASSEMBLAGE ...... 196
FIGURE 6.9 NA LI SINGING KARAOKE ...... 206
FIGURE 6.10 XIA ZHANG’S COMPUTER ...... 211
FIGURE 6.11 XIA ZHANG’S CLOTHING STORE ...... 212
FIGURE 6.12 XIA ZHANG’S WECHAT PROFILE ...... 213
FIGURE 6.13 XIA ZHANG’S POST OF NEW ARRIVALS ...... 215
FIGURE 6.14 FANG LIU’S POST TO ADVERTISE A WINE ...... 216
FIGURE 6.15 FANG LIU’S POST TO ADVERTISE A BEER ...... 217
FIGURE 6.16 BIN DONG’S VIDEO SHOT OF SELLING PORK ...... 218
FIGURE 6.17 BIN DONG’S VIDEO SHOT OF SELLING FISHING NETS ...... 219
FIGURE 6.18 JINGJING ZHANG’S POSTS ON WECHAT ...... 222
FIGURE 6.19 JINGJING ZHANG’S POST ...... 222
FIGURE 6.20 JINGJING ZHANG’S POST ...... 222
FIGURE 6.21 JINGJING ZHANG’S POST ...... 223
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FIGURE 6.22 PHOTOS OF KARAOKE AND DANCING CLUBS ...... 225
FIGURE 6.23 JINGJING’S WECHAT POST ...... 226
FIGURE 6.24 JINGJING’S WECHAT POST ...... 226
FIGURE 6.25 POSTS ABOUT SQUARE DANCING BY THE RURAL WOMEN ...... 227
FIGURE 6.26 POSTS ABOUT TRAVEL BY THE RURAL WOMEN ...... 227
FIGURE 6.27 POSTS ABOUT ATTENDING FEASTS BY THE RURAL WOMEN ...... 228
FIGURE 6.28 LI ZHAO’S WECHAT POSTS ...... 229
FIGURE 6.29 ...... 235
FIGURE 6.30 ...... 236
FIGURE 6.31 POSTS BY CHANG LIU ...... 237
FIGURE 6.32 POSTS BY CHANG LIU ...... 238
FIGURE 6.33 THE POST SHOWED CHANG LIU BITTEN BY A DOG ...... 239
FIGURE 6.34 ...... 242
FIGURE 6.35 NCAPTURE OF THE ARTICLE SHARED BY BIN DONG ...... 248
FIGURE 6.36 SCREENSHOT OF THE ARTICLE SHARED BY JUAN LIU ...... 249
FIGURE 6.37 ...... 251
FIGURE 6.38 ...... 254
FIGURE 6.39 THE CONTINUOUS ARTICLES SHARED BY MIN WANG ...... 255
FIGURE 7.1 JIANHUA WANG’S POSTS ...... 262
FIGURE 7.2 ...... 264
FIGURE 7.3 ...... 268
FIGURE 7.4 SCREENSHOT OF THE VIDEO PAGE “LIVE SHOT: MAN AND BEAST (EXCITING)” 268
FIGURE 7.5 SCREENSHOT OF THE PAGE ABOUT MALAYSIAN AIRLINE MH370 ...... 269
FIGURE 7.6 WECHAT ARTICLE SHARED BY MIN WANG ...... 280
FIGURE 7.7 WEIBO LINK SHARED BY MIN WANG ON WECHAT MOMENTS ...... 280
FIGURE 7.8 A PUBLIC LINK OF ANTI-JAPANESE EVENT SHARED BY FANG LIU ...... 283
FIGURE 7.9 SCREENSHOT OF THE SHARED LINK “JAPAN IS SCREWED THIS TIME” ...... 283
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FIGURE 7.10 ...... 285
FIGURE 7.11 SCREENSHOT OF XIAOMU’S PAGE ON GRUOKR ...... 290
FIGURE 7.12 SCREENSHOT OF XIAOWU’S PROPOSAL ON GUOKR ...... 291
FIGURE 7.13 SCREENSHOTS OF THE SHARED WEIBO POST ON WECHAT BY XIAOMING ...... 303
FIGURE 7.14 ...... 305
FIGURE 7.15 ...... 306
FIGURE 7.16 SCREENSHOT OF A COLLAGE POSTED BY “DEEP WATER IN HNU” ...... 307
FIGURE 7.17 SCREENSHOT OF A COLLAGE POSTED BY HNU OFFICIAL MEDIA OUTLET ...... 308
FIGURE 7.18 XIAOLEI’S STATUS ON MOMENTS ABOUT ATTENDING A WORKSHOP ...... 315
FIGURE 7.19 XIAOLEI’S STATUS ON MOMENTS ABOUT EATING IN A RESTAURANT ...... 315
FIGURE 7.20 XIAOLI’S WEIBO STATUS IN WHICH SHE COMPLAINED HER INTERNSHIP ...... 316
FIGURE 7.21 XIAOLI’S WEIBO POST IN WHICH SHE MOCKED HER MANAGER ...... 316
FIGURE 8.1 THE DIFFERENTIAL MODE OF ASSOCIATION ...... 333
FIGURE 8.2 THE NEW FRAMEWORK OF THE DIFFERENTIAL MODE OF ASSOCIATION ...... 335
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
BBS – Bulletin Board Systems
CAICT – China Academy of Information and Communications Technology
CAQDA – Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis
CNNIC – China Internet Network Information Centre
CPC – Communist Party of China
HNU – Hunan University
HSEE – High School Entrance Exam
I-C – individualism-collectivism
ICTs – information and communications technologies
IPO – initial public offering
MIIT – Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China
MoE – Ministry of Education in China
MUDs – multi-user domains
NBS – National Bureau of Statistics
NIISC – National Information Infrastructure Steering Committee
O2O – online to offline
PRC – People’s Republic of China
RO – Reform and Opening-up
TVEs – township village enterprises
VPN – virtual private network
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LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1 COMPARISONS OF ICTS USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN
WOMEN ...... 380
APPENDIX 2 COMPARISONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND
HANPU TOWN WOMEN- PART 1 ...... 381
APPENDIX 3 COMPARISONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND
HANPU TOWN WOMEN- PART 2 ...... 382
APPENDIX 4 SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS USED ONLY BY HNU STUDENTS ...... 383
APPENDIX 5 HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN WOMEN’S SOCIAL NETWORKS ON WECHAT
AND QQ ...... 384
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1 INTRODUCTION
I am a young rural Chinese woman. At a time in my life, I resisted the “rural” part of my identity. I was ashamed to tell people, especially urban people that I lived in a rural area. This awareness, from what I can recall, firstly hit me when I attended an extracurricular English course in the city in Grade six as my study peers were all kids residing in the city. I still remember the girl sitting at the front of me showing off her colourful marker pens (which I did not have) during class break. It had never occurred to me before that pupils could use pens which had colours like green and yellow. After that, I bought some colourful marker pens for myself. Except for those extracurricular English classes, my pre-university education was all completed in a rural region, in Changsha. My parents wanted me to study in an urban prestigious high school in Changsha city that usually accommodated students from rich families for they considered that an urban education was better for my future development than a rural education. I had to take extra exams other than the normal High School Entrance Exam (HSEE) because my hukou 1 (household registration) status was agricultural. Later, I passed the
1 Hukou system is a unique system of managing the population in China initiated in 1955 by the Chinese government that regulates two types of Chinese civil identity – agricultural hukou and non-agricultural hukou (K. W. Chan, 2009).
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
examinations and even received a tuition waiver from that renowned urban school because of my rural identity. Meanwhile I was offered an alternative – as a result of my good performance in the HSEE I could go to the best high school in my County where it would admit more students with the agricultural hukou. Because of my strong ego and strong sense of belonging to the countryside, I opted for the latter. However, the shame of being a rural resident reoccurred to me when my high school teachers surveyed students’ hukou status in class and whenever I had to fill in my hukou status for any formal applications such as awards and scholarship applications. I’d never thought about the factors that made me so resistant to my rural identity until I made my inquiry to study for my doctoral degree. For if I had attended the reputable urban high school, what was happening then would not be happening.
Looking back, it is hard to believe the impact that my rural identity has had on my self-perceptions and my actions towards others. They are so tacit and ingrained that it permeates my thinking and behaving. Identity work is such a complex phenomenon. We never stop presenting ourselves in established ways, nor do we prevent taking up new identities. The question at stake is how? If being born as a rural person had such sustaining effects on me individually, then how would other rural women, in particular older rural women who have been living with the hukou system for much longer than myself make sense of themselves? Would being distinguished from urbanites mean so much to them? And, apart from questions about rural and urban backgrounds, what are some of the other ways for Chinese young people (like myself) to construct their identities? As our society has evolved to such an extent that we can convey symbolic meanings to others through creative avenues such as the Internet and social media, without walking out of the room to communicate with each other face-to- face, are those elements that have shaped who we were beforehand still constituting who we are now, in the same or different ways? These were the ‘foreshadowed’(Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007) questions that drove me to this original phenomenological inquiry.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
It has been four decades since the Reform and Opening-up (RO) initiated in China in 1978 under the lead of Deng Xiaoping. Since then, the world has witnessed China’s rapid social and economic transformations. The Chinese government has continued to support the RO’s mandate, propelling it during Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents”, Hu Jintao’s “Scientific Development Concept”, and Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” so that throughout these presidential terms, a contemporary ideology of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ (Z. Wang, 2014) has been fostered and consolidated. Under the auspices of a reconfigured consumption-based and innovation-driven economic structure (KPMG, 2016), and in respect of the timeframe in which this original research was conducted, China has emerged as the second largest economy in the world (World Bank, 2015) and in 2015 had a population of 1.37 billion (NBS, 2015a). Globalisation and urbanisation have gained momentum, boosting development in both urban and rural regions and unemployment rates have dropped. There have also been improvements in education, health, social insurance and remarkably, information technology (K. Li, 2015; NBS, 2015b). Within this macro context, the Chinese Internet economy has been coming of age. For example, at the end of 2014 the population of Internet users in China reached 649 million, and by the end of 2017 the figure increased to 772 million, with a penetration rate of 55.8% (47.9% by 2014) (CNNIC, 2015a, 2018). Subsequently, online and social media platforms are booming with their advanced technological networking affordances enabling characteristically Chinese socio-cultural interactions to be constructed and engaged within everyday contexts, which has drawn on wide scholarly discussion and facilitated the polemics of Chinese identities in an online context. However, the majority of current research pays its attention to the political aspect of Chinese online participations (W. Chen & Reese, 2015; Hampton, Shin, & Lu, 2017; Lagerkvist, 2010; J. Liu, 2016; G. Yang, 2009; G. Yang & Jiang, 2015; X. Zhang & Lin, 2014) and those of the young generation (Fengshu Liu, 2011; T. Wang, 2013), whereas other emerging groups of Internet users, and their ‘ordinary’ (Williams, 1989) online identity practices are rarely examined. There have been some studies exploring rural-to-urban migrant workers’ ICT use in China (Lang, Oreglia, & Thomas, 2010; Oreglia, 2010; Peng, 2008; J. L. Qiu, 2009; Wallis, 2013) with these researchers inquiring into how rural-to-urban migrant workers appropriated mobile phones and the Internet to cope with
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
transformations brought by urbanisation and modernisation. Yet social media practices of rural people who reside in the countryside are neglected to a great extent. Enlightened by a social phenomenological methodology, the research presented in this thesis bridges these gaps, by looking specifically at two cohorts of Chinese Internet and social media users: young university students from Hunan University and older rural women from Hanpu Town in Changsha, China. It explores their social media interactions and uncovers their identity projects on their own terms, relative to their socio-cultural contexts, providing nuanced answers to the following questions:
• How do Chinese youth and rural women engage with social media to make sense of themselves and construct their identities? • What are the emerging patterns of their online identities and how are they reflected in Chinese social, cultural and political contexts in contemporary China? • In either similar or different ways, how do these two cohorts’ social media practices speak to the broader sense of Chinese identity? And what implications may this have for each group?
Following this introduction, chapter two contextualises the contemporary Chinese social media landscape. It provides a macro perspective on the development of the information economy in China propelled by the State and pioneered by big Internet companies, and which underpins a platformised digital infrastructure for Chinese people’s social media meaning-making activities in both urban and rural areas. The discussion also outlines the structural limitations that have engendered a digital divide between urban and rural Chinese Internet users. An overview of the techno-social contexts of the major Chinese social media platforms further enhances understandings of the types of technologies Chinese people are engaging with that make their transformative identity constructions possible.
Chapter three reviews various identity theories and conceptualisations of Chinese identities in socio- cultural and social media enabled contexts. Concepts including ‘collectivism’ and ‘individualism’
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Chapter 1: Introduction
(Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010), ‘dual self’ (Fengshu Liu, 2011), ‘elastic self’ (T. Wang, 2013) and ‘situational self’ (Fei, 2012) are explained thoroughly to demonstrate that competing ideas about Chinese identity are problematic and dominated by overarching theoretical models that emphasise political influences of the Party-state regime, and overlook persistent impacts of ordinary, everyday Chinese culture. The literature review also points out that while a significant and ongoing body of research exploring young Chinese and social media is available, that much of this work centres on urban perspectives. It also reveals that older Chinese rural women’s online activities have rarely been looked at, demonstrating the need for further investigation of especially, a unique sample population of Chinese social media users.
Chapter four therefore responds to the imperative put forward in chapter three. It illustrates the significance of social phenomenology and social constructionism in understanding how rurally-raised Chinese people make sense of their everyday social media practices according to their socio-cultural contexts. It also explains the ethnographic approach which has informed this research and details the valuable methods used to get as close to the researched culture as possible. These include online and offline participant observations, semi-formal and informal interviews, participants’ diaries and self- reflexive field notes. The discussion also explains the value of the interpretive, inductive and constructionist (Marvasti, 2014) analytical framework used to interpret the first-order and second- order constructs that have yielded the research findings.
Chapter five illustrates that Chinese youth manage their online identities strategically through social media interactions. Confucian values, intersubjective benevolence and reciprocity, have been grounded in their online self-presentations. These include zhengnengliang (positive energy) and hei (self-mockery and mockery of others). Based on the benevolent ideals, Chinese youth have constructed positive online identities that include doubi ( ) identity, professional and micro- business identities for impression management, relationship maintenance and self-advancement, thus facilitating their predominantly middle-class focused identity work.
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
Chapter six describes rural Chinese women’s transformative social media interactions. It explains their identity performances at home, at work and with strangers through their appropriations of multifarious social media affordances (Bucher & Helmond, 2018). By virtue of enhanced social networks built via social media amongst family, friends, old classmates, colleagues and strangers, rural Chinese women have been able to manage both their pleasant and negative emotions in social media. It is evident that Confucian values and norms including self-cultivation, tolerance, filial piety and guanxi ( ) have also shaped their ways of thinking and behaving throughout these interactions, presenting a fresh contemporary knowledge of their ordinary identity – nongcun funu (rural women).
Chapter seven provides a comparative perspective, outlining the similarities and the differences between the Chinese youths and rural women’s online activities. The main similarity is that Confucian cultural ideals are played out in both of the cohorts’ online identity performances, in particular in respect of sharing content that empathises with others and implies good intentions, and graded privacy practices amongst tiered social relationships in online spaces. One of the main differences is in the digital divide that produces distinct outcomes in terms of sharing activities on the WeChat platform. Another significant difference is shown in respect of politically-motivated online participations. Notwithstanding, the comparative analysis also presents both Chinese young people and rural women’s distinctive interests in proactive communication through social media.
Lastly, Chapter eight concludes by providing an insight as to how Chinese identity can be explained by the situational self in the emerging social media space – interpreting the inclusiveness of the situational self in Chinese social, economic and political lives and fleshing out the content of Chinese differential mode of association. A situational self is capable of pursuing for self-interests while thinking of the common good. A new framework of the differential mode of association is therefore proposed to illustrate the transformations of Chinese identity and modern culture that embodies not only the long-lasting effects of Confucianism, but also the convergence of public and private space,
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Chapter 1: Introduction
and different cultural forms. Additionally, the conclusion explains the limitation of this research and points out possibilities for future research.
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
2 DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE IN CHINA
The bigger picture of China’s information economy and the digital infrastructure that continues to cradle the growth of Internet business in China, thereby facilitating Chinese people’s various social media meaning-making activities at the micro-level, needs to be understood. This chapter provides this important background information by engaging with pertinent Chinese government policy and initiatives, and in particular, the rural trajectory of digital infrastructure compared with its urban counterpart, while also providing in-depth analysis of China’s social media landscape from a techno- social perspective.
2.1 The “Internet Plus” and China’s Information Economy
We are just on the edge of becoming an information economy. The information technologies-- computers and telecommunications-- are the main engines of this transformation. And we are now seeing the growth of new information industries, products, services and occupations which presage new workstyles and lifestyles based on intensive use of information processing and communication techniques.
(Porat, 1977, p. 204)
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41 years ago when Marc Uri Porat wrote The Information Economy he foresaw the profound momentum and forecast many of the socio-cultural changes which an American information economy (enabled through technological developments) would generate. Tranos (2013), focusing on the European context illustrates how the information economy as a global trend has benefited regional economic development in Europe. China, faced with both opportunities and challenges in the context of globalising and modernising principles and processes, is showcasing a strong impetus for developing its information economy. In 2015, the value of the information economy in China reached RMB 18.6 trillion (USD 2.7 trillion) (CAICT, 2016b), nearly four times more than in 2008. A report from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT, 2016b) points out that the information economy has become a spiralling force for China’s economy, contributing 68.6% to the country’s overall economy. For the Chinese government, informatisation fits well with its structural reform objectives, driving national economic and social transitions and enhancing national defence strength since the start of the 21st century (W. He, 2017). The innovation of information and communications technologies (ICTs), which is the driving force of the information economy, the carrier of information and knowledge (CAICT, 2016b) has become a top priority. Against this economically-motivated backdrop, Chinese ICTs and Internet businesses have been springing up exponentially.
The advancement of ICTs and Internet businesses in China has had a favourable policy environment, of which the ‘Internet Plus’ project has been at the fore in recent years (Hong, 2017). In China, Internet services were first offered to the general public in September 1994. In May 1995, the first Internet service provider InfoHighway (yinghaiwei ) was founded in Beijing. By January 1996, Internet services were developed nationwide followed by the establishment of Internet business entities in late 1990s and early 2000s such as people.cn, NetEase, Xinhuanet, SOHU, Jing Dong (JD), Tencent, Alibaba, Sina, Shengda and Baidu (see Figure 2.1), providing prominent services such as gaming, web portals, instant messaging, online news, online forums, e-commerce and search engines which have advanced into mogul Internet companies seen today. The Chinese government officially recognised the economic importance of informatisation in 1997 in a working committee meeting held
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
by the National Information Infrastructure Steering Committee (NIISC) which approved the ‘National Informati[s]ation Plan of the Ninth Five-Year Plan and Long-term Goals of 2000’ (Loo, 2004; Negro, 2017). This initiative was later strengthened by a series of telecommunications reform. Driven by state support, foreign investment and market force (Loo, 2004), China’s Internet development in the first 30-years of the 1978 Reform and Opening-up (RO) was unprecedented. The incentives of the Chinese government to prioritise informatisation are consistent although the regime has been governed by different CPC leaders. In 2012, under the auspices of the national 12th Five- Year Plan (for 2015), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China (MIIT) put forward the 12th Five-Year Plan for the Internet Industry to encourage innovation and upgrade industrial structure (Hong, 2011). Goals included the application and development of mobile Internet, e-commerce, cloud computing and the Internet of Things, and the broad application of the Internet in agriculture, manufacture and service sectors. In March 2015, ‘Internet Plus’ was announced by the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in the government work report as an overarching plan to ‘integrate mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things with modern manufacturing, to encourage the healthy development of e-commerce, industrial networks, and Internet banking, and to help Internet companies increase their international presence’ (D. Tang, 2015). In 2016, the 13th Five-Year Plan for 2020 continued to highlight the strategic deployment of the ‘Internet Plus’2 and the critical role of the Internet and ICTs in structural reforms to build China’s strong information economy, the Internet being comprehensively integrated to expand the capacity of both traditional and emerging industries. The development of ICTs and Internet-based business in China has come to a new level forty years after RO.
2 ‘Internet Plus’ even became the annual buzzword in 2015 (Jianhong Wang, 2015).
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Chapter 2: Digital infrastructure and the social media landscape in China
Figure 2.1 Timeline of the development of leading Internet companies in China3 Note. Based on the list of top 100 Chinese Internet companies in 2014
Companies launched in late 1990s and early 2000s were the avant-guard of the Chinese Internet economy and have led the second thriving wave of Internet businesses throughout the latest decade, showcasing their strong force in a global market and drawing massive foreign capital investment. For instance, e-commerce leader Alibaba, owner of online shopping website Taobao expanded its business by incorporating film, music, news media, online banking, gaming, sports and online literature through a series of capital operations (X. Guo, 2015) 4 . Other examples include the acquisition of Chinese mobile browser UC in 2014 (X. Lin & Fang, 2014) and the launch of Ali Music (J. Zhu, Hou, & Shi, 2015).
3 InfoHighWay, launched in May 1995, was the first Internet company in China but was closed in 2004. 4 Following Alibaba’s initial public offering (IPO) of stock sales in 2014, public Internet enterprises in China have rapidly increased reaching 91 by 2016, creating a market value of RMB 5.4 trillion (USD 790 billion) (CNNIC, 2017).
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
According to the CAICT (2016b), Chinese Internet-based businesses have formed a characteristic ecosystem of open platforms with leading actors like Tencent as a social network communication system, Alibaba as an e-commerce and Internet banking system, and Baidu as an information search based system. Coinciding with these developments, the Internet has also been increasingly integrated in people’s everyday lives especially with the proliferation of social media and mobile phone enabled platforms5. Going online with their mobile phones is more favourable among Chinese netizens (CNNIC, 2015a). Online to offline (O2O) businesses such as education, medical health, food delivery and transportation are emerging (iiMedia Research, 2016) and enterprises like mobile gaming and micro-business are booming as well. For individuals, not only have their daily lives become more networked (W. He, 2017), they have also become more mobile and convenient (X. Wang, 2016). Channels for entertainment, work and study are diversified and everyday activities such as information seeking, social networking, reading, learning, seeing a doctor, shopping and entertainment can all be facilitated through the Internet and its platform capabilities. Social connections accordingly, now also encompass high stages of variety, flexibility and intensity. Therefore, the ‘Internet Plus’ project has operated not merely as a leverage of government reform; moreover, it has also expanded the possibilities for: the information economy, the platformisation of Internet businesses in China, and transformations in the socio-cultural experiences of China’s residents.
5 By the end of 2014, the number of mobile phone users had quintupled since 2008, reaching 557 million (CNNIC, 2009, 2015a).
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Chapter 2: Digital infrastructure and the social media landscape in China
2.2 The Urban-Rural Divide
2.2.1 Urbanisation and the “Hukou” System Urbanisation in China started from the 1960s and excluded rural Chinese people thanks to the hukou system (Shen, 2006), a unique system of managing the population in China initiated in 1955 by the Chinese government (K. W. Chan, 2009)6. Hu ( ) means door, denoting a household and kou ( ) means mouth, representing people. In this sense, hukou ( ) represents an individual’s civil identity. Yet the hukou system regulates two types of Chinese civil identity – agricultural hukou and non-agricultural hukou producing unbalanced developmental opportunities according to urban and rural demarcations, since the system was introduced. Before 1978 urbanisation only referred to the growth of population amongst non-agricultural hukou (Shen, 2006). After the RO in 1978 however, rural-to-urban migration and rural expansion began to develop, driving China’s various urbanisation processes. Different from the urbanisation caused by members of a rural population migrating to cities, the concept of rural urbanisation is about growth proceeding within the rural regions (Shen, 2006). Since the 1980s, rural urbanisation and industrialisation in China has meant the rural economy has grown considerably, particularly during the early 2000s (Shen, 2006). Investment in infrastructure construction and social development in rural areas has further modernised rural centres (Xiwen Chen, 2010). As Shen puts forward,
the most active urbanisation has taken place in rural areas where there has been a transformation of market towns into urban centres along with a demographic migration of villagers to towns, and a shift of employment out of agriculture into non-agricultural occupations … Many small towns have been developed to retain that rural population who will ‘leave land but not home town’. (2006, p. 505)
6 Huji refers to the legal documentation indicating registration into the hukou system.
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
Hanpu Town, at the core of this research project, situated in the southwest of the south-central Chinese city, Changsha, is indicative of Shen’s explanations. In the 1980s several township village enterprises (TVEs) sprang up in Hanpu, propelling its industrialisation and increasing rural people’s employment in the non-agricultural sector. In the meantime, self-employed business operations started booming, also contributing to the agricultural labour force transition to off-farm sectors (Mohapatra, Rozelle, & Goodhue, 2007). For example, a small market emerged in the middle of the town in the late 1980s and as more and more rural villagers from other local areas settled there, it developed as an economic centre of home-based small businesses.
The transformation of the area’s administrative name to Hanpu Town (previously the rural name Jiujiang County was applied), was also symbolic of its urbanisation process, at least nominally. In 2013, this process was taken further after Hanpu Town was segregated into Hanpu Subdistrict and Xueshi Subdistrict7, granting Hanpu an official urbanised division status. However, in the eyes of Hanpu residents, Hanpu Town and Hanpu Subdistrict meant (and still means) the same thing, Hanpu Subdistrict is still a rural region where agriculture is the main economic model and over 96% of the population are people with agricultural hukou8.
Economic and administrative reforms have not changed the general social status of rural residents9 since the hukou system preceding them engenders structural inequalities which prohibit social
7 Information was provided by the Office of Party and Government Affairs of the Government of Hanpu Subdistrict. The predecessor of Hanpu Town was Jiujiang County that was formed in 1995. In 1998, Jiujiang County was renamed as Hanpu Town. The latter was then reconstituted officially as Hanpu Subdistrict on 18 January 2013. 8 Statistics were provided by the Office of Economic Development of the government of Hanpu Subdistrict. In 2014, the total population of Hanpu Subdistrict was 25,618. The population of people with agricultural hukou was 24,814. 9 In July 2014, the Chinese central government proposed to abolish the dual hukou system and merge the rural and urban hukou into a univocal “resident hukou”. However, by the year 2015 when the fieldwork for this study was conducted, this
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mobility (Xiaogang Wu & Treiman, 2007). These imbalances render rural residents as less entitled than urbanites to employment, education, medical services and social welfare (D. Li & Tsang, 2003), and significantly, shape the construction of rural identities (N. Zhang, 2014) so that rural people are often labelled as inferior, and of lower quality than urbanites (Kuang & Liu, 2012)10. Ostensibly, although being much more apparent in an economic regard, the urban-rural divide has also exerted a substantial influence on how rural Chinese people make sense of their own identities. Geographically and psychologically, rural people who remain in their hometowns perceive themselves to be markedly different from urban people. For instance, in this research context during fieldwork in 2015, Hanpu Town people still referred to their hometown as “Hanpu Town” or “Hanpu” (without any administrative suffix) despite the fact that the town’s name had already been changed in 2013 to Hanpu Subdistrict 11 . When the residents were going to visit urban areas, they used the term “jinchengqu” ( ), meaning entering into the city. Clearly, established perceptions about being rural cannot easily be changed by imposing urbanised administrative divisions, nor by promoting shifts in the rural economy. As such, significant distinctions between urbanites and rural Chinese remain and are not simply addressed by the abolishment of the hukou system. This gulf has been exemplified in the deployment of digital infrastructure across urban and rural regions and, as explained in detail in Chapters five, six and seven, is also revealed in regard to the ways that Chinese youth and rural woman engage with ICTs.
reform had not been implemented by many local governments, except Henan which implemented the new policy in November 2014. In 2016, other local governments started to regulate the policy gradually. 10 Afridi, Li & Ren’s (2015) empirical study of the impact of the hukou identity on Beijing rural migrant students’ performances found that when this type of discriminatory social identity is made apparent, it negatively affects their economic performances. Guan & Liu’s (2014) research into stigma against rural-to-urban migrants in China demonstrates lively examples showing rural people being discriminated against due to ‘unattractive physical appearance, potential peril and discredited places of origin’ (p. 80). 11 Following the locals’ voices, “Hanpu Town”, rather than “Hanpu Subdistrict” is used throughout this thesis.
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
2.2.2 Internet Use in Rural China The development of rural economies and the improvement of information technology infrastructure in rural areas has given impetus to an extraordinary amount of Internet and mobile phone usage. By the end of 2014, rural Internet users had reached 178 million, accounting for 27.5% of the overall 648 million Internet subscribers in China (CNNIC 2014). Among Chinese Internet users there are two prominent cohorts: youth and elder rural people. While the growth of young Internet users (10-29 years old) has essentially stagnated (CNNIC, 2015a, 2016a, 2017, 2018), the population of elder rural Internet users (those over 40 years old) has kept increasing (CNNIC, 2015b, 2016b). The former, as the dominating group of online users (49.6%) (CNNIC, 2018), has received extensive scholarly attention while the latter, an emerging online population (23.6%) (CNNIC, 2018) have rarely been studied, let alone a cohort of elder rural women specifically. Similarly to urban Internet users, rural Chinese favour accessing the Internet via mobile phones (CNNIC, 2016b). This preference can be attributed to the decreasing cost of mobile phones, easy access of 3G and 4G mobile networks and user-friendly mobile applications (Loo & Ngan, 2012). In addition, the Chinese government has provided a viable policy environment for infrastructure construction of mobile telecommunications in rural regions. In August 2013, the Chinese central government implemented a strategic plan – ‘Broadband China’ to propel the development of the broadband network across China12. After a year, ‘Broadband Countryside’ was initiated to boost the rural infrastructure construction and bridge the rural-urban gap (F. Wu, 2014). Since then, a series of administrative policies including the reform of copper broadband into fibre-optical broadband and the upgrade of 2G mobile network to 3G/4G
12 In August 2013, the State Council issued the Circular of Printing ‘Broadband China’ Strategy and Its Implementation Plan. See more information: http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-08/17/content_2468348.htm
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Chapter 2: Digital infrastructure and the social media landscape in China
networks have been implemented by local Chinese governments13. In June 2014, the Changsha government promulgated a notice to boost the construction of fibre-optical broadband and the development of 3G/4G networks in both urban and rural areas14. By the end of 2014, 3G and 4G networks already covered Hunan Province comprehensively (Zou & He, 2015). These advancements brought about faster network speeds and more stable network connections to Changsha residents so that rural people such as those in Hanpu Town, were able to gain better network experiences than ever before.
2.2.3 Digital Divide Although Internet technologies are much more prevalent than ever before, there are still divisions in accessing and using the Internet and social media between urban and rural populations in China. For instance, the current penetration rate of the Internet in rural areas (35.4%) is much lower than that in urban regions (71%) (CNNIC, 2018). In the late 1990s, broadband entered the market in Hanpu Town but was adopted by organisations such as the bank (then Rural Credit Union) and private companies. It was only after 2006 that families started to connect to broadband15.
Currently, 79.8% of Internet users in China are people younger than 40 years old. In 2015, 277 million Internet users were aged younger than 25 (CNNIC, 2015c). These young people were born in the 1990s and 2000s. They are a generation/population growing up in the digital age when Internet
13 For example, Guangdong , Jiangsu and Hunan Government launched broadband network construction projects in 2014. See more information: http://zwgk.gd.gov.cn/006939748/201403/t20140304_481312.html; http://www.jiangsu.gov.cn/art/2014/9/29/art_46143_2542821.html; http://www.xca.gov.cn/TGJCMS/txfz/1392.htm 14 On 7 July 2014, Changsha government issued the Recommendations Concerning Accelerating Fibre-optical Broadband Network Construction and Development. See more information: http://www.changsha.gov.cn/xxgk/gfxwj/srmzf/201407/t20140707_605432.html 15 Information was provided by a local manager of the China Telecom Centre in Hanpu Town.
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
and social media have been embedded in people’s everyday lives (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008), are variously referred to as ‘millennials’, ‘generation Y’ (Howe & Strauss, 2009) and ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001) and are highly skilled in using ICTs. University students with higher educational backgrounds are more sophisticated and adept at utilising the Internet and social media platforms for everyday communication, self-presentation and identity construction (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). In respect of the students from Hunan University in Changsha who participated in this research, they enjoy free Internet access16 offered by the university and convenient urban life-style facilities. Wi-Fi and broadband are accessible throughout their campuses in dormitories, libraries, classrooms and so on. It is also not uncommon to see Internet cafés (wangba)17 around the campuses in China (L. He, Li, & Chen, 2008) which often offer a higher-speed network and become hot spots for young people. The students from HNU were no exception. A range of cafés have been opened around campus in recent years, which not only promote a more Westernised lifestyle, but also provide students with another option for free Internet access. In general, the Internet is pervasive and easy to access for Chinese university students, facilitating and encouraging their everyday use.
The social and technological contexts for rural Chinese women’s Internet use are drastically different compared to Chinese young people. Rural Chinese women are located at the bottom of Chinese social stratification (Y. Guo & Chen, 2011). Living in a patriarchal society, they are exposed to more institutional and cultural pressures than males (Jacka, 2006): they do not have education and employment resources equal to their rural male counterparts (D. Li & Tsang, 2003) and are restrained by social responsibilities and moral values attached to their traditional gender roles (N. Zhang, 2014). Because of the hukou system, they have less welfare entitlements than their urban contemporaries
16 It was argued that free Internet use resulted in downloads without limits and long-time video watching, which was a waste of resources and detrimental to study. Therefore, from May 1st, 2014, Hunan university started to charge students if they exceeded 15 GB data usage. Retrieved from: http://its.hnu.edu.cn/__local/0/0E/53/B315C38ED4CE3E57DE2915F0BC4_DB6449E0_418D6.pdf 17 The average cost in surfing on the Internet in a wangba was RMB 2 (USD 0.3) per hour.
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Chapter 2: Digital infrastructure and the social media landscape in China
and worse, are branded with social stigma (Guan & Liu, 2014). Even for those female workers who have relocated to cities, the rural female identity is in no way dis-embedded from their everyday experiences. These conditions not only speak to rural women’s limitations in accessing ICTs, but also in using them. For as Wallis (2015) argues, rural Chinese women’s engagement with ICTs does not break, but reproduces the unequal gender structure. Also due to their poor education, rural Chinese women have less digital literacy. Older rural women are even facing more digital inequalities than younger rural women (Wallis, 2015). Therefore, rural women aged over 40 tend to be socio- economically more disadvantaged than Chinese university students in their use of the Internet and social media. Indeed, as shown in the report by CNNIC (2015a, 2015b), elder rural Chinese women are marginal Chinese Internet users. Looking at their social media experiences will shed light on their patterns of social media use, their differences from and similarities to, the younger University student generation, and provide an understanding of the digital divide in the context of Chinese identity constructions18. Chapter seven presents this comparative outlook of digital divide.
2.3 Social Media Landscape What is faced by social media users in China is a plethora of emerging social media applications with most of them directed by big Internet companies. From the earliest development of Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and blogs (2003-2008), to the thriving of microblogs (2008-2011), and to the growth of mobile online platforms (post-2011) (Negro, 2017), the Chinese participatory social media landscape is becoming more diverse and its products have penetrated from the domestic market to an international one. Figure 2.2 presents subdivided categories of a kaleidoscope of popular social media platforms in China, featuring the vast scope of this landscape. From a plethora of online platforms, many Chinese individuals are able to make their selections in terms of their own particular personal, social and cultural contexts.
18 Chapters five and six detail and explain the distinctions, and Chapter seven presents comparisons.
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
Figure 2.2 The scope of Chinese social media landscape Note. Copyright 2015 by Kantar Media CIC
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Chapter 2: Digital infrastructure and the social media landscape in China
Taking into account the impossibility of covering the participants in this study’s uses of every type of social media platform, the following discussion focuses on the three major social media platforms – QQ, WeChat and Sina Weibo that are most directly aligned with their daily activities.
2.3.1 QQ QQ, is prominent as an instant messaging service but offers more than one messaging function. It was launched in February 1999 by Tencent, an Internet company founded by Huateng Ma (in 1998 in Shenzhen) and quickly became the flagship product of Tencent. Through nearly 20 years’ development, QQ has extended its service from instant messaging to be inclusive of email (QQ Mail), news service (QQ.COM), online gaming (QQ Game), online music (QQ Music), social networking (Qzone), microblogging (Tencent Weibo), online shopping (BUY.QQ.COM and PAIPAI.COM)19 and online video (V.QQ.COM). These Internet services can all be accessed from the interface of QQ making QQ an extensive online platform. The various services can also exist as independent applications. To have a QQ account, one needs to register a QQ number, the unique ID for QQ users. In QQ profile, users can fill in a plethora of information including even blood type, profession, hometown, signature phrase and personal introduction, however none of these requires authenticity. Thus, QQ is often regarded as offering a high degree of anonymity (X. Wang, 2016). Users are free to choose their online status as “online”, “away”, “busy”, “do not disturb” or “hiding”. If users select “hiding”, the colour of their avatars will turn grey in others’ contacts list, which means they are offline. This function thus perfectly becomes a way to avoid interactions with people users choose to distance themselves from. Add-on functions like QQ level, QQ membership and QQ show are sold to QQ users for them to add to their QQ profile as performative decorations, contributing to Tencent’s revenue considerably.
19 BUY.QQ.COM and PAIPAI.COM were incorporated by JD in 2014.
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Social Media Interactions and Chinese Identities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Chinese Youth and Rural Women’s Identity Constructions
The main features on QQ platform are Contacts, Qzone and QQ Group. QQ platform displays default categories of contacts for its users, for example “Friends”, “Family”, “Classmate”, “Strangers” and “Blacklist”. Users can group their online contacts into these categories. The design of QQ contacts list reflects QQ’s understanding of the hierarchical structure of social relationships in Chinese society (X. Wang, 2016) however users can always rename or create categories as they wish (see Figure 2.3 the screenshot of my QQ research account).
Category- “My device”
Categories of my contacts
Category- Life service Category- “Blacklist”
Figure 2.3 Interface of QQ profile
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Chapter 2: Digital infrastructure and the social media landscape in China
Qzone, appearing on the main menu next to Contacts, is a social networking site where users update statuses, check in, post short messages (shuoshuo ) or long diaries (rizhi ), upload and share photos, music, videos and articles and even play games.
In March 2015, monthly active users on Qzone reached 668 million and the total number of people who used QQ actively was 832 million (Tencent, 2015c) dominating the Chinese social media landscape. However, from Tencent’s financial reports (Tencent, 2014, 2015b), both QQ and Qzone were faced with a downward rate of user growth while Tencent’s other flagship product WeChat was booming exponentially. This change has been reflected in Xinyuan Wang’s observations as she noted in her book Social Media in Industrial China that QQ, ‘once the symbol of urban life’ (2016, p. 34), has lost its popularity amongst both rural-to-urban migrants and urban residents. This likely explains why Tencent is in the process of moulding QQ as a platform of ‘situational communication’ targeting users with different situational demands, and as an ‘entertainment social network’ converging entertainment content with users’ social networks (Xiaobo Wu, 2017). The majority of QQ and WeChat users are young people (Tencent & CAICT, 2015a), so (although not all of them do), many QQ and WeChat users are overlapped to a large extent. This overlap then justifies the function of synchronous updates on both Qzone and WeChat. Just as Instagram users can synchronise their updates to Facebook while they are posting on Instagram, QQ and WeChat users can also keep their statuses updated on each of the two platforms at the same time.
QQ Group function allows group members to chat with each other either by texts, voice or video call, check in, send virtual gifts or red bags to other group members, upload group photos and documents, and participate in group activities. Groups can be either private or public. Public QQ groups usually draw people with particular interests. The management system of QQ Group is hierarchical, unlike Facebook Group or WeChat Group. A QQ Group is usually set up by the owner and managed by a few administrators together. QQ Group administrators have a series of authority, for example, to invite and remove group members, and to delete files in Group Album and Documents. The group owner, in addition to that, is authorised to assign group administrators, decide which outsiders can
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get access to the group, forbid speech of group members, as well as remove group members out of the group20. Moreover, group members are ranked according to their degrees of active participation in the group.
QQ Group provides a space for QQ users to organise and participate in group activities, both online and offline. Group Video allows members to talk to each other face to face if they go on “stage” with a maximum of four people on the stage at the same time (“Zai xiu”, 2012) . Going on the stage on QQ is an analogy to performing on a physical stage, only the audiences are QQ group members and to be on the stage, the button “go onto the stage” on the QQ Group Video interface needs to be clicked. What is also different is that every QQ group member has the opportunity to get onto the stage and present themselves. Those who are not on the stage can also watch the video. Moreover, virtual gifts such as flowers and kisses are available for participators to award “performers”, however they are not free. One USD can buy around 65 virtual flowers. A diamond ring costs USD 2.5. From these technical settings, it can be seen that QQ Group Video is full of performative elements. These features not only offer a new way of interaction for Chinese users but also promote social connections amongst strangers. According to several media reports (A. Wang & Wang, 2014; Y. Wang, 2017), QQ Group Video has been used for karaoke and dancing by older people and rural residents. It helps them perform their talents and make friends with strangers of mutual interests.
Apart from the above functions for entertainment and networking, QQ has also provided a service that can be used in work or study situations. File Transfer allows users to easily transfer documents both online and offline between laptops and mobile phones.
20 See: What authority do QQ group owner and administrators have? http://kf.QQ.com/faq/161223zia6ni161223eEbIFv.html
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2.3.2 WeChat On the homepage of WeChat, the slogan ‘WeChat, a lifestyle’ stands out at the top. Without doubt, WeChat has succeeded in cultivating the lifestyle of 549 million Chinese (Tencent, 2015c) since its inception in January 2011. The annual reports on WeChat’s economic and social impacts by the CAICT (2016a, 2017, 2018) are quantitative proof in this respect. These reports present statistics demonstrating how WeChat has transformed individuals’ ways of consuming information, transactions, employment and most prominently social interactions.
Launched by the same company, WeChat and QQ are like brother and sister. They are both super platforms that provide omni-directional online services covering instant messaging, social networking, reading, gaming, shopping, banking and so on. In fact, it was after WeChat gained wide popularity that QQ started emulating WeChat by adding similar features such as voice messaging and red packet (X. Liu & Zheng, 2013). However, at WeChat’s inception stage it was QQ that directed a large user base into WeChat by regulating registration with QQ ID and QQ contacts import (Y. Han, 2016). WeChat, in return, offers users the function of receiving offline messages from QQ and QQ email notifications.
The most distinguished difference between WeChat and QQ is that WeChat has a more private social network and is more of a closed community (F. Tu, 2016; X. Wang, 2016). Although initially WeChat allowed its users to import their QQ contacts, it soon added the function of adding friends through a mobile phone contact list (Shang, 2014). This feature dictates that the main social networks on WeChat are built through personal contacts that are known in individuals’ offline lives and are overlapped with social networks on QQ to some extent. Other ways of adding contacts such as scanning QR Code also imply a more personal connection. It is not to say that on WeChat people do not interact with strangers. Functions including Shake, Friend Radar, People Nearby, or Message in a Bottle all foster networking with strangers, representing a less popular way of interacting on WeChat (Tencent & CAICT, 2016). Moments, or literally “friends circle” in Chinese is where WeChat users update their statuses, post texts, photos and videos, and share locations and web links. WeChat sets
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limits in how much content can be shared in one post, including the number of photos, the length of texts and videos21. The camera icon on the interface of Moments (see Figure 2.4) is the only access for sharing all forms of content. To share photos or videos, users only need to press the icon once, but to share pure texts users have to press the camera icon longer for a few seconds. According to the vice president of WeChat, this design was developed to encourage users to share more photos, rather than plain texts, and WeChat did not release the instruction of sharing plain texts to the public in the first place (GeekPark, 2013). The privacy setting of WeChat Moments allows users to select which group can see their posts and which group cannot. But users need to first categorise their WeChat contacts into different groups with “tags”. Also, text-only sharing is not provided with this privacy setting. This means that, in order to use the privacy setting, WeChat users have to share photos or videos, rather than pure texts.
21 See the instruction of how to post photos or texts on Moments on Tencent’s website: http://kf.QQ.com/faq/161223iYjUbm161223eQ3eie.html
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Chapter 2: Digital infrastructure and the social media landscape in China
Figure 2.4 Interface of WeChat Moments
The use of WeChat is usually mobile, ‘smart-phone based’ (X. Wang, 2016, p. 38). Although WeChat has a PC version, many of its functions are not available there such as posting and banking. On WeChat, not only can users send text messages but also make voice or video call one to one or in groups, making it a strong competitor of telecommunication service providers.
Figure 2.5 Interface of WeChat Contacts and Discover
Gaming might be another diversion for Chinese social media users since major social media platforms like QQ, WeChat and Weibo all provide an entry. The “social” aspect of social media adds to the ambience of these games, making gaming a more interactive and immersive activity (Hjorth &
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Richardson, 2014). WeChat games are benefited by this characteristic and have become so popular that it arouses public dispute in its effects on addiction and health issues22.
Reading is also a popular activity on WeChat among participants. WeChat provides a media centre Subscription for users to access multifarious content and share it on Moments. This content is generated by official accounts registered by either media outlets, corporations or individuals. This function helps certain information providers to get publicity, providing them with opportunities to approach and interact with their audiences, for as Harwit (2016) argues they are a ‘one to an unlimited number of strangers’ form of communication. In January 2015, 80% of WeChat users had subscribed to official accounts, among which 73.4% of the accounts were enterprise and media public accounts (Tencent & CAICT, 2015b)23. To control the dissemination of information generated by official accounts, WeChat has set a series of regulations since its launch in 2012, in the company’s words,
to provide users a green and healthy ecological environment, to build a high-quality platform for enterprises, institutions and individual users to communicate and serve, to give users more choices and convenience, to further decrease the cost of communication and transaction and to create more social value24.
22 News reports have shown instances of people having health issues because of too much gaming on WeChat and criticised the addictive play of WeChat games. See news reports from Jianghuai Morning News, Xinhua Daily Telegraph and Chinese Business View : http://news.hf365.com/system/2013/08/17/013391574.shtml, http://culture.people.com.cn/n/2013/0821/c172318-22644044.html, http://games.ifeng.com/shehui/detail_2013_08/19/28764162_0.shtml 23 By 2017, over 10 million official accounts had been established on WeChat and they remained one of the main sources of information for WeChat subscribers (CAICT, 2018). 24 See the Principles for WeChat Official Accounts Platform Management: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/cgi- bin/readtemplate?t=business/faq_operation_tmpl&type=info&lang=zh_CN In January 2015 WeChat closed 67 official accounts and blocked 140,000 pieces of misinformation (Y. Qi, 2015).
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Different categories of information are restricted including content that violates individual rights and privacy, vulgar and politically proactive content, violence, gambling, illegal merchandise, illegal promotions and advertisements, mafia-like content, rumour and misinformation 25 . WeChat also provides a channel for individuals to monitor the distributed links of articles generated by official accounts through the “report” button. Once reported successfully, the related content will be removed, and the link of the article will no longer be accessible.
WeChat payment came out in August 2013 when mobile payment in China was still in the rudimentary stage. The dominant online payment platform then was Alibaba’s PayPal-like Alipay. The tipping point for WeChat payment’s popularity came in the 2014 Chinese New Year when it drew public attention with its Red Packet feature. In 28 January 2014, three days before the 2014 Spring Festival, WeChat launched Red Packet, allowing users to send and receive money in the form of digital red bags, either one to one, or in WeChat groups. This feature mimicked the Chinese cultural ritual of giving and receiving red packets and embodied a way of practising Chinese collective values online (Holmes, Balnaves, & Wang, 2015). Snatching red packets has become an entertaining social game for WeChat users (F. Tu, 2016). On New Year’s Eve in 2014, 16 million red packets were sent and received on WeChat. More than 100 million people linked their bank accounts to WeChat payment and QQ wallet26 in the following year (Tencent, 2015b). After the Chinese New Year’s Eve in 2015, the number was doubled (Tencent, 2015a). WeChat, Alipay, QQ and Sina Weibo started a “Red Packet War” to attract users to use their online payment methods (Tencent, 2015a). This “Red Packet War” has since forged Chinese individuals’ mobile payment habits and has also laid a solid foundation for WeChat’s future commercially-focused framework propelling the prosperity of O2O (online to offline) connections and mico-businesses (weishang ) on WeChat. It was in this dynamic context that final year students in HNU and rural women in Hanpu Town began their own
25 Ibid. 26 QQ also has the function of red packet and online payment. WeChat Wallet and QQ Wallet are the digital wallets that deposit money.
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practices with Red Packet and micro-businesses and details of these particular activities are discussed in Chapters five and six.
2.3.3 Sina Weibo With 175.7 million monthly active users by 2014, Sina Weibo (also known as Weibo) stands out as the earliest, biggest and most successful microblog in China even after enduring pressure from strong competitors like Tencent, NetEase and SOHU27 . Weibo, resembling the US founded microblog Twitter, was inaugurated on 14 August 2009 by Sina, one of the veteran Internet companies in China. The majority of Weibo users are young people coming from higher educational backgrounds according to the reports from Sina Weibo Data Centre. Only 2% of Weibo users are over 46 years old (Sina, 2015). The demographics of Weibo users in this ethnographic research correspond with this pattern as only university students in this study used Weibo and most rural women had never heard of Sina Weibo. Rather, Tencent Weibo had more fame due to its connection to QQ but rural women showed no interest.
Weibo has been constructed as an informational public space assembled by opinion leaders, celebrities and grassroots organisations, as well as government institutions and media outlets (Jia Lu & Qiu, 2013). It has been praised for facilitating public opinions and political participation (Rauchfleisch & Schäfer, 2015; H. Wang & Shi, 2017). Individuals can discuss public affairs and express opinions, especially discontent with social issues, form online groups and coordinate social activities on Weibo (Jia Lu & Qiu, 2013). Online dissent can draw the attention of massive crowds and facilitate public opinions that challenge the authority and give rise to policy and social change
27 Confronted with fierce competition from social media platforms like WeChat and news applications like Tencent News, the Chinese microblogging mogul’s user participatory momentum seemed to be withering (Fu & Chau, 2013). On 23 July 2014, Tencent abolished its microblog service sector Tencent Weibo and officially incorporated it into the sector of QQ.COM in 27 October 2014; on 4 November 2014, NetEase Weibo was closed.
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(Y. Liu, 2015). On the contrary, some scholars argue that Chinese Weibo users are apolitical having strong interests in entertainment and hedonism (Sullivan, 2012) because of the undermining force of online censorship (MacKinnon, 2011; Sullivan, 2014). Apart from its acknowledged public attributes, Weibo also encourages more private interactions by adding features such as Friends Circle that is similar to WeChat Moments. Friends Circle automatically groups those who have followed content back to the user. Privacy settings on Weibo also allow users to avoid people whom they are not following from commenting on their posts.
2.4 Conclusion Overall, Chinese social media platforms have provided multifarious affordances (Bucher & Helmond, 2018) for individuals to make sense of themselves. The thriving Chinese social media landscape is led by capitalist-incentivised Internet giants and propelled by the state under the top-down auspices of forging a strong information economy. Chinese youth especially educated university students, who are the very earliest beneficiaries of the Internet economy, continue to live up to these priorities. As the online environment becomes even more informatised and platformised, what trends and techniques do they use to construct their identities through social media platforms? How do these identity constructions speak to broader socio-cultural perceptions of Chinese identity?
Technological development in China is considered as indispensable for urbanisation, especially rural urbanisation. The historical scheme of the hukou ( ) system has engendered a left-behind rural China, now compelled to engage with social, economic and political developments. The divide between urban and rural technological development is most prominent amongst older rural Chinese women, whose social identity is already stigmatised and whose access to and usage of the Internet is limited. Now that the Chinese countryside has welcomed the unprecedented advancement of digital infrastructure, what transformations does it bring about to these rural Chinese women? How do they respond to various social media affordances? And how does their use of social media impact their perceptions of themselves and their interactions with others? To answer these and the earlier questions, understanding what identity means and in what contexts, particularly in respect of notions
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of Chinese identity needs to be explained. Chapter three Literature Review provides a detailed overview of these conceptions.
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Chapter 3: Literature Review
3 LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 Ideas About Identity
3.1.1 Identity Theories Across Disciplines There are a variety of theories about identity across different disciplines such as, philosophy, psychology, anthropology and sociology. Identity as it is used in the theoretical literature is about who we are, how others perceive us, and how we make sense of ourselves. Identity theory can also be a theory of the self. Sometimes “identity” and “self” are used interchangeably creating confusion about the meaning of these two terms (Roeser, Peck, & Nasir, 2006). For example, William James refers to the self as part of “multiple selves” (James, 1981) which differs from George H. Mead’s linking of the self to a “social self” (Mead, 1934), while Erik Erikson (1968) relates conceptions of the self to one’s self identifications.
Philosophers are concerned with questions of ‘Who am I?’, ‘What am I?’, ‘What is a person?’ and ‘Am I the same person as I was many years ago?’ (Rodogno, 2011, p. 315) and also consider relations between a thing and itself (Noonan & Curtis, 2004). Subsequently, questions of personal identity have long been argued, not the term “self” as such, which does not always mean “person”, though sometimes researchers mix these notions (Olson, 2015). For psychologists, identity is a coherent and consistent sense of self a person has, which Erikson (1968) has referred to as identity synthesis. It is defined in the light of continuity over time and differentiation from other people (Baumeister, 2005) so that an individual would experience an identity development process from identity diffusion to identity achievement (Marcia, 1980). The discussion about identity in psychology tends to be bound with concepts like ego, self or self-concept (Baumeister, 2005) with scholars using these different terms to explore a unified question, “Who do you think you are?”, which focuses on the inner
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psychological process of an individual. Concepts such as ‘true self’, ‘real self’ (Rogers, 1959), ‘possible selves’ (Markus & Nurius, 1986), ‘actual self’, ‘ideal self’ and ‘ought self’ (Higgins, 1987) are very good exemplars. Another important approach to understanding identity in psychology is to look at the social identity theory conceptualised by Tajfel and Turner (1979). This theory is concerned with how people define themselves based on their membership of a group (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Social identity is situated in social relations, formed as individuals categorise themselves in-group, and enhanced as they compare with an out-group, the group norm and stereotypes that favour the in- group (Hogg, Terry, & White, 1995).
The anthropological and sociological perspectives of identity place more emphasis on social and cultural underpinnings rather than on people’s inner self-conscious mentalities. As Clifford Geertz (1973) notes, culture is ‘a set of control mechanisms – plans, recipes, rules, instructions’ (p. 8) for the governing of human behaviour. Anthropologists therefore consider that identity is a historically and culturally conditioned self-image of a person, or a group of people, that attains ‘identification’ of communal characteristics within a group, while being conscious of ‘individuation’, and personalities ‘with different traits and needs/interests’ from the group (Golubovic, 2011, pp. 27-29; van Meijl, 2008). For example, what social anthropologists often talk about regarding identity is “ethnic identity” (Sokefeld, 1999) of people with different ethnicities. As Giddens (1993) has discussed, the nature of sociology is a knowledge of how our lives ‘reflect the contexts of our social experience’ (p.11). Thus, from the viewpoints of sociology, to study individuals’ identity/identities is to study how society affects individuals’ behaviours by situating them in the social world. Giddens (1991) himself contends that postmodern identities are constructed through consumption and becoming more individualised. Most identity theories in the vein of sociology derive from the view of symbolic interactionism (Kaufman, 2014) which can be traced back to the social self theory of Mead (1934). According to Mead (1934), individuals act or behave from the perspectives of others. They take the roles of others to form perceptions about who they are, the “me” reflexively, and initiate action presented as the “I”. The I and the me are phases of the self that sustain the person in social interaction
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Chapter 3: Literature Review
(Burke & Stets, 2009). Shared meaning is attained in the interaction which forms signs and symbols like language which in turn constitutes the foundation of interaction (Burke & Stets, 2009). Following these reflexive views, Stryker (1968), Burke (1980), McCall and Simmons (1978), and Turner (1978) formulated the socially interactive identity theories, and Goffman (1959) conceptualised theories about self-presentation and identity performance.
3.1.2 Self-Presentation Goffman (1959) elaborates on the dramaturgical process of self-presentation and performance in his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. According to Goffman (1959) an individual’s actions are guided by what impression they would like to make on whom he/she interacts with, which sometimes leads to prepositive calculated responses that are reacted upon by others based on their inferences, and therefore project a definition of the situation. Goffman suggests that in a localised social establishment, we (called ‘performer’ by Goffman), tend to either consciously or unconsciously present ourselves on what he refers to as the ‘front region’ in order to communicate impressions of ourselves, distinguished from our ‘backstage’ personae. This process he explains is impression management, ‘theatrical performance’ (Goffman, 1959, p. xi). How others perceive us is the product of both the expressions that we give and the expressions that we give off in a certain context (Boyd, 2014; Goffman, 1959). While expressions given to intentionally convey information (as Goffman argued) can be controlled, expressions given off unintentionally may be decisive in regard to how others perceive us eventually, as they allow space for others to reason the intention of our actions. The latter, Goffman points out make our self-presentations more theatrical. Therefore, we always employ signs such as clothing, facial expressions and bodily gestures to avoid miscommunication of our intended impression. These signs, addressed by Goffman, constitute the front, personal and social, of our performances (p. 24). Social fronts are institutionalised, giving rise to performances ‘in a general and fixed fashion’ (p. 22), which means that we follow the rules and norms in established social roles and relationships to ‘fit into the understanding and expectations of the society’ (p. 35). It is also common that we want to convey an idealised impression of ourselves by masking or
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downplaying appearances and manners that are incompatible with those ideal standards. The concealed expressions are only processed in the ‘backstage’ where, Goffman describes, ‘the suppressed facts make an appearance’ and ‘the impression fostered by the performance is knowingly contradicted as a matter of course’ (p. 112). For instance, a girl does not like her boyfriend’s choice of chocolates as her birthday gift, but she still acts in a way that she is surprised and excited in front of her boyfriend. The husband complains about and even curses his boss while having dinner with his wife at home but behaves as a good employee the second day at work. This does not mean we as a performer are becoming somebody else and our mind is psychologically divided, but rather demonstrates that our identity has multiple facets (Boyd, 2001). Goffman (1955), in further studies describes this as ‘face-work’, which is to ensure that we manage a good impression in a social situation to maintain social relationships. ‘Contextual cues’ are therefore of critical importance as based on those signals, ‘an individual determines what is acceptable behavio[u]r and what aspects of their identity they should perform’ (Boyd, 2004, p. 26). Impression management is essential for our everyday social interaction. It sustains how we construct our identity in different social contexts and the multiplicity of our identity performances.
Goffman’s theory has been examined as a valuable framework for illustrating self-presentation in social media environments. Scholars such as Boyd (2004, 2007, 2014), Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs (2006) and Livingstone (2008) are some of the researchers that have extended this discussion in social media contexts. Yet Goffman only explores the presentation of the self in face-to-face (offline) settings. Whereas signs in offline situations are more obvious for us to observe, in the online environment we become physically disembodied (Pearson, 2009), we are able to connect with a larger network of audiences by virtue of social media technologies (Mendelson & Papacharissi, 2011), and interpreting expressions becomes more complicated. What has been changed by social media, as argued by Boyd (2001), is the context of social interaction. Understanding how context is operated in online environments is therefore vital for the online presentation of self. Digital artefacts created through our online interactions, such as online profiles are important contextual cues for enacting
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performance (Boyd & Heer, 2006). They can be used by individuals as the front-stage to embellish, mask or edit certain aspects of themselves to present a desired self-image (Bullingham & Vasconcelos, 2013; Toma, Hancock, & Ellison, 2008), or they can be constructed as the back-stage providing inconsistent information about their front performance to unintended audiences through online public profiles (Lewis, Kaufman, & Christakis, 2008). Ellison, et al. (2006) argue that more expressions of self are ‘given’ rather than ‘given off’ in the online context as it ‘emphasi[s]es verbal and linguistic cues over less controllable nonverbal communication cues’ (Ellison, et al., 2006, p. 418), while Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011) contend that social media ‘afford a variety of tools that potentially extend and compromise impression management’ (p. 252), for instance, Facebook users may create multiple accounts for different audiences. As individuals increasingly connect with their offline social networks through social media, the lines between private and public spaces are blurring (Danny Miller, 2012) and although this reality has provided a range of opportunities for various self-presentations, as Livingstone (2008) also points out it has without doubt raised concerns about privacy, given that front and back regions are not as simply defined.
Overall, from the above established studies, it can be concluded that an individual’s online profile including avatars, interests, affiliations, friends lists and status updates, as well as digitised activities such as likes, dislikes, comments and location tagging on social media platforms (Chua & Chang, 2016; e Silva & Frith, 2012; Mendelson & Papacharissi, 2011) can all be conceptualised as ‘expressive equipment’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 22) to present oneself, highly crafted in the form of texts, photos, audio, videos and web links. These shared communication symbols are selected on purpose to convey what the ‘actors’ want others to see and interpret, which constitutes impression management out of creative, ‘ostentatious’ (Bourdieu & Bourdieu, 2004, p. 606), ‘convivial incentives’ or for ‘serendipitous play’ (Sheller, 2013). In these ways, identities are ‘established, presented and negotiated’ (Mendelson & Papacharissi, 2011, p. 253). In light of Goffman’s theory, many concepts of “self” are emerging from these online interactions. Ellison, et al. (2006) point out that individuals using online dating sites have the desire to project an ‘ideal self’ (p. 418) while attempting to be ‘realistic and honest’ (p. 429). Shanyang Zhao, Grasmuck, & Martin (2008) criticise
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that Facebook is not a place for expressing ‘hidden dimensions of self’ (Suler, 2002, p. 456) or a fragmented self (Turkle, 1995) and Shanyang Zhao, et al. (2008) claim it is for the construction of ‘hoped-for possible selves’ (p. 1819) because upon registering to participate individuals are meant to disclose their actual identities using genuine email addresses and real names. R. Schwartz and Halegoua (2014) propose that a ‘spatial self’ emerges from location based practices on social media by individuals who ‘document, archive and display their experience and/or mobility within space and place in order to represent or perform aspects of their identity to others’ (p. 2) such as expertise, status and intimacy (Hjorth & Gu, 2012; Humphreys & Liao, 2011). In a nutshell, it is apparent that individuals produce and engage with multifarious online sources to present different facets of the self for a variety of reasons.
3.1.3 Self and Identity in Online Contexts The advent of the Internet has no doubt brought the disquisition of identity into broad inquiry across different academic disciplines. Scholars extend the discussion of self and identity in the context of online environments in philosophy (Hongladarom, 2011; Rodogno, 2011; Schechtman, 2012; Tartaglia, 2012), in psychology (Cheng & Guo, 2015; Guegan, Moliner, & Buisine, 2015; Michikyan, Dennis, & Subrahmanyam, 2015; Morin & Flynn, 2014; Subrahmanyam & Šmahel, 2011; Tamburrini, Cinnirella, Jansen, & Bryden, 2015), and sociology (Baym, 2010; Boyd, 2014; Papacharissi, 2011). In the polemics of identity, especially with the proliferation of Internet and social media, there are heated debates on the question of whether self-identity is unitary or divided, depending on particular discipline-based knowledge. While some researchers philosophically argue that identity is both a matter of physical continuity (Olson, 1997, 2015) and a matter of psychological continuity (Nimbalkar, 2014) and reason we can self-constitute a consistent self in the accounts of narrative theories (Rodogno, 2011; Schechtman, 2012), some argue that identity becomes fragmented and multiple (Stone, 1991; Turkle, 1995) made possible by the anonymous nature of online environments. The Internet and social media bring new ways for us to know ourselves, as well as
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more challenges for scholars to research individuals’ identities. Turkle (1995) makes this argument based on her study of players of multi-user domains (MUDs),
The anonymity of MUDs… gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones. MUDs make possible the creation of an identity so fluid and multiple that it strains the limits of the notion. (Turkle, 1995, p. 12)
Her findings have been echoed by quite a few who claim that people tend to present their desirable and true selves (Bargh, McKenna, & Fitzsimons, 2002) or the hidden part of the self (Suler, 2002) through anonymity and disembodiment in online communications, and only show their actual selves (with less favourable attributes) in face-to-face interactions (Bargh, et al., 2002; Bessière, Seay, & Kiesler, 2007). Turkle’s research was indeed a breakthrough to the study of self-identity work and the role of the Internet in these constructions. However, later studies have refuted her findings and contend there is still an integrated and consistent self-identity even in anonymous online environments (Kendall, 1999) by suggesting that the overlap and intertwining between online and offline spaces makes a person’s decentred self-identities improbable (Ellison, et al., 2006; Shanyang Zhao, et al., 2008). Kendall (1999) discovered that unified and coherent self-identities occurred amongst her participants in the online forum BlueSky as they ‘continually work[ed] to reincorporate their experiences of themselves and of others’ selves into integrated, consistent wholes’ (p. 62). Shanyang Zhao, et al. (2008) argue social media platforms like online dating sites or Facebook are much less anonymous, describing them as ‘nonymous’, the opposite of anonymous, in accommodating ‘anchored relationships’ (Shanyang Zhao, 2006) that consist of offline acquaintances such as schoolmates, colleagues, family members, relatives and neighbours. Individuals then are unlikely to hide themselves or create new identities which are not known to those offline networks, rather, they tend to act under the established norms that exist offline and construct ‘realistic and honest’ (Ellison, et al., 2006) ‘hoped-for possible selves’ (Shanyang Zhao, et al., 2008). It is apparent that many scholars researching digital communication contexts are using the concepts “self” and “identity” interchangeably to denote how we may present ourselves. The plural usage of self as selves
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does not proffer an inconsistent perception of self as inauthentic (van Zoonen, 2013), rather, it underscores the multiple facets of our presentations of self. For as Marwick (2013b) reiterates, ‘[t]he concept of a multiple self explains why people vary identity performance based on context: multiplicity is an inherent property of identity rather than somehow dishonest or false’ (p. 356) and despite variations, there is always a unified sense of self that keeps the person of psychological equilibrium (Michikyan, et al., 2015)28.
Regardless of the representativeness or generalisation of these arguments or the different theoretical backgrounds informing them, they together point out how identity work varies in differing online contexts (Emanuel et al., 2014; van Dijck, 2013b), be it through a dating site such as Tinder or in friends gathered through Facebook. These new contexts where people situate themselves change constantly, yet also enable longstanding traditions that shape people’s behaviours and ways of thinking, which are thereby reconstituted. These interactions manifest the applicability and significance of social constructionism for the study of identity. For identity is an ongoing process that communicates with language, beliefs, values, norms that connect the past with the present, and also point to the future.
3.1.4 Self-Presentation and Privacy Prior research demonstrates that social media is considered as a potential channel for strategic self- presentation (Rui & Stefanone, 2013a; Uski & Lampinen, 2016) as large amounts of self- identificatory information are being disclosed by individuals on social media platforms. Scholars, especially social psychologists, have more specifically examined this aspect and consider its value in terms of interpersonal relationships. Different self-presentation styles (Arkin, 1981; Wolfe, Lennox,
28 Hence I make it clear throughout this original research, that I take up the notion of multi-faceted self- presentations/identity constructions enacted while a unitary and consistent sense of self keeps the online and offline person psychologically integrated (Michikyan, et al., 2015) and in a state of ‘psychosocial homeostasis’ (Hsu, 1985, p. 34).
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& Cutler, 1986) have been proposed, for instance, acquisitive/positive self-presentation and protective self-presentation. Arkin (1981) proposes that people are seeking more social approval than interactional goals so that they construct their self-images positively and selectively, seeking identification (of their positive self-presentations) and tending to reduce any negative impressions they might make (through more moderate disclosures) for fear of social rejection (protective self- presentation). Leary and Kowalski (1990) conclude that impression motivations and impression construction are two stages of self-presentation. In social media, individuals are driven by various motivations to construct their positive and idealised impressions (Kramer & Haferkamp, 2011), such as attention and recognition seeking (Rui & Stefanone, 2013a), relationship maintenance, social capital accumulation (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Ellison, Vitak, Gray, & Lampe, 2014; Vitak, 2012) and identity construction (Frunzaru & Garbasevschi, 2016; Marwick, 2016; Shanyang Zhao, et al., 2008). These goals can be shown in behaviours such as positively selecting, crafting and sharing personal information online.
Technologies and online information generated by the user and others (Walther, Van Der Heide, Hamel, & Shulman, 2009; Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008), the size and diversity of online social networks (Bazarova, Taft, Choi, & Cosley, 2013; Marwick & Boyd, 2010; Misoch, 2015; Rui & Stefanone, 2013a; Vitak, 2012), culture (H. Kim & Papacharissi, 2003; Lee- Won, Shim, Joo, & Park, 2014; S. Luo, 2014; Rui & Stefanone, 2013a, 2013b; Tokunaga, 2009), as well as personal traits and motivations (Bazarova & Choi, 2014; B. Chen & Marcus, 2012; Hermann & Arkin, 2013; Leary & Allen, 2011) are amongst the vast array of factors widely discussed across the academic literature that influence self-presentation and impression management. Some scholars argue that the growing size and diversity of online social networks (Bazarova, et al., 2013; Marwick & Boyd, 2010; Misoch, 2015; Vitak, 2012), and the abundance of linked data information sources (Rui & Stefanone, 2013b; Walther, et al., 2009) can increase the difficulty in controlling one’s personal information and impression construction, thus triggering protective self-presentation strategies. For example, individuals could delete unpleasant posts on their profile pages and provide less information to avoid communicating an undesirable impression, or only disclose information
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appropriate to all members of the network, which is called ‘the lowest common denominator’ by Hogan (2010, pp. 383-384). As social media promote connectedness and connectivity amongst technologies and online users (van Dijck, 2013a), online social networks are growing more diverse, thus forming collapsed contexts (Marwick & Boyd, 2010). The collapsed context, or ways in which multiple sets of social contacts are formed by individuals in social media (when there are no equivalent multiple face-to-face contexts for them to interact with), brings to the fore the complexity of and the difficulty in, managing, imagined audiences (Marwick & Boyd, 2010) through online activities. It also highlights the complexities for individuals navigating systematic information disclosures bringing widespread concerns for privacy, especially when technical settings on social media platforms cannot safeguard personal information (Livingstone, 2008; Papacharissi & Gibson, 2011). However, researchers also point out that disclosing personal information online (including what is considered to be private by individuals) enables self-expression and self-presentation and is an essential part of social interactions whether they be face-to-face contexts, or, in blogs (McCullagh, 2008), Twitter and Facebook (Papacharissi & Gibson, 2011; Proudfoot, Wilson, Valacich, & Byrd, 2018), or Weibo and WeChat (Yin & Li, 2016).
3.1.5 Social Constructionism and Identity Social constructionists consider identity as a social-psychological construct of how individuals make sense of themselves and their social actions (Balnaves & Caputi, 2001). Social constructionism was introduced in Berger and Luckmann’s work The Social Construction of Reality (1991), based on the seminal work of Schutz (1962). Berger and Luckmann (1991) concluded that ‘identity is a key element of subjective reality’ (p. 194) and explained that identity construction is a dynamic process where an individual makes sense of the reality in which identity can also be maintained, modified or even reshaped by social structure, meaning that social structures and identity are in a dialectic relationship. In this regard individuals are not as subjects necessarily subdued (in a structuralist sense) in relation to what Althusser (1971) terms the ‘Ideological State Apparatus’ (religious, educational, family, legal, political, trade-union, communications and cultural institutions) (p. 143), but may have
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agency to resist and even topple power structures. According to Foucault, identities are products of discourses within power relations that enable resistance (Foucault, 1979, 1982). Weedon (2004) analyses the relationship between subjectivity and identity in the Foucauldian tradition stating that, ‘[t]he subject positions and modes of embodied subjectivity constituted for the individual within particular discourses allow for different degrees and types of identity and agency both compliant and resistant’ (p. 19). Among various modes of subjectivity in discourses, certain types of subjectivity will be recognised by identification processes to ‘give individuals a singular sense of who they are and where they belong’ (p. 19). The shift of discursive contexts to online spaces does not change this reality, for as Cover (2014) argues, social media allows us ‘to “shore up” and simultaneously “adjust” our subjectivity’ by ‘bringing various elements of ourselves together as an expression of identity coherence’ (2014, p. 67). Boyd (2014) discusses the online environment’s coherence with and situatedness of the offline in It's Complicated: the Social Lives of Networked Teens, which is a study of the social media practices of American teenagers,
teens turn to different sites because they hear that a particular site is good for a given practice. They connect to people they know, observe how those people are using the site, and then reinforce or challenge those norms through their own practices. As a result, the norms of social media are shaped by network effects; peers influence one another about how to use a particular site and then help collectively to create the norms of that site. (p. 40)
From this perspective, social media like Myspace, Facebook and Instagram have provided a space just like any other physical offline places (e.g. Coffee bars, parking lots) where young generations socialised before, and function not only as tools but also ‘social lifelines’ since the ‘internet mirrors, magnifies, and makes more visible the good, bad, and ugly of everyday life’ (Boyd, 2014, p. 24). It also produces new meaning as per interactions with the digital infrastructures, online platforms, digital artefacts and other users. Hence, through these interactive systems individuals develop their knowledge of themselves and relationships with others through exchanges in socially constructed online contexts, reinforcing the notion that online identities are indeed social constructs. Similar to
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Schutz and Luckmann’s (1973) “relevance structures” which people refer to to make sense of themselves, online identity making is not individualistic; it references to a repository of meaning networks through which it experiences everyday social realities. This repository is constituted of family, friends, school, government, media and culture demonstrating that one’s identity is subject to multiple constructs. A prevalent use of the term “online identity” indicates the existence of “offline identity” and the possible gap between these two forms (Marwick, 2013b). Nevertheless, online identity and offline identity are not as distinct as water and fire as it is widely accepted that the lines between online and offline are also rather fuzzily formed (Danny Miller, 2012) with the range of social media and mobile media uses and applications (Marwick, 2013b).
3.1.6 Social Media and Online Identity Management Social media has been attributed with having different layers of meanings. The first layer looks at its technological infrastructure and explores how it has been programmed, designed, applied and presented as software, platforms and applications. Boyd (2014) proposes that social media is a kind of networked technology that provides instruments and services for communication and interaction. She refers to it as ‘the sites and services that emerged during the early 2000s, including social network sites, video sharing sites, blogging and microblogging platforms, and related tools that allow participants to create and share their own content’ (Boyd, 2014, p. 6). Gillespie (2010) notices that in recent years social media have been reconfigured from websites, services and technologies into ‘platforms’ by social media companies and the public, working as a ‘mediator’ that shapes ‘the performance of social acts instead of merely facilitating them’ (van Dijck, 2013a, p. 29). van Dijck defines platforms from the technological perspective as such:
platforms are providers of software, (sometimes) hardware, and services that help code social activities into a computational architecture; they process (meta) data through algorithms and formatted protocols before presenting their interpreted logic in the form
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of user-friendly interfaces with default settings that reflect the platform owner’s strategic choices. (2013a, p. 29)
Every social media platform therefore has a specific user interface, features and functions, providing various utilities for its users. Although we can deploy tools and services on a social media platform creatively, user behaviour to some extent is engineered by the technological mechanisms developed out of particular incentives (van Dijck, 2013a). van Dijck (2013a, pp. 36-41) points out that this environment of expected use is formed by a platform’s ownership, its governance structure and business models. Commercial strategies, and rules and guidelines of the platform all play a role in users’ behaviours on the platform (Light, Burgess, & Duguay, 2016). In other words, the front stage of interactions in social media is technically set in a way where individuals are given a synthesis of affordances to lead certain types of self-presentations (Goffman, 1959; van Dijck, 2013b). For instance, LinkedIn is designed to be a professional network where people seldom share personal matters as they do on Facebook (van Dijck, 2013b). Twitter stimulates short message exchanges by its 140 word limit regulation (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011) and public discussion of ad hoc issues with its hashtag feature (Bruns & Moe, 2013). At the macro level of this technological perspective, Chinese social media is no different from its Western counterpart. Chinese social media platforms also provide architecture that could trigger predictable behaviour (Su, Lee, & Lin, 2017) and Chinese Internet companies instigate a plethora of user data for their capital development (Fuchs, 2015; Jia & Winseck, 2018; Stockmann & Luo, 2017) by virtue of the centralising effects of platformisation (Helmond, 2015; Mackenzie, 2018). These affordances however, do not imply that our behaviours on social media platforms are controlled by algorithms and our online identities are identifiably the same. When the micro level of use is considered, how people actually engage with those technical features speaks of another denotation that social media is indeed a space (W. He, 2017) with social, cultural and political implications, where ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 2006, p. 22) and ‘networked publics’ (Boyd, 2014, p. 8) enabled by interconnected technologies communicate and interact with each other, thereby bridging online and offline gaps, and reshaping cultural and political contexts.
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The two-layer denotations of social media are interwoven and mutually constitutive, creating an ‘online ecosystem’ (van Dijck, 2013a, p. 9) that not only enables platforms and applications, but also facilitating competing social media companies designing them and generating the different populations making sense of them. These factors together constitute the evolving meaning networks for individuals to construct their identities. However, the resonance created in social media space can be either a supporting or an undermining force. Social relationships can be enhanced and extended (Baym, 2010); voices of minorities and marginal groups can be upheld (Mills, Dovil, Williams, & Tyree, 2016; William, 2016); personal and organisational image can be projected and promoted (Marwick, 2013c) so that identities can become empowered. On the other hand, problems may also arise so that certain identities may be undermined, exploited, or threatened, through online harassment and bullying (Ntang-Beb & Williams, 2016), fake news (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Marda & Milan, 2018), online censorship (F. Yang, 2014) and privacy invasion (Solon, 2018).
In technical terms social media has the capacity to develop users’ online identities through ‘steering mechanisms (algorithms, protocols and default settings)’ (van Dijck, 2013b, p. 212) of platform interfaces which are likely to instigate presumed user needs for self-expression, self-communication and self-promotion. In this regard, van Dijck argues that ‘social media are not neutral stages of self- performance – they are the very tools for shaping identities’ (2013b, p. 212). Regarding these identity constructions and performances, some postmodernists consider them as commodities that can be manipulated by individuals for their own advantages. Giddens is the vanguard of this disposition. He proposes that a highly commodified self is shaped by the capitalist system which ‘in the context of consumerism, promotes appearance as the prime arbiter of value, and sees self-development above all in terms of display’ (Giddens, 1991, p. 200). Extending some of these ideas, further Marwick (2013c, 2015, 2016) explores the phenomenon of ‘micro-celebrity’ on social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and reveals that this particular identity performance is prominent among individuals who pursue popularity by using a set of techniques to create a fan base both online and offline. As social media has become such an important funnel for self-
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presentation, online identities are likely to be commodified by individuals in such a heavily promotional environment (Frunzaru & Garbasevschi, 2016; Marwick, 2016). For example, Frunzaru and Garbasevschi’s (2016) study of university students in Bucharest has found that individuals were motivated to manage their online identities to promote themselves, a process the researchers call ‘digital labour’ (p. 7). This digital labour shows an investment of a long intensive effort for either social, cultural or material benefits (Hearn, 2008). While many researchers have summarised divergent types of identity performances across social media based on either qualitative or quantitative studies, nonetheless, their focus has largely been on Western media contexts. However, there has been much less attention to the population of those who live in China which offers the opportunity to consider how developing technologies may have influenced the social media use of particular Chinese cohorts, and to also explore if Chinese also show recognisable patterns of self- presentations in these online environments.
3.2 Chinese Identity
3.2.1 Collectivism Through researching work-related attitudes of IBM employees from different cultural contexts Geert Hofstede (1980) came to a reductionist conclusion in his book Culture’s Consequences that Chinese- majority countries have a strong collectivistic culture. He conducted surveys in 40 countries and regions between 1967 and 1973, producing a total of more than 100,000 questionnaires (Hofstede, 1980). Later he expanded the number of countries surveyed to 76, and in his book Cultures and Organisations: Software of the Mind (2010), added China as a separate study sample. In Hofstede’s research, China scored 20 in the individualism index while Hong Kong and Taiwan scored 25 and 17 respectively (Hofstede, et al., 2010). It is thus grounded in Hofstede’s work that China is a highly collectivist country in which individuals value group interests more than personal interests. Significantly, Hofstede considers Confucianism as the cause of Chinese collectivism. This position has laid a profound foundation for many scholars who have undertaken identity and cultural studies
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research about China using collectivism as the value content of cultural identity (Moriizumi, 2011), similarly to what Triandis (1994) described as ‘cultural syndromes’ (p. 43). Subsequently, the individualism-collectivism model (I-C) has been used by many scholars to explain the psychological, sociological and cultural characteristics of Chinese people. As for those who embody a strong sense of collectivism, they are born into extended families or clans that support and protect them in exchange for their loyalty. A “we” consciousness prevails: identity is based on the social system; the individual is emotionally dependent on organisations and institutions; the culture emphasises belonging to organisations; organisations pervade private life and the clans to which individuals belong; and individuals trust group decisions.
Being individualistic, people’s personal goals take priority over their allegiance to groups like the family or the employer- an “I” consciousness prevails: competition rather than cooperation is encouraged; personal goals take precedence over group goals; people tend not to be emotionally dependent on organisations and institutions; and every individual has the right to their private property, thoughts and opinions; individual initiative and achievement is emphasised and decision- making is valued. Not only has the application of I-C been examined in cross-cultural comparative studies between China and other countries (X. Shi & Wang, 2011), but also across different Chinese- majority societies, for example, in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore (Lau, 1992) and among various types of ingroups of family, friends, neighbours or colleagues (H. Z. Li, Zhang, Bhatt, & Yum, 2006; Y. T. Wong, 2001).
Hofstede’s model has been criticised as methodologically flawed and lacking representativeness (Bond, 1994; Voronov & Singer, 2002), including insufficient measurement (Brewer & Chen, 2007; Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2005), and failing to buttress its inbuilt collectivism-and-individualism divergence (Lim, Kim, & Kim, 2011; Voronov & Singer, 2002) both at cross-national level (S. H. Schwartz, 1994; Takano & Osaka, 1999) and intra-country level (David Yaofai Ho & Chiu, 1994; Sinha & Tripathi, 1994). The result, according to Brewer and Chen (2007) and other critics, is that the I-C model is often used as a catchall and confusing set of polarising constructs. Regardless, with
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the development of the Internet in China, spaces like online blogs and social networking sites, potential fields of self-presentation and identity making (Papacharissi, 2011) have become a focus for the application of the I-C model (S. Chu & Choi, 2010; Jackson & Wang, 2013; S. Luo, 2014). S. Chu and Choi (2010) suggest for example, that seeking a sense of belonging in collective groups like family and friends might be the reason why young Chinese SNS users engage themselves for longer amounts of time communicating via SNS than their US counterparts. Contrastingly, Jackson and Wang’s (2013) study argues that collectivism is exactly the same cause that leads Chinese students to spend less time in networking online than American youth, but more time interacting with those collectives offline. The established view of Chinese being collectivist-oriented has been challenged by some researchers detecting both high levels of collectivism and individualism among Chinese people. L. Qiu, Lin, & Leung (2012) reveal that Chinese students perform more collectivist characteristics in the Chinese social networking site Renren and could flexibly adjust their behaviour to being less collectivist on Facebook. S. Luo (2014) finds no obvious evidence to support the assumption that Chinese and US youth are demarcated as collectivistic and individualistic respectively, discovering in his research into American college students who used Facebook and Chinese college students who used Renren in China that Chinese Renren users scored both high on collectivism and individualism characteristics. S. Luo (2014) argues that Western acculturation and the development of a capitalist market economy in China are the main reasons for increased levels of individualism among the Chinese, while in their survey of the I-C scores among different age groups of Chinese youth Shuai, Mi, & Zou (2015) similarly discovered a rise of individualistic values and a drop of collectivistic values.
3.2.2 Individualism Despite the disadvantages discussed, for the study of identity work of Chinese, I-C are still employed as essentialist categories (T. Wang, 2013). Particular studies point out that Chinese people, especially youth, are developing their tendencies toward individualism, much aligned with China’s progress of modernity (Fengshu Liu, 2011) or post-modernity (Sima & Pugsley, 2010). Hofstede, et al. (2010)
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points out, ‘when we compare the values of individuals, individualism and collectivism should be treated as two separate dimensions’ (p. 102) because individuals can be having both individualistic and collectivistic values. It becomes a logical step for scholars to assert that Chinese people are both individualistic and collectivistic. The collectivistic characteristics are often ascribed to Confucian culture and the ideological construction of the Communist Party while the individualistic traits are credited to globalisation and China’s modernisation project. This is a common view: globalisation that accelerates the international exchange of cultures and the modernisation of China under reforms by the Communist Party that advocates a freer market, have resulted in a flow of personal, independent and materialistic, namely individualistic values. Therefore Chinese are undergoing the construction of a dual identity (Fengshu Liu, 2011; Weber, 2002) which incorporates collectivism and individualism. The individualistic subjectivity which was absent in pre-Maoist and Maoist eras informs contemporary Chinese reality after economic boosts from post-Maoist political and economic reforms (Fengshu Liu, 2011) whereas the subjective aspect of being a collectivist remains as the default value of Chinese identity (Hou, 2013). Following the proposition of neoliberalism (Yan, 2010), various researchers consider that individualism is internalised by Chinese people, engendering an ambivalent (but able-to-be-balanced) mindset in conflict with traditional values whether they engage with traditional discursive spaces (J. Cao, 2009; Moore, 2005; Weber, 2001) or new online spaces through the Internet (Kong, 2012; Fengshu Liu, 2011; Sima & Pugsley, 2010). Weber (2001) studied Shanghai youth interpretations of a TV drama and saw strong individualistic values coming out of these discourses. Moore (2005) found embedded individualistic characteristics (rebellion against parental values, self-indulgence) amongst Chinese university students from analysing their understanding of the popular discourse ku, the English equivalent of ‘cool’. Through examining factors including economic development, affluence of individuals, modes of production, mobility, travelling and education, and mass media J. Cao (2009) argues Chinese the post-80s generation’s transformative behaviours such as being more inclined towards challenging jobs, more money-driven and more self-oriented, are embodiments of individualism.
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In addition, some scholars underscore that this transformation of Chinese identity is also manifested in the use of new forms of communication (Fengshu Liu, 2011; Sima & Pugsley, 2010). Sima and Pugsley’s (2010) research into the blogging facilitated self-presentation of China’s ‘Generation Y’ (born between 1978 and 2000) revealed that these bloggers are practicing values of individualism and consumerism to present individuality and express personal emotions, resulting in the formation of a ‘me culture’ (p. 287). Kong’s (2012) study into the male sex industry in China shifted the foci from urban youth to marginal groups of ‘money boys’ who are rural migrant male sex workers in China, and found neoliberal individualistic elements amongst them. This group of studies all favour the Chinese characteristic of modernist individualism according to a socialist political regime led by the Communist Party. They have examined a part of the contemporary political, economic and cultural landscape in China and results indicate how individuals have been simultaneously influenced by the party-state policy, and how these Chinese have also reacted to global modernity. After studying the online experiences of a group of Chinese urban youth born in the 1980s and early 1990s, Liu has found that Chinese youth present a dualism of their identity that involves paradoxical individualistic and traditional subjectivities as she states,
… they simultaneously embody both expressive individualism and economic or utilitarian individualism… [t]hey are simultaneously materialistic and idealistic, internationalist and nationalist, global and local, apolitical but nationalistic, modern and traditional, blessed with material prosperity and yet under great pressure to strive for greater material wealth, and exposed to an unprecedented range of choices and yet lacking a sense of security. (Fengshu Liu, 2011, p. 76)
Liu argues these dual subjectivities are the product of China’s ‘dual modernity’ (p. 20) project facilitated by the Communist Party under the auspice of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ (p. 18), which she describes as ‘the theoretical basis and justification for China’s political, social, economic and cultural practices in the reform age’ (p. 18). Liu summarises the ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ as following:
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… a political exclusivism that is cent[r]ed on the sole leadership of the party, an economic pragmatism that promotes whatever means conducive to the economic growth which is regarded by the Chinese leadership as the basis for the ‘performance legitimacy’ and a cultural particularism that addresses the problems caused by a moral vacuum at home and Western cultural influences from abroad. (2011, p. 18)
Fengshu Liu (2011) claims that Chinese youngsters found themselves ‘torn between’ (p. 76) a dualism of being traditional, fulfilling conventional commitments such as filial piety, and being individualistic, pursuing independence and material achievements. Being ‘individualistic’ means Chinese youth appear more like their Western counterparts, and that the core of the Chinese self has been eroded by not only ‘economic individualism’ but also ‘expressive individualism’ (p. 76). By borrowing the framework of ‘economic individualism’ and ‘expressive individualism’ from Bellah (1985), Fengshu Liu (2011) again enhances the plausibility of a dichotomous Chinese self.
By applying Ulrich Beck’s theory of second modernity29 and institutionalised individualisation, post- modernists like Yan (2009, 2010) view processes of individualisation amongst Chinese as distinct from European-style individualisation. Whereas classic individualism encompasses responses to social changes that support agency, Yan claims that Chinese individualism lacks ‘a culturally embedded democracy and a welfare system’ (Hansen & Svarverud, 2010, p. xi). Yan’s perspective helps refine the understanding of Chinese subjectivity in terms of being a proactive ‘individual’. He also advocates a dualistic view of the Chinese self, but one that differs from the classic individualistic perspective. Yan considers that the Chinese self entails ‘a relationship between the individual and
29 According to Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002), second modernity is a self-transformative process of the first modernity in which growing global risks such as social inequality and global warming cannot be tackled by, but are very much caused by the nation-state system. A second-modernity society is a highly differentiated and globally networked society where individuals are compelled to make their own choices, rely on ‘do-it-yourself biographies’ and strive for radicalised democracy despite facing conflicts, insecurity and uncertainties.
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social group, instead of an autonomous and indivisible entity’ (Yan, 2010, p. 505). Yan (2011) sees the connection between the self and the collective yet he considers that postmodern self-driven values have brought conflicts in this relationship, thus rendering Chinese with ‘self-contradictory – moral reasoning and divided actions’ (p. 72) , and ‘leading to a discontinuity of the personhood or the otherness of the self’ (p. 69). Deep China: the Moral Life of the Person, edited by Kleinman et al. (2011), corroborates Yan’s argument by presenting cases that exemplify the tensions imposed on the collectivist morality by Chinese individualistic practices in the post-Mao era such as, emancipated expression of sexual desire, volunteerism in blood donation, recognition of mental illness and increasing rates of suicide. It then proposes that these individualist practices demonstrate the production of a ‘new moral person’ so that Chinese people are psychologically divided. F. Wei and Jin (2016) further Yan’s views in the context of new media, specifically social media platforms, in an effort to explain how these communications have been used by post-1990s young people for constructing an enterprising self and a desiring self. Yan’s work, along with these other proponents of the concept of “Chinese individualism”, offers a deeper understanding of Chinese individuals’ subjectivities in respect of individual-society-Party-state relationships. Yet these conclusions about Chinese individuals’ identity constructions are confined to the researchers’ interpretations of the political and economic conditions in China, and China’s modernisation (carried on from Mao’s era) and the problematic rhetoric of the individualism/collectivism paradox. It is argued here that these reasonings are a consequence of neglecting the fundamental differences/coherences between “self” and “self-perception”, “I” and “me” (in Mead’s sense), and “social identity” and “inner identity” (in Boyd’s terms), and the various roles which ordinary, everyday culture plays in developing them.
3.2.3 Confucian “Collectivism” and “Individualism” There is no doubt that in China the Internet and social media have provided new forms of communication, expanding the spaces for personal and political expression (Skoric, Zhu, Goh, & Pang, 2015), and contributing to the interchange of different cultures (Shuter, 2012). However, these
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developments do not necessarily lead to divisions, for as Dirlik (2002) argues the cultural domain is a province of multiple tensions:
The intrusion of modernity’s cultures into the cultural spaces of China resulted neither in the appropriation of modernity in an abstract Chinese cultural space, nor the erasure of that cultural space by the incoming cultures of modernity; instead, it created a new structural condition, or a field of forces, that was the product of dialectical interactions of complex constituents of what we call Chinese or modern cultures. (Dirlik, 2002, p. 29)
Looking at Chinese identity from purely modernist or postmodernist perspectives exaggerates the force of media culture and modernisation, underestimating the sustained effects of traditional culture and misunderstanding how the Chinese self evolves within its nuanced cultural contexts. Many scholars argue that although both collectivism and individualism can exist in one society (Triandis, 1994), their meanings are contextual (Brewer & Chen, 2007; Hofstede, 2011; X. Lu, 1998; G. Wang & Liu, 2010). It is irrefutable that Confucianism is the main cultural source of Chinese collective behaviour. To better understand its impacts, the Chinese work of face (David Yaufai Ho, 1976; Hofstede, et al., 2010) – an elusive and symbolic other-directed representation of ego and social conduct, and guanxi (Dunning & Kim, 2007; Hwang, 1987; King, 1991) – how self is related to others in Chinese society have been invariably dissected. Hofstede, et al. (2010) discuss Chinese face concepts in the family setting. Based on guanxi network analysis, G. Wang and Liu (2010) suggest the concept of ‘relationalism’ (p. 55) should be taken into account for a better understanding of Chinese collectivism. X. Lu (1998) traces back both the meanings of individualism and collectivism in Chinese contexts and agrees that there is an overlap between Western notions of collectivism and Confucianism, which takes into account the idea of Confucian ‘yi’ (morality, benevolence, righteousness, and faithfulness) (p. 93). Nevertheless, as to the individualist aspects of Chinese, Mohism and Legalism, manifest in the concept of ‘li’ (benefit, utilitarianism, and profit) (p. 93), have been the original principles on which Chinese individualism has been founded whereas Western individualism has its root in liberalism (U. Kim, 1994). Lu argues,
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American individualism is based on the valuative principles and abstract ideals of freedom, sacredness, and autonomy of the individual in the Western tradition. Chinese value of li, on the other hand, is derived from a pragmatic philosophical tradition that aims at seeking mutual gain or self-interest for concrete material benefits. (1998, p. 105)
King and Bond (1985) criticise the notion that Confucian ethical discipline suppresses individualism. Many researchers have not realised that Confucianism also values self-interest (King & Bond, 1985; G. Wang & Liu, 2010). They argue,
the Chinese individual living under Confucian guidelines is entirely capable of asserting a self-directed role in constructing vast relational networks outside his family. The individualism forming a part of Confucian social philosophy can be reali[s]ed in this important social arena. (King & Bond, 1985, p. 42)
As Niles (1998) has noted, pursuing personal goals does not necessarily collide with fulfilling obligations attached to the collective because they are after all contributive to the collective good. Thus, a glossary of “Confucian individualism” is seemingly possible.
We can conclude that not only does collectivism have concrete nuanced forms in China, the meaning of individualism is also divergent. According to Triandis (1994, pp. 43-44), individualism refers to self-independence from rather than self-interdependence with the group, priority to personal goals rather than communal goals, behaviours directed by ‘attitudes, personal needs, rights, and contracts’ rather than ‘norms, obligations, and duties’, and rational analyses of relationships. This conception of individualism aligns more closely with the broadly discussed “Western individualism”, whereas in terms of the individualism derived from Mohism and Legalism (according to Lu’s criteria discussed earlier) “Mohist and Legalist individualism” also occurs. Together with the previously mentioned “Confucian individualism” then, it may be argued that there are at least three types of individualism in Chinese culture accordingly. This does not mean that the aim of this discussion is to categorise and essentialise these constructs, on the contrary, it lays out how complex and meaningless it is to correlate existing Western constructs of collectivism and individualism with Chinese culture. Though
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scholars endeavour to clarify the contextual differences underlying these constructs, the lines between each are fuzzy. Also, it is clear that the Chinese notion of self distinguishes from the Western notion of individual (Fei, 2012; X. Lu, 1998). It would be confusing to suggest that a Chinese exemplifying self-directed, goal-stimulated and freedom-desiring emotions and behaviour is “Mohist and Legalist individualist” or “Confucian individualist” or “Western individualist”. Again, Chinese identity and culture cannot simply be discerned in virtue of superordinate constructs such as collectivism and individualism.
Alleged individualism and collectivism dichotomies therefore fail to flesh out the changing and complex social realities in China and are out of date for Chinese identity studies and cultural studies. It is one of the objectives here to call for scholars to avoid falling into this “constructive problematic circle” by categorising Chinese characteristics into the I-C dichotomy theorised by westerners. If we take a closer look at the situational self and where it pitches to the differential mode of association, a more profound understanding of how Chinese self works to manifest the same characteristics described by different scholars may be gained.
3.2.4 Situational Self There can be little doubt that Confucian thought has permeated Chinese attitudes and behaviour (King & Bond, 1985). As Zhai (2013) states outright, ‘the social construction of Confucianism is, to some extent, the construction of Chinese society’ (p. 40). Confucian values he (harmony), ren (intersubjective benevolence), li (propriety) and shu (reciprocity) entail a set of ethical norms for individuals to follow. Mencius (1984) elaborated on five cardinal relationships in traditional Chinese society: sovereigns and subjects, father and son, younger brother and elder brother, husband and wife, and friend and friend. In each relationship, the individual has different roles attached with prescribed moral ethics and expectations of behaviour. Pondering on this long tradition, Chinese anthropologist Xiaotong Fei brings up that Chinese social structure is chaxu geju ( ), the
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differential mode of association. Fei (2012) realised the embeddedness of Confucianism in Chinese society and worked out the concept ‘differential mode of association’ in 1948:
This pattern of organi[s]ation in Chinese traditional society has the special quality of elasticity…These highly elastic social circles, which can be expanded or contracted according to a change in the power of the cent[re], cause Chinese to be particularly sensitive to changes in human relationships. (Fei, 2012, p. 44)
In Fei’s view, Chinese social structure consists of countless threads of personal relationships. People adjust themselves situationally in different relationships according to the expectations prescribed by each tier of relationships that spread out like ripples from the centre of the self (see Figure 3.1) (Fei, 2012). Chu and Peng’s (2012) work on the ‘situational self’ (p. 204) illustrates how this self has been played out by Chinese migrant workers, university students and white-collar workers through their use of mobile phones. This relationship-based characteristic can also be found in Francis Hsu’s comparative study of American and Chinese ways of life in 1955. Looking through differences of Americans and Chinese in making sense of arts, gender roles, home, school, religion and government, Hsu (1981) demonstrated a situation-centred Chinese way of life that values conformity and mutual dependence and positions ‘an individual’s appropriate place and behaviour among his fellowmen’ (p. 12) , compared with individual-centeredness of Americans. Later King (1985) referred to this self as a ‘relational being’ (pp. 19-24) to denote the individual not as an isolated human being but as defining him/herself in his/her relationships with others.
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Figure 3.1 The differential mode of association
Overall, the ‘situational self’ captures how Confucian culture moulds the behaviours of Chinese people. The differential mode of association provides a rationale for how the situational self can extend their social relationships from a primary group of family to broader social circles such as friends, workmates and employers. It is elastic as individuals’ perceptions of in-circle and out-circle relationships are changeable. Relation circles like family and friends in proximity of the centre are perceived closer emotionally than those more distant, like strangers (Xiaoping Chen & Chen, 2004; Yum, 1988). For instance, familial relationship can be extensive and can involve all the relatives of the individual or compressive to merely include the individual’s parents and siblings. Every individual form different social relationship through social interaction, hence making their situational selves part of a huge web. This also illustrates why Chinese are so obsessive with the work of guanxi (social relationship) and mianzi (face). The situational self reflects how culture shapes Chinese identity and represents the importance of cultural context in identity studies. Chu and Peng’s (2012) study shows that in the engagement with mobile phones and the Internet, the behaviours of Chinese people are also culturally based, embodying traditional social and cultural traits like maintaining different social relationships and negotiating face (mianzi), and bringing the situational self into being.
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It should be noted, that the situational self is not Confucianism per se. It is the Chinese self that reflects Chinese culture. It has its cultural base in Confucianism which guides complex situational interactions. The Chinese self does not follow the suit doctrinally. Fei understood the ‘selfishness’ (2012, p. 51) of the self and how social change modifies the self in a differential mode of association. This idea of the selfishness of the situational self requires expansion. It is widely agreed that a Confucian self is a benevolent self, following the rites and loving others. It is the ‘otherness’ (W. Tu, 1985, p. 230) or other-relatedness in Confucian thought that academics draw on most; the individual aspect has always been explored as in conflict with or counter to Confucian philosophy; for example scholars like T. Wang (2013) holding that under the scheme of Confucian guidelines Chinese personal expression is restricted.
Contrary to the new concepts that see the situational self as doctrinally fixed, the situational self can have a program of self-interest (King & Bond, 1985; G. Wang & Liu, 2010). To better illustrate the quintessence of Chinese social structure and the mechanism of the self, Fei (2012) compares differential mode of association with the organisational mode of association. An organisational mode of association defines social relationships that are organisation-based, the self is directed by individualistic values and individuals form organisations with clear boundaries between each other (Fei, 2012, p. 40). In the differential mode of association social relationships are not discreet but intertwined and graded according to the degree of intimacy between the situational self and the other. Fei argues that it is individualism in the centre of the organisational mode of association whereas egocentrism is at the centre of a differential mode of association. Fei recognises the fundamental difference between a Chinese self and a Western self. Being prescribed by social responsibilities and moral norms does not mean that a person cannot show concern for his/her self-interests. It is because of this selfishness that Confucius advocates his people to ‘ke ji fu li (subdue the self and follow the rites)’ (Fei, 2012, p. 60). Therefore, self-restraints should not be taken as being in opposition to the development of the self. Instead, it is the essential conditioning of the social self in Chinese society which individuals enact to bring social benefits to themselves (W. Tu, 1985; G. Wang & Liu, 2010; M. M. Yang, 1994). In the situational self, there is a self at the centre that is aware of
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various relationships and attached values and norms, but flexible enough to be capable of catering for his/her own interests and having them tailored to these relationships (King & Bond, 1985; N. Lin, 2001; J.-D. Luo & Yeh, 2012). ‘Chinese conformity is that it is often nothing more than surface conformity, that is, compliance without internali[s]ation’ and ‘[o]ne generally responds to the dictates of the situation, rather than to the dictates of one’s self’ (King & Bond, 1985, p. 35). Although the use of ‘individualism’ seems to be in question, King and Bond clearly show the capability of the Chinese self:
[T]he Chinese individual is no longer tightly locked in a family structure but finds himself [sic] in quite a new social situation where the individual is given a much broader scope for self-expression. To put it differently, the individual is now relatively more free from the restraints of familism, thus shifting the Confucian agendas to a new and different structural base. (1985, p. 38)
This clarifies two points: First, Chinese social behaviours embody in practice Confucian thought, not simply in doctrines that dictate what people do. Secondly, cultural norms and patterns can be constructed and modified gradually by the situational self. How social change modifies the self in the differential mode of association is itself important. Confucian culture has long been seen as the patterning force of Chinese social behaviour. That is because one can find Confucian norms and values among Chinese people who practice them to direct their social lives. That is to say, Confucian culture is formed and taken in by Chinese people progressively; the situational self stimulates this outcome. Fei illustrates very clearly how the situational self evolves in social change, even though the change is minimal. He uses power relations to demonstrate this change:
With paternalistic power, people are not allowed to oppose traditional norms. But as long as they pay lip service to the form, they may interpret and thereby change the content. … all understand how the interpretation of paternal will can be distorted to maintain the façade of “no disobedience”. Unable to oppose the impracticable doctrines and orders issued by the elders, one simply distorts their wishes while giving them face-that is,
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outward compliance. The gap between the name and underlying reality, however, increases as the pace of social change intensifies. (Fei, 2012, p. 160)
Chinese culture is not all Confucianism, it is presented in the everyday phenomena interwoven with variegated values, beliefs and customs. The development of Chinese society never dispels the influence of cultural factors like Buddhism, Daoism and Western culture in Chinese history (Y. Tang, 2015) and integration and collision are therefore commonplace, notwithstanding in digital contexts. Nevertheless, contemporary theorist Tricia Wang (2013) contends that the use of social media by Chinese people has uprooted traditional Chinese culture and induced a new form of Chinese identity, in other words, an ‘elastic self’ has replaced the ‘situational self’.
3.2.5 Elastic Self Tricia Wang sees in the results of her own work and recent studies on individualism and collectivism evidence of an ‘elastic self’ in China that is ‘both the feeling that one’s identity is malleable and the action of trying different identities’ (T. Wang, 2013, p. 14). The elastic self has a flexibility that can go beyond the institutional and political prescriptions, it is an ‘informal mode of interaction’ (p. 34). T. Wang (2013) explicitly says that an elastic self is a democratic form of identity compared with the situational self in the ‘formal mode of interaction’ in China (the situational self being the collectivist self). T. Wang (2013, p. 39) creates a dichotomy of forms of interaction (see Table 3.1), with the elastic self operating in an informal mode.
Table 3.1 Formal and Informal Modes of Interaction
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Formal mode Informal mode
identity singular, traceable, attached malleable, impermanent to “real name”/give name
social ties strong ties (social circle), impersonal, weak ties guanxi
trust between users is: based on past interaction and built over time through rituals of a preexisting relationship trustworthiness
attitude towards strangers closed open
shame is: present not present
practices and norms institutionalized and negotiable and evolving prescriptive
communities closed, exclusive, based on open, more inclusive, formed through social social circle network
Informal modes of interaction according to Wang’s thesis empower their participants:
Platforms that foster an informal mode of interaction are youths’ refuge from people they know. They are the secret hiding places where youth are not tied to fulfilling any situational self; these are the places they feel safe to engage in an Elastic Self. (T. Wang, 2013, p. 38)
Wang’s thesis that Chinese young people are ‘living their emotional lives online with strangers’ (2013, p. 209) may indeed be the case with some Chinese youth, but this ignores the key question whether China has shifted or is shifting from a differential mode of association towards an organisational mode of association. Her ‘formal and informal modes of interaction’ echo the distinction between differential and organisational ‘modes of association’ proposed by Fei (2012). Fei, though, goes further and puts egocentrism not individualism at the heart of the Chinese self.
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While T. Wang (2013) tries to avoid using concepts like collectivism and individualism to understand Chinese identity, her ‘elastic self’ obviously favours individualistic organisation. T. Wang (2013, p. 21) argues that ‘the cultural legacy of the collectivist social structures of Communism and Confucianism stunt the capacity of the Chinese self to become a fully developed modern self’. She is in fact defending the informal-organisational-individualistic mode of interaction as optimal for Chinese people. Wang’s work clearly focuses on the emotional constraints of Chinese quotidian interactions (with people they know) and underlines online practices of marginalised people such as homosexuals and activists, without noticing the intricate expressions of personal interests in different social networks and other interplaying factors like privacy and security (Stutzman, Capra, & Thompson, 2011; Vitak & Ellison, 2012). By setting the elastic self against the situational self theoretically, Wang is contending that in the social media era Chinese youth’s sense of self is turning to a state where the ingrained Confucian culture and the differential mode of association cannot be maintained. Tricia Wang’s ideas on the elastic self actually fit well within the I-C framework showing that good may be tied to the elastic self and bad to the traditional collectivist self. The current literature therefore provides limited understandings of Chinese self and identity and as comprehensive as they are, theories of Chinese identity need to be reexamined according to the evolving social phenomena presented by various kinds of Chinese people.
3.3 Online Identity Research in China Chinese people’s online practices have received widespread research and discussion in recent years. Various types of online platforms including BBSs, blogs, microblogs, IMs and SNSs have been examined, with a special focus on Chinese people’s political practices (W. Chen & Reese, 2015; Hampton, et al., 2017; Lagerkvist, 2010; J. Liu, 2016; G. Yang, 2009; G. Yang & Jiang, 2015; X. Zhang & Lin, 2014) showing a rich context of online political participation in China. Many studies adhere to the political control-resistance model centring on Chinese use of the public platform Weibo (eg. Rauchfleisch & Schäfer, 2015; H. Wang & Shi, 2017), with very few looking at the more private platform WeChat (Deluca, Brunner, & Sun, 2016). Researchers argue that Weibo has allowed ample
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space for Chinese citizens to actively engage in public affairs, express discontent, organise contentious activities to resist and challenge the authority even though Internet in China is under strict censorship by the Chinese government (Lagerkvist, 2010; Tang & Sampson, 2012; G. Yang, 2009, 2014). Some scholars hold a more pessimistic view by claiming that Chinese online practices are apolitical, imbued with an ethos of entertainment and hedonism (Harwit, 2016; Sullivan, 2012; S. S. Wang & Hong, 2010) which is, as S. S. Wang and Hong (2010, p. 76) point out, ‘a consequence of perceived government monitoring and of the compromises made at every level of society, as the expectation of political freedom is minimal in China.’ Moreover, several scholars (MacKinnon, 2011; Sullivan, 2014) argue that the role of social media is facilitating the online surveillance by Chinese authorities, forming a ‘panopticon’ in the Foucauldian sense in Chinese online space (Giese, 2004; Varis, Wang, & Du, 2011).
Other researchers (J. Liu, 2016; J. C. Wu, 2014; G. Yang & Jiang, 2015) explore the less overt types of online political participation, represented through interacting with infotainment oriented texts, rather than overt political topics. Playful and carnivalesque phenomena like the discursive use of cao ni ma (or Grass Mud Horse, homophonic to fuck your mother) (Y. Zhang & Tomlinson, 2012), egao (evil work) (H. Gong & Yang, 2010; Wallis, 2011, 2014) and diaosi (dick string) (P. Yang, Tang, & Wang, 2014) are typical examples of how Chinese individuals creatively and collectively use homophones, metaphors, parodies and encoded language to evade censorship and express critical views to contest the official discourse (Negro, 2017). K. Li, Spotti, & Kroon (2014) discovered that Chinese youth are self-distancing and negatively stereotype the baifumei (white-skinned, rich and beautiful) identity which however, was originally a desirable identity in Baidu Tieba (the largest Chinese interest-based online community) because this identification, the authors argue, was considered a result of socially upward mobility. Opposite to baifumei, the diaosi identity, which represents self-defacing or self-mockery, is favoured amongst Chinese youth (Szablewicz, 2014) for it to some extent brings ‘affective identification through which alternative desires and forms of mobility may be imagined and enacted’ (p. 260) and leaves space for political
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participation. Therefore, these creative practices form a genre of implicit political participation that is merged with online entertainment culture, which J. Liu (2016) refers to as ‘the politics of mundanity’ (p. 418) and P. Yang, et al. (2014) call ‘infrapolitics’ (p. 1).
More specifically, researchers have reflected on the national identity of Chinese people. Fengshu Liu (2011, 2012) proposes a dual construction of a political self by Chinese youth. They are on the one hand politically indifferent, yet engage themselves in online nationalist activities, showing solidarity with the Party-state and confidence in the Party’s ability of building a stronger nation on the other hand. Nevertheless, Han’s (2014) and Liu’s (2014) studies refute this notion of state nationalism and put forward a reformed view of Chinese national identity. L. Han (2014) discusses the resisting force formed on Weibo by Chinese journalists, activists, lawyers and other liberal-leaning users. They connect with transnational platforms to provide alternative views about public events on Weibo that are different from the official discourse in mainland China. They challenge the Party claimed modernity of Chinese characteristic by advocating ‘universal values’ including democracy, freedom of expression, human rights, and constitutionalism. They also reform the notion of Chinese national identity by situating themselves globally and showing compassion for global crises, rather than being anti-west directed by the Party-state and conventional media. Z. Liu (2014), on the contrary concludes that Chinese Weibo users are highly consumerist, oriented towards worshiping the West, and neoliberal values because they prioritise their economic identity demanding freedom of choice and equality in market competition over political identity as citizens of China, and also broaden their understanding of Chinese through negotiating the relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong. As Y. Zhang (2016) points out Weibo provides a channel for public figures like activists and celebrities to construct and maintain their elite identities by taking advantage of various types of digital capital. It is through these process that public opinions are steered by these elites whereas for ordinary users, they feel their voices are constrained and devalued on Weibo (Wallis & Cui, 2017).
As can be seen, the political aspect of Chinese identity through Weibo engagement has been emphasised. Due to its public nature and technological structure (Stockmann & Luo, 2017), Weibo without doubt can facilitate public opinion and be appropriated by users for political participation.
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Yet as Leibold (2011) criticises, these studies only ‘rest on a set of assumptions about the Internet’s ability to foster robust public debate, critical and rational thinking and the sort of participatory individualism that is fundamental to Western-style democracy’ (p. 8). And this is certainly not the full picture given that the majority of Weibo users are young people in the process of being educated (Sina, 2015, 2017). Therefore, research about online identity in social media demands a more generalised and ensemble approach, situating Chinese daily practices more broadly, rather than focusing primarily on Weibo, that is, by looking at the overall experiences of Chinese social media users: how they make sense of themselves across various social media platforms and exploring the relationships between practices on each platform. However, not much research adopts this approach, Wang’s (2013) thesis is among the few. T. Wang (2013) looks at how Chinese youth appropriate a variety of social media platforms including QQ, Weibo, WeChat, Renren, Douban and even the English equivalent of Weibo – Twitter to construct their identities. As mentioned previously, T. Wang (2013) proposes that Chinese youth’s online identity is elastic, constrained by prescriptive norms and values in the formal mode of interaction with existing social contacts, yet liberated by ‘mutually agreed upon norms’ (p. 301) in informal modes of interaction with strangers in social media. It is through interacting with strangers, Wang argues, that Chinese young people are able to express their hidden emotions and construct a self that is contradictory to the self that is prescribed by social norms. It should be noted that Wang bases her conclusion on accounts mostly from people in marginal groups (homosexual people and grassroots activists). It is not surprising therefore that identities would be ‘elastic’ in the context of her study, given China’s limits on social activism (gay movements and so on) which again turns the discussion back to what Leibold (2011) has criticised – a notion of ‘participatory individualism’.
In her book Urban Youth in China: Modernity, the Internet and the Self, Fengshu Liu (2011) shows the transformations that the Internet brings to Chinese young people and how their identity perceptions reflect on Chinese characteristic social transitions, political developments and modernisation. She puts forward that Chinese youth’s online identity is dualistic, which means they
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are both traditional and modern, collectivistic and individualistic, political apathetic and nationalistic in the Internet age. Liu’s ethnographic study is valuable for us to understand the social construction of Chinese online identity, however her research lacks a more thorough account of Chinese experiences with social media platforms in particular.
Noticeably, current studies predominantly report on Chinese young people (Hjorth & Gu, 2012; Fengshu Liu, 2011; Wallis & Cui, 2017; T. Wang, 2013), activists and social elites alike (L. Han, 2014; Z. Liu, 2014; Y. Zhang, 2016), which as some of these studies have already conceded, are people with higher education and more social privileges (L. Han, 2014; Fengshu Liu, 2011). Rural people, and more specifically, elder rural women, and people from other age groups, coming from a different social context are rarely studied.
With the prevalence of mobile phones, China has seen a rapid growth in Internet users. By the end of 2014 – the timeframe immediately preceding the commencement of this original research project, China had 649 million internet users (CNNIC, 2015a). Though young people aged 20-29 constituted the biggest group of Internet users, there was a faster increase of netizens who were over 40 with this proportion measuring 20.2% at the end of 2014 (CNNIC, 2015a). In addition, rural internet users were also increasing reaching 178 million by the end of 2014 (CNNIC, 2015b). Among them, 74 million were female internet users and 15 million of these were women over 40 (CNNIC, 2015b). There have been some studies exploring rural-to-urban migrant workers’ ICTs use in China (Lang, et al., 2010; Oreglia, 2010; Peng, 2008; J. L. Qiu, 2009; Wallis, 2013) with these researchers inquiring into how rural-to-urban migrant workers appropriated mobile phones and the Internet to cope with transformations brought by urbanisation and modernisation. Peng (2008) found out that rural migrant workers reconnected with their local communities on QQ, obtaining a sense of belonging to their local identities as they were dispersed in the city. Oreglia (2010), in addition, noticed that this cohort also employed this new media technology to form new urban communities and maintained their aspiration for an urban identity. Adopting a neo-Weberian approach, J. L. Qiu (2009) proposed that ICTs use among Chinese migrants facilitated the emergence of a new working class as ICTs became ‘tools of networking, facilitating information exchange, grassroots coordination, and mutual support,
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particularly important in places where unions are weak and families are far away’ (p. 14). Wallis (2013) especially looked at young migrant women and how mobile communication enables them to construct a modern, urban identity and challenge the cultural norms in Chinese rural society yet reproduces and reconfigures their notions of gendered identity. Wallis’s publication Technomobility in China: Young Migrant Women and Mobile Phones offers a thorough analysis of how ‘gender-, class-, place-, and age-based identities’ (p. 178) relate to technology and modernity in contemporary China. More recent research conducted by X. Wang (2016) and presented in her book Social Media in Industrial China, investigated the social media use among Chinese rural migrants who worked in a factory town in southeast China. According to X. Wang (2016), Chinese rural migrants were facing various ruptures brought by migration, including estrangements from local urbanites, anxiety about social relationships and frustrations towards unmatched reality and aspirations, yet they turned to social media for self-expression and sociality, and constructed a desired modern self online. These studies have evaluated the role of new communication technologies in the transformation of Chinese migrants’ subjectivities and provided nuanced delineation of the everyday social media practices of Chinese migrants.
However, scholarly work on social media practices of rural women who remain in their place of origin (McDonald, 2016) is scarce. Previously rural residents’ uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs) (Oreglia, 2012, 2014; Wallis, 2015) occurred. Oreglia (2012, 2014) found out that driven by incentives of entertainment and communication rural people’s ICTs use enhanced their sociality and brought about economic and educational opportunities to them. However, older women were always marginalised due to rural patriarchy. Wallis’s (2015) article “Micro-Entrepreneurship, New Media Technologies, and the Reproduction and Reconfiguration of Gender in Rural China” provides a perspective of how Chinese rural people living in their home villages appropriate mobile phones and the Internet for entrepreneurship. It demonstrates that engagement with internet and mobile phones could reproduce gender hierarchies and contributes to our understanding of ordinary Chinese rural women’s perceptions about new media technologies. Another exception is McDonald’s
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(2016) book Social Media in Rural China. Based on extensive field work in a northern town in China, McDonald’s research uncovers how the subjectivity of Chinese rural people changes when social media strengthens their existing social relations but also enables a new sociality with strangers for personal desire, bringing to the fore the transformation of social relations and moral frameworks in the Chinese rural social media landscape. Avoiding the political control-resistance model, McDonald was able to uncover the ordinariness of Chinese social media practices and reveal the depth of its socio-cultural derivations. Interestingly he found ‘the evidence that social media can be turned into an instrument of moral tradition and conservatism [wa]s tempered by an equally important role for social media as the instrument of transformation and change’ (p. 182) and that Chinese identity ‘is far more utilitarian and selfish in nature than that seen in other modernising societies’ (p. 176).
This original research project looking at both Chinese youth and elder rural women’s online identity practices in social media not only addresses the lack of empirical inquiry into Chinese rural contexts, it also fosters understandings of contemporary Chinese identity transformations in the social media age, and encompasses technological, social, cultural and political nuances, by virtue of its comparative approach. Additionally, as McDonald (2016) claims, methods used in researching the Chinese social media landscape are dominated by general discussions, case studies and online surveys. This study responds to this methodological gap by adopting a framework of social phenomenology and ethnographic methods. In doing so, it allows ‘analysis of the way internet users frequently move between a range of platforms, devices and online and offline environments in the course of their daily lives, consuming, producing and sharing content in the process’ (McDonald, 2016, p. 9). The details of these methodological approaches and the specific techniques used for gathering and evaluating data are explained in full in Chapter four.
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4 METHODOLOGY
4.1 Social Phenomenology and Social Constructionism Social phenomenology and social constructionism are the theoretical foundations that have led the methodological practices of this study and serve multiple purposes, from project ideation and formulation, to data collection and analysis, and to theoretical construction. These approaches are not common in studies of Chinese social media activities which favor quantitative methods as well as deductive interpretation. As a result, the experiences of Chinese social media users are not well reported and their identity practices in social media settings are only partially represented. Phenomenology is a philosophy, and also a methodology (K.-k. Kim & Berard, 2009) that offers an approach to understanding subjective meanings in human actions to uncover knowledge of social phenomena. Phenomenological research is considered by Moustakas (1994) as ‘a return to experience in order to obtain comprehensive descriptions that provide the basis for a reflective structural analysis that portrays the essences of the experience’ (p. 13), while Creswell (2007) proposes that phenomenology explores ‘what all participants have in common as they experience a phenomenon’. From a phenomenological standpoint Chinese youth’s and rural women’s lived experiences using social media can be gleaned, and their situated social realities reflected upon, in their own terms.
Based on Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy, Schutz (1962) developed phenomenology as a methodology to make sense of the social actions of human beings, and the commonsense life-world, which is known as social phenomenology. This method for understanding is not merely for social scientists, but also for individuals, although most of the time we take our acts and their interrelationships for granted. We human beings perceive ‘fields of different relevance’ (1962, p. 134)
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in the life-world and react to it with reference to ‘the stock of knowledge’ (Schutz, 2011, p. 130) or ‘store of experience’ (1962, p. 136) at hand. This meaning-making action is not transcendental; rather it is intersubjective, as apart from me, other social actors also go through similar meaning-making processes. Meanwhile, it is also cultural in that our consciousness constitutes ‘a universe of significations’, ‘i.e., a framework of meaning’ (p. 133) and our interpretations always refer to our historical situation. As such, we develop commonsense constructs or ‘ideal types’ of our social reality to make sense of our life-world. The method of constructing is called ‘typification’ (Schutz, 1962). For social scientists, grasping knowledge of the social world by virtue of phenomenological methods, as Schutz indicated, is complex and laborious work, yet it is fundamentally rigorous. The task is to return to the natural attitude and mundane experiences of those under study, and to interpret their interpretations of their life-world. The latter is what Schutz (1962) proposed as the first order of constructs, while the sense-making social scientists subsequently piece-together out of these is known as the second order of constructs:
The thought objects constructed by the social scientists refer to and are founded upon the thought objects constructed by the common-sense thought of man living his everyday life among his fellow-men. Thus, the constructs used by the social scientist are, so to speak, constructs of the second degree, namely constructs of the constructs made by the actors on the social science, whose behavior the scientist observes and tries to explain in accordance with the procedural rules of his science. (p. 6)
Typification, which is the structure or pattern of ‘personal types and course-of-action types’ (Schutz, 1962, p. 19), is the scientific method used to form social researchers’ objective second-order constructs (K.-k. Kim & Berard, 2009). Nevertheless, the scientific mode of typification is different from commonsense typification in that the former does not allow social scientists to draw on their biographical situations. Instead, scientists posit themselves as a ‘disinterested observer’ (Schutz, 1962, p. 36). To achieve this Schutz put forward some guidelines:
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The social scientist observes human interaction patterns or their results insofar as they are accessible to his observation and open to his interpretation. These interaction patterns, however, he has to interpret in terms of their subjective meaning structure lest he abandon any hope of grasping “social reality”. (p. 40)
Schutz calls this process ‘the postulate of subjective interpretation’ (p. 43). What is also required is to render this scientific interpretation understandable for those being observed. In these ways, the gap between scientific typification and mundane typification is bridged and the objective interpretation of participants’ subjective commonsense meanings constitutes adequate and valid scientific knowledge. Schutz’s crystallisation of this phenomenological methodology addresses one clear connotation: that only by getting close to individuals’ experiences in their ordinary, everyday lives, can the social phenomena in question be explained, and patterns of interconnected relationships be revealed.
Building on Schutz’s work, Berger and Luckmann (1991) developed the theory of social constructionism, which posits that everyday life-worlds are socially constructed. We rely on ‘typificatory schemes’ (p. 45) to understand our social reality and these typifications, along with ‘the recurrent patterns of interaction established by means of them’ constitute our social structure (p. 48). Berger and Luckmann argue in the same vein of Schutz, that the foundations of knowledge in everyday life are ‘the objectivations of subjective processes (and meanings) by which the intersubjective common-sense world is constructed’ 30 (1991, p. 34). In essence, social constructionism and social phenomenology are the same. The common view shared by Schutz and Berger and Luckmann is that we human beings make sense of our world with a stock of commonsense constructs. But Berger and Luckmann extended their discussion more thoroughly in social interaction
30 ‘Objectivations’ as it is used here is similar to the Schutzian concept of ‘typification’ or ‘ideal types’. However, it’s important to note that Schutz applied the notion of objectivity to his discussion of social scientific methodology, rather than to commonsense interpretive perspectives.
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by drawing on Schutz’s ‘intersubjectivity’ of commonsense constructs which enables men to make sense of themselves and others, thus bringing the approach of social constructionism to various dimensions of the socio-cultural world and to a theorising of sociology (Embree, 2009). Therefore, social constructionism becomes a methodology of great significance for interpreting individuals’ lived experiences in regard to their various social, cultural, political contexts.
4.2 Ethnography & Fieldwork Ethnography, which emphasises the importance of getting close to the study subjects under question and the role of socio-cultural contexts (Gubrium & Holstein, 2014), fits well with the theoretical concepts of phenomenology and constructionism (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). Ethnographic research takes place in a natural setting so as to study peoples’ accounts, interactions and relationships in their everyday lives. Ethnography demands that researchers immerse themselves in a field and culture, to draw a ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) of the culture over time. To analyse fieldwork data is to interpret ‘the meanings, functions, and consequences of human actions and institutional practices, and how these are implicated in local, and perhaps also wider, contexts’ (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 3). These intentions and processes all reflect what social phenomenology has implied – the significant value of first and second order constructs, and, what social constructionism proposes - that subjective and objective knowledge is contextually grounded. Accordingly, ethnographic methods have been adopted for this project. Ethnographic enquiry can involve participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups, life and oral histories, unobtrusive methods and/or questionnaires which are sometimes used to summarise ethnographers’ qualitative findings (Liamputtong, 2013). In this study, the ethnographic field work consisted of predominantly online and (some) offline participant observations, researcher’s field notes, semi-structured in-depth
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interviews, informal interviews, participants’ diaries and questionnaires 31 . Significantly, the fieldwork focused not only on participants’ social media meaning-making activities, it considered both online and offline contexts as equally valuable networked field sites, informed by various methods of conventional and ‘digital ethnography’ (Hjorth, Horst, Galloway, & Bell, 2017).
Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) point out the pivotal influence of the natural setting chosen to develop research problems in ethnographic studies. ‘Sometimes the setting itself comes first – an opportunity arises to investigate an interesting situation or group of people; and foreshadowed problems spring from the nature of that setting’ (p. 28). In this project, I was able to ‘foreshadow problems’ from my lively experiences with Chinese youth and rural women on social media platforms. As a young Chinese rural woman, I noticed the different ways that youth and older rural women presented themselves through social media and became interested in their online practices. So, in this instance the ‘opportunistic’ (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 28) natural setting came before research questions were developed about social identity constructions. A flow on effect meant also that opportunistic sampling methods were decided on to recruit young research participants from Hunan University (HNU) because HNU was where I had completed my BA, and rural women from Hanpu Town, because it is where I originally come from32.
31 The purpose of the questionnaire was to understand the demographics of the participants (i.e. age, gender, study major, education and residence), and the basic characteristics of their ICT use (i.e. mobile phone brand, data consumption, the types of networks, frequency of use and time spent on social media platforms). 32 I am originally from Changsha (Hanpu Town) and have close social networks in the city which was, as proposed by Fengshu Liu (2011), ‘important for the success of data collection, hence the trustworthiness of the study’ (p. 9). Without help from personal contacts, undertaking social research in China would be limited by many socio-cultural constraints. This methodological implication was made apparent when one rural woman told me as I was about to interview her, “if you were not recommended by Xiang, I would have not allowed you to be my friend on WeChat. I would have not trusted you.”
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The choice of sampling methods is considered to be one of the biggest differences between qualitative and quantitative forms of enquiry (Patton, 1990). Qualitative research is usually conducted to gain new knowledge about the natural settings (Norum, 2008) the researcher plans to explore. ‘Because research and evaluations often serve multiple purposes, more than one qualitative sampling strategy may be necessary’ (Patton, 1990, p. 181). This project employed both opportunistic sampling and purposive sampling to select samples that ‘have a unique, different or important perspective on the phenomenon in question’ (Robinson, 2014, p. 32). According to Maxwell (1997), purposive sampling means that ‘particular settings, persons, or events are deliberately selected for the important information they can provide that cannot be gotten as well from other choices’ (p. 87). Patton (1990) refers to these valuable sources as ‘information-rich cases’ (p. 169) which can best answer research questions and in the context of this original project, these ‘cases’ included those who were undergoing their final year of university study at HNU and rural women over 40 years of age, who had been using social media.
4.2.1 The Primary Field Site Changsha is a second-tier city in south-central China, the capital of Hunan Province, 400 kilometres to the south of Wuhan, and 700 kilometres to the north of Guangzhou. At the time the research was carried out it had a population of 6.7 million people, which was only one third of the population of Beijing33. Although it is less developed than big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, Changsha has undergone rapid processes of modernisation. A city like Changsha is a worthy field site for the ethnographic study of Chinese youths’ social media use because, as scholars such as Fengshu Liu (2011) have pointed out, smaller cities have traditionally been less represented in youth identity studies and may actually provide a more representative picture overall of youths’ online practices.
33 Based on statistics from Changsha City Bureau of Statistics in 2015 and Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics in 2014. Retrieved from: http://www.cstj.gov.cn/tjnj/2015/; http://www.bjstats.gov.cn/tjsj/yjdsj/rk/2014/
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Additionally, 60% of Changsha’s population are rural residents34, so the area is also representative of rural development in contemporary China. As such, Changsha was the primary field site selected to study the everyday social media experiences and identity work of Chinese young people and rural women.
4.2.2 Final Year University Students in Hunan University Young participants were final year university students from Hunan University which is located in the urban Yuelu District of Changsha city, abutted against Yuelu Mountain and by Xiang River. They were born in the 1990s and all went through the highly competitive College Entrance Examination in 2011 to get a spot in one of the prestigious Chinese universities. Hunan University (HNU) is one of the key universities in China targeted as a first-class university with the implementation of the ‘211 Project’ and ‘985 Project’ construction projects. At the time this research was conducted it had 34,600 students and 4,100 academics35.
34 Based on statistics from Changsha City Bureau of Statistics in 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.cstj.gov.cn/tjnj/2015/ 35 Information was obtained from HNU’s official web page: http://www-en.hnu.edu.cn/About_HNU/Introduction.htm The HNU site (along with two other universities adjacent to it) has formed a ‘university city’ with well-equipped infrastructure which includes street markets, shopping malls, boutiques, restaurants, cafés and hotels. Before May 2014 the university offered students free Internet access. Students were enabled to use both WiFi and cable networks across campus, in their dormitories, libraries, lecture buildings, etc. However, the university argued that this access had resulted in unlimited downloads and long-time video watching, (which were a waste of resources) and data restrictions have since been enforced.
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Figure 4.1 HNU student accommodation (left) and street outside HNU student accommodation (right)
Figure 4.2 Shopping mall next to HNU student accommodation site Note. Copyright 2015 by Dan Hu
The students were studying various subjects such as Chinese literature, Japanese, journalism, administrative management, finance and materials science. Although they had spent at least 3.5 years studying in the urban region of Changsha, they had come from a broad spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds, eight students were from rural areas and 18 were from urban regions; four were from eastern China, 10 from northern China, and 12 came from the south, and their parents were working in different industries ranging from farmers to teachers, government officers and private business owners.
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4.2.3 Rural Women in Hanpu Town Hanpu Town is situated in the southwest of Changsha which covers an area of 51.17 square kilometres with a population of around 25,000 people under the governance of Yuelu District. Hanpu Town was renamed as Hanpu Subdistrict in 2013 in the reform of administration division, however residents there still referenced the old name “Hanpu Town” for daily use36. Hanpu Town is a rural town, predominantly agricultural but has developed a mixed economic structure of both agricultural and non-agricultural industries such as manufacturing and a private service sector. The rural participants were all residents in Hanpu Town but from different villages including Hanpu Community (14), Zhizigang Village (10) and Jiujiang Village (1)37. Hanpu Community is 25 kilometres from the CBD. It plays a dominant role as both an economic centre and transportation hub for Hanpu Town as most of the markets and industries merge there where expressway and county roads pass through. Zhizigang Village and Jiujiang Village (that are near the mountain and by the river) are a little more remote from the main community centre.
Shizilu (the crossroads), centre of Hanpu Community was formed in the late 1980s when the local government sold land to villagers who later built private houses there. 12 participants from Hanpu Community were living at Shizilu.
36 In the following chapters “Hanpu Town” will be used to address where participants were located; “Hanpu Subdistrict” will only be used when it is necessary to emphasise its difference from Hanpu Town. 37 In order to better understand the background of Hanpu Town and the three villages, I contacted people who worked for the local government on the subdistrict level, as well as on the village level. Despite the subdistrict government having an online presence through a website called Office of Hanpu Subdistrict of Yuelu District, information displayed there was very limited. Therefore, I visited two officers from the Office of Hanpu Subdistrict, one officer from the Office of Hanpu Community and another officer from the Office of Zhizigang Village. Through these official contacts, I obtained first-hand data about demographics and the historical development of the Town, which helped me to carry out a thorough analysis of the socio-economic background of Hanpu Town.
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Figure 4.3 The first houses built in Shizilu (left) and houses built in the 2000s (right)
Small private businesses had been opened gradually at these houses and included an electronic appliances store, a clothing shop, a restaurant, a convenience store, a hostel, an Internet café etc. which made Shizilu the most prosperous area of Hanpu Town. Not only rural women, but other residents of Hanpu Town came to Shizilu for business and entertainment38. Rural women have been freed from the heavy labour of traditional agricultural society with improved living standards. The time involved in housework and farm work has been decreased so they have more leisure time for entertainment and sociality (X. Song et al., 2011). Playing mah-jong, visiting neighbours, singing karaoke, square dancing are popular recreational activities for rural Chinese women (L. Shi, 2017)39. Hanpu Town women are no exception.
38 Mah-jong parlours and karaoke clubs open day and night. In the evening, some rural women would gather at an open space to dance with loud music played from a boombox, others would go for a jog on the country roads with families and friends. Similar scenes could be observed in Jiujiang Village and Zhizigang Village, but on a much smaller scale. Stores, mah-jong parlours and karaoke clubs were more dispersed around these villages. 39 At the time fieldwork commenced there were three karaoke clubs and six mah-jong parlours on the two main streets of Hanpu Community, which was referred to as Shizilu, meaning the crossroads.
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Figure 4.4 The crossroads in Shizilu
4.2.4 The Researcher’s Role Due to the participatory role of ethnographers in the social and cultural milieu of those being studied, reflexivity is an intrinsic part of ethnographic research (Davies, 2008). It is not a method, as May and Perry (2014) point out, but ‘a way of thinking or critical ethos’ that ‘aid[s] interpretation, translation and representation’ (p. 111) and mediates between first-order and second-order constructs. Reflexivity therefore was applied throughout the overall research process, allowing me to recognise potential methodological barricades before, during and after the fieldwork, such as: difficulties with sampling participants from the stranger-researcher perspective (Fengshu Liu, 2011), a consideration which reminded me to find a local contact first; and, awareness of the ephemeral nature of online data (Hine, 2015) which made me realise that information shared online can be deleted without notice. Being reflexive also implies that observers should consider how they relate to those being observed because this can also impact their research focus and analysis (Marvasti, 2014), For instance, I consciously adjusted my role in the relationship with my research participants based on their personal and socio-cultural contexts to build rapport with them. My meaning interpretation process and participants’ meaning construction processes were mutually constitutive and iterative (Davies, 2008). On the one hand, I interpreted perceptions and actions generated by my research participants by
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referencing their situated contexts. On the other hand, their activities were also affected by my research practices and my interactions with them would also foster the research process, such as inducing new interview questions. Throughout these generative stages I was also mindful that adopting a reflexive position can also mean that ethnographers’ social positions can influence the research product, or even lead to biases (Lichterman, 2017). But any risk of this occurring was mitigated by my choice of specific research participants and the range of methods I used to explore their social media activities.
4.2.5 Setting Up a Research Blog I initially set up a research blog to assist with participant interactions. According to Boyd and Ellison (2007), blogs are not only social phenomena but also tools that contribute to researching, communication and interaction, knowledge sharing and collaboration (Park, Heo, & Lee, 2011; Powell, Jacob, & Chapman, 2012). For students, blogs facilitate their socialising with others, and can be used for archiving resources, recording, and building academic identities (Kirkup, 2010). Y. Zhu and Procter (2015) argue that students use blogs to build professional profiles and publish their research outcomes online. In an ethnographic study, a website that has a credible presence can also be ‘a useful guarantee of legitimate status’ of the researcher (Hine, 2008, p. 265). Therefore, a research blog was created at the commencement of the study for communication convenience, to promote the research project, and to also construct a reliable and professional academic identity for myself as a postgraduate student researcher40.
40 To better communicate with participants, I set up my research blog in November 2014 under the scheme of the University of Newcastle’s (former) School of Design Communication & IT hosted WordPress platform. Two considerations were made when choosing this WordPress website as my blog base: it was hosted by the Faculty of Science & IT which also provided technical support; it had a university tagged domain name which could enhance the trustworthiness of my research, and it technically represented my professional identity.
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Considering the potential readers of this blog would be both Anglophones and Chinese, I provided both English and Chinese materials. The blog followed a simple black and white design. It presented a brief introduction to the research and included accessible copies of University of Newcastle (Human Research Ethics approved) Participant Information Statements and Consent Forms, and left space for people to comment and to express their interest and willingness to participate41. I prepared initial narratives to invite individuals to participate and responded to their questions clearly, so as a research tool the blog helped potential participants to grasp more details about the actual project before making decisions about participating, and it also built up the professional profile of my study42. In addition to forming a positive impression about the actual project and my research profile, it was also easy for participants to forward the blog site’s link on to others, to potentially recruit more participants. However, the blog did not induce much reaction amongst the older rural females. This cohort had also been generally less responsive when they’d first been approached via social media and this was because they were not familiar with these styles of communication. Interestingly, neither students or rural women left any comments on the recruitment blog site, instead they sent me WeChat or QQ messages to ask questions and to inform me about their decisions to take part43.
41 A link to the blogsite was made available to potential participants after I had connected with them through online communication channels, and before I met them face to face. 42 For example, one of the student participants told me, “Your blog looks very gaodashang ( ) with both English and Chinese!” Gaodashang is abbreviated from three Chinese words, ‘gaoduan (high end), daqi (rich), shangdangci (tasteful)’ (Diaodiao, 2015), and is Internet slang often used to express appreciation of and admiration for something or someone. 43 Overall, the research blog was like a window for potential participants to consult the formal documents and to get an overview of the study’s aims before they actually gave their informed consent. This saved time and energy at the recruiting stage. Moreover, it contributed to trust-building between myself and participants.
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4.2.6 Recruitment and Sampling One of the most effective approaches for purposefully selecting samples that can provide rich information is snowball sampling (Patton, 2015) by which a small number of initial informants in a study are asked to recommend other potential participants. It is also an effective and desirable strategy for those who study hidden and hard to reach populations (Atkinson & Flint, 2001). This study opted to use it for participant recruitment as the researcher predicted beforehand it was most often the case that individuals would not allow a “stranger” to access their private social networks like WeChat or QQ to further observe and interact with them44. The following diagram shows how snowball sampling in this study was conducted.
44 Some previous social science researchers of Chinese studies have also indicated difficulties in approaching individuals without the assistance from researchers’ personal networks (Fengshu Liu, 2011). The researcher asked the potential participants if they were also willing to pass on information and also asked friends studying at HNU and in her own social network to forward recruitment information on so that ‘the snowball [got] bigger and bigger’ (Patton, 1990, p. 176).
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Figure 4.5 Diagram of sampling process
The majority of students were targeted online via WeChat or QQ but the common method for rural participants was not via WeChat or QQ, but through face-to-face encounters. I met most of the rural participants in person to introduce my study and to invite them to participate. They were introduced to me either through my personal contacts or through participants’ recommendations. Recruiting rural participants through online interactions was not an ideal approach (even though I was introduced to them by people they knew). For rural women the reliability and credibility of my research project (and myself as a researcher) was largely dependent on preliminary face-to-face meetings.
51 participants in total were recruited. The younger group consisted of 26 people and the older group consisted of 25 people, to provide a comparative representation numerically. Additionally, rural
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women from different suburbs of Hanpu Town were purposefully selected, as were students who studied different subjects and the gender balance was also considered to reach an unbiased representation which resulted in thirteen males and thirteen females taking part.
4.3 How Were ‘Accounts’ and Interactions Captured? Iterative Processes of Information Gathering.
4.3.1 Participant Observation My fieldwork went through three phases: snowball sampling, participant observation and in-depth interviews proceeded in tandem at the beginning of the fieldwork45. Participant observation focused on but was not restricted to, the online space. This observational method allowed me to ‘directly observe the many nuances and contingencies’ of my participants’ online and offline behaviours ‘as they bec[a]me manifest in a “natural” setting’ (Marvasti, 2014, p. 355). Online space has been argued as a legitimate field site for ethnographic enquiries into online meaning making (Boellstorff, 2008; Hine, 2000; Hjorth, et al., 2017). The field site for social media ethnography may be one single platform such as Twitter or Facebook, or it may be a network of multiple sites ‘which include other social media sites, in-person locations and material objects’ (Marwick, 2013a, p. 113). Some researchers (Bengtsson, 2014) have argued that with the assistance of digital media the ethnographer can avoid travelling to distant cultures, yet also conform to the fundamental ethnographic principles of closeness and distance between ethnographer and the researched culture. However, the increasing interconnection of online spaces with offline spaces makes ethnographers realise the importance of not confining the boundary of a field site (Hine, 2016) if they are to ‘more closely tracks[sic] the social phenomenon under study’ (Burrell, 2009, p. 195). Participant observation in this study
45 The observation lasted 5.5 months (from mid-February 2015 to 31 July 2015), first-round in-depth interviews were conducted in March and second-round in-depth interviews were organised in July.
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therefore, took into consideration both participants’ online practices and their offline activities, particularly when the researcher stepped into a face-to-face setting.
As Postill and Pink (2012) point out ‘catching up, sharing, exploring, interacting and archiving’, are routines ethnographers practice every day to engage with their participants in social media spaces. This means that the ethnographer should maintain an active role (Johnson, Avenarius, & Weatherford, 2006) exploring the digital materials provided by participants, involving themselves in conversations with participants, and seeking clarifications of the phenomena yielded by them, rather than simply observe what is happening in the field. In this way, the ethnographer can gain more insights into the data, as well as build and maintain good relationships with participants (Baker, 2013; Postill & Pink, 2012). This is especially so when ‘face-face contact is impossible due to physical distance between parties’ (Sade-Beck, 2004, p. 46). The phenomenological nature of this research project required me to not only get close to the social media data generated by participants to obtain the richest first-order constructs, but to also draw on my interactions with participants to test out second-order constructs.
For the online observation components of this study, I captured texts, photos, videos, links, conversations and all the other online threads participants posted on various social media platforms (WeChat, QQ, Weibo, Zhihu, Douban, Guokr) that would help me construe the meanings related to their social media activities. In addition, I kept interacting with participants by not only giving “likes”, and commenting on their updates, but by also sharing their updated links46. Once I had noticed
46 From mid-February to July 2015, I updated 40 posts in total, among which were 7 original posts and 33 web links shared by both students and rural women. My first two posts were to introduce my research on 3 March 2015. The other five original posts were festival greetings to participants. Web links were shared to show my affirmative reaction to this content to participants and to enhance our connection. I joined in conversations with participants (who had mutual contacts), made jokes and shared my interests with them to embed myself in the social world of participants, capturing first-hand materials and exploring the meaning of participants’ actions.
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significant patterns of participants’ social media practices, I summarised my preliminary analysis and then contacted them through the social media platform to ask for clarifications47.
Participant observation of social media accounts requires the ethnographer to develop ‘the skills to keep up with fast-moving action, take notes and develop analytic thoughts simultaneously’ (Hine, 2015, p. 184) as data can be ‘fleeting, immediate, and ephemeral as a chat on the street corner’ (Hine, 2015, p. 13). Despite the fact that social media data can also be persistent and traceable (Boyd & Ellison, 2007), its existence depends on the agency of its owners. Owners can delete their data and make it irretrievable anytime without notice48. The ephemerality of social media data challenges ethnographers and makes online participant observation almost problematic. Web links shared on social media sometimes became inaccessible once they were deleted by the content producer or blocked by WeChat due to surveillance. Among the 789 web links I captured during participant observation of Hanpu Town rural women, 22 links were either deleted or blocked whereas only two links were blocked amongst those shared by students. Figures 4.6 and 4.7 are examples of the visual interfaces of deleted and blocked links.
47 Their real-time accounts shaped my focus and built up my understanding of their meaning-making processes all the way through my fieldwork, which also solidified the authenticity of my analysis. At a more personal level, I had phatic communication with participants such as sending my greetings to them via WeChat during Lantern Festival and Women’s Day. These practices turned out to be beneficial to the rapport building between myself and the participants as a few participants implied in the second-round interview that they were pleased and perceived a sense of intimacy from my interactions. 48 My experiences with participants exemplify this point very well. For example, student Xiaoyu deleted her post of mocking her friend 45 minutes after she published it on her WeChat Moments because she did not want her friend to see this post. And students Xiaoyun and Xiaoqiang deleted advertisements they posted on WeChat and QQ after they found them no longer valuable. As to rural women, they often deleted their social media data to free more space because their mobile phones had limited storage.
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Figure 4.6 Interface of links deleted by content producer Note. The page displays “This content has been deleted by the publisher”.
Figure 4.7 Interface of links blocked by WeChat
To ensure real-time engagement with participants on social media and the richness of ethnographic data, I spent 17 out of 24 hours each day reading social media feeds generated by participants, interacting with them across different social media platforms such as WeChat, Weibo and QQ as they
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were active on these platforms simultaneously, and shifted between mobile phone, iPad and laptop equipment for recording, storing and analysing online data.
Online data has a variety of forms deeming it necessary to employ different means to capture and store it, yet the way the ethnographer records online data is confined by physical and technical conditions. For data capture, I used an iPad or mobile phone to screenshot participants’ posts which were textual or visual or both. For text-based messages, I used screenshots. For social media audio messages, I transcribed and recorded them in my field notes. As to photographs in the posts, I downloaded them when necessary. For videos, as they were unable to be downloaded, I recorded them in my fieldnotes by attaching brief descriptions of their content. However, if posts contained web links, it was difficult to capture the links by screenshots or copy-and-paste methods using my portable devices because web links usually carry much more information that includes text, images, audio and video49. The qualitative data analysis software NVivo offers NCapture for NVivo in Google Extensions for capturing information from web pages displayed on Google Chrome. This meant that I could use this function to capture content from participants’ Weibo pages, web links posted on WeChat50 and any other external web links from other social media platforms51.
While participant observation in the context of this study was to observe how participants presented themselves in social media, some processes of interaction also presented aspects of my identity to participants. This prompted questions such as: How should I present myself so as to balance the power
49 In this case, it was more advisable – functional and streamlined to use independent software such as NCapture for NVivo on a PC. 50 As WeChat’s feature Moments is only available in its mobile version, web links shared by participants on WeChat had to be copied and pasted in PC browser for NVivo to capture. 51 Although Google Chrome was not available in mainland China, I managed to connect with it through VPN. Captured web pages were stored as NVCX files on computer which could be imported to NVivo for analysis. However, sometimes NCapture could not catch all content, particularly visual content on a web page. In this case, I switched to a Chinese browser – 360 Safety Browser and used its ‘capture full page into image’ function to gather this data.
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in the relationships with participants? What extent of interaction should I maintain to counter my influence on the study’s results and to ensure the objectivity of the research? These are contested issues lying at the heart of ethnographic research (Davies, 2008). In my study, I initially struggled to locate myself in relation to my participants, so in order to manage these concerns I created independent research accounts for each social media platform that participants were actively using, (rather than extending these contacts into my personal social networks). I set up a distinctive research identity by using the logo of the University of Newcastle as my profile photo, named myself as “wangluo shenfen yanjiu” (online identity research), and inserted a brief research project description in the introduction columns on social media platforms (see Figure 4.8). Together with the aforementioned research blog, these techniques worked well for presenting myself as an eligible and professional researcher.
Figure 4.8 My research identity on WeChat (left), QQ (middle), Weibo (right)
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The dilemma that I faced during fieldwork was more than one. The issue of the level of my interaction with participants started to arise when more participants started joining and I immersed myself more in the observations. Questions came to mind such as: To what degree should I “like”, “comment” and “share” participants’ posts so as to maintain a good relationship with them (without drawing too much attention to my observational position)? Would participants feel annoyed if I ‘liked’ their posts too much? Should I always give supportive comments to their posts? Was it appropriate to express my own opinion in response to their posts? Should I tell rural women about the existence of misinformation in their shared posts? Would they be offended if I only contacted them when I need clarification? Was it practical to ask for their clarifications about their posts in the comments area? What should I present on my own social media post wall? These questions concerned me all throughout participant observation, since my level of immersion would have a considerable impact on the relationships between myself and participants, and could also have a bearing on the research’s results (Eisewicht & Kirschner, 2015). To mitigate these concerns, I carefully controlled my online presentation, so that I started “liking”, and progressed to “commenting” and “sharing” in a gradual process, eventually limiting the “likes” and “comments” I made in response to participants’ posts iteratively, so that my moderated interactions were not abrupt changes52.
During a second-round interview process (discussed in section 4.3.3 of this chapter) most of the informants gave positive comments about my role in the online fieldwork. I was regarded as a “friend”, or an “acquaintance” that could give them a sense of an intimate connection. Although I used a research identity, many students treated me as senior alumni, equal in status to them and a good role model also. Hence, they felt no pressure from being watched online and had no hesitation in expressing themselves in these contexts. Based on similar reasons, no rural woman participant thought I had adversely affected their social media use. On the contrary, they all gave supportive comments. This kind of feedback validated a large part of the methodological rationale of this study
52 In general, I gave more likes to participants than comments. I remained conservative in sharing my own updates and I refused to share my personal life to retain my own privacy.
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and was testament to the importance of my interactions with participants during observations, especially because the Chinese conception of a social relationship is very intricate (Hwang, 1997) and always interplays with two complicated values, mianzi (face, social status, prestige) and renqing (sensitivity to others’ feelings and circumstances). In a Chinese cultural setting, people do not divide networks that have formed in public space from those in private space very distinctively in that every relationship may be used for personal benefits and people endeavour to build as many relationships as possible for obtaining social capital53.
4.3.2 Fieldwork Observations Offline
4.3.2.1 My mother’s role as a participant I come from a rural family. My family has been living in Hanpu Town for more than a decade. My mother (an older rural woman), was eligible to participate in my study54. In addition, she provided a perfect opportunity for me to ‘case’ (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007) the field by practicing observation, in-depth interviewing, and data collection, from the perspective of a novice ethnographer55. Closely observing my mother’s social media activities provided an opportunity for me to better understand the connections between what participants shared online relative to their
53 If you turn down a petition from a contact introduced by your friend, you are damaging the mianzi (face) of your friend. It was based on this cultural consideration that I kept an additional contact with my participants apart from direct research work involvement during my fieldwork. 54 I initiated the first on-site participant observation and interview with my mother in February 2015. 55 After the interview, my mother provided some feedback on my performance, such as my confidence and tone of voice which helped in improving my research acumen and performance with other participants. This straightforward advice would be much less likely to come from other participants as in Chinese culture people are less willing to point out a person’s shortcomings face-to-face if they do not have close relationship with this person.
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offline lives56. This experience was invaluable to me as it focused my analysis of other participants’ online engagements in terms of their offline realities.
Although I consulted some famous ethnographic studies conducted by renowned scholars (e.g. Boyd, 2014; Hine, 2000; Daniel Miller & Slater, 2000; Pink, 2005; Postill & Pink, 2012) and attempted in- depth interviews with my university colleagues before going into the field, I was still cautious about the frictions that might be caused when these methods were employed in another cultural setting since, as Josephides states, ‘there can be no blueprint for how to do fieldwork’ (1997, p. 32). This point was exemplified when I interviewed rural women face-to-face on location at their homes and (inadvertently – because of the ‘natural’ settings) got to witness their social lives and live scenes of how they used their mobile phones and how they interacted with people online, simultaneously57. Approximately 100 hours were spent in participant observations offline. During these home visits extra unexpected information was also gained. For example, during the semi-formal interview process some participants used their computers and resorted to checking their mobile phones when responding to specific interview questions about their sharing. In these ways they presented their social media account information to me directly to demonstrate the phenomena under discussion. Digital media technology became an assistive tool in delivering more accurate and immediate information from the research participants themselves. Consequently, I was able to verify their descriptions and
56 For example, I was able to closely observe how she used social media including when and where she used online platforms and her emotions, and interactions that pleased or appealed to her. 57 For instance, arriving at one participant’s house I found she was chatting with her QQ group friends at her desktop computer and during our conversation she kept typing and clicking. The aim of the site visit was not to see how she used her computer, but to interview her, yet she was very busy with her social media networks. I chose not to interrupt her and let the interactions unfold naturally. Her digital equipment was also impressive: a Dell computer and keyboard, a portable camera, a microphone suspended by a small scaffold, a headphone and a wired mouse. This participant sang to a group of online audiences that she could see via the camera. She explained how she used all of the technology and demonstrated how she sang karaoke in QQ groups. This informal conversation occurred prior to the in-depth interview.
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explanations and explain the subtle and nuanced complexities of this social phenomena to consolidate my analysis.
4.3.3 Face-to-Face In-depth Interviews Hammersley (2006) argues that interviews used by the ethnographer serve two purposes: ‘as a source of witness accounts about settings and events in the social world, that the ethnographer may or may not have been able to observe her or himself’ and ‘as supplying evidence about informants’ general perspectives or attitudes’ (p. 9). Except for gleaning the ‘external reality (e.g. facts, events) or internal experience (e.g. feelings, meanings)’ of respondents, the ethnographer can also ‘ensure the accuracy’ of his or her interpretation of the researched from interviews (Silverman, 2000, p. 122). With the increasing application of ethnography in internet studies, scholars have questioned the validity of research that applies only the method of participant observation of online settings. They argue that the authenticity of informants cannot be ensured as ‘we cannot know who the people behind the keyboards really are, or what their online behaviour and values mean to their life offline’ (Bengtsson, 2014, p. 865). Likewise, participants might also hold doubts about the researcher given they have never met before (Hine, 2008). Combining online and offline data collection methods is key to achieving rich ethnographic material (Sade-Beck, 2004). However, researchers have to decide when to initiate their offline research. Sade-Beck (2004) points out that using interviews at the beginning of fieldwork supplies the researcher with a guide to analyses and materials to understand online sites, while conducting interviews after initial data collection and analysis, contributes to further analysis. In this study, 102 interviews in total took place. I conducted two rounds of interviews with each participant: the first was held at the early stage of online observations shortly after they had consented to participate in the study (with the purpose of understanding their general social media use and to become familiar with them); the second round was carried out at the final stage of online observations (to test my second-order constructs from cumulative observations). In-depth interviews are conducted with open-ended questions based on an interview guide (Bernard, 2011). So general questions such as: ‘What do you do when you are surfing online?’, ‘Why do you use this social platform and how
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do you use it?’ and ‘Whom do you interact with online?’ were asked in the first-round interview. In the second-round of interviews, I tested the validity of my interpretations of participants’ online experiences by asking questions related to themes or patterns emerging from online observations.
4.3.3.1 Interview sites For the face-to-face interviews, selecting interview sites was a reflexive and strategic process. I met students at their campuses or in cafés and caught up with rural women at their homes, in mah-jong parlours, or in their own shops. In a rural house, the living room is usually the centre room (rural people call it tangwu ), an open space where residents leave the front door open and passersby (like neighbours) may freely walk in without giving notice. It is where rural residents have their meals and entertain their guests (Jiansong Lu, 2002). Living rooms were therefore not an ideal interview site for interviewing rural women, so they were asked to choose a quieter space. The student informants were of higher mobility in their last year of university and were doing short-term internships in other cities, staying at home, or travelling. Therefore, it became difficult to negotiate time to arrange offline meetings with students who had travelled away from Changsha (although they were just a small number). As social media could be used as a tool to communicate with participants across time and space (Baker, 2013) and partially substitute for face-to-face interviewing (Roller & Lavrakas, 2015), I used WeChat and QQ to conduct interviews with participants I was unable to meet with face-to-face. The majority of students were interviewed on campus face to face58.
58 Among the 26 students, only one was not able to be interviewed face-to face for both rounds of interviews.
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Figure 4.9 Interview with student Xiaoqian in a campus café Note. Copyright 2015 by Yongnan Feng
Figure 4.10 Interview with rural woman Chang Liu at her home Note. Copyright 2015 by Qiaojia Wang
4.3.4 Informal Interviews Informal interviews can be employed throughout ethnographic fieldwork to maintain participant- researcher relationships, to test and refine emerging analytic ideas (Hine, 2000), as well as to discover new topics of interest that the researcher might have neglected (Bernard, 2011). Internet and social media research stimulates opportunities so that a ‘researcher can ask clarifying questions in the
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moment’ (Roller & Lavrakas, 2015, p. 190). In this study, I used informal interviews both online and offline to serve these purposes. Online informal interviews were usually initiated after I observed an emerging phenomenon in the online context and sought to cross-check my interpretation with the participant’s perspective. For instance, the student informant Xiaoyu deleted a post 45 minutes after she published it on her WeChat Moments at night. The post was a mockery of her friend. In light of the account from rural women that they would clear out some posts on WeChat Moments to save more digital space for future use, I did not expect that Xiaoyu did this for similar reasons because she’d only erased one post. I thought perhaps she’d wanted to protect her friend’s privacy because the language used in the post was crude, but my interpretation turned out to be wrong. When I informally asked Xiaoyu about the quick deletion (via WeChat messaging the next morning), she explained that she did not want her friend to see that she had mocked her online, even though the mockery was not to defame her friend, but to show the good friendship between them, an entertainment for Xiaoyun. This was a typical exemplification of how an informal online conversational interview was conducted in my study. The authentic meaning of participants’ practices would not have been revealed and the analytical depth would not have been as strong if I had not taken up multiple means of enquiry to explore these most naturalised and nuanced examples of social media activity.
Informal interviews were also applied in face-to-face engagements with participants. Patton (1990) proposes that ‘no predetermined set of questions is possible under such circumstances, because the evaluator does not know beforehand what is going to happen or what will be important to ask’ (p. 281). An example of this occurring was when I visited a rural woman participant’s house and observed the digital technology she used (and hence demonstrated) to sing karaoke on social media. Questions such as ‘What is this equipment for?’, ‘Where did you buy them?’, ‘How did you know all this stuff?’, ‘How do you send a gift to others in the karaoke group?’ naturally arose as our interactions flowed. These led to the development of more formal in-depth social media-specific questions like ‘Why do you sing karaoke in QQ group?’, ‘Who are the people that you are singing with?’, ‘What else do you do in QQ?’.
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Despite them demonstrating various digital capabilities in person, I did encounter some technical problems when attempting to communicate with rural women through social media channels. Rural women were not as responsive as students. After sending individual messages on WeChat, occasionally I had to wait several hours for a reply, or received no response at all 59 . This communication barrier did not exist between myself and student participants. I devised an appropriate way to achieve effective communication with rural women, that is, by sending messages when they would most likely be online using WeChat 60 . Throughout the fieldwork, my methods of communicating and interacting with participants were also constructed according to their ways of thinking and behaving, there were always unimagined situations and there was always a sense of myself, as the ethnographer, working out solutions based on my reflexive field practices.
4.3.5 Field Notes The role of field notes in ethnography should never be underestimated. Lofland (1971) has considered field notes as ‘the most important determinant of later bringing off a qualitative analysis’ (p. 102). They offer the observer’s ‘raison d’etre’ (p. 102). Burgess (1984) states that ‘substantive fieldnotes consist of a continuous record of the situations, events and conversations in which the researcher participates’ (p. 167). What the researcher records hinges on how one construes its relevance to the foreshadowed problems set before the fieldwork and also on background expectations (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). In this project I followed Bernard’s (2011) methods of taking field notes outlined
59 Rural women spoke of being busy with housework when my messages popped up so they did not have time to attend to them. And when they actually picked up their mobiles and opened WeChat, they forgot to send a reply. Other times they did not turn on their mobile network when they were out, so delays in replying were unavoidable. 60 This ‘timing’ had been indicated in the first-round interviews: in the morning after cooking and housework, after lunch, and before bed. Therefore, I usually contacted rural women according to this timetable and had received more timely responses.
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in his publication Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Bernard categories four types of field notes: jottings, a diary, a log, and other records consisting of methodological notes, descriptive notes and analytic notes. I did not write a log which is used for more systematic data collection, however I did record jottings, a diary and the three different types of field notes:
1. Jottings – consisted of short notes made in the moment when I was engaging in formal or informal interviews with participants and did not have time to take full notes61. 2. Descriptive notes – were notes recording what was happening in the field including details of participants’ practices on different social media platforms, offline situational information, interview transcriptions and official documents 62 . Apart from downloading participant- generated online data, I kept separate notes which recorded their online activities across various social media platforms and described the content embedded in those activities. These notes, chronicled by date, were a combination of texts and screenshots. 3. Analytic notes – which captured my interpretations and analysis of the culture and people studied. As data collection and data analysis was conducted iteratively and simultaneously, analytic notes were written in correlation with descriptive notes. 4. Methodological notes – were notes about my reflections on the technique of doing fieldwork, for example, reflections on the Human Research Ethics review process; the process of developing a way to communicate with participants effectively; and thoughts about how to react to participants’ social media posts.
61 Jottings were recorded in my notebooks, mobile phone and iPad. 62 These documents included “Annual Statistical Sheet of Population”, “A Short History of Hanpu Subdistrict”, “An Introduction to Hanpu Subdistrict”, “An Introduction to Hanpu Community’s Development and Construction”, “An Introduction to Jiujiang Village” and “An Introduction to Zhizigang Village”.
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5. Diary – which chronicled my personal feelings, daily routines and perceptions of my relationships with others in the field. As Bernard claims, this particular technique helped me to release stress, become aware of personal biases and to more objectively analyse the data.
4.3.6 Participants’ Diaries Diaries are very intimate and subjective accounts from participants, which can add ‘a very personal touch’ (Tacchi, Slater, & Hearn, 2003, p. 84) to data analysis in combination with other forms of data. This study asked participants to write a diary to record the time they spent and activities they engaged with on various social media platforms and the underlying reasons for these activities. Participants were asked voluntarily to write log sheets of diaries (see Table 4.1) every day.
Table 4.1 Diary Logsheet
DD / MM / YY
Time Types of social media Social media activity Why did you do that and other (WeChat, QQ, Weibo, comments (What did you do on these Renren, Youku, social media platforms?) Tudou, blogs, email,
Facebook, etc.)
This labour-intensive method - in terms of trying to get participants to do a type of self-reporting on a regular basis - was problematic. Only two rural women and five students volunteered to keep diaries (130 diary logsheets in total), but not on a daily basis. Their answers recorded in the logsheets were brief, so this data was used mainly as corroborative evidence in later-stage analysis to test the validity
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of participants’ responses and my evaluations. For instance, students’ short responses to why they did the online activity such as “for contacting and coursework” and “to socialise and to seek information and entertainment”, showed their strong utilitarianism towards using social media. On the other hand, rural women’s diary notes reflected their emotions while using social media, such as “share my joy” and “having a cold, very uncomfortable”.
4.4 Processes of Data Analysis Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDA) software NVivo has been employed to assist with data filtering and analysis in this project. CAQDA software is considered as conducive to both the organisation and analysis of research data by virtue of functions such as coding, retrieving and dealing with multi-media forms (Gibbs, 2014). NVivo, developed by QSR International assisted me in sorting different forms of collected materials and field notes including images, web pages, and Microsoft Word documents of interview transcripts, and allowed me to code these materials for thematic analysis and to write reflective and analytical memos (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013). The function NCapture was especially effective as it enabled me to capture web pages and therefore to record and analyse those online public links which were circulated by participants. This was particularly helpful given that web links can constantly change, be removed, or redirect to other documents (Barabási, Albert, & Jeong, 2000). Coding the collected data into nodes/themes in NVivo was not only convenient in regard to tracking original sources, reviewing/comparing/revising summarised nodes, and generating higher-level conceptual categories, it also made certain themes more identifiable and quantifiable, thereby informing the overall analytical process (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013).
There are no absolute rules in qualitative data analysis yet there are guidelines that a researcher should reference (Patton, 2015). The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of this study shaped the analytical framework for this original project as interpretive, inductive and constructionist (Marvasti, 2014). Carpenter (2011) suggests that phenomenological analysis is to uncover ‘the essence of the phenomenon under investigation based on data obtained and how the data are presented’ (p. 81). This
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process involves three major procedures: epoche, phenomenological reduction and structural synthesis (Patton, 1990). The researcher’s presuppositions about the questions to be explored, as well as personal beliefs and biases are set aside before investigation initiates. Patterns of relationships among the phenomena are identified. Collected data are sorted into categories, which are further analysed or regrouped to formulate typologies and themes. Accordingly, the analyst develops concepts or generates theories (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Patton, 1990; Silverman, 2000) in light of the research’s purpose.
Data analysis and data collection have been constructed in tandem throughout this ethnographic research. From the perspective of Hammersley and Atkinson (2007), valuable data had already been identified in the ethnographer’s conceptualisations before and during the fieldwork but was formally explored and took shape in analytic notes and memos. In the same vein, Gubrium and Holstein (2014) argue that ethnographic processes of data collection and data analysis are interplayed and iterated, which they refer to as ‘analytic inspiration’. As such, analytic inspiration offers ‘a new way of seeing things otherwise on display before our very own eyes’ and induces ‘insightful understanding, something cent[r]ed in what comes into view in analytically satisfying ways’ (Gubrium & Holstein, 2014, p. 47). In participant observation, I recorded online threads generated by participants (social media posts, comments and interactions) described them in field notes and evaluated them as the observations continued. In the sense of what Spiegelberg calls ‘constitutive phenomenology’, the observed phenomena started to ‘take shape’ in my consciousness as I approached it analytically (cited in Carpenter, 2011, p. 83), generating emerging patterns and themes. Repetitive themes of participants’ social media use started to form in April 2015. In the next several months, more online interactions were recorded, which either consolidated or updated the categories of themes that I was summarising. Meanwhile, I conducted comparative analysis of the online practices between young people and rural women during the field work. In late June and early July all categories and themes become saturated and I started to organise the second-round interviews with the two participant cohorts to verify the categories, themes and concepts I was identifying as it is critical for researchers
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to return to participants to validate their descriptions and conceptualisations (Carpenter, 2011). After leaving the field, interviews were transcribed and coded in NVivo along with other materials including field notes, informal interviews and participants’ diaries, which generated hundreds of items. These coded items (nodes) were then categorised, merged, modified, to crystallise more in-depth categories, develop concepts and generate theories. It was through these iterative processes, traversing back and forth experiencing analytical inspirations, that the patterns of Chinese youth and rural women’s online practices that reflected their everyday identity constructions – how the ‘situational self’ transforms with the development of new information and communication technology, were uncovered. Chapters five Online Identity Management: Findings from Students, and Chapter six Transformations of Rural Identities: Findings from Rural Women present detailed examples and explanations of the main patterns of these online interactions. By virtue of distinguishing between the similar categories generated for each cohort’s analysis, Chapter seven provides a comparative perspective, revealing the two groups’ divergent attitudes and behaviours towards online ‘news’, online political participation and online privacy. Adopting the lay vocabulary of my participants, these findings present their lively social media experiences and avoid overarching conceptualisations that neglect the nuanced influences of everyday life.
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5 ONLINE IDENTITY MANAGEMENT: FINDINGS FROM STUDENTS
5.1 Becoming Mature with Social Media
5.1.1 “People Who Have Half a Foot in the Society” (banzhijiao taru shehui de ren ) For Chinese youth, being admitted to university also means being granted more autonomy and freedom in making personal choices. Before they enter college, the lives of Chinese students are highly regulated for the purpose of educational advancement, which is well known as gaokao (College Entrance Exam) (Fengshu Liu, 2008; T. Wang, 2013). The Internet is considered detrimental to studies by most parents and teachers (McDonald, 2016), which further restrains young people’s Internet access. Even for those students who have mobile phones, their use is prominently controlled by their parents (J. L. Qiu, 2009), as well as schools (see examples of Chinese schools bans on mobile phone use on campus from J. Huang (2011); N. Wei (2013); H. Zhang (2016)). As a result, the Internet and social media has not been able to be fully explored by Chinese youth throughout their school lives63. As students embrace university life, they have more freedom to explore their personal interests and their understanding of themselves. Mobile phones are no longer a negative distraction and can be
63 This could be shown in youth participants’ singular adoption of the social media platform QQ when they were attending middle and high school.
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used without restriction in colleges, which without doubt has boosted the increase in the numbers of young social media users. Fengshu Liu (2008, 2011) argues that the development of modernity after Mao’s era has left Chinese youth with unparalleled autonomy in making personal choices so that even when a seat in a top university has been secured, Chinese students ‘do not dare to stand still on the academic road’ (Fengshu Liu, 2008, p. 193) during their university lives. They have a strong sense to become self-enterprising, have developed middle-class aspirations and perceive that ‘living in such an era means one has to take it as one’s own responsibility to grasp opportunities and face challenges’ (Fengshu Liu, 2008, p. 199). University graduates have to make independent career plans and cope with their own professional development (Hoffman, 2006). Power, reputation and education resources are considered key to achieving higher social mobility in Chinese society (Z. Lin & Cai, 2016). For university students, kaoyan (postgraduate admission testing), joining the Communist Party and taking the Civil Servants’ Examination are popular channels to achieve middle-class life goals (Fengshu Liu, 2008). Final-year university students enter a stage when they have to choose their life paths, to duyan (study as a postgraduate) or to work. However, either path involves intense individual effort and the decision-making process cannot rule out the influence from their families (Stockman, 2000). Fengshu Liu (2008, 2011) argues that in this process of social shift, Chinese youth construct a form of autonomous, individualistic, and neoliberal identity, and although the findings here do challenge some of Liu’s ideas about an “individualistic” identity, it is still potent that social changes confronted by Chinese youth in the transitions from school to university and to a future career, play extremely important roles in their constructions of their identities. What remains are questions about how these influences play out in students’ appropriations of social media. Throughout interviews students narrated the changing patterns of their social media use, their different behaviours according to when they were in middle and/or high school, and when they were in university. In their
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views these dynamic patterns showed progress in terms of them growing “mature” and becoming “people who had half a foot in the society”, a significant milestone in their life’s course.64
When I asked Xiaoyi, a 22-year-old urban girl what transformations had been made to her identity, she responded that she had become mature and more like “banzhijiao taru shehui de ren” ( ), which meant “people who have half a foot in the society”. “Shehui” ( ) denotes to “society” in English. “Taru shehui” ( ) means “stepping into society”, a phrase to describe the social transition experienced by Chinese youth from being a student to procuring a full-time job to support their daily lives, considered a critical stage of socialisation for youth in Chinese society (H. Liu, 2015). It is often the case that students will face maladjustment after stepping out of the university and interacting with people from various industries due to a lack of social practical skills (H. Meng, Huang, Hou, & Fan, 2014), which impairs their competency and hinders career development (Y. Chen, 2013). Therefore, Chinese public discourse continues to underscore the importance of education (Xiong, 2012) and individual efforts (“Daxuesheng”, 2014; C. Wang, 2017) in cultivating skills to overcome these challenges from both social and psychological perspectives. The Ministry of Education in China (MoE) published a proposal in 2005 in which it requested to implement practical teaching in more depth in the university education system, regulating social practice not only as an assessment of students’ performances, but also as an evaluation of the quality of university institutions, their teachers and cadres65. This proposal was a response to the policy issued
64 In field conversations the students also spoke of future career plans and it was noted that their use of social media also reflected their growing desires to construct a middle-class identity. 65 The proposal was put forward by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CPC, the Ministry of Education in China, the Office of Civilisation of the Central Committee, and the Communist Youth League. See: http://old.moe.gov.cn//publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_439/200503/6404.html
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by the State Council in 2004 on the ideological and political education of university students66. “Teaching practice, professional internship, military training, social investigation, productive labour, voluntary service, public-spirited activity, scientific and technological invention and taking a part- time job” are practical activities promoted by the MoE (2005). The national emphasis on practical teaching in China reflects its broader educational scheme of ‘quality-oriented education’ (Tan & Chua, 2014, p. 691) aiming to increase Chinese youth competitiveness in the international market as China’s economy is rapidly growing. It is also a move that is politically framed to enhance the CPC’s political leadership through cultivating ‘Chinese students with Chinese cultural identity in a global age’ (Law, 2014, p. 344). As such, getting ready for entering society with competent skills and experiences and securing future employment are constructed as social standards, or in Xiaoyi’s sense, of qualifying as a “mature” Chinese student. In China, university students often perform better from the perspective of socialising practices than their junior counterparts, who may experience quite an isolating school life (T. Wang, 2013). “Half a foot in the society” partially explains the situation of final-year university students in which they are no longer isolated from society, and are also not yet fully integrated. Studies have found that personal factors such as psychological adjustment and interpersonal communication, professional knowledge, practical experience and interview skills influence significantly young people’s employment opportunities (Y. Chen, 2013). These capabilities and goals add to the reasons why Chinese youth would pay much attention to their self-cultivation, particularly throughout their last-year of university life, in preparation for their future developments.
At the time of my first interviews with students from HNU (see Table 5.1) they were either undertaking an internship off campus or had already finished one. Xiaoyi was among the former group who took the offer of working as an intern in a company located in the United States, while other students practiced domestically. She and another 16 students opted for postgraduate study after
66 On 14 October 2004, the PRC’s State Council published the Recommendation on Further Enhancing and Improving the Ideological and Political Education of University Students. See: http://www.moe.edu.cn/s78/A12/szs_lef/moe_1407/moe_1408/tnull_20566.html
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graduation (among them, two decided to apply for postgraduate studies abroad and 15 received the opportunity to pursue study domestically) while nine students chose to work. Their choices spoke for their individual efforts in remaining qualified and competitive by facing the situation of having “half a foot away in the society”. Their decisions also showed their aspirations for higher social mobility and the acquisition of a middle-class identity.
Table 5.1 Profile of HNU Participants
NO. Name Age Gender Major Residence Future plan
Chinese Language & Work in the 1 Xiaoqian 23 Female Urban Henan Literature industry
Chinese Language & Work in the 2 Xiaoou 23 Female Rural Henan Literature industry
Chinese Language & Work in the 3 Xiaokang 25 Male Rural Shanxi Literature industry
Work in the 4 Xiaomei 21 Female Advertising Urban Shanxi industry
Work in the 5 Xiaohao 23 Male Advertising Rural Hunan industry
Work in the 6 Xiaobei 21 Male Material Engineering Urban Anhui industry
Work in the 7 Xiaodong 23 Male Material Engineering Urban Jiangsu industry
Work in the 8 Xiaojun 22 Male Material Science Rural Guangxi industry
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Urban Work in the 9 Xiaoyong 22 Male Material Physics Chongqing industry
Postgraduate study 10 Xiaowu 21 Male Finance Urban Hunan abroad
Postgraduate study 11 Xiaowei 22 Male Finance Urban Sichuan abroad
Domestic 12 Xiaoyun 22 Female Journalism Urban Hunan postgraduate study
Domestic 13 Xiaojin 21 Female Journalism Rural Guangxi postgraduate study
Domestic 14 Xiaoqiang 23 Male Journalism Urban Fujian postgraduate study
Domestic 15 Xiaobo 22 Male Journalism Rural Chongqing Postgraduate study
Domestic 16 Xiaopeng 22 Female Journalism Urban Hebei Postgraduate study
Domestic 17 Xiaoyi 22 Female Media Production Urban Jiangxi Postgraduate study
Domestic 18 Xiaoyan 22 Female Media Production Urban Hebei postgraduate study
Chinese Language & Domestic 19 Xiaoping 22 Male Rural Shanxi Literature Postgraduate study
Chinese Language & Urban Inner Domestic 20 Xiaoming 23 Male Literature Mongolia Postgraduate study
Chinese Language & Domestic 21 Xiaochu 23 Female Urban Shandong Literature Postgraduate study
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Domestic 22 Xiaoli 22 Female Japanese Urban Jiangxi Postgraduate study
Domestic 23 Xiaoyu 21 Female Japanese Urban Hunan Postgraduate study
Rural Domestic 24 Xiaohong 22 Female Chinese Guangzhou Postgraduate study
Domestic 25 Xiaolei 22 Male Material Engineering Urban Jiangsu Postgraduate study
Urban Inner Domestic 26 Xiaoshuang 22 Female Public Administration Mongolia postgraduate study
5.1.2 Constructing an Elite Middle-Class Identity
5.1.2.1 QQ as feizhuliu ( ) and xiaoxuesheng ( ) Youth preferences for social media platforms QQ, Qzone, Renren, as well as Weibo and WeChat, tended to reflect the transformations they experienced in different life stages. Most students started using Weibo after they entered university in 2011 at Weibo’s peak time (Empson, 2011) and WeChat was then just inaugurated. At the time of the fieldwork in 2015, WeChat became ubiquitous. For students, WeChat represented the top fashion and the primary site for sociality. This cultural currency explained why Xiaoyong showed his contempt of some of his classmates who had not yet adopted WeChat when he commented:
Like WeChat… after all you are in this big environment where people all play this stuff, all young people. You certainly need to participate… I very much can’t understand those who don’t play Moments or Weibo at all, like my classmates, feeling like they are not in the atmosphere. Don’t know if they are too bumpkin or what, kind of… kind of Hilltop Caveman…
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Comparing his classmates who were not using Moments or Weibo to primitive human beings Hilltop Cavemen67, Xiaoyong’s opinion symbolised that not engaging with WeChat meant isolation and alienation from social interaction. As more and more people used WeChat, Chinese young people moved the site for their sociality to WeChat from QQ (where they used to maintain their daily routines). When students were in primary, junior secondary or senior high schools, QQ was the most popular online platform for them to interact with classmates, friends and relatives. Qzone was the most popular online space where they shared their everyday lives with their QQ contacts. As many students recalled, they would talk about silly and “immature” things in short messages (shuoshuo ) and write long online diaries (rizhi ) in Qzone, activities which were no longer attractive to them as they grew in to university students.
QQ was popular throughout students’ schooling times. Xiaobo explained that he followed the fashion and registered a QQ account in senior secondary school, becoming obsessed with boosting his QQ levels and keeping his QQ pets:
Before, I so much cared about the number of suns and moons shown in my QQ, haha, the QQ level, the degree of QQ levels, so that I was super excited when my classmate gave me his VIP card which made my QQ levels increase very fast.
And QQ pets, you would think, the degree of your own pet is higher than others’. Then you would say bla bla. Now you would rather it has died. Now it jumps out every time (after logging in), jumps out every time. Very annoying! You know, the pop-up window. Before, I kept it very well and would think of spending some money buying something for it.
67 Hilltop Caveman is homo sapiens dating back to 30,000 years ago. See more information: http://www.china.org.cn/english/MATERIAL/31256.htm
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Xiaobo’s passion for the platform had diminished after he went to university because he thought these QQ activities were a representation of his immaturity: “lack of knowledge, judgement and independent thinking”. If he had still valued the symbolic QQ level and QQ pets, he would be seen as imprudent and unintelligent which were inappropriate traits and incongruent with his status as a senior university student.
Xiaoyi, Xiaoyan, and Xiaoyu held the same idea that using QQ and Qzone was feizhuliu (non-mainstream) and unfashionable. Feizhuliu, as its literal meaning stands for, represents a type of non-mainstream culture or subculture among the Chinese post-1980s and post-1990s generations, and has been stigmatised as low culture that is usually endorsed by rural Chinese youth (S. Zhang, 2017). Xiaoyi considered that her high school QQ nickname, embedded with emojis with a mashup of rustic colours was also feizhuliu so she deliberately changed that icon to an English name after she went to university. For Xiaoyan, posting on Qzone also became feizhuliu, which resulted in her deleting photos she had uploaded to Qzone while still in high school. With the wide popularity of WeChat, Xiaoyu also joined its service in 2013 while she was a junior university student. QQ then became an outdated tool for her as she chose to not store her new contacts, but did use it to contact “unfashionable teachers and old friends”. However, what also made QQ and Qzone feizhuliu was not merely students’ earlier “immature” online records, but also the current QQ feeds that were generated by their old contacts. Xiaowu was among the students who thought in this way. Referring to his past records of social feeds on Qzone as “black history”, he seemed very satisfied that he had deleted all his prior posts on Qzone as they were “too immature”. Moreover, Xiaowu called his old QQ friends “xiaoxuesheng ” (schoolchildren) and used the English word “low” to scorn the thread of information shared by them: “As to QQ… things shared by my QQ friends… that information was quite low. That’s the feel. So, I become less and less interested in it.”
By calling Qzone users “xiaoxuesheng”, Xiaowu did not mean that his established contacts on QQ were actually primary school students, but that the information these users shared on Qzone was poor
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quality material. Subsequently, amongst these research participants engaging with QQ seemed to be associated with a lower class of cultural activity.
Xiaoyong shared similar experiences with Qzone when interviewed. He started using QQ while he was attending primary school. In his school time, he liked to record his reflections in diaries on Qzone, sometimes writing very long articles, such as parting words for classmates upon graduation, and thoughts to commemorate a sports star. These diaries, in his opinion, could have presented him as “inspirational and good at thinking”, yet he now chose to avoid the platform because what was trending on Qzone did not appeal to his interests any more. By way of explanation he offered some examples: “what will happen if you don’t share it in ×× days”, “breaking down Japan’s crime”, and “superstition”.
Xiaoyong criticised this content as “not worth reading” and “vulgar”, explaining that if he published it, people would have thought he was “naocan ” (brainless)68. Both Xiaoyong and Xiaowu’s negation of the contents shown on Qzone were a disavowal of features that did not suit their burgeoning elite identities. For those particular online sources were deemed unscientific and poor quality, whereas they valued education which they now thought was absent amongst their old QQ connections.
Another student, Xiaoyun presented more pro-active efforts towards gaining knowledge and bettering her education. Apart from family, relatives, friends and classmates, Xiaoyun also friended her university teachers on WeChat. Maintaining relationships with teachers through giving likes to and reposting what teachers shared on WeChat was not uncommon for university students like her, as Xiaoyun explained,
Sometimes my classmates would say, “it’s almost the end of semester, hurry and give likes to teachers! Teachers like this, hurry and share this! It’ll be too late if you fail the
68 These topics that Xiaoyong saw in his Qzone were in fact some of the topics favored by Chinese rural women on their WeChat Moments which is examined in Chapter six.
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final exam.” Back then, everybody would repost collectively whatever the teachers had shared.
It was in her second year in the university when Xiaoyun became attentive to her teachers’ WeChat feeds. She explained why,
To gain a kind of recognition, maybe not. But I think this kind of reposting actually had not much effect. But you received a kind of comfort, you thought “if I share it, teachers would absolutely give me a pass”. It was this kind of psychology.
Although Xiaoyun questioned the actual effect of playing up to her teachers via WeChat interactions, when she looked back at her past behavior she could not deny her previous efforts to impress her teachers (in the hope that they might give her good marks) by liking and sharing what they posted on WeChat Moments. In particular, when she was striving for an opportunity of baoyan (admission to postgraduate study based on recommendation), Xiaoyun even expected her teachers’ feedback on her positive posts:
During the time when preparing for baoyan, I especially hoped my teachers would give a like. When they give me a like, I would think, wow, full of motivation. So I post zhengnengliang (positive energy) stuff every day.
Xiaoyun deliberately shared inspiring posts when she was preparing for baoyan in her third year at HNU. These posts were not only to encourage herself, but also to manage her impressiveness, by increasing the chances of getting noticed by her teachers who would likely recognise and support her performance as a quality student. When she was participating in a competition in the university in her last year and knowing one of the competition’s judges was her teammate’s teacher, Xiaoyun resorted to this online strategy of flattering again. But on this occasion, she asked her teammate to initiate it. Xiaoyun’s online interactions demonstrated a new level of awareness of who she needed to be connected with after entering into university, and how. WeChat’s popular and modern system enabled
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her to construct, perform and communicate an identity underpinned by her educational values and enhancing her status as a “worthy” university student.
It can be seen that a large part of these young people’s aspirations was to develop a more elite identity through maturation and upper social mobility, which their (former and/or continuing) QQ social media practices could no longer reflect or sustain. Both their comments about and direct activities through these distinctive types of social media demonstrated high levels of self-criticism and efforts to cultivate themselves in preparation for adulthood and future self-developments.
5.1.2.2 Self-cultivation, Confucianism and socialisation of Chinese Youth HNU students’ values regarding knowledge and education could be traced back to Chinese Confucian tradition that praises self-cultivation and education (G. H. Huang & Gove, 2012; Fengshu Liu, 2002) elaborated on in The Great Learning by Confucius:
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy. (Confucius, 1971, pp. 358-359)
As such, self-cultivation lays the foundation for an ideal world in Confucian education (Fengshu Liu, 2002). It is ‘The Way’ (Confucius, 1993) to learn to become a man of fullness and realise one’s humanity or benevolence (ren ) (W. Tu, 1998; Yao, 1999). Confucius also expanded on the idea of adulthood which he considered as a necessary process for self-realisation, yet the Confucian sense of adulthood and maturation is not simply a physical one, but ‘a continuous effort toward self- reali[s]ation’ (W. Tu, 1998, p. 39) so that ‘the authentic human nature begins in early childhood and does not end even with old age’ (p. 40). From the perspective of Confucianism, a person is always bettering himself. Being mature therefore is often associated with equipping oneself with more advanced knowledge, ‘a sign of wisdom and resourcefulness as well as of experience and
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perseverance’ (p. 43). It should be noted that these learning values are reinterpreted in the Chinese educational system (Fengshu Liu, 2002) which also bears strong influences from both the institutional stakeholders of the state (Kipnis, 2011; Law, 2011) and family (G. H. Huang & Gove, 2012; Slote & De Vos, 1998). It is therefore not difficult to understand the cultural reasons why Chinese young people expressed similar themes and incorporated these values through their online interactions with extended social networks, for the purposes of self-improvement and advancement.
Apart from continuous learning, cultivating oneself also entails self-restraint. Students’ online experiences also embodied how they exercised self-control on social media, regarding this self- discipline as a sign of maturation, as Xiaohong remarked:
At that time, (I) very much like to update status in Qzone. I was quite little, had to share it when I had thoughts. (Laugh) Very naïve! At that time, I was mainly updating statuses, chatting and having group chats with classmates… Now, (I am) rational and abstinent.
Xiaoping shared the same view: “In the first and second year at university, thoughts were simpler, more blind-minded, more excited. I posted everything. Now I am basically calm and abstinent.”
Qzone critic Xiaoyong also expressed that he had second thoughts when he wanted to post his opinions on WeChat:
…need to consider a bit more when posting on WeChat, negative influence or so, before I didn’t think about this. When I was a freshman… I posted everything on Qzone, condemning the university was not good… My father saw it. Then he educated me bla bla. Later I restrained myself a bit. Now I restrain myself very much when posting on Moments.
Xiaohong, Xiaoping and Xiaoyong all indicated that they had changed from being forthright to reflexive, considering more closely potentially harmful outcomes in terms of their sharing through social media. They now disclosed less spontaneous and explicit emotional views, especially those in opposition to authorities such as their university. It was also noticeable in Xiaoyong’s case that his
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father had played a significant role in facilitating his transformation, which manifested the educational role of family in putting these Confucian norms into practice (G. H. Huang & Gove, 2012). The students thought of “rational” ways of expressing themselves, demonstrating that they had grown to be more cultured and developed, rather than ignorant and inexperienced. Self-monitoring for these students became a crucial part of self-cultivation and a criterion for evaluating whether they conducted themselves properly in social interactions.
Self-restraint is a core element of Confucian values, a requirement for self-cultivation for Chinese (Y. Li & Zhang, 2008) and an important interpersonal norm in Chinese society (Shenkar & Ronen, 1987). Confucius dictates self-control as ‘keji’ ( ) – ‘subdue oneself’ (Confucius, 1993, p. 44) and proposes it together with ‘fuli’ ( ) – following the ritual (li ), a pathway to fulfilling benevolence (ren ) in Confucianism (C. Li, 2007). Restraining oneself is a custom to carry out reciprocity (shu ) (Yini Wang & Balnaves, 2017), which is famously known as ‘Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you’ (ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu ren ) (The Analects: Book 15.24) and in such ways benevolence (ren) can be facilitated (Yini Wang & Balnaves, 2017). Self-restraint is still promoted by Chinese as practicing these norms is harmonious in respect of interpersonal relationships, business transactions (King & Bond, 1985; X. Wei & Li, 2013), and conducive to ‘get[ing] things done quickly’ (Yum, 1988, p. 381), or more broadly, guanxi ( practice (Ruan, 2017). As Guoming Chen (2002) points out ‘the ability to reach a harmonious state of human relationship becomes the main criterion for evaluating whether an individual is competent in the process of Chinese communication’ (p. 4), so it is also conceivable that Chinese young people and their families place much emphasis on the cultivation of self-control.
In the social media context, controlling oneself is to be introspective about making public remarks through posting and sharing, which some scholars call “self-censorship” (Marwick & Boyd, 2010; Sleeper et al., 2013), i.e. avoiding causing annoyance or creating conflict by criticising the university publicly, showing off, or posting negative emotions. As the students in this study became senior, they learnt the Chinese way of socially interacting and became more sophisticated in practicing these
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interpersonal norms. Being “abstinent” was a necessary trait that they learnt to construct a positive impression and facilitate guanxi maintenance within their social networks on social media. They had grasped the idea that guanxi could generate resources and function as a form of social capital (X. Qi, 2013) which could be exploited to support personal interests, for example, to better post-university career development and procure jobs (Bian, 2002; Hanser, 2002). As Lam (2007) proposes, the criteria for Chinese youth’s maturation is ‘whether or not adolescents are appropriately positioned in their social networks and to what extent they are capable of mastering both vertical and horizontal interpersonal relationships (Guanxi)’ (p. 91). They cannot avoid the thinking that a person who is adept at subduing himself/herself and mastering guanxi is intelligent, competent and mature. Practicing these cultural norms in the online space has the same implications. These customs are indispensable to the socialisation of Chinese youth (Lam, 2007; Y. Li & Zhang, 2008), which, to a great extent, aligns with the emphasis on moral education in Chinese culture (Fengshu Liu, 2002). From Chinese youth recounting their evolutionary social media activities, it can be seen that they use social media technology as a leverage for self-cultivation and socialisation, which additionally suits the middle-class social status that Chinese youth desire.
Such a functional perspective became more essential when students arrived at the last stage of their university life confronted with choices concerning their future career development. This stage was seen as a milestone for achieving middle-class status. For to grow mature was also to learn how to achieve more personal goals using various means (including social media) as they experienced the social shifts from high school to university and from university to society. The students’ changing uses and uptake of different social media platforms were strong manifestations of their maturation. Xiaoyi’s quitting of her unfashionable QQ icon and Xiaobo’s disregard about his QQ levels (and keeping his QQ pet) indicated their awareness about self-cultivation enabling them (as more senior university students) to secure decent jobs and/or higher-level education. Although the goal of these transformative processes was to realise personal ambitions, this does not necessarily imply an increased individualism amongst Chinese youth. Rather, these examples demonstrate the
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embeddedness of Confucian cultural values in their various subjective experiences. Maturity for these students was also manifested in their negotiated relationships with social media, their knowledge of the affordances of various platforms as they became senior students, and in their utilitarian perspectives.
5.1.3 Positioning One’s Self through a Range of Social Media Types The youth in this study used social media in very utilitarian ways, they were aware of their changing habits with different platforms across time. Through using various types of social media they built their knowledge of the platforms’ sociotechnical infrastructures and also navigated their relationships, whereby they anchored their positions and made the most of them to facilitate their personal interests. A user perspective was constructed as they always thought of themselves as being engaged with social media. It was found that collectively, Chinese young people always followed the fashion of using the most popular social media platform. When they shifted into university life, they quickly adopted the contemporary trending social media platforms such as Weibo and Renren, while adapting their ways of engaging with QQ. After having registered Weibo accounts, students indicated that they became enthusiastic about boosting their numbers of followers, chasing the celebrity effect of microblogging (Marwick & Boyd, 2011) and also disclosing their personal life. But after a period of time, they adjusted these practices and became less interested in attracting a high volume of followers on Weibo. Xiaohao spoke of this transformative activity recalling his overall microblogging experiences:
Before… (I) posted some daily thoughts, some photos like others, hoping to have more fans to follow me. But now is different. Now I basically follow those teachers, have a look at the information published by them, then you inspire yourself from that, then reflect from different perspective…on recent news events.
Similar to Xiaohao, for Xiaoli, these early-stage fan boosting attempts on Weibo were, on reflection, very immature and in keeping with her previous QQ practices, she explained:
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You look at the Weibo you posted before, (you) would think, ah, why was I that zhuangbi (pretending/bragging)? Ah, so naïve! Some statuses were in fact pointless! And the previous thoughts were very naïve, very immature.
In retrospect Xiaoli thought she used to be too pompous on Weibo. While arrogance is played down in Chinese culture, humbleness is encouraged as a virtue. Showing off what she had was not an ideal way of behaving online for Xiaoli and could only cause annoyance and display her ignorance. As Xiaoli was experiencing a social shift in her life, online threads that she had formerly posted did not appeal to her interests and status anymore. Initially, Chinese youth employed platforms like Weibo to serve their various identity projects. Underlying these choices, were their efforts to constantly negotiate their relationships with the platform, and their escalated knowledge of technical capabilities laid the foundations for these negotiations creating new ways for them to position themselves. As Xiaomei made clear:
Maybe at the beginning, (I) didn’t know the nature of Weibo platform, (so) maybe there would be a bit more original posts. But in the end (I) found the benefit of Weibo was actually that you could see various opinions and discussions, a platform for commenting and participating. Then my method of using Weibo was transformed a bit… information about self is relatively attenuated… I don’t position Weibo as a place where you communicate with people you are quite familiar with…
Xiaoshuang expressed the same view, “Like Weibo, I don’t plan to use it for interaction with friends”, while Xiaowu also stated he had never treated Weibo as a means of social networking specifically. Through using Weibo over time, students perceived different affordances and related these affordances to their particular motivations, forming a mutual understanding of their position in respect of being a user of the platform’s options. For instance, Xiaobei positioned himself as an “information receiver” and explained: “Weibo’s characteristics… lie in first high level of information timeliness, then… its users are a group you don’t know… a group of strangers. These might lead to my characteristic of receiver for most of time.”
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Xiaoyong used metaphors when he talked about his experiences with Weibo. He described himself as an “online tourist” who looked up information for entertainment and to enjoy pastimes such as movies and sports. For him, Weibo was like a “buffet” where “each takes what he/she needs”. From these students’ recollections, it was indicated that Weibo had failed to satisfy their interests in self- promotion, especially because this platform increasingly promotes the presence of celebrities and social elites (Y. Zhang, 2016). Students could hardly receive such broad visibility and high interactivity from posting on Weibo as celebrities do. Additionally, they perceived the commercialisation of Weibo and its marketing influence as frustrating. Some students pointed out that annoying advertisements displayed on Weibo even caused their withdrawal. Xiaojun’s replacement of Weibo with the online news application Changdu exemplified these choices:
Since it (Weibo) pushed advertisements, (I) felt like it was not that smooth to receive information. Because of advertisements and that you couldn’t delete them, even when you delete one, there would be another one… using Changdu, it would list all the headlines of the previous two days in order for your reading…
For Chinese students, Weibo was more informational and commercial and less reciprocal in regard to offline social networks, than WeChat and QQ. Through comprehending common knowledge about Weibo’s affordances, they constructed their self-positionings on Weibo as “bystanders”, “lurkers” and “divers” who mainly sought news (or recorded information connected to their interests), by reposting from other popular Weibo accounts, rather than by interacting with Weibo users. This interaction style was regarded as the mature way of utilising Weibo.
In contrast to the popular positions such as “lurkers” and “bystanders”, Xiaoli considered herself as a “participant” on Weibo. Weibo allowed her to find information about her interests, such as horoscopes, celebrities and movies and she participated in public discussions with people that had similar hobbies. Xiaoli offered:
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Another advantage of Weibo is interacting with friends who share the same interests. For example, I saw a new show was releasing today. Normally the trailer would be released first on Weibo. I would then @ (mention) some people, and interact with them.
Weibo’s promotion of celebrities catered to students’ interests in entertainment. Some students pointed out that they were “fans” on Weibo as they used it to get updates on celebrities and catch up on gossip, as Xiaoyan commented:
Generally, I read things about celebrities and gossip on Weibo, nothing very formal, sometimes worshiping idols… is a mentality of little fans, just observing celebrities, reading gossip…
More generally, the students continuously referred to the features and functions of various platforms and gave details about how they made sense of them. They constantly compared the social media types they had used, or were still using, which included Weibo, Renren, QQ and WeChat, and explained how they negotiated their positions in relationship to them specifically. For example, the outstanding affordance of Renren is to build campus social networks amongst classmates and schoolmates. When the youth were freshman university students, Renren was still very popular. At that time, they employed Renren to exchange information and extend social networks as they could easily get connected with their classmates and senior students by using the Renren platform. They also posted photos and diaries in similar ways to what they did on QQ. However, when students stepped into the third year of their university lives, WeChat gained widespread popularity and Renren was soon ditched as they considered that WeChat was more technologically advanced. Popular reasons pointed out by students were: “chatting on Renren was quite inconvenient” (Xiaoyan), “Renren software update speeds were slow” (Xiaoming), “information was not immediate” (Xiaojun), and “content on Renren was too commercial” (Xiaolei).
Although they still used QQ their activities mainly centred around receiving messages and transferring files, rather than social networking. Most messages were delivered in QQ groups formed
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by offline campus contacts that were developed from their university courses, their former schooling or clubs, and online interest-driven communities such as reading, English learning and gaming groups that students had joined in previously. Students in university relied on QQ to receive announcements from administration about their classes and schools. QQ group selection also functioned as a discussion forum where students could ask questions of their peers and administration. In addition, QQ allowed students to transfer large files that Weibo and WeChat could not support, which made it very convenient for resource exchanges. For students who were working part time, QQ was also a tool for office communication because of its file transfer capacities. Nevertheless, neither checking announcements nor transferring documents on QQ brought students a high sense of participation when using it. For more engaging social interactions, students had definitively opted to use WeChat since its inception and appreciated WeChat’s functionality as an “address book”, “news media”, “a tool for social interaction”, “a window of communication and self-expression”, a place for “xiu ” (show) or “performance”, and “a journal”. The following table lists their views about positioning according to the three most used social media platforms, Weibo, QQ and WeChat, and their ideas about the types of social networks formed on each.
Table 5.2 Positioning on Social Media Platforms
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Weibo QQ WeChat
Instant communication; Rich and timely simple design; all- Advantages information; public Instant communication rounded functions; opinion private
Too fragmented Too complicated Disadvantages information; too many functions; too many Less public opinion advertisements advertisements
Message notification Communication; daily A repository of up-to- centre (in particular about life interaction; Positioning on the date information; QQ groups); file transfer; information seeking; self- platform entertainment office communication; expression, identity unfashionable performance
Bystanders; lurkers; Lurkers; information Self-positions information receiver; Lurkers; participants receiver fans; participants
Old contacts (family, Family, relatives, friends, Strangers, a limited relatives, friends, classmates, teachers, Social networks number of friends and classmates, and teachers), colleagues, unfamiliar classmates colleagues, unfamiliar people, strangers people, strangers
From these descriptions, it can be seen how deeply WeChat was integrated into these young people’s daily lives. Importantly, WeChat functioned as much more than a tool, it operated as a space for self- expression, identity performances and social interactions. Based on solid understandings of the affordances of the various platforms, students developed distinctive positionings in connection with them according to their personal interests, and thus formed different online identities. These positionings showed that students were adept with sociotechnical aspects as they grew senior, and as
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they became more experienced users, for as van Dijck (2013a, p. 6) argues, ‘the construction of platforms and social practices is mutually constitutive’. Through the Chinese students’ references to “positioning” concepts, a stronger user agency was being developed for the purposes of constructing an elite middle-class identity. It was also according to different positionings on social media platforms that the students maintained differentiated and mutually beneficial social networks.
5.2 Positive Online Identity
5.2.1 Reciprocity and Strategic Self-Presentation 5.2.1.1 Zhengnengliang ( ) “Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you.” Xiaokang, a 25-year-old student studying Chinese language and literature at HNU, quoted this sentence from The Analects, (known as Lunyu in Chinese), in response to being asked about how he posted on WeChat. The Analects records the language and behaviours of Confucius and his disciples and reflects the thoughts of Confucius. This quote “do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you.”, known as ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu ren ( ) in Chinese, manifests the idea of benevolence (ren ) in interpersonal relationships, which is the core value of Confucius’s contemplations. The original text of this quote is:
Zigong asked, “It there a single word such that one could practise it through one’s life?”
The Master said, “Reciprocity perhaps? Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you.” (The Analects: Book 15.24)
Xiaokang came from the rural town Shangzhou in Shanxi. He was amongst the earliest students who had found a job before graduation and had already been working in a real estate development company throughout his last year at university. Xiaokang spent nearly 4 hours a day on social media, (longer than most of the others) his daily online activities included checking updates, chatting and posting on WeChat. He used his real name as his WeChat name and his social network on WeChat
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grew (as did his contacts in his offline life) when he met his bosses and colleagues. His WeChat posts always consisted of good-looking, carefully edited photos and cheerful mottos, statuses that conveyed an optimistic attitude, which he called “zhengnengliang”: “It is keeping positive, conveying a kind of life zhengnengliang, this kind of information, stuff that you participate actively.”
Zhengnengliang means positive energy in English. It won the first place on the list of top 10 words of the year for 2012 in China because of frequent usage by citizens, media and the government in both online and offline contexts (L. Sun, 2012). According to the Chinese linguist Hao, this term is generally branded with positive, healthy, motivation, encouraging power and emotion (L. Sun, 2012). Although the phrase and concept of “positive energy” has a Western origin in physics, its popularity in China demonstrates its purpose as a sociocultural foundation, as the spirit of zheng has been valued by the Chinese down the ages no matter what the political situation has been (Chang, 2014). Therefore, it is not surprising that zhengnengliang is commonly used by young people in their routine and daily utterances. Taking a closer look at online environments, the spirit of zhengnengliang also has a tangible form in Chinese youths’ everyday uses of the WeChat platform.
For example, Xiaokang updated a series of posts about his work for the real estate development company, showing teamwork and his support for the company. A post shown in Figure 5.1 is an example in which Xiaokang wrote “** Company, 200 people, seven days, nearly 5000 votes, rhythming the whole city. This is wolf spirit of the wolf team! Proud for ** Company! Thanks for everyone who voted for ** Company!! (Heart emoticon)”.
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Figure 5.1
When I asked Xiaokang why he shared these posts, he answered,
Content about work are some positive promotion, can attract people and motivate colleagues. Myself will become more positive after seeing friends’ attention… also show our status to leaders… present a status that I’m working and studying positively and have favourable skill of team communication and cooperation.
Written in a cheerful tone, what these posts conveyed were Xiaokang’s inspirational and ambitious spirit, the positive energy that he wanted to show to his friends, workmates, leaders and employers. For Xiaokang, all these online presentations carried with them a sense of what he called “zhengnengliang”, portraying him as hardworking and good at team communication. They not only extended his positive identity, but also communicated the spirit of reciprocity (shu). When he quoted the famous Confucian saying about reciprocity, Xiaokang demonstrated a strong grasp of the potential outcomes that his online behaviours could lead to. For him, posting zhengnengliang online statuses was a necessary part of his identity construction and he was mindful of the negative impacts that less positive content could have on himself and others too:
When I read other people’s Moments (a place where users can post and share) on WeChat or browse Qzone, if there are too many trifles, or some, mmm… something… that I read… If they are something negative, I would block them. Therefore, myself, that is to
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say, do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you. So myself won’t post those things.
If posting on Moments could affect others (negatively), I would not post. I felt annoyed when others posted this kind of information. Then I would not post it.
Xiaokang obviously empathised with others’ feelings and controlled his own behaviour when deciding what to focus on and what to avoid online, demonstrating a class of emotional restraint particular to Chinese culture. Reciprocity (shu) was embedded and conveyed in his online presentation of a positive identity so that zhengnengliang, therefore, became a method of affirmative exchange through Xiaokang’s WeChat self-presentations. Yet Xiaokang’s online self-presentation was also a strategic type of positive representation of self.
The concept of positive energy, or more specifically positive self-presentation is very broad, and includes any positive aspect that a person can be identified with. Xiaoyong, a student of material physics explained that impressions of positive energy were a strong feature of user-generated content, “You normally post something of zhengnengliang of yourself. Rarely did people complain…” For Xiaoyong, positive energy involved:
Let everyone think you are very playful, have many things to do, (your life is) very fulfilling. What’s more is to think you are very excellent, what you do every day is worth complimenting. It is to show everybody that you are great, or you are very happy and positive, or energetic, that you have so many fun things every day, don’t look like dull.
Some of the ways he chose to communicate these meanings included:
I would organise my words when posting and publish something amusing, like a punster. For instance, I would edit my photos featuring me doing something in a way like I’m very good at this thing. Then many people give likes.
Insightful personal thoughts, photos of travelling, pleasurable scenery and tasty food, images featuring friendship, public links shared on Moments indicating students’ tastes and interests,
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professional knowledge, and more playful content were all popular examples of positive energy shared by student participants in their social media feeds. Figure 5.2 offers a sample of these:
Figure 5.2 Examples of positive posts on WeChat
As exemplified, these positive postings were usually presented after careful editing at the back stage in order to present ideal aspects of the self (Goffman, 1959).
Culture is both explicit and implicit (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952). While many online zhengnengliang posts overtly reflected how Chinese youth were constructing their identities according to positive principles, others, which were just as significant in terms of Confucian reciprocity values, were more layered in their complexity. For if certain posts were generated in a totally opposite style, they would cause damaging effects to a young person’s identity and the research participants were very sophisticated about this potential dilemma:
Of course I hope it’s positive. If it’s negative, and sometimes I had the desire to express, I would then transform this kind of negative stuff into a type of thinking. That is, my expression would turn to be what I learn, conclude or understand from this negative thing,
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some new thoughts about this thing. Overall, it’s something that is interesting, positive, thought-provoking, and of course it has to be real.
Xiaomei, 21, was doing internship at an advertising company in Beijing. She planned to stay in Beijing after finishing her undergraduate study, pursuing her career in advertising. During the fieldwork, Xiaomei maintained active profiles on WeChat and Weibo. By sharing interests in reading and her thoughts about things and people in her life, and posting activities such as watching drama in a theatre, travelling and participating in colour run, she presented herself as having intellectual depth, good taste and open mind. Students like Xiaomei would consciously hide their negative feelings. Rather strategically, they encoded uplifting meanings into their social media feeds which enabled them to subtly express their negative emotions simultaneously.
Xiaojin’s WeChat contributions typified similar examples of reciprocal consideration by means of her zhengnengliang posts. Xiaojin comes from a rural county named the “capital of jasmine tea” renowned for this product in the southern city Nanning, Guangxi, adjacent to Guangdong. Near her home, there are hundreds of factories producing jasmine tea and her parents worked in one of them. Xiaojin was studying journalism at HNU and she used WeChat via her mobile phone every day, during all of her free time, and connected with her 260 contacts or read posts from interesting official accounts. These contacts included her parents, relatives, friends and schoolmates. Xiaojin also used her real name on WeChat. The Cantonese saying “xianyu fansheng” ( ” ) is very inspiring, translating to “salted fish revives” literally, but meaning ‘adverse situations can turn unexpectedly promising’ metaphorically69 (Wen, 2008). Xiaojin wrote this saying as part of her motto in the “What’s Up” section on WeChat which read in full, “Turn tables, turn tables, salted fish can even turn
69Xianyu fansheng ( ” ) is literally differentiated from xianyu fanshen ( ” ) by linguists but they have similar metaphorical meaning. The former one is a Cantonese common saying while the latter one is used more widely in Chinese society. Fansheng ( ) means “revive” while fanshen ( ) means “turn around”. Shui (2005) and Wen (2008) have debated using either fansheng or fanshen to denote the meaning “desperate situations can turn unexpectedly promising”.
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tables!” By using the proverb, Xiaojin alluded to the idea that she must have had some troubles in her life, but she never spoke about them directly on WeChat. Instead, she used metaphors, figurative photos and assertive remarks to express herself. For example, she copied a line from the animated film My Neighbor Totoro (Hara (Producer) & Miyazaki (Director), 1988) and posted it on her Moments. Xiaojin wrote, “Life will get better once it is bad enough, because it can’t get worse. We’ll know after endeavour that perseverance means victory.” Xiaojin used this quote as a reminder, to encourage herself to endure and to not give up even when she had difficulties.
Xiaojin tended to update her status most often without making any comments, instead she added photos and pictures she had downloaded online. These visuals were artistic and depictive with embedded captions or extra text to convey concentrated meanings.
Figure 5.3
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Figure 5.4
For example, Figure 5.3 shows an illustration in which a girl and a rabbit are dancing together and the caption declares “life has to be passionate”. Xiaojin set this text/image combination as her WeChat cover photo and used it to update her status on Moments. Figure 5.4 shows a text-based image posted on Moments which says “experiencing too few setbacks so that to feel chicken feathers and garlic skins are trouble”. This message tells people that encountering few hardships means small trifles will bother them, and implies that extra challenges in one’s life evoke optimism, providing perspective about those troubles one actually experiences. The meaning conveyed in the artwork Xiaojin added (see Figure 5.5) was more straightforward. It shows a person sitting and meditating and has two short captions, on the left side, the caption reads “Don’t play with me”, and on the right “I want to be quiet”. By choosing this graphic, Xiaojin indirectly told other WeChat users that alone time was needed.
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Figure 5.5
Figure 5.6
In her status shown in Figure 5.6, Xiaojin contributed the words, “shide xianyu dideke” ( ” ) and attached a black and white photo of a hand grabbing a fish. Again Xiaojin used the expression “xianyu ” (salted fish). Traditionally Chinese people have used salt to preserve fish
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in order to store it longer. Salted fish has a very strong smell and is not a refined dish, applied in this context its derogatory symbolism was used to communicate meanings such as a lack of vitality and adversity in life. Here “shide xianyu dideke” meant “if you eat salted fish, you will have to resist thirst”, the dominant message being that one must be accountable and prepared for consequences, teaching people to not complain and reminding them to be courageous.
An initial view might interpret this content as being representative of a young woman’s emotional expressions about her experiences during her last year of university. However, it is argued here that the posts were more complex than first impressions suggest. Xiaojin explained that she downloaded these images and posted them on WeChat to express how upset she was during the writing of her graduation thesis, and to indicate some of the challenges she faced in managing her time between life and studying. The posts were made to show that she was trying to deal with these problems in positive ways without saying exactly what the problems were demonstrating “vexation but with the hope” that troubles could be solved. She mentioned, “I want to be more implicit. I think if I really had expressed them very straightforwardly, it would be shout abuses in the street. Seeing that, others would feel uncomfortable very much.”
If Xiaojin had put forward her negative emotions directly to her circle of friends, then those friends receiving the posts would have been annoyed and she understood this. It was positive not negative energy that she conveyed. Instead of communicating outspoken negative emotions, she considered those who would be the readers of her posts and deliberately selected artwork and imagery which had motivational information. In these cases, Chinese youth knew how to construct and take advantage of the different forms of online presentations available through social media, restrained their emotions and behaviours and thought of others, so as not to arouse any conflict, which is the ‘golden rule’ (Wattles, 1997) of Confucianism-reciprocity.
To further carry out reciprocity in these online contexts, some “don’ts” were recognised by youth to avoid being offensive. Statuses including advertisements, complaints, showing off wealthy belongings or boasting were seen as negative, with the likelihood of causing displeasure, the opposite
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of zhengnengliang. An instance of this was when Xiaojin quickly deleted a link about a commercial promotion encouraging the audience to collect likes in order to receive a real prize, soon after she shared it on Moments. Upon sharing she found that many classmates in her WeChat networks also suddenly shared the same link, resulting in repetitive social feeds on her Moments. Xiaojin considered that her link sharing had increased the “burden” of this online traffic and caused “traffic jam”, since her classmates were also subjected to seeing the same link repeated on their Moments, with the potential to cause frustration: “Myself don’t want to be annoyed by this kind of small ad, so I better not bother others as well… Because I think Moments is a sheer platform for sharing though it has some non-sheer stuff.”
She suggested that the kinds of unsuitable links recirculated on Moments were “like those micro- businessmen (weishang ) who always post information of purchase-on-behalf (daigou )”.
Xiaoqiang acted in a similar way after he wrote a post to advertise a party villa where he and his classmates held their graduation party. Xiaoqiang wrote this post on QQ and he not only expressed his enjoyment of partying with his classmates, he also praised the villa’s manager and his service (see Figure 5.7): “0731 Villa is the party place carefully selected by our class after field trip, really nice! Absolutely a good place for class party! Let’s get high at the graduation party!”
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Figure 5.7
Figure 5.8
Xiaoqiang explained his motivations for this posting, “Considering good things need to be shared, fellows who need this can contact the boss: (the manager’s surname and mobile number) – I’m really not advertising, this is my sincere compliment! Come come come, no regret. (Two smile emoticons)”. Yet a day later Xiaoqiang deleted the original post and wrote another to provide clarification (see Figure 5.8). In the second post his justification for the first was explained: “Everybody don’t mind the minutiae (smile emoticon). The post of yesterday is indeed an ad, in order to get cheaper price for the villa experience (scowl emoticon)”.
It was out of reciprocity that Xiaojin and Xiaoqiang deleted information about commercial promotions from their social media feeds shortly after they posted it, as these kinds of messages would likely cause annoyance to their online social networks, based on their own experiences.
Statuses that youth put up on WeChat were always (on the surface) about happy and positive things happening in life, negative emotions were shared less and not welcomed. Positive energy is inclusive of any message that can show the favourable aspects of a person, the prerequisite is following the reciprocal norms, and practicing these norms can be highly intricate. It can be observed from the use of language, the tone of writing, and the organisation of the visuals and is also reflected in the way of thinking about what should be shared online and what should not. Zhengnengliang is intentional and self-reflective, but not necessarily compelling as it occurs as a natural way of self-presentation.
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Through zhengnengliang posts young people not only expressed their emotions and performed their identities, they also maintained and enhanced guanxi with others. Mutual beneficence was implicitly constructed in young students’ online self-presentations in the same ways it was ingrained in offline social interactions, and had become a guiding principle for the young cohort’s behaviours in their everyday interactions on social media.
5.2.1.2 Hei ( ) Nuanced concerns about others’ feelings demonstrated ingrained behaviour amongst the students observed on WeChat and other behaviours were also learned. In China, self-mockery and self- deprecation are called “zihei” ( ) (Y. Zhang, 2014) and have become prevalent online (P. Yang, et al., 2014). Zi ( ) stands for “self” while hei ( ) stands for “black” and the combined term has been endowed with the meanings of “deprecate” and “mock” by netizens (Y. Zhang, 2014). The concept of hei involves both zihei (self-mockery) and hei (mock/mocking) others. Western literature emphasises that self-mockery can be used for giving face value, saving face, and for adding a waggish and amusing touch to on-going interactions (C. Yu, 2013). Ungar’s (1984) study of unserious behaviour considers self-mockery as an important part of everyday self-presentation. In Chinese history however, self-mockery was traditionally the province of writers and poets in literature, and comics who satirised the authorities and sought spiritual sustenance (Miao, 2014), a serious and symbolic activity. From students’ WeChat uses, this research has discovered that in modern China, self-mockery has become more of an everyday practice, imbued with jocosity and humour, especially in more open online environments 70 . Recent literature argues that youth self-mockery or self- deprecation online represents a de-centring of traditional values, or catharsis of negative emotions (T. Li, 2012), and is a fashion of meaninglessness (Miao, 2014). In the case of the WeChat observations analysed for this project however, this has not been the case, the students presented a class of self-
70 For instance, appropriating popular discourse, young people have projected collective self-mocking identities such as diaosi ( ), which means indigent loser, deviating from its original meaning of male genitalia.
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mockery that intimately connects to valued traditional Chinese customs, and also communicates positive emotional expressions.
5.2.1.2.1 Self-mockery Xiaoyun, a 22-year-old journalism student was really an expert in mocking herself and her self- mockeries were mostly original. For instance, she posted a photo on WeChat showing herself having fallen asleep on a chair (see Figure 5.9) with captions saying, “I know here is very cold but I still want to wait until the dog left (gousheng ) to pick me up”.
Figure 5.9 Xiaoyun’s self-mockery post
English-language subtitles were generated through the mobile application FotoPlace which allowed Xiaoyun to take photos and edit them using a repository of film-like filters, and to add a watermark
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and captions for embellishment71. Although the translation with Xiaoyun’s photo was not completely correct, her audiences would still understand the sense of humour she wanted to convey. For “dog left” (gousheng) is a Chinese first name, but not a historically respected one. This was contemptuous and before the 1950s was usually used by peasants to name their children in the hope that they would be easier to raise if their names were more inferior (J. Chen, 2007). By calling her friend “dog left”, Xiaoyun not only mocked the friend as peasant, but also added the countrified characteristic to herself. Her appearance in the photo, combined with her written words, perpetuated this notion. Seen in Figure 5.9, Xiaoyun wore a winter coat with a hoodie covering her head. While waiting for her friend to collect her she took a nap on a chair, her hands were crossed and her head leant to the side. Xiaoyun’s look in this snapshot moment was very much like those of exhausted Chinese rural migrants pictured by the media at train stations before Chinese New Year (see Figure 5.10).
Figure 5.10 Photos of Chinese rural migrants sleeping at train stations Note. Left photo: Copyright 2013 by QQnews; right photo: Copyright 2016 by Chinanews.
71 The application can automatically translate Chinese captions that individuals want to add to their images and makes them look like the subtitles used in Chinese films (which are always dubbed in both English and Chinese).
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Xiaoyun’s processed picture highlighted the sense that she was in an abject situation experiencing coldness and tiredness. Indeed, from her texts in this post, “Mom has said working girls are most beautiful. Having seen someone’s sneak shot, I also think so (two smile emojis)”, she wanted to show proof that she had been working very hard, so much so that she had fallen asleep. But Xiaoyun’s sleeping look was certainly far from a person’s ideal appearance. By calling herself “beautiful”, Xiaoyun ironically mocked herself as a poor country girl and expressed her predicament. One of her WeChat friends, Xiaoqiang (another research participant) quickly responded to this mockery and poked fun at Xiaoyun in his comments, which prompted her to immediately post a similar film-style photo of this friend, as a type of revenge-banter.
In Xiaoyun’s post shown in Figure 5.9, Xiaoqiang first commented, “The title is called belated work (trick emoticon)”. Xiaoyun replied in a threatening tone, “I have your good-looking photo (smile emoticon)”, indicating that she also had some funny photos of Xiaoqiang. Xiaoqiang then added, “That one is too ugly!” But it can be seen that Xiaoyun was obviously determined to share some “ugly” photos of Xiaoqiang through her response, “I’m going to publish it”. Three minutes later, she shared a mocking photo of Xiaoqiang on her Moments (see Figure 5.11) and in this update she wrote, “I am supposed to just mock myself, but somebody pissed me off, you do as you see fit.”
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Figure 5.11 Xiaoyun’s post mocking Xiaoqiang
The image Xiaoyun shared was edited in FotoPlace and had a subtitled Chinese sentence with an English translation “Rape opened again is still so beautiful. But she won’t come back”. This “verbatim” translation of the Chinese text which Xiaoyun added was incorrect, it should have read “Rapeseeds blossom again, still that beautiful. But she won’t come back”. The image captured Xiaoqiang photographing rapeseeds. Yet the humour in this mockery was Xiaoyun’s remark “she won’t come back”, for it insinuated issues with Xiaoqiang’s private relationship. Equipped with skills in using the technological affordances enabled by FotoPlace, Xiaoyun was able to construct these humorous posts and interact with her Uni peers as a common style of entertainment. Her digital interactions with Xiaoqiang highlighted her playfulness and added to the online entertainment environment that she actively facilitated. In these ways mockery became an everyday occurrence in students’ lives, a tacit dynamic of self-presentations for their enjoyable, participatory identity constructions.
Xiaoyun also wrote text-only updates and posted them on Moments for the purposes of zihei ( ). For example, when she was writing her thesis, she expressed her struggles on WeChat by creating a “marriage personal” advertisement, a pretend invitation to marriage:
The following broadcasts a marriage personal: because I was born stupid, I cannot graduate, and now I get Thesis Trisomy 21, Thesis Poliomyelitis and Thesis Obsessive- compulsive Disorder, I seek marriage with a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy). Requirements are being adept at journalism and communication, being able to write thesis and conduct the oral defence, and no limits of looks and gender. Do not bother if you are not sincere. Thanks!
From a conservative perspective, in normal circumstances claiming that one has a serious disease could only damage one’s reputation, but for Xiaoyun, she didn’t care. Not only did this kind of self- mockery express her stress, but it also created a delightful ambience regarding her interactions with
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her fellow students on WeChat. Before graduating from university as competent undergraduates, Chinese youth are required to complete internships and Bachelor Degree theses (Michael & Gu, 2016). These two practices are undertaken in the last year after students complete their courses. The Bachelor of Arts thesis program in Hunan University requires students to submit a confirmation report, deliver a confirmation presentation, write at least 10,000 Chinese words for the thesis and then present an oral defence72. Multitasking internships and thesis writing, students also have to engage themselves in looking for jobs or preparing for postgraduate tests or interviews. The study pressure therefore is very high for Chinese final-year university students. This also explains why student participants in this study resorted to social media to express their stress.
Xiaoyun had finished a three-month internship and received the offer of postgraduate admission in another university (without taking the national postgraduate test) based on her outstanding educational performance. The next major task for her was to fulfil the 10,000-word dissertation as required by her school. Otherwise, she could not be awarded with a bachelor’s degree, let alone pursue future study. In fact, before sharing the above information, Xiaoyun mentioned in an update that she’d had to throw away her 15,000-word draft and rewrite her dissertation, but this entry was written in an encouraging, rather than self-deprecating tone. Several days after sharing this post, she added another text-only update on her Moments, but this entry was much more self-deprecating and designed to highlight her increasing anxiety about rewriting her dissertation:
Coming out of the office with tears in eyes, this is the third time of rewriting! Eat a packet of latiao (a spicy Chinese snack) and meditate three times with meditation mantra: I’m not frustrated, I’m not frustrated, I’m not frustrated!!! (Three sob emoticons).
72 See Standards for Graduation Thesis Writing (Arts) for Hunan University Undergraduates: http://ylsy.hnu.edu.cn/info/1049/1065.htm See Principles for Graduation Design (Thesis) for Hunan University Undergraduates: http://jwc.hnu.edu.cn/info/1143/1561.htm
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“Eat a packet of latiao” and “meditate three times with meditation mantra” were the tipping points in this post that symbolically depicted Xiaoyun’s funny behaviour during her adverse circumstances. Xiaoyun’s stress can be imagined from these posts, especially considering that the deadline for her thesis submission was approaching at that time. In self-deprecating ways, Xiaoyun used irony and traditional notions of being “rescued” from her predicament, that is, through marriage to a more “qualified” person- a PhD, to cope with handling her identity as a completing student and the study pressures that come with it.
Additionally, when Xiaoyun saw two dogs nose against nose in the street, she uploaded a photo of them on WeChat and continued to mock herself by adding, “In this society, I am finally defeated by dogs, no matter by looks or by showing love” (see Figure 5.12).
Figure 5.12 Xiaoyun’s self-mockery post about dog
In Chinese culture the word “dog” does not have a decent connotation as it does in Anglophonic cultures. It is disgraceful and inferior (Duan, Cui, & Gao, 2014) if it is used to describe a person in a Chinese perspective. Here Xiaoyun degraded her appearance by comparing herself to dogs and poked fun at herself by claiming that even dogs depicted a love relationship that she herself did not have,
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since she did not have a boyfriend. In subsequent comments, the mockery proceeded as her friend, Xiaopeng (another research participant) posted comments to tease her, she wrote back to deride herself further, and to denigrate Xiaopeng also (see Figure 5.13)73.
Figure 5.13 Screenshot of comments left on Xiaoyun’s self-mockery post about dog
Negative connotations of “dog” involve people who are treacherous and sly and people who may be working hard but lack care. However, these derogatory associations are favoured by Chinese young people as the hard-working and lonely image of a dog symbolises the situations they confront (Jiang, 2016). They have even created a neologism with the morpheme “dog” using it to make fun of
73 Xiaoyu, Xiaopeng and Xiaoqiang liked this post. Xiaoyun left a comment to all of her friends, “If one of the dogs replaced me, would you still like this post? Be honest, it won’t affect our friendship” (three smile emojis). Xiaopeng replied, “I’ll like it furiously.” Xiaoyun remarked to all again, “Thanks everybody’s compliment, strong taste, legend of human and the beast” (smile emoji). Xiaopeng replied to Xiaoyun’s comment, “what are you talking about, I don’t understand, don’t understand” (three monkey emojis). Xiaoyun then responded to Xiaopeng jokingly, “Humph humph humph, after all you are only 16.”
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themselves, and thereby, have transformed original negative connotations associated with the word “dog”. For example, terms such as “danshengou (meaning people who are single), “jiabangou ” (meaning people who work overtime), and “xueshenggou ” (meaning students who work very hard) (Jiang, 2016; J. Li, Shi, & Ma, 2015) have become very popular internet slang words. Jiang (2016) and J. Li, et al. (2015) have argued that neologisms in relation to dog references are ways of expressing emotion for Chinese young people who are under stress from studying, working and getting married. In this study, (as evidenced by Xiaoyun and others), many students used this type of neologism to mock themselves. They called themselves “lunwengou ” (thesis dog) to express the tiredness and difficulties they were experiencing when writing their Bachelor Degree theses. Also, they employed “shoujigou ” (mobile phone dog) to satirise the view that they spent too much time using their mobile phones. In addition, they used “dongchenggou (freeze to be a dog) as a metaphor for feeling too cold. As an extension of these variations, the parody Xiaojin shared on her Moments to complain about the challenges of writing her Bachelor’s thesis featured the term “lunwengou” ( ) (see Figure 5.14). In this context Xiaojin aligned “lunwengou” (thesis dog) with the classic motto used by Team Rocket in the renowned Japanese animated TV series Pokémon, by altering some of the widely known original motto’s content.
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Figure 5.14
The following table includes both the English translation of the original motto which appeared in the Chinese dubbed Pokémon (Tajiri, Masuda & Sugimori (Producers) & Yuyama (Director) (1997) and Xiaojin’s creative version.
Table 5.3 Comparison Between Xiaojin’s Parody Motto and the Original Motto from Pokémon
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ORIGINAL XIAOJIN’S PARODY
Now that you have asked us sincerely. Now that you have asked us sincerely.
The pity of the world is what responds! The pity of the world is what responds!
To prevent the destruction of the world! To prevent the thesis not written well!
To protect the peace of the world! To protect that piece of certificate of graduation!
To stand by the evils of love and truth! To stand by the evils of truth and love!
The lovely, charming villains! The lovely, charming kubi ( )!
Jessie!
James!
We are Team Rocket soaring through the galaxy!! We are lunwengou ( ) soaring through the galaxy!
A white hole, a white tomorrow awaits us! A white hole, a white tomorrow awaits us!
That's it! Meowth! That's it! Meowth!
In Xiaojin’s post, she deleted the two names included in the official motto and added different text content (bracketed words) in replacement of the originals, thus generating new meanings relative to the motto. She used “thesis not written well” as a substitute for “destruction of the world”, “that piece of certificate of graduation” for “the peace of the world”, “kubi” ( ) 74 for “villains”, and “lunwengou” ( ) for “Team Rocket”. The popular anime culture Pokémon provided the source for Xiaojin’s bricolage of playful expressions which simultaneously communicated formal and humorous aspects of her identity. The Bachelor’s Degree thesis project was of so much significance in her study life that it was exaggerated as “the world” dramatically. Failing this project was tantamount to the destruction of the world, which, not only Xiaojin, but every student was
74 Kubi , literally meaning “bitter cunt” is also a Chinese self-derogatory term.
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endeavouring to avoid. For Xiaojin and students like her who were extremely busy and struggled to write their graduation thesis the so-called “lunwengou” (thesis dog) label made sense. They identified with the popular fictional Team Rocket that always encountered setbacks in realising their goals, yet always cheered themselves up eventually. The self-mockery was in fact an outlet for stress relief and a method of communal encouragement.
In addition to original mockeries and online parodies, web comics and celebrity lampoons were also popular amongst the students. Many of them appropriated materials made available online and/or reworked them to assist them in expressing themselves. They used Internet slang, popular online comics, and collages of celebrities’ funny faces with amusing subtitles. For example, Figure 5.15 captured a comic posted by Xiaoyan featuring a hamster in pyjamas eating, and included the captions “eat eat sleep sleep play play” and “indoorsy indoorsy indoorsy”, which illustrated Xiaoyan’s state of laziness.
Figure 5.15
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Figure 5.16 shows a rage comic (S. Chen, 2014) used by Xiaopeng to express her nervousness in participating in the Challenge Cup, a national competition for Chinese college students in which Xiaopeng’s team won the third place after competing with other 87 works from all over the world.
Figure 5.16
The comic includes a funny face and popular Internet slang “ran er zhe bing mei you shen me luan yong” ( )75 which generally means “this is quite futile”. Similarly, Xiaoqiang posted comic rage faces downloaded from the Internet to satirise his habit of staying up late and to remind himself that he needed to sleep early (see Figure 5.17 Left), to laugh at himself for being unprepared for his friend’s visit (Figure 5.17 Right), to express his sadness about graduating soon (see Figure 5.18), and to communicate the stress he encountered from writing his graduation thesis and translating it from Chinese to English (see Figure 5.19). These rage comics were characterised by ugly and disgraceful and ‘exaggerated facial expressions’ (S. Chen, 2014, p. 691) embodying emotions like anger and resignation. Therefore, these emotions embedded in graphic form were
75 The Chinese word “luan” ( ) literally translates to “egg” but also has a derogatory meaning denoting male genitalia.
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representative of, and could generate empathy with, the students’ feelings. By sharing these comics on WeChat, Chinese youth mocked themselves and vented their frustrations, weariness and anxieties.
Figure 5.17
Figure 5.18
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Figure 5.19
Students’ creative uses of celebrities’ images showed similar intentions, they only picked up photos which captured celebrities’ funny looks and speech, as these representations resonated with them and they imagined making the same expressions. For example, Figure 5.20 uploaded to Xiaopeng’s WeChat showed a stage photo of the old South Korean actor Byun Hee-bong speaking his lines, “you are like me, handsome enough to feed yourself only by looks”.
Figure 5.20
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Byun Hee-bong is over 70 and not considered handsome or visually appealing according to youthful standards. Xiaopeng wanted to mock her ugly handwriting style in her WeChat status and thought Byun Hee-bong’s quote about his attributes made a good contrasting connection with that purpose. Similarly, Figure 5.21 shows a stage photo of a popular Chinese comedian Lianshun Kong in which he postured childishly to make people laugh.
Figure 5.21
Student Xiaoyu used this image as a type of self-mockery to depict her extremely nervous state before delivering an oral defence for her thesis, a condition which (ideally) a grown-up person should not present. In these ways it could be seen that several students chose manifold methods of zihei ( ) to express emotional aspects of their identities. In these ways, they did not communicate negative emotions that might cause annoyance to their audiences, demonstrating their good will and endurance skills – positive messages.
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5.2.1.2.2 Mockery of others When Xiaobei wanted to mock his schoolmates’ absence from a dinner party, he invented a scene symbolising their death on WeChat. Generally, it is a custom to make a black-and-white portrait of a dead person to represent solemnity. However, it is hard to imagine a black-and-white photo emblematic of death shown in social media, gaining popularity among young peers. This activity could, however, manifest the phenomenon of hei (mocking) amongst young people. Figure 5.22 is a photograph in which two individual black-and-white photos were shown on two mobile phone screens respectively, looking like images of the dead. At the foreground of the image was a bun with three toothpicks sticking into, symbolising a shrine to honour the dead. The two people featured in the separate photographs displayed on the phone screens were Xiaobei’s classmates. The whole scene imitated a grave honouring the rituals of dead men.
Figure 5.22 Xiaobei’s post mocking his classmates’ absence
Xiaobei photographed this scene and published it on Moments to mock them. Added with this photo were a few words by Xiaobei that highlighted his mockery intentions: “To those who didn’t make it
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to the dinner party”, simulating mourning. Of course the risk is high in enacting this kind of satirical prank in front of people that you are not acquainted with, due to the sensitivity of death. This issue was also why some Chinese students would rather make fun of themselves than ridicule others. As Xiaobei explained, “you sometimes hei ( ) yourself so that to make others happy since you could not hei ( ) other people.”
It is a custom that Chinese people do not hei people randomly and Xiaobei described the mechanism behind this norm:
Sometimes when you hei others, for example, there is a saying “a seventy percent joke is thirty percent true”, which means there is thirty percent true in that joke. For instance, someone laugh at you that you are fat. If you are not really fat, they definitely would not mock you. So, people could feel unhappy to some extent…
It’s definitely going to be with people that are closest to you, definitely going to be with the cohort of your best friends. You definitely do not joke with unfamiliar people easily.
The reason why Xiaobei thought he could not hei (mock) others indiscriminately has a fundamental origin in the Confucian concept of graded love. Graded love incubates the intricacies of Chinese guanxi (social relationship). To hei others in online communities turns out to be an example of this complexity as it is only performed in communities of strong ties. Mocking others has been considered to be disrespectful and far from Confucian moralities (Gujia Chen, 1992). Even today, mocking could still be interpreted as impolite and aggressive, which could endanger relationships (Haugh, 2010). Some researchers even describe the advent of self-mockery as a loss of morality among youth (Miao, 2014). However, if it is circumscribed in interactions amongst communities with close relationships, for example, friends, schoolmates and siblings, mocking others loses its conservative restrictions. In these communities, mocking others is commonly considered as an entertaining and reciprocal daily routine. Xiaojun and Xiaoou’s thoughts about their participations in ridicule on WeChat group chats explained this understanding:
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Actually, it is for entertainment, a way of teasing each other. (Xiaojun)
Because like when you are communicating with classmates and friends you can join in this topic, then if you can say something that is very funny to make everybody laugh, it makes you participative. Like I said, when chatting in the group, everybody is egao ( )76. If you join in, you are a part of this small community. (Xiaoou)
Like self-mockery, mocking others also triggered amusing and collective participation between close social networks and took on various forms. As students indicated, one mockery comment would draw the attention of many other members in the social network to “stand in line” 77 and catch the conversation to poke even more fun at each other. It could consist of a funny Internet slang word or phrase, a photoshopped emoticon made with some students’ hilarious faces, or someone’s embarrassing story. And it could take place in comments or chats between two people or a group of people. Young people like Xiaobei were considerate towards others and did not mock people that they were not already familiar with, so their hei was graded, and functioned as another method (along with zhengnengliang) of reciprocity, that is, conducive to relationship maintenance. Their methods of hei (mocking self/others) were tacitly connected with the Confucian reciprocity – ‘Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you’, and did not only concern one’s self but had to do with a whole group of people; an interplay between the self and guanxi. On WeChat, zihei and hei related to the imagined community in which everyone seeks to communicate reciprocity, to convey benevolence and to therefore, perform positive identity characteristics.
76 Egao (evil making) refers to online spoofs (B. Meng, 2011) including parody and online caricatures and low-quality online goods or services (Negro, 2017). It becomes an online trend among Chinese netizens for both entertainment and political expression. Mocking others is a form of egao. 77 ‘Stand in line’ is zhanduixing in Chinese. Used in the online context, it figuratively describes a phenomenon in online forums where members favour the first comment in a post and copy the same content to reply or follow the same style of the first comment (Fang Liu, 2017).
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The fact that Xiaobei chose to mock himself to bring joy to other people showed his intentional identity performance in front of a larger online social network (that was not limited to his classmates and friends). Xiaobei liked to connect with people he knew, both online and offline, because he wanted people to perceive him as an affable and accomplished person, as well as to maintain relationships with them. These relationships consisted of not only relatives, friends and schoolmates, but also counsellors and teachers in the university. As Papacharissi (2011) states, self-presentation is conducive to relationship maintenance and in keeping with this principle Xiaobei was very mindful of his self-image on WeChat, showing his humorous side and portraying a pleasant personality.
Figure 5.23 Xiaobei’s self-mockery post
When Xiaobei lost his USB, he shared about this incident dramatically by mocking himself (see Figure 5.23), rather than pouring out his frustration straightforwardly. He posted, “Every time I have a new USB, I would think, when I will lose it. This night with gusty wind, I finally lost my HNU brand USB, and all the files in it without backup.” Mocking the self does no harm to others. Moreover, it fosters pleasant interactions collectively (C. Yu, 2013) by attracting others who leave comments and join in the ridiculing. From these observations, zihei itself was not a losing-face behaviour, but an interactional skill which could actually add face value to the students as it presented some joyful characteristics about them. In other words, zihei worked as a type of identity performance for young people like Xiaobei, an impetus for them to polish social relationships using WeChat. Therefore, zihei can be understood as both a vehicle for emotional catharsis, and a form of self-presentation (like zhengnengliang) that is mutually beneficial to the self and others.
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5.2.1.3 Hei ( ) and doubi ( ) identities As entertaining, expressive and interactive as hei is, the students thought it could also convey a sense of humour, assist them in communication and collective interactions, and contribute to constructions of a positive doubi identity. Doubi ( ) is Internet slang used to describe people who tell merry jokes that make them look silly, but cute78. The behaviour of mocking shapes a character of doubi (a funny fool), as Xiaowu and Xiaopeng who both enjoy mocking described respectively,
In the whole social network, the personality of my identity that I present is a bit doubi. (Xiaowu)
Sometimes I might go through things, for example, something upset or something happy. I will present them via the way of doubi. (Xiaopeng)
Xiaopeng further explained how she embodied doubi:
For example, to a bad thing I might look at its point of humour. For example, a little while ago when I found the difficulty in participating the Challenge Cup, I wanted to vent on Moments that I was having a very hard time. But in the end what I presented was this way like “pat your breast and be strong like a hanzi (man) when upset”. I would use words more and find some funny images to illustrate it, like Antie Xue and Zhen Huan79.
78 The word bi ( ) has a derogatory sense because it can mean a women’s vagina and is commonly used in swearing language. When combined with the word dou (which refers to being silly and amusing), doubi carries a less negative meaning and connotes mockery with good intentions. 79 Antie Xue is a main character in the famous Chinese TV drama Romance in the Rain. Chinese netizens have created photoshopped photos, original songs, edited videos by capturing the actress’s lines and screenshots to parody her mean and shrewish personality. Zhen Huan is Emperor Yongzheng’s concubine in the popular historical TV series Empresses in the Palace, who had fierce infighting with the Empress and other concubines in order to survive in the palace. Chinese netizens have also poked fun at the emotional faces and lines of actors from this show in a creative and amusing manner.
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Xiaopeng is a young woman who was studying journalism at HNU. In recent years, Chinese women have been using “hanzi” as a type of self-spoofing, represented by the phrase “nuhanzi ” (female-man). However, “nuhanzi” also highlights the character of women being brave and strong like men (Y. Sun, 2014). Here Xiaopeng’ s use of “hanzi” was no exception, it showed her resolve to stay mentally strong by coping with her frustration in working on a research project, in a jocular manner. Also, by making fun of herself through adopting online parodies of celebrities like Antie Xue and Zhen Huan, Xiaopeng found ways to let out her negative feelings while she was experiencing difficulties. In these funny-fool ways, Xiaopeng was unlikely to annoy her social network audience because she presented herself as doubi – a lovely, humorous and positive person. In these instances, zihei and hei made possible, types of emotional release that would not impact negatively, but would enable people to identify with - positively.
5.3 Online Identity as a Business Card “Sleep, eat, work and use mobile phone” was what Xiaolei summarised as his daily schedule. The occasions of Xiaolei using mobile phone and social media platforms were pervasive, including while he was eating, attending classes, and anytime that he was free. The 22-year old student studying materials science who came from Nanjing city, wanted to seize every opportunity to promote himself, and he found that WeChat offered him great potential in helping him achieve his goals80. Xiaolei called himself a “WeChat zealot”. He had experienced nearly every feature of the WeChat platform
80 Similar to other students, Xiaolei considered that WeChat was the media platform that could best represent his identity, whereas QQ only appealed to people who were “low” and people who came from cities at lower level than first-tier and second-tier. According to Feng (2017), the concept “city tier” was developed from social conventions with the development of real estate markets in Chinese cities. Chinese cities are commonly categorised into five or six different tiers. Higher level cities are more developed than lower level cities. The first-tier cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen.
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to get to know its mechanisms and the psychology of WeChat users. He used to read hardcopy books in his spare time. Now these were replaced by articles generated by WeChat’s official accounts. The majority of time on his mobile phone was spent reading these articles, and also allocated to “shua- ing (brushing) pengyouquan (Friends Circle, Chinese term for WeChat feature Moments)”81. However, Xiaolei’s transformation came with reasons. His WeChat name gave away his motives for these enthusiastic interactions outright, “Xiaolei aims to become an excellent PM (product manager)”. This student wanted to become a product manager in the Internet industry after finishing his upcoming 3-year postgraduate study. Xiaolei had earned the opportunity to pursue postgraduate study (without taking examinations) due to his outstanding academic performance at the university. However, he was somewhat regretful about this decision as he later received an offer from the renowned Internet technology company Tencent, a company that he dreamed of working for. Having made the decision to continue his formal education, Xiaolei did not keep himself aloof from the industry despite the fact that he was geographically distanced. WeChat, which he had found useful to uplift his career vision before being offered the position, continued to serve this purpose – through his active online identity “management”:
I think Friends Circle (Moments) sometimes is like your business card, so I would strive to manage it. Because I would add some teachers, some… add some people in the companies, like the leader from Tencent that I mentioned before. I hope they could see me… as aspirant, hard-working, or experienced in this respect. I want to achieve those, but I might not be there yet. But… but… I hope I could be that kind of person. I am nearly there. But I need to make efforts in that direction. Then I need others to see me making efforts in that direction.
81 “Shua ” (brush) equals to “browse”. Chinese people use the word “shua” to describe the gesture of people swiping their mobile phone screens. For instance, “shua Weibo” stands for browsing on Weibo and “shua pengyouquan” means checking feeds on Moments.
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Xiaolei obviously considered WeChat as a platform for building and promoting his professional identity, a business card through which he could display his professionalism. To achieve this desired identity, he sophisticatedly managed his WeChat profile through a series of avenues. Using his real first name and his employment aspirations to compose his WeChat identifier was only the first step in enabling his actual name to be known by people, and to present his ambition and zhengnengliang (positive energy). In addition, the motto Xiaolei included which was written in classical Chinese (see Table 5.4), conveyed a sense of wit and attitudes of generosity and humbleness.
Table 5.4 Xiaolei’s WeChat Profile
Name “Xiaolei aims to become an excellent PM”
“Strong bow is easy to break, sharp axe is easy to blunt. Steep Motto mountains are not high, narrow water is not deep”82
82 Translated from Xiaolei’s motto displayed on What’s Up on WeChat “ ”. The second sentence “Steep mountains are not high, narrow water is not deep” is derived from Chapter 7-Jie Shi ( ) in the Chinese Confucian classics Xin Xu ( ), written by Xiang Liu in the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- A.D. 24) (“Jie Shi”, n.d.).
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Number of 1200 contacts
Parents, relatives, friends, classmates of primary/secondary/high school Social and university, teachers, job seekers, group members from the WeChat networks community Logic Show, Internet industry professionals like Tencent HR and director.
Subscribed Overall approximately 200-300 official accounts, including Wu Xiaobo official Channel, Simple Psychology, Logic Show, CYZone, Huxiu, 36kr, accounts Geekpark and music related official accounts.
The virtues reflected in Xiaolei’s online motto were Confucian. They are moral philosophies that guide Chinese everyday practices. Used in Xiaolei’s WeChat profile, this motto connected those positive characteristics to his identity, highlighting his competence both morally and practically. The large amount of Xiaolei’s WeChat social networks, including in particular industry contacts and official accounts, presented the substantial effort spared by him to mould his professional identity. Through reading subscribed articles from official accounts, interacting with his WeChat social networks and posting on Moments, Xiaolei further advanced himself step by step. This student read many WeChat articles regularly. From the number of official accounts he had subscribed to (200- 300) which constituted most of the sources for his reading, an estimate of his interests and focus could be identified. These official accounts included: Wu Xiaobo Channel ( ) – a popular commentary on finance and economics delivered by Wu Xiaobo; Simple Psychology ( ) – psychology advice; Logic Show ( ) – creative perspectives on the Internet economy, entrepreneurship and innovation, plus history, provided by Luo Zhenyu; and accounts offering information about Internet businesses such as CYZone ( ) ), Huxiu ( ), 36kr (36 ),
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Geekpark ( ), and some music related accounts83. Accounts centred on the technology and Internet industries were Xiaolei’s daily must-reads, as these sources provided him with the newest information, and in-depth, critical analysis of the industry. Engaging with these accounts was also an exploration of the user generated content (UGC) feature of WeChat for Xiaolei, as the WeChat Official Account affordance provides a platform for individual content producers to create and disseminate their content. This feature is therefore certainly something a future Internet product manager would definitely pay attention to. Moreover, as Xiaolei described, these public accounts opened a window for social networking. He explained how he became WeChat friends with people he’d never met through the official account Logic Show:
I listen to Logic Show ( ) a lot, and I am a member. I don’t know if you know this official account. We Luo You (a nick name for members of Logic Show) have our own WeChat group. If some Luo You add me, I will absolutely accept their request. Because I think he/she likes to listen to some stuff, likes to think. Maybe what Luo Pang (a nick name for Luo Zhenyu, the author of Logic Show) has said is not all right, but his community economy, his models, are inspirational for me… If others who are also interested in this send me friends requests, I will accept them.
The official account Logic Show84 is characterised by delivering a 60-second-long WeChat audio message at 6.30 am which recommends an article every day. The author Luo Zhenyu shares his creative perspectives by touching on a variety of topics which include opinions about Internet and
83 As introduced in Chapter two, the WeChat feature Official Accounts offers a channel for individuals, companies, media outlets to provide content for WeChat users. However, WeChat is not the only platform for this information dissemination. Official accounts accessible through WeChat such as Wu Xiaobo Channel, Logic Show, CYZone, Huxiu, 36kr, Geekpark have all built other media channels including magazine, website, online video, and Weibo to broadcast their content. 84 In early 2015 when this research was conducted Logic Show had over three million subscribers and 66,000 paying members (T. Li, 2015).
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technology development, reflections on life and history, discussions about books, etc. Logic Show has developed a successful business model in the context of the information economy. Luo Zhenyu has himself called it a ‘social community economy’ which has become a catchphrase and has triggered extensive discussions on the mechanisms of this model (W. Wang & Liu, 2016; C. Wu, Rao, Qiao, Hu, & Wang, 2017; M. Zhang & Duan, 2018). In addition to the public account, Logic Show has launched a variety of media channels including Weibo, an online video talk show, an online broadcast, and published books and magazines (W. Wang & Liu, 2016). The membership mentioned by student Xiaolei is just one of its profit models (C. Wu, et al., 2017) which provides members like him with select content, and opportunities to participate in offline activities too. By becoming a member of Logic Show, Xiaolei also joined the WeChat community of other paying subscribers of Logic Show. Those in the network would have online discussions in WeChat groups, organise offline activities such as study groups, workshops and parties, and purchase books sold by Luo (X. Zhang, 2015). Being a participating member allowed Xiaolei to observe more closely how Luo’s social community economy operated and what user experiences it generated. From this position Xiaolei also connected with more people who shared the same interests in the Internet industry and incorporated them into his personal social networks. Along with people he met through offline activities, such as keynote speakers, and employees and leaders he met through the Tencent job interview process, Xiaolei built a web of social networks composed of Internet industry professionals.
Xiaolei discovered a few benefits which these networks enabled:
I think at least it broadens my horizon. For example, I added Guo Lie from Face Q. He is the founder of Face Q APP. I would observe him as a post-90s entrepreneur. He was born in 1989. As such a young entrepreneur, what does he normally post, and what thoughts does he have? I prefer to read substantial content, rather than stuff that cracks a smile. I mainly intend to broaden my own horizon via various ways. In pengyouquan (Moments), for example, there would be some activities. It looks like there will be an Internet conference in Hunan on April 2 organised by Xiang Society. Of course I will register and go. Before, I participated in an activity in Hainan launched by Tencent.
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Paying close attention to the status updates of those Internet industry professionals, Xiaolei obtained first-hand material of Internet business entrepreneurs’ experiences and reflections, that enriched his knowledge and expanded his prospects. Also, from those networks, he gained information about offline activities relevant to his interests, and came to know more people with the same interests. These social networks, Xiaolei considered, would bring more advantages to him. He elaborated:
… when there is internship or employment opportunity, they could help act as internal referees. You could seek advice from them. They are like your supervisors or teachers… Besides, it is good for resource exchange when I start my work… For example, if my company wants to cooperate with Alibaba… when I have some resources, I can cooperate and exchange resources with them… The key is myself. Only when I become excellent can these friends wield effects.
These industry social networks became human resources for Xiaolei that could be leveraged for his future career. However, understandably, he did not keep in touch with these contacts in the same ways that he maintained relationships with his parents, relatives, friends, teachers, and classmates from primary/secondary/high school and university, who he’d originally forged connections with based on his offline daily life85. With these contacts, Xiaolei interacted more so in both individual and group chats on WeChat. With friends and peers, he would talk more “zhongkouwei ” (hardcore) stuff and have less morality (e.g. mockeries), while with teachers Xiaolei was more reserved. On Moments, Xiaolei was never selfish in giving “likes” to others’ posts. “Likes” worked as a way to maintain guanxi for Xiaolei as he considered granting and receiving likes as encouragement and praise that could enhance positive identifications, based on his own experiences. Any extra comments he made to accompany the “likes” were reserved for his core strong tie contacts. But to the weaker ties like
85 By the time of the second-round interview in July 2015, Xiaolei had already built nearly 1200 contacts on WeChat. However, he only kept frequent contact with a “core circle” of around 50 people who were mainly the people he saw often in offline circumstances.
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industry figures who were superior to him, he tended to give “likes” and to share their posts concurrently. In these ways, WeChat provided a platform for Xiaolei to continue to maintain strong relationships with his core circle of existing offline contacts, and to also manage a variety of valuable weak ties. As such, Xiaolei built a massive guanxi web through his strategic and culturally sensitive communications on WeChat.
5.3.1 Managing Mixed Networks Managing such a mixed network on WeChat is not easy, especially when one is performing publicly through postings, as the contexts can become collapsed (Marwick & Boyd, 2010). Xiaolei was not too concerned as he usually carefully selected what to post for branding his “business card” and WeChat privacy settings assisted in this regard. Anything that Xiaolei thought would not harm others’ impressions of him he felt free to share on Moments, because he wanted to show his “bige” ( ), in other words, his tastes:
I am hoping to showcase myself as people who have bige ( ), a sense of zhuangbi (pretending/bragging), a little bit like that. But I’ve heard one sentence. I think it’s very interesting. “The person that you wish to become is more important than the person who you are.” I still wish myself to have more broad vision, read more indepth and profound stuff. Then I might share on Moments some articles about technology, and write several hundreds, 600-700 words of a comment or so. Maybe some people don’t understand, but I do not intend to confuse others. Rather, I hope I could use these to discuss with people who share the same interests with me… But I don’t want to put up my negative energy. I rarely do that.
Bige comes from the term “zhuangbi”. “Zhuang” means pretend and “bi” has a derogatory sense referring to the female sex organ. “Zhuangbi” has become a popular Internet slang term in China and has been used to describe people who boast and are disingenuous. “Bige” is the ability or the style of zhuangbi, that is, bragging or pretending. Yet “zhuangbi” and “bige” are not always used as especially
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derogatory terms, they are widely used online for self-mockery or to mock others, and in these contexts, have become somewhat neutralised. Xiaolei appeared to endow zhuangbi with positive meaning here by using the expression to speak of showing off his strong points by highlighting his desirable characteristics, rather than by being pretentious. In this sense, Xiaolei’s bige was about having broad vision, indepth thoughts, being experienced and aspirational. He intended to show these positive attributes to his WeChat contacts, especially those industry professionals, for instance Tencent’s Human Resources Personnel, “I went to Tencent’s interview before, that supervisor gave me an offer, then I would like to show from my Moments a sense that he was quite visionary to choose me…”
In keeping with his ideas about his bige, Xiaolei would post his comments on WeChat articles through his Moments contributions. For instance, he shared the article “Cognitive surplus creates new economy: Uber, Airbnb, who’s next?”, an analysis of Uber and Airbnb’s economic model by referencing Clay Shirky’s idea of cognitive surplus. Figure 5.24 comprises a screenshot of Xiaolei’s sharing of an article discussing the technology company Uber, titled “How does Uber play sharing economy: Hear Uber Shanghai’s general manager Wang Xiaofeng talking about product”.
Figure 5.24
Xiaolei wrote a lengthy comment as follows:
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Recently I’ve favourited and read many messages about Uber, there is quite a lot of inspirations. In terms of product management and promotion, I pay more attention to the project’s cold boot issue. I shared something about the cold boot of FotoPlace before and am sharing the Uber cold boot project in this article: seeking third party cooperation, drivers’ cold boot, passengers’ cold boot. The difficulty of (accumulating) seed users lies in from 0 to 1, from 1 to 100, good article, recommend it!
In this comment, Xiaolei shared a professional perspective on the “cold boot” project of Uber. Cold boot is a professional term in computer science which describes ‘the process of starting a computer from shutdown or a powerless state and setting it to normal working condition’ (“Cold Boot”, 2018). Used in the field of online product management, it therefore refers to the implementation stage of online products when products have a very weak user base and immature commercial model (Mi, 2015). By mentioning “from 0 to 1, from 1 to 100”, Xiaolei meant that challenges in accumulating seed users needed to be thought about at various stages of implementation. Presenting this remark, Xiaolei showed his comprehension of the professional knowledge about product management and promotion and highlighted the professional level of his identity performance. Xiaolei also posted about the activities he participated in that impacted the ongoing construction and communication of his professional impressions. As he had already built a relationship with Tencent HR, Xiaolei was invited to a Tencent internship recruitment event in Changsha, not as a potential intern, but as an experienced person who could act like Human Resources personnel to judge students who were junior to him. Xiaolei consequently posted photos of the event and wrote, “Come to help as a guest HR~ (Chuckle emoji) Fellows show up quickly.” He also shared the location of the event in this post which showed the venue was “Changsha· Jasmine International Hotel· Tencent 2015 Interns Recruitment Site” (see Figure 5.25).
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Figure 5.25
Similarly, when he attended a workshop in the university, he also chose to broadcast it on Moments (see Figure 5.26).
Figure 5.26
From the photograph it could be seen that the workshop’s focus was “Money, dream, and craftsmanship spirit” and a speaker who was a professor in his school, shared the location and
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commented, “Indeed, real good workshop needs not to drag people to come! (applause emoji)”. Later in the commentary area of this post, he wrote another contribution to allow his audience to see that he, “Didn’t expect so many friends from other schools had listened to Teacher Zhu’s lectures (chuckle emoji)”. This particular post presented Xiaolei’s enthusiasm for learning, again constructing him and portraying him as a motivated person. During his earlier university life working as a student representative in the Students’ Association Union at HNU, Xiaolei had begun actively promoting his self-image by sharing information about campus activities, creative planning ideas related to them, their successful organisation, and cheerful group photos with other student members of the Union. All of these endeavours communicated Xiaolei’s positive personality traits. Later, Xiaolei had become a veteran in this respect. So to a large extent, his HR post and the University workshop post could be seen as guanxi maintenance methods for Xiaolei because if Tencent’s HR and his school professor read them, they would likely form the impression that this young man was very supportive of their events. Consequently, reciprocity could be developed and foster the enhancement of these professionally focused relationships.
Even amongst his peers, Xiaolei wanted to manage a good impression. He would share group photos with good friends to proudly show off his friendships and his gratitude for them. Xiaolei explained how this relatively ordinary type of online contribution could also work out for guanxi maintenance:
… on one hand, let everybody know me… on one hand… have quite a lot of friends… on the other hand… know how to be grateful. Then others will make friends with you, keep in touch with you, then you would have the opportunity to ask friends for help, helping each other.
Not all the posts updated by Xiaolei were presentations of his emerging professional identity. He also chose to share his everyday life on WeChat, including his love for food (see Figure 5.27 Left), hanging out with friends (see Figure 5.27 Right) and complaints about writing his bachelor’s thesis (see Figure 5.28).
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Figure 5.27
Figure 5.28
Importantly though, he did not share this content indiscriminately to all of his WeChat contacts, as he illuminated:
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If I am working with my supervisor, I will want to show him from my Moments that I am hard-working and insightful, rather than go to night clubs every day, or eat this and that food…I will consider, for example, don’t let my supervisor see anything I think that can’t be seen by him.
If you are on duty in the committee, the teacher asks you to do something and you don’t go, then (the teacher) sees you (from Moments) are having fun here and there… That’s absolutely not good. Sometimes you can’t let him/her see that, because he/she might criticise you. This… this has to be blocked…. No choice…You just can’t let some people know something.
WeChat’s privacy setting for posting allows users to select whom to share or not to share their posts with. Xiaolei took advantage of this function to block some connections (such as his teachers and supervisors) so that certain people which he held in high esteem would not form a bad impression of him. Through utilising WeChat’s technological affordances, this student was able to manage a positive, proactive and desirable impression and constructed a promising professional identity online. Therefore, constructing a desirable identity on WeChat not only brought about a strong sense of self- identification, it also contributed to further impression management that was conducive to the building and maintaining of guanxi, which also had the potential for inducing more social or economic benefits for these Chinese university students.
Another student Xiaoou, through her appropriation of her social networks on WeChat and QQ also demonstrated a willingness to portray some professional capabilities, but her efforts were directed more towards commercial enterprise.
5.4 Performing an Online Identity as a Micro-Business Woman After commenting on Xiaoou’s post and querying the price of a hair treatment product she was selling on WeChat I immediately received a WeChat message from the student that included a photograph
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of a Test Report (issued by Guangdong Testing Institute of Product Quality Supervision) (see Figure 5.29).
Figure 5.29
The image of the Test Report was to provide proof of the quality of the hair treatment product being sold and was followed by an extra message stating:
This hair treatment is from Guangzhou, has been sold on WeChat for 3-4 years. The current one is upgraded version after innovation. It’s only sold on WeChat nationally with the flat rate price RMB 128. Its effect is remarkably good, do you want one?
The forthright nature of Xiaoou’s sales pitch was unexpected and after telling her that (after giving it more thought) I might buy the product, she promptly responded with, “Myself is using it. My hair quality has improved a lot. I’ve posted some test photos of my hair.” Xiaoou’s sales strategy was progressive. She understood that customers’ biggest concerns were the quality of online products because they couldn’t evaluate them in person. So after introducing basic product information (and
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recognising the customer’s hesitance to purchase her product), Xiaoou mentioned her own testimonial experience to further demonstrate product quality and to persuade her customer, presenting her business acumen.
Xiaoou had only recently started selling this product on WeChat and QQ86. Her first post spoke of her sharing her own experience of using the hair conditioner and the positive effects on her hair. The subsequent posts introduced the functionality of the product and included extra photos of customers showing their positive outcomes. Xiaoou showed her belief in the good quality of the hair product in conversation with me and reflected that she should have started her business sooner, revealing her ambition to become a successful weishang (micro-business[wo]man). However, she also expressed stress and concerns about advertising on Moments in regard to her circle of friends who might be annoyed by the commercials. But Xiaoou’s aspirations for experience overtook her worries. She explained that being a weishang would be a good opportunity to gain knowledge and train herself.
Before Xiaoou became a weishang, her principle motivation for posting on WeChat was to spread “zhengnengliang”, positive energy, through sharing information about philanthropic activities, and by demonstrating her happiness and optimism towards life, as she wanted to leave an impression of herself as being easy-going, upbeat and hopeful. When she undertook the weishang business of selling hair treatment products on social media, she did not discard these principles, but adapted them into a business strategy. Xiaoou did not change her WeChat profile information after starting her business, she still used her nick name “flora” as her WeChat name and her personal photo as her WeChat profile photo. Her long-standing WeChat motto “About things tomorrow, we’ll know them the day after tomorrow” was chosen originally to tell other people, and to remind herself too, to be less concerned and more confident about life. Xiaoou attempted to keep her personal characteristics while she was
86 As Xiaoou’s commercial feeds shared on QQ were synchronised from her WeChat updates, the analysis only draws on the WeChat interactions for consistency.
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selling her products because she wanted to avoid bothering her friends by projecting too much of a materialistic sensibility. She described her advertising techniques:
Like chatting with friends, to express this kind of mood. Not as an identity of a businessman, but still as a friend. To me, WeChat is really a “friends circle”. Here are all my good friends. I don’t want to change because of this, change myself to be too materialistic. Neither do I want to bring too much annoyance to everybody. Meanwhile, it is a positive effect. This kind of advertising will bring everybody a sense of reality, good to create a favourable marketing environment for me.
This 23-year old young woman, who came from rural Henan, initiated her weishang career during her last semester while studying Chinese language and literature at HNU. She learnt about weishang business opportunities after noticing her friend selling the hair treatment product called “Goddess Hair Treatment” on WeChat87. However, for Xiaoou, joining in this type of business activity was not for the purpose of economic profit, but rather, to enable her to “learn some experiences and temper herself”.
Xiaoou referred to the model of selling products on WeChat as “zhixiao ” (direct marketing) since items are sold directly to customers. From the perspective of the weishangs, the salespersons themselves, this business model is identified as “agent weishang” as they refer to their agency in acquiring networking skills (Ng, Huang, & Liu, 2016). This model usually builds up a huge network of different levels of agents selling the same products. Weishangs become the first level agents after purchasing the products from a producer. They can then sell products to other weishangs who have the same commercial purpose, with the exception of selling products directly to end customers. These weishangs then become second level agents (Ng, et al., 2016). As such, a multiple level agent
87 The growth of WeChat has brought various economic opportunities for people in different industries (CAICT, 2016a) and the thriving of the weishang phenomenon is indicative of this context.
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weishang business model can be developed. The success of weishang agents is largely dependent on how big their WeChat network can be. As Ng, et al. (2016) argue, agents at each level ‘have to buy and store their own inventory, and they have to deliver their products to their customers when a deal is sealed’ (p. 353). In this study Xiaoou had also bought and stocked some products from her upper level agent (who was her friend) and had started her own business. She was also invited into a WeChat group of around 300 people who were operating the same business from all over the country, a group consisting of different agent levels. In the group, agents would exchange their marketing strategies and share materials such as customers’ aftereffects photos. One strategy was to continue to label the hair conditioner (using a marketing technique) as “Goddess Hair Treatment”. This strategy exploited the feminine concept of “Goddess” by connecting the experience of using the hair conditioner with broader perceptions of beauty and empowerment, to appeal to customers. Xiaoou also adopted this feminine branding style by calling her potential customers “Goddess”. She started her first promotional WeChat post by speaking of her own experience of using the “Goddess Hair Treatment” (see Figure 5.30) where she enthusiastically proclaimed:
After experiencing it, (I) finally bring it out to show it! (Grin emoji) A good product that I’ve paid attention to for one month. To get the result, I experiment it firsthand. Absolutely there is no photoshop (shy emoji). Goddess Hair Treatment, upgraded version, (peace emoji), love you me me da 88~
88 “me me da” ( ) is an onomatopoeia referring to the sound of kissing.
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Figure 5.30
Xiaoou uploaded two photos of her long hair demonstrating the effects of using the hair conditioner, and another photo of the product, a toy bear placed alongside it, embellished with cute “girly” stickers. This young woman always included cheerful language and emoticons in her marketing messages and used sweet sticker effects to polish both the product photos and customers’ images. In this post, Xiaoou emphasised the authenticity of her product’s results and employed cute graphics and emojis to highlight her sincere attitude so that other women would be likely to trust what she had to say, and also benefit by using it. The post overall communicated a tone of sincerity and liveliness, which were the most prevalent characteristics of Xiaoou’s advertising.
Xiaoou also learnt to brand herself through presenting her efforts and her agents’ team cohesiveness. In the post shown in Figure 5.31, Xiaoou wrote,
Everyday I’m greeting the sun while working hard, sleep peacefully after a studious day, I have with me such a super group of people who are always full of energy, and who can anytime transform themselves into nuhanzi (literally “female-men”, metaphorically “brave and strong women”), It’s too shameful to be lazy~ Environment changes a person, I can see my growth, hope you guys around me, share my feelings (grin emoji) Good night (good night emoji).
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Figure 5.31
Xiaoou praised her agents’ team and expressed her motivational thoughts about, and her transformational experiences managing this business. In this post she also attached: a screenshot of a list of characteristics of attractive women figures (such as being calm, independent and healthy); a screenshot of a post shared by a stranger who complimented female weishangs’ proactive spirit; a screenshot of a chatting record of female weishangs addressing the significance of perseverance. By quoting other people’s words Xiaoou associated herself with the female weishang identity and linked herself to those virtues tagged with this identity. These combined textual and visual symbols showed her high moral integrity, signalling to her social media audiences (including potential customers) that she herself was a modest yet enterprising person, willing to learn new things and to persevere throughout everyday challenges.
Xiaoou also developed a series of other marketing tactics which included: copying photos of other agents’ customers (see Figure 5.32 Left); posting photos of her own customers to demonstrate the product’s effects (see Figure 5.32 Right); showing screenshots of customers’ conversations with her as they placed their orders (see Figure 5.33); offering promotions (see Figure 5.34).
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Figure 5.32
Figure 5.33
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Figure 5.34 Xiaoou’s WeChat post offering a promotion Note. Xiaoou claimed that anyone who was to buy the hair conditioner could be rewarded with at least one admission ticket to the peony garden in Luoyang.
Despite the fact that Xiaoou’s variety of business-focused WeChat updates were no doubt designed and selected to boost sales, their range, scope and style in the context of her everyday WeChat posts presented some challenges, particularly in regard to her managing a balance between her developing weishang identity and benevolent/guanxi ideals.
After one customer purchased a “Goddess Hari Treatment”, Xiaoou wrote in her WeChat post (see Figure 5.35):
I am walking on the country road alone, bringing the Goddess Hair Treatment to a friend – friend that I haven’t seen for so many years, who has no second thought about my product (kiss emoji), have to deliver it to her door! Meet old friend, enjoy spring scenery, recall the days of yore – Full of happy afternoon sunshine (sunshine emoji).
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Figure 5.35
Apart from constructing this bucolic and comforting story-style, Xiaoou also attached: two screenshots89 of an online conversation where this customer had approached her to buy the hair conditioner; a photo of her walking with the product on the country road; a photo featuring a box of the treatment and two images showing the countryside scenery (see Figure 5.35). In these ways, Xiaoou designed her marketing post as a nostalgic type of everyday narrative with the aim of casting off some commercial elements of her daily self-presentations. On the one hand, Xiaoou intended to promote herself as a saleswoman. On the other hand, she did not want her WeChat contacts to think she was too money-driven. In particular, too many direct advertisements would potentially lead to disturbance amongst her social networks, violating her benevolent intentions. Xiaoou understood this from the very beginning of her WeChat business for she received questions from her WeChat contacts after sharing her very first promotional messages. Comments coming from Xiaohong were an example in this respect (see Figure 5.36).
89 Xiaoou de-identified her friend in the WeChat conversation by using pixelation.
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Figure 5.36 Screenshot of comments left in Xiaoou’s post on Moments Note. The conversation is translated as follows: Xiaohong: Speechless/embarrassed emoji. YW: Your business looks very hot. flora: Heihei, it has to be~ Xiaohong: Come back and buy one bottle from me, I assure your goddess level be increased by N degrees~ Xiaohong: Xiaoou, you also act like this (scowl emoji). YW: Where are they produced? How much is one bottle?
Xiaohong’s judgemental entries clearly expressed her distate for Xiaoou’s new business activities. Additionally, some of Xiaoou’s friends questioned if her WeChat account had been hacked after discovering that she had been posting weishang content consecutively. As a result, Xiaoou published a post to explain the reasons why she’d behaved in these ways (see Figure 5.37).
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Figure 5.37
Xiaoou stated,
My account is not hacked, everybody is having this reaction, is it because I was too low key before? Actually my thoughts are very simple, to share good things with people around me, to save everybody’s unnecessary cost for hair care meanwhile giving you beautiful hair that you enjoy, this hair treatment really has this effect, myself is the evidence.
Xiaoou’s self-explanatory justification evolved because her strong-tie WeChat audience could not immediately accept her micro-business identity. As discussed previously, commercials were commonly regarded by students as negative input, the opposite of positive energy and benevolent norms, and would induce bad impressions. It is therefore not difficult to understand why Xiaoou’s inaugural business practice on WeChat drew several critical responses from her audience. Also, the effect of unfavourable impressions of weishang identity informed by public opinion should be noted. In China, weishangs development has been lacking regulation since its inauguration. This has widely resulted in problems such as malicious postings, selling fake goods, distrust crisis (Y. Gong, 2015), problematic economic models and disordered management (L. Yu & Cao, 2016). Weishang identity therefore has been labelled as “profit first”, not genuine and of low credibility, and is always
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associated with the notorious illegal pyramid sale (L. Yu & Cao, 2016) which of course would not meet the expectations of Xiaoou’s social networks largely composed of university students who were endeavouring to construct elite middle-class identities. For them, weishang identity did not logicially suit their impressions of Xiaoou’s original online identity. Having realised this sensibility stimulated Xiaoou to personalise her commercial identity strategically, so that apart from the practices described earlier, she innovatively trialled less explicit promotion. In some posts, Xiaoou did not mention the actual name of the commodity, choosing instead to upload product images, with no written content spruiking its benefits (see Figure 5.38).
Figure 5.38
In this post, Xiaoou put up a selfie showing her new hairstyle and playfully expressed:
New hairstyle get ü Born curly hair. It’s a big pity that I can’t make a pair of see-through fringes with my roommate (Grimace emoji). Just hope it’s a good weather tomorrow (sunshine emoji), we could hang out~ (Twirl and waddle emojis)
Xiaoou took advantage of the topic of hairstyle and friendship with her roommate and uploaded photos of the hair conditioner for showcase although she didn’t write a word about the product itself
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in the updated texts. In this way, Xiaoou’s business intentionality was reduced and she was less likely to annoy her social contacts on WeChat.
It can be seen here that in order to construct a weishang identity embedded with implicit norms of reciprocity, Xiaoou developed multiple styles of posting on WeChat. These feeds converged her genuine, well-meaning personal identity with her professional identity and worked for Xiaoou with the aim of cutting down the risk of undermining her benevolent intentions and guanxi maintenance.
5.5 Conclusion This chapter has shown that strategic online identity management is practiced by Chinese youth in social media interactions. It is evident that these university students have acquired sophisticated knowledge of their social and technological contexts while engaging with a range of social media platforms. Their on-going uses of these platforms reflect their perceptions of themselves in different life stages as becoming more mature, cultivated, and socially-equipped with a developing elite middle-class identity. These perceptions in return, shape their utilitarian positionings on different social media platforms. This analysis has outlined several types of positive online identities enacted by Chinese youth: doubi ( ) identity, professional identity, and weishang (mico- businesswoman) identity. It is argued here that Chinese youth’s online identity performances are underpinned by Confucian values of ren (intersubjective benevolence) and shu (reciprocity), which to put it simply, is about always being empathetic with others and controlling the self. These values are embedded in self-presentations of zhengnengliang (positive energy) and hei (self-mockery/mockery of others), which Chinese young people employed to manage positive impressions, maintain harmonious social relationships with family members, friends, classmates, teachers, colleagues and industry professionals, and interestingly, to also express their weariness, frustrations and stresses without deliberately annoying their audiences. Chapter six turns the focus onto rural Chinese women, demonstrating how this cohort of late social media adopters also make
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sense of themselves and manage their online identities according to their particular sociocultural contexts.
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6 TRANSFORMATIONS OF RURAL IDENTITIES: FINDINGS FROM RURAL WOMEN
6.1 Rural Women’s Status
6.1.1 Identifying “nongcun funu ” (Rural Women) How Westerners define rural women might be completely different from the notion of rural women in China. The development of rural economy has improved rural women’s living standard to a great extent. Rural Chinese women are freed from heavy agricultural production and become less involved in chores of farming and live stocking. They have more time in entertainment and social interaction according to a survey from the All China Women’s Federation and China’s National Bureau of Statistics (X. Song, et al., 2011). Literally, rural women (nongcun funu ) are women with agricultural hukou who live in rural areas. Rural women who have migrated to cities for better opportunities for advancement become rural migrant women (Jacka, 2006). They are very different from those rural women who remain in the countryside given that they spend long time working and living in cities. The 25 elder rural women in this research are all residents living in the rural region, Hanpu Town. They are different from traditional peasants who work in farmland and who feed livestock. Only five women were still doing farm work by the time of the fieldwork. Six rural women were unemployed but their husbands were working in non-agricultural industries to support the family. Ten women were running small businesses with their husbands in the town and four were
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employees working in public or private sector. The following list aims to delineate the everyday life of these rural women by categorising them by profession:
Pure housewives: A pure housewife is an unemployed rural woman who stays at home doing housework and gardening, planting vegetables and flowers, and taking care of children. Even though the husband is employed or running a private business, a pure housewife usually does not involve herself in this work. Six rural women in this research were pure housewives90, with two living in Zhizigang Village and four living at the centre of Hanpu Town, Shizilu, of Hanpu Community. These women’s husbands were all managing privately-owned businesses. As the women were all over 40, the youngest child amongst them was 14. Their children either went to school or were at work already, which gave the women plenty of time for housework and gardening their small vegetable fields at the back of their houses. Cabbage, chilly, pumpkin, loofah, eggplant, cucumber, sweet potato were popular types of vegetables.
Figure 6.1 Vegetable fields at the back of the houses in Shizilu
90 Pseudonyms have been applied to refer to the participants. Participants Bo Liao, Min Wang, Na Li, Li Zhao, Hui Li, and Xiuzhen Wang were pure housewives.
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Peasants: peasants refer to rural women who are involved in farming, for instance, ploughing, sowing and reaping in the paddy fields or feeding livestock such as chicken, ducks and geese. The working time for rural women is seasonal. When it is not cultivation or harvest time, peasant women mainly do what pure housewives do at home. They share farm work with their husbands but spare free time for doing housework, gardening, taking care of children and seeking entertainment. In this study, five females were peasants 91 . Four were living in Zhizigang Village and one was living in Hanpu Community. They lived in their villages, not at the centre market. But it is convenient for them to go from village to the centre as road condition is good and scooters are their transportation.
Figure 6.2 Paddy fields in Zhizigang Village
Figure 6.3 Small gardens at the front, back or the side of peasants’ houses in Zhizigang Village
91 These peasants were Xin Huang, Jingjing Zhang, Jia Liu, Jianhua Wang, and Jing Peng.
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Small business owners: Small businesses owners were rural women who were running small-scale family businesses. These businesses were usually run by both the women and their husbands but this did not underrate their role as they were actively participating in the business’s operation and management. These female small business owners no longer participated in agricultural production but might do some gardening in their spare time. 10 women were self-employed by running small businesses with their husbands in the region92. Seven of them were living in Hanpu Community and six of these were living in the centre market Shizilu. Two other women were running their businesses in Zhizigang Village, and one other in Jiujiang Village. Businesses in Hanpu Community were concentrated in the centre market Shizilu while businesses in the other villages were more dispersed, scattering in their self-constructed houses. The types of businesses included stationary and convenience store, hardware product store, noodle shop, butchery, fishing gear store, clothing shop, home appliance repair store, electronic appliances store and mah-jong parlour.
Figure 6.4 Noodle shop (left) and hardware store (right) in Shizilu
92 These women were Xiaoyu Zheng, Yumen Wang, Chang Liu, Bin Dong, Lan Li, Fang Liu, Xia Zhang, Dan Wang, Qin Li, and Hua Chen.
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Figure 6.5 A mah-jong parlour in Zhizigang Village
Employees: Employees refer to rural women who were employed and worked in their villages or in nearby rural areas. They did not do farm work either but might do some gardening in their spare time. Four out of the 25 women worked as employees in the public or private sector93. Xue Wang was a physician in the public health centre of Zhizigang Village, Qinfang Wang was the Secretary of Zhizigang Village. Yan Wang worked as a chef in a bank in Shizilu and Juan Liu was a shop assistant in a convenience store in Shizilu.
93 The four female employees were Juan Liu, Xue Wang, Yan Wang and Qinfang Wang.
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Figure 6.6 Public health centre in Zhizigang Village Note. On the left wall, the blue banner writes, “Changsha City Yuelu District Hanpu Town Zhizigang Village Clinic”. At that time, the name of “Hanpu Town” was still in use though officially it had been changed to “Hanpu Subdistrict”.
That rural women do not conduct farming does not mean they do not own farmland anymore. These rural Chinese women still had the distributed land94 however they were either not put into use or were conversed to other projects such as forestry and fishery, or transferred to other families via contracts as farming was not considered economically beneficial. For example, small business owner Xiaoyu Zheng’s family had transferred 10 mu (1 mu ==0.0667 hectares) of land to another family. The land owned by employee Qinfang Wang and her family was used to grow plants like trees and flowers for sale. And the land in pure housewife Bo Liao’s family was conversed to ponds for pisciculture. In these cases, it was usually rural women’s husbands or other male members in the family that took care of these lands while rural women themselves mainly engaged themselves in their own employed
94 According to the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Land Contract in Rural Areas, farmland in China is collectively owned by peasants and by the State, and distributed to farmers via contract. See more information: http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Law/2007-12/06/content_1382125.htm
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jobs, as well as housework and looking after children. Farmland use in Hanpu Town has reflected the economic development of the rural town and the townsfolks’ pursuit for economic benefit.
Figure 6.7 Flowers planted by a small business owner, a pure housewife and a peasant
6.1.2 Rural Women’s Profiles In addition to the socio-cultural and socio-economic histories already discussed, age and education are also key factors for understanding rural women’s daily practices. Table 6.1 categorises the age, education level, occupational status, and residential location of each of the women who took part in this research.
Table 6.1 Rural Women’s Profiles
Highest level of NO. Name Age Occupation Residence education
Xiuzhen Middle School not Unemployed 1 48 Zhizigang Village Wang completed (pure housewife)
Unemployed 2 Bo Liao 46 Middle School Hanpu Community (pure housewife)
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Unemployed 3 Min Wang 44 Middle School Hanpu Community (pure housewife)
Unemployed 4 Na Li 43 Middle School Hanpu Community (pure housewife)
Unemployed 5 Li Zhao 46 Middle School Hanpu Community (pure housewife)
Unemployed 6 Hui Li 47 Middle School Zhizigang Village (pure housewife)
Primary School not Unemployed 7 Jing Peng 45 Hanpu Community completed (peasant)
Unemployed 8 Xin Huang 40 Primary School Zhizigang Village (peasant)
Jingjing Unemployed 9 46 Middle School Zhizigang Village Zhang (peasant)
Middle School not Unemployed 10 Jia Liu 43 Zhizigang Village completed (peasant)
Jianhua Unemployed 11 47 Primary School Zhizigang Village Wang (peasant)
Xiaoyu Owner of mah-jong 12 50 Middle School Zhizigang Village Zheng parlour
Middle School not Owner of mah-jong 13 Yumei Wang 43 Zhizigang Village completed parlour
14 Chang Liu 45 Middle School Owner of butchery Jiujiang Village
15 Bin Dong 44 Middle School Owner of fishery store Hanpu Community
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Owner of electronic 16 Lan Li 43 Primary School Hanpu Community appliances store
Secondary Owner of stationary 17 Fang Liu 43 Hanpu Community Vocational School and convenience store
Owner of clothing 18 Xia Zhang 41 Middle School Hanpu Community store
19 Dan Wang 48 Middle School Owner of noodle shop Hanpu Community
Owner of home 20 Qin Li 43 Middle School Hanpu Community appliance repair store
Owner of hardware 21 Hua Chen 52 High School Hanpu Community store
Shop assistant of 22 Juan Liu 44 High School Hanpu Community convenience store
Secondary 23 Xue Wang 43 Physician Zhizigang Village Vocational School
24 Yan Wang 52 High School Chef of a bank Hanpu Community
Qinfang Secretary of the 25 50 Three-year College Zhizigang Village Wang village
6.1.2.1 Educational backgrounds Noticeably, amongst the group no-one had attended university. Only three people had obtained any education beyond high school (vocational/college) and only three had completed their (three-year) high school education. The majority of the women had a middle school qualification. 15 had gone to middle school but only 12 had finished, and four had gone to primary school with one dropping out in the fifth year. The main reason for dropping out of school was that the women’s families were too
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poor to fund their educations, and in many cases, one family had more than one child to feed, as Jing Peng explained:
I had not received much education. At that time, I had many sisters, very poor. See, my writing is so ugly…I… did not finish primary school. That’s real! I went to the fifth grade, had five-years education. There were too many sisters then. There was no money for school. At that time, my family was difficult, how pathetic and faceless! We have six sisters, me the oldest. Don’t you think difficult? I was engaged at 16 and got married at 18 here, two-year vacancy. There was nothing at home, but only half poor house.
The reasons why rural women have such poor education rates vary. The women in this study were born between 1962 and 1975 when economic reforms in China had not yet been initiated and the level of poverty in rural areas had been very high due to the ‘heavy industry-oriented development strategy’ and an ‘urban-biased policy’, until the 1990s when according to S. Fan, Zhang, & Zhang (2002, p. 3), the numbers of poor dropped dramatically. Their families simply could not afford for them to go to school because of poverty. In addition to a lack of financial support, D. Li and Tsang (2003) point out that socio-cultural ideals have also played a critical role in gender inequalities and values in making education decisions, low expectations of further education for females, and cultural materialism in rural areas. For example, families usually favour boys more so than girls when making education decisions as boys are regarded as having more potential to create higher educational benefits. This view was exemplified by participant Jingjing Zhang who spoke of her mother pulling her and her sister out of primary school (when she was 10) after her father’s death, so that her younger brother and sister could pursue study.
Now in their 40s and 50s, the women started to approach the new information and communication technologies and explore new possibilities in online interactions. Social media use had become an ordinary daily activity for them.
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6.1.2.2 One woman’s everyday ‘account’ Before the interview started with Jing Peng, she made me a cup of tea and brought a plate of watermelon seeds and peanuts and asked me to have some. She chose to be interviewed in her bedroom. It was still cold winter, Jing Peng turned on the electric heater to keep warm. Her bedroom was very simple, filled with a bed, a closet and a desk. On the desk was dusty computer equipment assembled by a MAG branded monitor, a Guoshi Wushuang ( ) branded host, a laptop keyboard, an Acer mouse, a microphone, a speaker and a web cam of unknown brand (see Figure 6.8).
Figure 6.8 Jing Peng’s computer assemblage
The computer had been used by her daughter previously and handed on to Jing Peng. Jing Peng used it mainly to access QQ and to watch online videos. She’d tried to sing karaoke in QQ using her microphone but failed, because her equipment was not qualified. When we spoke about this before the interview began she suddenly asked me to fix the problem that she could not “find” QQ on her computer anymore. Her house did not have broadband because she could not afford it, so Jing Peng used her neighbour’s WiFi to get her computer and her mobile phone connected to the Internet. The computer operating system was very slow and it turned out that the QQ application had been uninstalled. Therefore, I downloaded the application for her. Seeing the QQ penguin icon showing on her desktop, Jing Peng was very happy. This 45-year-old woman had only gone to primary school
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and had stopped her schooling in her fifth year due to a lack of financial support. Partly because of computer issues, Jing Peng explained that she used her mobile phone for online access more often. She liked downloading and listening to music on her mobile phone, a white-coloured Vivo smart phone. While she showed me where to download the music on her phone, she pressed the icon called “music” on the screen and clicked the “search” bar. Then a language input interface enabling her to enter Chinese characters by handwriting them popped up. She said,
Here can write. You want to download which song, you write on it like this. I only know handwriting, I don’t know… And I read few books, so write by my hands, write down the name of whatever song I want to download, then it is downloaded, downloaded automatically.
Similarly to Jing Peng, the other rural women in Hanpu Town also favoured the handwriting on a digital keyboard option rather than entering the Chinese phonetic alphabet (pinyin) to find the right characters, as pinyin requires Mandarin techniques gained through more systematic learning in school. For these women who spoke Changsha dialects, it became more difficult for them to correctly spell and write pinyin. Therefore, Jing Peng, who did not complete primary school and had limited literacy, had made herself a laughingstock on QQ.
Jing Peng had both QQ and WeChat accounts. She visited QQ group quite often and enjoyed watching other people messaging in the group. However, she didn’t dare to start a conversation because people laughed at her when she sent messages using the wrong characters to the group. Jing Peng imitated to me (using a loud voice) how those people had joked about her, “you even know how to type?!” Being aware of her poor literacy skills and embarrassed about having been mocked, Jing Peng restricted her participation in the QQ group.
I speak less, my verbal expressional skill is not as strong as them. You haven’t looked at how eloquent the group owner is! Can speak, can make jokes, most interesting! I… My expressional skill is not strong. I just said I read few books. Their speeches are in a good level. You know? Sometimes I can only keep quiet… I just watch it aside…
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Jing Peng was not only minimally interactive in group chats, but her participation in other public online spaces like Moments on WeChat and Qzone on QQ was also limited. During my 5.5-month observation she shared only three links on Moments and nine messages on Qzone. This characteristic was also demonstrated by other women in the study. Collectively, they were like a group of “lurkers”, or bystanders who would read what others had posted on their social media, but very rarely reacted to it. Also, when they did choose to share a link, most of them left no comments at all, and their obvious answers by way of explanation were that they were “short on words for commenting” or “I don’t have anything to comment” and felt no necessity to contribute. Because of the historical reality that “I read few books”, these rural women lacked skills in expression using online contexts and the knowledge of using different social media features. And it was also due to the claim that “I didn’t read many books”, that they regarded themselves as having a low sense of self-efficacy when participating in online interactions.
6.1.2.3 “I didn’t read many books”
“Our generation didn’t read many books, don’t know how to play at all.”
(Bin Dong i/v, 2015)
Here the specific claim by Bin Dong that she (and others like her) “didn’t read many books” bluntly manifests the disadvantage confronted by rural Chinese women in using digital technologies. This was a causal explanation through which Bin Dong simultaneously acknowledged her low level of formal education, and self-identified as having a perceived lack of knowledge. Bin Dong did not know how to use, or in her words, “play” WeChat (the most popular Chinese social media platform) on her smartphone, until her son taught her how. For many rural Chinese women like her, using social media was recreational, an amusing pastime in their daily lives apart from their regular “playing” of mah-jong, singing karaoke and dancing. Of course, as the extended discussion in sections 6.2-6.4 of this chapter reveal, their interactions with and through WeChat accounted for much more than simple
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play. Their various mundane engagements with social media and the perceptions they had about their online activities spoke volumes about their identity performances.
It impartially reflected more broadly, a social reality for rural Chinese people as their educational level is generally much lower than urban Chinese (NBS, 2011). Rural Chinese have less entitlements than urbanites in education (D. Li & Tsang, 2003) due to the entrenched rural (and urban) structural inequalities created by the historical household registration classification or the hukou ( ) system (Xiaogang Wu & Treiman, 2007). Although rural urbanisation and informatisation has highly improved China’s rural economy and is gradually remedying some institutional inequalities, many traditional literacy divisions remain. These distinctions are arguably prominent amongst older rural Chinese women, those born in the 1960s and 1970s when equal rights for Chinese women were neglected and resources limited. As such the statement that “I didn’t read many books” mirrors the majority lived experience of rural Chinese females, who have been regarded as less valuable than their rural male counterparts in terms of receiving education (D. Li & Tsang, 2003; Jinling Wang, 2009) due to social and cultural factors (Mu & van de Walle, 2011; Wallis, 2015; N. Zhang, 2014).
To cope with this reality, they therefore relied on self-learning while using their mobile phones and online platforms. Their children who are digital natives and their peers who adopted the technology earlier were significant sources of their digital know-how. Network Service Centres including China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom where individuals visited to purchase mobile phones and network services were also a resort for the rural women to get valuable information about ICTs.
6.1.2.4 “An ordinary nongcun funu”
Culture is ordinary, this is where we should start.
(Williams, 1989, p. 4)
Geertz (1973) points out the significance of the everyday in exploring cultural specifics in his essay Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture,
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Looking at the ordinary in places where it takes unaccustomed forms brings out not, as has so often been claimed, the arbitrariness of human behavio[u]r (there is nothing especially arbitrary about taking sheep theft for insolence in Morocco), but the degree to which its meaning varies according to the pattern of life by, which it is informed. Understanding a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity. (p. 14)
The fact that many of the rural women described themselves as “an ordinary nongcun funu” provided extra justification for why their particular experiences with social media should be investigated – to find out: What “ordinary” means for rural women in China?, What the opposite of ordinary is?, and, Why they think of themselves as ordinary? An early indication of how they viewed their worth generally, and in terms of them offering me valuable insights about their social media use specifically, came from Zhizigang Village’s Hui Li,
In the countryside, it is just for fun. People like us rural housewives don’t have occupations, just to play. So your investigation would have rural and urban difference. You should go to the city. They are professional women. There is not much to interview. Like us, we don’t go to Taobao for shopping. We just play some mah-jong, don’t do anything else anyway… I didn’t read many books. Neither had I written any articles or Weibo. I just have a look at websites briefly. That is very ordinary, nothing extra. If people are very that … they would often post, share some photos. That is different. People like us who don’t have a career have nothing to write. Professional women are different. People like us are people who don’t have jobs.
Hui Li thought women who lived in cities and had their careers would provide much more valuable information to me, rather than women like her who resided in the countryside doing “nothing extra” but a job of “an ordinary rural housewife”. She thought because urban women were well-educated and employed that they would have more life materials to share online and better skills to present themselves. She identified these differences from the social feeds updated by her junior relatives who
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were working in urban environments. Being a rural housewife, Hui Li’s daily routine involved cleaning, gardening and cooking, and her entertainment activity was mainly playing mah-jong. Playing mah-jong is a self-indulgent activity and people who play mah-jong every day are usually considered as idle and indecent by Chinese people. These everyday life experiences in Hui Li’s regard, were not worthy of being posted online95.
Xiaoyu Zheng, owner of a mah-jong parlour in Zhizigang Village also empathised with Hui Li. She also held the opinion that it was usually influential people that posted a lot on WeChat.
I don’t post the WeChat stuff, very rarely, don’t publish, sometimes just have a look. I am a very common people. People who are influential would send to the outside via WeChat every day.
Lan Li, owner of an electronic appliances store at Shizilu explained more about why she regarded her online activities as ordinary. Lan Li is a mother of two, one in middle school and one in high school. In addition to doing housework and looking after children, she was managing the nearly 20-year electronic appliances business with her husband on the busiest street in Hanpu Community. Lan Li spent most of her days in the store looking after the business which also meant that she had to meet customers and manage relationships with them every day. WeChat became a strategic tool for her in this respect for she communicated with her business partners and customers through the platform. However, Lan Li was also very prudent in how she networked with these contacts on WeChat. If they posted anything “garbage” such as information with sexual innuendo, she would delete them from her WeChat contact list. Lan Li explained,
Some people talk completely… what to say… We are people doing businesses, unlike people who always go out for fun or dawdling. Or they talk like “hooligans”. They post
95 Hui Li rarely shared things that were happening in her life on WeChat, and shared very few links. From March to July 2015, she only updated 20 posts on Moments. Only one had been originally written by herself to express her thoughts about life, with a picture downloaded from online. The remaining 19 posts were all links from official accounts.
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some indecent photos or uncivilised speech… I don’t like those people, so I deleted them.… Some even came over and told me they couldn’t see my WeChat. I had to tell (lie to) them that I rarely used WeChat… I normally centre myself on family, focus on my family, rarely go out, only sometimes go out to have some fun with some like-minded friends.
Lan Li both described and prescribed whom to interact with on WeChat according to the moral standards she perceived around her roles as a businesswoman and a housewife. She was inclined to interact with people who were “positive” on WeChat, whereas those “hooligans” who sent improper photographs or talked frivolously were negative influences and to be avoided. For Lan Li, the moral values embedded in her role as a housewife had also been merged into her business work. Being a good housewife directed her to focus on her family. Despite the fact that she had read many articles about business and exhibited her products on WeChat, which was very different from what many other rural women did, on reflection Lan Li still thought that her online experiences were very “ordinary”. Yet as these views indicate being “ordinary” means much more than simply being inactive and having nothing to post. It actually signposts the transference of a Chinese housewife’s moral norms – conforming to household responsibilities, to being virtuous online. Lan Li offered more straightforwardly when talking about the impact of WeChat: “To myself, it is myself sticking to my duty, so I won’t like some people chatting WeChat, having affairs or so. We won’t, won’t have negative effects.”
Sticking to her role of being a good housewife, Lan Li cleared out all the sexual photos and videos she received on WeChat. She also never responded to any friends requests sent from the “People Nearby” although she knew some of those people were residents in the Hanpu Community. But for Lan Li, these people were like strangers that she should keep her distance from as interacting with them would imply a dubious relationship. Hui Li also spoke of her concerns and suspicions regarding what people would do when they did interact with unfamiliar persons on QQ and WeChat,
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Some people like to write (on WeChat), to chat with strangers on that, say something pointless, bla bla. Simply put, it is like some people enjoying chatting on QQ, he or she could call strangers husband or wife, call them like this. But I never talked.
As social media provides more opportunities for reaching out to a more extensive social network including strangers, for rural women going online is about more than managing business in the household setting. For the practice of connecting implies the prospect of talking to strangers and the possibility of having affairs, which could disrupt the traditional social norms and ethical values aligned with rural women. By drawing an “ordinary” line, the women actually showed their concern for the maintenance of social norms in online interactions. This notion was so strong that Na Li, a very active QQ user who enjoyed interacting with strangers in QQ groups, even made a point of explaining what “an ordinary rural woman” she actually was.
In terms of playing QQ groups normally, (I) get along with group friends very well in the group! Second, (among) people who play QQ groups, like our groups, are very proper, not like some other groups. People in it, in various aspects, speech and deportment, are very good, not like those sexual, or those… Not at all. Everyone is very easy-going, talking very freely… I am like an ordinary rural woman, just playing a bit in it, chatting with them, just a woman.
It can be seen that being “an ordinary nongcun funu” involves multiple layers of identity perceptions concerning not only education, but also age, gender, regional affiliations and appropriate behaviours. The next section explores how rural women’s perception of this ordinariness played out in their online activities concerning strangers.
6.2 Interacting with Strangers in Social Media The Shake feature on WeChat enables users to find strangers by shaking their mobile phone while the People Nearby feature helps users connect with people who are in the vicinity of several kilometres. In light of these two features, Chang Liu friended with strangers randomly on WeChat and started
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chatting with them. The conversation usually started with the stranger sending “hello” and “what’s your name?” to her. Chang Liu got annoyed when people wanted to know her name first, to the extent that she even changed her WeChat name to “Don’t ask me who I am” for the convenience of talking with strangers anonymously,
Sometimes I chat with friends that I don’t know much. They asked me (my name). I then said, “don’t ask me my name. You only need to chat with me.” I said, “oh, you don’t ask me who I am. If you like chatting, you chat. If you don’t like, then don’t.” That’s it.
Interestingly, Chang Liu used the word “friends” to describe the strangers who had contacts with her. Chang Liu preferred to chat anonymously with strangers as in that case she did not need to be concerned about the consequences,
Everyone has worries, right? Sometimes I’m free, “oh, I don’t know you.” Say something, say the bitterness in the heart. (Sigh) When you have something, you talk casual words, then you feel better in your heart. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I don’t know you. It will be all right after chatting a few words. You don’t see me and I don’t see you. If it’s with friends that I’m familiar with, I’m afraid ta (he/she)96 would remember something and say something about me next time. With unknown people… as to these things, anyway it’s just us two people having a chat, anyway I don’t know you very much. I vent about things happened today, I forget it tomorrow! Right! People that you are familiar with in your daily life sometimes would say to you tomorrow, “oh, what happened yesterday?” They would ask these things. Strangers would not ask these things. Myself forget, feels more comfortable.
96 In spoken Chinese language, the pronunciation of “it”, “he/him” and “she/her” has no distinction. The word ta could mean any of the three pronouns.
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When interacting with pre-existing social relationships, impression management is a concern that affects how much we disclose about ourselves. For Chang Liu, WeChat provides a space to negotiate her privacy with strangers. She could release all her unpleasant feelings to them without worrying what they might think of her. There were no obligations, no rules for her to follow, and she could even make her own rules. If the conversation went well, Chang Liu would keep the strangers’ contacts. When she got bored with them, she deleted their contact details with ease. Chang Liu also indicated that whenever the strangers talked dirty words to her, she would remove their contact information immediately. By this token, chatting with strangers on WeChat became an emotional outlet, a place to filter unseemly approaches and a strategy for privacy negotiations.
However, another participant Na Li built a different relationship with strangers online. This 43-year- old was the earliest to use the Internet amongst the Hanpu Town participants. Her family bought a Dell computer in 2009 for her 8-year-old son and her 13-year-old daughter. Accordingly, Na Li started to learn to listen to music, watch movies and read books on the Internet. Soon she was introduced to QQ by her children, but at that time she did not get used to using the QQ platform. Six years later during the research fieldwork, seeing Na Li sitting in front of her computer wearing her headphone and singing towards a microphone with the music emanating from her QQ (see Figure 6.9) it was clear she had become a very sophisticated QQ user.
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Figure 6.9 Na Li singing karaoke
Na Li was not singing alone. What was broadcast through her QQ network was not merely music, but also a live video chat with people she didn’t know. Na Li sings karaoke almost every day but in very different ways to others who go to karaoke clubs for singing and dancing. Na Li could accomplish these activities without going out of her home, by participating in the QQ group called “Happy and Cheerful Singing and Dancing Group” and competing with group members from all over the country. But Na Li had to prepare all the essential technological equipment to realise this operation. She bought a standalone camera, a microphone, a headphone, a sound card, and a small tripod to support the microphone. She purchased all this at a cost of less than one thousand yuan from the largest Chinese online shopping website. QQ group video function enables QQ users to broadcast live, after selecting the button “Go Up onto the Stage”, participants can step on to a virtual live stage. The “Go Microphone” button kicks off the performance and other group members who have also selected the video function can see the live broadcast on their sides of the screens.
6.3 ‘Front-Stage’ Performances
6.3.1 At Home in Hanpu Na Li turns on the live broadcasting for me in the “Happy and Cheerful Singing and Dancing Group”, with the identifier “Happy = = Bigotry”, representing her membership in this particular QQ group. In the live video, someone called “Happy == Beauty” is singing the song “hedgehog” by the Taiwanese female singer Lan Wen. “Group Director == Xuelian”, “Happy == Rose”, “Joy == Lonely Wolf” are lining up for their time to perform. In the conversation area next to the live window, notifications keep popping up informing that the “Group Director == Xuelian” has sent many flowers to “Happy == Beauty”. Na Li explains that there are many other gifts that the audience can send to the performer, including kisses, lollipops and diamonds. Flowers are basic free gifts, whereas others like kisses, lollipops and diamonds need to be purchased ahead of time. Gifts can show how a performer is valued
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by their viewers. Paid gifts received by the performer reflect their higher level of popularity and their positive status as a group member. Na Li proudly shows me her gifts that she has received: 14,000 lollipops and 40,000 flowers.
Overall, she has joined in 40 QQ groups, the majority of which are for singing karaoke and most groups have the maximum 500 members. However, Na Li now only frequents two or three groups after “playing” QQ groups for a period of three to four years. In order to get better sound and visual effects, she downloaded two other karaoke and video players called MVBOX and 9158 which could be connected to her QQ group and provide more sound tracks and visual effects than the original QQ group karaoke settings. So over three to four years, Na Li had developed herself from not knowing anything to being an expert in QQ chat. She confidently performed to me to explain what MC (microphone controller) rap is. She also showed me how to capture the live video screen with an add- in and how to make creative digital backgrounds and embed colourful visual effects in live video. Indeed, as she proudly claimed, “in Shizilu, there is probably only me playing this here. Over there, others told me, someone set up a sound card, but he plays not like me. People who play like me are rare.”
Na Li’s technical and interactive skills were standalone compared to other Hanpu participants. She even taught another participant Jing Peng how to sing karaoke online yet Jing Peng did not have and could not afford, the right quality equipment. Na Li gave the credit to strangers she had met in QQ groups. It was them who had taught her how to set up the equipment and how to utilise all the functions on QQ. What’s more, they were also talented performers in Na Li’s sense. She took it upon herself to excitedly introduce them to me,
… there are performance groups in this QQ group. They are people in our age, in their 30s, 40s, or 20s. Performance groups in that are like us normal people. They’ve bought costumes themselves or connected microphones like this and bought sound cards, to play together. They’ve been dancing very well.
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Na Li played a dancing video recorded by her group members in which three costumed women in their 50s (or so) were dancing to what Na Li referred to as a “downtempo” tune. She continued,
Besides, there are hand dance, and there are some professional, with much professional knowledge, like playing piano, playing erhu, everything.
…this is the video. There is background, embedded to the real scene. In the back, it’s white wall. In some videos, there’re sundries. Like this, if there are sundries, they would hang up a white or black cloth in the back, like what’s on the stage. If it’s downtempo, it will only show this part, the part above the knee. The choreographies are really beautiful! They are dancing excellently!
These people that Na Li sang and danced with were from all over the country and from different walks of life including white collar workers, farmers, businessmen, teachers and housewives like Na Li. They gathered in QQ groups based on the same interests. Interacting with these people became Na Li’s daily routine. She did not have a job but had previously helped her husband with their hardware store until she stopped working after being diagnosed with myasthenia several years ago. Most of the time she stayed at home recovering so the Internet therefore was a resort for her to kill time, which is why she learnt to play QQ games and participate in QQ group activities. Even when she was fully recovered, these online interactions meant much more than a pastime for her as Na Li described,
Like before when even speaking…was uncomfortable, I felt… always staying at home and not going out. It was after singing and chatting with them that I felt my mindset turned better and I was able to sing.
Singing and chatting in QQ groups rebuilt Na Li’s confidence during the time when she was very sick. The QQ groups provided rich group activities, not restricted to singing and dancing. Games such as “pulling out poker cards” and “guessing landmine” were popular. Some group members even bought a chatting robot and set it up to take part in the group for their entertainment. Na Li was always
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amused by the punishments schemed by group members for those who lost games. For instance, singing with a mouthful of water, playing Japanese soldier, sticking white shredded paper onto one’s face with toothpaste, and carrying a pot on one’s head for fifteen minutes while singing. This variety of group activities, Na Li considered, made her life more colourful and bearable when she was sick, she could act like a normal human being to play games with these strangers and forget the unhappiness and pain she was enduring.
Importantly, the QQ groups also have group rules, which lay the foundation for harmonious group interactions. Members need to be verified through real facetime- “going on live stage” after they join in the group. Pornography, sexual jokes, and pro-Japanese speech are not allowed. Whoever violates these rules will be kicked out immediately. These rules therefore regulate the behaviour of group members and through group activities, the standards of the relationships amongst group members can be further maintained. For Na Li, she had already built trust with these strangers, so not only did she chat in the groups about daily grinds and poke fun at group members, she also felt comfortable enough to pour out her complaints to them,
Our relationship is quite good! Our groups are very proper. People inside, their speech and deportment are very good, not like those pornographic. Everybody is easy-going. On the other hand, people and things I’ve approached, these people, they are quite good. They are not… anyway, many of them are very enterprising, have good moral grounds and so on.
Based on these everyday interactions in QQ groups, Na Li’s relationships with these people had also been transformed as she said, “Many are strangers. Talking over time, together, it becomes different.”
As to those strangers who had talked a lot with Na Li, Na Li had added them to her QQ contact list where she could also have private conversations with them, rather than always communicating in groups. She called them “friends” and grouped them as “friends” in her QQ contact list. In addition, the “friends” could see what each other had posted on Qzone, a public space similar to WeChat’s Moments, where people share aspects of their everyday lives and interact with each other by reacting
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with ‘likes’ and ‘comments’. Despite the fact that these people’s ages varied from 20 to 50, there was no communication gap between them in QQ. When Na Li shared her personal thoughts and feelings on Qzone especially when she was bored or upset, these friends would comment on her statuses and give her support. So, by virtue of these online exchanges, Na Li thought she had become more positive, “With them, my mind becomes indeed more broadened. Also, I feel quite happy97.”
It can be seen that social media like QQ can be activated as a space for making friends, based on mutual interests, accumulation of time and shared experiences, and empathetic support, just like how friendships are made offline. Social media did not sever Na Li’s online and offline realities, nor encourage her to play out a secretive virtual life. Rather it constituted an important part of her constructed, situated social reality. Onto both QQ and WeChat, Na Li built networks of family, relatives, friends, classmates and neighbours. While she received consideration and validation from her friends on QQ she also had support from her husband, children and friends in her offline life. How Na Li developed her social relationships was pragmatic. She made this point very clear when she compared her online contacts with pre-existing social networks built by face-to-face interactions:
Online is just to kill time, or to make me feel happier, or to keep calm. Problems that you have in offline life need to be solved in offline life. If you need help from others, or to do something, it is offline friends, not online friends that give you a hand.
The incentives for developing online and offline social ties were different for rural women like Na Li and Chang Liu. Online engagements with strangers addressed some of the everyday challenges rural Chinese women were burdened by when they needed an emotional outlet. For example, although Chang Liu chose to remain anonymous she was still capable of expressing her daily frustrations and negotiating her privacy to an audience of ‘listeners’. The ‘listeners’ in Na Li’s experiences rendered
97 Moreover, some of these friends become so close that Na Li even gave them her mobile phone number and added them to her WeChat. Although they would only have phone calls under emergent situations, Na Li obviously trusted them and even purchased products such as clothing and bedding sold by those who were running businesses.
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her capable of performing as a karaoke-singing normal person when she was sick, and helped her in more direct ways to keep up her cheerful spirit. By these means, although in varying ways, both Chang Liu’s and Na Li’s guanxi was broadened with a peripheral layer of online “stranger-friends”.
6.3.2 At Work in Hanpu When I visited her clothing store in the new residential area in Shizilu, the centre of Hanpu Sub- District, Xia Zhang was sitting at the front desk and watching a famous Chinese reality variety show, ‘I Am a Singer’ on the video streaming site Mango TV on her Chang Hong Computer (see Figure 6.10)
Figure 6.10 Xia Zhang’s computer
She greeted me, made me a cup of tea first and asked her husband to look after the business so that I could interview her. Xia Zhang had been running this clothing store in the front hall of her four-story house for two years. Before that, she was managing the business in a rented store in the old residential area of Shizilu for fourteen years. The current store is two times bigger than her previous one with a large glass window and glass door so that passersby can see the clothes clearly (see Figure 6.11)
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Figure 6.11 Xia Zhang’s clothing store
The shop is very bright with white walls and new furniture. Like most business people Xia Zhang has also made a shrine to ‘The God of Fortune’ in her store in the wish that it may bring thriving business and wealth. Xia Zhang was clearly the boss of her store. Her husband was like her assistant, driving her to the retailers and helping her to get clothes ready for the customers. Xia Zhang named her store after her real first name, “Xia Zhang Clothing” and sold both men and women’s clothing. Up until 2014 Xia Zhang had been managing her business without any assistance of digital technology except for making phone calls with her mobile phone. Now she employed WeChat for building up her business profile, displaying products, learning sales and marketing strategies, and communicating with her suppliers and customers.
Xia Zhang’s transformation did not come immediately after she registered her WeChat account and even after a year of her adopting WeChat for business, she was still adjusting to this newborn phenomenon. She did not realise that using WeChat could become so valuable until her customers kept asking her to adopt WeChat for her business so that they could get more information about her products, similar to how they gained information from weishangs’ WeChat Moments. Xia Zhang explained:
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Now many of others are using WeChat. (They) say, I manage this business, they ask, do you have WeChat? I think it’s like if you don’t use WeChat, you don’t keep up with the pace! So catering to everyone’s need, I’ve added this stuff. I didn’t use it before.
With her 16-year-old daughter’s help, Xia Zhang set up a business profile that promoted her clothing store using the name of the clothing shop business as her WeChat name and a picture of the shop as her actual profile photo. In the What’s Up section, she filled in a slogan that appealed “most beautiful clothes, are about to set off your very pretty and charming figure, come quickly to Xia Zhang clothing store and have a look” (see Figure 6.12).
Figure 6.12 Xia Zhang’s WeChat profile
Now that a WeChat business profile had been set up, a new type of business started to unfold for Xia Zhang as a matter of course. Xia Zhang’s WeChat contacts grew from mere relatives to including suppliers, other business owners and customers. She started to discuss the availability of clothing styles and sizes, negotiate prices and meeting times for stocking products and considered promotional strategies with her wholesalers. Xia Zhang usually went to Zhuzhou wholesale market (one-hour drive-away) for stocking. Two days before attending the wholesalers she would ask them online to
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arrange all the goods she wanted, to save time. Her suppliers provided her with photos of clothes and models every day so that she could use these materials to advertise her own business. In addition, Xia Zhang learnt to provide customised services for clients. For example, she picked up styles that suited individual customers and sent them photos privately on WeChat. This technique kept them informed about new styles and provided personalised recommendations, similar to private consultancy. She also observed how other business operators promoted their businesses on Moments. Public accounts such as “Teach You How to Dress” were subscribed to where she acquired extra sales skills. However, Xia Zhang initiated the strategy to exhibit her commodities with photos on Moments only after her customers requested it. She explained:
Some people came and said, “you have new arrivals?! I don’t know when you have new arrivals and what they look like! You (should) post on that (Moments) so that I can see if you have what I like.” Some people are lazy to come. They see you stock new goods, they come.
The consumption behaviour of Xia Zhang’s customers has been more or less shaped by the popular social networking business or weishang. WeChat has become popular not only for firms to market products and maintain customer relationships (Shuai Yang, Chen, & Li, 2016), but also for common WeChat users to sell products through WeChat’s public accounts and Moments (H. Fan & Cao, 2017). This developing phenomenon of doing business through social media platforms is widely called weishang or micro-business in China (L. Yu & Cao, 2016). Weishang or micro-businessperson can also be used to denote the salesmen. Xia Zhang’s customers experienced the facility of online shopping from other merchants like weishang and expected a similar service be fulfilled in Xia Zhang’s store. Even Xia Zhang’s marketing strategy was affected by weishangs’ as she noticed that some of her suppliers and friends had also started weishang businesses, selling underwear, daily necessities and beauty products. She felt frustrated by seeing a plethora of WeChat posts shared by those weishangs, and thus chose only to share one group of photos of new arrivals on Moments each time to avoid causing annoyance. As Xia Zhang rationalized, posting these exclusive photos on
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WeChat was more convenient for her customers because they did not have to come to the physical store to see if there were clothes that they favoured. They could view the new styles on Moments and visit her store in person to try them on after making their decisions. In this way, WeChat acted as an online window to her offline store which not only cultivated more personal connections with existing customers, but also drew the attention of potential new customers to visit her clothing shop (see Figure 6.13).
Figure 6.13 Xia Zhang’s post of new arrivals Note. In the left photo, Bo Liao (another research participant), one of Xia Zhang’s customers commented: “you got back from stocking”. Xia Zhang replied, “new arrivals”.
On the other hand, Xia Zhang was more conservative about adopting other innovative ways of showcasing products on Moments, such as videos. After she saw that her supplier had posted a video showing customers snapping up clothes in store she commented:
I saw what was a hot fashion yesterday, the scene of snapping up clothes… showing clothes were all sold out, you need to make a reservation. I was thinking, whether that
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was true or not… as a merchant, managing business, in fact I need to learn from that. But I haven’t adapted to it yet. Maybe I would get there this year. I have the intention, but I haven’t started it. I just got to this last year. It seems like everything will go well if I start posting like that. Looks like it is very easy, like everyday job, but I haven’t accustomed to this yet.
Nevertheless, Fang Liu, the owner of a stationary and convenience store in Hanpu Community was more proactive and professional than Xia Zhang in adopting WeChat to generate offline business. For instance, she posted a photo of a wine product (see Figure 6.14) and wrote positively in the comments section to introduce it to her customers, “Friends, have a taste of Yuchan One Jug, contact me”.
Figure 6.14 Fang Liu’s post to advertise a wine
Shortly after she posted a photo of two bottles of her newly stocked beer products (see Figure 6.15) Fang Liu wrote a similarly themed comment to entice customers, “Soloking beer. Tasty. Convenient. Friends come and have a taste and buy. Welcome everybody”.
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Figure 6.15 Fang Liu’s post to advertise a beer
She used inclusive terminologies like “friends”, “welcome” and “tasty” to build sensory connections with her customers to advertise the alcohol. Besides, she strategically presented her business identity as industrious and inspirational by choosing to construct the WeChat name “No Pain No Gain”, which also showed her determination in striving for success. Fang Liu also spoke of the progressive benefits of living in a network age emphasising that in her view “everybody” should learn how to use Internet:
This network era, everybody needs, and could use… Anyhow, if we want to follow the era, we need to learn from them, learn every day. It’s right that never too late to learn. Knowing nothing, like us, you don’t know how to use QQ, how to use WeChat, business gets rough sometimes. Now all use that online, some payment, transfer, can directly transfer on mobile phones. We haven’t started it yet.
For Fang Liu, it was imperative to have a WeChat and/or QQ account for economic viability. If she had not registered with QQ and WeChat, she would have been a laggard and her business would fall behind those that had merged into the “network”. Therefore, Fang Liu was open to every opportunity brought by the Internet for developing her business. Displaying products on WeChat was only the commencement of her move to follow the tide. E-commerce would be her next trial to advance the
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offline business as she expressed her plan to register on an e-commerce platform run by her supplier to sell electronic appliances alike.
Another participant Bin Dong, who was running a fishing gear shop and a butchery with her husband, used the name “Fat Dong Fishing Gear Store” on WeChat and took advantage of WeChat’s video post function to showcase products in more visually dynamic detail. For example, she shot a short video of the pork she was selling in the food market (see Figure 6.16) which attracted another rural woman to jokingly comment, “Sell all of them to me at a cheaper price”.
Figure 6.16 Bin Dong’s video shot of selling pork
Bin Dong also branded some fishing nets available in her store (see Figure 6.17), again using original video content and also writing in the comments area, “Nets, many types, welcome to purchase on selection” accompanied with three icons of a smile emoji.
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Figure 6.17 Bin Dong’s video shot of selling fishing nets
Bin Dong knew different presentation styles for her products and video postings made her selling actions live with the potential to be more trusted.
However, Lan Li, the owner of an electrical appliances store took a different approach. She spent more time engaging with business articles disseminated by WeChat’s official accounts and experimented with applying suggested business strategies to her offline business. She explained:
…myself is good at learning. I am poorly educated, had no experience in doing business. I completely rely on the experience I have accumulated. I would keep what I think is useful. When I have time, I would read it once, twice and three times. Sometimes I would read one article many times, read it once in a while.
… like on WeChat, my friend Wei Li, he is a salesman in the industry of fridge, he has very good sales performance, and content he posts are all about how to communicate with customers, and how to increase output, so I would read everything he posts. Because so far, in my field, I need to learn from him after all. He is my role model.
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Lan Li would endorse and save articles in her WeChat that introduced good business strategies, such as experiences from the Hong Kong business tycoon Li Ka-shing, “five qualities of successful people” and “modes of thinking that blow you completely”. She also adopted the strategies sent from her peer who was good at promoting electrical appliances. Lan Li’s learning efforts presented her respect for those who have more experience, which in fact aligned with Confucianist ideals that value respect for knowledge and people who have knowledge.
Most of the rural women’s business practices were aimed at securing offline sales generated by displaying products online and learning effective online communication strategies to promote their traditional offline trade. In part, their practices showed an active engagement with innovative ways of managing small businesses using WeChat, and an openness to explore transformative business methods amidst challenges. For them WeChat was a valuable platform for demonstrating product availability, enhancing communication and relationship management, developing business acumen, and more importantly, to advance themselves economically. Clearly these rural business women were not as adept at promoting products using polished photos and highly technical advertising messages as weishangs would be. Nonetheless, it can be argued that using the social media platform to advertise their enterprises meant they did manifest improved digital literacy skills and potentially empowered themselves also as emerging small-scale female business figures.
6.4 Managing Emotions with Social Media
6.4.1 “Keep a Diary” 46-year-old Jingjing Zhang named herself “That Lonely Lady” (guji yiren) on WeChat and wrote her motto “The road of life is very long, hoping people who are conscientious be happy and accomplish their wishes” in the “What’s Up” column. “That Lonely Lady” was not just a casual name chosen by Jingjing Zhang, for loneliness was the reality that she faced each day. Living in the Zhizigang Village far away from her hometown, Jingjing rarely had her hometown relatives visiting her. With her elder daughter married and moved to another town, a younger daughter going to school, and her husband
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working in a sofa factory during the day, she was always by herself at home. The household had cultivated two mu (one mu= 0.0667 hectares) of paddy fields but that only kept her busy during the seedtime and harvest time. Therefore, gardening, doing housework, singing karaoke and playing mah-jong became Jingjing’s daily routine.
Jingjing quit school immediately after graduating from primary school because her father, who earned the main economic income for the family passed away and the family could not support the education of four children. She and her elder sister had to drop out from school to help their mother with farm work and to enable her little brother and sister to attend school. Although Jingjing did not receive a high-level of education, she had been writing her diary for more than 20 years in notebooks. Only when her eyesight became poor 10 years ago, did she stop handwriting her diary. Nowadays, with her living standards improved, Jingjing had glasses to assist with her vision and a Huawei mobile phone with 4G network to play with. She found a new way of keeping her diary, that is on WeChat. Jingjing offered,
… completely think it is like my own diary, but different from diary. My diary is only visible to myself. Here, many friends have my mobile number, have my WeChat, so they can see. Before, it had been more than 20 years. From when I was married here, I had been keeping a diary every day. Until 10 years ago, I quitted it. I didn’t write much since I used mobile phone.
Jingjing’s diaries on Moments were very concise and refined. She tended to write down her personal thoughts at very late at night/early morning. For instance, posts shown in Figures 6.18 to Figure 6.21 were all shared between 11.42 pm to 2.18 am. Jingjing recorded her sleeplessness throughout rainy nights when she recalled her past (see Figure 6.18). She included a status giving her thoughts about relationships, advising that people should cherish each other if they meet (see Figure 6.19). Two other posts (presented in Figures 6.20 and 6.21), on the other hand, expressed Jingjing’s emotional reflections on life and communicated that although she felt life was difficult, she also thought that having a positive attitude, being kind, happy and healthy were important messages to convey.
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Figure 6.18 Jingjing Zhang’s posts on WeChat Note. From top to bottom: “Night, wind blowing and rain floating, continuous coughing, interrupt the tranquillity, heart is uneasy and inconceivable” posted at 11.57 pm on 2 March 2015; “Night, silent, sleepless night, sleepless every night” posted at 2.18 am on 26 March 2015; “The night in the wind and rain, marching together in the wind and rain, ruthless night, sleepless every night” posted at 12.59 am on 4 May 2015.
Figure 6.19 Jingjing Zhang’s post Note. Jingjing wrote, “the heart awaiting, waits to hopelessness, the person missing, misses to stop thinking, it’s not easy to meet, do cherish if acquainted”.
Figure 6.20 Jingjing Zhang’s post Note. Jingjing wrote, “how difficult is life, and how bitter is it, what is important is not to think too much, but to see wider, to look further, be happy and healthy, sleepless night, night is not asleep”.
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Figure 6.21 Jingjing Zhang’s post Note. Jingjing wrote, “what have people gained in their lifetime, what do they want more, everybody’s mind is different, but as long as self feels good with conscience, happy every day”.
On the night of 26th March, Jingjing expressed strong feelings about missing someone on Moments. She wrote “everybody has memory, memory of childhood remains fresh, how many springs have gone and come back again, missing is the biggest pain in life, children want to support but parents are dead98, miss you! Miss you! :)”.
In fact, Jingjing was remembering her father who had died when she was only ten years old. Recollecting memories of a childhood without her father, and the hardships she had gone through to get to today’s peaceful life, Jingjing felt very sorry that he could not see this day and enjoy her filial piety. She needed a space to vent her sadness and unpleasant feelings and her “diary” entries enabled that,
Myself feels more comfortable after writing it down. Human beings always depress their hearts, not comfortable. Sending it out is like having talked with someone.
98 “Children want to support but parents are dead” is the English translation of ‘ ’, which originates from the book Family Sayings of Confucius. In modern age, the sentence has been modified to ‘ ’ with the character ‘ ’ changed to the character ‘ ’. Here in fact, Jingjing Zhang wrote wrongly by using the sentence ‘ ’. She mixed ‘ ’ (yuyang) with ‘ ’(yangyu). However, I adopt the normal English translation of the correct Chinese sentence in the thesis to interpret Jingjing’s thoughts.
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In this way, WeChat Moments worked as a ‘public diary’ for Jingjing to express her personal thoughts and sentiments which she could not do through other channels. She also understood that too many negative emotions would only annoy others and did not expect interactions from her WeChat friends in terms of likes or comments,
Like, comment, is just between friends… a kind of… based on knowing and acquainting, so I give you a like. It’s also a natural phenomenon. It’s like you have this friend. Who truly understands, knows? Do you think he/she gets the idea?
Doesn’t matter, as long as myself understands… My own business! If it has to, has to have friends’ likes to make me comfortable, that would only be when I have made achievements. I am only writing down my states of mind. I write whenever I want. I don’t care if nobody gives a like. You can’t control that much. Your thoughts are different from the others’. Your inner world is definitely different from others’. Everybody has their own opinions.
Jingjing’s view was that gaining “likes” was limited to the online presence of friends. For her it didn’t mean that they truly understood her meanings because they (the “likers”) might interpret her words differently. Therefore, Jingjing also did not expect people to fully understand what she was saying in her “diary”. She only wanted an emotional outlet. While WeChat had recorded a sense of bitterness in Jingjing’s contemplation of her past, her family and her life, in the darkness of many nights, conversely, it could also record the everyday happiness and excitement, and even boredom which other participants experienced, as Chang Liu illuminated,
let friends share when you are in good mood. Also let them share when you are in a bad mood. When (you) don’t have a good state of mind, (you) can post on WeChat. When (you) have a good state, (you) can post on WeChat. Emotions are, no matter what, people could post in it when happy and unhappy. If don’t want to talk with others, post it in WeChat. Right? “I have a good mood, or not.” Post it, friends together, “hey, how do you
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feel?” Or in a bad mood, friends have a chat. In a good mood, (friends) also ask sometimes, “hey, what’s up.”
6.4.2 Positive Moments Going to a karaoke club to sing and dance was one of the most popular recreational activities shared by many of the rural women on WeChat and Jingjing was amongst them. Figures 6.22-6.24 are examples of the karaoke activities shared by Jingjing on Moments.
Figure 6.22 Photos of karaoke and dancing clubs Note. Pictures are showing bottles of beer, glasses of tea, packets of areca-nuts, colourful lights, dancing people and karaoke screen.
On her friend’s birthday she posted a photo of a karaoke club and wrote in the commentary area, “Happy birthday to friend” (see Figure 6.23).
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Figure 6.23 Jingjing’s WeChat post Note. Another participant Hui Li and I liked this post. Jingjing wrote in the comments, “Happy birthday to friend” ended with a “smile” emoticon.
Figure 6.24 Jingjing’s WeChat post Note. Jingjing commented, “Penghu Bay” and “Yes, very bustling”.
Although some of these photos were unfocused, they did demonstrate Jingjing’s efforts in capturing her happy times. From her comments in these posts, it can be seen that she was motivated to interact with others and expressed her excitement about taking part in these activities in several ways. Other daily activities trending on the Moments of the Hanpu Town women included outdoor square dancing
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(see Figure 6.25), and travel (see Figure 6.26), attending different feasts (see Figure 6.27) and gardening.
Figure 6.25 Posts about square dancing by the rural women
Figure 6.26 Posts about travel by the rural women
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Figure 6.27 Posts about attending feasts by the rural women
These online threads all reflected the happy moments in the rural women’s daily lives.
Take my mother Li Zhao as an example, who was also a participant in this study. 46 years old, a pure housewife, she spends her spare time gardening, watching dramas online, playing mobile games and browsing WeChat. She had planted pots of plum blossom, aloe, orchid, hydrangea and snakecactus and treated them very preciously. For example, she would move the flowers outdoors so that they could get more sunshine and move them back indoors when the weather was too hot. One morning she exclaimed, “wow, the snakecactus has blossomed! Yesterday they were just buds. Wow, come see these flowers, Yini. They are so beautiful.” My mom was thrilled to find the blooming flowers. After staring at them for a while, she turned around and spoke to me excitedly, “there are more flowers blossoming on the other side, you see. Let me turn around the pot and take photos of them.” She moved the pot of snakecactus from the windowsill to the floor very carefully and ran to her bedroom to get her phone. I was really surprised by her reaction and found myself spontaneously saying to her, “oh, mom, you are so excited!” She went back with her Samsung phone and told me she planted all these plants only for the moment of their blossom and started to take pictures. Then suddenly she acted like she had found some secrets and said to me, “the hydrangea on the roof terrace must have blossomed too!” Then she left me and went straight to the roof terrace to take more photos. After her ‘tour’ to the terrace, she returned and looked at her mobile phone attentively, swiping and pressing
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with a smile on her face. It turned out she was polishing and collaging the photos she just took on Meitu, a photo editing app.
Figure 6.28 Li Zhao’s WeChat posts Note. Left: The collage of photos of hydrangea, snakecactus and plum blossom. Right: The post in which my mother Li Zhao commented, “flower blossoming, competing with each other for beauty of looks, aromatic and charming”. Three other informants that were in her network liked this post. Lan Li commented, “will visit you some day and enjoy the flowers”. Li Zhao made a comment to all her friends, “Thanks friends for clicking likes!”
I knew she was going to post them on WeChat and I asked her if she felt happier after sharing them on WeChat. She smiled and walked away happily as if she was completely lost in her joy. Unexpectedly, I saw her updates of these blossoms on Moments a few minutes later. She shared two posts of these flowers. In the first one she used a collage of photos of hydrangea, snakecactus and plum blossom, and wrote “although small and ordinary, I can’t love them more because I planted them myself, haha”. In the second one, she uploaded the photos separately and used four-character
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Chinese idioms to describe the flowers, “flower blossoming, competing with each other for beauty of looks, aromatic and charming”. Soon these posts received likes and comments from her WeChat friends.
Li Zhao also recorded this moment of excitement in her research diary:
The consecutive rainy days have affected my mood, can’t sleep… Seeing my little flowers blossoming after getting up in the morning, my mood turns great! Although they are very small and ordinary, I can’t like them more as I grew them myself, haha! Growing flowers by myself until they blossom, I have especially a sense of achievement! Cultivating flowers is to cultivate mood. Sharing it to others is hoping they have a good mood!
Lan Li also wrote about her happy feelings in her research diary on the day when she posted pots of plants on Moments. Others like Jingjing Zhang, Xin Huang and Bind Dong also detailed their planting experiences on Moments. As Xin Huang explained, sharing the delightful moments in her daily life online was also a kind of emotional “vent”, but a “happy vent”. Perhaps more importantly, the women also considered that these pleasant and positive postings were also a way of “showing-off” aspects of their lives that they wanted other people to notice, as Xin Huang and Li Zhao both indicated:
I post it to show my recent status to the friends that I haven’t seen for a long time, tell them that I’m leading a good life. They also share like this. Honestly, this might be a show-off to them. (Xin Hunag)
I post it on my Moments. I want everybody see it. Sometimes, I just want to show off to everybody. I hope other people see and feel very happy as I do and “like” (me). After they see it, they reply to me. Then very happy. Others share with me, share happiness. (Li Zhao)
These “show-offs” could attract “likes” and “comments” and help the rural women to earn a sense of recognition and value from their social networks. They were also a visually dynamic presentation of their achievements and important for managing their everyday good impressions. WeChat had
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provided a convenient way for the Hanpu Town women to record their ordinary, simple activities. Through these diary-style postings they were able to express their everyday boredom, frustrations and enjoyments, carrying out these emotional and culturally specific exchanges, and constructing good impressions within a broader set of social WeChat contacts.
6.4.3 “Talk to Dispel Your Mind” Fang Liu pointed to a mahogany wooden chair and asked me to take a seat while she served her customer. She and her husband ran a small convenience store from their own house that sold snacks, drinks, stationery and some toys. The store is located 1.5 km from the centre of Hanpu Town but close to two local schools. Fang Liu always opened her store at six in the morning as students would drop in on their way to school. In the afternoon when the students finished school, Fang Liu’s store would have its busiest time with flocks of them buying snacks. Fang Liu left the room to make me a cup of tea, which is a ritual of hospitality. Having handed me the tea, she chose some snacks from her store, put them in a tray on a chair next to me and said, “make yourself at home.” Her voice was very soft, and she was always smiling. From her ways of behaving, I could see the very quality of a businesswoman in her, which had appealed to me since the first day we became friends on WeChat and QQ. After I’d friended her on WeChat and QQ, Fang Liu had sent me a “smile” emoticon on WeChat and a “shaking hands” emoticon on QQ with a sentence that read “happy cooperation”. Fang Liu was 43 years old and had two daughters. One was studying in college and the other was studying in middle school. She had high expectations for her younger daughter. She even friended her daughter’s teachers on WeChat trying to get information about her daughter’s performance in school and to maintain good relationships with the teachers. The earnings from the family’s convenient store were used to cover the educational costs for her two children, the family’s daily expenses and financial care for her elderly mother. Managing the convenience store obviously placed much pressure on Fang Liu and her husband. As discussed earlier, Fang Liu took advantage of her WeChat Moments to introduce her products and promote her business. However, business was not her only concern on social media. She also found a way to manage her stress as she articulated,
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When some unpleasantness happened in life, have a talk, talk to dispel your mind. Right? I think sometimes family, children, sometimes my husband and senior family members, they won’t go to understand you after all. Like our peers, we don’t have that boundary. We speak directly. Or they would talk to dispel your mind with their ideas. Your mood will get better… sometimes when myself has something, a little depressing. Spit, spit it out, I would be more comfortable. Sometimes when things are in trouble, and I don’t know how to solve them, (I) spit it out. Some friends then see you and chat with you. Then my mood gets open and clear, and broader, and my mentality gets better. That’s it. Like us now, we are middle aged people. Our stress is huge, right? There are old and young at home, children going to schools. Anyway… I think now is the most stressing time. Sometimes I also want to relax (Fang Liu suddenly raised her voice)! It does no harm if saying it out like this anyhow.
WeChat and QQ had enabled Fang Liu to get connected with a broader social network that was beyond her own family and acquaintances in the physical proximity. She could be handling business matters with her suppliers, greeting with her daughters’ teachers, as well as interacting with friends and old classmates who were thousands of miles away. The expansion of Fang Liu’s social network had also opened a channel for her to express herself and relieve anxiety, in particular in her peer group. She added:
Before when I had something in my mind, I didn’t feel good to talk with my family. Now speaking up unhappiness on the Internet, letting others know how I live my life, it seems like there is, there is a kind of… sustenance!
Before, Fang Liu often withheld her negative emotions as she thought her family could not understand her. If she had disclosed these matters to her family, it could only bring concern to them without solving the problem. Now social media connected her with people outside the family easily, when she felt tired, troubled or stressed, she communicated with friends on WeChat and Qzone. Fang Liu had three WeChat groups, one for business, one for interacting with friends, and the other for
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connecting with classmates. Even simply joining in a group chat, sending funny photos, messages and red packets could help her redirect her attention and adjust her emotions, as she explained,
Usually in groups, the person who has time would send photos and say something. Sometimes he/she has time and you happen to have time, you can have a chat and talk. Like what I said, sending red packets and having some fun with a bunch of people in it, (bad mood) is dispelled like this. Although sometimes we don’t meet with each other, we chat with each other like this…Sometimes when I’m alone, “oh, see who are online! Have a chat with them or share something to them.” Sometimes when I’m in a fret, I check groups, have a look at the materials sent by others, or send out the anger, discontent or upset in my mind, or share a picture.
Lan Li and Xue Wang had similar experiences. Lan Li, the rural woman that ran the electronical appliances store in Shizilu, clarified:
I seldomly show my unhappiness on QQ and WeChat so that to not concern my kinsfolks. I don’t want to increase their psychological burden. When unhappy, sometimes I would hide secretly.
Lan Li chose reticence to protect her family from worrying about her. But sometimes, she also talked with friends about her unpleasantness. Through chatting with her friends on WeChat, she received not only emotional comfort but also constructive advice, for example, when her son did not get an ideal result from the high school entrance exam. Lan Li indicated that she was very upset about her son’s exam performance and worried that the bad outcome might discourage him. So she went to chat with her old classmates. One of her classmates sent her a message on WeChat which cheered her up, it read, “you need to let your kid lay down his burden, rebuild his confidence. His future is inestimable!” Lan Li ensured she responded to her classmate’s advice,
absolutely right, that’s it. Since he had not done well, he would be very regretful in his heart that why he did it like that. His father delayed many things for looking for schools for him. My son was worried and regretful knowing his father begged others and sought
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for guanxi but hardly got an opportunity. This is the positive energy from friends. Therefore, I need to encourage my kid and rebuild his confidence.
She explained her feelings after communicating with her classmate,
my inner stress got released. Sometimes I think communication is very important. As long as these words are spoken, mood will get more pleasant. Smouldering it in your heart and never sharing it, you will get depression.
Lan Li had high expectations for her child just as Fang Liu did, like most Chinese parents. Without good marks, her son could not attend good schools. She was not prepared for this result so neither were the whole family. This incident had brought about a lot of pressure to her family. Expressing her concerns to her husband, or other members of her family could not solve the problem, but would only add to their burden. Therefore, she reached out to friends on WeChat who were also at her age and could share and empathise with her feelings.
Xue Wang, who was working as a physician in the public health centre of Zhizigang Village, was facing a different kind of stress every day, that is from dealing with patients and managing the business. The public health centre is mainly in charge of health information management, general practice and emergencies. Although it cannot compete with big hospitals, Xue Wang thought it was a dangerous job as it involved “hanging with lives all the time”. For better communication, Xue Wang and other physicians from different villages formed a WeChat group. Whenever Xue Wang encountered difficulties in treating patients and managing her business, she reached out to the group and talked with her colleagues,
Sometimes colleagues tell the problems they’ve encountered and communicate with each other. Everybody can remind ourselves, you remind me, I remind you, of safety. Sometimes when the business is not good, “oh, today’s business is really bad!” Then I have a bad mood. My colleagues would say, “that’s ok. As long as you don’t have malpractice, that is the best. Don’t rush.” Sometimes my mind clears out. “Yes, no
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accident equals making money. If you have malpractice, you have to compensate hundreds of thousands of yuan (Chinese dollars). You can’t make this much money from doing this job even for your whole life. It means you’ve waisted your job. You’d rather not have done it.” Like this, my mood gets improved.
The WeChat group therefore also became a place for problem solving and comfort for Xue Wang.
Chang Liu, however, aired her frustrations more explicitly on WeChat Moments by posting straightforward words, expressional emojis and affective images. She was a novice in utilising mobile technology despite that she had been using a mobile phone for several years, so WeChat was new to her as well. Her son had registered a WeChat account for her but most of the time she learnt how to use it by herself or went to neighbours for help, as her son was not always at home. Every day after working in the butchery in the morning, Chang Liu would log onto WeChat and look at what her relatives and friends had shared on Moments and read public articles. WeChat became a tool for leisure time, along with watching TV and square dancing, bringing novelty, information and enjoyment to Chang Liu. She even employed WeChat articles generated by official accounts for improving her literacy. By experimenting with the features and functions of WeChat, Chang Liu moreover, learnt to let out her emotions online. For example, one of her entries on Moments was “men,,,,what are men,??? Can rely on them? Don’t know, are there????” (see Figure 6.29).
Figure 6.29
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By using repetitive question marks, Chang Liu expressed strong anger. In this post, she accidently attached a photo of a car advertisement which was irrelevant to what she was wanting to get across. This was because she did not know how to post with plain text on Moments. In another example, Chang Liu complained about her fatigue by saying, “tired, tired, really tired, who can rescue….”. The attached photo in this post was very illustrative of her emotions, it featured a crying child and was captioned with the words “I am really tired”, “who can understand me” and “smile is just disguise” (see Figure 6.30).
Figure 6.30
Figure 6.31 shows various screenshots of similar posts that used emotive photos downloaded online to express Chang Liu’s frustration, tiredness and loneliness.
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Figure 6.31 Posts by Chang Liu Note. From left to right: a photo captioned “thousands of words, only want to say it’s so good to know you”, a photo captioned “Do you know my heart?”, a photo captioned “I’m tired”.
Noticeably, these photos and posts were updated by Chang Liu in very quick succession over just three minutes, representing her strong desire for catharsis. The photos she used had all been copied from posts shared by her other WeChat contacts beforehand, that Chang Liu had stored in her phone. Her individual choices and techniques were made possible because of the collective socio-cultural and technical functionality WeChat enabled.
Chang Liu talked about the effect of this kind of posting on Moments:
After posting it, I felt I was all right then. My mood got better. My husband went out to play mah-jong or cards, I was bored at home, “ah, annoying!” Having posted it in WeChat, I felt more comfortable completely. It’s like venting to someone.
Likewise, when she had a bad cold and had been bitten by a dog, Chang Liu went to Moments to complain and to seek comfort. Not only did she use a photo downloaded from elsewhere, she also applied emoticons and took photos of her immediate circumstances to show the actual problem she was experiencing. When she had a cold, she wrote on her Moments, “having a cold, unwell”, adding two crying emoticons and an illustrative photo that featured a landscape imagery captioned with sentences, “life is a river, one has to cross it no matter the water is deep or shallow” (see Figure 6.32 Left).
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Figure 6.32 Posts by Chang Liu Note. In the post on the left, Chang Liu wrote, “having a cold, unwell”. In the post on the right, she wrote, “the cold gets worse, have to take medicine, too bitter”.
These updates seemed to echo the physical pain Chang Liu was suffering from the flu. Six days later her updated status expressed, “the cold gets worse, have to take medicine, too bitter” and ended with a crying emoticon (see Figure 6.32 Right). In this status, she included a photo of the Chinese medicine she was taking, and in both posts, Chang Liu used crying emoticons to demonstrate how pitiful she was feeling. After she’d been bitten by a dog, she posted photos of the wound on WeChat. In this post, she wrote no words, but did share her location which showed she was at the Hunan Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (see Figure 6.33).
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Figure 6.33 The post showed Chang Liu bitten by a dog Note. In this post, I commented: What happened? Chang Liu replied: Bitten by a dog, ah, bad luck. I replied: Are you at Centre for Disease Control and Prevention? Hope you recover soon! Will be all right with vaccination.
It’s important to note that Chang Liu was not merely complaining, but she was communicating with her friends and relatives. She explained how,
Because I have many relatives and friends, I wanted to tell them I was in the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, which means I went to receive vaccination, so they should not worry… Also upset, oh, bad luck! It was like winning a lottery among 100 people. Sending it out was like talking to someone, which made me feel a bit better.
Through posting on Moments, Chang Liu received comfort and support from her family and her WeChat friends, which also contributed to her improved feelings of wellbeing. From the Hanpu Town women, Fang Liu, Xue Wang and Chang Liu’s experiences, it can be seen that social media has facilitated their communication with their families, relatives, neighbours, friends, colleagues and old classmates. However, it was mainly from peer relations outside of the family circle, including colleagues, friends and classmates, that these rural women sought alternative approaches to reveal their personal feelings, demonstrating their continuing need for privacy. Keeping distressful
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information from immediate family is not a new invention particular to the social media space for Chinese people. Emotion control is valued more than expressive behaviour in Chinese culture due to deep-rooted philosophical and cultural heritage (S. X. Chen, Cheung, Bond, & Leung, 2005). Ow and Katz (1999) argue that in the Chinese family ‘the closeness of relationships makes it essential to protect the group from potentially painful and divisive knowledge’ whereas ‘[d]isclosure to nonfamily sub-systems is carried out for pragmatic reasons’ (p. 627). Hanpu Town women’s heartfelt expressions to their peers via social media reflected exactly this viewpoint. Communicating online with social network acquaintances to dispel boredom, frustration and stress is indicative of what Pik- chu (2012) explains as privacy maintenance in the Chinese family context:
The existence of privacy inside the family does not mean that familial relationships are compromised, nor is it necessarily bad. For example, maintaining privacy could be an indication of alienation as well as a sign of intimacy (attaching importance to family). (p. 464)
This practice is extremely significant for it affirms the differential mode of association – relationships with family remain important while close relationships with friends, colleagues and classmates are also preserved.
6.4.4 “Like a Frog in a Well.” The frog depicted in the Chinese idiom “a frog in a well” is not a good model for learning. Being narrow minded and short-sighted, the frog is indulged in his stinky well and even brags about his living environment to the turtle of the Eastern Sea. Only after the turtle tells him how deep and extensive the sea is does he realise how shallow he is (Shanshan Yang, 2016). By initially comparing herself to this character, paradoxically, research participant Xin Huang demonstrated both the limitations of her social position and a new-found awareness of it, which the WeChat platform enabled. The difference between Xin Huang and the frog in the well was that the technology has the capacity to connect her to broader community networks and information, helping her to feel less
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isolated and potentially, socially cultivated. Xin Huang, 40 years old, was a typical rural housewife living in Zhizigang Village. Being a peasant and a mother of a child with a mental deficiency, Xin Huang had many home-based domestic tasks: cooking, cleaning and farming while her husband was working outside the village. Even though her father-in-law occasionally assisted, she was unlike those women who could leave home for days. Xin Huang thought her situation was very much like a “frog in a well” as she described, “People like us are already “frogs in a well”, seldom going out. If we want to entertain, we entertain close by.”
But with WeChat, Xin Huang thought she was enabled to communicate with people outside of the “well”, like old friends and classmates who were living in the city that were difficult to reach. WeChat also brought her closer to her relatives and best friends. Xin Huang described these networking connections using a “feet” metaphor to speak of the impact of WeChat in her daily life, “WeChat can be considered as my two feet, replacing my steps, bringing me closer to my friends, girlfriends and relatives.”
WeChat also provided a channel for Xin Huang to see the outside of the “world”:
In this (WeChat), (I) can learn a lot of things. Sometimes, like classmates, posting photos of them going out, and…something reposted, knowledge I have learnt (from this), quite helps! It is usually difficult to see these, if it is not through WeChat, I rarely get in touch with these things.
Xin Huang had been using WeChat for nearly two years. From reading what was shared amongst her WeChat networks, she saw things happening in the outer world, things that she had no chance to experience, like attending festivals, travelling in other parts of China or working in the city. Reading posts on WeChat’s Moments and reading articles published by WeChat official accounts became her main online activity. Xin Huang thought from comprehending articles which talked about women, marriage, friendship and life, that she also learnt how to take care of herself and how to conduct herself in different relationships.
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Sometimes in it, (I) learn many things, like relationship between husband and wife, how to get along, like how to be sincere to friends. (I’ve) learnt quite a lot in it. (They) tell you to tolerate when you need to tolerate. From within, (I) can see other men are… can objectively see how men live and their personalities, can compare with the man at home, sometimes take a change.
For example, Xin Huang shared an article generated from the public account “Learn to be Smart Women” called “‘If I marry you, you’ll be the president!’ There is a kind of woman who is happy no matter whom she marries!”. The article started with a story about former US President Barak Obama’s wife Michelle (see Figure 6.34) but continued with an extended story about how a happy and confident woman can maintain a happy marital relationship through cultivating a strong sense of self.
Figure 6.34 Note. Translation of the texts: Obama’s wife went to buy flowers. The owner of the store said, “you are so lucky, you are married to a president!” She smiled and said, “if I marry you, you’ll be the president!” What a confidence it is! I become happy not because I am married to whom, but because of who I am, I will be happy no matter whom I get married to!
This article shared tips for encouraging women to regard their actions and reactions including “learn to create happiness for yourself”, “attract others with charisma of yourself”, “learn to understand and
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make allowance”, “learn to forget some unhappy things”, “learn to give up entangling in trifles”, “learn to tolerate and cool down”, and “learn to ignore superficial uneasiness”. Similarly, other articles Xin Huang shared such as “What disappoints women?” and “Meet with you sooner or later, it is good as long as you are sincere” urged men to be earnest and for both sides in a relationship to cherish, forgive, respect and tolerate. It was from articles such as these that Xin Huang learnt skills that she thought would be beneficial and valuable to her own marriage. She spoke of taking on these suggestions and saw achievements in her relationship with her husband. Min Wang also shared Xin Huang’s ideas and spoke of applying them to her own marriage:
Just to say, the phenomenon talked in these (articles) indeed exists in life. Just to say, in the future, you have this kind of idea, when you come across the same problem, you then consider it to some extent, to avoid it as much as possible.
Public articles about nourishing of life that provided methods of keeping healthy and improving well- being, along with information that introduced practical life skills caught much attention from the rural women. And as Xin Huang recalled, this know-how exerted some transformative effects on her.
I think I am not doing badly in taking good care of myself. Before when I did not read WeChat, I did not think in this way. Oh, (I) think it (the article) makes a point! I value myself more. That is not to, like working, not to tire out myself. What I want to eat and is good for myself or so, will change gradually. Before I used WeChat? I did not value myself like this. If I had my period before, I never paid much attention when I was working. Now I attend to my body a little more. Valuing self, now it is valuing myself through WeChat.
From reading WeChat articles, participant Xin Huang learnt to regard and appreciate herself by eating healthily, pursuing beauty and keeping fit. In this regard, while the articles she engaged with contained powerful general messages, they also acted like instructions for her to improve the quality of her everyday life.
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6.4.4.1 Major types of content rural women shared online Technological affordances can play a significant role in shaping social media user experience (Sundar & Limperos, 2013). WeChat provides the powerful Official Accounts Platform (gongzhong pingtai ) for official accounts operators to access multifarious affordances, to create and edit content, propagate information and manage relationships with audiences99. The platform allows operators to create multimedia formatted and interactive content (Y. Zhang, 2015) embedding graphics, music and videos into the content, making official account articles more attractive. Through the Push function, a maximum of eight links to articles can be notified to subscribers as a single message (shown either in the chat box or in WeChat’s Subscription centre) which can then be shared on Moments. These public links phenomenally constituted one of the main activities the rural women participated in on WeChat, that is, reading and sharing, apart from general chatting and status updates. The majority of what the women shared on WeChat were links to articles generated by WeChat official accounts, (more than four times the number of original posts the women wrote)100. 789 links to articles shared on their WeChat Moments were recorded and categorised. In total twenty themes were identified across the content the women chose to link, these included: life philosophy; fake information; nourishing of life; women; useful tips; public affairs; folk culture; gender relations,
99 See the introduction of WeChat Official Accounts Platform from its official website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/?lang=en_US 100 Analysis of rural women’s reading patterns was deployed throughout online participant observation and was verified in online conversations and follow-on in-depth interviews. These online links of articles shared by Chinese rural women were captured using screenshots and NCapture in NVivo and analysed thematically.
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social relationships, wishes, jokes, sexual information, anecdotes, security alerts, songs, rural culture, anti-Japanese speech, commercials, business, and “other” 101 (see Table 6.2).
Table 6.2 The Scope of Different Categories and the Numbers of Shared Links from Official Accounts by Hanpu Town Women102
Category Number Scope
Links that talked about general (by saying general is to differentiate this theme from more specific topics about life like women, gender relations and social relationship) reflections on life such as attitude towards life like tolerance and contentment, Life philosophy 209 expressions of sentimental feelings in life, and thoughts of conducting oneself including traditional values like finial piety. E.g., “Please remember ten words when conducting yourself”, “Eight golden sentences in life” and “Your heart is happy, you are happy”.
Links that disseminated outdated news, exaggerated facts and Fake information 76 fabricated information. E.g. “The US officially announces
genetically modified food is poisonous”.
Links that introduced how to maintain good health. E.g., “Ten Nourishing of life 69 healthy food for women.”
101 These links were coded into twenty memes with some overlap between them. For example, links coded in the category “nourishing of life”, “public affairs” and “security alert” could be coded in the category “fake information”. The category of “other” has not been listed in the itemised Table because the content had little significance to the study. 102 I ended the collection of these public links in late July when the categories reached saturation and no more new categories appeared from the participants’ social feeds. The numbers here are not intended to rigorously quantify the elder rural participants’ reading and sharing behaviour, but to reflect the phenomenal patterns formed among them.
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Articles that reflected women’s social roles- wife, mother, daughter and housewife and discussed standards to be a woman Women 70 or qualities a woman should have such as independence and cultivation. E.g., “Women’s right lifestyle”, “The ridge of family is man, the soul of family is woman.”
Links that introduced instructions such as traditional Chinese Useful tips 58 prescriptions and other useful tips that could be used in daily life. E.g., “What to do if clothes are not dry in cloudy days?”
Articles concerned about public affairs and social issues in China Public affairs 62 such as food safety, inequality and corruption. E.g., “Watermelon injection affair unfolded finally, the truth is…”
Links that advocated superstition such as reposting to gain good Folk culture 51 luck and fortune. E.g. “2015 folk prophecy, accurate to terror!!!”.
Articles that talked about the relationship between women and Gender relation 47 men, and wives and husbands as to love as well as marriage. E.g., “Love, marriage and happiness.”
Articles that talked about the reality of guanxi (social relationship) Social relationship 45 in Chinese society especially the relationship between friends. E.g., “What is friend? Write too well!”.
Links that sent wishes to people. E.g., “Wish you happy lantern Wishes 41 festival.”
Links about jokes including mockeries. E.g., “Don’t laugh after Jokes 40 reading, group posting, let everybody relax”.
Articles that contained sexual information such as nude photos, Sexual information 30 sexual connotations and sex products. E.g., “Girl fucks with dog every day, got pregnant, born this…”
Links about unusual stories. E.g., “He was jailed in 71, had Anecdotes 30 fortune of over one hundred million in 85, too shocking!”
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Links that sent alert information. E.g., “New type of drugs! must Security alerts 22 watch out, must share it when you read it!”
Songs 15 Links of songs shared from third party music applications.
Links that talked about rural people and rural life. E.g., “Rural Rural culture 14 people satirise urban people, classic!”
Links that disseminated anti-Japanese speech. E.g., “Japan is Anti-Japanese speech 12 screwed this time. The US is insidious enough, Chinese all share it! ”
Links of promotion of commercial products. E.g., “Various gift Commercials 11 sets for you to pick. No need to worry about sending gifts”.
Articles that talked about managing business. E.g., “Don’t wait Business 4 until market is well-developed, because there will be no opportunity for you!”
Overall, Confucian ideals of how to maintain good relationships with others, and how to exercise and exhibit filial piety were among the most popular choices. For example, the article Bin Dong shared titled “Three and seven portions of life, classic!” (see Figure 6.35) additionally provided some views on life and advice on conducting oneself.
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Figure 6.35 NCapture of the article shared by Bin Dong
In Bo Liao’s opinion, this kind of article reminded her of how to be filial to her parents:
After I read this kind of article, I may go… or, emm… if parents have some shortcomings, go to forgive them. Or, don’t find fault with them no matter what. Anyhow everybody has this kind of shortcomings or that kind of shortcomings, people are all like this. Having a read, I think it beneficial.
The article was embedded in a coded URL link containing gentle instrumental music and the hyperlink also displayed artistic-style photographs. In the written content it listed principles like “act three portions for yourself, seven portions for others”, “treat friends with three portions of seriousness, seven portions of tolerance”, and “treat family with three portions of love, seven portions of responsibility”. Thinking of others, tolerance, and being accountable for family members are Confucian norms that are regularly promoted in Chinese society and accepted as customs, to instruct and guide people as to how to act properly (Yini Wang & Balnaves, 2017).
Chinese people also highly value their relationships with friends. As Xiaotong Fei’s (2012) “differential mode of association” indicates, prioritising friends comes only after family in the elastic circles of guanxi. Yet the cultivation of contacts and connections amongst friends is essential as they
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are a very important type of social capital (King, 1991), especially (but not exclusively) for rural people who are both geographically and socially marginalised. It becomes key for them to behave and act properly interpersonally so as to also maintain good, strong friendships. Articles reflecting this philosophy also frequently trended on the rural women’s WeChat Moments and Qin Li talked about what she had learnt from them:
Having a look on those articles, (I) feel people should be easy-going. Don’t divide with them because of minor contradictions. Having read them, myself would reflect on myself sometimes. (I) think friends of other people, sometimes myself too, sometimes (have) trifles with friends, or some minor conflicts. After reading those articles, spontaneously, these small conflicts would be resolved. (I) would not be too particular about it sometimes.
Coincidently, Qin Li’s personal thoughts were also manifest in an article “People who have helped me up, I will never forget!” (see Figure 6.36) which was shared by Juan Liu.
Figure 6.36 Screenshot of the article shared by Juan Liu103
103 This article was captured by NVivo NCapture and some missing text on the right margin was the result of technical problems with NCapture.
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This article pointed out the exact phenomenon Qin Li had experienced with her friends – friendship affected badly because of minor conflicts. The content advised people to be tolerant and generous, and to have an open mind so as to earn trust from friends, enhance friendships and gain more advantages in interpersonal relationships.
Apart from these subjective reactions to societal principles and values concerned with marriage, family and friends, articles containing more objective information and functional instructions were also circulated across the WeChat platform. Many of the rural women adopted these tips and experimented with them in their real lives. Articles about nourishing of life that provided methods of keeping healthy and improving well-being, along with information that introduced practical life skills, caught much attention from them and were distributed frequently on their WeChat Moments. For example, Qin Li had read material that taught people how to distinguish good sanitary pads and bras from bad ones, and links shared by Hua Chen introduced advice about what foods were good for blood lipid, for losing weight, for the skin, liver and brain. Hua Chen subscribed to quite a few public accounts in this respect, such as “Know-how” (qiaomen ), “Secrets of Health” (jiankang miji ), “Functional Mini Encyclopaedia” (shiyong xiaobaike ), and “Happy Life” (xingfu rensheng ). For her, this type of information had brought “educational significance to life” that not only benefited her, but people like her.
From their everyday engagement with WeChat, rural Chinese women like Hua Chen learnt how to make life easier and healthier, through simple techniques such as washing grapes quickly and cleanly with flour, and drinking lemon water to keep fit. They also empathised with articles advising that women should put their health in first place. After decades of hard work and with improvements in living standards enabling them to read and share on WeChat, this cohort in their 40s and 50s gained valuable knowledge, advanced themselves and sought healthier and higher-quality lives. Societal principles and values concerned with marriage, family and friends circulated on WeChat, and articles containing more objective information and functional instructions were therefore constructed as
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valuable resources for rural Chinese women, that were once in shortage during the course of their daily lives.
6.4.5 Reading into Being When asked to speak of her thoughts about her shared articles on Moments, Hui Li took out her mobile phone and started searching. She scrolled the screen and presented her favourite article for viewing:
This is the article that I love reading most.
(Music started playing featuring the emotional song “Red Bean” by a famous Chinese female singer Faye Wong with lyrics “sometimes, sometimes, I would believe everything has an end…”)
With every swipe, it will show a line of words. Sometimes I am really really like what’s written inside this! Feeling like (it’s) the same with me!
The content shared by Hui Li was titled “Sometimes, I really want”. It was in HTML format and consisted of thirteen pages. Every page was embedded with an artistic background image and the music soundtrack flowed in rhythm with the page view (see Figure 6.37).
Figure 6.37
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Some of the featured lines of text in the original link were:
Sometimes, I really want to get drunk, because of too much helplessness.
Sometimes, just want a good cry, because of inner grievance.
Sometimes, just want to be mad, because of down in spirits.
Sometimes, just want to let off, because of unpleasant moods.
Sometimes, just want to be quiet, because (I am) really very tried.
Sometimes, have bad mood without reason, don’t want to talk to anyone.
Just want to stare blankly alone. Sometimes, get in a sudden fret, feeling quite suffocated, trying desperately to find a way out.
Sometimes, suddenly want to run away from present life, want to risk everything packing up my luggage for travel.
Sometimes, want to hide quietly, don’t want others to see my wounds.
Sometimes, suddenly want to cry, but I am too sad to cry.
Sometimes, I have many dreams but I am unable to do as I wish so that I lose myself.
Sometimes, hearing an old song, then suddenly think of, desire for others’ solicitude, desire for a simple happiness.
Sometimes, (I am) obviously very tired but I can’t do anything to stop my steps.
When asked if she felt lonely, bored, tired and upset as depicted in this article’s textual content. Hui Li responded:
Yes. People… Maybe not just me, most people would have too much helplessness. Sometimes when tired I want to have some drinks and get drunk. I am thinking like that in my mind, but I won’t drink.
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Hui Li sighed deeply after giving her answer and tears shimmered in her eyes. For this woman the article seemed to parallel and empathise with, her fragile affections and real-life situations, expressing her desires (and more generally other women’s) for love and care from an intimate partner and family members. Another participant Min Wang responded along similar lines as she offered her thoughts on some of WeChat’s public articles which appealed to her for similar reasons:
Because many times those articles are written, I think, sometimes suited to my state of mind very much! I really feel that, my thoughts at that moment, what I wanted to say was, “it quite makes sense. It is indeed like this.” I very much agree with what is said. Sometimes it is indeed like that. When you are upset, it says in a way that can get to the bottom of your heart. It speaks out all that you want to say.
The same content shared by Hui Li was also shared by Fang Liu and Juan Liu but with a different title and a different layout. Similar articles trending on the rural women’s Moments were either narrated in first person or in second person, bringing a sense of intimacy to the audiences. For example, the articles titled “To those who don’t cherish me, every sentence hurts to suffocate”, and “When you are tired, whom would you think of?”. Moreover, they empathised with rural women’s thinking and touched on their lived realities.
Examining the content of the shared articles about women and understanding these rural women’s perceptions, uncovered more factors playing out in their reading and sharing practices on WeChat. The 70 articles talking about women also contoured women’s real-life situations and roles, in a marriage, in the family, as well as at work. For example, “Women’s story, just published yesterday… men cannot stand after reading it!!!” shared by Fang Liu (see Figure 6.38), told of the hardship of being a woman.
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Figure 6.38
It began with a few short sentences that reflected every aspect of a Chinese female’s expected social function, “women are living a quite hard life: heart belongs to parents, body belongs to husband, time belongs to children, only wrinkles belong to themselves”. Aligned with this content were images showing scenes of women with parents, with their husband, of pregnancy. This article quickly reminded rural women of their priority roles as a daughter, a wife and a mother. The written content also communicated the challenges faced by Chinese women, such as the contradiction of whether to have a baby and the contradiction between being a good housewife and a career woman. In the end, the article appealed to women to love themselves.
Similarly, an article shared by Bin Dong called “what exactly does marriage give to women” shared a like-minded view. Telling that women have to bear the risk of being less fit after having babies, that they would lose their youthfulness, have to accept being called somebody’s wife and have to undertake the stresses of cooking, and looking after children as well as working, this article showed much sympathy towards rural women’s multiple social roles and the hardships they experienced.
Emotional expressions were also prominent in articles which talked about gender relations, in
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particular, spousal relationships. On a single day in May 2015 Min Wang shared three posts about spousal relationships (see Figure 6.39). The first one called “Nobody lives very easily” talked through stories about the normality in a marriage and the difficulty for women to maintain good relationships with their husbands because affairs, divorce and disease could all happen to a happy couple. In this post, Min Wang left her comment, “these are the microcosm of reality, but they reflex much helplessness of life…” The second post shared, “If you have compelled your women to be strong, you are defeated!” described how sad a woman feels when her husband offers no help when she is in need, and how women in similar situations could get strong enough to need no more help from their husbands. Min Wang commented, “It quite makes sense. I agree very much.” The third post “Don’t quarrel, we actually turn old in an eyewink…” reminded people to cherish the people they love and Min Wang communicated her empathy by adding the comment “Indeed!”.
Figure 6.39 The continuous articles shared by Min Wang
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Min Wang referred more to her thoughts:
Sometimes, we are often entangled in some negligible problems in real life, hardly realise that the more we are entangled, the more we drive in blind alley and the more difficult to unlock our heart knots, which unconsciously increases endless trouble to us. When reading these articles on WeChat by chance, I feel like they have seen through the reality thoroughly and analysed it in a reasonable manner. After reading, I feel at ease with many things, really have a kind of feeling of being suddenly enlightened! It is because I always enjoy this kind of feeling and hope to touch more people that I don’t mind moving my fingertips more often!
This continuous sharing and commenting showed how deeply the content about a spousal relationship touched Min Wang and reflected her reality so much so that she wanted others could also benefit from reading it. These kinds of articles uncovered Chinese women’s fragile affections and real-life situations. They empathised with women’s frustrations towards their roles and associated social responsibilities as a wife, a mother and a daughter. Those articles appealing for men to love and nurture their women expressed rural women’s aspirations for love and care from their husbands and family. Living in a patriarchal society, Chinese women’s roles are always demeaned and restrained by traditional gender norms (Leung, 2003). Their emotion therefore is also devalued. It is also an intangible norm in hierarchical familial relationships that women should keep their negative feelings about marriage and family from the public, as these kinds of emotions are regarded as family secrets (Pik-chu, 2012), which, if disclosed, could damage their face and bring shame to the family (H. Wang, 2011). Reading and sharing WeChat articles opened up a collective channel, an outlet for implicit feelings towards their own social roles, which rural women routinely suppressed, to be communicated. It also explained why Chang Liu resorted to strangers on WeChat to vent her annoyances and why some women also chose to talk with their peers in WeChat groups.
Some articles empathised with rural women through advocating modern values such as autonomy and independence in a more straightforward way. An article titled “Things that women should insist”
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listed nine things that women should do for themselves. It was displayed in a HTML format and every point was recorded in a separate page with an appealing image and background music. The nine points included:
Don’t be anxious and impatient; marriage is not the whole life; never attach to him; can be not enough beautiful but have to be characteristic; be elegant in the drawing room and skilful in the kitchen; be independent but not self-righteous; learn to love yourself; cultivate hobbies that are good for your physical and mental health; stay young mentally and lead a perfect life.
Except for the traditional proverb “be elegant in the drawing room and skilful in the kitchen” (shang de chufang, xia de tingtang )104, the remaining eight tips swayed towards motivating women to embrace modern attitudes such as independence from their husband and personal pursuits of beauty and health. These contemporary values set up a striking contrast to the realities faced by rural Chinese women and depicted a perspective that is vastly different from traditional views of women’s roles of being a good housewife, always thinking for the family but neglecting themselves, and restraining their behaviours in accordance with customary social values. These guidelines represented what was on the rural women’s minds; a desire for more autonomy in marital relationships, and self-development. Without doubt, sharing them on WeChat brought them emotional sustenance, especially given the different realities they were confronted with in their offline lives.
Another reality the women regularly confront is guanxi, Chinese social relationships. According to Fei (2012), an individual’s guanxi is layered according to its proximity to the centre of the self. In relationship with parents, brothers, relatives, friends, colleagues and superiors, there are different ethical guidelines and social norms for individuals to follow. This constructs guanxi as a a huge and
104 A Chinese proverb of gender stereotype connoting what a perfect Chinese woman should be like, that is, being a good housewife in the family and being sophisticated in social experiences outside of the family (Xiao, 2006).
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complex web. The ubiquity of guanxi in modern China has its deep roots in Confucianism (Fei, 2012; King, 1991; Ruan, 2017). The reason that Chinese people are so sophisticated in and obsessive with guanxi is not only that guanxi brings about social and economic benefits for individuals, families, groups, as well as corporations (N. Lin, 2001; Y. Luo, 2000), but also that it ties in closely with Confucian and Taoist cultural traditions (Ruan, 2017). Practicing guanxi becomes very intricate as guanxi is interplayed with cultural concepts such as mianzi (face), renqing (favour), ganqing (affection) and yiqi (loyalty and righteousness) (Ruan, 2017) and it is also subject to specific contexts (Y. H. Wong & Tam, 2000)105.
Rural Chinese women are practitioners of guanxi, yet in reality, managing guanxi can be exhausting and pure friendship is hardly achievable. The WeChat articles shared by the women in this study interpreted guanxi and renqing in ways they could relate to, which is why these particular women favoured them.
For instance, some articles about friendship conveyed an attitude that people should spare less energy in guanxi maintenance, and focus on enhancing relationships with a few very good friends. For example, articles named “Lightly make real friends and slowly maintain the relationship with them”, “What is normal friend, what is true friend!”, and “It’s really good to meet a friend like this!” told readers what an authentic friendship was and how to make solid friendships, which is different from superficial guanxi maintenance. One article argued, “People living in the world, their circles don’t need to be too big. It’s good enough to contain themselves and some of the people”. On the other hand, it also delineated a vision of having good friends who “comfort and help you when you are poor”, who “accompany and encourage you when you are in down spirits”, who “are willing to be your stepping-stone and bring you out of mud and mist” and who “remind you and supervise you to help you always find your shortcomings”. Through reading and sharing articles about guanxi and
105 The mechanism of guanxi has even become a subject taught in universities and researched by scholars, facilitating the formation of guanxixue, ‘the art of social relationships’ (M. M. Yang, 1994).
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friends, the rural women alluded to their experiences of loneliness again, implied the tiredness that guanxi maintenance imposes, and communicated their longing for care from true good friends. Perhaps, their discontent with their guanxi realities also reflected their disadvantaged social status. Being less- educated, economically and socially less developed than urbanites and youngsters, rural Chinese women’s opportunities for social mobility are slim. The elasticity of their circles of guanxi is therefore very limited and their social media use demonstrates that they are acutely aware that they do not have the same potential guanxi web as urbanites and young people.
6.5 Conclusion This chapter has delineated a detailed picture of how rural Chinese women from Hanpu Town presented themselves through social media interactions. It firstly uncovered that these rural women’s online participations were restricted by multiple factors including age, education, gender, and the unequal hukou ( ) status that demarcated them unequally from urban Chinese people. Yet they developed their own ways of engaging with the new communication technologies. It was illustrated that the female townsfolk not only maintained relationships online with pre-existing social contacts such as family members, friends, neighbours and colleagues in their proximity, and distant old classmates, but they also explored new sociality with strangers by virtue of the rich affordances enabled by the social media platforms. It was argued that through their online interactions with these various social networks, rural women were able to manage their private emotions, either negative or positive. They tended to disclose concerning matters to their peers and strangers, for the purposes of barricading unnecessary worries from their families and managing their everyday impressions amongst acquaintance networks, reflecting Confucian graded love across different social relationships. In addition, WeChat provided them with a platform to record diary-like intimate thoughts and pleasant moments happening in their daily lives by posting, enabling them to release frustrations related to their social identities as a woman, a daughter, a mother and a housewife. Also, through their reading and sharing practices (especially of official account information), the women embodied a strong momentum for learning, cultivated themselves through circulating transformative
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values like autonomy and self-regard, and encompassed Confucian philosophies such as tolerance, filial piety and guanxi ( ). What’s also prominent in the findings of this chapter is that some of the small business owners employed social media for promoting their offline business, constructing a business identity against the backdrop of the weishang ( ) phenomenon and China’s thriving Internet economy. Their online business activities reflected their different levels of apprehension about the digital technology and their pursuits for self-advancement. Based on these findings, this chapter has demonstrated how rural Chinese women have constructed an identity that is capable of pursuing self-interest while conforming with traditional Chinese socio-cultural norms, an identity performed through social media interactions which is culturally legitimate, socially more sophisticated, and economically competent. The next chapter, from a comparative perspective, explains how the online practices of this cohort of elder rural Chinese women are distinguished from and/or correlate with those of the Chinese young people.
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7 COMPARATIVE USES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
7.1 Sharing ‘News’ and the WeChat Economy: Everyday Culture, Sensationalism, and Circulating Information Users Think is in the Public Interest As discussed in Chapter five positive energy observed in Chinese youth’s online communities is also a form of self-presentation and reflects the ingrained Confucian culture-benevolence and reciprocity in Chinese society. Chapter six also demonstrates that this ethos can be enacted for relationship maintenance and identity construction for rural women as well. Bin Dong, Hua Chen, Hui Li, Jianhua Wang, Min Wang and Chang Liu’s reading and sharing practices on WeChat manifest this point as these women used the platform regularly to interact with and generously inform family, relatives, friends, neighbours and sometimes even strangers. Digital content incorporating multimedia elements and visually appealing features attracted them by combining multisensory effects with explanatory resources. In particular, the public articles they chose to circulate were “good-looking”, pleasurable, worthwhile, constructive and inviting to read, and sharing them on a daily basis entertained and assisted the women, together with their social contacts. Even when they questioned the accuracy of certain content or public messages, the aim of alerting others by providing their information “service” through WeChat conquered their ambivalence.
7.1.1 Choosing to Share “Something Good-Looking and Positive Energy” (Jianhua Wang i/v, 2015)
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Jianhua Wang thought what she shared on Moments was attractive and affirmative. Generally, Jianhua’s WeChat activities showed that she shared some visually appealing articles which broadcasted music, displayed colourful flowers, featured funny jokes, offered sincere festival wishes, and provided social life skills, all of which communicated pleasing imagery and a positive outlook. However, other posts uploaded to her Moments were less favourable and were actually incongruent with her earlier comments, particularly in regard to her claims about pornographic material, “I don’t look at it anyway. I won’t look at it even if I am asked to click”. This is because some of Jianhua’s updates and uploads blatantly re-appropriated negatively-charged and sexually-loaded information (see Figure 7.1).
Figure 7.1 Jianhua Wang’s posts Note. The first headline read, “Shock from the female driver after being raped (9000,000 viral reposts)” and the second headline read, “In a nightclub in Beijing, a rich second generation and an official second generation in front of many mistresses unexpectedly…”
For example, the thumbnail imagery and specific language featuring sexual content in the two headlines connoted a sex crime and adulterous scandal. Another link to a video gratuitously titled “Girl fucks with her dog every day, got pregnant, born this…” when combined with a thumbnail
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image of a woman hugging a dog, created a misleading and vulgar conception that a girl had sexual intercourse with her pet canine. The actual video footage was not of a sexual nature, yet hyperlinks embedded in it were pornographically named. During a second-round interview Jianhua asserted she had not closely read any of the provocative (potentially) sexually explicit links. Even so, while claiming ignorance about these layered encodings, she’d inadvertently or otherwise, recirculated them. Jianhua also acknowledged that she had seen other people sharing sexual information on WeChat, so one point was clear – that sensational and scandal-making headlines were trending in the rural women’s online community.
Like Jianhua, Min Wang too considered that what she shared on WeChat was mostly “positive energy” and “beneficial to others”. Yet, amongst the life philosophy, women, nourishing of life, public affairs, and security alert-themed content she disseminated, was also misrepresentative or embellished information. For instance, an article intended to advise people to not drive in between two big trucks for safety reasons was given a title “How many girls are buried alive in a wink, too scary! Brutal, brutal, reading it is saving a life!”. Although the actual content the link connected to was not fake, the graphic title used a thumbnail image showing a busy scene and exaggerated the severity of traffic accidents, visually misleading novice WeChat readers like Min Wang to click through. When Min Wang read through the safety advice the link navigated to and found it less sensational than the visual imagery suggested, she still continued to share it so that others in her network could experience this piece of “useful” information. And indeed, another participant Bo Liao, who was also one of Min Wang’s contacts noticed it and shared the same link shortly thereafter.
A different article shared by Min Wang, “The dirtiest fish in the world! One bite contains 3000 cancer cells!”, functioned as a food safety alert. By relating eating the fish to developing cancer, the title was provocative, demonstrated scare-mongering and generated fear. The written narration was formatted as a news piece and conveyed that the Hainan Fishery Department was investigating the dirty living environments of the catfish in Haikou city. Photos embedded in the article showed the catfish’s filthy habitat and were watermarked with official media logos “Xinhua Net” and “Hainan News” (see Figure 7.2).
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Figure 7.2 Note. Watermarks “Xinhua Net” and “Hainan News” are attached on the right corner of these images.
However, this “news” article was proven to be fake by the independent science media Guokr.com106. By using a sensational headline, this public link aroused panic and click-baited (Blom & Hansen, 2015) Min Wang (and others), as directives about food safety and health warnings were topics she was already apprehensive about in her everyday life, “Food safety, I think no matter who, all pay much attention. Because it concerns us, very close to our lives. (It’s) an issue we have to face every day.”
Interestingly, the misappropriation of official materials and unreferenced statistics actually had the effect of enhancing her trust in the veracity of the publicised information when she was in doubt, “Sometimes I have questions in my mind, but, sometimes there are images, which depict it in such detail! I then trust this matter.”
106 The counter-rumour community on Guokr.com clarified in 2017 that the message about ‘catfish is the dirtiest fish in the world’ was fake. See: https://www.Guokr.com/post/790850/focus/0753198149/
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In general, if Min Wang had suspicions or doubts about the credibility of information the most she would do would be to try and clarify with the WeChat user who had passed it on. If that person could not verify the quality of the information, Min Wang would make her own decision based on her knowledge and experiences, and of course her values in regard to recirculating on WeChat, to spread positive energy, assist others, according to her self-described standards for sharing:
(I share) aspects that are useful, beneficial to friends. I don’t share some contents. It’s up to myself at that moment. If I think it’s helpful to others, or it can… like what I said just now, it is very close to life, very reasonable, I’ll share it like this.
In the case of sharing knowledge about food risks, Min Wang intended to remind her WeChat friends to not eat catfish. Taking a solely transmission view of the original links read and sent on by Jianhua Wang and Min Wang, what could be assumed is that they were typically passive, rural female online readers fooled by sensationalised public articles. But, from getting close to them and understanding their nuanced receptions and perceptions, it could be seen that this cohort were not at all passive or easily deceived. They had their own judgement principles despite being unscientific due to their limited education and literacies.
Participant Chang Liu’s words “Weixin Weixin weiweixin” could best epitomise the types of interpretive decodings the women made of particular WeChat articles. “Weixin” is the Chinese name of WeChat, composed by the word “wei” ( ), meaning “micro” and the word “xin” ( ), meaning “message”, which highlights the technological function of WeChat as an instant messaging application. However, the Chinese word “xin” can also denote “trust” or “believe”. Here it was the latter meaning that Chang Liu meant, so that in her view “Weixin Weixin weiweixin” translated to “WeChat WeChat micro-trust” in English. Chang Liu actually insinuated that information circulated on WeChat could not be fully relied upon. She explained:
I sense it’s not that true, those food. Some posted things like dead chicken and ducks. But I think they are not that much true. If it’s indeed like that, the (government) needs to (do
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something) … They say this, Weixin Weixin weiweixin, like half true half fake. It’s bored people looking for entertainment.
Consequently, Chang Liu disclosed that she did not fully believe every linked article simply because it came from an official account. In terms of content she suspected, she also sought verification from whomever had shared it with her, but no more follow-up searching would occur beyond that. In the end, she made value judgements based on her own knowledge. For example, although she had doubts about a WeChat article that provided tips for relieving peri-arthritis of the shoulder, she chose to experiment with the recommendations. She adopted one tip that instructed her to use a hair dryer to blow the back of her head whenever she felt pain in her shoulder. Chang Liu claimed relief after doing that and formed the opinion that although the remedy was on a micro-trust level, it would not cost anything to share it, so others could make their own decisions about its usefulness. More importantly, Chang Liu also considered these specific kinds of uploads were beneficial to her friends:
In this friends circle, people don’t know this, so I share it to friends. (We) enjoy together… for example some food is edible, some is not. Some food is good for women. Especially for some of my friends who are fat, I would tell them when I see something about losing weight. But I don’t know if they are true or not.
She explained what expectations she had after sharing these public articles, “Hoping to see others click “like” and (for them to) feel well enough.”
Chang Liu expected recognition from her networks of the content she redistributed on WeChat. Articles about health and keeping fit would be very functional and helpful to her friends (even if the content’s accuracy was questionable), and subsequently communicate a good impression of herself in front of her friends. Significantly, sharing WeChat public articles therefore became a way of positive self-identity presentation for many of the rural Chinese women.
Digital affordances facilitate the creation of sensationalism on WeChat. For Chen (2016), a reporter from the Global Times, tagging sensational headlines is a necessary strategy to attract news audiences
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in new media contexts. In this original study tagging was applied widely to headlines by official account editors, and to the main body text of variously themed articles. Imperatives and exclamation marks were used in headlines and in additional written content, to create a sense of urgency and novelty and to frighten readers with exaggerated or distorted ‘facts’. Some of the Hanpu Town women, who lacked digital literacy skills and the critical knowledge to distinguish certain types of information, were unaware that these stylistic tactics enabled them to perpetuate false rumours, so they ‘clicked in’ and shared them on WeChat. This did not mean the women were blind readers with little capacity to evaluate content, for many of them also questioned the authenticity of the information and tried with the limited skillset they had, to verify it. But socio-cultural norms such as zhengnengliang (positive energy) played a more important role in shaping both their reception and distribution practices.
7.1.2 “I Share What it Wants You to Share”: Circulating Commercialised Content on WeChat Sensationalist hyperlinks can be sexually imbued by virtue of the visual affordances used and the play of language. Being click-baited by these types of headlines the rural women in Hanpu Town inadvertently participated in the commercialisation of WeChat’s Official Account Platform. For example, Bin Dong shared a link captioned “Live shot: Man and beast (exciting)”. The thumbnail image shown in this link displayed a horse and a naked body (see Figure 7.3) so sexual cues were applied.
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Figure 7.3
Yet the video footage users navigated to showed nothing about nudity or sexual behaviour implied by the thumbnail and headline. Rather, the video broadcasted a bullfight performance (see Figure 7.4).
Figure 7.4 Screenshot of the video page “Live shot: Man and beast (exciting)”
In the page (above) that hosted the video content, the written text appearing below the title instructed readers to “click blue fonts, easy subscription” and a decorative red arrow pointed to the author’s name – the name of the official account that generated the content. As the author’s name was hyperlinked to the account’s subscription page, a technical feature of the Official Accounts Platform, viewers would then reach the subscription stage automatically, simply by accessing the embedded
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original hyperlink. From the layout, design and construction of this page and the shocking title developed to entice readers to ‘enter’ it, the malicious strategies schemed by the official account owner in order to win clicks and multiple subscriptions were effective. Quantifiably, the screenshot (Figure 7.4) indicates that the number of page views for the link had already reached over 100,000.
Xiaoyu Zheng’s experience presented a much darker side of these types of algorithms. On a single day Xiaoyu shared two links, both with shocking titles: one claiming that the “real murderer” responsible for the demise of the Malaysian Airline MH 370 had been uncovered; the other claiming that “they” – the source, had top-secret post-mortem photos of a past celebrity which explained her death. However, when the hyperlinked titles were accessed, the content for follow-up reading was not fully displayed, but was covered by a graphic shape (similar to a speech bubble) with highlighted words instructing readers to “share to Moments”, since “the texts would pop up automatically after being shared” and serve a valuable purpose by “exposing shady deals” (see Figure 7.5).
Figure 7.5 Screenshot of the page about Malaysian Airline MH370
Xiaoyu explained her reasons for engaging with and recirculating these links:
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I read it. I shared it because it said what the truth would be like. So I had a look, had a look. It could only be seen after you share it to Moments. I wanted to see, see exactly why…
Xiaoyu Zheng got full access to the analysis of the secrets behind the MH370 incident once she’d shared the link and was able to satisfy her curiosity in terms of finding out more, although her understanding of the expanded content was limited:
It analyses the Malaysian Airline such that, that we can’t understand. It has this kind of information, that kind of information, this spy, that spy, you can’t understand. Normal people can’t write this.
Xiaoyu was also unaware of the strategic intent of the account operator who had created the link. She thought the information it offered was rich and of a high standard because in her view, it was impossible that normal people could write in these ways, which somewhat fostered the notion that the content was professional and authentic. After she had added the links to her WeChat Moments, technically, further sharing techniques were required if other readers connected to Xiaoyu wanted full access to the explanatory material. In addition, this navigational infrastructure also embedded hyperlinks of advertisements about sex products both in the sharing page and the expanded content page. These extra hyperlinks were presented as short sentences to describe and promote the effective functionality of those products. Hence, the real purpose of this account was to sell sex-health medication to boosted numbers of online readers and new subscribers. Similar to Jianhua Wang, Xiaoyu Zhang denied seeing sexual information in the links she accessed and passed on. It could be the case that these women really did fail to pay close attention to these strategically positioned encodings, or, alternatively, that they were shameful to admit their interest as sex is a very private and sensitive topic in China (S. Li, Zhang, Yang, & Attané, 2010). One thing is clear though, by sharing these types of links, rural women like Xiaoyu facilitated this official account’s exposure and by default, propagated information about the sex-health products it was trying to sell. Their attentions were obviously exploited by official account operators who endeavoured to promote their businesses
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using clicks and subscription data to enhance their commercial profiles. For rural women like Xiaoyu Zheng who were less inclined to not trust strategically encoded digital messages, malevolent strategies like sensationalism and click-baiting were effective on them, encouraging them on WeChat, to “share what it wants you to share” (Xiaoyu Zheng i/v, 2015).
While it could be argued that some rural women fell victim to these digital affordances and algorithms, official account owners obviously advanced themselves economically by taking advantage of them. Overall, in the public articles shared by the women of Hanpu Town, there were many products targeting women that were promoted in less provocative ways. These included lists of other official accounts, skin care products, financial products, and jewellery such as Buddhist beads and bracelets. Information about how to access these add-ons was positioned at the bottom of the page, styled as a “Read More” hyperlink or implanted as a QR code107. Yet often more details about an individual product’s sources and qualities were unavailable, unreliable and/or unverifiable.
These promotional activities enabled by the “official” accounts were indicative of WeChat’s emerging commercialisation and networking strands. From July 2014, WeChat started to share its advertising revenue with official account owners through the service “Social Ads” (Xiang, 2014). Social Ads leverages the relationships between advertisers, official account operators, the WeChat platform and its everyday users/readers. It enables advertisers to exhibit their products in public links targeting their desired audience reach, and pays official account owners for the traffic they lead to the advertisements shown on their pages (Xiang, 2014). For official account content creators, this policy means that more readership brings more revenue. Without doubt, in the context of this study official account operators appeared to take advantage of digital affordances which enabled them to profit, at
107 QR Quick Read codes are ‘two-dimensional barcodes readable by smartphones and other mobile devices’. They can be embedded with information ‘pointing users to websites, contact information (vCards), text messages, geo coordinates, video trailers, social networks, and URLs’ (Peltier-Davis, 2015, p. 198).
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the same time as the rural women engaging with them thought spreading them was worthwhile, in order to benefit their families, their communities and themselves.
In a seemingly empowered way WeChat’s official account system appears to provide a space for content creators to wield their creativity, and, helps Chinese individuals to build up small businesses. Statistics from WeChat’s 2017 economic and social impacts report published by the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT, 2018) show that WeChat has driven a RMB 209.7 billion (USD 32 billion) budget in information consumption, brought jobs to 20.3 million people, and provided a foundation for over 5 million individual content creators to make profits through its public platform. Yet, as discussed here, in tandem with these economically driven developments readers’ attentions are being exploited by outbursts of fake news, and an unregulated market chain. So, while WeChat boasts of its contribution to the spread of positive energy by citing exponential growth, many users, like rural women in China, face daily challenges when faced with highly commercialised online content, due to their insufficient knowledge about the digital context. On the other hand, rural Chinese women’s various receptions of WeChat’s public articles are no doubt also influenced by their pre-existing and transitioning social and cultural contexts. They endorsed functional information because it supplemented their shortage of knowledge, they favoured emotionally-loaded content as it appeared to reflect (some of) their off-line realities, appealed to their sentiments, and provided comfort. With online spaces like blogs and social networking platforms increasingly becoming sites for self-presentation and identity making (Papacharissi, 2011), the women’s reading and sharing practices on WeChat show alignment with this phenomenon, and are underpinned by Confucian cultural characteristics. The women of Hanpu Town propagated positive energy and sought to assist others through their sharing of digital content, accomplishing acts of benevolence and reciprocity, in similarly symbolic but very different ways to the students from Hunan University.
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7.1.3 How did HNU Youth Share Information on WeChat? Compared to the public links shared by Hanpu Town women on WeChat, links shared by HNU students rarely contained fake and sexual information. Students also posted more original content. The total number of their shared links (310)108 was less than half of the women’s total (789). Table 6.1 categorises 12 topics of students’ shared links on WeChat and their respective quantity and scope, including: interests and tastes, “dry stuff” (ganhuo ), university, psychological test, “chicken soup” (jitang ), public affairs, favour repost, jokes, hometown, commercials, friendship and wishes.
Table 7.1 Public Links Shared by HNU Students on WeChat Moments
Category Number Scope
Links that reflected students’ interests and tastes such as links of music and articles discussing celebrities, books, movies, dramas and travelling. E.g. “What Li Jian has promoted is not only the Interests and 70 market of men in science and engineering, but also taste in tastes clothing.”, “Official: the X Files reboot, shooting 6-episode miniseries.” and “What does Haruki Murakami talk about when he talks about running?”.
Links that introduced “dry”, professional knowledge about major and industry and useful advice and instructions. E.g., “Cognitive “Dry stuff” 55 surplus creates new economy: Uber, Airbnb, who’s next?”, and “There are 7.49 million university graduates this year. Here are 15 questions about employment that you should know.”
108 The category of “other” has not been listed in the itemised Table because the content (3 shared links only) had little significance to the study.
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Links that talked about HNU, including campus scenery, activities and student stories. E.g., “This is to HNU, terza rima of University 47 love”, “HNU student union evening party- counting down 6 days” and “Yuanchao: Walk your own way with heart. Weekly Star”.
Links of funny psychological tests. E.g., “Are you more suitable Psychological test 31 for being a bachelor?”
Articles about reflections on love, life and growing up. Eg., “Chicken soup” 29 “Reflections from Columbia University’s talented girl.”, and “What are your feelings about your first love?”
News and comments about public affairs. Eg., “HNU Year 2012 Public affairs 22 Postgraduates Beg for Graduation with Double Certificates” and “Nepal earthquake, Chinese retreat first again”.
Links re-posted to show favour to others. These links were often Favour repost 19 added the comment similar to “repost for favour”.
Jokes 16 Links that included jokes and funny stories.
Links that talked about students’ hometowns. Eg., “Mianzhong Hometown 6 big event: TEDx Mianzhong launched in the Great Hall of Yuanhang Building.”
Commercials 6 Links of advertisements.
Articles that talked about friendship. E.g., “If I become rich, don’t Friendship 4 be jealous.”
Wishes 2 Links of giving wishes.
The most frequently shared topic “interests and tastes” covered a range of Chinese youth interests, from movies, music, celebrities to books and travel, which they thought were conducive to finding like-minded people, communicating with their online social networks and shaping their impressions.
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Students used “dry stuff” to refer to information that was mostly professional and functional. These articles offered in-depth analyses of students’ studied majors and relevant industries such as advertising, the Internet economy and translation work, representing students’ developing professional identities as discussed in Chapter five. Links about HNU were also popular amongst the students, especially those that praised the university’s beautiful scenery. They were often shared virally between these research participants, embodying their high recognition of HNU’s environment and prestige, and nostalgia for their last-year of university life. Students also promoted campus activities through sharing relevant news links, showing their group identity as members of student organisations. Shared links about psychological tests caused entertaining effects as they usually went viral and made fun of one’s personality and looks. Interestingly, the students used the label “chicken soup” to describe articles about reflections on life, love and growing up. “Chicken soup” is originated from Jack Canfield and Mark V. Hanson’s book Chicken Soup for the Soul (2001), which features emotional and inspiring life stories. Yet some students used the label in a derogatory sense, thinking it was too “ignorant” and meaningless. Xiaolei explained why:
My mom usually shares some articles to me. People in my parents’ age… what they share are mostly “chicken soup”. Sometimes I think it has very “heavy flavour”, very attractive titles. When you click in, nothing too much in it. I think there isn’t too much point.
It’s evident that the “chicken soup” style of content shared by Xiaolei’s parents echoes those articles about life philosophy, women and relationships passed on by the Hanpu Town women, who were the same age as Xiaolei’s mother. But for Xiaolei, “chicken soup” philosophy was not suitable for constructing his elite identity. This explains why links of this genre circulated on students’ WeChat Moments were very limited. Also limited was information about public affairs. Except for several news links about the 2015 Nepal earthquake and the Eastern Star shipwreck incident in Hubei, the most public topics which appeared to concern HNU students were a postgraduate suicide incident that occurred in a neighbouring university, and the air condition construction project in HNU. Students did not show explicit interest in the topics of politics and social affairs like the Hanpu Town women did.
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Overall, information shared by HNU students was characterised as trustworthy, professional and entertaining, while content shared by Hanpu Town women was virtuously selected for its information and entertainment value, but in various instances, lacked some credibility. This firstly can be attributed to their different educational backgrounds. Students are more knowledgeable in identifying misleading information. They made their judgements by examining not only the content, but also the source and types of information. When they were uncertain about information, they resorted to online searching for verification. However, the Hanpu Town women made their judgements based on limited knowledge and experiences, and they rarely used online searches to verify information. As demonstrated in the earlier discussion, impression management predominantly shaped the ways that these rural women shared fake information. It also played a critical role in shaping what the HNU students were inclined to share. They strove to construct a “li zhong ke” ( ), rational, neutral and objective identity and fake information was certainly a nuisance for them. The following discussion sheds more light on how the identity of “li zhong ke” works for Chinese youth effecting what they share, especially in reaction to political matters.
7.2 Political Participation in Social Media
7.2.1 Inefficacy, Concern and Nationalism among Rural Chinese Women
7.2.1.1 “It’s none of my business” and “No ability and no power” This research discovered that some rural women kept themselves away from state politics and showed no concern in both online and offline spaces. Rural women like Lan Li, Qin Li and Chang Liu rarely read news about politics via online or offline channels for they thought that politics was men’s business. Lan Li, running an electronic appliances store with her husband in Shizilu noticed that articles about state affairs were usually shared by men on WeChat. She stated,
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Women like us rarely share this kind of content, because it seems like women only need to take care of their family. National affairs or big things outside, are men’s concern. Women only need to manage their own things.
And what women should attend to is behaving themselves and looking after the family and family business according to Lan Li,
I think it’s enough that I conduct myself well, taking care of the family, managing well this business. I rarely look at other stuff, rarely pay attention.
As a result, women like Lan Li usually showed concern about women and health topics through reading and sharing on WeChat.
Even for those women who happened to read articles about policy and social affairs online, they were less inclined to share them. Xin Huang was one of them and she expressed her opinions after reading those articles on WeChat:
I feel like, my power is not enough! What they say in the articles seems quite correct. Like what happened to this policy, how the officials are. Like they say Chinese culture and foreign culture, I agree with them. But that’s not what we can change, as a rural woman, what can I change? I just have a look… it’s very far away from me… I am only doing my job well, leading my life well. What can I do with the power of one person? This kind of things is not my concern as a rural woman.
Not only did the perception of being “rural” and “female” stimulate rural Chinese women to pay more attention to their family and fulfil their responsibilities, it also rendered them feeling powerless in terms of public participation. The phrase wunengweili , (no ability and no power) could best explain this sense of inefficacy. It was brought up frequently by rural women during the interview process. Speaking of her thoughts on the circulated critical comments on food safety and corruption in China, Bo Liao offered,
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We rural women could not make any difference to this. Don’t you think? Because we have nothing, we don’t have this, don’t have that… We are like wunengweili… First, we don’t have power. Second, we don’t have money… It’s none of our business. Anyway, you can’t make any difference.
Bo Liao stopped schooling after completing her education in secondary school because her family was too poor. She is a pure housewife living in the more prosperous rural region Shizilu and has to rely on her husband and her son financially. Knowing the inequality and institutional barriers experienced by her husband and her son working in the construction industry, she complained about the harsh reality in Chinese society. For rural people like her and her family who lack education and institutional support improving their social and economic status requires far more effort than social elites. While managing an economically prosperous life is already a daily struggle for these rural women, participating in any political business outside of the family is something that has never occurred to them as an option.
7.2.1.2 “Hope to amplify the influence.” Despite a shared view of lacking capabilities and being powerless in participating in public spheres, some Hanpu Town women still proposed hope in the capability of social media. Min Wang shared public articles of food safety and expected this information could reach more people and remind them of unhealthy and poisonous food,
That others call for and share is to hope us to support this kind of action. That is to say, to share it. We can’t change anything, but hope to amplify the influence, hope others pay attention, and make changes as far as possible. Especially the food safety issues, concern not only our generation, but also the next generation…
Certainly, amplifying the influence and drawing others’ attentions were already making positive differences. And although most of Min Wang’s shared public articles exposing unhealthy food were actually fake messages, what she wanted to deliver was to inform people with good will. Min Wang
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also showed her concern on topics such as corruption on WeChat. For instance, she shared an article named “Zhao Zhongxiang’s 500 million mansion exposed, accompanied by beauties, maybe a bad omen?” published by the official account “Reading Anti-corruption and Decipher Secrets”. The article disclosed the celebrity host Zhao’s luxury life and questioned his source of income, but Min Wang did not attach her comment while sharing it, so I asked her (through WeChat) why she bothered:
YW: What do you think about this article?
Min Wang: In fact, I am far from having any thoughts, just sharing it, can’t tell the truth. If it is true, it proves that the reality is too dark, and corruption becomes a prevalent phenomenon in China.
YW: Do you want to express your discontent about corruption?
Min Wang: Of course, this is, I’m afraid (it’s) the majority’s wish. But is it useful? Because we wunengweili (have no ability and power) at all, (we) just sometimes unleash our emotions.
Even though Min Wang had questioned the validity of the information in this article and felt powerless, she still chose to share it to express her anger at the corruption problem in Chinese society. In addition, important issues about unequal treatment that were circulated on WeChat appealed to Min Wang. Examples (which are authentic) included an article named “24-year-old university student from Liling Hunan was beaten to death in Changsha, calling for equity, justice and broadcasting!” (see Figure 7.6), and a Weibo link which Min Wang herself circulated containing an image of a police car and a message which accused two policemen of violently beating two Changsha citizens because the citizens were too slow to give way to their car (see Figure 7.7).
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Figure 7.6 WeChat article shared by Min Wang
Figure 7.7 Weibo link shared by Min Wang on WeChat Moments Note. Translation of the microblog in the screenshot: This afternoon around 2 pm in Jianjiang Community of Yuelu District of Changsha, a police car was entering the community. Because the
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black car on the slope reversed late, two policemen came out of the police car, took off their clothes and started beating up my two bothers! Onlookers said the policemen already had alcohol then! Now the two wounded, one is blind in one eye, another has multiple fractures being rescued in ICU! Is this still a society with rule of law?! @Changshapolice @Changshahotnewscollection @Hunanmetropolis-metropolitanevening
The above two links were good manifestation of Chinese Internet users’ civic engagements via social media. This kind of information was spread quickly on Weibo and WeChat and caught Min Wang’s attention. By sharing those links, Min Wang again expressed her anger about inequalities and injustices:
I think as police, but they know the law and violate it, too arrogant, making me furious! This not only sullies the honour of the people’s police, but also brings people too much disappointment… too much distrust. All in all, the current society is too realistic! Too dark!!
It turns out that sharing articles about social issues in Chinese society was not only a means of catharsis for Min Wang, but also a way for her sustain and maintain a level of hope. Min Wang depreciated her own value but held confidence in the viral effects of the Internet and social media. She thought that social media could facilitate information circulation, thus attracting the attention of officials who could tackle these problems.
This is not what we can solve. It depends on the Internet, which they say has strong power. See if relevant departments could pay attention to this aspect, see if there are some precautions to prevent these phenomena as far as possible. Because I think many unfair instances have been shared by others on this (WeChat).
Through sharing the articles about food safety issues, corruption and social inequality, Min Wang engaged herself in the online public sphere despite understanding that she had limited opportunity herself to change these realities. She expressed her indignation, facilitated the circulation of the information, and appealed for wider attention and institutional interference, which, to some extent,
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did indicate that she had “amplif(ied) the influence”. Other participants including Jianhua Wang, Bin Dong, Dan Wang, and Fang Liu also showed similar practices on WeChat with some of them presenting more direct energy towards communicating about their national identity.
7.2.1.3 “Deal it a head-on blow!” “Deal it a head-on blow” was Fang Liu’s outraged reply to Japan’s disposition in the on-going Diaoyu Islands or Senkaku Islands dispute. Fang Liu was overwhelmed with indignation about Japan’s colony and war-like behaviour towards China and expressed this strong emotion through sharing anti- Japanese articles on WeChat. For instance, her shared article titled “Big event really happened this time, just now tens of cars were smashed, now it starts again” reported that a national boycott of Japanese goods which happened on 5th September 2012 in China (when massive anti-Japanese demonstrations exploded and Japanese cars in different cities were smashed by angry citizens) was likely to be repeated in response to the nationalisation of Diaoyu Islands by the Japanese government (see Figure 7.8). Another article named “Japan is screwed this time. The US is insidious enough, Chinese all share it!” also called for Chinese to boycott Japanese goods and advocated that the Chinese government should not start the war with Japan to let the United States succeed on the issue of Diaoyu Islands (see Figure 7.9). It should be especially noted that these articles reappropriated old sources and photos to fake that a boycott of Japanese goods was actually happening, forging extra stories to arouse readers’ anger towards Japan and enticing them to share the articles. However, Fang Liu did not question their credibility. She was furious and wrote on her Moments, “Japanese sin will get retribution, their hearts are too ruthless, Chinese should not be tricked”, ending with a “hammer” emoticon to emphasise her hostility (see Figure 7.9).
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Figure 7.8 A public link of anti-Japanese event shared by Fang Liu
Figure 7.9 Screenshot of the shared link “Japan is screwed this time” Note. In the commentary area of this link, I asked Fang Liu, “what do you feel after reading this?” Fang Liu replied, “Japanese sin will get retribution, their hearts are too ruthless, Chinese should not be tricked (hammer emoticon).”
This anti-Japanese article therefore evoked Fang Liu’s memories about China’s shameful history, the Sino-Japanese war. Shame and anger prevailed, impacting her judgement of unreliable online sources and stimulated her to share the link. Fang Liu’s emotional reaction was so intense that she even
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thought, as China grows stronger, it should give Japan a “head-on blow” if Japan provoked again as she exclaimed:
Before, Chinese put up with so much shame. That’s because at that time Chinese were unable to beat them. But now our country gets stronger, I think sometimes it should not tolerate it again and again. Sometimes it needs to deal it a head-on blow!
Knowing that China has grown stronger, Fang Liu’s nationalistic anger seemed to be accelerated fostering her expectation that more aggressive actions should be taken towards Japan. Apart from the outdated anti-Japanese information, news reports on the commemoration of the Sino-Japanese war were also shared by Fang Liu. She wanted people to remember the history as she was concerned that Japan’s crimes would be forgotten especially as historical accounts from a Japanese perspective have been rewritten several times,
Somethings, we haven’t really… things about history, we only learnt a bit from school. Some, we still don’t know. Sharing it (is because) I think this material is worth being understood by everybody. For example, last year its textbook defined Diaoyu Islands are part of their country… Japan wants its students to think this is true from childhood. Then what to do in the future? There is boundary between country and country. There are rules. It’s not that it’s yours when you say it’s yours, like our family.
Fang Liu equated “country” with “family” claiming a sense of solidarity with the view that all Chinese should share anti-Japanese information. Other rural women shared the same view and they implemented practical actions reflecting it in both online and offline circumstances. For example, they deliberately avoided buying Japanese merchandise like Japanese cars. Xia Zhang even openly showed her contempt to people who travelled abroad and purchased foreign goods. She expressed her opinions after reading anti-Japanese articles:
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The critique is out of love to the country, to protect the country, like having patriotism. (We) need to have this kind of psychology. It’s good to let some people know this… I don’t like, don’t like those who bought things when travelling abroad. I don’t like them.
Xia Zhang thought boycotting Japanese and even all foreign goods was an act of patriotism, and that sharing public articles containing such relevant topics displayed her wishes.
Online caricatures of Japan’s international relations also drew rural women’s attentions. One of these was the link shared on WeChat by Qinfang Wang called “Look at Shinzo Abe, this WeChat message must be shared virally!”. This link contained mock-ups of Japan’s international relationship with not only China, but also the Philippines, USA and North Korea.
Figure 7.10
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Images embedded in the link (see Figure 7.10) mocked Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe as a supporter of the Philippines and a running dog of the USA, degraded his role in front of a Chinese “qigong master” and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, and denounced Japan’s revival of militarism. These visual symbols bluntly depicted Chinese netizens’ despised attitudes towards Japan and the USA as world leaders.
This nationalism could also be observed explicitly in online group interactions. Sharing stories denouncing Japan’s crime in the Sino-Japanese war and appealing for boycotting Japanese goods were common practices in Na Li’s QQ group. Being anti-Japanese was even set as a group rule. Anyone who advertised Japanese commodities and who spoke for Japanese would be removed from the group immediately. For example, when a man who was managing business in Japan expressed how good Japanese people were in the QQ group, Na Li explained how the group members all pointed fingers at him. Na Li indicated that the criticism he received was like bullets as “many people ‘shoot at’ him, and criticise him”.
For Chinese, the humiliation of historical foreign invasions is ingrained in their memories. Anti- Japanese emotion has been strengthened through the historical experiences of China as a nation. From the First Opium War in 1840 with Britain to the Manchurian Incident by Japanese in 1918 and Sino- Japanese war in 1937-1945, Chinese people have encountered many foreign invasions throughout modern history. Japanese military in particular, lashed heavily all over the country. Every year the Chinese review this colonial history and broad discontentment can be seen ranging from lawsuits about the settlement of Chinese comfort women, boycotts of Japanese products and protests against the Japanese minister visiting the Yasukuni shrine, to issues over the ownership of the Diaoyu Islands
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or Senkaku Islands109. The massive anti-Japanese demonstrations which occurred in 2012 that were written about in the WeChat article shared by Fang Liu, are the most recent and largest anti-Japanese movement. Protests ended up violently with people smashing Japanese cars in the streets and destroying and robbing shops invested in by Japanese (N. Han, 2012). The nationalistic discourse has also been included in the political ideology consistently by the Communist Party of China, be it Zemin Jiang’s “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, Jintao Hu’s “Harmonious Society” and “Scientific Outlook on Development”, or Jinping Xi’s “Chinese Dream” (Z. Wang, 2014). They have been leveraged as a means for the Communist Party to bolster its legitimacy in leading the country (Callahan, 2015). Scholars (Gries, Steiger, & Wang, 2016; Hyun & Kim, 2015; Hyun, Kim, & Sun, 2014; Fengshu Liu, 2012) argue popular nationalism practiced by Chinese people and facilitated by the Internet is different from the official nationalism. Just because ‘the concept of national rejuvenation is deeply rooted in China’s national experience and collective memory’ (Z. Wang, 2014, p. 11), a country being strong, prosperous and free of foreign invasions is what all Chinese people desire. Hanpu women’s nationalistic sentiments centring around anti-Japanese caricature, fake rumours, and news reports featured on WeChat and QQ perpetuated through their online interactions, instantiate these goals.
7.2.2 Chinese Youth Concern about the Online Public Sphere and Impression Management
7.2.2.1 “I don’t trust news media very much now.” Research has shown individuals develop different levels of trust in news information provided by traditional/official media outlets and social media (Ceron, 2015; Turcotte, York, Irving, Scholl, &
109 Lawsuits against Japanese government’s treatment to Chinese comfort women during the Sino-Japanese War were lodged in the early 1990s. Until today, no settlement has been achieved (Xueying Gao, 2018). Dispute on Diaoyu Islands between China and Japan is an unresolved historical issue and has raised concern internationally every year (Roy- Chaudhury, 2016).
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Pingree, 2015; Yiran Wang & Mark, 2013). University student Xiaowu however, had suspicions about both types of news channels. And this distrust played an important role in his participation in the online public sphere. He explained why he held his suspicions,
I don’t trust news media very much now. For some news are deliberately misleading. Besides, there are biaotidang (sensational headline writers) … Messages that are not too official can’t be trusted completely. Messages that are too official are not necessarily right, so I don’t publish my opinions very much now.
Not only news, the objectivity of commentaries on public affairs was also questioned by Xiaowu:
Those articles usually are mingled with strong sense of personal subjectivity. After all they are not news. They are commentaries. So, they are not necessarily objective. Reading them is enough for me. If I share it, what if it’s disguised, or not right, or inconsistent with facts… Then it’s not good to propagate this kind of information.
In addition, the quality of comments coming from other online users did not encourage Xiaowu to converse about the actual matter, but they did drive him to make judgements about the language of the comments as he explained:
(I) won’t share my opinions on the matter itself. But sometimes I share my ideas on comments. Because some comments, some views are either extreme, or inconsistent with facts, or have mistakes in logic.
Xiaowu valued the objectivity and credibility of information to a great extent. He called himself a “hardcore rationalist”. Studying Finance in HNU, Xiaowu was in the middle of planning for postgraduate study in the USA when he consented to participate in this research. He was not an active contributor to social feeds on WeChat, QQ and Weibo. Most of the time he just read what people were posting and sometimes attended to group chats with friends, classmates, study mates, as well as game players. No news disseminated on those three major platforms engaged his attention very much. However, Xiaowu did access news via Baidu News on the Baidu search engine front page, a news
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aggregator of a plethora of news sources including both official and citizen news articles published online. Negative outcomes resulting from citizen journalism (Yiran Wang & Mark, 2013) and commercialisation of news media (Fang, 2017) obviously impacted Xiaowu’s perceptions of the credibility of news circulated in the online space, such as clickbaiters using sensational headlines to entice audiences and the prevalence of fake news. Flaming, uncivil and uninformed comments left by other online users, as reported not only by Xiaowu, but also by several other HNU students, ensured no ideal space for exchanging views and fostering significant discussions, but resulted in the risk of personal attacks and Internet violence. As official media in China are under constant institutional control (J. M. Chan, Lee, & Pan, 2006; Esarey & Xiao, 2011), students like Xiaowu also felt news reports from official channels were too propagandised to reflect objectivity. These combined factors therefore affected his interest in discussing public affairs online. Instead, Xiaowu was more willing to share his views in online communities such as Guokr and Zhihu on topics involving “hard” science and entertainment information.
Zhihu and Guokr are both online platforms of user generated content and knowledge sharing. More specifically, Zhihu is renowned for its Q & A service resembling Quora (Bischoff, 2014). Guokr is characterised as a science and technology education online community, also facilitating user discussion by enabling users to post and answer questions (Lee, 2014). The content contributors of these two platforms are largely well-educated (Lee, 2014; WalktheChat, 2018), guaranteeing that information generated on the platforms is professional and trustworthy. This explains why students in this study used them as repositories to seek specialised information. Xiaowu developed his interest in Guokr from an article in a magazine while he was still in high school. At that time, Guokr was just initiated. When Xiaowu entered university, he registered himself a Guokr account, joined a few interest communities and started browsing around. Xiaowu cared less about his avatar design but more about the actual use of the platform. So, he picked his QQ name “weiyoudukang” as his name on Guokr and left his profile photo blank. Figure 7.11 is a screenshot of his profile page. The blue, green and grey symbol under his avatar showed he had fulfilled 31 achievements on Gruokr. The description of these achievements is also displayed right at the front of his profile.
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Xiaowu’s avatar
Xiaowu’s
Xiaowu’s
Xiaowu’s
Xiaowu’s activities
Figure 7.11 Screenshot of Xiaomu’s page on Gruokr
Xiaowu’s interests on Guokr lay in fields including crime, biology, medical science, finance, handicrafts and so on. He had joined 22 groups such as Guokr’s flagship product, fact checker- Rumour Pulveriser, Geek Has Low Punchline, Mind Evaluation and Hardcore Rationalist. Since 2011, he had been actively engaging with the platform and responded to 79 messages, raised 5 questions, published 5 posts and collected 2 Guokr Baskets (bookmark archives). Questions that attracted his attention included, for example, “How to manage money matters if your monthly salary is below RMB 2000?”, “Is it legal to own a finger monkey?”, “Why monkeys don’t need haircut but human hair keep growing?”, “What’s the difference between food poisoning and acute gastroenteritis?”, and “Opinions about transgenesis food”. His recent activity showed he had refuted a rumour about the function of egg and sperm and its implications for heredity, and received eight
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likes and three discussions responding to his answer. In addition to the professional questions, Xiaowu also engaged in entertaining discussions such as “How to express love to man who study physics?”, “How do people call tomato?” and “Why CEOs need to keep working?”. Moreover, Xiaowu created his own posts to start discussion about certain topics in the groups that he joined in. For instance, he wrote a post in the official Guokr group to make a proposal that Guokr should add a functionality of “blacklist” (see Figure 7.12), as he argued:
As Guokr users are increasing, there are always people who like discussing political issues and have extreme attitudes, people who post ads, and people who have the style of blogging in Tieba (Baidu Tieba), Xpu (Maopu) and Xya (Tianya)110. Although everybody has the right of expression, some are eyesores. Can (Guokr) add a function of blacklist for users to block them? Is it practical? If not, can somebody provide a way to ignore them?
Figure 7.12 Screenshot of Xiaowu’s proposal on Guokr
110 Baidu Tieba, Maopu and Tianya are popular Chinese online forums.
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Xiaowu even hoped political discussions could be filtered by virtue of the technological settings. Not long after he posted this proposal, two users responded and provided him with an option to realise the “blacklist” function. From Xiaowu’s proposal, his indifference to political participation is again identified. Beyond that, it is the trustworthiness, the expert knowledge and rational expression that make these knowledge sharing platforms favourable for Xiaowu, rather than fake news, ideology, vocal speech, fierce debates or violence. As he explained,
They are all very professional stuff. I think having a look at others’ knowledge, professional knowledge shared by others, I can learn, learn a few things, like my extracurricular reading.
I proclaim myself as rational, that is hardcore rationalist. Looking at a question, I am normally not mingled with too many emotions… When expressing a view online, I would use academic words. Very, very rational.
Interestingly, what Xiaowu was actually shunning was exactly the kind of social media being publicised amongst the Hanpu Town women. Information about public affairs shared by Hanpu Town women was largely sensational and unreliable and infused with subjective and emotional content. Plus, the townsfolk rarely verified their sources. Whereas Xiaowu in the first place was more knowledgeable in interpreting information, additionally, he engaged in online searching, questioning and discussing activities in communities like Guokr and Zhihu to seek reliable knowledge.
7.2.2.2 “Chashuibiao” ( and “qinghecha” ( ) “Chashuibiao” ( ) and “qinghecha” ( ) are two Chinese Internet buzzwords that epitomise Chinese authorities’ responses to online opinions. The former, literally meaning ‘check water metre’, satirises Chinese officials’ ways of censoring online content, especially in regard to the police arresting citizens due to their inharmonious online speech (Philip, 2012). The latter, denoting ‘invite to tea’ in Chinese, originally means a tactful anti-corruption action initiated by the Commission for Discipline Inspection in China to interview/interrogate/warn officials due to their
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misconduct (Shi Zhao & Deng, 2016). Yet the phrase has also been widely used by Chinese netizens to indicate any interviews/interrogations, formal and informal enacted by authorities (M. Huang, 2016). Applied in the online context, these two phrases are designed to subtly mock the reality of the online public sphere in China: constant online censorship and its actual consequences in offline life. HNU students in this study showed their wariness of these practices when talking about cases of “chashuibiao” and “qinghecha” which had happened in their university.
Xiaoqian, studying Chinese Language and Literature expressed her concern and confusion in this respect. She had subscribed to the WeChat official account “Deep Water in HNU” ( ), an account set up by an HNU student that sought to disclose “deep water” information about Hunan University, in other words, critical, counter-authority and explosive revelations about HNU, for instance, the student suicide incident and food poisoning affair that had happened on campus. Xiaoqian talked about both of these reports published by “Deep Water in HNU” and she explained her shock after experiencing the speediness of the “chashuibiao” from her university:
I clicked in. It writes a post named, “Behind the sit-down of a pair of parents at Dongfanghong Square” bla bla, which seems to say a girl jumped into the Back Lake, then died, then the corpse was retrieved from water, bla bla. When I was about to read it, it had already been deleted. So, the “shuibiao (water metre)” had already been checked. Too scary! I just happened to open it, didn’t expect it be censored. I think it’s a bit scary.
Apart from this, Xiaoqian spoked of the university “inviting” two students to tea after they exposed an accident that students were food poisoned after eating at a barbecue restaurant near the student accommodation site.
Not long ago, the Sister Zhang BBQ with Rice, people were poisoned after having it, then I heard two students were “qinghecha” by the university. We don’t understand. They exposed there was food poisoning and the Quality Supervision Bureau should be investigating it. I don’t know. Students exposed this information but got “qinghecha” by
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the university, I can’t understand what the university was thinking. Weren’t they (the two student reporters) considering for the safety of students? Why did they need to be invited to tea?
Xiaoqian was first confused by the university’s reaction to the students’ report but later she understood that the university did that to protect its reputation, for the university admission was upcoming at that time, and HNU did not want bad news to undermine that process. Having observed the happening of censorship initiated by her university, Xiaoqian realised the tensions surrounding online censorship, or in her words, the “scary” consequences of speaking-up – “chashuibiao” and “qinghecha”, and chose to behave “conservatively” in terms of public participation, although it was only at the university level.
Xiaoyong’s experience, on the other hand, presents Chinese youth’s “conservative” practices in response to a broader level of Internet censorship in China. Xiaoyong, from Chongqing, was studying materials physics in HNU. He was among the few participants who was still microblogging on Weibo. Different from the girls, Xiaoyong blogged more about sports especially when big sports events like NBA were held. Sometimes Xiaoyong shared his thoughts and ideas on Weibo to record the significant Moments in his daily life when he did not want to disclose them to his parents on WeChat. On Weibo, Xiaoyong posted a photo of a book named “Bi Fujian’s Way of Speaking” ( ) and wrote a sentence, “Book borrowed by roommate, a few weeks ago, hm, in this world I believe in science, not coincidence, anyway I only read magazine before bed”, suffixed with a “pray” emoticon. Bi Fujian, praised in the book for his natural and humorous way of speaking, was a TV star presenter from China’s state broadcaster CCTV. The “coincidence” used by Xiaoyong was in fact to insinuate a recent scandal that had happened to this TV host, who was sacked by CCTV because of his insulting jokes about the former leader of the PRC, Mao Zedong, and the Cultural Revolution at a private banquet. Bi’s comments were filmed and the video was leaked online, causing wide discussion (Branigan, 2015). The fact that a presenter who was an expert in speaking publicly had received such critical punishment seemed very ironic to Xiaoyong. Therefore, he posted about this
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on Weibo. Knowing what Xiaoyong actually thought about this event in more detail would give insight as to understanding youths indepth perceptions and practices around these types of public events. I therefore asked Xiaoyong about this directly (in the commentary area where one of his friends had already started a conversation by commenting “This name is so ironic. Bi probably won’t show up in CCTV anymore” and Xiaoyong had replied, “Such a great influence, to beat the dog before the lion. He shouldn’t”). After posting my question “What do you think about this incident?” in the commentary area, to my surprise, Xiaoyong sent a private message to me on Weibo and shared a long paragraph he’d written about the implications of this incident. It was a “neutral” summary, in Xiaoyong’s words, on the situation of China’s political regime, the Party, and freedom of speech. Although Xiaoyong claimed he neither supported nor criticised Bi, and despite his awareness of freedom of speech limitations in China, he chose not to participate in this discussion on Weibo publicly, and his message conclusion explained why,
We can’t explain it clearly at our level. Anyway, I think this incident has reflected quite a lot of things. Maybe this would happen frequently in the future… I am quite neutral… Maybe I’m that kind of obscurants, haha. It’s inappropriate to send it to you in commentary area, so I send you a private message.
Xiaoyong was certainly not an obscurant as he said. He knew moderators would “hexie” ( , homophone of “harmonise”, meaning “censor online content”) his post if he had flagged the topic of freedom of expression and criticised the authorities outspokenly. This broader level of censorship could work as a deterrence to Xiaoyong from participating in the online public sphere. However, he also offered more reasons to explain the practices he chose,
Now it’s just like this. Parents and teachers alike all educate us not to talk nonsense online. It’s this atmosphere. Besides, others would not understand you commenting on politics, rather thinking you are pretending (that you understand politics). The commonsense is these should not be your turn to judge… There won’t be too much trouble if you are not too radical. Simply there exists this atmosphere. Talking too much about it will not play
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up to others. Elders and teachers all don’t want to see it. The university has also exhorted to watch our online speech.
It can be seen that Xiaoyong based his online behaviour on his observation of online opinions. Not talking politics publicly in online space had already become a commonsense. In this regard, indifference to political participation amongst young participants was not a direct product of the upper-level implementation of Internet censorship, but had been developed as a form of self- censorship. Internet censorship in China is not a novelty. It has a history of over 20 years. The earliest moves could be traced back to the mid-to-late 1990s when the Internet began to become commercially available and the “Golden Shield Project” was implemented by the Chinese government (Negro, 2017). Under such long-term online moderation, Chinese individuals, in particular well-educated Chinese youth are already well informed about Internet censorship and wary of the consequences of breaching this norm. Xiaoqian and Xiaoyong’s experiences illustrate Chinese youth’s concerns in this respect and in order to avoid negative outcomes, they opt for self-control and self-censorship in online interactions, reappropriating the embedded cultural norms of Chinese society.
Noticeably, education also played a role in shaping Xiaoyong’s understanding of political participation. He still remembered during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2013 Xinjiang terrorist attack, when his former school teachers and the university instructors all exhorted students to not participate in subversive online discussions. For education institutions are intermediaries of government policies (Yuhua Wang, 2018) and are closely aligned with the Confucian value of self- cultivation as discussed at length in Chapter five. By this token, self-censorship in public participation has become a tacit social norm enforced by the interaction (power interaction/relationships) between the students, the Chinese government, educational institutions and the family.
7.2.2.3 “Only talk about wind and moon.”
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Because we are all classmates, getting along with each other for a long time. It’s not good to estrange each other because of the collision of ideas. So, in the end, it is “do not talk about national affairs, only talk about wind and moon” ( ).
(Xiaobo, i/v, 2015)
“Do not talk about national affairs, only talk about wind and moon” was originally used by a high- ranking official called Xu Mian in the Southern Dynasties (AD 402-589) to euphemistically decline a friend’s request for promotion in bureaucracy (Gu, 2002). In contemporary times the idiom is widely used to insinuate the inappropriateness of discussing politics in China. Xiaobo’s use of the metaphor “wind and moon”, the opposite of “national affairs” showed how he chose to position himself on WeChat according to his observations of its purpose. He considered WeChat did not have “political attributes”, but “life attributes” explaining why he thought this was so,
Because I think on Moments, you’ll find everybody are showing off life. Rarely do people really publish some opinions. So, it’s hard to be different from others… What everybody see is life status. Every time you present your political status, you’ll find either there is a dispute, or misfit. Because every day it is about tasty food, about where I go for fun…
Certainly Xiaobo did not want to be a misfit. Engaging in political discussion or participating in public discourse online would violate the social norms in his WeChat community. As public opinions are usually divided, Xiaobo was worried that if his shared views collided with others’, he might raise conflicts in interpersonal relationships having to face up to the consequences of participating politically, and the effects in terms of how others would perceive his identity and others around him,
When you express your opinions, the trouble you bring is not only to you, but also probably your teachers, your team. So, sometimes, I will consider more than before… I prefer li zhong ke ( ), do you know this? Rational neutral and objective… So I have basically never published any (views about politics). I am in a state of an onlooker or observer.
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Although he ironically pointed out that mainstream activity on WeChat was showing off, Xiaoyong himself rarely did so. He used an acronym “li zhong ke” to describe his disposition. “Li” ( ), “zhong” ( ) and “ke” ( ) are short for “rational”, “neutral” and “objective” in English respectively. Xiaoyong wanted to leave others with an impression of him as being balanced, impartial and unprejudiced. Showing off and talking about national affairs were against that will. Interestingly, Xiaobo was not the only student who thought so.
In the eyes of Xiaoyong, remarking on social affairs/politics in social media was a sign of pretending (zhuangbi ) and nonsense. He reasoned,
Because I don’t understand it after all. I could only see a partial view. I think my comments are very ex parte. In the eyes of those who understand, you are just ignorant, you are zhuangbi ( )! If I’m interested in it, I will go and learn more about it, but I won’t make comments. Look at those online comments, they are like Internet mob. If you choose a side, I would think you are absolutely not lizhi ( ).
Xiaoyong used the word “lizhi” to describe people who offer their viewpoints on politics. “Li” ( ) stands for “rational” and “zhi” ( ) means “intellectual”. Noticeably, Xiaoyong was trying to manage his impression in front of his connections. He did not want them to see him as unreasonable and fake, behaving as though he was knowledgeable about things he did not know very well. Rather, he was much more willing to share his views on sports which he was more versed in. And indeed, on Weibo, the platform recognised mostly for fostering political participation (Sullivan, 2014), Xiaoyong presented his strong interest in sports through sharing sports news, expressing emotional comments and joining in discussions with other microbloggers.
It seemed as though the view “do not talk about national affairs” in social media had been taken up as a method by Xiaoyong to avoid his connections from forming any possible negative impressions
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about his intellect. And this was not uncommon. Many of the participants shared the same view. For example, Xiaochu, was concerned her comments would be too “youzhi (naïve)”:
Because after all, I think as a student at the moment, your views are quite one-sided. Yourself might think it’s very reasonable. From the perspective of a person who are ten years or fifteen years older than you, your views in fact are very youzhi, very simple. After all, you’ve seen little.
In addition, students did not want their immature comments to mislead their audiences. They thought they should be rational, vigilant of online fake news and tended not to make rushed comments when public events happened. Xiaopeng’s thoughts represented both of these considerations:
Because when an affair just broke out, because authenticity might only slowly show up in the end. Because some fake news might cause distrust, I normally read the official website, then follow up its progress. But I won’t speak up my thoughts. For example, if I repost a very fake news, others will read it and repost it. Because this message comes from me, or I am the intermediary that facilitates it, propagates fake news, I think I probably mislead others, feeling like it’s not right.
The spread of fake news online seems to have enhanced youth’s prudence regarding any online information and discouraged their enthusiasm for participating in the public sphere. They wanted to prevent their audiences from forming the impression of not being “lizhi”, rational and intellectual, and to maintain harmonious relationships with their social networks on social media. Being vocal online goes astray from all of these projects. This discussion illustrates that while Internet censorship stays as the default online contextual norm for Chinese youth, it can be argued that self-censorship works even more powerfully in shaping their online (political) participation, as self-monitoring is intertwined with their ordinary, everyday identity projects. Nevertheless, this does not mean personal expressions are stifled at all, nor does it mean Chinese youth are all “insouciant bystanders” that are not concerned about actual civic practices (Ke & Starkey, 2014).
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Online engagement could be enacted in an “invisible” way, that is through “climbing over the firewall”. One student, who regarded himself as “Li zhong ke” had exactly this experience. With the affordances of VPNs (virtual private networks), he was able to bypass the “Great Firewall” and access websites that were blocked by the Chinese government. He used Google Chrome to search for English language sources, especially academic references. He had a Gmail account and registered with Google Plus to see how people in other countries shared information. He went onto YouTube to watch videos that were unable to be broadcasted in mainland China. What’s more, majoring in Journalism, this HNU student was more concerned with news reports from Western media outlets than other sources. VPNs cleared a channel for him to read news on shielded websites such as Lianhe Zaobao111, Voice of America, Financial Times, New York Times and UIC today. He talked about his feelings when he came across “explosive” information from Western media reports:
Because domestic information is quite ill-informed, you see others, they could say so much, right? Some inside stories of the Communist Party. You would think, “oh, there is another explosion point”. Then you go and communicate with others. There is a kind of, a kind of delight, like “wow, there are actually such things”.
Discovering information that offered extremely different perspectives from what were reported by domestic media, this student felt quite enlightened. He knew it was “sensitive information” and should not be published online. Although he had never initiated any conversations on WeChat in this respect, nor expressed his opinions on his so-called politically attributed platform, Weibo, or any other social media platforms, in private this student was very critical of the state of freedom of expression in China. For critical expression, he turned to offline private discussions with relatives, friends and
111 Although Lianhe Zaobao is a Singaporean newspaper in Chinese, I list it as a western media outlet because its website also faces blockage in China like many English language news websites.
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classmates, which he called “fuyi” ( ), unspoken criticism. Distinct from today, the action of unspoken criticism of the authority was incriminating in imperial times in China 112 . Whereas nowadays, due to a high sense of self-censorship in social media, fuyi has become a suitable option for Chinese youth to discuss politics and social affairs. In addition, they also conceived that private discussions were more constructive than online discussions, as pointed out by Xiaodong,
I would read, I would pay attention, and I would have a judgement in my mind that how it would be. But I think it is pointless discussing it in a public space. It doesn’t lead to any result. For example, we can have a chat like this while we are sitting here, talk about this matter. Like we have a reading group, we would meet at intervals. We don’t have to discuss the books that we read every time. For example, after reading books, we would discuss what’s happened recently, how everybody think about it. That kind of discussion, face to face, is easier to control and can induce certain outcome. First, it has more content. In the online environment, it will restrict the spectrum of your communication because you have to type after all. How many words can you type? Right? You can’t write a long analysis under others’ status update, point 1, 2, 3, 4. Very difficult. It’s hard to explain it clearly in one or two sentences. Plus, there will certainly be many flaws and many loopholes.
It is questionable whether these kinds of private discussions could induce higher levels of political participation. But at least, this perspective shows that self-censorship has not stifled every possible channel of expression and online apolitical behaviour is not tantamount to no concern with politics at all. To some extent, Chinese youth are navigating a protective self-presentation to strategically and situationally manage their everyday identities, for their personal interests, demonstrating that Chinese
112 Yan Yi, the governor of finance in the Western Han Dynasty (BC 202-AD 8) was sentenced to death because he showed his disagreement with the emperor in a meeting with his disciples (Z. Song, 2005).
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conformity to social norms is no more than an ‘outward compliance’ as Xiaotong Fei bluntly pointed out in his book From the Soil: the Foundations of Chinese Society:
People who have grown up in old-style Chinese families all understand how the interpretation of paternal will can be distorted to maintain the façade of “no disobedience”. Under such circumstances, hypocrisy is not only unavoidable; it is a necessity. Unable to oppose the impracticable doctrines and orders issued by the elders, one simply distorts their wishes while giving them face- that is, outward compliance. The gap between the name and underlying reality, however, increases as the pace of social change intensifies. (2012, p. 160)
These student participant experiences reveal that they have already come to terms with the socio- cultural norm of self-censorship as outward compliance in the context of online spaces and are using it to produce positive effects in interpersonal communication, for managing good impressions, to create prospects for career development, and to generate reciprocity. So what other types of publicly- motivated communication did they involve themselves in for similar reasons?
7.2.2.4 “It’s time for us to step up.” During observations, participants from HNU did not demonstrate engaged interaction in social media in terms of state politics and public affairs. However, when it came to their immediate interests as a student, some of them did become more involved in both online and offline public participation. Xiaoming’s experience is one example and he explained what his motivations were, “When something is really harming our students’ interest, I think it’s time for us to step up. Then I would post something.”
Indeed, Xiaoming had been very vocal in sharing his critical opinions on policies and incidents at the university, mainly on WeChat and QQ, since he had already deactivated his Weibo account. But thanks to cross-platform compatibilities, WeChat and QQ users such as Xiaoming could also continue to access links shared from Weibo, Guokr, Zhihu and other platforms. For instance, the WeChat link
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shown in Figure 7.13 is a Weibo post by the microblogger named “HNU Year 2012 Postgraduates Beg for Graduation with Double Certificates”.
Figure 7.13 Screenshots of the shared Weibo post on WeChat by Xiaoming
The content of this post included a letter to the Chancellor, the Secretary of the Communist Party, and the members of the Academic Board of HNU. This letter was written by HNU postgraduates who were admitted to HNU in 2012 and showed their discontent about the university’s policy of publication requirements for postgraduates and their strong request for changing the policy.
Although Xiaoming was not yet a postgraduate student, he was empathetic with those who were, especially given that he had already been made an offer to study a Master’s Degree at HNU. Xiaoming also expressed his fury about a recent incident in which a postgraduate student from the neighbouring university had committed suicide, yet that university and the police had treated the tragedy very irresponsibly. Relevant news was trending virally on WeChat amongst the students who expressed their sorrow and vented their criticism. Xiaoming wrote an angry comment on WeChat, “Fuck! Want to pour oil on troubled waters? Share it!”. These shared links denounced the acts of the university and
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the police and appealed for justice. By passing them on, the HNU students showed their concerns about unequal treatment for their peers and their intentions to attract more public attention.
In particular, on the matter of an air conditioning construction project for HNU student accommodation, students like Xiaoming became more proactive both in online and offline contexts. The air condition construction project in HNU was implemented in 2012. However, in the summer of 2015 (close to the end of my fieldwork), the project had not yet been accomplished. A series of problems occurred to impact the project’s completion and the university had failed to solve them properly. Outraged by the setbacks and the way that the university had handled them, HNU students resorted to online channels to voice their complaints and release their anger. As all the accommodations were being used, the construction could only be operated during summer and winter holidays when students were off-campus. The stage-one construction in 2012 had already caused student complaints because of workers’ vandalism to students’ private property. In stage-two in 2013, the project was suddenly halted leaving student accommodation in a big mess with construction rubbish everywhere and holes in the walls of students’ rooms. The university’s response to the suspension was that power load in the city could not support the running of all the air conditioners in the campus, which in the eyes of HNU students was false for the air conditioning was functioning well in another university in Changsha. The official response therefore caused a huge public outcry from the students and triggered the movement of “Don’t come to HNU” in social media. “Don’t come to HNU” first appeared on Bilibili, a video sharing platform featuring overlaid real-time commentary subtitled on screens, called “danmaku” (Z. Wu & Ito, 2014)113. After the 2013 National College Entrance Exam (gaokao ), Bilibili users from different universities started to advertise their universities by virtue of danmaku. They added subtitles such as “welcome to xx university” in their
113 After this video incident, HNU authorities made promises that the project would be finished in 2014. Yet the institution again failed to fulfil that promise by the 2014 deadline. Even when air conditioners were finally set up in 2015, the power transformer was still not adequate enough to carry the large electricity load, causing frequent blackouts.
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Bilibili videos. Among those welcoming subtitles, the ironic “Don’t come to HNU” suddenly showed up, thus attracting even broader online discussions.
Along with these localised issues and the general concerns students had about problematic education reforms, a scandal exposed in August 2014 about the misconduct of the HNU’s Chancellor’s assistant, a member of the Communist Party (W. Chen, 2014) further wore down students’ patience and eroded their trust in the university. Following the “Don’t come to HNU” meme, students started to create mockups embedded with the words “Don’t come to HNU” to satirise HNU, among which a parody of HNU’s logo was the most popular. Figure 7.14 shows the original graphic of HNU’s logo. Figure 7.15 includes two examples of the mockups.
Figure 7.14 Note. Source: http://www.hnu.edu.cn/hdgk/xywh/xh.htm
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Figure 7.15 Note. Source: https://www.Zhihu.com/question/31107111
At the centre of the two mockups, four large Chinese characters “bie lai hu da ” (don’t come to HNU) in an enhanced font were displayed. In the boundary circle of the figure on the left, four extra sentences were added stating, “not necessarily has air conditioner”, “not necessarily has water heater”, “not necessarily has summer holiday” and “not possible to not have computer-based exams”. These statements respectively mocked the air conditioning situation, water heating equipment, proposed educational reforms around study timeframes, and examination processes managed by HNU. In the boundary circle of the figure on the right one sentence written in an exaggerated and threatening tone warned, “who dares to come to HNU, break his dog leg”. Different to participants’ appropriation of the word “dog” for self-mockery discussed in chapter five, here the meaning of dog was actually more negative, insinuating students who came and studied in HNU were like lackeys based on the metaphorical disgraceful meaning of “dog” in Chinese culture. These mockeries went viral on students’ WeChat, QQ and Weibo accounts. Some students even replaced their avatars with these logos. In these creative and amusing styles, HNU students let out their frustrations, disappointments and outrage in social media. But this was only one small set of incidents that were the catalyst for a larger one.
In the summer of 2015, the students’ protest was carried forward to a transformative scale. Vocal students started to write online articles to denounce the university. One of these included an entry posted on the Q & A platform, Zhihu, and was named “How to view HNU students persuading juniors not to come to HNU”. This drew intensive discussion amongst HNU students and other online users, who posted their critical opinions about HNU. After it went public in June 2015 the Q & A post collected 98 answers which were dominated by background stories and criticism voiced by both anonymous and identifiable HNU students about the air conditioning construction project, educational reforms and other HNU issues. In the meantime, the student activist WeChat official
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account “Deep Water in HNU” also took part in this dynamic cross-platform movement. As well as the Q & A post created on Zhihu, a series of satirical commentaries about the progress of the air conditioning construction were published in the form of WeChat public articles, including “Heard Tianma114 Accommodation were going to increase power capacity, I merely heard the rumours”, “Tianma Empire encountered strong earthquake, rescue has employed comprehensively”, and “Mom, I want to come to HNU (The most extensive version)”. The first post satirised the official position about the challenges of increasing power capacity, given that the university had broken its promise before. Claiming that an earthquake had hit the accommodation, the second post mocked the mess and disruption brought on by the construction zone. The third post contained a series of collages of “Don’t come to HNU” mockups and rage comics (see Figure 7.16) in response to a collage posted by HNU’s official media outlet (see Figure 7.17). These posts had received thousands of views and were circulated widely amongst the HNU students.
Figure 7.16 Screenshot of a collage posted by “Deep Water in HNU” Note. At the centre is the parodied HNU logo “Don’t come to HNU”, wrapped by eight similar comical images with antiphrasis disgracing HNU such as “beat him to death”, “because barbecue rice is not poisonous”, “Back Lake has nobody to jump”, and “Tianma has no power blackout, water supply cut and network outage”. Source: WeChat official account “Deep Water in HNU”.
114 Tianma” is the name of one of the student accommodation blocks.
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Figure 7.17 Screenshot of a collage posted by HNU official media outlet Note. At the centre is the official HNU logo, wrapped by eight similar comic photos with words complimenting HNU’s facilities such as “ensuite and air conditioned”. Source: WeChat official account “Deep Water in HNU”.
Xiaoming was among those students who actively voiced their complaints and “stepped-up” for student benefits. He also wrote WeChat posts to release his emotional expressions, for example, in one he uttered, “Nothing is more lamentable than a dead heart”; in another he wrote, “Without a sound in construction, overcrowded when criticising, man’s deep-rooted bad habits!”. While these posts communicated his personal disappointment and conveyed his resentment at the way the university had handled these incidents moreover, his main purpose for adding them on WeChat and QQ, was in the hope of bringing more students together to fight for their own benefits:
I just want to share it. I know there are many like-minded students, or those whose rights are harmed in this respect. Sharing it is to hope everybody to keep striving for it all together. Because, for example, this air condition construction matter, we students have spared great efforts. If we didn’t bother to ask and listen, or press, I believe HNU would not construct it now. This is a very objective fact. Besides, when I posted the status to complain the construction, I meant to also remind another HNU student.
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The person Xiaoming wanted to remind was actually “Mr Deep Water”, the author of “Deep Water in HNU”. Articles generated by “Mr Deep Water” had obtained wide public attention from the students and as a consequence, they had also caught the authority’s attention. The fate of “Mr Deep Water” became a concern for student protesters like Xiaoming, especially since “Mr Deep Water” was a friend of his classmate. Later “Mr Deep Water” was “invited to tea” by university officials, however that circumstance did not change the strong appeal of his public profile according to the students. On the contrary, it had forced the university to react, to listen to students’ opinions and to solve the problems more efficiently. Xiaoming talked about his experience of these transformative activities,
After I shared it, it attracted many people. It was until then I realised that there were so many people who shared my opinions. And it was also after sharing this status, we went to have a school meeting, bringing forward our advice, opinions and some expectations to the school and the university. I pointed out the problems centring around the air condition construction project and they all recorded them. I think there will be improvement.
The online posts shared by Xiaoming contributed to public discussion, helped him find like-minded individuals and even facilitated a meeting with the school executives. With the assistance of social media, students were coordinated collectively and their voices were amplified, pressing the authority to act more positively. Regardless of the movement’s small-community-based level, Xiaoming’s participation in this online protest and his active voice in social media for those students who had received unequal treatment, manifested the communal power of social media and the possibility for collective movements in a system of censorship and self-censorship. While Chinese youth clearly had their reservations with regard to political expression and participation in public affairs, no doubt self- interest was a strong motivator for proactive deeds. As argued previously, self-censorship was at the core of Chinese youth online interactions for it constitutes strategic impression management and contributes to an elite identity construction, indicating that a ‘situational self’ is always mobilising for his/her interest.
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Compared to rural Chinese women, Chinese youth’s engagements were more sophisticated and conservative due to their perceived high-levels of self-censorship. Rural women showed their strong sense of nationalism and critical opinions about the social issues in China. Given that rural women had no background knowledge of Internet censorship in China, they were less concerned about the consequences of sharing critical attitudes. Rather, they held hope that making changes might be possible through social media. Yet on the other hand, their situated reality of being a rural woman to a greater extent, meant their efforts were ineffectual and their influences in the public sphere were limited.
Affections and ideals about collective benefit represented in both groups were amplified, through the dissemination of online articles. Ironically, fake news distribution actually facilitated some of the Hanpu Town women’s political participations, whereas it was the same type of content that HNU students frowned upon and disengaged them from sharing their active voices. Though they were easily misled, rural women’s affections were real, their disappointment and anger weighted equally with youth who were indignant and discontent. For each group’s anxieties reflected their social realities, their endeavours for advancing their interests, and their hopes for transformation. Both the women and the youth presented indifference to public politics, largely shaped by their distinctive identity perceptions. And interestingly, they shared the same view that “intellect” or knowledge is absolutely essential for informed online public discussion. While well-educated Chinese youth were more concerned about how their identity would be presented to their online connections, less- educated rural women were deeply affected by their innate perceptions of inefficacy and powerlessness derived from their identity as nongcun funu.
7.3 Online Privacy and Identity Performance Traditionally, the notion of privacy in China means shameful secrets that individuals do not want to disclose. The English word ‘privacy’ is represented by two Chinese words: ‘yin’( ) and ‘si’( ). ‘Si’ covers both ‘private’ and ‘privacy’ (Mcdougall, 2001). ‘Yin’ denotes to ‘hidden from view’, and as
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H. Wang (2011, p. 34) points out, carries a ‘derogatory sense’ and implications of ‘illegitimate sexual relationship’. In the traditional sense, many Chinese think of shame when they talk about yin si. When they say they do not disclose yin si, they mean they do not disclose matters that are concerned with dishonour that would cost them their face (H. Wang, 2011). Modern conceptualisations of online privacy in China have been developed on the established western conceptions of privacy (Burgoon, 1982; DeCew, 1997; Warren & Brandeis, 1890; Westin, 1967). At the end of the 20th century, the concept of online privacy officially entered Chinese public discourse when the Chinese government published a series of regulations to protect the security of computer information networks (Y. Wu, Lau, Atkin, & Lin, 2011). Following Westin’s (1967) conception of privacy, H. Yang and Liu (2013, p. 43) defined that online privacy is ‘the legitimate claim of Chinese individuals, groups, or institutions to determine when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others on the Internet’. Y. Wu, et al. (2011) argue that information privacy has become a principle concern since digital technologies have made personal information much easier to access and circulate. That ease and access can be in private locations, such as a personal diary in a computer file, private relationships, such as an email to a pharmacy, and private activities such as using credit histories (Moor, 1997). Moreover, ‘the situations which are normatively private can vary significantly from culture to culture, place to place’ (Moor, 1997, p. 30). This is called the restricted access view of privacy. It is simply not possible to control all the information about ourselves online, even though it might be desirable. The objective in a restricted access view of digitised information is about ensuring that the right people have access to our information at the right time (Moor, 1997).
A control view of privacy considers that it is possible to define privacy clearly and for individuals to control most, if not all information about them. From the perspectives of Y. Wu, et al. (2011), as well as many other scholars (Hu & Gu, 2016; Stanaland & Lwin, 2013; H. Yang & Liu, 2013), for example, online privacy is algorithm based, related to different types of online personal data that can be accessed, collected and used for certain motives. These researchers contend that the boundary between the private and the public can be clearly defined, which is ‘to seek the essence of privacy in
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abstraction, to debate a priori conditions for privacy, and to search for rigid conceptual boundaries at the expense of rich and embedded privacy practices’ (E. J. Yuan, Feng, & Danowski, 2013, p. 1012).
To date there have been few studies that look at the ‘rich and embedded privacy practices’ in China. E. J. Yuan, et al. (2013), analysing privacy discourse on Weibo, concluded that privacy notions on Weibo are associated with broader Chinese socio-technical contexts including norms in social roles and personal relationships, and political traditions in China. Privacy for E. J. Yuan, et al. (2013) is taken to be a social construct of how individuals negotiate the relationship between themselves as an individual and as a member of the social collectivities to which they belong, close to a restricted access view of privacy. Recent empirical studies focus on quantitative methods like survey questionnaires (Xue, He, & Yu, 2016; H. Yuan & Hou, 2016; H. Zhu, Wang, Yan, & Wu, 2017). Additionally, most studies use university students as sample populations, neglecting other groups of social media users. The quantitative studies also tend to focus on one single social media platform without considering the complex dynamics of privacy perceptions and practices across multiple platforms. They tend to reach a consensus that Chinese youth disclose most of their personal information on QQ, WeChat or Weibo but remain very concerned about their online privacy, fitting the notion of a ‘privacy paradox’ where control of private information is surrendered even when people do not wish to surrender that control (Barnes, 2006). They also suggest that psychological benefits such as personal pleasure and identification, social benefits including relationship maintenance and social capital, economic benefits like money rewards and personalised service are possible stimulators for self-disclosure. Yet there remains scarce empirical evidence showing how these factors influence individual online practices. They fail to uncover how individuals understand privacy on their own terms based on their everyday social media practices and the complicated relationships between privacy perceptions and privacy acts.
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7.3.1 Public Online Privacy The expression “public online privacy” which the HNU students used meant that they were willing to make their personal information public in the online space knowing that information could be manipulated by third parties but there were perceived benefits in doing so. Xiaomei was one of the young people that demonstrated this online trade-off despite being aware that somebody might “fix their eyes” on and manipulate the information she eventually made publicly available online.
My standpoint is that no matter how, I cannot protect it. I might as well use it conveniently. Because sometimes if you protect it deliberately, there will be a lot of inconvenience.
The pressure Xiaomei received to have her actual name made public was not from the social media platforms or technology sources she used. It came from professional colleagues. Xiaomei was doing an internship at an advertising company. It was common that employees used WeChat and QQ to transfer files facilitated by the platform’s afforded functionality. Therefore, Xiaomei friended her colleagues using her WeChat and QQ contact details soon after she settled in with the company. What she also added to her WeChat contact lists were some strangers whom she contacted for personal business, such as real estate agents and home-moving service workers. It was cheaper to communicate with these people via WeChat because it would not generate phone calls or text messaging costs. Xiaomei had deliberately disguised her real name as she did not trust the stranger-contacts. However, her anonymity on WeChat and QQ raised complaints from her colleagues as this name could not be easily recognised and searched. If Xiaomei had continued to use the fake name, then she would have left a bad impression for her colleagues and her boss, which would have been harmful to her professional identity and her relationship with them. Reflecting on this, Xiaomei replaced her pseudonym with her actual name regardless of any concerns about strangers in her network. In this regard she compromised part of her private self online for the purposes of positive self-presentation.
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22-year-old Xiaolei was more proactive in giving out personal information such as his name and mobile phone number although he felt annoyed sometimes by receiving harassing text messages. He remarked,
Stuff that I’ve shared publicly in social media is under my screening. This belongs to my online privacy. But I am willing to make it public. For example, my name, my contacts, aren’t these privacy? Some people are not willing to (disclose)…. I think (knowing my) mobile phone number, it is indeed quite annoying when others send me harassing messages. But to me, I don’t care it much. Instead, it is those things that disgrace you… I don’t want people to know anything about my defeat… Online privacy does not represent unwilling… for example, this is my privacy, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to share it.
What was more critical to Xiaolei was not disclosing any information that could bring about shame and damage his face value. For instance, Xiaolei would conceal the fact that he’d failed the College English Test-6 explaining that he would never show arrogance or a lack of confidence although he felt these afflictions sometimes. What Xiaolei desired was a positive identity showing that he was confident, humble, professional and intelligent, or in his words “bige ” (the ability of pretending/bragging) presenting his superior taste (P. Li, 2015). To construct this identity, he used the tagline “Xiaolei (his real first name) aspires to become excellent product manager” as his WeChat name, sharing his location on Moments when he attended educational or professional training workshops (see Figure 7.18), or when he ate out at a restaurant (see Figure 7.19).
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Figure 7.18 Xiaolei’s status on Moments about attending a workshop Note. In this post, Xiaolei wrote, “Indeed, really good workshop needs not to drag people.”
Figure 7.19 Xiaolei’s status on Moments about eating in a restaurant Note. In this post, Xiaolei wrote, “Coming to have barbecue in Hedong after reading literature for the whole day, so many people!”
In order to present an impression of studying hard and to prioritise his bige, Xiaolei had little concern about how his location information could be utilised.
Similarly to Xiaolei, female participant Xiaoli acted differently towards privacy issues depending on the particular platform. It is widely regarded that Weibo is a public platform while WeChat is more private (Stockmann & Luo, 2017). Interestingly, Xiaoli, however, held the view that she had no
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privacy on WeChat and had more privacy on Weibo. As she reasoned, “people normally tend to present the good side of themselves on WeChat.” Because of this she rarely shared negative feelings on WeChat whereas on Weibo where she networked with very few pre-existing social contacts, she had no qualms about disclosing this kind of information. For instance, Xiaoli complained about her manager on the Weibo platform, for she knew that her superior and colleagues on WeChat would not see this information and form a bad impression of her. Figures 7.20 and 7.21 show examples of Xiaoli’s complaints on Weibo.
Figure 7.20 Xiaoli’s Weibo status in which she complained her internship Note. In this post, Xiaoli wrote, “A period of painful life as an assembly line worker is heart- wrenching, finally found a more upset thing than Japanese, great awakening.”
Figure 7.21 Xiaoli’s Weibo post in which she mocked her manager Note. In this post, Xiaoli wrote, “Super thanks to my first manager in my life who teaches me lessons, despite knowing I’m here only for internship. That feeling of ignoring me for two weeks after being tricked is understandable.”
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Notably, Xiaoli also shared her location while she posted on Weibo. The much broader audience of public-strangers on Weibo did not appear to pose any privacy concerns for her at all in respect of threats to her reputation. Rather it is exactly in this space with more strangers and less familiar ties that Xiaoli’s privacy was retained. Xiaomei, Xiaolei and Xiaoli’s experiences all provided evidence that shame, face and self-presentation in regard to identity management were tightly related, and raised more concerns amongst Chinese youth than the potential for their digitised personal details to be accessed did. For even though they were acutely aware of different forms of privacy risks, they were still willing to exchange their private details for social benefits.
Completely ditching social media was not a practical or viable option for them because the opportunities for advancement and collectively networking far outweighed the risks for themselves.
7.3.2 “I Don’t Have Any Privacy.” Throughout this research, as discussed in Chapter six, elder rural Chinese women were also trying to navigate digital media and deal with the issues of self-presentation and keeping certain information private (even though ideas of online censorship had never occurred to them). Similar to young people, these women also engaged with WeChat and QQ platforms, interacted with their families, relatives and neighbours and reconnected with schoolmates they had not seen for years. And some of them were even enjoying the novelty of interacting with strangers online. They shared their daily lives on WeChat Moments and subscribed to WeChat public accounts for information such as local news, jokes, stories and other themed articles. Interestingly, in contrast to the students from HNU, when the topic of privacy was raised they were reluctant to respond, and their immediate answer was always “I don’t have any privacy”, as if the concept was something they deliberately sought to distance themselves from. For instance, 52-year-old Chen Hua, spoke positively about the fact that she did not have privacy on the Internet:
I think there isn’t any privacy. There is no reason for me to have privacy on the Internet. Not much privacy… You… do not go… decades-year-old person do not go to have love relationship with these people. There is nothing that cannot be exposed, is there? No
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reason to have privacy. Usually anyway (I) talk about housework, chat, talk about housework, no reason to have privacy.
It turned out that Chen Hua was striving to emphasise that she had no dubious relationships with strangers online, because she naturally associated “having privacy” as being secretive and deceitful with others (beyond the family). She explained privacy as such: “For example, through internet, some who have families have love relationship with others. That is having some privacy.”
Reflecting on the fact that she did not have affairs with other men on WeChat, Chen equated this with her understanding that she did not, therefore have any online privacy. To explicate further she claimed that everyone could look up her mobile phone and WeChat anytime and that information stored in her WeChat could even be made public, posing no risk to her reputation. The traditional meaning of privacy as derogatory and as referring to an ‘illegitimate sexual relationship’ (H. Wang, 2011, p. 34) was exceptionally strong amongst the Hanpu Town women, so much so that this idea had become symbolically embedded in their perceptions of their own and others’ privacy.
Another privacy practice that exemplifies the rootedness of traditional privacy concepts relates to family conflicts. Family is an important privacy unit in Chinese culture since intimate relationships are formed in it (Pik-chu, 2012). The Chinese proverb ‘do not wash your dirty linen in public’ indicates how privacy is kept in the unit of the family. As such, the notion of privacy is considered to be secrets that people should not tell outside of the family. Consequently, the rural women were surprised that there was even a suggestion of so-called privacy in any social media contexts, because they chose not to disclose any shameful secrets online at all. 43-year-old Liu Jia questioned, “The Internet has privacy? Then I don’t have privacy. If there is privacy, can it be called Internet? Everybody will see it. Can we call it privacy? Then that is not privacy.”
Like Chenhua, Liu Jia also indicated that anyone could look up her WeChat and find there was nothing to conceal. For her, family conflicts like not getting along with her husband or her mother-in-law was her private responsibility, and it would disgrace her whole family if she exposed it to the outside.
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Instead, she posted selfies and photos of her children and friends without revealing any concern about these personal matters at all:
You have something that you don’t want to tell. It is something in your heart, that you don’t want to tell others, tell the outside, don’t want to let others know. This is privacy. For instance, me and my husband have some problems, have some estrangements. You can only solve these by yourself. Others cannot settle them for you. This is privacy. I can’t write it up (on WeChat)! How can we let others solve (problems) whatever happens to me and my husband? Others would laugh. There is a sense of ridicule, I think, isn’t there? This is privacy.
Rural women perceived privacy first and foremost as equal to having disreputable affairs and shameful secrets and regarded family as the important privacy unit. With the emergence of new information communication technologies, this privacy value was reinterpreted by them in relation to their participation in social media activities. The notion has deep roots in Confucianism and can be interpreted by Confucianist moral standards, particularly about women. Rural Chinese women are living in a patriarchal society bounded by ethical values prescribed by Confucianism. The most famous Confucianist principles are the Three Obediences (San Cong) which ‘require women to obey the father before the marriage, obey the husband after marriage, and obey the first son after the death of husband’ and Four Virtues (Si De) which include ‘(sexual) morality, proper speech, modest manner, and diligent’ (Xiongya Gao, 2003, p. 116). Due to these traditions, Chinese women’s status in the family deeply affects their sense of autonomy and any private matters are subject to their husbands and to the whole family. Their privacy perceptions are therefore culturally naturalised by gender relations leading them to insinuate privacy as sexual misconduct.
Also in Confucianism, family is considered as the most important social space for Chinese women (C. C. Fan, 2003), strongly moulding Chinese women’s conceptualisations about privacy boundaries. Women are expected to be focusing on things in the household like doing housework, and taking care of children while men should be in charge of things outside the household like working to feed the
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family, a model known as ‘men outside, women inside’ (Kwok-to, 2012, p. 556). Due to the embeddedness of Confucian culture in Chinese society, these traditional gendered roles are still observable in contemporary China, especially in rural areas where Confucian values have a much stronger hold than in cities (C. C. Fan, 2003; Leung, 2003). As social media provides more opportunities for reaching out to a more extensive social network including strangers, going online means more than managing business in the household for Chinese rural women. This not only has the potential to dismantle the traditional gender values for Chinese women as they could meet strangers and challenge the familial male authority in gender relations, it also breaks up the privacy boundary set between the household and the outer world. For rural Chinese women, having love affairs with strangers through social media and disclosing unsettling family matters and dishonourable secrets, were a violation of social norms and ethical values attached to their sexual identity. By claiming therefore that “I don’t have any privacy”, these rural Chinese women in fact actually continued to maintain control over their privacy, in the online context, so that they could maintain a proper social identity as an ordinary nongcun funu.
Chinese youth and elder rural women in Changsha are engaged in negotiations with privacy through social media use. There are differences and similarities in the ways that these negotiations occur. Shameful secrets touches on the protection of the reputation of those concerned, common to both groups. The youth group in Changsha, however, had a stronger understanding of the technical level of deployment of the social media technologies and they developed cross-platform privacy practices. This finding corroborates the previous analyses that both Hanpu Town women and HNU students navigated their privacy among layered social relationships, demonstrating graded privacy practices for self-presentation and identity performance.
7.4 Conclusion This chapter has described the similarities and differences between the HNU students’ and Hanpu Town women’s social media practices. It focuses on their WeChat reading and sharing activity,
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political participation and online privacy practices. In terms of reading and sharing, both groups shared functional and entertaining information. What appealed to the youth was more professional and trustworthy information, whereas there was a significant amount of sensationalised and commercialised, fake and sexualised information amongst what the elder rural women had shared. Despite the fact that the rural women inadvertently shared misinformation, they did so seeking to bring benefits to others, manifesting their ideals to convey positive energy and accomplish acts of benevolence and reciprocity, in similarly symbolic yet in less informed ways to the students from HNU. This chapter has also uncovered the factors that have subtly affected the two cohorts’ perceptions of political participation in China. As for the women from Hanpu Town, their identity perceptions of being powerless rural women resulted in low self-efficacy in terms of participating in the public sphere. But by sharing the articles about food safety issues, corruption and social inequality, some of them did express their indignation and hopes for wider attention to these matters and perhaps, eventual institutional interference. In particular, by circulating articles that contained anti-Japanese speech, some of the rural women embodied a strong sense of nationalism. Distinctively, Chinese youth’s political engagements were more sophisticated and conservative due to their perceived high-levels of self-censorship and their concerns about presenting rational, neutral and objective identities, demonstrating that Chinese conformity to social norms is no more than an ‘outward compliance’ argued by Fei (2012, p. 160). Additionally, this chapter presented an analysis of the relationships between Chinese online privacy practices and identity performances, illustrating how social media connections and content can be navigated and negotiated for the purposes of impression and reputation management.
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8 CONCLUSION
8.1 Confucianism and the Official Discourse The formulation of the Chinese government’s political guidelines is a reflection of the historical, national and cultural experiences of Chinese people. China is led by a Party-state regime, constructing ideologies incorporating Chinese people’s lively experiences therefore contributes to consolidating the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in governing the country (Holbig & Gilley, 2010). Although different ideologies have been brought forward by different party leaders since China’s Reform and Opening-up (RO), there is certainly a continuity in the CPC’s political discourse, from Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents”, Hu Jintao’s “Scientific Outlook on Development” to Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream”. Confucianism and nationalism are two eminent conceptions that can illustrate this consistency as they are the crystallisation of how Chinese people make sense of themselves historically and culturally. Almost twenty years ago, Yao (1999) observed the consistency of Confucian tradition in Chinese society. He pointed out:
Elements of Confucian heritage have been transmitted to the present, either hidden in Nationalist and Communist doctrines, principles, ethics, public opinions and the system of a bureaucratic elite, etc., or implicitly underlying the whole structure of Chinese community (family, community, society and the state), in whatever forms it may take, either capitalist or socialist, Nationalist or Communist. (p. 31)
Clearly in recent years, political discourse in China has witnessed a renaissance of Confucianism. The CPC is leveraging the Confucian narrative to increase social cohesion internally and to negotiate international relations externally. Chinese Confucian culture has over 2000 years history. Confucius (551-479 BC) founded the Confucian School in the late Spring and Autumn period when “the hundred
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schools” flourished and debated with each other in China. However, later in Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC), Confucianism was spurned by the first Emperor of Qin who engineered the incident fenshu kengru (burn books and bury Confucian scholars alive). Only until the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-8 AD) when Emperor Wu implemented the policy of ‘discarding the hundred schools and respecting only Confucianism’, did Confucianism become the state ideology and national religion (R. Wang, 2011, p. 34). In the early 20th century, Chinese intellectuals however, started to discredit Confucian thought as a symbol of “feudalism” and a hurdle to democracy and science. The May 4th Movement in 1919 was strong evidence. After the Communist Party took over the regime in 1949, Confucianism was also considered as counteractive to its revolutionary goal of socialism and communism (Billioud, 2007). During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Confucius and Confucian ideas were branded as ‘counter-revolutionary restoration’ (Billioud, 2007, p. 4). Chairman Mao Zedong called for people’s devotion to the Party-state so that even the interest of family could be compromised (X. Lu, 2004). But this plan did not work well. Anti-Confucianism lost its ground in the end as it ran against the norms and values that had been ingrained in Chinese mindsets (Bell, 2008). In an imperative to restore its legitimacy from the aftermath of Cultural Revolution, the CPC renewed its interests in Confucianism. This time Confucianism was considered to be conducive to the economic modernisation and spiritual civilisation and it was officially established in the CPC’s ideology at the beginning of the 21st century when Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao took over the party leadership in 2003 (Billioud, 2007).
Although the Party adopts “traditional culture” rather than “Confucianism” in most of its declarations, the idea of Confucianism runs through all those threads as Confucian culture is the most prominent Chinese traditional culture (Y. Fan, 2000). The “Harmonious Society” (hexie shehui ) narrative delivered by the Party in 2004 echoes with a highly-valued notion in Confucianism – he (harmony) (C. Li, 2006). Q. Cao (2007) points out that ‘the Hu-Wen leadership derives from the Confucian concept Minben (people as the basis), a centrepiece in the discursive reformulation of political ideology: to build a hexie shehui (harmonious society) in an attempt to reduce rising social
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tensions’ (p. 435). In the meantime, this Confucian rhetoric was also applied in the CPC’s international policy (Q. Cao, 2007). An explicit Confucian discourse had therefore been resurrected in the CPC’s political guideline. The official endorsement of Confucian values continues under the administration of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang (since 2013) but with more straightforward references and rather strategic implications under the auspices of the “Chinese Dream” narrative. “Chinese Dream”, which is the great revival of the Chinese nation, consists of ‘Strong China (economically, politically, diplomatically, scientifically, militarily); Civilized China (equity and fairness, rich culture, high morals); Harmonious China (amity among social classes); Beautiful China (healthy environment, low pollution)’ (Kuhn, 2013). On 24th February 2014, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPC organised a meeting of collective learning with regard to the ‘socialist core values’, during which Xi Jinping emphasised the critical role of these values in the construction of China’s cultural soft power. What underpins the socialist core values, Xi stated, is Chinese eminent traditional culture115. Xi promotes leveraging traditional culture for moral education to facilitate social stability and social cohesion. He has kept a high profile in advocating Confucian culture and is the first Chinese president that has attended the International Symposium to Commemorate Confucius’s Birthday116. The rejuvenation of traditional culture is without doubt conducive to the realisation of the great “Chinese Dream” as Chinese traditional culture represents the ‘cultural splendors of the Chinese past’ from the perspective of the CPC (Perry, 2017, p. 31). Perry (2017) argues that this strategy largely contributes to steering public sentiment towards in favour of the
115 Socialist core values were proposed by Hu Jintao in November 2012 at the 18th National Congress of the CPC. After Xi took power in 2013, the CPC inherited this legacy. At the 13th collective study of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPC on 24th February 2014, Xi emphasised that traditional culture was the anchor point of carrying forward the socialist core values. 116 According to China’s state media People’s Daily (2014), Xi attended the International Symposium to Commemorate Confucius’s 2565 Birthday on 24th September 2014 unprecedentedly and delivered a speech emphasising the implication of Confucianism for civilisation and world peace.
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Party’s propaganda. The relationship between government policy and Chinese cultural practices can therefore be best explained in Billioud’s words:
Government policy… makes possible an expansion of the range of experience for individuals, a deepening of their relationship to certain aspects of their own history and culture. At the same time, policy adapts and responds to the demand made possible, producing a tradition that serves the interests of the state and reinforces social cohesion. (2007, p. 59)
It can be argued therefore that Confucianism has still penetrated Chinese social life, deep down at the interpersonal level and higher up in the superstructure. Nevertheless, it is not in the form of a top- down instrumentalisation. Rather, it is a ‘dynamic interaction with an ongoing and widespread cultural phenomenon’ (Billioud, 2007, p. 59), that is, as previous scholars have pointed out, constituted in the common practices in families, schools, universities and industries, and on television by parents, students, teachers, scholars, entrepreneurs and other ordinary Chinese (Perry, 2017; F. Yang, 2007). By getting close to the ordinary Chinese and understanding how they make sense of their daily practices, this original research has discovered the ingrainedness of Chinese traditional culture in Chinese minds and behaviours and its inclusiveness to their social, economic and political lives, even when cutting-edge social media ushers in a transformative social space.
8.2 Intersubjective Benevolence and Reciprocity Translations need to be contextualised for comprehension, otherwise, they cause confusion. The Confucian shu ( ) has diverse English translations, such as ‘mutuality in human relations’ (Fingarette, 1979), ‘reciprocity’, ‘altruism’, ‘consideration’, ‘deference’ (Hall & Ames, 1987) and ‘likening-to-oneself’ (Graham, 1989, p. 20). Hall and Ames (1987) argue it is problematic to construe the meaning of shu based on these translations because the norms of Confucian shu vary from being simply reciprocal, altruistic or considerate. By pointing out in her book Reciprocity, ‘[t]he norm of reciprocity is not equivalent to the Golden Rule found in Confucian, Talmudic and New Testament
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texts’ (p. 81), Becker (1986) indicates that the ‘concrete formulations’ (Gouldner, 1960, p. 171) of reciprocity vary from culture to culture. The experiences of Chinese youth and rural women analysed in this thesis flesh out the complexity of Confucian reciprocity and demonstrate that cultural values and norms underpin Chinese ways of thinking and behaving although the context has been changed to a digitally interconnected one. The adoption of “reciprocity” as the English translation of “shu” ( ) and “intersubjective benevolence” as a general term to represent the Confucian idea of “ren” ( ), by no means negates the subtlety of their original meanings. On the contrary, the research discussed in this thesis turns out to embody them with Chinese contemporary characteristics, which are underpinned by the differential mode of association and intertwined with the transformation of Chinese social relationships – guanxi ( ).
Intersubjective benevolence-ren is the pivot of Confucius’s thinking although he gave no specific definition but held that it could be carried out by all human beings. W.-m. Tu (1981) conceptualised ren as ‘a living metaphor’ (p. 45) symbolising consummate humanity that is both commonest and highest while C. Li (2007) described it as ‘the mastery of a culture’ which is constituted by the ‘cultural grammar’ – li (propriety) (p. 317). Despite the different metaphors it has been endowed with, intersubjective benevolence-ren, love for everyone, is indisputably a moral virtue of the self and an ethical value in interpersonal communication. Strings of acts that can manifest ren are crystallised in The Analects, such as filial piety (xiao ), loyalty (Zhong ), fraternal duty (ti ), respectfulness (jing ) and good faith (xin ). These moral principles are still prominent Chinese social norms. Shu, on the other hand, for Confucius, is the ‘unifying thread’, the methodology of ren (Hall & Ames, 1987, p. 285). ‘Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you’ explains the principle for the action of shu that one can practice in one’s life. It is analogical and relational as the appropriate conduct of a person is continually contingent on others based on the recognition of both similarity and difference (Ames, 2011). It explains why one needs to take others into consideration and think in their shoes in interaction. Meanwhile, subduing oneself becomes important as it negotiates personal interests, thus reaching empathy and reducing conflict. In this
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respect, deference to others, empathy towards others and self-control can sum up the concrete moral dispositions which shu postures (Hall & Ames, 1987; Shenkar & Ronen, 1987; Yum, 1988).
Inasmuch as the Confucian intersubjective benevolence-ren is graded love (Dubs, 1951), shu is also graded. ‘[T]he decreasing measures of love to more distant relatives’ was later underscored by Confucius’ disciples (Knoblock, 1988, p. 97). Benevolent love is greater to those who are closer to oneself. Filial piety (xiao) for instance is a consequence of this form of communicative space. The intensity of intersubjective benevolence that exists in familial relationships might not be a characteristic of all relationships but for Confucius, intersubjective benevolence itself is a characteristic of all human communication. Mo-dz (475-393), after Confucius’s death, went further and argued that there should be equal love for all as a part of intersubjective benevolence, closer to the Christian doctrine of love. Mencius (372-298), in turn, argued that graded love was natural, returning to the Confucian position. People do not abstractly but naturally love their own parents over others (Dubs, 1951). Confucian graded love lays the foundation of the status quo that Chinese social relationships are like ripples spreading out from the centre of the situational self (Fei, 2012), the mechanism of Chinese guanxi (social relationship) in which different rules for moral and social conduct are applied to different layers of guanxi accordingly. Confucian reciprocity-shu, which pushes the ripple away from the self and contributes to forming and maintaining guanxi, is interrelatedly changing with different tiers of guanxi.
The methods of Confucian reciprocity-shu, in Confucius’s view, are communicative and intersubjective. There are many pathways to ren in terms of different relationships. Filial piety, love of your close relatives, is a method of shu. The requirement for a husband or wife to spend significant time in mourning to show their love, for example, is a way to fulfil the duty of filial piety. Yet for relationships between sovereigns and subjects, younger brother and elder brother, husband and wife, and friend and friend, loyalty, fraternal duty, respectfulness, and good faith are methods of shu respectively (Dawson, 1993). The analytical work preceding this final discussion evidences the consistent impacts of these Confucian cultural traditions in social media interactions. In light of multifarious digital affordances, shu is incarnated with creative forms of self-presentation that face-
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to-face communication cannot compete with. Two major forms are identified: zhengnengliang (positive energy) and hei (self-mockery and mockery of others). While these forms are no doubt symbolic in face-to-face settings, they become more complicated in the social media context where different social networks are juxtaposed. For instance, understanding how certain digital icons apply to the context and control what information to share is vital for zhengnengliang and hei to be performed. It was explained that positive energy was observed from knowledgeable, aspirational and enterprising identities constructed by Chinese young people on QQ and WeChat, and hidden underneath the inspiring metaphors and mottos that were in fact morphed from negative energy such as frustration, stress and anxiety. These young people strategically interacted with it to realise their pursuit of a professional and elite identity amongst their family, friends, peers, teachers, work-related personnel and strangers. Their online activities showed that identity construction is an ongoing process in which their perceptions about themselves are shaped by the changing environment chronologically, from earlier schooling time to the higher education phase, rather than emerging as something that suddenly occurred naturally for them. Positive sensibility was also discovered in less- educated rural Chinese women who circulated various articles generated by official WeChat accounts that included artistic illustrations, ideological interpretations and practical knowledge, but also misinformation about health, safety and other social issues, all with the intention to share good things with others and to educate them about risks. More characteristic of Chinese youth, mockeries were pervasive in their various online interactions. Taking into consideration others’ impressions that more explicit expressions would likely cause nuisance, young people appropriated Internet memes, mock- ups, parodies, and self-generated amusing content for the purposes of expressing their concerns about struggles they encountered in their everyday university life, and for also socialising with their online networks. Reciprocity was therefore also implied in a jocular manner, contributing to youth’s impression management and positive identity constructions, in particular, projecting the playful “doubi” identity. Based on these findings, this thesis argues that reciprocity has been unreservedly cultivated in Chinese online self-presentations and is an important interpersonal principle for both the
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younger cohort and the elder rural women’s everyday identity performances played out in social media.
The reason why the term “zhengnengliang” (positive energy) went viral online in 2012 and could still be observed from the online interactions of both Chinese young people and rural women in this study was not because Chinese officials also highlighted it in their discourses, but because it accords with the interpersonal norms and the cultural habits of them. As a matter of fact, the word “zhengnengliang” was first widely spread among Chinese netizens and then used in political speech and media reports alike (G. Cao & Yue, 2014). HNU students’ strategic online identity management provides an insight into the mundane presence of zhengnengliang and its connoted Confucian values. It shows that these cultural characteristics have always been an essential element of youth socialisation and social media platforms are employed to fulfil this process throughout different phases in youth’s lives. The once fashionable QQ and Renren platforms where youth interacted with their peers, relatives and teachers before higher education have lost their currency in their eyes. The then symbolic icons of online identities on QQ and Renren were regarded as “feizhuliu ” (non- mainstream) and “xiaoxuesheng ” (schoolchildren) which could only represent immaturity, lack of knowledge and low taste and could no longer sustain young people’s desires for elite middle- class identities. Weibo and WeChat on the other hand fed this need. Chapter five revealed that although young people did not maintain active participation in Weibo, they took advantage of its informative utility which enabled them to attend to their interests and seek information and knowledge. The utilitarian purpose directed how they position themselves and their relations with different online platforms in their busy university lives and reflected their analytical perspectives on the online sociotechnical contexts, so much so that installing and uninstalling applications were just commonplace. Moreover, WeChat, where these young people gathered their up-to-date social contacts could best serve their personal interests. The implied methodology underscoring their activities is shu, Confucian reciprocity, being empathetic and enacting self-control, that is ‘do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you’. For it helps manage a good impression of themselves and maintain harmonious relationships with acquaintances, colleagues,
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teachers and even semi-known strangers. As such, the students shared zhengnengliang and mockery posts that were considered enjoyable for their audiences and constructed playful doubi ( ) identities through which their complaints, stress and frustrations encountered in everyday university life were expressed in the meantime. Positive energy was also implicitly embedded in more professional identity constructions on WeChat, for example, by developing contacts with industry professionals and strangers who shared interests, and by experimenting through setting up a micro- business with the aim of self-cultivation. By selecting specific professional content to share and comment on, and designing commercial strategies that did not violate benevolent ideals, these young people illustrated how strategic online self-presentation could be, and how important Confucian principles are for self-development.
However, the rural Chinese women’s embodiments of these principles had divergent concrete forms. Chapter six elaborates that by sharing articles generated by WeChat official accounts about life philosophy, women, social relationships and gender relations, the female townsfolk from Hanpu Town expressed their appreciation for traditional values such as tolerance, generosity and filial piety. By applying them in their offline lives, they showed their active cultivation of Confucian moralities in guanxi maintenance with their husbands, parents and friends. Feeling much helplessness situated in their disadvantaged gendered roles, they resorted to social media for emotional expression. Rather than dismantling the structural limitations of their existing social identities, they integrated those cultural values with transformative conceptions that catered to their pursuits for life skills and experiences through reading and sharing on WeChat. Moreover, amidst a thriving national information economy promoting social media business such as weishang ( ), Hanpu Town women saw WeChat as an economic opportunity that they could not miss to promote their offline based businesses and better their livelihoods. In such ways, they constructed an ideal figure of being a good housewife that is culturally legitimate, more socially sophisticated and economically competent.
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Chapter seven found that positive energy amongst Hanpu Town women was conveyed by sharing articles generated by WeChat official accounts. These articles were characterised by multi-media digital formats, sensationalism and commercialisation, displayed through beautiful imageries, pleasant music, and empathetic content. Considering the fulfilling effects this online content brought to them, the women thought sharing them on WeChat would also induce the same influence on their social networks. But noticeably among these shared public articles was a considerable amount of fake news and sexually suggestive content. These threads of misinformation were hidden in the articles produced by WeChat content creators (driven by economic incentives), which primarily concerned rural women’s daily interests about nourishing of life, food safety, security and anecdotes. Due to a lack of education, rural Chinese women did not have sufficient knowledge or digital literacy skills to differentiate those messages. Their wishes for the common good were instead manipulated by the technological programmes of WeChat’s economic model.
For both of the cohorts studied Chapter seven further outlined the relationships between the Chinese self, their cultural experiences and political realities in the context of social media. For Chinese youth, the level of political engagement was largely contingent on the incentive for advancing self-interests. To avoid facing real consequences – being “chashuibiao ” (censored) and “qinghecha ” (interviewed/interrogated by officials), students were less inclined to talk about politics publicly in social media. Also, being mindful of uninformed, untrustworthy and flaming online public opinions, they presented a high degree of self-censorship in online interactions and consequently constructed a rational, neutral and objective identity which is beneficial for impression management. It was also for the sake of self-interest that some HNU students started protesting against university policies via multiple social media platforms, embodying the potential for challenging authority. For Chinese rural women who were marginalised for years under the hukou household registration scheme and the patriarchal social system for being rural and female, the perception of being an ability-less and powerless nongcun funu (rural woman) was entrenched, resulting in their eschewing of the public sphere and low self-efficacy in expressing personal views about social and political affairs. Whereas the anti-Japanese speech circulated in social media would otherwise arouse historically shameful
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memories about their country’s challenges and lead to nationalistic rituals they were familiar with. These historical, cultural and political experiences together shaped the everyday identity work of the Chinese people with the likely outcome of reinforcing the current political regime in China.
Despite that Confucianism was notoriously struck off by the Party at one time, Confucian values were never overthrown by the Chinese people. By incorporating traditional culture or Confucian culture into the political discourse, the CPC has made its policy more appealing and responsive in leading the country and its people to revive China’s glory. The findings in this thesis show that Confucian cultural values are embedded in the interpersonal norms in Chinese people’s everyday social interactions and are extremely important for their identity constructions. As argued by Fei (2012), there has always been a gap between the ‘name and underlying reality’ (p. 160) in Chinese social structure. Identity performance is face work. What’s hidden in reality are various incentives for self- benefit. Confucius realised the selfishness of Chinese people and advocated practicing benevolence and reciprocity to harmoniously maintain that gap so that one’s self could be advanced and others’ selves respected, which is a win-win situation. In the contemporary context, social media affords alternative methods to fulfil this lifelong project. Positive online self-presentations are therefore enacted to address that disparity.
8.3 Strangers’ Roles The Analects did not prescribe specifically how to act towards strangers, who instead are kept distant from Chinese social circles. This cultural tradition often leads to a conception in media studies which undermines the implication of strangers for the situational self (T. Wang, 2013) and sees them as antithetic to established social relationships (Yeo, Wildman, & Choi, 2017). The Chinese anthropologist Xiaotong Fei put forward his theory of the differential mode of association and the situational self in the 1940s based on his anthropological understanding of Chinese society. He elaborated on how Confucian culture shaped the selves of ordinary Chinese people and formed differentiated social relationships and suggested that Chinese were egocentric, which posited the self
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at the centre of social relations. Although Fei’s theory is based on analysis of kinship and geographical relations, it was implied that strangers were positioned in the further ring in various threads of social networks or outside of the loop because of the selfishness of the self.
Figure 8.1 The differential mode of association
In Fei’s sense, the self is not static but malleable to consider others and contain others, by virtue of Confucian reciprocity, therefore weaving a huge web of personal connections. At the time when Fei introduced his work, Chinese society was still a rural society. Now with modernisation, globalisation and informatisation, the society has evolved vastly. Individuals have more ways to present themselves and relate themselves to others, which brings the differential mode of association and the situational self into question.
The findings in this study suggest that managing social media interactions with strangers is a crucial strategy in the Chinese online context. Ties with strangers could be developed for emotional expression when Hanpu Town women like Chang Liu poured out their frustrations about their situated reality to strangers on WeChat, and Na Li built a playful and emotional friendship with unfamiliar QQ contacts from scratch, and when HNU students such as Xiaoli and Xiaoyong let out their complaints about study and work on Weibo without worrying about the damaging consequences to
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their identity impressions. Ties could also be elevated for future self-advancement when Xiaolei from HNU accumulated social capital via extending his stranger network of industry professionals on WeChat. The promotion of these relationships did not compromise the participants intimate relationships with their families, friends, classmates and colleagues, but ensured the negotiation of privacy outside of the familial circle and the implementation of graded love – protecting family from unnecessary concerns. And more importantly, they supported emotional expression, everyday self- presentation and identity work, for the sake of the self. Chinese discriminatory attitudes towards strangers have not been changed fundamentally. Strangers never entered into the core of Chinese guanxi. Family and friends remained at higher intimacy levels to the self. Social media such as WeChat, QQ and Weibo enable a faster and more extensive connectivity regionally and globally, which opens up opportunities for the pragmatic extension of Chinese social relationships. Online strangers may more easily walk into our horizon and interact with us in the peripheral of our differentiated social circles according to a set of interpersonal norms directed by how the self weighs one’s ties with these unknown people, such as benevolent and reciprocal like Na Li’s friendships with her QQ contacts and Xiaolei’s bonding with industry professionals, or reckless, such as Chang Liu’s WeChat catharsis, and Xiaoli and Xiaoyong’s Weibo disclosures of their hidden emotions. It is therefore argued here that the stranger’s role is a very important loop in the differential mode of association and is also compatible with the construction of the situational self.
8.4 The Inclusiveness of the Situational Self It comes to this point that the overarching question this research proposed, How do Chinese youth and rural women engage with social media to make sense of themselves and construct their identities? can now be answered. This whole thesis has shown the profoundness of the situational self particularly through the in-depth phenomenological and comparative analyses outlined in Chapters five, six and seven. The examples and explanations given uncover emerging transformations of the Chinese differential mode of association, injecting new interpretations of the theory of the situational self, and refuting the dichotomic view of a Chinese self as either collectivistic or individualistic (
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(Hofstede, et al., 2010) or a counterbalanced presence of both (Fengshu Liu, 2011; T. Wang, 2013). Rather, as this original research reveals, the situational self is unitary and inclusive. It accommodates both similarities and differences without changing its core – advancing self-interests amongst complex networks of others, from close family members, and allowing for familiar ties to unknown people. I therefore propose a new framework of the differential mode of association that appropriately explains Chinese identity constructions in the emerging social media space (see Figure 8.2).
Figure 8.2 The new framework of the differential mode of association
This thesis has demonstrated that the situational self is pervasive in Chinese emotional, social, economic and political lives, traversing in intertwined online and offline, public and private spaces and interweaving the circles of strangers and acquaintances into Chinese people’s everyday social interactions to an unprecedented extent that transforms previous negative perceptions about strangers and conservative ways of coping with intimate emotions. The situational self embodies convergent force in the cultural domain in which multiple forms of cultures interact, merge and constitute Chinese
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modern cultures (Dirlik, 2002) on the basis of Chinese situated social realities. While the enactment of the situational self in the social media space brings about social and economic benefits for both Chinese youth and older rural women, we can obviously see that older rural Chinese women are more disadvantaged due to structural constraints such as insufficient education and unequal social status. It is therefore of great significance to find out how to cope with these problems, rather than merely focusing on their economic development, so that the favour for this marginalised social group may be further leveraged.
Throughout this thesis, I have illustrated the phenomenal transformations of Chinese identity perceptions and everyday sociality, and the ordinary evolution of Chinese culture and social structure amidst China’s developing information economy. My research has found that the situational self is not a Confucian self per se, but Confucian culture moulded by the Chinese way of thinking and behaving, justifying the long-lasting effects of benevolent and reciprocal norms on Chinese interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, because the situational self enables a bridge between face and reality, manifesting strategic self-presentations and identity practices that are essential for Chinese everyday social interactions, it is pertinent to consider too whether these intersubjective, reciprocal, and relational interpersonal principles can be applied to all human interactions, especially given that we live in such a globally connected world. Being mindful of this means stronger possibilities for the common good to be better elevated.
8.5 Limitations and Implications for Future Research From the phenomenological inquiry presented here, this thesis finds that Chinese identity work cannot simply be explained by singularly applying a previously established theoretical model. The changing social media landscape brings about both opportunities and challenges and requires constant interrogation. By getting close to the people and interpreting how they understand their everyday experiences, this research has been able to provide a nuanced picture of Chinese culture shaped by new communication media. Given the in-depth research ethos induced by ethnographic methods,
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collecting data through fieldwork is an extremely labourious and time-consuming process. Coupled with the sensitivity of researching personal uses of the Internet and social media, these complexities could potentially discourage researchers and suitable participants alike from contributing to similar future projects. Yet future research could include more diverse groups of Chinese people and also test the validity of the new framework of the differential mode of association and the notion of the situational self presented in this study. More generally, for cultural theorists and cross-cultural communication practitioners, this study makes a valuable contribution for them to comprehend Chinese modern culture and the behaviours of two particular sample populations of Chinese people in the contemporary social media era.
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Chapter 10: Appendices
10 APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1 COMPARISONS OF ICTS USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN WOMEN 380
APPENDIX 2 COMPARISONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN
WOMEN- PART 1 ...... 381
APPENDIX 3 COMPARISONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN
WOMEN- PART 2 ...... 382
APPENDIX 4 SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS USED ONLY BY HNU STUDENTS ...... 383
APPENDIX 5 HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN WOMEN’S SOCIAL NETWORKS ON WECHAT AND QQ ...... 384
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APPENDIX 1 COMPARISONS OF ICTS USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN WOMEN
Mobile phone Online tools Broadband use Mobile brand network type
HNU iPhone (12), Mobile Computers Tablets Wi-Fi Mobile 2G (8%); 3G students Huawei (6), phones data (46%); 4G Samsung (4), (46%) 100% 100% 46% 100% 100% Xiaomi (2), Oppo (1) and 60M-3G LG (1)
Hanpu Samsung (6), Mobile Computers Tablets Family Mobile 2G (24%); 3G Town phones broadban data (36%); 4G iPhone (5), women d (WiFi) (40%) Vivo (4), Oppo (3), 100% 20% NA 68% 100% Huawei (2), 30M-1G Lenovo (1), Coolpad (1), Xiaomi (1) and Sony (1)
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APPENDIX 2 COMPARISONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN WOMEN- PART 1
Averag Popular social media platforms e time spent Instant messaging SNS Search engine online WeChat QQ Qzone Renre Dajie/ Baidu UC Google per n Maimai browser Chrome day
HNU 3.5 Daily Receiving Posting Camp Job Searching Searchin Searching students hours communication; message/ /record us advertis for g for for social QQ group ing social ements informatio informati informatio networking; notificatio netwo n/news on n/news/aca news reading; ns; file rking demic gaming; transfer references shopping; banking
Hanpu 2 hours Daily Social Posting NA NA Searching Searchin NA Town communication; networkin /sharin for g for women social g; gaming; g informatio informati networking; QQ group n on; news reading; activity; reading listening to singing novels/n music; gaming; karaoke ews shopping
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APPENDIX 3 COMPARISONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE BETWEEN HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN WOMEN- PART 2
Popular social media platforms
Music streaming Video streaming Email Online shopping
QQ Music NetEa Chang Youku Tencent iQIYI/ QQ Mail NetEase Gmail Taobao se ba SOHU/ Mail Cloud Baofeng Music/ /Xunlei/ Kuwo Mango Music TV
HNU Listening Liste Singi Watching Watchi Watchi Giving Receivi Commun Shopping/ students to music ning ng dramas/var ng ng wishes; ng/send icating communic to karao iety dramas/ dramas/ receiving ing with ation music ke shows/mov variety variety /sending files internatio between ies/animes shows/ shows/ files/noti nal retailers movies movies fications contacts and customers
Hanpu Listening NA NA Watching Watchi NA Giving NA NA Shopping/ Town to music dramas/var ng wishes; window- women iety dramas/ receiving shopping shows/dan variety /sending cing shows files/noti videos fications
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APPENDIX 4 SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS USED ONLY BY HNU STUDENTS
Anonymous social Microb Blog Online Q & User generated content sharing networking log forums A
Wumi Baobao MOM Weibo Sina Baidu Zhihu Douban Ximal YY Bilibili O Blog Tieba aya FM
Secrets Live Netw Recordi Recor Searchi Searc Sharing Listen Streamin Streaming disclos video orkin ng/sear ding ng for hing reviews ing to g live live ure; broadca g ching thoug informa for of music, podca broadcas broadcast; networ st; with for hts/id tion infor books sts ts watching king networ strang informa eas matio and shared
with king ers tion n films; videos of strange with nearb participat animes/dra rs strange y ing in mas rs offline group activities
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APPENDIX 5 HNU STUDENTS AND HANPU TOWN WOMEN’S SOCIAL NETWORKS ON WECHAT AND QQ
Main social Social networks HNU students Hanpu Town women media platforms
Family members, relatives, Family members, relatives, friends, Acquaintances friends, classmates, alumni, classmates, colleagues, neighbours, colleagues, teachers customers, children’s teachers WeChat Strangers and semi-known Non-acquaintances Strangers/no strangers contacts
Family members, relatives, friends, old classmates from Family members, relatives, friends, Acquaintances primary/secondary/high classmates, colleagues, neighbours, school, colleagues, alumni, children’s teachers QQ teachers
Strangers and semi-known Non-acquaintances Strangers contacts
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