The Rural Video Influencers in China: on the New Edge of Urbanization
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THE RURAL VIDEO INFLUENCERS IN CHINA: ON THE NEW EDGE OF URBANIZATION A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Xinwen Zhang May 2020 © 2020 Xinwen Zhang ABSTRACT On the new media platforms in China, especially the video platforms, some rural content has become quite influential, which is, to some extent, inconsistent with people's impression of the vulnerable position of rural areas the urban-rural inequality. This thesis studied some of the most popular the rural content producers with the close reading of their videos, explaining how they frame themselves and their artworks and what kind of "rurality" is performed to the audiences. While the audience might assign them as rural figures, these people were on the edge of the urban and the rural as they had a shared history as some people who were from the rural areas, spent a period of their lives as migrant workers, and finally became video influencers performing some kind of rural lifestyle. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Xinwen Zhang was born in Shenyang, China, and spent the first 18 years of her life there. Then, she went to Sun Yat-sen University and entered Boya college, which sets no determined major and emphasizes on text close reading to explore potential for students. She finally chose anthropology as the major and researched the breakfast stalls in New Phoenix Village. She went to the village and had close contact with the migrant workers running breakfast stalls and people at breakfast, mainly focusing on the population identification, identity cognition, and community construction of the migrant population as well as their dilemma. After graduation from Sun Yat-sen University, Xinwen joined the Cornell community as a master student in Asian Studies in 2018, concentrating on contemporary Chinese culture. In this period, in addition to academic studies, she also had internships in Chinses live streaming companies and social media platforms. With these experience in the internet industry, she started to dive into the unique role of migrant workers on the internet. i / 68 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis committee, especially my chair Professor Robin McNeal. This thesis could not be completed without his useful advice and immense knowledge. In specific, his insight on rural-urban relations in China helped me to find a new way to understand the country I was born in. The other advisor in my committee, Dr. Andrew Campana is an expert in East Asian media and has provided me extensive personal and professional guidance. Then, as a non-native English speaker, I would also like to thank the Cornell ELSO and tutors in the writing center ELSO gave me many useful suggestions to express my ideas better. Finally, my special thanks go to my parents, my friends, and all my roommates. Without my parents’ love and all kinds of support I would not even be a here as a Cornellian. And I am grateful for the endless support and encouragement from my friends and roommates during the COVID-19 pandemic. ii / 68 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................... i BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ............................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. ii GLOSSARY AND LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................. v 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 2. A brief history of the rural-urban relationship in China .............................................. 4 2.1 In traditional Chinese society ................................................................................. 4 2.2 After the 19th century ............................................................................................ 5 2.3 After 1949: the hukou system ................................................................................ 5 2.4 Changes in the reform era ...................................................................................... 9 2.5 New policies in the 2000s .................................................................................... 12 2.6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 13 3. The internet in China ................................................................................................. 14 3.1 The netizens in China ........................................................................................... 14 3.2 The devices .......................................................................................................... 19 3.3 Chinese internet environment now ...................................................................... 23 3.3.1 The general environment now .................................................................... 23 3.3.2 The influencers and the platforms .............................................................. 27 iii / 68 4. Rural influencers ........................................................................................................ 29 4.1 Li Ziqi and the other idyllic video producers ....................................................... 29 4.2 Wang Gang and, the partially rural content producers ........................................ 38 4.3 Huanong Brothers, and other people as the source of meme .............................. 45 5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 51 References ......................................................................................................................... 55 iv / 68 GLOSSARY AND LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS hukou 户口 the househould registration system used in mainland China liudong 流动人口 official tranlation: the floating population. People who move away renkou from their registered city for hukou mangliu 盲流 the abbriviation for “盲目流动人口” (floating population without clear plan) a discriminative term referring to the rural-to-urban migrants. nongmingong 农民工 farmers who have worked outside the township for six months or more, or local farmers who have engaged in non-agricultural industry inside the township for six months or more sannong 三农:农业、农村、农民 Three “rural”: agriculture, rural areas, and farmers xiaolingtong 小灵通 a mobile phone system based on PHS technology ACG Anime, Comic and Games CNNIC The China Internet Network Information Center GFW Great Fire-Wall MAU Monthly active users MCN multi-channel network MIIT Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China NHFPC National Health and Family Planning Commission PRC People's Republic of China ROC Republic of China v / 68 TVE Township and Village Enterprises vi / 68 1. Introduction In the recent decade, as the internet infrastructures have developed rapidly, people have witnessed various new features of the internet and numerous changes that it has brought to society. The internet has become part of people's lives all over the world, and people in China seem to be accustomed to relying on the internet in various ways. People in 2010 might have found it hard to imagine China would quickly become a cashless society, or individuals would use a QR code to prove their health condition during a pandemic (Legal Daily 法制日报, 2020). Now in 2020, we might ask, is this new lifestyle common to every Chinese or just limited to some rich areas? What are the experiences of people in rural areas, who are the primary victims of the digital divide in China? Indeed, rural areas have become an unavoidable topic when discussing the internet recently. Many companies are paying more attention to the traditionally neglected poorer areas. When the internet infrastructure is pushed farther spatially, their business is not limited to the large cities but could be extended further both spatially and socially. While the metropolitan areas are existing market spaces where they have to pay more for gaining new users, the small towns and the rural areas leave more opportunities to them. While TikTok in the US, in some journalists' observation, is using various tactics to keep certain users out— mainly adults, to please the core target users, the teenagers (Albury & Savic, n.d.) — its original version in China is investing a lot workforce and capital trying hard to gain users from the small towns and rural areas(Caasdata 卡思数据, 2019). Despite being part of the commercial marketing, TikTok’s strategies supported the producing or 1 / 68 curating rural content. TikTok is not the only platform that has rural content. Videos about rural areas have appeared on various video platforms in China. On the one hand, at first glance with a superficial understanding, this seems only to be an inevitable result of the internet companies' choices for the best commercial benefit. But on the other hand, given a bit more scrutiny, this seems to be a turning point for China's social environment. Rural-urban power inequality has a long history. In regard of culture production, the rural regions are mainly considered as passive receiver of the mainstream culture from cities.(Shi Qianran 施倩然, 2019). People from the countryside can be portrayed, displayed, and even sympathized, but they hardly had any