Chinese Rural Feminism: How Social Media Reshape Feminism in China by Yi Yang B.F.A., Communication University of China, 2017 Extended Essay Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the School of Communication (Dual Degree Program in Global Communication) Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology © Yi Yang 2019 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Summer 2019 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Yi Yang Degree: Master of Arts Title: Chinese Rural Feminism: How Social Media Reshape Feminism in China Program Director: Katherine Reilly David Murphy Senior Supervisor Senior Lecturer Katherine Reilly Program Director Associate Professor Date Approved: August 17th, 2019 ii Abstract With the development of social media in China, Chinese feminism is facing great challenges. On the one hand, social media provides a platform for feminists to discuss female issues, which has aroused wide public concern. On the other hand, the emerge of the discourse of Chinese rural feminism has put Chinese feminism under attack. As an Internet discourse, Chinese rural feminism has spread into people's daily life. Chinese rural feminism has destroyed the reputation of feminists even set back the progress of Chinese feminism because of its excessive remarks. This paper will provide a critique of Chinese rural feminism by studying the meaning and causes of its emergence. In order to better study the discourse of Chinese rural feminism, this research will use a case study of Mimeng, one of Chinese social media, to find out the meaning of the Chinese rural feminism. After text analyzing of Mimeng's article, this article will explore the cultural and social reasons behind the discourse of Chinese rural feminism, as well as figure out how social media plays a role in it. Keywords: Social media; Chinese feminism; Chinese rural feminism; Mimeng iii Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ............................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................iv Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2. Raise of social media in China .................................................................. 3 2.1. The difference between traditional mass media and social media .......................... 3 2.2. Characteristics of social media ................................................................................. 4 Chapter 3. Overview of Chinese Feminism ................................................................ 6 Chapter 4. The discourse of Chinese rural feminism .............................................. 10 Chapter 5. Case study of Mimeng .............................................................................. 12 5.1. Mimeng’s view ........................................................................................................ 13 5.1.1. Positive part .................................................................................................... 13 5.1.2. Negative part .................................................................................................. 13 5.2. Characteristics of Chinese rural feminism .............................................................. 15 5.2.1. Double-standarded ......................................................................................... 15 5.2.2. Hate men. ....................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 6. The social and historical reasons behind feminism............................. 17 6.1. Feminism aspect ..................................................................................................... 17 6.2. Woman aspect ........................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 7. Why social media can promote the dissemination of Chinese rural feminism ................................................................................................................ 22 7.1. Social media excessively pursue economic benefits. ............................................ 22 7.2. Audience lack media literacy. ................................................................................. 23 Chapter 8. Conclusion................................................................................................. 26 References ....................................................................................................................... 27 iv Chapter 1. Introduction The rapid development of new media technology has brought a new pattern of media communication. With the advent of the information era, traditional media can no longer meet the needs of the public, and social media has increasingly become an important channel for information dissemination. In China, Social media such as Weibo, WeChat and various short video apps provide more channels for women to express their opinions and share information on online platforms. However, the raise of the social media has led to the emergence of new narratives that challenge the gains made by feminists in the past. One of these is particularly interesting. It is the discourse of “Chinese Rural Feminism.” This article is aim at understanding what is Chinese rural feminism and how is it produced on Chinese social media, as well as provide a critique of this discourse. In order to find out how social media reshape Chinese feminism, this research will be divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, I plan to study what is social media, how it developed and what is its characteristics. Studying this question can provide readers with a simple understanding of social media and a prejudgment on why social media can affects feminism. The second chapter will have a overview on Chinese feminism. By learning the concepts advocated by Chinese feminism in different time periods in detail, I will try to conclude what Chinese feminism is asking for. The methodology of literary review will be used to make the argument more persuasive. This will help with the following research on how social media reshape the Chinese feminist. In the third chapter, I will discuss about the discourse of Chinese rural feminism and point out the exact direction I will talk about. The discourse of Chinese rural feminism is complicated, so it is necessary to figure out which ways is talking about. Next, in the fourth chapter, I will use the method of case study to study the case of Mimeng, one of Chinese social media which seen as a platform for Chinese rural feminism by many people, and do content analysis to study the performance of the Chinese rural feminism and its characteristics. In chapter five, I will find how Chinese rural feminism came into being from the perspective of society and culture. Then, in the following chapter, I will 1 study why social media has an impact on the development of Chinese rural feminism from the perspective of the profit model of social media, the media literacy of Chinese netizens. In last chapter, I will conclude what I have found from my research. 2 Chapter 2. Raise of social media in China Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks (Kietzmann, Hermkens, Mccarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). In another word, social media is a tool and a platform for people to share their opinions, insights, experiences and opinions with each other. For example, famous social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram. The development of social media can be traced back to sixdegrees.com in 1997 (Kirkpatrick, 2010). It is based on the theory of six degrees of separation (Liu, Lu, Zhang & Zheng, 2012), which means you can get know with any stranger by up to six people. Sixdegrees.com creates a model which establish an online friendship between users by sending home emails. However, many people disagreed with the model, leading sixdegrees.com to declare it off the market in 2000. In 2003, Friendster and MySpace came out, but then disappeared due to the relatively backward technology and fierce competition among similar products. Facebook, which emerged in 2008, has become the world's largest social media by virtue of its good interactivity and ever-improving service. （Cao,2011） China's social media started later than western countries. In 2000, Tencent's QQ and chat rooms appeared in China, followed by Weibo, Renren, WeChat and other social media. In 2018, The Internet society of China has released the “China Internet development report in 2018”. In this report, by the end of 2017, the number of netizens had reached 772 million, and the usage rate of WeChat, QQ, Weibo reached 87.3%, 64.4%, 40.9% respectively. This means China’s social media has great influence in China.（“China's”, 2018） 2.1. The difference between traditional mass media and social media Unlike traditional mass media, including newspapers, radio, television, film, social media as a consumer - generated