Neoliberal feminism, gender relations, and a feminized male ideal in China : a critical discourse analysis of Mimeng’s WeChat posts

A large body of literature has explored the interplay between neoliberal feminism and womanhood. However, little existing scholarship has tackled the impact of neoliberal feminism on women’s perception of manhood. This article presents a case study of Mimeng, an iconic Key Opinion Leader (KOL) using social media, such as WeChat, to engage with Chinese women. I employ a critical discourse analysis (CDA) method to investigate how Mimeng uses a neoliberal feminist discourse in composing posts for her WeChat account. One notable feature of Mimeng’s discourse that I identify is her attempt to construct a feminized male ideal. This discourse strategy reveals a commercial objectification of men in order to attract women followers, amid the increase of Chinese women’s consumer power. Yet, such a discourse places an emphasis on refining a woman’s capacity for housetraining her partner or husband, which is a motive embedded in the agenda of Chinese neoliberal feminism. The outcomes of the research shed light on the revival of patriarchal values in contemporary China and beyond

Gender essentialism in Chinese reality TV : a case study of you are so beautiful

This article provides a feminist analysis of Chinese reality TV, using the recent makeover show—You Are So Beautiful (你怎么这么好看) as a case study. I argue that the notion of gender essentialism is highlighted in the production of You Are So Beautiful, which distances the Chinese show from its original American format—Queer Eye. This phenomenon is indicative of how existing gender power relations influence the production of popular cultural texts in post-reform China, where capitalism and authoritarianism weave a tangled web. The outcomes of the research articulate the interplay between post-socialist gender politics and reality TV production in the Chinese context

Sharing food photographs on social media : performative Xiaozi lifestyle in Young, middle-class Chinese urbanites’ WeChat ‘Moments’

Sharing food photographs on social media is on the rise. This act has become increasingly popular in younger generation urban Chinese users’ everyday use of WeChat, the popular social media application. In this article, I argue that self-presentation provides an angle to understand aspects of young, middle-class urbanites’ food-photograph sharing. This article comprises an eight-month project, conducting netnographic research of 16 young, middle-class Chinese urbanites’ WeChat usage. Through the netnographic research, I discovered that, by displaying geotagged snapshots of food, these young urbanites disclose their everyday consumer experience in particular urban spaces. Aspects of this practice feed into these urbanites’ performance of Xiaozi tastes, facilitating the self-presentation of their class distinction. The outcomes of the research provide a glimpse into the interplay between post-reform consumerism, Xiaozi lifestyle, and social media usage in the urban, middle-class Chinese younger generation’s everyday lives

A techno-feminist analysis of beauty app development in China’s high-tech industry

Drawing on a techno-feminist approach, this article foregrounds the socio-technological process of beauty app development in China’s high-tech industry. I conducted semi-structured interviews with ten professionals, six women and four men, who previously worked at a leading Chinese high-tech company and participated in the development of a pioneer, popular beauty app – BeautyCam (Meiyan Xiangji). The research findings reveal that Chinese high-tech professionals often perceive the development of beauty apps as providing female users with a sense of empowerment and facilitating the inclusion of female professionals in the high-tech industry. Despite this feminist veneer, beauty app development poses no challenge to the status quo in Chinese society. Instead, it supports an underlying gendered logic not only by reinforcing existing standards of beauty but also in creating a niche job market that restricts female professionals’ career development. The discussion sheds light on the intersection of gender and technology in an East Asian context where neoliberal pseudo-feminism is evidently on the rise

Digital nationalism vs. post-reform gender politics : gender-issue debates on Zhihu

This article aims to determine how digital nationalism influences gender politics in the context of gender-issue debates on Chinese social media platforms. To this end, I present an original case study, collecting empirical data from the most popular Chinese community question-answering (CQA) site – Zhihu. By using a mixed-method research design, consisting of content analysis (CA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA), I explored gender-issue debates between Chinese Internet users. The analysis reveals how such debates inform divided opinions between women and men Internet users, and how misogynistic men invoke a nationalist discourse to distort the debates. The findings shed new light on the dynamic interplay between digital nationalism and gender politics

Affective networks : how WeChat enhances Tencent’s digital business governance

An emerging body of literature has revealed that social media enhance digital business governance to facilitate Internet companies in generating profit throughout regulating the everyday lives of users. However, although existing debates are often contextualized in the West, little attention has been paid to China, where social media are widely used. To fill this knowledge gap, this article investigates the digital business governance practiced by Chinese Internet companies such as Tencent. Specifically, I employ an affective lens to analyze how WeChat, the most popular social media application launched by Tencent, allows this Internet company to influence users for its own business purposes. Chinese college students, which constitute a representative group of young people, were early adopters of WeChat, and they have led the trend of social media use in China. Based on a yearlong netnographic study of Chinese college students, the results reveal that the affective design of WeChat captured their attention and influenced their everyday practices. These results provide insight into how digital business governance operates in the Chinese context, in which authoritarianism and capitalism work closely together

Gender and the privacy paradox in Chinese college students’ locative dating communication

This article explores the role gender plays in addressing the privacy paradox in the context of young Chinese people’s locative dating communication. Based on a case study of 19 Chinese college students, I explore differing privacy management strategies adopted by female and male participants in their use of WeChat People Nearby. This gendered phenomenon reveals how People Nearby works within patriarchal Chinese society to pose more privacy-related risks to women than to men in locative dating communication. The research findings shed new light on the socio-technological processes through which existing gender power relations are reproduced in young Chinese people’s use of locative social media applications

Amplification of regional discrimination on Chinese news portals : an affective critical discourse analysis

Regional discrimination is a significant social issue that leads to divided societies. In China, people from Henan Province, who are verbally abused by non-Henan users on the Internet, are often victims of regional discrimination. This article presents a case study of Chinese Internet users’ discriminatory practice against Henan people in the commentary sections of two major Chinese news portals – Tencent and NetEase. By advancing an affective critical discourse analysis approach with the assistance of content analysis, I analysed user comments on news reports that covered a news event relating to regional discrimination against Henan people. The analysis showed that Internet users’ discriminatory practice was notably amplified by the locative IP-address function in NetEase’s commentary section. The research findings shed light on the interplay between Internet users’ discursive practice and the technological architecture of interactive digital platforms in the context of regional discrimination