Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China | springerprofessional.de

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2021 | Buch

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Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China

verfasst von: David Craig, Jian Lin, Prof. Stuart Cunningham

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

In Chinese, the term wanghong refers to creators, social media entrepreneurs alternatively known as KOLs (key opinion leaders) and zhubo (showroom hosts), influencers and micro-celebrities. Wanghong also refers to an emerging media ecology in which these creators cultivate online communities for cultural and commercial value by harnessing Chinese social media platforms, like Weibo, WeChat, Douyu, Huya, Bilibili, Douyin, and Kuaishuo. Framed by the concepts of cultural, creative, and social industries, the book maps the development of wanghong policies and platforms, labor and management, content and culture, as they operate in contrast to its non-Chinese counterpart, social media entertainment, driven by platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch. As evidenced by the backlash to TikTok, the threat of competition from global wanghong signals advancing platform nationalism.

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

This chapter articulates the key arguments for identifying wanghong as industry, as reflected in industry and academic discourses, and as a variant to social media entertainment (SME), as first defined by co-authors Cunningham and Craig. The wanghong and SME industries are new media ecologies based on emerging entrepreneurs (whether called creators, influencers, wanghong, KOLs, or zhubo) harnessing social media platforms to create commercial and cultural value. Alongside the well-known ideas of cultural and creative industries, we introduce social industries into our conceptual framework. This is a concept emerging within industry discourses and across diverse academic fields including business, social media, and platform studies, that we use to further differentiate wanghong and SME from legacy media industries.

David Craig, Jian Lin, Stuart Cunningham

Chapter 2. Policy and Governance

Abstract

This chapter builds on the core themes of the cultural, the creative, and the social by demonstrating how policies embodying distinctive Chinese interpretations of western concepts of cultural industries and creative industries have been deployed. Cleaving to a traditional view of cultural industries, China has developed a more assertive cultural nationalism, while at the same time embracing the industrial modernization offered by creative industries policies including intellectual property rectification and growing global brands. But it is China’s pivotal embrace of the full potential of digital platformization of economy and society that marks Chinese policy and governance as world leading—both for its integration of social amelioration objectives as well as a concerning level of social surveillance.

David Craig, Jian Lin, Stuart Cunningham

Chapter 3. Platforms

Abstract

The autarkic development of social media platforms underpins China’s wanghong industry. We call the accelerative rate of adoption of world leading platform technologies hyperplatformization. We use the term interplatformization to explain the way in which Chinese platforms engage in interoperability that results in a more collaborative platform landscape than its Western SME counterparts. The interaction between wanghong platforms and subscription-video-on-demand portals for internet distributed television produces both opportunity and threat for wanghong. We use the concept of social presence—involving technological innovations of social commentary, social streaming, and social video—to analyze the social industries in this chapter. These create affordances that enhance wanghong platform and creator viability through a near frictionless ability to engage in social tipping and social commerce.

David Craig, Jian Lin, Stuart Cunningham

Chapter 4. Creators

Abstract

We examine the conditions of wanghong labor in the context of state surveillance, competitive pressures, algorithmic culture, and the role of intermediary management enterprises called multichannel networks. We deploy a taxonomy of wanghong creators and practices. “Cultural” wanghong are typically media professionals and experts who use platforms to extend their celebrity status or advance their expertise. “Creative” wanghong are professionalizing amateur creators native to social media platforms generating content built around lifestyles and affinities. “Social” wanghong are those who have emerged on social streaming and social video platforms and have cultivated followers and revenue less by their content practices than through mediated social interaction—their cultivation of social presence.

David Craig, Jian Lin, Stuart Cunningham

Chapter 5. Culture

Abstract

We first locate wanghong in the trajectory of the cultural history of contemporary China. We consider how, if wanghong’s commodified entertainment culture is degrading and apolitical, how is it also dangerous and disruptive to such an extent that the Party State becomes so wary of it and censorially intervenes so often? This chapter builds on the book’s use of cultural, creative, and social themes by offering a taxonomy of their relationships illustrated by representative wanghong. The dizzying range of genres and styles of wanghong content suggests a wider palette of cultural options compared to SME genre. The “unlikely” aesthetics and their inherent sociality contribute to the authenticity of wanghong culture, serving as “light-hearted resistance” to regimented, stratified, and competitive conditions of everyday life in China.

David Craig, Jian Lin, Stuart Cunningham

Chapter 6. Global Wanghong

Abstract

This chapter considers how the wanghong industry is “going out” transnationally, regionally, or globally. Wanghong platforms, we argue, represent the most successful of many attempts for Chinese culture to go out, and thus compete against the United States-driven social media entertainment industry and the platforms it operates on. But the backlash against the take-up of particularly TikTok signals rising platform nationalism, and undermines the possibility of a global creator culture that transcends national borders, geography, and cultural differences. It is the wanghong industry, having produced a successful proof of concept for Chinese cultural going out, that now sits at the leading edge of concerns for the future prospects of globalizing popular culture.

David Craig, Jian Lin, Stuart Cunningham

Backmatter

Titel: Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China
verfasst von: David Craig
Jian Lin
Prof. Stuart Cunningham
Copyright-Jahr: 2021
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-65376-7
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-65375-0
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65376-7

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