2022

Jianqing Chen

  • Assistant Professor
  • Washington University in St. Louis
Picture of Jianqing Chen

Project

Put Down the Hoe, Pick Up the Smartphone: The Emergence of Rural Internet Influencers in Contemporary China

Program

Luce/ACLS Early Career Fellowships in China Studies – Long-Term

Department

East Asian Languages and Cultures & Film and Media

Named Award

Long Term named award

Abstract

This project explores the emergence of rural mobile media user-cum-content-creators and their participation in shaping the myriad of new, flourishing, albeit controversial, cultural practices and visual aesthetics that are transforming Chinese media ecology. Shifting attention from the metropolitan center to the rural margins, this project interrogates two media practices and aesthetics popular among rural influencers : little-fresh portraiture and tuwei short videos and live-streams. I inquiry into the rural digital users and producers at the intersection of big-tech companies' and party-state's distinct agendas. This project casts light on the new subjectivities of Chinese peasantry mediated by digital media, and charts the changing political economic order of contemporary China.