Search

The subjectivity of Black individuals and communities as content producers in Sino–African/Black encounters has been underestimated in popular culture and academic discussion. By incorporating the theory of the libidinal economy, this study aims to understand the unique discursive practices in video blogs (vlogs) produced by Black YouTubers in China from the perspective of Black cyberculture. This study applies critical technocultural discourse analysis to 100 popular videos. Two levels of libidinal investments are identified: first, the libidinal energy, Black pathos, invested by Black Youtubers as the subject of video production and publication; and second, the interracial libidinal tension invested by Chinese and Black subjects, which is externalized as racialization. Two types of libidinal flows are identified: the libidinal energy flow, through various technologies, from offline encounters in China to the global video platform YouTube, supported by the discursive practices, such as signifyin'; and the libidinal flow from the narrative of mundanity to a wider domain of discursive contestation between China and the United States This study also suggests to focus on the variation of libidos, filtered by identities, invested in materiality in a cross-cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients narratives are being recorded increasingly frequently and spontaneously in short user produced content (UGC) films, which may have an impact on the vlogger's health as well as the public's comprehension of the relevant health concerns. This paper addressed three research questions regarding the population characteristics of UGC video publishers, the narrative theme of the videos, and the emotional orientation of the commenters. This study aimed to deepen our understanding of COVID-19 patients' narrative intentions and emotional needs through the theoretical frameworks of theory of planned behavior (TPB) and negative dominance theory (NDT). We collected 335 videos from 28 COVID-19 patients and 572,052 comments as samples on Douyin platform, the largest short-video website in China. Using Latent Semantic Analysis, we analyzed the descriptive information of the video blogs, the narrative textual information of the videos, and the emotional orientation of the comments. Our findings revealled seven categories of narrative themes, with 52.1% of video comments exhibiting a positive emotional orientation. Within a framework integrating TPB and NDT theories, we analyzed the behavioral intentions of vloggers and viewers during COVID-19 epidemic, and interpreted the persistent posting of videos and the active posting of comments as positive actions that counteracted the multiple effects of negative messages. This study contributes to the understanding of individual narratives in macro-risk communication, both theoretically and empirically, and offers policy recommendations in relevant fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of vlogging (video blogging) culture in China has been entangled with the wanghong culture and platform economy, which creates tension between individual empowerment and structural power for vloggers. How do young Chinese vloggers construct online identities tactically to cope with the structural pressures? This dissertation explores young Chinese vloggers' practices, identities, and tactics in interaction with the social media platform Bilibili. By conducting a digital ethnography between 2018 and 2022, I argue that young Chinese vloggers tactically construct and perform their online identities to negotiate with norms, aesthetics, and regulations in the wanghong culture and platform economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of digital technology has provided new opportunities for language learning, extending beyond traditional classroom instruction. Video projects have emerged as an effective tool in foreign language education, yet research on self-initiated and regulated video production for language learning is scarce. This study investigates the phenomenon of vlogging in Spanish as a second language on the Chinese video sharing platform Bilibili, by analyzing 134 Chinese-produced Spanish-language vlogs. The study aims to understand the vlogs' characteristics, the vloggers' profile, and the ways they utilize the genre for learning Spanish. Through qualitative virtual ethnography, the study uncovers the presence and learning engagement of Spanish L2 vlogs on Bilibili. The results reveal a diverse range of vlogs, including daily life experiences and adaptations of popular YouTube trends, primarily produced by university students with advanced editing skills. Vloggers incorporate knowledge from both formal education (e.g., the Spanish textbook widely used in China, Español Moderno) and informal contexts. In addition to practicing oral Spanish, L2 vloggers use various forms of writing, including Spanish subtitles and Chinese translation, and mobilize multimodal resources, such as danmu comments for overlaying corrections. Vloggers also adopt discursive strategies for community interaction, such as self-deprecating metalanguage, feedback solicitation, and metalinguistic reflections. The study highlights the potential of video-sharing platforms like Bilibili as tools for language learning, reveals different learning styles in digital environments (self-supervised and interaction-oriented learning), and indicates the direction of integrating daily vlogs and multilingual subtitles into language curricula, emphasizing students' agency, self-directed digital learning, and transmedia literacy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vlogging culture has experienced rapid growth in China since 2018. Central to this expansion, social media platforms have played a dominant role in popularising vlogging culture. By conducting a digital ethnography of the Chinese user-generated content platform Bilibili from September 2019 to May 2022, this article explores the institutional power of platforms in promoting and shaping vlogging production and practices in China. Beyond the function of intermediating, Bilibili shapes vlogging as an intensive production and interactive practice with high performativity to compete for visibility. This article theorises four ways that Bilibili popularises vlogging culture in China: pillarising discourses, metric-based monetisation, advertising mediation and vlog-focused campaigns. In taking this approach, this study sheds light on the institutional power of platforms in promoting and shaping cultural production. In addition, it uncovers the precarity embedded in the promotion strategies, notably the interplay with the platform economy in the context of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last several years, an increasing number of rural vloggers from China have opened their YouTube channels, Facebook pages, and Instagram accounts. They broadcast their farming, working, cooking, and crafting. The visual narratives make interesting storytelling about contemporary China, given the fact that these social media platforms themselves are officially inaccessible there. Using Li Ziqi, one of the most viewed Chinese YouTubers, as my case study, I will discuss the politics behind the construction of the "good China story" at the grassroots level. I argue that the aestheticized labor plays a central role in making the good story and its nation-building rhetoric, which is enabled and disrupted by the negotiation and contestation of the aspiring rural individual, the profit-driven cooperation, and the overseeing state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video blogging (vlogging), a type of short video that people produce by recording and editing their daily lives, has become an emerging form of digital cultural production on social media platforms in China. With the profound growth of video marketing on social platforms, brands have increasingly leveraged vloggers to promote female-targeted products. This phenomenon becomes especially paradoxical when marketers bring the narrative of female empowerment into the discourse. This case study employed textual analysis to understand how Chinese viewers make sense of Bobbi Brown's "The Big Women" vlog endorsed by the female vlogger Zhuzi on Weibo. A typology of viewers' response was generated: (1) reciprocity of self-disclosure; (2) perceived interconnectedness with the vlogger; and (3) perceived women empowerment and advertisement effectiveness. The findings of this article articulate a symbolic form of relationship between content creators, brands, and consumers that promotes women empowerment. This study argues, however, that this perception of women empowerment may obscure the implicit consumerism embedded in the femvertising contents, while promoting the myth of self-empowerment through consumption. The findings of the study shed light on the rise of (pseudo-)feminism ethos constructed by the consumer market in contemporary China and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]