Abstract
The chapter studies China’s representative female wanghong (Internet celebrities) in the last two decades. By examining their ‘gender performativity’ for fame and stardom on different digital media platforms, from BBS, blog, social media site to live-streaming platform, as well as the social-cultural-political implications of their performativity, we propose to understand female wanghong as micro-celebrities who practice gender ‘platformativity’, platform-enabled performativity; as carnival in China’s cyberspace; and as online youth culture and digital economy subject to the state and capital powers. A gendered perspective to study China’s Internet celebrity will not only bring the gender issue into the study of China’s celebrity culture, but also into the study of China’s Internet culture, history and politics.
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- 1.
CMO refers to Chief Marketing Officer.
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‘Positive energy’ (zhengnengliang) is a popular political discourse widely used by the Xi Jinping government, which is meant to ‘give people confidence and hope, encourage people to love their country, society and life, as well as to pursue nice things’ in the word of Lu Wei, former director of the Cyberspace Administration of China (Bundurski 2015). The political catchphrase has direct implications for the Internet governance in the Xi Jinping era. The CCP has enhanced its regulations and control of the Internet in order to make it a platform for people to spread voices that convey positive rather than negative sentiment (Zhou, C. 2016).
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Xu, J., Zhao, X. (2019). Changing Platformativity of China’s Female Wanghong: From Anni Baobei to Zhang Dayi. In: Cai, S. (eds) Female Celebrities in Contemporary Chinese Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5980-4_7
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