The SAGE Handbook of Chinese Digital Media and Communication

1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-5296-8149-9
Verlag: Sage Publications Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 600 Seiten, Format (B × H): 174 mm x 246 mm

Reihe: Sage Handbooks of Modern China

The Sage Handbook of Chinese Digital Media and Communication is the first comprehensive reference work dedicated to the fast-evolving field of digital media and communication in China. Marking three decades since China’s official connection to the internet, this landmark volume brings together leading scholars from across the globe to examine the profound transformations digital technologies have brought to Chinese society, politics, culture, and economy.

Spanning activism, governance, labor, industry, everyday life, and research methods, the handbook offers a critical and interdisciplinary survey of the field. It explores how the internet and digital media have reshaped political participation, civil society, and national identity; how state regulation and surveillance intersect with innovation and platformization; and how digital labor, fandom, gaming, and e-commerce are redefining cultural production, consumption and economy. It also reflects on the lived experiences of users, from parenting and diaspora to queer communities and mobile rituals.

Structured across five thematic parts, the volume not only maps the current landscape of Chinese digital media and communication but also interrogates the knowledge production that has shaped the field. It invites dialogue with global digital media scholarship and offers a timely reflection on the past, present, and future of China’s digital transformation.

The Sage Handbook of Chinese Digital Media and Communication is an indispensable resource for scholars, researchers, and students seeking a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted landscape of Chinese digital media and communication. By examining past achievements, current trends, and future prospects, this collective effort establishes a foundation for advancing knowledge and fostering meaningful dialogues in this rapidly evolving field.

Part 1: Activism, Civil Society and Politics

Part 2: Technology, Regulation and Governance

Part 3: Platform, Labor and Industry

Part 4: User, Culture and Everyday Life

Part 5: Method, Approach and Reflections

Autoren/Hrsg.

Xu, Jian

Guo, Shaohua

Zhang, Weiyu

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction - Jian Xu, Shaohua Guo and Weiyu Zhang
Part 1: Activism, Civil Society and Politics
Chapter 1: Digital vigilantism in China: Dynamics and politics in networked justice-seeking - Qian Huang, Yiming Wang & Yiran Ding
Chapter 2: Digital media and contentious politics in Hong Kong - Francis Lee
Chapter 3: Understanding China’s digital feminism: Struggles, resilience, and businesses - Altman Yuzhu Peng & Fengshu Liu
Chapter 4: China’s digital nationalism: Narratives, technological affordance, practice - Florian Schneider

Chapter 5: Digital environmentalism and non-confrontational activism in the lifeworld - Weiyu Zhang, Yu Sun, Ding Xiang Chua & Yun Lin Seet
Chapter 6: Activism of no action: The lying-flat movement in Chinese cyberspace - Yuan Wang & Rongbin Han
Chapter 7: Digital citizenship of young people in China - Jun Fu
Chapter 8: Public opinion, Yulun and Yuqing - Dan Chen
Chapter 9: Panda as the flagship of China’s digital diplomacy: Rethinking the intersection of network and emotional narrative strategy - Zhao Alexandre Huang & Rui Wang
Part 2: Technology, Regulation and Governance
Chapter 10: China’s internet governance path: From ‘great country’ to ‘strong country’ strategy - Gianluigi Negro
Chapter 11: Civilisation, technology and surveillance in the Middle Kingdom - Michael Keane
Chapter 12: Communication politics and the social credit system - Haiqing Yu
Chapter 13: Big data and public health governance: A review of China’s health code system during the Covid-19 pandemic - Wilfred Yang Wang & Pengfei Fu
Chapter 14: ‘Double-bind regulation’ of private internet firms in China: Dilemmas, autonomy and resilience - Aifang Ma
Chapter 15: Regulating Chinese livestreaming industries: Historical regulatory-industrial trends and current issues - Xiaofei Han
Chapter 16: Tensions and contradictions in China’s approach to AI Governance - Huw Roberts, Lujain Ibrahim, Junhua Zhu

Chapter 17: China’s digital publishing transformation: Platformisation, artificial intelligence, and regulatory complexity - Xiang Ren

Part 3: Platform, Labor and Industry
Chapter 18: Cross-cultural comparative platform studies: Insights from short video research - Xu Chen & D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye
Chapter 19: The ‘unsettling’ political economy of communication in China: State reconfigurations and financialization of digital news industries - Chenhao Ye
Chapter 20: From Weibo to AI: How research on digital journalism reflects technological - Kecheng Fang & Youyi Wei
Chapter 21: E-commerce and rural development: Taobao Villages in China - Anthony Li
Chapter 22: Wanghong and the formation of ethical subjects in the Chinese creator economy - Jian Lin & Han Fu
Chapter 23: China’s digital fandom and platformized affective labor - Yiyi Yin
Chapter 24: Reconsidering the globalization of Chinese digital games: A platformization turn - Gejun Huang
Chapter 25: Gaming mobility: Players, industry, market and state rulemaking in China - Zixue Tai & Fengbin Hu
Chapter 26: Chinese digital giant going out under digital transformation and platformization: Rethinking Tencent’s pan-entertainment strategy - Wenjia Tang
Part 4: User, Culture and Everyday Life
Chapter 27: Digital media, Chinese diaspora, and new transnational subjects – A case study from Australia - Wanning Sun
Chapter 28: Chinese gay men’s digital media studies: A critical review - Weishan Miao & Jiacheng Liu
Chapter 29: The Remaking of an Underclass in Digital China: Contested Voices, Disciplined Cultural Production, and a Rising Lumpen Internet - Jiaxi Hou
Chapter 30: Internet literature in China revisited - Michel Hockx

Chapter 31: Revisiting Web 2.0 via blogs: A comparative study of mainland China and Taiwan - Shaohua Guo
Chapter 32: Digital parenting in China: State, school, and family - Xinyu Zhao
Chapter 33: Routinizing Technology: Mobile Payments and the Reinvention of Social Interactions in China - Yipeng Xi
Part 5: Method, Approach and Reflections
Chapter 34: Digital ethnography in, on and through China: A methodological history - Gabriele de Seta
Chapter 35: How to use computational methods and online experiments to study Chinese digital media - Yingdan Lu & Matt DeButts
Chapter 36: Researching Chinese internet history: A social memory perspective - Shiwen Wu, Xiaoya Yang & Jian Xu
Chapter 37: Researching China’s digital economy: A critical political economy perspective - Min Tang

Über Autor(innen)

Zhang, Weiyu
Provost's Chair Professor Weiyu Zhang is Director of the Civic Tech Lab (www.civictechlab.org), currently located at the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on civic engagement and Information and Communication Technologies, with an emphasis on Asia. She has led on multi-nation projects on youth engagement, online deliberation, and civic tech in Asia. Her current interest is to develop and examine civic tech applications to facilitate citizen deliberation on science topics such as artificial intelligence, Covid-19 vaccines, climate change, and novel food.

Xu, Jian
Dr Jian Xu is Associate Professor in Communication in the School of Communication & Creative Arts, Deakin University, Australia. He is the co-convenor of the Asian Media, Culture and Society Research Group at Deakin University. He is Associate Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. He was a Research Fellow in Media (Deakin University), Endeavour Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the China Research Centre (University of Technology Sydney), Visiting Scholar in the Centre for Global Communication and the Centre for the Study of Contemporary China (University of Pennsylvania). He obtained his PhD in Media and Communication from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Guo, Shaohua
Shaohua Guo is Associate Professor of Chinese at Carleton College. Her research interests focus on contemporary Chinese studies, digital media studies, and cultural studies. She is the author of The Evolution of the Chinese Internet: Creative Visibility in the Digital Public (Stanford University Press 2021).