Social media in rural China social networks and moral frameworks
China's distinctive social media platforms have gained notable popularity among the nation's vast number of internet users, but has China's countryside been 'left behind' in this communication revolution? Tom McDonald spent 15 months living in a small rural Chinese community...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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London
UCL Press
2016, 2016
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| Series: | Why we post
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| Collection: | JSTOR Open Access Books - Collection details see MPG.ReNa |
| Summary: | China's distinctive social media platforms have gained notable popularity among the nation's vast number of internet users, but has China's countryside been 'left behind' in this communication revolution? Tom McDonald spent 15 months living in a small rural Chinese community researching how the residents use social media in their daily lives. His ethnographic findings suggest that, far from being left behind, many rural Chinese people have already integrated social media into their everyday experience. Throughout his ground-breaking study, McDonald argues that social media allows rural people to extend and transform their social relationships by deepening already existing connections with friends known through their school, work or village, while also experimenting with completely new forms of relationships through online interactions with strangers, particularly when looking for love and romance. By juxtaposing these seemingly opposed relations, rural social media users are able to use these technologies to understand, capitalise on and challenge the notions of morality that underlie rural life |
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| Physical Description: | 219 pages |
| ISBN: | 1910634670 1910634700 1911307312 9781910634677 1910634689 9781910634684 1910634719 |