In Digital Chinas Informal Circuits, Elaine Zhao offers an exciting and informative analysis on the often-neglected informal economy, secondary market and alternative forms of production and practices of digital culture in China. From open source cultures and piracy to amateur labor and media, Zhao argues that such informalities and the dialectics between the informalities and the formalities have hammered out a more complex and dynamic cultural condition in contemporary China.
Anthony Fung, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Beijing Normal University
Digital Chinas Informal Circuits: Platforms, Labour and Governance provides readers with a critical perspective on how Chinas information and communication technologies are at the leading edge of disruptive innovation. In this readable and comprehensive book Elaine Zhao describes how multiple players and publics strategize to position themselves between formal and the informal economies against the backdrop of a society undergoing massive digital transformation.
Michael Keane, Curtin University Australia
Digital Chinas Informal Circuits
From open source cultures, piracy, to amateur media and on-demand labour, informal media activities are vibrant in circuits of cultural production, distribution, consumption and labour utilisation in China. They come in different sizes and shapes, involve multiple actors, often with transnational ties and tensions, and challenge polemic views. Why do these informal activities occur, and how do they evolve? What cultural and social consequences do they have? In what ways do they pose challenges to governance and provoke us to rethink the notion? This book engages with diverse forms of the informal and their equally diverse interactions with the formal in the broader context of the rise of digital platforms, the contingent and complicated statemarket interactions, and evolving roles of users. The book provides a vivid and original account of how digital platforms navigate formal and informal boundaries at both operational and discursive levels; how enthusiastic fans, aspiring amateurs, ordinary users and necessity-driven labourers become integral to the formal/informal interface; and how state and non-state actors intervene in governing the formal/informal dynamics. In doing so, the book opens up new insights into the ongoing digital transformation in China.
Elaine Jing Zhao is Senior Lecturer in the School of the Arts and Media, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia
Series Editor
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald
Editorial Board:
Gregory N. Evon, University of New South Wales
Devleena Ghosh, University of Technology, Sydney
Peter Horsfield, RMIT University, Melbourne
Chris Hudson, RMIT University, Melbourne
Michael Keane, Curtin University
Tania Lewis, RMIT University, Melbourne
Vera Mackie, University of Wollongong
Kama Maclean, University of New South Wales
Laikwan Pang, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Gary Rawnsley, Aberystwyth University
Ming-yeh Rawnsley, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Jo Tacchi, Lancaster University
Adrian Vickers, University of Sydney
Jing Wang, MIT
Ying Zhu, City University of New York
The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both new and established scholars in the West and the East, on all aspects of media, culture and social change in Asia.
Cultural Policy in South Korea
Making a New Patron State
Hye-Kyung Lee
Television in Post-Reform Vietnam
Nation, Media, Market
Giang Nguyen-Thu
South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea
Edited by Youna Kim
Russian Nationalism
Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields
Marlene Laruelle
Digital Chinas Informal Circuits
Platforms, Labour and Governance
Elaine Jing Zhao
For a full list of available titles please visit: www.routledge.com/Media-Cultureand-Social-Change-in-Asia-Series/book-series/SE0797
Digital Chinas Informal Circuits
Platforms, Labour and Governance
Elaine Jing Zhao
First published 2019
by Routledge
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2019 Elaine Jing Zhao
The right of Elaine Jing Zhao to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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ISBN: 978-1-138-73710-5 (hbk)
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Contents
Many people have accompanied me along the journey leading to this book. First and foremost, I would like to thank all the individuals who kindly shared with me their experience in formal and informal circuits of cultural production, circulation, consumption and labour utilisation. These include amateur developers, parallel dealers, rooting and jailbreaking service providers, enthusiastic fans, aspiring internet literature writers, professionalising online video producers, taxi drivers, on-demand drivers working with ride-hailing apps, and industry practitioners, all witnessing the trajectories of various digital platforms in China. I am indebted to Xiaoxiang Shi and Marina Guo for their assistance in arranging part of the fieldwork.
The idea for this book germinated during my time at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, and the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. I owe an eternal debt to Stuart Cunningham and Michael Keane, who have provided invaluable mentorship in my academic life. Many other researchers in this cross-institutional research environment have been a continuing source of inspiration, particularly Terry Flew, Jean Burgess, Patrik Wikstrm, John Banks, Ramon Lobato, Julian Thomas, John Hartley and Lucy Montgomery.
Much of this book was written and researched at the School of the Arts and Media, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales. I wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Special Research Grants, which allowed me to conduct fieldwork in China. Many thanks also to my colleagues for their support and encouragement.