Social Media in Industrial China

What is it about?

Described as the biggest migration in human history, an estimated 250 million Chinese people have left their villages in recent decades to live and work in burn areas. Xinyuan Wang spent 15 months living among a community of these migrants in a small factory town in southeast China to track their use of social media. It was here she witnesses a second migraine taking place: a movement from offline to online. As Wang argues, this is not simply a convenient analogy but represents the convergence of two phenomena as profound and consequential as each other, where the online world now provides a home for the migrant workers who feel otherwise 'homeless'. This book explores the full range of preconceptions commonly held about Chinese people - their relationships with education, with family, with politics, with 'home' - and argues why, for this vast population, it is time to reassess what we think we know abut contemporary China and the evolving role of social media.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This book explores the full range of preconceptions commonly held about Chinese people - their relationships with education, with family, with politics, with 'home' - and argues why, for this vast population, it is time to reassess what we think we know abut contemporary China and the evolving role of social media.