ABSTRACT

There are billions of internet users in China, and this number is continually growing. This book looks at the various purposes of this internet use, and provides a study about how the entertainment-consuming users form into publics through the mediation of technologies in the era of network society. It questions how individuals, mediated by new information and communication technologies, come together to form new social categories. The book goes on to investigate how public(s) is formed in the era of network society, with particular focus on how fans become publics in a society that follows the logic of network. Using online surveys and in-depth interviews, this book provides a rich description of the process of constructing a new social formation in contemporary China.

chapter 1|14 pages

Publics, fans, and social media

chapter 2|16 pages

Popular culture and digital technologies

chapter 3|18 pages

Rear window to movies

From fans to subaltern publics

chapter 4|11 pages

Ten years after

From subaltern to regular publics

chapter 5|15 pages

Online translation communities

From consumers to prod-users

chapter 6|13 pages

House of cards

From entertainment to politics

chapter 7|19 pages

Douban versus Renren

Fan objects as network nodes

chapter 8|17 pages

Weibo publics

Celebrities as network nodes

chapter 9|18 pages

Fandom publics

Social formation in the network society