Speaker: Guobin Yang
12 p.m. Central | Thursday, May 2, 2024
In the mid-1990s, private internet firms spearheaded the commercial development of the internet in China. Since then, the internet has evolved into the world’s second largest digital economy, with sweeping influences on culture, society, and politics. At the same time, Chinese and global political economies have undergone profound transformation. The increasingly complex social and political environments in China and the world have exacerbated the difficulty of understanding the cultures and politics of Chinese social media.
In this talk, Professor Guobin Yang from the University of Pennsylvania puts Chinese social media in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to explore what a global crisis might reveal about their meanings and significance. In particular, Professor Yang will discuss how ordinary users take to social media platforms to share stories of their daily lives and why such digital storytelling is important in times of crises.
This program is part of the Considering China webinar series.