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Author ORCID Identifier
N/A
AccessType
Campus-Only Access for Five (5) Years
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Communication
Year Degree Awarded
2018
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Emily West
Second Advisor
Anne Ciecko
Third Advisor
Jarice Hanson
Fourth Advisor
Amy Schalet
Subject Categories
Asian Studies | Communication Technology and New Media | Critical and Cultural Studies | Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication | Leisure Studies | Social Media | Sociology of Culture | Sports Studies
Abstract
This dissertation explores the Chinese fandom of European male football and its relation to the formation of the Chinese urban middle class. I use online and offline ethnography, critical discourse analysis and textual analysis to examine the socio-cultural roots, technological conditions, and political implications of Chinese fans’ transmedia practices. My findings are twofold. First, I argue for the articulation between the European football fan identity and the subject of urban middle class emerging from the post-Maoist social restructuring. This articulation is reflected from these fans’ active reading of the European football text and their access to European football as conditioned by social positions. Second, in the examination of fans’ appropriation of digital media in televised spectatorship, community building, and online deliberations, I analyze the individualistic nature of these fans’ collectivity enabled by digital fan practices and how this individualistic virtual collectivity has limitations in terms of further power struggles and political actions. I conclude that localized digital technologies facilitating European football fans’ virtual collectivity around and progressive interpretation of a transnational text are themselves part of China’s state project of authoritarian digital capitalism that articulates neoliberal individualism and authoritarianism through technological revolution.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/12350437
Recommended Citation
Gong, Yuan, "CULTURAL PRACTICES AND SOCIAL FORMATIONS IN A REFORMING SOCIETY: THE TRANSNATIONAL FANDOM OF EUROPEAN FOOTBALL IN CHINA" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 1439.
https://doi.org/10.7275/12350437
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1439
Included in
Asian Studies Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Leisure Studies Commons, Social Media Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, Sports Studies Commons