The digital dimensions of global China

Speaker: Dr Carwyn Morris, University Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Digital China, Leiden University

Abstract:

In this talk I examine the local, global, and digital dimensions of global China, understood as outward flows of Chinese capital, including through investment, loans, infrastructure, migrants, media, cultural programmes and international and civil society engagement. To explore this, I examine the more-than-human dimensions of wanghong 网红, which means “internet fame” or “viralness in digital space.”

My exploration of wanghong focuses on the spatial dimensions of wanghong, highlighting how through the processes of wanghong and Chinese social media Chinese capital becomes active in ways to have distinct digital logics, aesthetics, discourse, and materialities. I begin my examination of wanghong’s spatialization in China, where I build up a framework through which the spatialization of wanghong and wanghong's role as a 'digital-spatial fix' for capital can be understood.

I then explore the role of wanghong and Chinese social media in global China's development by exploring the influence of Chinese social media in Düsseldorf, Germany and Edinburgh, Scotland. In doing this, I highlight how digital media enable Chinese capital to be spatialised in different ways outside of China, making social and digital media central to the cultural dimensions of global China. In doing this, I highlight the role of Chinese capital in (re)producing hybrid visions of Europe, and I highlight how Chinese capitals global mobility can be simultaneously domestic and global China due to a relationship with digital technology.