As Asia's largest host country of international students, China's digitial placemaking is impacting on international students’ experience whilst studying and living in the country. This rqualitative study addresses the issue of international students’ transition to the digital environment in China. It draws on the theoretical perspectives of international students’ digital journeys and miniaturised mobilities to inform thematic analysis of artefact-mediated student interviews and social media posts. Findings show that international students’ digital journeys in China are characterised by three modes of digital adaptation including digital shock, digital border crossing and digital approachability. We argue that engaging in these modes of digital adaptation has reconstituted international students’ subjectivity through empowering miniaturised mobility, but also a sense of digital in-betweenness as they operate between two different virtual worlds.
ChangSAlzougoolBBerryMGomesCSmithSReeders D (2012). International students in the digital age: Do you know where your students go to for information? Proceedings of the Australian International Education Conference. Melbourne: Australia.
3.
ChangS.GomesC. (2017a). Digital journeys: A perspective on understanding the digital experiences of international students. Journal of International Students, 7(2), 347–366. https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v7i2.385
4.
ChangS.GomesC. (2017b). International student identity and the digital environment. In MikkB. K.SteglitzI. E. (Eds.), Learning across cultures: Locally and globally (pp. 39–62). NAFSA.
5.
ChangS.GomesC.MartinF. (2018). Navigating online down under international students’ digital journeys in Australia. In GomesC.YeohB. S. A. (Eds), Transnational migrations in the Asia-pacific (pp.3–23). Rowman & Littlefied.
6.
ChangS.GomesC.PlattM.TrumpourS.McKayD.AlzougoolB. (2021). Mapping the contours of digital journeys: A study of international students’ social networks in Australian higher education. Higher Education Research & Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021.1962812
7.
ChenYMaoZ. F.QiuJ.L.C. (2018). Super-sticky WeChat and Chinese Society. Emerald Publishing.
8.
CreswellJ. W.PothC. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage.
9.
DaiK. (2020). Learning between two systems: A Chinese student’s reflexive narrative in a China-Australia articulation programme. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 50(3), 371–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2018.1515008
10.
ElliottA.UrryJ. (2010). Mobile Lives, London: Routledge.
11.
FujitaM.HarriganP.SoutarG. N. (2017). International students’ engagement in their university’s social media. International Journal of Educational Management.31 (7), 1119-1134. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-12-2016-0260
LiL.PengW. (2019). Transitioning through social media: International students’ SNS use, perceived social support, and acculturative stress. Computers in Human Behavior, 98 (Sept), 69–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.03.011
18.
MartinF.RizviF. (2014). Making melbourne: Digital connectivity and international students’ experience of locality. Media, Culture & Society, 36(7), 1016–1031. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443714541223
19.
McnamaraT (2019). Language and subjectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
PeacockD.MacKenzieJ. (2016). Find your Adelaide: Digital placemaking with adelaide city explorer. Making Publics, Making Places. In M. Griffiths & K. Barbour (Eds.), Making Publics, Making Places (pp. 95–110). University of Adelaide Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.20851/j.ctt1t304qd.11
22.
PengWang. (2021). Buying on Weixin/WeChat: Proposing a sociomaterial approach of platform studies. Media, Culture and Society, 43 (5), 945–956. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720968460
23.
PlantinJ. C.De SetaG. (2019). Wechat as infrastructure: The techno-nationalist shaping of Chinese digital platforms. Chinese Journal of Communication12(3): 257–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2019.1572633
24.
QiJ. (2021). China’s international higher education policies 2010–2019: Multiple logics and HEI responses. Higher Education (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00695-7
25.
SeoH.EbrahimH.BlombergM.LiuY.HarnR. W. (2020). Social media and social adjustment. In ChangS.GomesG. (Eds.), Digital experiences of international students: Challenging assumptions and rethinking engagement (pp. 46–60). Taylor & Francis Group.
SinananJ.GomesC. (2020). ‘Everybody needs friends’: Emotions, social networks and digital media in the friendships of international students. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(5), 674–691. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877920922249
28.
Sohu News. (2015, November 8). International student in Guangzhou becomes famous for creating napkin comics about Double 11. Sohu News. http://news.sohu.com/20151108/n425664634.shtm
WangW. (2019). Digital media in urban China: Locating guangzhou. Rowman & Littlefield.
34.
YuQ.ForoudiP.GuptaS. (2019). Far apart yet close by: Social media and acculturation among international students in the UK. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 145 (August), 493–502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.09.026
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
