‘I don’t want to live their lives’: The dynamics of Vietnamese digital media

Abstract

This article examines Vietnam and unpacks how its digital media is operating somewhat successfully. It demonstrates how contemporary online content creators adapt and thrive within a platformed, social media ecology that pushes back against non-authentic media through what locals refer to as ‘online experience intermediators’. Using interviews with Vietnamese creative industry experts, online content creators and younger users, this article articulates how Vietnamese digital media is built on similar practices to its Western counterparts, but has a distinctiveness that provides positive spaces for online communication for particular groups of users. Through a pushback media lens, Vietnamese digital media, specifically social media, is broadly progressive, inclusive, at an arms-length from hate speech, misinformation and vitriol content, and provides a burgeoning digital media market for multiple industries. Vietnam demonstrates a pushback against what has been described as influencers, while at the same time hinting at a desire towards online experience intermediators.