Platformization theory proposes that cultural productions are contingent on platforms. This study argues that in the Chinese context; however, online productions are contingent not only on platforms, but on government policies. Under the influence of state, market, and platform policy, major streaming services in China are becoming an online “state TV.” The limitations placed on grassroots content has forced creators to thrive elsewhere, contributing to the proliferation of short video platforms such as TikTok. This study investigates the contingency and precarity of the online sector to map the migration of content creators from conventional streaming services to the emerging creative forms of short videos and livestreaming.
ChenXuKayeD. Bondy ValdovinosZengJing. 2021. “# PositiveEnergy Douyin: Constructing “playful Patriotism” in a Chinese Short-Video Application.”Chinese Journal of Communication14: 97–117.
7.
ChristianAymar JeanDayFaitheDíazMarkPeterson-SalahuddinChelsea. 2020. “Platforming Intersectionality: Networked Solidarity and the Limits of Corporate Social Media.”Social Media + Society6 (3): 2056305120933301.
8.
CraigDavidCaiHengLvJunyi. 2016. “Online Entertainment| Mapping and Managing Chinese Social Media Entertainment: A Conversation With Heng Cai, Chinese Media Entrepreneur.”Journal of International Communication10: 10.
9.
CunninghamStuart. 2018. “Creative Destruction in the Screen Industries and Implications for Policy.”Media International Australia169 (1): 5–15.
10.
CunninghamStuartCraigDavid. 2019. Social Media Entertainment. New York, NY: New York University Press.
11.
CunninghamStuartCraigDavidLvJunyi. 2019. “China’s Livestreaming Industry: Platforms, Politics, and Precarity.”International Journal of Cultural Studies22 (6): 719–36.
12.
CunninghamStuartCraigDavidSilverJon. 2016. “YouTube, Multichannel Networks and the Accelerated Evolution of the New Screen Ecology.”Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies22: 376–91.
13.
CurtinMichaelSansonKevin. 2017. Voices of Labor. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
14.
DavenportThomas H.BeckJohn C.. 2001. “The Attention Economy.”Ubiquity2001: 1.
15.
de KloetJeroenPoellThomasGuohuaZengFaiChow Yiu. 2019. The platformization of Chinese Society: Infrastructure, Governance, and Practice. Taylor & Francis.
16.
EpifanovaAlena. 2020. Deciphering Russia’s “Sovereign Internet Law”: Tightening Control and Accelerating the Splinternet. Berlin: German Council on Foreign Relations.
17.
FlewTerryRyanMarkSuChunmeizi. 2019. “Culture, Communication and Hybridity: The Case of The Rap of China.”Journal of Multicultural Discourses14: 93–106.
GillespieTarleton. 2010. “The Politics of ‘Platforms’.”New Media & Society12 (3): 347–64.
20.
HavensTimothyLotzAmanda D.TinicSerra. 2009. “Critical Media Industry Studies: A Research Approach.”Communication Culture & Critique2 (2): 234–53.
21.
HelmondAnne. 2015. “The Platformization of the Web: Making Web Data Platform Ready.”Social Media + Society1 (2): 2056305115603080.
22.
HerbertDanielLotzAmanda D.MarshallLee. 2019. “Approaching Media Industries Comparatively: A Case Study of Streaming.”International Journal of Cultural Studies22 (3): 349–66.
23.
HongYu. 2017. Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
24.
HuangChengju. 2007. “Trace the Stones in Crossing the River: Media Structural Changes in Post-WTO China.”International Communication Gazette69 (5): 413–30.
25.
HuangYingMiaoWeishan. 2021. “Re-Domesticating Social Media When It Becomes Disruptive: Evidence From China’s “super App” WeChat.”Mobile Media & Communication9: 177–94.
26.
HuKelly. 2014. “Competition and Collaboration: Chinese Video Websites, Subtitle Groups, State Regulation and Market.”International Journal of Cultural Studies17 (5): 437–51.
KayeD. Bondy ValdovinosChenXuZengJing. 2021. “The Co-evolution of Two Chinese Mobile Short Video Apps: Parallel Platformization of Douyin and TikTok.”Mobile Media & Communication9: 229–53.
29.
KeaneMichael. 2016. “Online Entertainment| Disconnecting, Connecting, and Reconnecting: How Chinese Television Found Its Way Out of the Box.”Journal of International Communication10: 18.
30.
KeaneMichaelSuChunmeizi. 2018. “The Will to Power: The BAT in and Beyond China.” In Willing Collaborators: Foreign Partners in Chinese Media, edited by KeaneMichaelYeciesBrianFlewTerry, 47–62. London: Rowman and Littlefield International.
31.
KeaneMichaelZhaoElaine Jing. 2015. “TV or Not TV? Re-imagining Screen Content in China.” In Routledge Handbook of New Media in Asia, edited by HjorthLKhooO, 299–307. London: Routledge.
32.
KingGaryPanJenniferRobertsMargaret E.. 2013. “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism But Silences Collective Expression.”American Political Science Review107 (2): 326–43.
33.
LiChenyuLiuJunOuyangShuxin. 2016. “Analysis and Prediction of Content Popularity for Online Video Service: A Youku Case Study.”China Communications13 (12): 216–33.
34.
LiLuzhou. 2019. Zoning China: Online Video, Popular Culture, and the State. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
35.
LinJiande KloetJeroen. 2019. “Platformization of the Unlikely Creative Class: Kuaishou and Chinese Digital Cultural Production.”Social Media + Society5 (4): 2056305119883430.
36.
LiuXin. 2013. Platform Competition in the Online Video Industry: A Comparison Between the United States and Chinese Markets. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
37.
LobatoRamon. 2018. “Rethinking International TV Flows Research in the Age of Netflix.”Television & New Media19 (3): 241–56.
38.
LobatoRamon. 2019. Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution. New York, NY: NYU Press.
39.
LotzAmanda D.2014. The Television Will be Revolutionized. New York, NY: NYU Press.
40.
LotzAmanda D.2017. Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library.
41.
LotzAmanda D.2018. We Now Disrupt This Broadcast: How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
42.
LotzAmanda D.2019. “The Multifaceted Policy Challenges of Transnational Internet-Distributed Television.”Journal of Digital Media & Policy10 (1): 27–31.
43.
LotzAmanda D.LobatoRamonThomasJulian. 2018. “Internet-Distributed Television Research: A Provocation.”Media Industries Journal5 (2): 35–47.
44.
MalcomsonScott. 2016. Splinternet: How Geopolitics and Commerce Are Fragmenting the World Wide Web. New York, NY: OR Books.
45.
MazzarellaWilliam. 2013. Censorium: Cinema and the Open Edge of Mass Publicity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
46.
MoskowitzMarc L.2019. Internet Video Culture in China: YouTube, Youku, and the Space in Between. Cambridge: Routledge.
47.
NevesJoshuaSarkarBhaskar. 2017. Asian Video Cultures: In the Penumbra of the Global. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
48.
NieborgDavidPoellThomas. 2019. “The Platformization of Making Media.” In Making Media: production, Practices, and Professions, edited by DeuzeMPrengerM, 85–96.
49.
NieborgDavid B.PoellThomas. 2018. “The Platformization of Cultural Production: Theorizing the Contingent Cultural Commodity.”New Media & Society20: 4275–92.
50.
NiedenführMatthias. 2013. “The Tug-of-War Between Regulatory Interventions and Market Demands in the Chinese Television Industry.”The Political Economy of Communication1 (1): 90–110.
51.
PicardRobert G.2011. The Economics and Financing of Media Companies. New York, NY: Fordham Univ Press.
52.
SchneiderFlorian. 2018. China’s Digital Nationalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
53.
SrnicekNick. 2016. Platform Capitalism. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
54.
SteinbergMarc. 2020. “LINE as Super App: Platformization in East Asia.”Social Media + Society6 (2): 2056305120933285.
55.
Stokel-WalkerChris. 2019. YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars. Kingston upon Thames: Canbury Press.
56.
SuChunmeizi. 2019. Changing Dynamics of Digital Entertainment Media in China. Brisbane, QLD: Queensland University of Technology.
57.
SuChunmeiziFlewTerry. 2021. “The Rise of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) and Their Role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).”Global Media and Communication17: 67–86.
58.
TuMingXiaYilin. 2019. “The Origin and stigmatization of the Image of ‘small Town Youth.’” 20195th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2019), Guilin, China.
59.
VoltmerKatrin. 2013. The Media in Transitional Democracies. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
60.
WangWilfred YangLobatoRamon. 2019. “Chinese Video Streaming Services in the Context of Global Platform Studies.”Chinese Journal of Communication12 (3): 356–71.
61.
YinYiyi. 2016. An Analysis of Chinese Web Series Development and Strategy Go Princess Go: A Case Study. New York, NY: Drexel University.
62.
ZhangZongyi. 2021. “Infrastructuralization of Tik Tok: Transformation, Power Relationships, and Platformization of Video Entertainment in China.”Media Culture & Society43 (2): 219–36.
63.
ZhaoElaine Jing. 2016. “Online Entertainment| Professionalization of Amateur Production in Online Screen Entertainment in China: Hopes, Frustrations and Uncertainties.”Journal of International Communication10: 19.
