The special issue, “Chinese Platforms and Entrepreneurial Labour,” examines entrepreneurial labor and its relationship with the platformization of Chinese society and economy. The introduction to the special issue sums up three key issues pertinent to the broad field of platform entrepreneurial labor: class, power, and gender. It also contextualizes the platforms—Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and TikTok—that are discussed in five articles by authors from China, India, Japan, Australia, and UK.
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CraigD.LinJ.CunninghamS. (2021). Wanghong as social media entertainment in China. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
4.
DavisM.XiaoJ. (2021). De-Westernizing platform studies: History and logics of Chinese and U.S. platforms. International Journal of Communication, 15, 20. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/13961.
5.
De KloetJ.PoellT.ZengG.FaiC.Y (2019). The platformization of Chinese society: infrastructure, governance, and practice. Chinese Journal of Communication, 12(3), 249–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2019.1644008
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GuoY. (Ed), (2016) Handbook on class and social stratification in China. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
7.
HanX. (2021). Historicising wanghong economy: Connecting platforms through wanghong and wanghong incubators. Celebrity Studies, 12(2), 317–325. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2020.1737196
8.
HouJ. (2021). A platform for underclass youth: Hanmai rap videos, social class, and surveillance on Chinese social media. First Monday, 26(9). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i9.10587
LinJ.de KloetJ. (2019). Platformization of the unlikely creative class: Kuaishou and Chinese digital cultural production. Social Media & Society, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119883430.
MartinF. (2017). Rethinking network capital: hospitality work and parallel trading among Chinese students in Melbourne. Mobilities, 12(6), 890–907. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2016.1268460
TanC. K.WangJ.WangzhuS.XuJ.ZhuC. (2020). The real digital housewives of China’s Kuaishou video-sharing and live-streaming app. Media, Culture & Society, 42(7-8), 1243–1259. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443719899802
20.
ThorntonP. (2017). A new urban underclass? Making and managing “vulnerable groups” in contemporary China. In ShueV.ThorntonP. (Eds.), To govern China: Evolving practices of power (pp. 257–281). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108131858.010
21.
Van DijckJ.PoellT.De WaalM. (2018). The platform society: Public values in a connective world. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
22.
WangQ.KeaneM. (2020). Struggling to be more visible: Female digital creative entrepreneurs in China. Global Media and China, 5(4), 407–422. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436420969624
YangG. (2021). Social media and state-sponsored platformization in China. In YangG.WangW. (Eds.), Engaging social media in China: Platforms, publics, and production. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.
YuH.LiL. (2022). Chinese digital platforms in Australia: Market, politics and governance. Media International Australia, 185. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X221095594.
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ZhangL. (2015). Fashioning the feminine self in “prosumer capitalism”: Women’s work and the transnational reselling of Western luxury online. Journal of Consumer Culture, 17(2), 184–204. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540515572239
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ZhangL.FungA. Y. (2014). Working as playing? Consumer labor, guild and the secondary industry of online gaming in China. New Media & Society, 16(1), 38–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813477077
