Returning to and continuing the traditional Chinese family system via WeChat: Digitally mediated families in liquid China

Abstract

This article rethinks digitally mediated family, contending that WeChat facilitates the integration of digitally mediated Chinese family units and family practices into an entire system within traditional patterns. WeChat can serve as the hub for this kind of family mediation, since it is the dominant mega-platform in the smartphone-based Chinese polymedia environment, possessing superior technological convergence and sociocultural affordances. Based on qualitative data from 48 Chinese internal migrants, this article characterizes the entire system of the traditional Chinese family mediated by WeChat. First, the static Chinese family units converged on WeChat inherit spatial and hierarchical structures from the traditional models. Second, individuals’ WeChat usage for dynamic family practices is guided by Chinese family ethics, particularly those related to intergenerational and gendered ethics. Lastly, intimacy practices within Chinese families are digitally mediated to maintain ethically guided features in the Chinese style. This article emphasizes the role of polymedia-mediated ambient co-presence in activating implicit Chinese-style intimacy practices in the digital family spheres. Overall, when Chinese people log in to WeChat, they experience a return to traditional Chinese families, playing roles that contribute to the continuity of the entire traditional Chinese family system. This article suggests that the digitally mediated traditional family system ensures family stability in a highly modernized society where population mobility has become normalized.