Gender and the privacy paradox in Chinese college students’ locative dating communication

Abstract

This article explores the role gender plays in addressing the privacy paradox in the context of young Chinese people’s locative dating communication. Based on a case study of 19 Chinese college students, I explore differing privacy management strategies adopted by female and male participants in their use of WeChat People Nearby. This gendered phenomenon reveals how People Nearby works within patriarchal Chinese society to pose more privacy-related risks to women than to men in locative dating communication. The research findings shed new light on the socio-technological processes through which existing gender power relations are reproduced in young Chinese people’s use of locative social media applications.