Homeland social media as a field of negotiation: Creative strategies of China’s Wanghong in Japan

Abstract

This article investigates how China’s Wanghong (a Chinese term referring to online influencers’) in Japan engage in cultural and economic practices through transnational homeland social media. Particular attention is given to the characteristics of how they utilise Chinese social media and the ways in which pressures emanating from the homeland-media environment have moulded their distinctive approaches to participating in media practices. Combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the data on which this research is based consists of China’s statistical data concerning Wanghong, empirical data generated from interviews with nine China’s Wanghong in Japan, and online participant observations of their media practices. The results of this study reveal that Wanghong must contend with the deep-rooted Sino-Japanese hostilities in the patriotic context of homeland media, as they are largely dependent on Chinese advertisers for their financial resources. Consequently, homeland media becomes a field of negotiation where Wanghong cope with environmental pressures and negotiate their identities and actions, with identity performance and placemaking serving as the creative-compromise strategies they adopt.