‘Push-and-pull’ for visibility: how do fans as users negotiate over algorithms with Chinese digital platforms?

Shipping on the edge: Negotiations of precariousness in a Chinese real-person shipping fandom community

“…If previous literature (Liang, 2022;Yin, 2020;Yin and Xie, 2021;Zhang et al, 2023;Zhang and Negus, 2020) has documented a wide range of practices of idol fans and dangai fans (e.g. the Untamed Girls) on the platformized and datafied online fandom in China, the current study on shipping fandom showcases the precariousness of their unique praxis and desires in the paradoxical power relations which are the forces which shape the fandom's practices.…”

“…Following the platformization of pop culture and the entertainment business, the datafied online fandom emerges from the platform logic centered on online traffic and quantifiable metrics (Yin and Xie, 2021). Under such complicated circumstances, even though fans are partially empowered with fragmentary agency via personalized digital media technologies, the fandom has been placed into a paradox of multiple social forces pointing in contrasting and often conflicting directions (Zhang et al, 2023). How to make sense of the unique fandom practices and experiences in this paradoxical site warrants updated theorization and empirical evidence (Busse and Gray, 2011).…”

“…However, fans are not vulnerable targets who have no idea how the industry and platform are operating. The truth is, fans are able to invent a series of coded languages and develop norms of speaking that accommodate the logic of social media platforms (Yin and Xie, 2021; Zhang et al, 2023).…”

“…Likewise, the participation of shippers in the fandom culture can be examined through the perspective of managing and negotiating precariousness. From the hidden pleasure of pairing two idols to create homoerotic fan works, shippers simultaneously face the political risk of anti-LGBTQ+ policies, the social risk of engaging solo fans and the public, and the technological risk of their affections and labor easily being transformed into traffic benefiting the platform (Zhang et al, 2023). For example, while data fans of a music idol try their very best to accumulate online traffic promoting their idols (Zhang and Negus, 2020), a high-profile online presence for shippers is dangerous as it could be seen as a form of collective support for same-sex marriage equality, a sensitive topic on the Chinese internet.…”

Serve the Traffic: The Logic of Traffic and Its Politics on WeChat Platform

“…In the era of the Internet, entrepreneurs are expected to possess the essential skill of adeptly employing traffic logic in commercial services (Sohu, 2019). Similarly, the logic of traffic has been embraced in the digital entertainment industry, where it serves as a gaming strategy within the digital fandom community, transforming it into a competitive arena for gaining visibility (e.g., Y. Zhang et al, 2023).…”