This book focuses on a representative group of contemporary Chinese female celebrities including actors, directors, writers and reporters, notably personalities such as Liu Xiaoqing, Hong Huang, Chai Jing and the most sought after young generation actors, Yang Mi and Guan Xiaotong. It analyses the on- and off- screen roles of these famous Chinese women, and the cultural, gender and social impact and significance embedded in them, whilst highlighting controversial social and cultural concerns and debates in contemporary China. The book furthers the understanding of the role played by contemporary female celebrities who are considered as social, cultural and feminist icons in present-day China, as reflected in their work, careers and private lives, and whose experiences help to understand Chinese women’s attitudes towards key issues such as career trajectories, marriage and family, gender identity, social changes, civil debates and political transformations, all of which are at the center of societal transformation in China.

Celebrity is a pervasive aspect of everyday life and a growing field of academic inquiry. This is the first book-length exploration of celebrity culture in the People's Republic of China and its interaction with international norms of celebrity production. The book comprises case studies from popular culture (film, music, dance, literature, internet); official culture (military, political, and moral exemplars) and business celebrities. This breadth illuminates the ways capitalism and communism converge in the elevation of particular individuals to fame in contemporary China. The book will interest scholars and students in media, popular culture and China studies. Journalists may find the book useful for their analysis of famous figures in China and people working in creative industries area may appreciate these insights into 'image management' in China.--Louise Edwards is professor of modern China studies at the University of Hong Kong. -Elaine Jeffreys is a senior lecturer in China studies at the University of Technology, Sydney.--

Whether willingly or unwillingly, public celebrities are often the focus of discussion of moral matters and political causes, but how does this sort of celebrity culture function in a country such as China with a powerful central state? Contemporary Chinese Celebrities explores how in today's China, celebrity figures embody, conflict with and engage with social, civil, moral and economic issues. Shenshen Cai examines the state's governance of celebrity activism and the interplay between the propaganda machine and the stars. Analyzing examples of scandalous celebrities who act as activists in a moral domain which is tightly governed by the state, Cai also studies several sports stars who have emerged in recent years as political activists in China, and their open defiance of the Chinese political system that poses unprecedented challenge to the Party's rule.

This book is an upper-level student source book for contemporary approaches to media studies in Asia, which will appeal across a wide range of social sciences and humanities subjects including media and communication studies, Asian studies, cultural studies, sociology and anthropology. Drawing on a wide range of perspectives from media and communications, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology and Asian studies, it provides an empirically rich and stimulating tour of key areas of study. The book combines theoretical perspectives with grounded case studies in one up-to-date and accessible volume, going beyond the standard Euro-American view of the evolving and complex dynamics of the media today.

This intellectually vibrant volume is the first collection to deal with Australian celebrity in ways that account for both cultural and gendered specificities, demonstrating how gendered ways of imagining Australia are reinforced and contested in celebrity representations and self-presentations. Gender and Australian Celebrity Culture engages with celebrities across a diverse range of fields – actors, journalists, athletes, comedians, writers, and television personalities – and in doing so critically reflects upon different forms of Australian fame and the media platforms and practices that sustain them. Authors in this volume engage directly with pertinent issues relating to gender and sexuality, including celebrity feminism and the generative capacity of feminist rage; normative femininity and its instability; hegemonic masculinities; and queerness and its (in)visibility. Contributors also intervene in a number of ongoing debates in media and cultural studies more broadly, including those around the politics and affordances of digital media; whiteness and Australia’s colonial histories; celebrity labour; and methodologies for celebrity studies. This timely collection urges scholars of celebrity to attend further both to the gendered nature of celebrity culture and to local conditions of production and consumption. This book will be of key interest to researchers and graduate students in cultural studies, television and film studies, digital media studies, critical race and whiteness studies, gender and sexuality studies, and literary studies.

In Chinese, the term wanghong refers to creators, social media entrepreneurs alternatively known as KOLs (key opinion leaders) and zhubo (showroom hosts), influencers and micro-celebrities. Wanghong also refers to an emerging media ecology in which these creators cultivate online communities for cultural and commercial value by harnessing Chinese social media platforms, like Weibo, WeChat, Douyu, Huya, Bilibili, Douyin, and Kuaishuo. Framed by the concepts of cultural, creative, and social industries, the book maps the development of wanghong policies and platforms, labor and management, content and culture, as they operate in contrast to its non-Chinese counterpart, social media entertainment, driven by platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch. As evidenced by the backlash to TikTok, the threat of competition from global wanghong signals advancing platform nationalism.

This book examines how emerging forms of citizenship are shaped by young people in digital spaces as way of making sense of contemporary Chinese society, forming new identities, and negotiating social and political participation. By focusing on Chinese young adults' everyday online practices, the book offers a unique treatment of the topic of young people and the Chinese Internet that navigates between the dominant focus on censorship on the one hand and protest and politicized action on the other. The book brings the focus of research from highly visible or spectacular forms of collectivity, belonging, and identification exhibited in young people's online practices to young people's everyday social and cultural engagement through new media. It brings new insights by understanding the meanings of young people's mundane and everyday online engagement for their citizenship learning, identity performance, and their formation of political subjectivity. Readers will gain insights into citizenship in China, and young people and the Chinese Internet.