WeChat (the international version of Weixin), launched in 2012, has rapidly become the most favoured Chinese social media. Globally available, equally popular both inside and outside China and widely adopted by Chinese migrants, WeChat has fundamentally changed the ways in which Mandarin-speaking migrants conduct personal messaging, engage in group communication and community business activities, produce and distribute news, and access and share information. This book explores a wide range of issues connected to the ways in which WeChat works and is used, across the world among the newest members of the Chinese diaspora. Arguing that digital/social media afford a great degree of individual agency, as well as a collective capacity for sustaining an ‘imagined community’, the book shows how WeChat’s assemblage of infrastructure and regulatory frameworks, technical capabilities, content and sense of community has led to the construction of a particular kind of diasporic Chinese world, at a time marked both by China’s rise, and anxiety about Chinese influence in the West. Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to address critical perspectives on Chinese language social media, internationalizing the state of social media studies beyond the Anglophone paradigm. The collection focuses on the intersections between Chinese language social media and disability, celebrity, sexuality, interpersonal communication, charity, diaspora, public health, political activism and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The book is not only rich in its theoretical perspectives but also in its methodologies. Contributors use both qualitative and quantitative methods to study Chinese social media and its social–cultural–political implications, such as case studies, in-depth interviews, participatory observations, discourse analysis, content analysis and data mining.

The first book in English on Chinese-language media in Australia, Digital Transnationalism explores the challenges, opportunities and development of this sector against the backdrop of China’s rise, its soft power agenda, and renewed hostility between China and the global West. Situated in the Australian context, this study nevertheless is essential to understand the complex and evolving nature of Chinese-language digital media, and the role they play in fostering digital transnationalism among first-generation Chinese migrants across the globe.

This book provides a balanced and nuanced study of how the super-sticky WeChat platform interweaves into the fabric of Chinese social, cultural, and political life. It keeps the wider global and national social media landscape in view and compares and contrasts WeChat with Weibo, QQ and other Western social media platforms.

The day after the epidemic broke out in Wuhan, Chinese people in France are already busy sending masks across borders and sharing media information; at the same time, a significant number of Chinese people are victims of racist attacks, insults and discrimination in France. Based on both quantitative and qualitative empirical data, this book reveals the new dynamics and interactions generated by the Covid-19 pandemic not only between different sub-groups of Chinese in France, but also between ethnic Chinese and their both countries: China and France. Mutual aid, local or transnational solidarity, inclusion initiatives, like any act of exclusion and hostility, invite you to question the essence of humanity in transnational settings, beyond the racialization of the Covid-19 virus.

A multidisciplinary, authoritative outline of the current intellectual landscape of the field. Over the past three decades, the term ‘diaspora’ has been featured in many research studies and in wider theoretical debates in areas such as communications, the humanities, social sciences, politics, and international relations. The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture explores new dimensions of human mobility and connectivity—presenting state-of-the-art research and key debates on the intersection of media, cultural, and diasporic studies This innovative and timely book helps readers to understand diasporic cultures and their impact on the globalized world. The Handbook presents contributions from internationally-recognized scholars and researchers to strengthen understanding of diasporas and diasporic cultures, diasporic media and cultural resources, and the various forms of diasporic organization, expression, production, distribution, and consumption. Divided into seven sections, this wide-ranging volume covers topics such as methodological challenges and innovations in diasporic research, the construction of diasporic identity, the politics of diasporic integration, the intersection of gender and generation with the diasporic condition, new technologies in media, and many others. A much-needed resource for anyone with interest diasporic studies, this book: Presents new and original theory, research, and essays Employs unique methodological and conceptual debates Offers contributions from a multidisciplinary team of scholars and researchers Explores new and emerging trends in the study of diasporas and media Applies a wide-ranging, international perspective to the subject Due to its international perspective, interdisciplinary approach, and wide range of authors from around the world, The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, lecturers, and researchers in areas that focus on the relationship of media and society, ethnic identity, race, class and gender, globalization and immigration, and other relevant fields.