1st Edition

Language, Celebrity Fandom, and Political Activism in Chinese Media Battling for Idols Online

By Mingyi Hou Copyright 2025
132 Pages 55 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

132 Pages 55 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

132 Pages 55 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book examines antagonistic fan communication on Chinese social media, focusing on the sociolinguistic dimensions and digital strategies in fandom discourse of Chinese celebrities to engage in broader questions around language, social media, and fan culture. The volume explores the different factors which contribute to antagonism in these contexts, including competitive fan posting meant to... Read more

Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgment

Chapter 1 Introduction   

Chapter 2 Celebrity Fandom in China

The industrial and technological contexts of celebrity fandom culture in China

The features of celebrity fandom practices in China

The government’s regulation of digital platforms and fandom activities       

Fan antagonism and anti-fandom       

Cancel culture and celebrity bashing  

Flaming and trolling      

Fan activism and Chinese fandom nationalism      

Social media logics        

Chapter conclusion         

Chapter 3 Action-centered sociolinguistic analysis: Fan practices as digitally afforded social action

Chapter 4 Researching celebrity fandom through digital ethnography 

Chapter 5 Algorithm-oriented and competitive fan practices     

Data contribution 

Comment control 

The competitive ethos in celebrity fandom culture 

Chapter 6 Sociolinguistic features and social media strategies of antagonistic fan communication    

The interaction order of fan antagonism      

Unaddressed interaction between fandoms  

Addressed interaction between fandoms      

Naming the celebrity      

“Slaughtering the square”        

Creating and posting with derogatory hashtags      

Addressing to entertainment industry stakeholders

Flagging abuse to Weibo platform     

The amplified antagonism in entertainment news on Weibo      

Moves, evolution and information visibility in fan antagonism 

Multimodal strategies and themes in fan antagonism       

Accusing online fan behaviors 

Verbal attacks on celebrities    

Who are the anti-fans?   

Chapter conclusion        

 

Chapter 7 Recontextualizing fan antagonism in political communication      

Who is the opponent of “Brother China”     

Pick your idol in “Construction 101” 

The flopped virtual idols of the Communist Youth League        

Disrupting the conflict structure in fan communication   

 

Chapter 8 Fan antagonism and discursive conflicts in digital space     

Researching antagonism in the celebrity fandom culture in China       

The competitive digital fan practices as a polycentric construct and a discourse of exclusivity 

The antagonistic fan communication as a genre     

When can fans battle?    

Discursive conflicts in a digital environment 92

Bibliography       

 

Index

 

Biography

Mingyi Hou is Assistant Professor of Digital Culture in the Department of Culture Studies at Tilburg University, the Netherlands.