Social Media In Rural China: Social Networks And Moral Frameworks
by Tom McDonald /
2016 / English / PDF
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Tom McDonald spent 15 months living in a small rural Chinese community researching how the residents use social media in their daily lives. His ethnographic findings suggest that, far from being left behind, social media is deeply integrated into the everyday experience of many rural Chinese people. Throughout his ground-breaking study, McDonald argues that social media allows rural people to extend and transform their social relationships by deepening existing connections with friends known through their school, work or village, while also experimenting with completely new forms of relationships through online interactions with strangers, particularly when looking for love and romance. By juxtaposing these seemingly opposed relations, rural social media users are able to use these technologies to understand, capitalise on and challenge the notions of morality that underlie rural life.
