Zhibo gonghui: China’s ‘live-streaming guilds’ of manipulation experts

ABSTRACT

In China, the live-streaming industry boasts 587 million users worth 961 billion yuan in 2020 [Yimei Zixun (2021, 16 March). 2020–2021 Zhongguo zaixian zhibo hangye niandu yanjiu baogao. https://www.163.com/dy/article/G57R8DN00511A1Q1.html]. With so many live-streamers clamoring for fame and fortune, the sheer competition catalyzes the rise of ‘live-streaming guilds’ (zhibo gonghui) that help members elevate themselves in the performance charts of the various live-streaming apps. In this article, we conducted ethnographic research in one such guild that contracted its business from the live-streaming platform Zhubei. By conceptualizing these guilds as collectives of manipulating ‘algorithmic experts’ [Bishop, S. (2020). Algorithmic experts: Selling algorithmic lore on YouTube. Social Media + Society, 6(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119897323], we argue that they optimize their live-streamers’ performance according to algorithmic parameters that the platforms themselves reveal. However, guilds manipulate audience affects more, going so far as to use heterosexual male workers to masquerade as female live-streamers to entice straight male audience members to tip generously. As such, we challenge the still-prevalent epistemological assumption that live-streamers work alone, and the received wisdom that platform algorithms are unknown and unknowable.

KEYWORDS:

• Live-streaming
• zhibo gonghui
• live-streaming guilds
• algorithmic experts
• affective labor
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this paper came from the “China Youth Research Association Project,” provided by China's National Social Science Fund for Outstanding Social Science Academic Associations (Project Approval Number: 20STC038).

Notes on contributors

Tingting Liu

Tingting Liu is an Associate Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. Her research interests center on new media, gender, sexuality, and their intersections. Her recent publications include peer-reviewed journal articles in Information, Communication & Society, Critical Arts, China Information, Continuum, Television & New Media, and Feminist Media Studies. [email: [email protected]]

Chris K. K. Tan

Chris K. K. Tan is “Jingying” Distinguished Professor at the School of Communication at Soochow University, China. His current research focuses on the intersections between affect and communicative technologies, especially the cell phone, in China. Trained as an anthropologist, he is the author of the book Stand Up for Singapore? National Belonging among Gay Men in the Lion City (Routledge, 2022). He previously published in such journals as Urban Studies, Journal of Homosexuality, and Information, Communication & Society. [email: [email protected]]

Xiaobing Yang

Xiaobing Yang is a MA student at the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. [email: [email protected]]

Miao Li

Miao Li is a Professor at the Department of Sociology at Shandong University, China. Her research interests include moral education, youth culture, citizenship education, class formation, social mobility, and qualitative research methodology. She is the author of the book Citizenship Education and Migrant Youth in China: Pathways to the Urban Underclass (Routledge, 2015). Her research articles appear in Citizenship Studies, Eurasian Geography and Economics, and Cultural Review (Beijing). [email: [email protected]]