Like a “Frog in a well”? An ethnographic study of Chinese rural women’s social media practices through the WeChat platform

Abstract

In the Chinese context, prior research has investigated internal migrants’ and rural residents’ uses of information and communication technologies (ICT), but studies on rural women’s social media practice are rare. Moreover, the role that social media platforms, such as WeChat, play in rural women’s everyday lives and their transformations based on their online interactions lack a qualitative nuanced account. Based on an original study that explored the use of WeChat by 25 rural women aged from 40 to 52 years in Hanpu Town in south-central China, the data explored in the present study were collected during a 5.5-month period in 2015. Contextualizing this sample of rural women’s platformized interests within the socio-political framework of Chinese government Internet Plus strategies, the discussion considers how the women used (and were likely to continue to use) WeChat to engage in online activities related to their offline experiences, thus aligning them with entrenched Chinese socio-cultural values. An ethnographic fieldwork methodology and a social constructionist theoretical framework were used to investigate these rural Chinese women’s daily experiences in using WeChat. The findings provide evidence of their knowledge-building, business acumen, emotive communicating, and new levels of self-awareness through using WeChat.

Keywords:

• social media
• WeChat
• rural women
• platformization
• Internet Plus

Notes

Notes

1 This study was approved by the University of Newcastle’s Human Research Ethics Committee protocol H-2014-0348. Written informed consent was obtained and anonymity was addressed through the use of pseudonyms.

2 Hukou is a unique system of managing China’s population. It represents an individual’s civil identity. Implemented by the Chinese government in 1955, this household registration system divided Chinese hukou into “agricultural” hukou and “non-agricultural” hukou to differentiate between rural and urban residents. In July 2014, the Chinese central government proposed abolishing the dual hukou system and merging the rural and urban hukou into a univocal “resident hukou.” By 2015, when this study’s fieldwork was conducted, this reform had not been implemented by many local governments, except in Henan, which implemented the new policy in November 2014. In 2016, other local governments started to regulate the policy gradually.

3 The ethnographer observed the subjective knowledge and experiences of rural women through their social media use, which were first-degree constructs in the’ Schutzian (1962) sense. The analysis yielded the researcher’s second-degree constructs, which were crystalized in the forms of themes, patterns, and theoretical conceptualization.

4 Launched by Tencent in 1999, QQ is a social networking platform similar to WeChat.

5 A report by the CAICT (2016a) showed that by 2015, over 10 million official accounts had been established, which remained one of the main sources of information for WeChat subscribers.

6 The fieldwork captured more links (798) to subscribed content than the number of original posts (23.4%) created by the rural women on their Moments accounts. These links were coded into 20 themes with some overlap among them. For example, links coded in the category “nourishing of life” could also be coded in the category “fake information.”

7 This Chinese proverb gender stereotypes a perfect Chinese woman, that is, being a good housewife in the family and being sophisticated in social experience outside the family’(Xiao, 2006).

8 In February 2018, the ACWF issued the Guidance on Promoting Women’s Contributions to Achieving Rural Revitalization. In March 2018, the vice-president of the ACWF introduced the Women’s Action of Rural Revitalization strategy.

9 WeChat’s Public Platform Service Agreement states that the owners of official accounts are forbidden to produce and circulate content that violates “the law, socialist system, state interest, citizens’ legal rights, public order, social morality, and the authenticity of information.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yini Wang

Yini Wang is an assistant professor at Hunan University, Changsha, China. In her current research, she uses ethnographic methods to explore the online practices of Chinese rural women and youth through their engagement with social media. Her expertise comprises identity construction, social media, advertising, and quantitative and qualitative methodology.

Judith Sandner

Dr. Judith Sandner is a mid-career researcher with expertise in critical discourse studies, the application of communication theories, and multidisciplinary research methodology training for honors and postgraduate students in communication, design, and information technology. Dr. Sandner’s current teaching profile includes Communication and Discourse and Digital Communication Production Studies at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.