Loyalty to WeChat beyond national borders: a perspective of media system dependency theory on techno-nationalism

Abstract

Using qualitative data gained through mixed methods, this study examines WeChat’s entanglement with the Chinese diaspora’s social life in liberal societies. We argue that the Chinese government’s policies and WeChat’s system apparatus intertwine with the Chinese diaspora’s socialization processes in host societies. The overarching force behind this is techno-nationalism, which enables the Chinese government’s control of the media and propaganda to transcend national boundaries. Media system dependency theory, which provides a helpful analytical tool for traditional media consumption, also has the power to illuminate new media’s various kinds of ties with its users.

Keywords:

• media system dependency
• WeChat
• techno-nationalism
• social media
• socialization
• media consumption

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We built on Hirschman’s (1970) framework of “exit, voice, and loyalty” to depict users’ relationships with WeChat. For Hirschman, stakeholders/citizens respond to perceived declines in the value of products, services, or organizations by either leaving and withdrawing their faith (exit) or articulating their discontent (voice). However, loyalty suppresses tendencies to exit or speak out.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luwei Rose Luqiu

Luwei Rose Luqiu (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is an assistant professor of journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include censorship, propaganda, and social movements in authoritarian regimes. She was a journalist for 20 years and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She also is the author of Propaganda, media, and nationalism in mainland China and Hong Kong (Lexington, 2018).

Yi Kang

Yi Kang (PhD, Yale University) is an assistant professor of government and international Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research examines civil society, state-society relationships, grassroots organizing, and local governance, with an emphasis on contemporary China. She is the author of Disaster management in China in a changing era (Springer, 2015).