Events

Jointly organised by Asia Research Institute, and FASS Center for Family and Population Research (CFPR), National University of Singapore.

CHAIRPERSON

Prof Jean Yeung, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore.

ABSTRACT

This research examines the ways educated urban Chinese youths seek out and engage American scripted television to help manage their identity ambiguities in transitional China. Based on 81 interviews with college students in Beijing who regularly watch US TV, I have found that these youths are drawn to American programming primarily because it portrays ways of being that they perceive to be more “authentic.” In scrutinizing this authentication of foreign television, I contextualize respondents’ “authenticity narratives” within the socio-cultural milieu they inhabit, focusing in particular on the tension between China’s relatively recent neoliberal transition and its deep-seated collectivist culture. Drawing on theories of modern reflexive identity, I analyze the ways Chinese youths perceive and interpret US TV images, from which they tease out messages about how to live a spontaneous, non-conforming, and fulfilled life while simultaneously remaining properly Chinese. By showing the ways these youths strategically incorporate foreign symbolic materials into their identity “tool kits,” to which they resort to both circumvent old restrictions and tackle new challenges while navigating everyday life in the global city of Beijing, this article illuminates how transnational cultural consumption informs lived experiences for China’s future leaders. It thus sheds new light on the crucial and yet still understudied implications of China’s massive social transition and its relationship to the West.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Gao Yang is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University. She received her PhD in Sociology from Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee, USA), where she then taught for a year. She holds a BA in Sociology from Peking University and a Master of Sociology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Yang’s current research centers on the dynamic and mutual influences between media, individuals, and globalizing social structures. Her work pertains to the sociology of culture, China studies, media consumption and identity, globalization, and social change. Her dissertation, which she is currently reworking into journal articles, explores the ways in which educated urban Chinese youths engage American scripted TV shows as symbolic vehicles for their “identity work” in transitional China.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Sharon via email: arios@nus.edu.sg