Events
Vernacular Online Practices and the Rise of the Video Industry in China by Dr Li Luzhou Nina
| Date | : | 12 Nov 2015 |
| Time | : | 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm |
| Venue | : | Asia Research Institute Seminar Room |
| Contact Person | : | TAY, Minghua |
CHAIRPERSON
Prof Prasenjit Duara, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
Current accounts of the formation of the Chinese Internet, like those on global Internet, dominantly emphasize political economic relationships that constitute technological and infrastructural developments. Very few to date have attended to the roles of technical alternatives, meanings associated with technologies, and popular enthusiasm. Yet, except the political economic structuring, the formation of the Chinese Internet was also shaped by users’ energies and practices in multifarious forms of vernacular production, distribution, and consumption of online content. This talk traces vernacular online practices preceding and constituting the massive rise of commercial online video portals in the early to mid-2000s in China. It particularly focuses on online parody video making and fansubbing; the latter is in fact a variant of p2p network-based online piracy. It examines social energies propelling the formation of these practices, their unfolding, and the process in which these practices eventually converged with the formation of the video industry. These online practices and the resulted user-generated content of the day appeared as major constituents of early video portals in terms of content, and both were intricately associated with a pre-Internet cultural piracy in China. This talk is derived from a large project, which looks at online video as an emerging cultural institution as opposed to traditional television in the Chinese context.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Li Luzhou Nina is a postdoctoral fellow in the Cultural Studies cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She received her PhD in Communications and Media from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in August 2015. Her research interests include digital culture, global media and cultural industries, media history and political economy, popular culture, television studies, and China studies. Her work has appeared in journals such as International Journal of Cultural Studies, Media, Culture & Society, and Communication, Culture & Critique.
REGISTRATION
Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP to Ms Tay Minghua via email: minghua.tay@nus.edu.sg.