Power Shifts or Not? The Political Economy of
Social Media in Reform China
Dr. Ji Deqiang
National Center for Radio and Television Studies
Communication University of China
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Political economy as moral
economies (Murdock, 2011)
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The borderless market
penetration: bypass the
geopolitical barriers
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Two entry points
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Commodification (Mosco, 1998) of social media:
marketizing, gaming and datamization, with
physical labor
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Resistance or social movements against predatory
logic of capitalism within the process of
commodification (Zhao, 2008)
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commodification
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"The process of transforming use value to exchange
value" (Mosco, 2006)
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Commodification of communication:
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Content, audience and labor (Mosco, 2006)
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My working definition: Infrastructure(network),
content and labor
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Commodification of social media
Network
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1. Marketing for the entire economy
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2. Gaming
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3. Datamization
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4. physical labor in an era of “immaterial labor”
Content
Labor
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Social media and the
overall economy
Overall economy
Social media / connection /
sharing economy
Why
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The coincidence of the proliferation of social media
and the decline of world and national economy
since 2009
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Structural problems of Chinese economy:
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Over-production and over-investment: debit crisis?
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Capital shifts from traditional industries to two new
profitable areas: real estate and the widely-defined
cultural industries (the CCP’s congress report)
How
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Marketing:
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Adevertising
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Directing the attention or "flow" to target markets
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The shift of advertising from
conventional media to social media
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From e-commerce to mcommerce and social commerce
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M-commerce: mobile-based social media
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The battle of Tencent and Alibaba on taxi-hailing
apps in early 2014
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The battle for not only the loyalty to each app or
company, but also the online payment channel:
Alipay and Weixin Payment
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Social commerce: the commodification of social
relations
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The investment of Alibaba to Sina Weibo
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Chinese social networkers show more trust on
friends' recommendation on certain products.
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Gaming as a new pillar for
economic growth
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“In the fast-growing mobile game market, we
launched our Game Center on Mobile QQ and
Weixin, including a range of self-developed and
third-party smart phone games. Riding on the
extensive user reach and social network effect
offered by Mobile QQ and Weixin, these games
generated a revenue contribution of over RMB600
million for the fourth quarter of 2013, validating the
distribution capabilities of our mobile
platforms.” (Ma Huateng, Chairmen of Tencent
Group, Tencent 2013 Annual Report)
Datamization
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Analyzing, tracking and the formulation of social
networkers
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Data itself as a commodity
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Physical labor as the base of the
pyramid of internet economy
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The express delivery industry as a case
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It is estimated that along with the rapid rise of this
industry, the labor condition is turning bad which
deserves serious studies
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Comparative advantages or cheap labor in a fiercely
competitive labor market – “race to the bottom”
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Income per task / parcel per courier is around 1 RMB
(0.12 Euro). Each courier is estimated to deliver around
100-200 parcels everyday with more than 12-hour daily
working time
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Resistance or social movements
armed by social media usage
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Self-organized
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Connections to the Socialist State
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Power shifts?
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NO: The increasing commodification of social
media space: the expansion of capital powers
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BUT: Social resistance or organization via social
media leads to the shifts of power from the bottom
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The "embeddedness" (Polayni, 1941) of
social media in broader social settings
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Political economy
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Culture
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Social transition
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The political economy of
communication
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Emerged in 1960s
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Being a critical intellectual tradition in communication and
social studies
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Targeting both：
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the uneven distribution of communication resources and
the discursive power among social classes and individuals
(Murdock, 1997; Zhao, 2011)
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And the resistance and empowerment of the powerless
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www.chinamediaresearch.cn
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Thanks!
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