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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Altman PengORCiD
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An emerging body of literature has revealed that social media enhance digital business governance to facilitate Internet companies in generating profit throughout regulating the everyday lives of users. However, although existing debates are often contextualized in the West, little attention has been paid to China, where social media are widely used. To fill this knowledge gap, this article investigates the digital business governance practiced by Chinese Internet companies such as Tencent. Specifically, I employ an affective lens to analyze how WeChat, the most popular social media application launched by Tencent, allows this Internet company to influence users for its own business purposes. Chinese college students, which constitute a representative group of young people, were early adopters of WeChat, and they have led the trend of social media use in China. Based on a yearlong netnographic study of Chinese college students, the results reveal that the affective design of WeChat captured their attention and influenced their everyday practices. These results provide insight into how digital business governance operates in the Chinese context, in which authoritarianism and capitalism work closely together.
Author(s): Peng Yuzhu
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Chinese Journal of Communication
Year: 2017
Volume: 10
Issue: 3
Pages: 264-278
Print publication date: 23/09/2017
Online publication date: 28/03/2017
Acceptance date: 08/02/2017
Date deposited: 18/05/2019
ISSN (print): 1754-4750
ISSN (electronic): 1754-4769
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2017.1306573
DOI: 10.1080/17544750.2017.1306573
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