Bloglator in the era of social media: a case study of the reports about the ‘tragically ugly’ math textbooks on What’s on Weibo

ABSTRACT

While extensive research exists on blogs, news-related blog translation has been relatively unexplored. This study delves into the realm of news-related blog translation through the case of What’s on Weibo (hereafter WoW), an independent English-language news-related website that reports trending topics on Weibo. Given the unique nature of blog translation, the term bloglator is proposed to refer to a blog translator. By analyzing the reports related to the controversial Chinese primary school mathematics textbooks, this paper examines WoW’s criteria for content selection, the characteristics of the reports, and the role a bloglator plays within the news ecosystem. The research findings reveal that there are both similarities and differences between a bloglator and a journalator, and a bloglator may employ a variety of translation methods and assume an important role in the news ecosystem in this era of social media.

KEYWORDS:

• Blog
• blog translation
• news
• Bloglator
• What’s on Weibo

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to the Chief Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions, and to Ms. Manya Koetse, who answered my questions via email.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Sina is a Chinese technology company, and Weibo means ‘micro-blog’ or ‘microblogging’.

2 Barnes has worked for WoW since 2017 as a translator and an assignment editor.

3 According to Koetse, in the past, there was a volunteer editor, who, however, only helped edit about 10 articles (Koetse, 2022d).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty Research Grant, Lingnan University: [Grant Number 101881].

Notes on contributors

Liping Bai

Liping Bai is an Associate Professor at the Department of Translation of Lingnan University. He is the author of the book entitled Mapping the Translator: A Study of Liang Shiqiu (Routledge, 2022). His academic articles appear in international journals including Across Languages and Cultures, Archiv Orientalni, Babel, Neohelicon, Perspectives, Humanitas, Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, The Translator, and Translation Quarterly. He is also interested in practical translation and has published a number of translations between Chinese and English.