Queers uploaders on Douyin: traffic chasing, identity expression, and media regulation

ABSTRACT

Queer issues are in an undefined position in China and given this status quo, censorship tends in practice to be characterised by ambiguity. Flexible approaches to identity expressions exist on media platforms such as Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. This context of ambiguous regulation enables queer Douyin uploaders in general to achieve their identity expression in a delicate balance with censorship. More noticeably, Douyin is a traffic-oriented running platform and for queer uploaders, this commercial attribute complicates the already complex negotiations between identity expression and media regulation. This article is an analysis report that pictures this complexity. It is based on online fieldwork conducted by the corresponding author in 2022, in which the corresponding author observed thirty queer uploaders’ daily practices on Douyin and further interviewed three of them to learn their particular behaviours in these complex negotiations.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer uploaders
• traffic chasing
• identity expression
• media regulation
• social media and China

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Qi Ai

Qi AI is a postdoctoral fellow in media and communication studies at the School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University, China, where he is the associate director of Research Center for Culture, Art and Communication of Film and Teleplay. He is a visiting scholar at the School of International Communications of the University of Nottingham (Ningbo) and also a member of Shandong Film Association. He holds a Ph.D. in film and television studies from the University of Nottingham, UK. His research interests primarily include genre and stardom studies, media industries and regulation, and film festivals.

Yuchen Song

Yuchen Song, postgraduate student, School of Media, Film & Journalism, Faculty of Arts, Monash University.