Product details
- ISBN 9789048563586
- Weight: 630g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 18 Mar 2026
- Publisher: Pallas Publications
- Publication City/Country: NL
- Product Form: Hardback
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Internet Vulgarities in China is the first comprehensive study to critically examine the cultures, governance and politics of internet vulgarities in Chinese society. Comprising twelve chapters, the authors present empirically rich case studies to explore the nature, regulation and evolution of the internet cultural products, vernacular internet cultures and subcultural online communities which have been officially deemed ‘vulgar’ by the state, official media and policy documents.
From ‘vulgar’ online music, internet literature, memes, web dramas, influencers, video games to online fandoms, this timely book demonstrates that the disciplinary power of China’s ‘anti-vulgarity’ campaigns stems from the state’s strategic use of the ambiguous concept of ‘vulgarity’ to judge and regulate the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of popular digital media cultures. This process of turning language into law—a form of linguistification of rule—functions as a key technique of digital and cultural governance, ensuring that these cultures evolve in accordance with the ideological, moral and cultural values of the party-state.
Internet Vulgarities in China will make a significant contribution to the fields of China’s digital media studies, popular culture studies, internet and cultural governance. It is an essential resource for scholars, researchers and students seeking a critical understanding of China’s digital media cultures and its governance and politics.
Jian Xu is Associate Professor in Communication, Deakin University, Australia. He researches Chinese digital media and celebrity studies using critical approaches. He is Editor-in-Chief of Communication Research and Practice, official journal of the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Communication Association (AANZCA). He is the Series Editor of Asian Celebrity and Fandom Studies with Bloomsbury Academic.
Dino Ge Zhang is a media anthropologist and Assistant Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. His current research primarily focuses on socio-technical, aesthetic and affective dimensions of contemporary internet cultures/arts in the Sinophone world. He is the Founding Editor of the Bureau of Low Theory, a web database dedicated to internet culture and underground theory from China.
