IDENTITY, LOCALITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA IN

GUANGZHOU CHINA

For the GCCR Postgraduate SymposiumWilfred Yang Wang (QUT)

wilfred.wang@student.qut.edu.au

PRESENTATION OUTLINE• Guangzhou - brief background

• Weibo and current literature

• Scope of the study and RQs

• Methods

• Some findings and discussions

- Setting the tone

- Distinctive frame of self

- Framing the ‘others’

GUANGZHOU

FROM LONELY PLANETKnown to many in the West as ‘Canton’, Guǎngzhōu is the first city most travellers to mainland China visit. Wrapped in a perpetual haze of pink smog and flashing neon lights, the city overwhelms with its energy, colour, and sheer size. Influenced by neighbouring Hong Kong, consumerism has swept up the city in a head-spinning frenzy, but scratch away Guǎngzhōu’s glittery surface and you’ll find a place quite special among China’s major urban centres. It just takes some time to grow on you …

Of course, you can’t talk about Guǎngzhōu without mentioning the food. It’s here that you’ll try Cantonese cuisine cooked at its very best. The city boasts the largest number of restaurants per capita in China; the Cantonese will make certain you won’t leave their city hungry.

GUANGZHOU (CANTON)• Capital city of the Guangdong Province

• Population: 12.75 million* (2012)

• Dialect: Cantonese

• Economy: first to reform; hospitality and trade-driven: ‘China’s southern gate’

• Geographic: close to HK and Macau

• Recent Histories: Opium Wars; Taiping Revolution; the Nationalist Revolution and the Communist Revolution

• Social conflicts between local and new comers

A DIFFERENT TWITTER … WEIBO• Weibo (micro blogs), entry up to 140 Chinese

characters;

• Launched in 2009, by Sina.com;

• 5-6 different versions of weibo, a very competitive market.

• Reached 331 million users by June 2013

• Nearly 50% used it through smart-phone

HTTP://WEIBO.COM/GZLIFES

JOKE HERMES – CULTURAL CITIZENSHIPRe-reading popular culture (2008)

• The degrading nation and traditional social institutions being the primary sites organise sense of belonging, duties and rights;

• The production of distinctions, norms, and rules is the implicitly part of the ongoing activity of purposeful everyday meaning-making in relation to mediated culture.

• Cultural citizenship is not a free state in terms of acceptable behaviour (norms, rules), power-relation between communities

SCOPE OF STUDY• Will not go into ‘reflection’, ‘mutual respect’

and ‘acceptance of differences’;

• Focus on, ‘the production of distinctions, norms, and rules’, of a GZ identity;

• How a sense of rights and responsibility is framed through entertainment, (consumption) taste and idiosyncratic preference.

RESEARCH QUESTIONSHow Guangzhou’s Weibo groups reinvent and re-

narrate GZ’s geo-identity?

- How does the EDPFGZ position itself socially, economically and culturally?

- How do the EDPFGZ frames the GZ self? (a sense of self)

- How do the EDPFGZ frames ‘outsiders’

1. Waisheng (mainland regions outside of Guangdong)

2. Hong Kong and beyond (Macao, TW, & the ‘West’)

METHOD • Systematic sampling

• Sampling period: 1 July 2012 - 30 July 2013

• N=7,625 (38 posts in the first five days are all included and 232 posts in September 2012 are all excluded)

• N=7,355(systematic sample with 95% confidence interval, +/- 3% marginal error ) – every 8th post was selected

• n= 930+38 = 968

CATEGORIESCategory/label Count

Food 202

City Experience 71

Events, leisure, tourism 127

Cantonese (language) 24

Social issues (exclude DG)

58

Disadvantaged groups 39

Popular culture/celebrity 51

Human interests 141

Funny/jokes 42

Expression 35

Life advices 178

Animal welfare: 27Missing person: 17

FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS• A striking sense of local-GZ identity is

observed

• EDPF invents and performs a sense of selfhood, rights and duties in relation to the city of Guangzhou.

• Instead of a national self of being a ‘Chinese’

Guangzhouer(Chinese) not Chinese(Guangzhouer)

SOCIAL POSITION• Young, low-end middle class (new graduates, high

school/university students); GZ-born

• Bargain food, clothing, travel, and other lifestyle-related products ($ saving);

• Advices about healthy lifestyle, exam strategies, employment and job hunting skills;

• Gender relations;

• Expressions as an urban youth: the struggle, happiness, hopeful wishes, romance and family.

SETTING THE TONE - @ GZ, LOVE GZ

SLOGANARY IDENTITY• I Love GZ, I love Cantonese

• No reason, just Love GZ

APPRECIATION - FOOD

• In 202 posts about food, only 5 has mentioned a waisheng cuisine; (14/7,355 in total); Majority are Cantonese cuisine;

• Others being contemporary/fusion cuisine from HK, TW, Macau; or Sushi & Korean BBQ … & Chocolate;

• ‘The owner is a local’: homemade; simple; nice and polite, ordinary and humble, hard-working;

• Rules: what to eat, learn about authentic, local and traditional

• Norms: how to behave, how to treat others, dairen , and working attitude (hard working but dedicated)

• Distinctions: the absence of outsiders

APPRECIATION - ENTERTAINMENT/LEISURE• Recommended travel destination:

1. Guangdong 2. HK, 3. Others , 4. inland cities

• HK and TW’s celebrities and media products;

• Japanese and Korean, and global celebrity and productions (e.g. David Beckham; LeBron James; Despicable Me 2; One Piece; Backstreet Boys);

• ‘Who’s concert do you want to go to?’

124 out of184 comments chose non-mainland singer; more than half of the 124 chose Cantonese pop stars

- Who is your favour TVB actress? (338/142)

- TVB characterise a nice and memorable GZ childhood

RUBBER DUCK IN HK

LOST IN THAILAND (2 MENTIONS)

TRIUMPH IN THE SKIES II (391/107)

GZ - A TRANSLOCAL IDENTITYHK as satellite modernity – a window to

modernity since 1980s (Fung and Ma, 2002; Ma, 2012)

- Cultural/media products

- Events

- Food and entertainments

- Policies/news (milk powder, border, passports)

PRESENTING OTHERS (WAISHENG)More ‘negative’ representations through news

Negative Positive0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

43

8

Representing waishengCounts

THE INLAND ‘OTHERS’Negative News Positive News

Murder 4 Romance 2Sexual assault 3 Friendship 1Stupidity 4 Food 2Physical assault/violence 1 Animal welfare 1Corruption/injustice 6 Charity works 1Accidents 6 Social support 1Children (abandon/trafficking) 5 Police 1Violence (children) 3Animal Cruelty 3Crimes (non-manslaughter/.murder) 2Poor behaviors 2Unusual stories 1Other Social issues 3

FRAMING WAISHENG• Under developed

• Devastated

• Crimes/unrests/insecure

• Conservative and even barbaric (inhumane)

• Lack of discipline and knowledge

• Stupid/ignorant

Not discrimination but

We are better and it is our responsibility to help them

FRAMING THE VULNERABLEVulnerable and disadvantage gups are often

mentioned

- Disadvantaged groups

- Animals

Framing a caring and loving GZ identity 【爱心广州】 (A Loving GZ)

Responsibilities to social vulnerable and enact possible self-assessments

A network of mutual support

IDENTITY TO RIGHT AND DUTYGreater Cantonese Cultural identity vs. A Chinese

national identity

【爱广州的 60 个理由】每一条都很经典： 1 、离香港近！ 2 、离北京远！ 3 、有大胆敢言的媒体！

‘60 Reasons to love GZ’ : 1. Close to HK; 2. Far away from Beijing; 3. Local media are outspoken

Culture (food, language, heritage, ideologies) = right and entitlement

Duty to protect local culture (during September 2012, anti-Japan protest became protecting GZ movement)

Responsibilities to protect the social vulnerable/disadvantaged groups

TO CONCLUDE …• Weibo group comes at a time of changes

• EDPF takes over the duty to manage Gzers’ sense of belonging, and provides the guides and rules of being a GZer

• The process of identification takes the form of appreciation

• Identification relies on entertainment, consumption tastes and idiosyncratic preferences

• Differentiation is implicit through absence and devastation

• A GZ-identity is translocal in nature

THANK YOU!

QUESTIONS?