Two Cases of Chinese Internet Studies
This thesis consists of two parts. Chapter 1 concentrates on one genre of Chinese online literature and its relationship with gender and sexuality. It aims at exploring the diversity of Chinese danmei fiction and relating it to the gendered self-identifications of young and educated women in contemporary China. It argues that while danmei fiction in China creates a channel of gender and sexual expressions, it also reflects the difficulties and contradictions that women encounter and experience when they try to place themselves into the current social and economic structure. Chapter 2 studies Chris Marker’s documentary Sunday in Peking and its reception in contemporary China. It closely examines the internet reviews on a Chinese website from the perspectives of idealization and exoticization, and contends that both the filmmaker and his Chinese audiences are under the influences of stereotypes that their society, culture or ideology impose on them.