Exploring the Internet of Desire: the evolution of porn cultures in Chinese cyberspace

Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2020, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2) : 50-66.

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PDF(8546 KB)
Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2020, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2) : 50-66.

Exploring the Internet of Desire: the evolution of porn cultures in Chinese cyberspace

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Abstract

Porn culture is an important but rarely studied part of subculture that goes hand in hand with the development of the Internet worldwide. And China is no exception. In this paper, the authors try to analyze how porn culture, a symptom of the dominant ideology of today, evolves interactively with the political, economic and cultural transformations of China. In the rhetorical construction of the Internet discourses, porn culture represents a lot in different times, such as free ?ow of information, symbol of free market, carrier of sharing culture and brotherhood. It is mobilized as cultural tool of political resistance, the driving force behind the development of the Internet new economy, and cultural force that shape hegemonic masculinity. The new middle class, in this case mostly composed of well-educated young male Internet users, cultivates group consciousness and communication capacity during the process of grasping digital technology. They become one of the important forces behind online collective actions of all sorts in contemporary China. At the same time, however, they are deeply immersed in the cybermyth of free ?ow of information, and discard the socialist tradition of gender equality in the process of taking control of cultural production and interpretations. When soft porn culture spreads alongside the new economy, “gender war” and other social consequences also call for more critical attention, and the Chinese society is in need of a new cultural politics to form new consensus

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Exploring the Internet of Desire: the evolution of porn cultures in Chinese cyberspace[J]. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication. 2020, 42(2): 50-66
PDF(8546 KB)

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