Skip to main content
Book cover for Social Media in Rural China open access

Publication date: 13 September 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781910634691

Number of pages: 234

Number of illustrations: 44

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Social Media in Rural China

Social Networks and Moral Frameworks

Tom McDonald (Author)

Series: Why We Post

China’s distinctive social media platforms have gained notable popularity among the nation’s vast number of internet users, but has China’s countryside been ‘left behind’ in this communication revolution?

Tom McDonald spent 15 months living in a small rural Chinese community researching how the residents use social media in their daily lives. His ethnographic findings suggest that, far from being left behind, many rural Chinese people have already integrated social media into their everyday experience.

Throughout his ground-breaking study, McDonald argues that social media allows rural people to extend and transform their social relationships by deepening already existing connections with friends known through their school, work or village, while also experimenting with completely new forms of relationships through online interactions with strangers, particularly when looking for love and romance. By juxtaposing these seemingly opposed relations, rural social media users are able to use these technologies to understand, capitalise on and challenge the notions of morality that underlie rural life.

Related titles

Sign up to our newsletter

Don't miss out!
Subscribe to the UCL Press newsletter for the latest open access books,
journal CfPs, news and views from our authors and much more!