The blurry lines between popular media and party propaganda: China’s convergence culture through a linguistic lens

Abstract

There is a growing body of scholarly evidence that media convergence blurs the boundary between media production and media consumption and obscures the lines between institutions and individuals. Media convergence in the context of China has garnered attention in communication studies and in cultural studies. However, there is a scarcity of research on convergence culture from a linguistic perspective. Recent research has generated initial evidence that state media appropriates a pop-cultural social address for clickbait and information management in China’s digital media space. However, the patterns and perceptual reality of linguistic convergence remain unexplored. This study investigates popular and party uses of xiaojiejie ‘little older sister’, a familiar expression of fictive kinship reborn as a viral personal reference and social address in China’s convergence culture. Analysis of the Target Group Index in the Baidu search engine suggests xiaojiejie is gaining ground over its predecessor among young Chinese. Trends analysis of its usage in WeChat public accounts showed that the term has spread from popular media to state media, which employs the viral address to drive clickbait and disguise propaganda. An online survey of young Chinese WeChat users (N=330) on their perception of xiaojiejie headlines from WeChat public accounts showed that respondents could not tell state media uses from popular uses, providing perceptual evidence of the blurry boundaries between popular and state media uses of the viral address. The findings demonstrate the reality of linguistic convergence driven by participatory performance and its perceptual consequences in China’s convergence culture.