Platformized family politics: A case study of Chinese cross-border wives’ storytelling on YouTube

Abstract

This article explores Chinese cross-border wives’ experiences, challenges and coping mechanisms and their interaction with the ecology and algorithm of the platform by focusing on their storytelling and practices on YouTube. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, narrative analysis and more than 2 years of virtual ethnography, I observed the family politics and power dynamics presented in the videos of Chinese cross-border wives. I found two types of family politics within the ‘power game’ of interculturally married families. Wives who have experienced significant domestic injustice tend to demonstrate and reaffirm their moral capital, whereas those who are content with their marriage lives tend to demonstrate to subscribers how they play the power game with wisdom. Nevertheless, by focusing on a marginalized group on YouTube, I illustrate the platform’s role in these Chinese cross-border wives’ family politics, the great effort they made to attain popularity, the invisibility they endured and their highly unpredictable platform practice.