Streaming Feminism: Women-centered Net Dramas, Global Television Culture, and Feminist Textual Possibilities

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the influence of streaming platforms, with their relatively new industrial arrangements and relations with the media regulatory structure, on the cultural production of dramas in China. We focus on women-centered net dramas to demonstrate how feminist discourses found a place on streaming platforms, thereby opening up creative yet vulnerable textual possibilities for reflection on gender politics. We situate the production of these net dramas within the political economy and technological conditions of the streaming industry and further consider the implications of such mediated feminism for the pursuit of gender equality in China. Our examination of feminist discourses in streaming culture also resonates with the ongoing global transformation of cultural productions in the television industry.