Three cheers for "anecdotal evidence" in new article on "Genre borrowing in Chinese digital culture"

In this update, I'm happy to share an article just published in China Information. An earlier version of it was presented in several talks, one of which was at UBC Green College. This talk contains one of my key arguments, which is the central role of anecdotes in digital storytelling, a tradition that goes all the way back to early Chinese historical and philosophical traditions. Modernity is associated with a scorn for "anecdotal evidence," but in early Chinese philosophical and historical writing, the anecdote was the preferred mode of discourse, not because early Chinese thinkers did not care about general principles, but because they always try to see the general (or universal) from concrete historical experiences (such as captured in anecdotes). See Chun-chieh Huang, “The Defining Character of Chinese Historical Thinking” (2007). 

Is it by coincidence that anecdotes (and other very short forms) are also the preferred mode of discourse in today's digital culture?

 

I enjoy contributing chapters to edited volumes.

A few articles I wrote in the past couple of years are coming out in several different volumes in the next few months. I will mention two in this update.

First, in less than a month, Routledge will release the volume East Asian Media Culture in the Age of Digital Platforms: Narratives, Industries, and Audiences edited by Dal Yong Jin and Kyong Yoon. My contribution, entitled "Narratives as Platforms," argues that stories can serve as platforms just like social media (and we ought to turn to stories more).

In October, Bristol University Press will publish the volume The Digitalisation of Memory Practices in China: Contesting the Curating State edited by Maximilian Mayer and Frederik Schmitz. My chapter  “How Do Netizens Remember: Digital Memory Work in the History of the Chinese Internet” examines several forms of digital memory work, from the future-oriented curatorial practices in the 1990s and early 2000s to the backward-looking nostalgic memories of the mid-2000s and finally the many creative forms of digital memory during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two other forthcoming chapters are: “The Ambivalent Art of Living with Chinese Social Media: Digital Vulnerability and Practices of Self-Care,” in Decolonising Approaches to Users and Audiences in the Global South Context, Theory and Method, edited by Tarik Sabry, Winston Mano, and Andrea Medrado and "Networked Repetition and Grassroots Struggles for Alternative Digital Futures" in The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Democracy, edited by Zizi Papacharissi. More details coming in my next update.

I enjoy contributing chapters to edited volumes. They often result from small workshops (this is the case with both articles listed at the top), where participants have the luxury of presenting their work and getting good feedback through intimate conversations and interactions. The volume editors can never be thanked enough for doing an incredible amount of work in what is often a long process leading to publication. Their work significantly reduces the workload and stress of contributing authors. I also enjoy reading nicely edited volumes, because they usually present a variety of perspectives on a common theme from a diverse group of authors. 

July 2025 updates

1. "Two Maoisms," published in Los Angeles Review of Books (June 7, 2025),  is my review of two new books, Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China by Linda Jaivin and How Maoism Was Made: Reconstructing China, 1949–1965 edited by Aaron William Moore and Jennifer Altehenger. Since I'm lingering on LARB, I'd like to re-up Yangyang Cheng's wonderful review essay about my Wuhan book  "Viral Stories: On Guobin Yang’s 'The Wuhan Lockdown,'” published on February 9, 2022.

2. 《国际新闻界》(Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication) published a special section on Chinese internet histories in its issue No. 4, 2025. My introduction to the special section, entitled "Ordinary Life in the Study of Internet Histories," highlights, well, the importance of studying ordinary life.

3. I can't help sharing this interesting AI generated trailer on Xiaohongshu (RedNote) created by HSS Online about my article on the contemporary significance of Professor Wang Zuoliang's views of literary histories. 

4. In 2017, with Rosie Clark-Parsons, PhD, Jasmine Erdener, and Elisabetta Ferrari, we wrote a long entry "activist media" for Oxford Bibliographies. Last year, Yuan Xu (incoming PhD student at Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania) joined the team and worked with me to update the entry. The newly updated entry is now live online (it's paywalled. Message me if you need a pdf). 

5. If you notice that my two recent updates include a few articles in Chinese and even an interview in Spanish, that is because I believe in the value of publishing in non-English languages, as well as in English. Despite all its problems, AI is a useful tool for instantaneous translation. The online platform where the above-mentioned AI-trailered article was published provides instant AI translation of all Chinese texts into English.

Updates about some recent publications, in English, Chinese & Spanish

Can't believe I haven't updated this blog for almost three years! Here are a few updates about recent publications, in reverse chronological order:

1. The May 2025 issue of Foreign Literature (外国文学) just published a special section in commemoration of Professor Wang Zuoliang (王佐良), who passed away 30 years ago in 1995. I contributed an article on Professor Wang's views about how to develop a Chinese paradigm of writing foreign literary histories. My piece discusses how Prof. Wang's work speaks to contemporary academic scholarship in both the humanities and the social sciences. If you don't read Chinese, you will find that the online platform where the journal is published has instant AI translation of Chinese texts into English. It's amazing, and certainly very convenient. The multilingual platform is called HSS Online and was launched last year by Foreign Language & Teaching Press in Beijing. 

2. I'm extremely pleased to have an interview about Chinese internet and social media published in the May 2025 issue of Revista de la Universidad de México. The interview was done with Sandra Barba in English but was published in Spanish because the journal is in Spanish.

3. Another interview was done in Chinese with two scholars in Nanjing University where we discuss my 2020 English article "Communication as Translation." They also asked me about my intellectual trajectories. The interview was just published in the March 2025 issue of Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication (国际新闻界). The articles in this journal, as well as in Foreign Literature, are open-access.

4. This is also a good time to mention a second interview done recently in Chinese, entitled "Lived Experience, Inter-Disciplinary Knowledge Production and Critical Reflections in an Age of Uncertainty." It was published last year in the Hong Kong-based journal Communication & Society. The second part of the article is the English version.

5. Last year, together with two colleagues (Jingyi Gu and Junyi Lv), we guest-edited a special issue on "Thirty Years of the Internet in China" for the journal Communication and the Public. You will find the first part of the special here, all open-access.

6. Also last year, with two other colleagues (Bingchun Meng and Elaine Yuan), we edited a book entitled Pandemic Crossings: Digital Technology, Everyday Experience, and Governance in the COVID-19 Crisis. It is included in the "US–China Relations in the Age of Globalization" series of the Michigan State University Press edited by Stephen Hartnett. We thank Stephen for his excellent editorial guidance.  And congratulations to Stephen on his forthcoming new book The Lost Chance in China and the Rise of Cold War Populism.

 

All Communication Is Translation

Our fall semester started last week. What did I do this summer? Among other things, I gave a few Zoom lectures to students of journalism and communication in the cities of Jinan, Guangzhou, and Changchun. All the lectures were in Chinese except one. The one in English was entitled "All Communication Is Translation." I don't know who did it, but the lecture is now available on bilibili. If you think bilibili is a platform for commercial influencers, you will be surprised (as I am) to find many academic lectures there and even more surprised to see that the popular lectures easily get tens of thousands of views (not mine, though).

Talks and resources about my new book The Wuhan Lockdown

Very excited to share that The Wuhan Lockdown will be officially released on Feb 15, 2022. Please enter promo code CUP20 for 20% discount on the Columbia University Press website. I will use this space to list book talks and other information/resources related to The Wuhan Lockdown.

Excerpts, Interviews, Reviews, and Commentaries

January 23, 2023. "Covid's legacy: how will China remember the pandemic?" Chinese Whispers (podcast hosted by Cindy Yu of The Spectator).  

December 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown reviewed by Michael Sheringham in Asian Affairs. See: Michael Sheringham (2022) The Wuhan Lockdown, Asian Affairs, DOI:10.1080/03068374.2022.2151278 

November 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown reviewed in Choice, Nov 2022 vol. 60, no. 3.

November 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2022 and The Top 75 Community College Titles, November 2022 Edition.

August 1, 2022, "Pandemic Diaries Under the Lens," book review in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

June 14, 2022. "Frontline Voices from the Pandemic's Early Days" (an excerpt from The Wuhan Lockdown). Penn Today.

May 11, 2022. Review of The Wuhan Lockdown. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

May 9, 2022. Read an exclusive excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Wuhan Lockdown, HarperCollins India.

April 29, 2022. "Shanghai's Lockdown: A ChinaFile Conversation" includes my short commentary.

April 6, 2022. Karen Brooks, "Locked Down and Opening Up." Omnia, University of Pennsylvania.

October 30, 2021, Starred review in Kirkus Reviews.

Feb 9, 2022, "Viral Stories: On Guobin Yang's The Wuhan Lockdown," by Yangyang Cheng, in Los Angeles Review of Books.

Feb. 13, 2022, The Page 99 Test applied to The Wuhan Lockdown.

March 4, 2022, Undark Magazine publishes an excerpt from the book - the story about a delivery driver.

Sept. 24, 2020, "In China, Pandemic Diaries Unite, and Divide, a Nation." Social Science Research Council, Items. 

Feb. 3, 2020. "The Digital Radicals of Wuhan." Center on Digital Culture and Society, University of Pennsylvania. 

Book Talks

Below is a list of my book talks. I will update the list from time to time. All the time listed is Eastern Standard Time unless otherwise noted. If past talks have video or audio recordings available, you will see links to them.

Jan. 6, 2022, 8:30-10pm "The Wuhan Lockdown with Guobin Yang." Zhengfawei Clubhouse Event with Neysun Mahboubi, Mary Gallagher, Maggie Lewis, Sida Liu, Victor Shih, and Alex Wang. Audio recording available here.

Jan. 20, 2022, 8pm. "Re-enacting the Wuhan Lockdown: Characters, Scenes, and Other Narrative Strategies." Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore

Moderator: Weiyu Zhang

Discussants: Jack Qiu, Chen Gang, Zou Dongxin

YouTube video here.

Jan. 31, 2022, 6pm. Institute for Public Knowledge, NYU

Discussants: Eric Klinenberg, Lily Chumley, Ian Johnson. Event video available via Twitter here and on YouTube video here.

Feb. 11, 2022, 9am. "The Wuhan Lockdown." China Center for Social Policy, Columbia University

Moderator: Qin Gao

YouTube video here.

Feb. 16, 2022, 12:30pm. "Listening to the Wuhan Lockdown." Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University.

Moderator/Discussant: Nara Dillon

YouTube video here.

Feb. 24, 2022, 5pm EST. "Social Media and Social History during the Wuhan Lockdown." Long US-China Institute Distinguished Lecture, UC-Irvine.

YouTube video here.

Feb. 26, 2022, 6-7:15pm EST. Panel on COVID-19, Global China in an Anxious Age, organized by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, UC-Irvine [this is not a book talk, but I'll draw on my book in this panel discussion about COVID-19]

March 14, 2022, 5pm GMT. "Echoes of the Past in the Wuhan Lockdown." SOAS China Institute, University of London.

YouTube video here.

March 23, 2022, 10:30am-12pm, "Social Media and Civic Engagement during the Wuhan Lockdown." ChinaTalks lecture, University of Copenhagen.

April 1, 2022, "The Wuhan Lockdown and the Limits of Critique." Coughlin Endowed Lecture, East Asia Center, University of Virginia.

YouTube video here.

May 10, 2022, 7:30am EDT, "'An Absolutely Ordinary Person': Stories from the Wuhan Lockdown." Manchester China Institute.

Segment on "The Emotional Impact of Lockdown Diaries."

Segment on "Celebrating Ordinary People."

Full video (45 minutes) here.

北京时间2022年5月21日早晨9-10点， 哥大全球中心“追光”主题研讨《武汉封城》

观看视频，请点击这里

5-minute highlights with English subtitles.

 

September 28, 2022, 12-1:30pm Hawaii time (6-7:30pm ET). Conversations on The Wuhan Lockdown. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawaii.

YouTube video here. 

 

October 11, 2022, 12-1pm. On The Wuhan Lockdown, or How to Reassemble a Global Pandemic. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.

October 28, 2022. "How to Study a Pandemic While Living It: Narrative Inquiry and The Wuhan Lockdown." School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University. "Distinguished Research Seminar Series."

YouTube video here.

November 23, 2022, 10am. "Narrative Inquiry and The Wuhan Lockdown." Kyungpook National University, South Korea.

 

February 16, 2023. "The Wuhan Lockdown." 21st Century China Center, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego.

 

March 24, 2023. "New Forms of Digital Activism in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic." Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University. 

 

December 4, 2023, 7pm ET on Zoom:

February 20, 2024: "To Have Theory in a Pandemic, or Not to? Pandemic Storytelling and the Wuhan Lockdown." East Asian Studies Program, Princeton University.

Summer Institutes in Communication & Journalism Thrive in China

Given the pandemic situation and all the problems it has created, I'm amazed at the energy of Chinese colleagues in communication studies in organizing summer institutes and workshops. Just as amazing is the enthusiasm of graduate students and emerging scholars in attending these programs - often hundreds of them if not more.

Recently I gave two virtual talks at two of these summer institutes - one for the College of Media and International Culture of Zhejiang University, the other for the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University in Guangzhou. One thing I like about these events is that the organizers would usually prepare news releases with summaries of the main points of the lectures and discussions. These news releases are published on their Schools' WeChat accounts, which are then shared quite widely. Some of the summaries are detailed enough I don't feel I need to write up the stuff for further publication.

Here is the link to one of the news releases for the "Advanced Summer Training Institute" organized by the College of Media and International Culture of Zhejiang University, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin at Madison and our own Center on Digital Culture and Society (CDCS) at Penn: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/2c66buzGP0SPQ7zcODYNaQ 

This is the 12th consecutive year colleagues at Zhejiang University have done this and the pandemic did not stop them. I talked about the descriptive turn in contemporary social sciences. My great colleague Victor Pickard talked about his book Democracy Without Journalism (which he held up for the audience to see in the inserted image). Other speakers included Seth Lewis (Oregon), David Ryfe (Iowa), Mike Ananny (USC), Yu HONG (ZhejiangU), Ye LU (FudanU), Hongtao LI (ZhejiangU), and Yanhong LI (Sun Yat-senU), Haiyan WANG (JinanU), Lu WEI (ZhejiangU), and Zhongdang Pan (Madison). Pan chaired a roundtable discussion. A number of students attending the Institute presented their own work as well.

Victor is as much of a celebrity in China as elsewhere. The academic journal Shanghai Journalism Review recently ran a wonderful (and long) interview with him here, in Chinese, of course. The same issue of the journal also ran an interview with me, where I introduced our CDCS and discussed digital culture, cultural sociology, and more.