Date of Award
7-12-2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Discipline
Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Prof. ZHOU Feifei
Second Advisor
Prof. SEWELL Andrew John
Abstract
This study examines young users’ creative writing practices and mediated experiences on Chinese social media, focusing specifically on bullet comments on Bilibili, a popular Chinese video-sharing platform. As a distinctive digital writing feature embedded within video design, bullet comments offer fruitful opportunities to explore multimodality in Chinese social media while challenging existing multimodal theoretical perspectives. To address limitations in the traditional social semiotic approach—particularly regarding the problematic conceptualization and utilization of modes—for the study of technology-mediated written communication, this research introduces an integrated multimodal perspective built on three interrelated strands: orality, temporality, and embodiment.
Employing digital ethnography and participant observation, the study engages with young users’ fan activities through bullet comments. Data were gathered from creative written discourses associated with two contrasting Bilibili productions: Chubbyemu’s American medical stories presented in English, and the Huanong Brothers’ narrative of rural life in China. Both productions are highly reflexive of the dynamic Chinese cyber culture, characterized by youth (sub)cultures, affect, commodification, and (vernacular) creativity. Analysis of these fan communities reveals a profound interplay among orality cultures, multilayered and non-linear temporalities, and embodied experiences—all enabled by the technological and semiotic affordances of bullet comments that shape users’ creative writing practices.
This thesis contributes to multimodality and Chinese media studies in several key ways. First, it enhances theoretical frameworks of multimodality by introducing a triad of orality, temporality, and embodiment that offers an integrated perspective on meaning making in multimodal interactions mediated by social media technologies. This triad articulates multimodal phenomena beyond simplistic categorizations of modes and isolated sign structures, emphasizing the crucial role of user agency and context in meaning-making processes. Second, it provides a holistic analysis of the dynamic Chinese Internet culture, capturing latest sociocultural and economic changes, such as affective communication, vernacular creativity, fan economy, and rural economy, thus empirically enriching both multimodal and media studies. Third, this study adopts a mixed-methods approach that combines social semiotics and digital ethnography, demonstrating innovative methodologies for analyzing complex, hybrid digital discourse, as well as offering practical insights from participant observation within new forms of technology-mediated communities and cultures. Finally, this thesis concludes by raising critical questions about the negative effects of technology and suggesting implications for future research, particularly in relation to transplatform practices and increased application of more embodied and sophisticated digital technologies.
Language
English
Copyright
The copyright of this thesis is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited.
Recommended Citation
Yang, L. (2025). Youth creative writing on Chinese social media: A multimodal study of bullet comments on Bilibili from an integrated perspective (Doctoral thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from https://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd/239/