Elaine Jing Zhao

Between formal and informal: the shakeout in China’s online video industry

While a rich body of literature in television and film studies and media policy studies has tended to focus on the media activities in the formal sector, we know much less about informal media activities, their influence on state policies, as well as the dynamics between the formal and the informal sectors. This article examines these issues with reference to a particularly revealing period following a large-scale government crackdown on peer-to-peer video-sharing sites in China in 2008. By analysing the aim and consequences of the state action, we point to the counter-productive effects in terms of cultural loss and the resurgence of offline piracy; we show the positive impact on forcing the informal into the formal sector, and pressuring the latter to innovate. Meanwhile, increasing rapprochement between professional and user-created content is leading to a new relationship between formal and informal sectors. This case demonstrates the importance of considering the dynamic relationship between the two sectors. It also offers compelling evidence of the role of the informal sector in engendering state action, which in turn impacts on the co-evolution of formal and informal sectors.

The micro-movie wave in a globalising China: Adaptation, formalisation and commercialisation:

While user-generated short online videos have existed since the emergence of video sharing sites in China, they have undergone a process of formalisation and commercialisation, culminating in the wave of micro-movies in recent years. By addressing the wider context of globalisation alongside relevant state policies and shifting viewing habits, this article analyses the local and global causes of this wave. It offers evidence that illustrates how online video service providers in China have adapted in a changing industry landscape as they negotiate state policies, advertiser interests and user preference. It then examines the production and distribution dynamics, where professional producers draw on social media, grassroots creativity and creative talents in regional markets. Finally, it discusses the cultural implications of this process in terms of both the nature and flow of creativity. Based on these analyses, the article also sheds light on the interplay between the state and the market in the context of globalisation and marketisation of media sectors, which becomes more complicated when the state-owned or controlled media enter the emerging market sectors.

Social network market: Storytelling on a Web 2.0 original literature site

This article looks at a Chinese Web 2.0 original literature site, Qidian, in order to show the co-evolution of market and non-market initiatives. The analytic framework of social network markets (Potts et al., 2008) is employed to analyse the motivations of publishing original literature works online and to understand the support mechanisms of the site, which encourage readers’ willingness to pay for user-generated content. The co-existence of socio-cultural and commercial economies and their impact on the successful business model of the site are illustrated in this case. This article extends the concept of social network markets by proposing the existence of a ripple effect of social network markets through convergence between fixed and mobile internet, between traditional and internet publishing, and between publishing and other cultural industries. It also examines the side effects of social network markets, and the role of market and non-market strategies in addressing the issues.

The reform of the cultural system: Culture creativity and innovation in China

Dramatic changes have occurred in Chinese society over the past three decades. Many of these changes are attributable to the government’s economic reforms presided over, firstly by MAO Zedong’s successor DENG Xiaoping, and following DENG, JIANG Zemin, HU Jintao and XI Jinping. In this chapter, we focus on changes that have led to a revised understanding of culture. According to a Chinese Communist Party definition, informed by historical materialism, culture ‘in a broad sense, refers to the sum total of all the material and spiritual wealth created by human beings in the course of the historical development of society; in a narrow sense, culture refers to ideology and related institutions and organizations’ (Cihai: Sea of Words. Chinese Encyclopedia 1989, p. 1731). However, over the past three decades, the Chinese government has voluntarily relinquished control over many aspects of cultural production in exchange for the potential benefits of cohesion and increased productivity that social liberalization is seen to promote. Inevitably the market, rather than government propaganda, has become the arbiter of people’s cultural tastes (Gerth 2010). It is important to bear in mind, however, that broadening of consumption practices does not necessarily constitute cultural pluralism. Indeed, the extent to which culture is commercializable remains contentious. In the view of conservatives, culture cannot be left to the forces of the market; yet the same conservatives assert that China’s culture should be globally competitive.

Writing on the assembly line: Informal labour in the formalised online literature market in China

Emerging as a non-commercial, grassroots alternative to the state-controlled publishing businesses, online literature in China has formalised based on the freemium business model and with the influx of capital. However, little is known about the informality in the formal market and their mutually shaping relationship. This article approaches online literature production in China as case study of the interconnection and interactions between the formal and informal in the wider context of the creative labour debate. It begins with an analysis of the inception of online literature in the context of Chinese literary system before unpacking the formalisation process. It then examines precarity associated with the informal labour, particularly the augmented precarity under the sway of capital. Then, it focuses on surrogate writing as a new form of informality arising from the formalised market, reveals the formality therein and its economic and socio-cultural implications including its impact on the formal market.

The bumpy road towards network convergence in China: The case of over-the-top streaming services

The decoupling of content and distribution platform has changed television irrevocably. Potential opportunities promised by the integration of telecommunications, broadcast and Internet networks means television has become a strategic highland for relevant stakeholders including industry players and state regulators. In China, network convergence has been on the state agenda since the turn of the century, but has remained stubbornly hard to move forward. This article starts with a brief overview of the state policy development in relation to the three-network convergence. It then zooms in onto the case of over-the-top streaming as a microcosm of the convergence project by examining two critical moments in its development trajectory, highlighting a short-lived early experiment in 2005 and a more recent wave of solutions since 2010. It offers a contextualised analysis of market evolution and state regulatory approaches in this space as power negotiations play out in multiple dimensions including those between the state and market, between the central and local, and between sectorial interests. By doing so, this article reveals contestations, contradictions and challenges in the state-engineered convergence project.

Collaboration reconfigured: The evolving landscape of entertainment TV markets between Taiwan and Mainland China

This article examines the evolving landscape of variety show markets in Taiwan and Mainland China. It begins with an overview of the role of Taiwan in the initial development of variety show production in Mainland China. It then analyses the factors behind Taiwan’s declining position in distribution to the Mainland and its weakened role as a knowledge broker, which parallels the evolution of Mainland productions from copycats to licenced format trade and adaptation and subsequently original programming concepts. Following this is an analysis of recent movements of Taiwanese talent and capital to the Mainland and, increasingly, to online platforms. While digital technologies and platforms present new collaboration opportunities, and format trade facilitates production, this article points to potentially intensified tensions arising from cross-strait cultural production that often intends to address multiple audiences with hybrid content.

Beyond the Game of Cat and Mouse: Challenges of Discoverability and Piracy in the Mobile Gaming Market

In this chapter, Zhao examines the emerging mobile gaming industry in China, where the complicated landscape of app stores and the persistent piracy culture exacerbates challenges for developers. The chapter examines game developers’ adaptation to the challenge of discoverability through chart manipulation, and implications of piracy in the circulation, promotion, and production of content. The author proposes an alternative thinking towards piracy, assumes particular significance in social network markets where many creative industries belong, especially in the context of weak copyright enforcement, poor content discoverability, and increasing adoption of freemium business models.

Section III Chindia screens Chindia Innovation in online film distribution

‘Chindia’ offers fascinating challenges, both empirical and theoretical, for explanatory frameworks seeking to understand rapidly changing media production, distribution and consumption patterns and possibilities. Our focus here is part of a larger project with two dimensions. The first is empirical: a study of online screen distribution worldwide as part of the ‘Dynamics of World Cinema’ project initiated by Dina Iordinova at St Andrews University (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/filmstudies/dynamics. php). Our contribution charts the ‘career’ of online film distribution, and its first publication (Cunningham et al., 2010) concentrates on Hollywood – where innovation and experimentation is occurring most intensively with iTunes, Hulu and YouTube. iTunes has been a major disruptor of the ‘premium content’ or ‘content is king’ model on which Hollywood has based its business models since the early 1950s with the beginnings of competition with television and with audiovisual product differentiation. The iTunes download model, with a lower unit cost than Hollywood has ever been comfortable with, exemplifies this. Its ‘open-closed’ intellectual property control model – iTunes is platform-agnostic and can be deployed on PCs as much as Apple hardware and on any mobile device, but has strong and relatively efficient digital rights management content control – has made it the most successful market-based audio and audiovisual content provider in the online world. Hulu, Hollywood’s answer to iTunes, adopts a streaming, advertiserbased and thoroughly geo-blocked approach, and has migrated to a subscription model as there is not enough advertising revenue to sustain it. It suffers from the ‘analogue dollars to digital cents’ conundrum typically faced by all actors in the emergent online media market.