How China creates and consumes media I, #theconf @kevinkclee

Kevin Lee at The Conference, day 1 session 1

The youths of China lives in a society where everything changes rapidly. Looking at the years between 1979 to 2010 one can see that as an example people living in cities in China has increased from 185 million people to 611 million people in 2010 . In the middle of this, around year 1997 there was a media explosion in China. They got the PC, the mobile phone and the internet – all at once. And this is one of the keys to chinese youths view on technology today.

The youths of todays China has only seen progress.

Identity construction – who am I?

Kevin Lee at the conferenceThe chinese youths are individuals and doesn’t try to be different from the group but tries to understand who they are, what they want and what they like. On this path they try different things and change directions often. Youths in China can, as an example, change workplace every other month. They try stuff to find out if it is for them, things connected to sexuality, dresscode etc all for the sake of becoming an individual.

Constructed and fragmented identities

So what we know is that the young people in China are used to a rapid speed of things, that it changes often, that progress is made and that identities can be created by trying out what you like and dislike. On Kevin showes how you can se all things someone likes, just as the likes on Facebook. This is how chinese youths build their identities, by seeing and telling all the hundreds of likes that makes them unique and who they are.

The rise of tribes

The tribes consists of all the people liking a specific thing such as a brand, jeans, soccer, a cricket team etc. Together they build value and a meaning around the thing that connects them. This tribal system now is connected with being able to find others through social media. Tribes have their own secrets, gestures, language, colors… Chinas’ school has been built upon being able to learn by heart not to really understand something. With this new media formats of the internet chinese youths see the possibility to really learn stuff and to participate in creating knowledge.

Puzzel in tetris level 100 speed

So the youths in China creates media and themselves from fragments and see that all those small pieces make up who they are. They are used to being co-creators and have adjusted to the new ways of social activism that the internet gives them an opportunity to be a part of. They are used to rapid change and probably needs it not to get bored. They are getting better at learning and understand collaboratively and this is how they want it. To have an empowered consumption.



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