Engaging with Chinese Women-oriented Online Fiction: The Formation of Intimate Counterpublics

Abstract

Chinese women-oriented online fiction fans play a significant part in amplifying the voice and experience of women and non-binary people who have been historically overshadowed in the prevailing men-dominated Chinese culture. As both readers and authors, women fans and nonbinary fans use women-oriented online fiction as a discursive arena to critically challenge existing structures of authority by revising or refuting men-defined cultural frameworks. Drawing upon textual analysis of women-oriented online fiction, virtual ethnography of online fan communities and semi-structured online interviews conducted in 2021 with 32 Chinese women fans and non-binary online fiction fans, in this thesis, I argue that, while subject to varying degrees of commercial and censorship constraints, fans attempt to develop alternative narratives and frameworks for their gendered identities and sexual identities. Their participation in women-oriented online fiction occurs through continuous rewriting, critical and affective reading and discussion. I further argue that womenoriented online fiction fandom is an important force in the creation of an ‘intimate counterpublic’ sphere that constitutes a discursive space where fans modify, question, parody, critique and subvert dominant ideas about gender and sexuality and where fans’ experiences, identities, emotions and ideas are recognised, validated and viewed as central. In addition, in this thesis, I call for a broadening of the scope of what constitutes online feminism to take into account everyday online writing, discussion and reading of online fiction dedicated to promoting personal and social change around feminist issues.