Identity in Negotiation: Chinese Gay Men and Their Everyday Use of Digital Media

This thesis investigates the role that digital media plays in the everyday lives of Chinese gay males, and to further explore the implications of such digital practices relating to the construction of gay identity. It draws on a nine-month ethnographic fieldwork in Guangzhou and Beijing respectively from December 2016 to August 2017. Through intensive engagement with local gay individuals and communities, this project was not only able to make a more comprehensive understanding of individuals’ life stories, but also contextualise their lived experience of gay identity within the wider cultural, social, and political context of China.
This research project revealed that digital media has indeed played a significant role in the everyday lives of different generations of Chinese gay men, as it has become their vital sources of learning and understanding about sexual identity and gay community life, and their main venue of communicating, connecting and meeting with other same-sex attracted men. However, their use of digital media is still shaped by Chinese social norms and social locations. Firstly, although digital media have introduced Chinese gay men to an up-to-date transnational gay scene, research participants still understand their identity in its own sociality. Secondly, although digital media has facilitated greater connectivity between Chinese gay males and helped them to manage and maintain different gay circles, it does not necessarily produce solidarity in the community. These gay circles are often stratified by the nature of the social class. Thirdly, market ideas and proxies dominate all aspects of Chinese people’s everyday lives. In particular, neoliberal discourses, such as suzhi has significantly shaped Chinese gay males’ digital culture.