Contested boundaries, gendered imaginaries: Nüpin and the platformisation of webnovels in China

This thesis seeks to contribute to research on Chinese webnovels and the “platformisation of cultural production”. Webnovels represent one of the most vibrant platformised cultural sectors in China, but how webnovels have become demarcated along gender lines into categories of “nüpin” (women’s channel) and “nanpin” (men’s channel) has been overlooked. This thesis problematises the tendency in existing research to treat nüpin as a self-evident label for by-women-for-women webnovels. It draws attention to the tensions between women’s creative autonomy and the technological, commercial and political forces that shape nüpin’s boundaries. It advocates the expansion of feminist critiques beyond literary analysis and to achieve this, it seeks to integrate platform studies with webnovel scholarship to construct a critical history of nüpin, understood as a process of gendered platformisation. In three phases of multi-case analysis, I trace nüpin’s history from early moments of fluidity and creative diversity, to its instrumentalisation within the platform economy as a matchmaking device that reinforces gender-essentialist models of literary consumption, and finally to its negotiation within the government’s vision of “mainstream culture”, which privileges masculine narratives and heteronormativity. This thesis reveals that the platformisation of webnovels in China is characterised by ongoing negotiations between users, platforms, and the state, all contesting to assert their imaginaries of what literature in the digital age should look like, what functions it should serve, as well as how gender should be configured within it. At the heart of this study is a concern with how platformisation has opened or closed possibilities, for literature, for women, and for society. Ultimately, I believe that by recognising the uneven power relations and gendered assumptions that have co-produced the current nüpin, we are better equipped to advocate for more diverse, inclusive possibilities of gender and literature.