Supervisor: Fan Liang, Assistant Professor of Media
Student Researchers
Zitong Yang is a senior at Duke Kunshan University, majoring in Media and Arts, with the track of Creative Practice. Zitong is interested in mass media, fandom studies and communication after graduation. She is mainly responsible for collecting data and doing qualitative analysis in this project.
Chengxi Yin is a junior at Duke Kunshan University, majoring in Media and Art, with the track of Art History. Chengxi is interested in digital culture, mass media, and communication. She is mainly responsible for writing the literature review of this project.
Yili Wen is a junior at Duke Kunshan University, majoring in Computational and Design, with the track of Digital Media. Yili is interested in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research, UI/UX design, and mass media. She is mainly responsible for writing the literature review of this project.
About the Project
This research project explores how Chinese digital media platforms like Douyin and Bilibili introduce their shadowbanning and content moderation practices and how users understand this new kind of content moderation. While previous studies focused mainly on US platforms, little attention has been paid to exploring content moderation on Chinese platforms. To address this gap, our research conducts qualitative analysis of texts and videos collected from Douyin and Bilibili. Our findings suggest that these two platforms emphasize three topics when introducing and justifying their moderation policies: borderline content moderation, user and content authenticity, and the optimization of user-generated content. As for users’ reflections on content moderation, we find that users are all considering how to solve shadowbanning. Their solutions mainly incorporate three aspects, that is the importance of enhancing content quality, improving fan engagement, and carefully following platform regulations. (Zitong, Chengxi, Yili)
