Yupei Zhao

• Phd in University of Leicester
• Professor at Zhejiang University

Researchers have begun to focus on the esports player community and suggest that governments and industries take external means to address the difficulties of players. In contrast, this study investigated the subjectivity of professional players and technologies of the self in neoliberal esports. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with active and reti...

The esports live-streamer is an emerging profession in the downstream sector of the esports industry. In the research of esports professions and sustainable ecological development, the issue of identity and identification for esports live-streamers remains unsettled. With a number of esports live-streamers from the well-known domestic game live-str...

This study aimed to empirically investigate the initiatives led by primary-level cadres to boost local economies in China through live-streaming e-commerce. The study employed semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis to examine how primary-level cadres’ live-streaming e-commerce (PCLE) enables primary-level cadres to present a positive pol...

Empowered by the ongoing technological advances– virtual reality, extended reality and mixed reality, individuals interact and live with technology sensually emotionally, and intellectually much more deeply than ever before. For this reason, it is necessary to in-depth understand those who design, operate, and evaluate interactive systems while the...

The field of electronic sports (eSports) is thriving worldwide but has received limited attention as a cultural and creative industry (CCI). This study is the first to employ three layers (productivity, robustness, and niche creation) of the business ecosystem (BE) to systematically examine the flourishing eSports sector and its development as a CC...

Live streaming is an essential means through which spectators view and engage with esports. In this study, an extended model is proposed and tested based on the expectation confirmation theory to examine esports fans’ live streaming experience and the factors contributing to their intention to continue using particular live streaming platforms. Sur...

Studies on Wanghong (internet celebrities) have been a pivotal branch of celebrity studies in the digital age. Although a significant body of work exists focusing on real-person celebrities, relatively less attention has been paid to the increasingly popular virtual uploader (VUP). It uses live two- and three-dimensional technology to generate virt...

Hip-hop culture has evolved into a global phenomenon, attracting extensive academic research on its adaptation and localization in different societies. However, most studies have either neglected the influence of political economic power on hybridization or have overestimated the rationality of the artists in hip-hop culture. This study adopted cri...

Previous studies on eSports have essentially focused on its “sportiness” without giving attention to aspects such as media, information, and technology. By assessing the emerging research field of eSports through the lens of Actor-Network Theory, this study regards the Chinese eSports industry as an assemblage of heterogeneous elements. Accordingly...

The concept of fame has been associated with celebrities, wealth, attractiveness, and social recognition. Nevertheless, people have admiration for the famous who may not be celebrities. Admiration is regarded as one of the emotions of appreciation, or moral emotions, triggered by positive appraisals of excellence. It is present when seeing extraord...

Football in China is undergoing an unprecedented expansion, the result of targeted industrial policy, private sector investment, and the increased popularity of the world’s most popular game in the world’s most populous nation. Yet, as China’s own football infrastructure matures and foreign clubs seek to establish new fanbases there, little is know...

In China, the expanding eSports culture has produced a vast cohort of video-game players whose peak age ranges between 16 and 22 years. This study explores the dynamic identity transformation and mental wellbeing development processes of eSports professionals in a risk-prone society. It comprises in-depth interviews with players, coaches, managers,...

With the accelerated growth of the esports industry over the last few years, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of esports athletes. Yet there is limited research examining these athletes’ professional career journeys. This study provides a novel investigation into their career development process. This qualitative study uses a s...

China has embarked on a radical transformation of its online and mobile games industry since its government announced its ambition to be a global sporting power. This study investigates Chinese electronic sports (eSports) in the context of platform governance and platform capitalism, through a case study of the platformization of Tencent, one of Ch...

This article investigates the crucial political dimension of celebrity. Specifically, it examines celebrities’ great potential for governmentality in the Chinese context by tracing the history of celebrities in Confucian, Maoist, and post-Maoist governmentalities. It concludes that this type of governmentality, namely, celebrity as governmentality,...

This research examines the knowledge constructed in political ironic discourses, which is associated with different models of practicing self-censorship, taking a case study of the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive Election via social media Weibo. Critical discourse analysis, the verbal irony principle and semi-structured interviews were employed to c...

The online reality show The Rap of China has become ingrained in Chinese popular culture. However, since 18 January 2018, the hip-hop subculture in China has been censored by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. This study aims to analyse the cultural resonance of Chinese hip-hop, and to identify how hip-hop r...

The emerging realm of eSports has become an inescapable part of overall sports and game culture. However, this study investigates eSports beyond sports and games, regarding it as a meta-change in the context of neoliberal Chinese society. In particular, this study focuses on the practices of Chinese eSports players to explore research questions of...

Through our analysis of the performances and corpus of lyrics produced on the Reality TV show The Rap of China, we investigate how discrete Chinese inflections refract globally resonant hip-hop themes such as representations of masculinity and loyalty. We identify how rappers use classical Chinese cultural templates, invoking the knights-errant who...

Recent decades have witnessed the rapid enhancement of digital technologies and their proliferation; from their beginnings as the obscure and arcane province of an elite few, they have become central to the lives of millions. Not surprisingly, scholars and experts are increasingly interested in evaluating the social, cultural and political aspects...

This research draws on De Maeyer’s three-level mixed methodological framework and examines how, and to what extent social media users interpret their ideological use of “forwarding” for political participation with explicit and implicit political purposes on social media. It does so by examining the case of the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive electi...

Objective This article shows how social science and humanities researchers in the United Kingdom who make use of digital tools, resources, and services understand and perceive interdisciplinarity and their related experiences and needs. Methods The study examined 10 cases of U.K.‐based research, two from each of the following social science and hu...

The emergence and convergence of social, mobile and locative technologies have inspired scholars to develop the concept of ‘SoMoLo’ to study the changing forms of journalism and activism in this new context. This study therefore attempts to further develop this concept, rejuvenating the older ‘media and movement’ tradition and especially the ‘journ...

Scholars who have examined the interaction between the Internet and society have had widely different interpretations of the Internet and how it is changing society, ranging from the libertarian vision of a utopia described by John Perry Barlow in “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” to the dystopian nightmare of ubiquitous surveillanc...

This study brings the theory of structural threats to Internet research to examine the impact of Internet censorship on young adults' political expression and protest. Conducted with a Web survey of university students in China (N = 2,188), this study shows, first, that the degree of awareness of Internet laws and regulations can contribute directl...

In this paper we propose a ‘two-level social capital analysis’ for the study of the role of online communication in new, contemporary forms of civic activism. We assess the applicability and value of the proposed analytical framework in a small-scale study of the role of Facebook in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement. The case study showcases that the pro...