Inclusive creativity: Wanghong economy and the Chinese social media entertainment industry

This thesis analyses the development trajectory and implications of China’s online creative industry (known as wanghong) and examines both empowerment and precarity of labor in the specific context of China. Focusing on major platforms and media intermediaries, the study explores how the industry facilitates and regulates the production of mass cultural creativity within the datafication and commodification logic of platforms. The thesis considers platform governance, platform affordances, and creative labor management, serving as an extended case study of the global social media entertainment industry