Research On The Labor And Culture Of Online Literature Writers In China

In the twenty years since the emergence of Chinese online literature in China mainland,the commercialization and industrialization of online literature have created a huge reading market and the upstream structure of culture industry chain.Behind this picture is the expanding culture communities,labor groups and Internet platform capital.These economic and cultural phenomena should be brought into the vision of academic research.Or in other words,the online literature and its producers,which play a core role of the current cultural industry,are obviously worthy of observation and exploration from many perspectives.This study discusses the work status and cultural life of online literature writers,and tries to describe their position in the production relationship of online literature industry,as well as how these individuals and groups realize the adaptation,resistance or confluence to the existing industry power structure in the community daylily life and the labor practice.This study takes “digital labor” issue from political economy of communication and the discussion of popular culture from and cultural studies as the two main theoretical threads.The virtual ethnography is taken as the main research method,and the online literature community on the Internet is selected as the research field.This study discusses it from two perspectives: “the production of culture” and “the culture of production”.The former is related to the design and operation of the power relationship in the production structure,while the latter mainly explains the subjective strategies adopted by online literature writers in dealing with this power relationship and the concept identity formed in the process of strategy application.It is found that online literature production has three kinds of organizational structures:platform,studio and author community.Platform and studio have clear regular organizational production structure and production practice,which can represent “the production of culture”;the production structure and production practice under the structure of author community are highly mobile and fuzzy,which makes author community become a container of “the culture of production”.Organization is a rational tool.Through the system design and practice of organizational production,platform and studio strengthen the labor control of online literature writers,but the process of strengthening is dynamic and tortuous.In the interactive relationship among author community,platform and studio,the writers' subjectivity strategies are highlighted.However,because the writers identify themselves as the producer and consumer of cultural goods,these strategies are difficult to effectively fight against the macro power relationship hidden in the whole culture industry.The explanation of these phenomena is not to show the wonders from some distant“others”,but to convey a concern for the culture industry labor.It can remind the people immersed in the mass culture landscape that the famous or unknown production structure and the workers in this structure are closely related to their daily life.Based on such concern,only by pulling “the production of culture” out from the legitimate background and opening the curtains that cover “the culture of production”,can the public really participate in the creation of their own culture and open up the possibility of a common good life for the tension in these labor and struggle.