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ICS Seminar Series - Chong Han and Jerry Watkins

Date: Thursday 4 June 2015
Time: 11.30am - 1pm
Venue: EB.2.04, Western Sydney University, Parramatta South campus

Chong Han and Jerry Watkins 

Identity Formation Via Social Media by Chinese Immigrants to Australia

Abstract

This presentation outlines interim findings from a pilot study into how first generation Chinese immigrants to Sydney, Australia form multiple identities via Chinese- and English-language social media in order to integrate within a host social and professional community.

Our focus is on the linguistic and communicative manifestations of 'disbelonging' made across Chinese-language social media, especially the popular Weibo social network. We take the position that being Chinese is a discursive and dynamic construct that emerges in the linguistic manifestation and negotiation of the sense of (dis)belonging among Chinese immigrants. To test this position a 2013 pilot study was conducted of first-generation Chinese immigrants who are now natives of Sydney, Australia (n=5). All respondents are professional, educated to tertiary level and speak fluent English and Chinese.

Two methods were employed:

1. Quantitative: analysis of linguistics corpus of participants' Weibo communication (consisting of approximately 2,340 posts collected between January-August 2013).

2. Qualitative: semi-structured in-depth interviews supported by communicative ecology mapping (n=10).

Interview respondents provided complex responses on the self-perception of (dis)belonging, highlighted by the use of different social networks for different language groups. 

Biographies

Dr Chong Han is a Lecturer at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and a researcher at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. Her focus is linguistics and Chinese language. She is author of Metaphor and Entertainment: A Corpus-Based Approach to Language in Chinese Online News (2013, London, Palgrave).

Associate Professor Jerry Watkins is Director of the News & Media Research Centre, University of Canberra. His focus is mobile, social and online content and devices and their impact on people and systems. He is lead author of the Digital News Report: Australia 2015 in collaboration with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.