ABSTRACT

New migrants from the People’s Republic of China now face a more fraught identity politics that is marked by an increasingly acute awareness of the racial, cultural, and ideological differences between themselves and ‘mainstream’ English-language-speaking Australians. Inhabiting a super-hybrid news and social media environment, many people in this cohort experience a degree of cognitive dissonance because of the frequent need to ‘process’ conflicting points of view and sentiments. Using as a case study Australia’s most popular Chinese-language digital media outlet – Sydney Today – this article explores the cultural economy of hybridity. The analysis shows how this hybrid genre enables the Chinese-language digital media platforms to inform and orient this new migrant cohort by brokering news and information on their behalf. Taking a predominantly cultural-economic analysis approach but also acknowledging the sector’s economics, regulatory framework, technological affordances, and content production strategies, the article uncovers a distinctive narrative format and discursive practice, as well as an expression of a new ‘in-between’ identity politics.

摘要

来自中华人民共和国的新移民现在面临着更加令人担忧的身份政治，其特点是越来越敏锐地意识到他们与“主流”讲英语的澳大利亚人之间的种族、文化和意识形态差异。生活在一个超级混合的新闻和社交媒体环境中，这个群体中的许多人都经历了一定程度的认知失调，因为他们经常需要“处理”相互冲突的观点和情绪。本文以澳大利亚最受欢迎的中文数字媒体——今日悉尼——为例，探讨了混合文化经济。分析表明，这种混合体裁如何让中文数字媒体平台通过代表这些新移民群体传递新闻和信息来为他们提供信息和定位。