Manufacturing “positive energy” out of contingency and misunderstanding: the platformized cultural production in China’s short video industry

This project investigates the mechanisms of cultural production and governance on China’s short video platforms by tracing the evolution of the “positive energy” discourse on Kuaishou, China’s oldest and second most popular short video platform. It further explores how precarious labor in the short video industry contributes to individual vloggers’ ongoing processes of subjectivation. The research is anchored in the theoretical framework of platformization of cultural production, with a focus on the evolving nature of cultural governance and the contingent processes of short video production shaped by political, economic, and technological factors. Based on in-depth interviews with 33 former platform employees and vloggers and with a Foucauldian approach of critical discourse analysis, the project delineates the co-evolution of the “positive energy” discourse, the short video industry, and vloggers’ practices and perceptions in three distinct stages. Two key findings about the industry in general are also addressed: First, the short video industry is framed by a hierarchical structure, comprising state administrators, platforms, and vloggers, mediated by intermediaries. Governance between levels is amplified leveraging the economic vulnerabilities of subordinate actors and is distorted by systematic misunderstandings between levels. For instance, state administrators misperceive platforms and vloggers as traditional mass media editors, while vloggers misconstrue the existence of a “positive energy” algorithm. Second, under stringent governance and economic pressures, vloggers increasingly identify as vendors rather than cultural producers and delegate value judgement to retail logic, algorithms, and data analysis. The shift alters vloggers’ cognitive patterns, hindering them from genuine emotional expression and constraining their ability to critically think and talk about socio-political issues.