Inventing the ‘authentic’ self: American television and Chinese audiences in global Beijing

• Main Author: GAO, Yang
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2016
• Subjects: Authenticity; China; Cross-cultural media consumption; Identity; Modernity; Reflexivity; Television; Youth; Asian Studies; Broadcast and Video Studies; Sociology of Culture
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1918; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3175/viewcontent/GaoY_InventingAuthenticSelf_MCS_2016_afv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This article examines the ways educated urban Chinese youths engage American television fiction as part of their identity work. Drawing on theories of modern reflexive identity, and based on 29 interviews with US TV fans among university students in Beijing, I found these youths are drawn to this te...