Left behind and excluded? Older People and the Political Economy of Social Media in China and Germany
Whether in democratically constituted societies like Germany or in authoritarian regimes like China, digital capitalism seems to be gaining a foothold everywhere (Fuchs 2017; 2020). Does the political economy of social media reinforce social inequalities? And are media users affected by different asymmetrical power constellations when different social systems shape digital and demographic change? My project in media cultural studies takes a look at the media use of the group of older people as “digital immigrants” (Prenksy 2001) since the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic in order to begin to answer these questions. From the perspective of critical theory and using an exploratory discourse analysis of posts in social media, it will be examined how both journalists and internet users in China and Germany have publicly portrayed specific problems of the elderly and to what extent smartphone use has played a role in this. It also takes stock of the technical and social solutions that different actors have offered since the outbreak of the pandemic for the social inclusion of older people in different cultural contexts.
Research focus
- Health communication
- Intercultural comparison of modernisation processes (China-Europe)
- Political economy of social media
- Critical digital social research
Curriculum Vitae
- 2021-2018 Associate Professor at USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry (ICCI), Shanghai Jiao Tong University
- 2018-2015 Associate Professor at the Department of Art & Media, Tongji University, Shanghai
- 2014-2010 Postdoctoral Researcher at the Public Health Research Center, Medical School, Tsinghua University, Beijing
- 2010-2006 Doctorate in Media and Communication Studies at the Research Training Group of the Network of Excellence “Enlightenment – Religion – Knowledge”, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
- 2006-1999 Master’s degree at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and at the University of Sheffield/England (English/American Studies; Media and Communication Studies; Political Science)
Publications
- Bogen, Cornelia (accepted, in press). “Art in the Service of Political Propaganda? Dealing with ‘Corona Heroes’ in Chinese Pop Culture”. Contribution to the anthology Pandemias in der Populärkultur, ed. by Arno Görgen, Eugen Pfister and Tobias Eichinger.
- Bogen, Cornelia & Bo Meinertsen (2020). “‘The Middle Kingdom on the High Seas’: Value Crisis in Modern Chinese Society”. In: Truong Ngoc Nam & Tran Hai Minh (eds.). Value education in the context of social integration in Vietnam today. Southeast Asian Philosophical Studies, Volume 9 (The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change). Washington, DC/ USA: Gibbons Hall, pp. 23-36. ISBN: 9781565183414.
- Bogen, Cornelia (2019). “Travelling media structures. Adaptation and demarcation in China’s public SARS discourse”. In: On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture, issue 8 “Distribution”, 2019, URL: https://www.on-culture.org/journal/issue-8/travelling-media-structures/.
- “Diabetes in the media – a cross-cultural comparison of Chinese and German public discourse”. Medical Humanities Research Group, School of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Seminar Series, Xi’an Jiatong-Liverpool University, Suzhou (Jiangsu Province), Sep. 23, 2021.
