Social Media and the Reproduction of the Social Capital of the New Middle Class

This book examines how China's emerging middle class leverages social media platforms, particularly WeChat, to build and maintain social networks that enhance their societal status. This book offers an insightful analysis of how digital interactions on platforms like WeChat serve as modern social currency, providing advantages to users and reinforcing social hierarchies. It explores the dialectical relationship between traditional cultural values and contemporary social media practices, highlighting how these online engagements shape the identities and social dynamics of China's new middle class. By bridging cultural contexts, the study offers perspectives applicable beyond China and provides robust theoretical frameworks alongside practical examples of social media usage. This book is essential reading for scholars and students in media studies, sociology, and Chinese studies. It also offers valuable insights for anyone interested in understanding the role of social media in shaping social stratification in contemporary China.