Digital Humanities Working Group: Jianqing Chen
For the November session of the Digital Humanities Working Group of Fall 2025, we will be hosting a talk by Prof. Jianqing Chen (East Asian Languages and Cultures/Film and Media Studies):
Title: Tuwei Videos, Algorithmic Recommendations, and Kuaishou Short-video Platforms in China
Abstract: Chinese short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou have reshaped everyday media consumption in China and globally through endless algorithmically curated short videos, while raising urgent questions about user-generated content, algorithmic recommendation, and platform governance. This talk explores the phenomenal yet crisis-ridden rise of Chinese short-video platform Kuaishou by examining how the platform incorporated, readjusted, and reinterpreted recommendation algorithms to celebrate, purge, and re-regulate tuwei short videos. Tuwei—literally "earthy flavor"—designates short videos made and circulated primarily by rural users on Kuaishou. These videos fueled the platform's meteoric rise while simultaneously embroiling it in controversy and criticism. I trace the trajectory of tuwei video creation from Kuaishou's early period (2012-2018), when these videos presented disturbingly vulgar and sometimes perilous stunts to capture viewers' attention through shock and repulsion, to the post-2018 era when tuwei videos' discomforting elements were purified into "raw" representations of less polished yet "authentic" ordinary lives of rural people that were deemed as rarely seen in China's digital landscape. This transformation was catalyzed by the 2018 Chinese government-led campaign to clean up online content that also led to a reform of recommendation algorithms, both in their founding conception and technological architecture. Recommendation algorithms have shifted from being conceptualized as objective mirrors capable of revealing previously invisible rural realities, to being recognized as technological systems with inherent limitations and biases that require constant human intervention to align with prevailing social, political, and ethical imperatives. This shift leads to a move from recommendation systems as attention redistribution mechanisms granting rural underclasses unprecedented visibility, to systems of algorithmic "positive energy" that channel rural populations toward state-driven rural revitalization through the digital economy. This study of Kuaishou's handling of tuwei short videos and recommendation systems provides a particular case for rethinking the ethical stakes of recommendation algorithms and digital platform governance—not just as aspirational calls, but more critically through platforms' specific practices when navigating complex realities.
The session will take place on Friday November 21st, from 11-12.30, in the Olin Library, Room 142 (Level 1). The presentation will be followed by a Q&A. Lunch will be provided.
If you plan to attend this session, please RSVP and provide your lunch order here.
The Digital Humanities Working Group working is a space for faculty and advanced graduate students to present works-in-progress for feedback before submitting their work to an external conference, journal or grant body. We also aim to create a regular community gathering space for researchers in the digital humanities across disciplines in Arts and Sciences. Scholars interested in any of the subfields of the digital humanities, including but not limited to humanities data analytics, cultural analytics, media studies, critical digital studies, critical data studies, and history of science and technology, are welcome to attend. The group consists of monthly meetings in which one or two faculty or grad students will present a current project. The working group is a cross-disciplinary intitative sponsored by the Transdisciplinary Institute in Applied Data Sciences and the Humanities Digital Workshop, with the support of Olin Library Data Services.
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If you have any questions, or if you are interested in presenting to the group, please email Claudia Carroll (claudiac@wustl.edu).