Zhennuo Song (Evelyn)

In June 2025, the hashtag #NoChineseCanLeaveTheBritishMuseumSmiling circulated widely on the Chinese platform RedNote, sparking public debate over the British Museum's Chinese collections. This article examines how displaced Chinese artefacts are framed differently in the Museum's Chinese galleries and on digital platforms. Data were collected between October 2023 and August 2025 through two rounds of exhibition fieldwork and through a stratified sample of 622 RedNote posts drawn from 2,310 items. In addition, 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with museum professionals globally. Drawing on Heidegger's concept of care, we argue that curatorial practices enact spatio-narrative hegemony by embedding artefacts in universalist narratives, while digital publics exercise narrative sovereignty – renegotiating authority, memory and belonging across physical and digital contexts. Theoretically, the article advances a phenomenologically grounded framework for analysing contested heritage in hybrid environments. Practically, it suggests that museums adopt more participatory curatorial strategies when addressing displaced collections in the digital age.

This study examines how artificial intelligence shapes disclosure among male survivors of child sexual abuse in China. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 44 adult survivors, it identifies three dynamics. First, AI can provide a de-stigmatised space that reduces interpersonal judgement and temporarily suspends masculine expectations of control and invulnerability. Second, AI actively guides disclosure by helping survivors narrate, organise and potentially share their experiences. Third, this process remains fragile, as generic therapeutic responses and policy-based interruptions may generate rejection, rupture and renewed self-censorship. The article develops the AI-Conditioned Disclosure Model, conceptualising disclosure as conditionally recognised rather than simply enabled. It argues that AI transforms disclosure into a mediated process shaped by gender norms, therapeutic discourse, platform governance and systemic refusal. The study extends CSA disclosure research beyond interpersonal and institutional settings while contributing to debates on human–AI interaction, trauma communication and technological mediation.PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT This study highlights the potential of conversational AI to serve as a relatively private and less socially exposing space for trauma disclosure. However, it also finds that generic responses, gendered assumptions, and abrupt interruptions may undermine the recognition and safety that such interactions initially provide. The findings encourage AI developers to give consideration to the sensitivities and vulnerabilities of trauma survivors, thereby supporting the development of safer, more responsive, and trauma-informed systems.

This article explores how digital media shape the cultural politics of sexual consent and harassment in contemporary China. It examines two high-profile cases, the 2023 Datong engagement-rape judgment and the 2023–2025 Wuhan University sexual harassment lawsuit, to show how cultural expectations surrounding intimacy and marriage, evidentiary disputes and platform logics reshape popular understandings of justice and the authority of courts. Drawing on a mixed-methods content analysis of commentary on Zhihu and Xiaohongshu, the study traces how cultural expectations around intimacy were reframed as entitlement to sex, how judicial caution was translated into accusations of zero-cost claims and how complex forensic disputes were compressed into viral binaries of innocence or guilt. Remarkably, both Zhihu and Xiaohongshu, platforms often characterised as having different gendered user cultures, displayed strikingly similar discursive patterns, suggesting misogynistic narratives circulated across platform boundaries despite differences in user culture. The analysis highlights how media infrastructures displace punitive authority from legal institutions to digital publics, where practices of doxxing, blacklisting and reputational shaming operate as digital vigilantism. Overall, the article situates Chinese sex-crime debates within wider discussions of crime, media and culture, demonstrating how platformised justice reinforces misogynistic narratives while also enabling feminist legal consciousness.

Cultural heritage institutions today are experiencing a digital transformation. Virtual Reality (VR), with the promise of immersive and interactive features, has drawn the attention of artists and curators. Some prior museology research has attempted to investigate digital innovations like virtual museums and VR-based exhibits to present the best of museum experiences; however, existing systematic research on the topic of interactive narrative experience with immersive VR technologies is rare. This paper reports on an original research project to understand the emergent issues concerning immersion, interactive and narrative in museum experience design. This research used multiple case studies, Claude Monet: The Water Lily Obsession; We live in the Ocean of Air; Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass; Curious Alice. In total, 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with VR experts and museum curators to understand the motivation of the designers and developers. This research hopes to contribute to the digital revolution of museums, providing a foundation for curators and artists who are interested in using VR technologies in exhibitions.

This paper examines the “Fat Cat Incident” (2024), where a young Chinese gamer’s suicide after an online relationship breakdown sparked intense online discourse. Through inductive thematic analysis and qualitative sentiment analysis of 1,200 user comments from the female-oriented Xiaohongshu and male-dominated Zhihu platforms, we demonstrate how Chinese social media facilitate the social construction of polarized gender realities. Xiaohongshu users predominantly framed Fat Cat as an emotionally impulsive “hopeless romantic” while defending his ex-girlfriend’s right to financial compensation, whereas Zhihu users portrayed Fat Cat as a manipulated victim while characterizing his ex-girlfriend as a calculated “gold-digger” employing PUA tactics. The incident reveals three key processes: (1) gender norm construction via polarized discourse, (2) tragedy commodification into “liuliang” (traffic) and memes, and (3) transactional relationship normalization and digital gender segregation. This demonstrates how platforms shape social realities by reinforcing gender divides, monetizing emotion, and commodifying personal loss, offering critical insight into gender politics in China’s digital public sphere.

This study examines Black Myth: Wukong, China’s first AAA (Triple-A) game, as a transformative medium that bridges traditional Chinese mythology and modern digital storytelling. Drawing from Journey to the West, a cornerstone of Chinese literary heritage, the game integrates advanced gaming technologies with immersive narratives, offering an organic reinterpretation of classical mythology for a global audience. Employing Walter Benjamin’s theory of storytelling and Carly Kocurek’s insights on interactive media, this research highlights how the game revitalises cultural narratives, fostering cross-cultural connections while maintaining authenticity. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates content analysis of narrative and visual elements, sentiment analysis of audience reception, and a dual deductive-inductive thematic analysis to uncover key trends and insights. This study also addresses controversies surrounding inclusivity and ethical storytelling, emphasising the challenges and opportunities in adapting traditional narratives to contemporary global contexts. By analysing the reception and cultural implications of Wukong, we underscore the potential of interactive media to serve as both a cultural bridge and an educational tool.

This study investigates the integration of transmedia storytelling (TMS) within immersive extended reality (XR)-enhanced museum experiences, focusing on its potential to transform cultural engagement. Employing Heidegger's fourfold model as a theoretical foundation, along with the authors' conceptual framework illustrating the synergy of fourfold elements in XR-enhanced museums, the research explores how interactive narratives align with the dimensions of Earth, sky, mortals and gods to create richer, more participatory museum experiences. Drawing on interviews with 27 experts from Asia, Europe, Canada and the United States, the study examines the challenges and opportunities of integrating TMS into museum practices. The research highlights the transformative potential of storytelling and interactive narratives to shift museum experiences from passive observation to active participation. This phenomenological orientation towards dynamic storytelling offers implications for designing richer, more engaging cultural heritage experiences and invites further inquiry into the role of TMS in the digital age.

This study explores the Yu-C (language cosplay) community, a female-dominated digital subculture within the Chinese internet landscape. Yu-C, a text-based role-playing platform, enables participants to construct and perform diverse identities—including cross-gender, non-human, and fictional personas—cultivating a unique site for storytelling, social interaction, and feminist expression. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 36 female participants, supplemented by online ethnographic observations, this research examines how Yu-C facilitates identity exploration, challenges patriarchal norms, and serves as a microcosm for feminist resistance and subcultural innovation. Utilising theoretical frameworks of cyberfeminism, queer theory, and intersectionality, the study analyzes the dynamics of inclusion, exclusion, and subcultural capital within the community. Findings reveal that Yu-C offers women a space for self-expression, emotional connection, and the reimagining of traditional gender roles. At the same time, it highlights the complexities of balancing exclusivity and inclusivity. This study contributes to feminist literature by demonstrating the transformative potential of digital spaces for identity reconstruction and collective empowerment, emphasising Yu-C’s role in challenging and reconfiguring societal narratives around gender and power.

This article examines how elderly audiences engage with internet celebrities on Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese equivalent) through the lens of the Frankfurt school – with Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse, and Habermas’s critical theories towards the cultural industry. According to them, the culture industry’s mass-produced cultural goods promote conformity, suppress critical thought, and encourage passive consumption to benefit capitalism. This study focuses on the digital presence of Chinese internet celebrities Xiucai and Yixiaoqingcheng, demonstrating how Chinese digital platforms continue the culture industry’s trends of commodification, standardisation, and passive consumption. It uncovers a paradox: digital media seemingly provides the elderly with a sense of participatory culture and community, yet it traps them in a commodifying system that exploits for profit. Furthermore, the interactions between younger users and these celebrities, through parody, highlight a generational dialogue that perpetuates the culture industry’s cycle of replacing genuine cultural and creative values with exchange values, thus sidelining critical social issues like the financial exploitation of the elderly. This research underscores the ongoing significance of the Frankfurt school and its critique of technology in understanding the current digital media landscape in China and calls for a deeper cultural engagement beyond the superficial participatory culture promoted by digital platforms.

This article examines 隐入尘烟 Yinru Chenyan ‘Return to Dust’ (2022) (henchforth Dust), directed by Li Ruijun, as a powerful critique of rural marginalization and socio-economic inequities in contemporary China. The film illustrates the hardships faced by Ma Youtie and Cao Guiying, representing rural individuals marginalized by prevailing urban narratives and enduring institutional neglect and exploitation. Using narrative analysis and building on the surrounding paratextual film reviews of Dust, this study engages the notion of subalternity to reveal how the film amplifies the voices of rural communities through narrating about three disparate subaltern subjects: the peasants; the marginalized in the rural society; the rural women. Then, through examining the film reviews from state-sponsored media and social media, this paper explores how the subaltern narrative engenders an ideological confrontation between the state-sponsored media discourse and the grassroots discourse from the rural communities. Although the subaltern narrative may be misrepresented as a series of positive messages by state-sponsored media, it concurrently possesses the capacity to provoke public critique of both films and state-sponsored media on social media platforms, advocating for more just representations of social responsibility.

This study presents a philosophical reconceptualisation of museums using phenomenological frameworks. It explores the role extended reality (XR) “things” play in the museum experience and studies how their function differs from traditional objects. Existing studies highlight the technological tools, solutions and various visitor experience modalities in the museum sector. However, only a few papers focus on the theoretical aspects of using XR in museums. This empirical study adopts a qualitative research methodology, and 22 semi-structured interviews with specialists in XR design and development, museum culture, curation and museum exhibitions are conducted. The findings suggest that XR enhances museum curation and exhibition practices by providing new dimensions for interacting with museum objects. This aligns with Heidegger’s “the thing” and “fourfold” concepts—the integration of mortals (i.e., museum visitors), earth (i.e., the activities participated in by the visitors), sky (i.e., the potentialities and ideas stimulated by the artefacts) and divinities (i.e., the visitors’ emotions while interacting with the exhibits). Therefore, these new interactions, enabled by XR, can accentuate the narratives attached to and the meaning of the artefacts within the digital museum space, facilitating new understandings and relationships with history due to the digitisation of objects. Furthermore, this can potentially impact XR’s use in developing multi-channel curation and multi-sensory visitor experiences in museums and cultural heritage institutions.

2025 Ningbo Key Laboratory of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Pilot) Funded Project
This project investigates the digital and intelligent transformation of smart museums in Ningbo, with a particular focus on pathways for integrating museum development with the cultural and tourism sectors.