How Twitter Is Used to Fix the Meaning of World-Class Chinese Universities

• In Event: Multimodal Mapping: Positioning, Representation, and Semiotic Cycles

Abstract

Through Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, this study examines China’s C9 League universities’ representation on Twitter and the role that social media play to fix the meaning of a world-class university (WCU). Using the framework of higher education field-imaginary, this study reveals that the representations of WCUs in China share many similarities but few differences. Specifically, the representation of WCU in China is becoming more identical to Western concepts. This study reveals how Western higher education shapes and monopolizes the definition of WCU and argues that the use of social media amplifies the hegemonic assumption of modern universities. Further, this study calls for reimaging and pluralizing the notion of WCU and encourages ideas for Indigenizing the concept of modern university.

Author

• Zhenyang Xu, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author