Symbolic Redemption: How Nationalist Signaling Repairs Celebrity Image in China

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Political Subjectivity (Table 11)

Abstract

When nationalism becomes a pervasive speech norm, how does it shape moral judgment and public forgiveness? While scholarship highlights how nationalism is reproduced through routine practices, less is known about its function as an everyday evaluative framework. This paper conceptualizes nationalist signaling as a mechanism of moral repair, exploring how individuals use nationalist expressions to rehabilitate damaged reputations. Focusing on China’s entertainment sector—where the state co-opts celebrity influence to amplify nationalist messages and the public scrutinizes figures for both political and non-political transgressions—I examine whether entertainers’ nationalist displays can “repair” the moral breach caused by scandal. Drawing on a factorial vignette experiment (N = 2,211) and in-depth interviews, I compare audience responses to different transgressions and redemption strategies. The experiment randomizes the misconduct—political (e.g., questioning territorial integrity) versus non-political (e.g., extramarital affairs)—alongside the celebrity’s gender and origin. It then tests four redemptive actions, ranging from low-cost symbolic gestures (reposting official slogans) to materially costly performances (severing commercial ties or starring in a nationalist film). Results reveal that while political transgressions are punished more severely than non-political scandals, nationalist signaling remarkably reduces punitive judgments and boosts favorability. Counterintuitively, low-cost symbolic gestures prove more consistently effective than costly displays. Interview findings explain this paradox: audiences do not necessarily demand sincerity or authentic belief. Instead, they value these gestures for their instrumental capacity to restore surface-level uniformity and reaffirm collective order against perceived external threats. These findings suggest nationalism functions as a "moral shortcut," allowing publics to resolve moral ambiguity through simple ritualistic alignment. By demonstrating how nationalist rituals enable individuals to bypass substantive accountability in favor of symbolic unity, this paper shows that nationalism can hollow out the normative content of public morality, reconfigure moral hierarchies, and sustain political order.

Author

• Lingxiao Chen, Emory University