A Multiliteracies Approach to Investigating Chinese Gay Culture on Blued: An Auto-Ethnography

• In Event: 28.089 - MTCC Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 28.089-6 - Global Multiliteracies: Adolescents' and Adults' Perspectives

Abstract

Building on my own experience with a gay dating app Blued, I conducted an autoethnographic research which aims to explore multiliteracies skills to navigate the virtual gay community and scrutinize the power relations infused in the online space. In this article, I draw on theories of ‘multiliteracies’ and adopt a critical approach to investigating how Chinese gay individuals socialize with each other using a wide range of semiotic resources and how power dynamics are constructed in the virtual sociolinguistic world. I argue that one needs to acquire multidimensional literacy skills to access, self-portray, and have conversations on Blued; in the meantime, various kinds of social actions performed in online and/or offline discourses reflect and construct the power imbalance between app users.

Author

• Liang Cao, Simon Fraser University