Audience Labor in Chinese Social Media: A Case Study of Film Reviewers on Douban

With the rapid development of internet technologies, the new media industry has swept into people’s lives at an astonishing pace, bringing about significant changes in global labor relations. Drawing on the theory of digital labor, this article examines audiences within China’s social media by focusing on film reviewers on Douban as a case study. It reconstructs the labor process involved in writing film reviews and explores the issue of autonomy within this context. The study finds that while using Douban, film reviewers invest substantial time and effort into producing cultural content for the platform. In this process, although they appear to possess a certain degree of autonomy and choice, film reviewers are in fact subject to platform control and exploitation. They are often compelled to navigate a delicate balance between adhering to platform rules and asserting their individual agency.