Self-Rescue in Media Networks: De-Blackboxing, Shanzhai Cyborgs, and Survival Among Workers with Pneumoconiosis in China

This article examines media networks as both the central object and method of analysis for understanding how Chinese workers with pneumoconiosis navigate survival in a postsocialist risk society where many are systematically denied compensation. Rather than emphasizing overt collective resistance, the study focuses on two forms of media-enabled self-rescue. First, it explores the “de-blackboxing strategy,” whereby workers use and rely on news reports and various social media platforms to give the slow violence of occupational disease public visibility and pursue justice. Second, it investigates the rise of “shanzhai cyborgs,” in which workers draw on technical knowledge shared within grassroots communities to construct life-sustaining homemade oxygen machines. The article contends that these fragile and improvisational modes of survival are neither isolated acts of heroism nor conventional political protest, but instead emerge through ongoing interaction and circulation within decentralized media networks. It argues that the effectiveness of self-rescue often depends on chains of mediation that translate, amplify, and mobilize private experiences into public events capable of driving tangible change. By dissecting these mediated practices, the article offers a new perspective on what resistance and survival mean for pneumoconiosis workers who are rendered disposable in contemporary China.