Abstract

Since around 2015, the social media landscape in China has experienced a rapid and extensive process of commercialization. This transformation has not only expanded career and business opportunities for an already established young, cosmopolitan user base, but it has also introduced a variety of lower-class creators, such as rural peasants and migrant workers. Drawing inspiration from their daily experiences, these emerging grassroots voices are now enthusiastically sharing the quotidian moments of their lives online through photos and videos. How have Chinese independent documentaries, a genre that has historically seen filmmakers capturing the stories of marginalized subjects, responded to these developments? This thesis argues that this interaction has given birth to a new documentary paradigm, which is identified here as the social media documentary. More than just films that critically address and interrogate the impact of social media in their narratives, this thesis shows that social media documentaries also creatively incorporate social media (or social media-inspired) footage into their production. The distinct nature of this footage effectively sets social media documentaries apart from early DV participatory projects, marking a new phase in what many describe as China’s New Documentary Movement.