%0 Journal Article
%T Prosumers in a digital multiverse: An investigation of how WeChat is affecting Chinese citizen journalism
%A Matthew Wall
%A Yan Wu
%J Global Media and China
%@ 2059-4372
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/2059436419835441
%X This article examines how WeChat, contemporary China¡¯s most popular mobile phone application, is affecting digitally enabled citizen journalism. Based on focus-group research with WeChat users, and building on the insights of previous studies of digitally enabled citizen journalism within and outside of China, we find that WeChat¡¯s integration of multiple communicative networks renders it a multiversal space where citizen journalistic practice can bleed across public, semi-public, and private spheres. We show that WeChat offers diverse communicative affordances facilitating practices of ¡°metavoicing¡± as a form of citizen journalism, blurring divides between news production and consumption. This dynamic affects users¡¯ experiences of news and can influence news agendas story lifecycles. WeChat also faces important limitations as a citizen journalism platform: it is a space where political discussion can be readily reported, where the tone of current affairs coverage is often sensationalized, and where the reliability of content can be difficult to discern
%K China
%K citizen journalism
%K digital multiverse
%K metavoicing
%K WeChat
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2059436419835441