Rural adolescent engagement with social media (video sharing mobile apps) and its implications on their livelihood and social development

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The physical, social and digital worlds of adolescentsare intertwined and may even blend with each other,meaning that adolescents' online behaviours can reflectand shape their livelihood (Subrahmanyam & Smahel,2010). Previous studies have evaluated the role ofdigital media in adolescent development from diverseperspectives ranging from identity, social relationship,violence, sexuality to their academic attainment. Whilethe existing literature largely focuses on platforms suchas Facebook and YouTube, often in the context of theUS and Europe, little empirical research has addressedthe implications of social media platforms in a non-Western context. Given the recent penetration of digitaltechnologies into adolescents' lives in rural China, thisstudy centres on an under-examined Chinese ruralcontext to fill the gap.This study will focus on Kuaishou, a short video-sharingmobile application with massive popularity among theChinese rural population. The objective of this study is todocument rural youth engagement with the videosharingplatform and to understand how their onlinecultural practices reflect and shape their livelihood andsocial development. Three to five rural middle schoolswill be selected as multiple case studies. Mixed methodswith qualitive methods as the priority approach will beused to understand and examine rural adolescents'engagement with the platform and the meaningsconstructed by them. The findings of this study willcontribute to the ongoing discussion over the digitalcultural production and the implications of sociotechnicalsystems for middle school students in everyday life.