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

青少年的物质、社会和数字世界相互交织，甚至可能相互融合，这意味着青少年的在线行为可以反映和塑造他们的生计（Subrahmanyam和Smahel，2010年）。以往的研究从身份认同、社会关系、暴力、性行为和学业成就等不同角度评估了数字媒体在青少年发展中的作用。虽然现有的文献主要集中在Facebook和YouTube等平台上，通常在美国和欧洲的背景下，很少有实证研究解决了社交媒体平台在非西方背景下的影响。鉴于近年来数字技术对中国农村青少年生活的渗透，本研究将关注中国农村背景，以填补这一差距。本研究将重点关注快手，这是一款在中国农村人口中非常流行的短视频分享移动应用程序。本研究的目的是记录农村青年参与视频共享平台的情况，并了解他们的在线文化实践如何反映和塑造他们的生计和社会发展。选择三到五所农村中学作为多个案例研究。采用定性研究为主的混合研究方法，了解和考察农村青少年对平台的参与及其建构的意义。本研究的发现将有助于正在进行的关于数字文化生产和社会技术系统对中学生日常生活的影响的讨论。

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.