Journal of Hebei University(Philosophy and Social Science) ›› 2025, Vol. 50 ›› Issue (6): 33-40.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1005-6378.2025.06.004

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Media Empowerment or Symbolic Consumption?: The Dual Faces of “New Working-Class Writing” in the New Media Era

ZHONG Yuan   

  1. Editorial Office of Contemporary Chinese Literary Studies, Beijing 100875, China
  • Received:2025-09-25 Published:2025-11-19

Abstract: The rise of “new working-class writing” in the current era is closely linked to the context of new media.This form of “self-writing,” grounded in labor experiences,has evolved into a cultural action and cultural landscape with a social intervention function.Within the new popular culture and arts,internet literature,short videos,and other industrially oriented forms of “popular culture and arts” represent a highly notable branch of the “new popular culture and arts”.The unique position of “new working-class writing” embodies both the “symbolic nature” of the technological age and the “Peoples Character” inherent in socialist literature,carrying richer historical connotations and ideological attributes.This paper traces its century-long genealogy—from the May Fourth “Popular Literature”“Worker-Peasant-Soldier Literature and Arts” and socialist “industrial themes” to contemporary “new working-class culture and arts”.Through close readings of specific cases such as the Picun Literature Group,the New Working-Class Literature magazine,Chen Nianxi,and Wang Jibing,it analyzes the role,limitations,and issues of “cyber-empowerment” and “media empowerment” in “new working-class writing”.

Key words: new working-class writing, media, cyber-empowerment, popularization

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