"In their exploration of the nexus of creative industries, social media, and platform studies, Craig, Lin and Cunningham offer a ground-breaking account of the fast-moving Chinese media industry landscape. Drawing on interviews with industry insiders and creators, Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China unravels the multi-layered ecosystem of intermediaries that is reshaping communication in the world's biggest media market. This relatively short book is of great interest to scholars and researchers of China's media. Packed with insights from participants and informed by comparisons with the less developed West, it offers a glimpse of an unfolding digital civilization, where bleeding-edge technology is the order of the day, and where the infrastructure of digital platforms and e-commerce is replacing shopping arcades. The book begins appropriately with policy and governance, before delving into profiles and aesthetics of wanghong practitioners. It concludes with the political ramifications of the challenges facing China's new globalizing wanghong entrepreneurs, start-ups, and creators." - Michael Keane, Curtin University. Author of Created in China: the Great New Leap Forward and The Chinese Television Industry " Addressing the 'what', 'where', 'who', 'how', and 'why' questions of Chinese wanghong culture, platforms, industry, labor and governance, this book offers a neat, systematic, and comprehensive analysis of China's social media entertainment industries through cultural, creative and social perspectives.

It is a delightful and compelling addition to scholarship on media industry, platform studies, digital media, Chinese and cultural studies. It successfully navigates the maze of literature in a range of disciplines with a surgical approach to the three framing themes (cultural, creative and social): clear-cut, measured, and systematic. Craig, Lin and Cunningham adeptly demonstrate their sophisticated understanding of wanghong as a Chinese metamorphosis of the global social media entertainment culture and industry. Their skilful analysis of case studies through empirical research offers fresh insights on the history, development and prospect of the globalising Chinese popular and digital culture in an era of parallel and contending Internets and social media economies." - Professor Haiqing Yu, RMIT University.