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Erika Ningxin Wang WEBSITE
Erika Ningxin Wang joined CUHKSZ in 2024. She is a media anthropologist and ethnographer who has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Erika obtained her Ph.D. in Culture, Media and Creative Industries from King’s College London. Prior to her doctoral research, she also obtained M.Sc. in Social Anthropology from The University of Oxford, M.Phil. in Global Creative Industries from The University of Hong Kong, as well as double B.A. degrees in Philosophy and Chinese Literature from Nankai University.
Erika’s research interests lie at the intersection of youth culture, digital media, and state governance. She has examined the dynamic interactions between Chinese idol fandom, media platform algorithms and interfaces, cultural markets and censorship systems. She is currently examining cyberbullying and cyber-nationalism on social media, the transnational consumption of Asian creative industries, the digital transformation of traditional cultural markets and e-commerce live streaming.
She has excelled as a visiting scholar at Taiwan Academia Sinica and a guest lecturer at prestigious institutions including King’s College London, Birkbeck, Hong Kong University, and Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.
Erika is elected as the Early Career Representative to the International Communication Association (ICA) in the division of Popular Media and Culture. She also serves as a reviewer for SSCI journals in the fields of media, communication, and cultural studies.
Beyond academia, Erika’s reports and commentaries on Chinese pop culture and fans have been published by prominent media outlets such as Xinhua News Agency, Beijing Youth Daily, Jiemian Culture, China Central Radio-The Voice of Economy, and T magazine. She has been invited as a guest advisor by film and TV production companies in China to share findings about fandom economy. Erika is also an actress in The Chinese Drama Society at Oxford University.
Research Interests:
Fan studies
Media anthropology
Digital ethnography
Consumers, creative industries and cultural consumption
Social media and internet culture
Algorithm, censorship, and platform governance
Fandom nationalism, cyber-nationalism, and internet activism
ACG (Anime, Comics, Games) and TV studies
Cultural policies, cultural market and the state
Popular culture in Greater China
Her first monograph, Fandom Nationalism: Participatory Censorship and Performative Patriotism, based on multi-sited fieldwork she conducted in 7 cities on the complex interactions between Chinese fan communities, state governance, and censorship systems on media platforms, will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2025.
She is currently examining cyberbullying and cyber-nationalism on social media, the transnational consumption of Asian creative industries, the digital transformation of traditional cultural markets and e-commerce live streaming. She sincerely hopes to engage in East-West dialogue with colleagues from diverse backgrounds, particularly the collaboration in algorithmic surveillance, digital violence, celebrity studies, fashion and luxury, copyright and IP, and multispecies ethnography.
Monographs
Wang, E. N. & Huang, Q. (2025). Fandom Nationalism: Participatory Censorship and Performative Patriotism. US: Bloomsbury Academic. (forthcoming)
Peer Reviewed Articles (Note: *Corresponding author)
Hu, T., & Wang, E. N.* (2024). Is nationalism a potential weapon? Detecting cyber-nationalism in Chinese social media in the post-COVID 19 era. Celebrity Studies. (accepted/ forthcoming)
Hu, T.*, Zou, C., & Wang, E. N. (2023). A male idol becoming a girl? Nisu fans’ sexual fantasy about male stars. Transformative Works and Cultures, 41. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2023.2369
Wang, E. N., & Ge, L.* (2023). Fan conflicts and state power in China: Internalised heteronormativity, censorship sensibilities, and fandom police. Asian studies review, 47(2), 355-373. (Journal Most Cited Article in last 3 years)
Wang, E. N.* (2022). Squid Game Outside the Wall: Fandom Nationalism in China and Negotiation with State Power. Communication, Culture and Critique. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcac038
Wang, E. N.* (2022). Dangerous Subaltern: The Power Logic of Fan Subcultures in the Context of Fan Conflicts 危险的附庸：从饭圈冲突看粉丝亚文化的权力逻辑. 文化研究辑刊, (Vol 46 (2021)).
Noppe, N.*, Price, L., Chiu, K., Miller, J. N., Wang, E. N., Vaswani, S. M., Merry, S. K., Pollock, D. E., Black, S. R., Hartwell, R., Naomi, J., Anthony, P., & Emmanouloudis, A. (2022). What if academic publishing worked like fan publishing? Imagining the Fantasy Research Archive of Our Own. Transformative Works and Cultures, (Vol 37 (2022)). https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2022.2253
Wang, E. N., Kelley, B.*, Price, L., & Schuster, K. M. (2020). Beyond the multidisciplinary in fan studies: Learning how to talk among disciplines. Transformative Works and Cultures, (Vol 33 (2020)). https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2020.1819
Edited Issues
Cultural Reports Issue: Chinese Celebrity Dossier: The Politics of Censorship against Celebrities (2024), In Celebrity Studies
Editors: Hu, T. & Wang, E. N., (Accepted/In press), co-authored the Introduction.
Book Chapters
Benecchi, E., & Wang, E. N. (2021). Fandom: Historicized Fandom and the Conversation between East and West Perspectives. In G. Balbi, N. Ribeiro, V. Schafer, & C. Schwarzenegger (Eds.), Digital Roots: Historicizing Media and Communication Concepts of the Digital Age (pp. 281-298). (Studies in digital history and hermeneutics). DeGruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110740202
Commentary
Ge, L., & Wang, E. N.* (2022). Scapegoating Fandom: Digital Colonialism, Capitalism, and State. CriticalAsianStudies.org. https://doi.org/10.52698/XMVR6735
Ge, L., & Wang, E. N.* (2022). Intra-Fandom Conflicts and Censorship Sensibilities in Chinese Popular Mediascape. Asian Studies Association of Australia. https://asaa.asn.au/intra-fandom-conflicts-and-censorship-sensibilities/
