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The Value of Bakhtin's Carnival Theory in the Digital Age ― A Case Study of IShowSpeed's China Tour Livestream

  • The Journal of Study on Language and Culture of Korea and China
  • Abbr : JSLCKC
  • 2025, (78), pp.419~439
  • DOI : 10.16874/jslckc.2025..78.016
  • Publisher : Korean Society of Study on Chinese Languge and Culture
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature
  • Received : October 10, 2025
  • Accepted : November 20, 2025
  • Published : November 30, 2025

刘富强(Liu Fuqiang) 1,  LUCHEN 2

1강원대학교 글로벌융합학과 예술경영전공
2강원대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study employs Bakhtin's carnival theory as a framework, combined with a media sociology perspective, to conduct an in-depth analysis of the transnational internet celebrity "IShowSpeed's" China tour livestream event. While deconstructing this event, it reflects on the application and practice of carnival theory in contemporary contexts. The analysis focuses on counterpoint and reflection around core categories of carnival theory including "universal participation," "subversion of authority," "culture of laughter," and "crowning and decrowning." The research finds that this event constructed a new paradigm of cross-cultural communication for digital-age online carnival through the linkage of four spaces: "on-site-interaction-interpretation-commercial conversion." Livestreaming technology transcends spatiotemporal limitations, transforming the traditional carnival's "public square nature" into a virtual-real interwoven "hyper-spatiotemporal participation," forming a collectively co-created "digital festival." The narrative approach of grassroots livestreaming dissolves cultural authority and subverts the symbolic imagination of macro-narratives, while official discourse voluntarily retreats, forming a folk discourse-dominated "negotiated resistance." Meanwhile, the "culture of laughter" can be co-opted as an instrumentalized communication strategy to achieve deeper objectives such as cultural transmission, ideological dissemination, value establishment, and image construction. The "crowning-decrowning" mechanism empowered by internet traffic accelerates the generation and collapse of cultural symbols, with impacts that transcend the temporality of traditional carnivals, highlighting the delayed effects and capitalist logic of digital carnival. Through reconstructing carnival's democratic potential and commercial logic, online livestreaming is reshaping the pathways and boundaries of transnational cultural communication, providing new perspectives for understanding the dialogue between the utopian imagination and reality of "the second life" in the digital age.

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