COM Research Seminar: Shenzhen, Media-infrastructure, and the Making of the Navigational Subject by Prof Fan YANG
23 Jan 2025 (Thu)
On January 23, 2025, Prof. Fan Yang from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), delivered a seminar titled "Shenzhen, Media-Infrastructure, and the Making of the Navigational Subject." Prof. Yang is an expert in media and cultural studies, with a focus on globalization, contemporary China, and transnational media.
In the seminar, Prof. Yang examined how Shenzhen, as China’s first Special Economic Zone, functions as a “media-infrastructure complex” that integrates digital and physical spaces. She analyzed the production, circulation, and consumption of key technologies such as mobile phones and drones, showing how these technologies connect Shenzhen to the forces of globalization from both “above” (elite-driven) and “below” (grassroots-driven). This process, she argued, generates a form of “navigational subjectivity” embodied by delivery workers, live streamers, tourists, and others who traverse hybrid spaces shaped by communication networks and transport infrastructures. Prof. Yang also highlighted Shenzhen’s significance in theorizing media from a non-Western perspective and its ties to the Global South. The seminar attracted around 15 PhD students and faculty members who engaged actively and contributed to a thought-provoking discussion.
