Chinese Journalists Turned YouTubers

Offering original insights into journalism's transformation in a politically complex, multilingual region, this book critically explores the rise of Chinese-speaking journalists transitioning to YouTube. This book considers how professional journalists adapt their practices to YouTube while navigating diverse media environments, including mainland China's strict censorship, Hong Kong's shifting political landscape, and Taiwan's relative media freedom. Key questions guiding this research include how journalists-turned-YouTubers define and perform their roles on an informal, entertainment-led platform; how audiences perceive these roles; and whether creators maintain journalistic quality in a platformed media ecosystem. Through comparative case studies, including contrasting cases from the West, this book highlights the challenges of maintaining journalistic standards, the sustainability of content production, and the evolving journalist-audience relationship in the digital age. Chinese Journalists Turned YouTubers contributes to research at the intersection of journalism, digital platforms, and public discourse in a fragmented and globalized media environment.

Luwei Rose Luqiu is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University. Yinqiao Zhao is a PhD student in the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Chapter 1: Introduction: The Journalistic YouTubers Chapter 2: The Chinese Journalists-Turned-YouTubers and the Journalistic Role Chapter 3: From Newsroom to YouTube Chapter 4: When Professional Journalists Meet Amateurs on YouTube Chapter 5: YouTube: A Stage without Guarantees Index