Exploring the Empowerment of Chinese Women’s Discourse in Tik Tok

Abstract

In the new media environment, women are no longer the recipients of information, but rather the producers and consumers of information. The media image of women has become more diverse. Tik Tok is a product of the rapid development of new media, where women are empowered in many aspects of production, performance, distribution and reception. In many Tik Tok videos, women express themselves, with topics ranging from beauty and dressing to work and even gender relations. While this is a somewhat new look compared to the past, Chinese women are still influenced by traditional culture and there is still a hidden power manipulation behind it. The study of Tik Tok is relevant to the construction of equal gender relations in Tik Tok and other short social videos. At the same time, as the age group of Tik Tok users is young, it helps us to understand the contemporary media position of women in the social video sphere. This study collects the participation of some active female users in Tik Tok on public issues, analyses the most popular female short videos posted by female users in Tik Tok, and examines the media image of female users in Tik Tok platform using a qualitative research approach, supplemented by quantitative research. In this way, we analyze whether women’s right to express themselves is being realized unconsciously and whether there is a qualitative improvement in the expression of women’s voices compared to the traditional media era.