Aynne Kokas is associate professor of media studies, the C.K. Yen Chair at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, and the director of the University of Virginia East Asia Center. She is the author of the new book Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty (2022) and Hollywood Made in China (2017).
The popular Chinese-owned app is enabling Beijing to collect data on people nearly everywhere. Not only can such platforms track people’s preferences and whereabouts, but they give the Chinese government control over a powerful tool for shaping people’s worldview.
China’s ability to shape the global entertainment industry extends well beyond films, and it no longer rests solely on the allure of big markets. Beijing is exerting newfound leverage that is making giant U.S. media companies do its bidding.
Explores how authoritarian regimes are deploying “sharp power” to undermine democracies from within by weaponizing universities, institutions, media, technology, and entertainment industries.