Agenda

Day 1 Day 2

Day 1 
June 22, 2026

Digital Scholarship Centre, 2-20B Cameron Library

* Coffee, Tea, Snacks available throughout the day


8:30am-9am | Conference Registration 

9:00am-9:15am | Opening Remarks 

Ashley Esarey, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Alberta

9:15am-10:15am | Keynote: Guobin Yang
“Of Earthy Flavor and AI Flavor: On the Importance of Distinguishing Flavors in an Age of Cyber Artificiality and Uncertainty”

Guobin Yang, Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

10:15am-11:30am | Session 1 Digital (Geo)Politics
Chair: Cara Wallis

Panelists: 

Rongbin Han, Professor, University of Georgia, Lizhi Liu, Assistant Professor, Georgetown University, Yingdan Lu, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University & Li Shao, Assistant Professor, Zhejiang University 
"TikTok Refugees on RedNote: How Digital Regulation in Democracies Can Unintentionally Benefit an Autocracy"

Weishang Miao, Renmin University & Yike Sun, Assistant Professor, Dali University
"Inventing the Digital Nomad: Discursive Translation and Political Incorporation in China" *remote

Zifan Zhao, PhD Candidate, University of Warwick
"Below the “Kill Line”: How Lao A Constructs Himself as a Nationalist Manfluencer"

Xiaoyue Zhang, PhD Student, Carleton University, Meng Liang, Lecturer, University of Amsterdam & Linqi Ye, PhD Student, University of Macau
"Girlhood Feminism as Soft Resistance: Affective Counterpublics and Algorithmic Negotiation on RedNote"

11:30am-12:45pm | Session 2 Environment & Green AI
Chair: Ashley Esarey

Panelists: 

Sibo Chen, Associate Professor, School of Professional Communication, Toronto Metropolitan University & Deqiang Ji, Professor, Communication University of China  
"Infrastructural Accountability in an Era of Uncertainty: Techno-Nationalism and the Material Limits of China’s ‘Green AI’"

Junyi Lyu, Assistant Professor, University of Macau
"Affective Enclosure: Weather, Climate, and the Windstorm Encounters on Rednote"

Xiaoya Yang, PhD Candidate, Wuhan University & Xiaotong Chen, PhD Candidate, Tsinghua University
"We can’t celebrate without fireworks:’ Negotiating cultural legitimacy and environmental governance under regulatory uncertainty in China’s digital public debate"

Zhe Li, PhD Student, Communication University of China, Yiyuan Zhang, PhD candidate of the Loughborough University & Yunpeng Zhao, MA Student, Communication University of China 
"Decoding green imaginaries in national AI governance: A comparative study of AI policies in China, Japan and the UK"

12:45pm-1:30pm | Lunch Break

1:30pm-2:45pm | Session 3 Feminism Online 
Chair: Cara Wallis

Panelists: 

Rita Rongyi Lin, Independent Scholar
“Sleeping through Garbage Time” 

Huiran Yi, PhD Candidate, University of Michigan
“Chinese All-Women communities: Digital platforms, women's entrepreneurship, and transnational feminist affective solidarity”

Mengyuan Chen, PhD Candidate, University of Maryland
“Speaking Carefully: Feminist Podcasting in China’s Uncertain Media Environment”

Qianqian Li, PhD student, University of Exeter
“‘The grand and spectacular cyber funeral 404’: censorship, relay activism, and creative grassroot feminist storytelling on the Chinese internet” *remote

2:45pm – 4pm | Session 4 AI Arts & Entertainment 
Chair: Guobin Yang

Panelists: 

Mengdi Zhu, PhD Candidate, Leiden University
“Negotiating Social Boundaries with a Machine Actor: Expectancy Violations and Playful Disruption in Human-AI Communication on Weibo”

Fengyi Yin, PhD Candidate, Temple University
‘Scandal-proof’ Idols: AI Entertainers and the Transformation of the Political Economy of Cultural Production in China”

Jinyuan Zhan, PhD Student, National University of Singapore (Xiaoya Yang presents
“Navigating AI Uncertainty: Visual Artists’ Negotiations about AI-Generated Art in Chinese Online Communities”

Lin Shi, Assistant Professor, Beijing Normal University 
“Beyond the Binary: A Qualitative Inquiry into User Negotiation of AI Uncertainty”



Day 2
June 23, 2026

Digital Scholarship Centre, 2-20B Cameron Library

* Coffee, Tea, Snacks available throughout the day


9am-10am | Keynote: Cara Wallis 
“Certain (Un)certainties and Possible (Im)possibilities: Creative Stirrings and Everyday Politics in Digital Spaces”

Cara Wallis, Professor, Communication and Media, University of Michigan

10am-11:15am | Session 5 Digital Policies 
Chair: Rongbin Han

Panelists: 

Haiqing Yu, Professor, RMIT University, Australia
“Uncertain Exemplars: Digital Ranking and Moral Governance in Contemporary China”

Liwen Zhang, Assistant Professor, College of Arts and Media, Tongji University
“Not All Transparency Is the Same: Governance Cues, Provenance Cues, and AI Disclosure Effects”

Mingyang Ling, PhD Student, Nanjing Normal University
“From "Content Governance" to "Relational Governance": Controllable Functionalism and Its Tensions in Regulating China’s AI Companion Services. 

Alex He, PhD Researcher & Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Canada
“Between Regulatory Capture and Deregulatory Capture: How China’s AI Companies Thrive Amid Strict Digital Regulation”

11:15am-12:30pm | Session 6 Health, AI & Algorithms 
Chair: Junyi Lyu 

Panelists: 

Guanxiong Huang, Associate Professor, City University of Hong Kong 
“Algorithm-Mediated Social Learning and Social Appearance Anxiety: A Study of Female RedNote Users in Three Chinese Cities”

Bingbing Zhang, Assistant Professor, University of Iowa
“Reducing or Amplifying Medical Uncertainty? Algorithmic Transparency, Privacy Risk, and Patient-Doctor Trust in AI-Mediated Healthcare in China”

Zhiming Liu, PhD student, University of Macau
“Mourning, Voicing, and Resisting: From Human-AI Intimacy to Transnational Activism in the Keep4o Movement among Chinese Users”

12:30pm-1:30pm | Lunch Break

1:30pm-2:30pm | Session 7 Digital Trans Panic 
Chair: Anthony Fung 

Panelists: 

Chris Jingchao Ma, Arthur J. Ennis Post-doctoral Fellow, Villanova University
“‘People Who Menstruate’: Period Crisis, Body Autonomy, and TERF in Weibo Feminism” *remote

Zehao Pan, PhD Student, Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto
“Reading the Irrecoverable: Trans/TERF Necrointimacies and Archival Hauntings” *remote

Heng Smone Wang, PhD Student, University of British Columbia
“Nationalism, Pronatalism, and Anti-Gender Ideology on the Chinese Internet”

2:30pm – 3:45pm | Session 8 Platforms, Industry & Labor
Chair: Haiqing Yu 

Panelists: 

Vincent Brussee, PhD Candidate, Leiden University & Chen Zeng, PhD Candidate, China’s University of Political Science and Law
“‘Two Apps Two Systems?’ How Chinese Platforms Cope with Global Regulatory Uncertainty”

Jinhe Liu, Assistant Professor, Peking University, Department of Sociology
“‘Information Fences’: A new path for media research on the overseas of China’s Internet Industry”

Xiaomei Jiang, Postdoctoral Researcher, Communication University of China & Weijian Yu, Doctoral Student, Communication University of China
“The Vertical Geography of Platform City: A Qualitative Study of Pick and Pack Workers at ‘Hema Fresh’ Market in China” 

Jian Xu, Associate Professor, Deakin University & Ziang Chai, PhD candidate, Deakin University
“‘Follow me! I can teach you how to come to Australia to make money!’: Brokering transnational Chinese labor migration via Kuaishou” *remote

3:45pm-5pm | Session 9 Digital Urbanism
Chair: Sibo Chen

Panelists: 

Boris L.F. Pun, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Fengming Guo, PhD Student, University of Basel & Anthony Fung, Wei Lun Professor of Journalism and Communication & Dean of Social Science, Chinese University of Hong Kong
“The Space for Streamed and Consumed under Algorithm: Recreation of urban atmosphere in livestreaming”

Muyao Jiang, PhD Student, University of Southern California
”Making the “Involuting” Self: Online Self-Studying Rooms and the Affective Politics of Hustle Culture”

Hangeng Yang, PhD Student, Fudan University & Zhi’an Zhang, Professor, Fudan University
“Walking and Cultural Production in Platformized Cities: The Case Study of Citywalk in Shanghai”

Aifang Ma, Lecturer, Renmin University
“The search for the awkward in the smart era: How Chinese cultural tourism resists the empowerment by artificial intelligence (AI)” *remote