Dr Lianrui Jia

Department of Sociological Studies

Lecturer in Digital Media and Society

l.jia@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 6437

G33, The Wave

Full contact details

Dr Lianrui Jia
Department of Sociological Studies
G33
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH

Profile

Lianrui Jia joined the Department of Sociological Studies in 2021. She previously taught and worked at University of Toronto Scarborough as a postdoctoral researcher, funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She obtained her PhD in Communication and Culture from York University, Toronto, Canada.

Her research interests are platform studies, the political economy of media and media policy and regulation. She is also an Associate Editor for Journal of Digital Media and Policy.

Research interests

Lianrui’s research areas are:

Political economy of media
Platform studies
App studies
Media and financialization
Media industries
Media policy and regulation

Lianrui’s current research projects focus on China-based platforms and mobile app industries, their geopolitics, governance and globalisation. One of her research projects Platform Politics: Chinese Tech Companies and Global Geopolitics, is funded by the York Centre of Asia Research. Her previous research on mobile apps and digital platforms were funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Mitacs.

Publications

Journal articles

Jia L, Nieborg DB & Poell T (2022) On super apps and app stores: digital media logics in China’s app economy. Media, Culture & Society, 44(8), 1437-1453.
Jia L (2022) Forgotten passwords and Long-Gone exes: the life and death of Renren. Internet Histories, 1-21.
Jia L & Liang F (2021) The globalization of TikTok: Strategies, governance and geopolitics. Journal of Digital Media & Policy, 12(2), 273-292.
Jia L & Han X (2020) Tracing Weibo (2009–2019): The commercial dissolution of public communication and changing politics. Internet Histories, 4(3), 304-332.
Jia L (2019) What public and whose opinion? A study of Chinese online public opinion analysis. Communication and the Public, 4(1), 21-34.
Budnitsky S & Jia L (2018) Branding Internet sovereignty: Digital media and the Chinese–Russian cyberalliance. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 21(5), 594-613.
Jia L (2018) Going Public and Going Global: Chinese Internet Companies and Global Finance Networks. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 13(1), 17-36.
Jia L & Winseck D (2018) The political economy of Chinese internet companies: Financialization, concentration, and capitalization. International Communication Gazette, 80(1), 30-59.
Jia L & Ruan L () Going global: Comparing Chinese mobile applications’ data and user privacy governance at home and abroad. Internet Policy Review.
Jia L () Unpacking China’s Social Credit System: Informatization, Regulatory Framework, and Market Dynamics. Canadian Journal of Communication, 45(1).

Chapters

Jia L (2021) Building China’s tech superpower In Haggart B, Tusikov N & Scholte JA (Ed.), Power and Authority in Internet Governance Return of the State? Routledge
Jia L (2021) Building China’s tech superpower: State, domestic champions and foreign capital In Haggart B, Tusikov N & Scholte JA (Ed.), Power and Authority in Internet Governance Return of the State? Routledge
Jia L (2019) The "Making" of online celebrity – A case Study of Chinese rural same-sex male couple Anwei and Yebin In Kent M, Ellis K & Jian X (Ed.), Chinese Social Media Social, Cultural, and Political Implications Routledge

Teaching activities

Lianrui currently teaches Digital Media in a Datafied Society and she also develops and teaches Algorithms, AI, and Society at the Department of Sociological Studies.

She integrates her research on digital platforms into teaching and explores how emerging issues of data, (in)equalities, and power are reconfigured, reproduced and challenged by digital platforms that we engage with on a daily basis. Previously, Lianrui has taught various BA-and MA-level courses at various institutions on topic such as Theories in Media Studies, Political Economy and Cultural Studies of Information, and Digital Media and Culture.

PhD supervision: Lianrui has supervised undergraduate and graduate projects on social media and digital culture, internet governance and policy. She would be interested in supervising PhD students on political economy of digital platforms, platform governance, app studies, and regional platform culture.