"Learning for the Rise of China": Exploring Uses and Gratifications of State-Owned Online Platform

Abstract

In January 2019, the Chinese Communist Party launched the online platform XueXi QiangGuo, which translates into "Learning for the Rise of China." Within two months, XueXi became the top-downloaded item of the month on Apple's App Store in China. In response, we conducted an interview study with 28 active XueXi users to investigate their uses and gratifications of this state-owned online platform. Our results reveal seven key motivations: compliance, self-status seeking, general information seeking, job support, entertainment, patriotism, and learning. This state-owned platform introduced a new model for official information dissemination and political communication through direct surveillance and monitoring, leveraging and fostering emotional attachment, and offering heterogeneous apolitical content. We discuss the intended and unintended ramifications of these components, highlighting the importance of future CSCW research to critically engage with pluralist political narratives situated in varied societies, especially non-Western democracies.

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