Elaine J. Yuan
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | Communication
Elaine J. Yuan Heading link
Elaine J. Yuan
Elaine J. Yuan’s research focuses on how new forms of communication and technology mediate various social institutions and cultural practices. She has researched extensively on questions regarding social media, digital platforms, cultural production, and social change. Her recent book, The Web of Meaning: The Internet in a changing Chinese society (University of Toronto Press, 2021), examines the role of the Internet as symbolic spaces for the changing cultural practices of privacy, nationalism, and the network market in China. The book won the 2022 Outstanding Book Award of the Asian/Pacific American Caucus of the National Communication Association. Dr. Yuan’s research has been funded by U.S. Social Science Research Council, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Kaifeng Foundation, UIC Institute for Public Civic Engagement, and UIC Institute for the Humanities. Her current project on the impact of disinformation on the political mobilization of Chinese Americans in the US is funded by UIC Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy. Dr. Yuan work has appeared in many leading journals in the field of communication, including Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Information, Communication, & Society, Journal of Electronic and Broadcasting Media, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Journalism Studies.
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Dr. Elaine J. Yuan
Elaine teaches in the areas of culture and communication, new media technology, and communication history and theory.
Web of Meaning Heading link
The Web Of Meaning: The Internet in a Changing Chinese Society
University of Toronto Press
Through three empirical cases – online privacy, cyber-nationalism, and the network market – this book traces how different social actors engage in negotiating the practices, social relations, and power structures that define these evolving institutions in Chinese society.