Abstract
This study examines the rise of Guo Degang—one of the founders of Deyunshe and the most influential crosstalk (xiangsheng) performer in contemporary China—by situating his popularity within the political, social, economic, and historical contexts of China’s Reform and Opening-up. It analyzes how Guo’s performing style and the content of his work resonate with the social practices and life experiences of audiences. The research further incorporates commentaries and scholarly writings from Chinese social observers to understand how, over the past two decades, Deyunshe and its audiences have jointly shaped a new performance mode and industrial structure for crosstalk. To explore the agency of Chinese crosstalk audiences, this study draws on major Western audience theories, including media consumption as social practices, Fiske’s theory of popular culture, the spectacle/performance paradigm (SPP), Jenkins’s notion of textual poaching, de Certeau’s “making do,” Benjamin’s concept of aura, and Bakhtin’s theory of carnival. These frameworks help illuminate how Chinese audiences—often seen merely as passive recipients under an authoritarian system—actively reinterpret, appropriate, and reproduce xiangsheng in ways that generate new meanings, identities, and forms of participation. Rather than being constrained by ideology, these consumers display creativity, reflexivity, and agency through their cultural consumption.
Presenters
Ting Yu ChenAssociate Professor, Department of Communication, Nanhua University, Chiayi, Taiwan
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Crosstalk, Deyunshe, Fans, Cultural consumption, Social practices
