Paper short abstract:

In Enshi, producing short videos has become a responsibility for some tertiary sector workers. Unlike creating traditional advertising, these workers often use their personal experiences as video content. This shifts their perception of leisure and labor, giving rise to a new body politics.

Paper long abstract:

In Enshi, a county-level city in Hubei, China, new media practices have largely been integrated into work settings. In service industries such as foot massage centers, posture training schools, and beauty salons, not only are there dedicated new media marketing staff, but other employees are also required to regularly post Douyin videos for promotional purposes. These videos are not traditional advertisements; employees can choose the topics freely, but they must “expose“ the brand—by including the company’s location, links to its products/services, and adding related tags. In this context, Douyin, originally a platform for personal self-presentation and entertainment, has become an additional "workspace", reshaping the way people work and engage in leisure activities.

Drawing on anthropological theories of discipline and Foucault's concept of technologies of the self, this study aims to explore how individuals' adapts to the blurred boundary between work and personal new media consumption. It focuses on the ways in which these service industry workers respond to the spontaneous or passive use of their personal experiences/narrations for public and professional purposes, and speaks to whether and how self-presentation on social media is impacted. Furthermore, since the visibility of workers’ bodies is no longer entirely under their control and becomes potential marketing material, a new body politics closely tied to labor and workspaces emerges, involving interactions between digital platforms, workers, and their managers. This also prompts methodological reflections for digital anthropologists: How should we define the social media of our interlocutors? Are we observing their private space or their workspace?