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Paper Short Abstract

By examining short video practices that shape everyday labour at a women’s posture school in a Chinese county, this research highlights how digital media reinforces local values, using theories on anthropology of trap to explore selective visibility and algorithmic negotiation within digital labour.

Paper Abstract

In Enshi, a county-level city in Hubei, China, new media practices have largely been integrated into work settings, especially in tertiary industry. In this context, Douyin, originally a platform for personal self-presentation and entertainment, has become an additional workspace, reshaping the form of labour and the operation of institutions.

This research explores the integration of short video practices into the everyday work of a women’s posture training school in Enshi, a fourth-tier city in southwest China. Drawing on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it examines how instructors navigate the demands of digital labour while negotiating local gender norms and platform algorithms. Through the lens of the anthropology of trap, this research highlights how short videos serve both as tools of attraction and mechanisms of selective visibility, ultimately illuminating the complex interplay between digital platforms, local culture, and everyday labour. Contrary to dominant narratives that frame short videos as agents of transformation and unprecedentedness, this study argues that they often reinforce existing social values and exclusions.