A New Spectacle in China's Mediasphere: A Cultural Reading of a Web-Based Reality Show from Shanghai*

摘要

This study offers a cultural reading of the web-based reality show Soul Partners (2007) from Shanghai. Soul Partners serves as a case study to explore how 21st-century Chinese cultural discourse debates the transformation of urban society in China, providing insight into the Chinese cultural imagination, perceptions of the globalizing metropolis and the impact of consumer culture. This reading positions Soul Partners within the discursive context of Chinese popular, postmodern and post-socialist culture and in relation to the cultural import of the reality show genre into China's mediasphere. Analysis focuses on the quest for authen-ticity in the Chinese discourse on perceived reality and the way Soul Partners generates new urban dreams for China's Generation X. The analy-sis of Soul Partners sheds new light on the dynamics of transcultural appro-priation in a globalizing China and the social and political implications.