Beyond Public Discourse: Cultural Trauma, Social Imaginary, and Alternative Meaning-Making among Chinese Middling Transnational Audiences
(2026) MKVM13 20261Media and Communication Studies
Department of Communication and Media
- Abstract (Swedish)
- This thesis examines how cultural trauma is mediated and negotiated through film engagement in the post-pandemic and post-socialist Chinese context. Focusing on Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film, the study investigates how fragmented pandemic experiences become meaningful under conditions where public discourse is restricted. It particularly explores how middling transnational Chinese audiences revisit and interpret their lived experiences of COVID-19 through engagement with An Unfinished Film. Drawing on theories of cultural trauma, structures of feeling, and social imaginary, the thesis asks how the film represents pandemic experiences, how audiences affectively and interpretively engage with it, and how such engagement reshapes understandings... (More)
- This thesis examines how cultural trauma is mediated and negotiated through film engagement in the post-pandemic and post-socialist Chinese context. Focusing on Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film, the study investigates how fragmented pandemic experiences become meaningful under conditions where public discourse is restricted. It particularly explores how middling transnational Chinese audiences revisit and interpret their lived experiences of COVID-19 through engagement with An Unfinished Film. Drawing on theories of cultural trauma, structures of feeling, and social imaginary, the thesis asks how the film represents pandemic experiences, how audiences affectively and interpretively engage with it, and how such engagement reshapes understandings of identity, belonging, and social life.
Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative and interdisciplinary approach that combines narrative and multimodal film analysis with in-depth audience interviews. Eleven in-depth interviews were conducted with Chinese middling transnational audiences, and the interview data were analyzed through qualitative text analysis.
The findings indicate that the film serves as a crucial mediated site for affective meaning-making. Through its docufictional form and use of everyday digital media materials, the film reorganizes fragmented pandemic memories into a shared affective experience. The study also identifies two forms of social imaginaries. First, the disciplined social imaginary is shaped by political sensitivity and self-censorship. Second, the disrupted social imaginary is characterized by fragmented belonging, weakened trust in official narratives, and uncertainty toward the future. These social imaginaries shape how audiences understand both the pandemic and the film itself.
The thesis argues that, in contexts where public discourse surrounding trauma is fragmented or constrained, cultural trauma may first emerge through affective and experiential forms rather than through coherent institutional narratives. Engagement with independent media works such as An Unfinished Film, therefore, becomes an important process through which audiences revisit, negotiate, and articulate unresolved experiences. The study finally proposes a triadic relationship between social imaginary, cultural trauma, and alternative meaning-making, demonstrating how these elements continuously shape and reinforce one another through media and cultural practices. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9229000
- author
- Tan, Dier LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MKVM13 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Cultural Trauma, Social Imaginaries, Meaning-Making, Chinese Middling Transnational Audiences, Post-pandemic China
- language
- English
- id
- 9229000
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-03 12:03:42
- date last changed
- 2026-06-03 12:03:42
@misc{9229000,
abstract = {{This thesis examines how cultural trauma is mediated and negotiated through film engagement in the post-pandemic and post-socialist Chinese context. Focusing on Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film, the study investigates how fragmented pandemic experiences become meaningful under conditions where public discourse is restricted. It particularly explores how middling transnational Chinese audiences revisit and interpret their lived experiences of COVID-19 through engagement with An Unfinished Film. Drawing on theories of cultural trauma, structures of feeling, and social imaginary, the thesis asks how the film represents pandemic experiences, how audiences affectively and interpretively engage with it, and how such engagement reshapes understandings of identity, belonging, and social life.
Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative and interdisciplinary approach that combines narrative and multimodal film analysis with in-depth audience interviews. Eleven in-depth interviews were conducted with Chinese middling transnational audiences, and the interview data were analyzed through qualitative text analysis.
The findings indicate that the film serves as a crucial mediated site for affective meaning-making. Through its docufictional form and use of everyday digital media materials, the film reorganizes fragmented pandemic memories into a shared affective experience. The study also identifies two forms of social imaginaries. First, the disciplined social imaginary is shaped by political sensitivity and self-censorship. Second, the disrupted social imaginary is characterized by fragmented belonging, weakened trust in official narratives, and uncertainty toward the future. These social imaginaries shape how audiences understand both the pandemic and the film itself.
The thesis argues that, in contexts where public discourse surrounding trauma is fragmented or constrained, cultural trauma may first emerge through affective and experiential forms rather than through coherent institutional narratives. Engagement with independent media works such as An Unfinished Film, therefore, becomes an important process through which audiences revisit, negotiate, and articulate unresolved experiences. The study finally proposes a triadic relationship between social imaginary, cultural trauma, and alternative meaning-making, demonstrating how these elements continuously shape and reinforce one another through media and cultural practices.}},
author = {{Tan, Dier}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Beyond Public Discourse: Cultural Trauma, Social Imaginary, and Alternative Meaning-Making among Chinese Middling Transnational Audiences}},
year = {{2026}},
}