The Entrepreneurial Scholar: Transformations of Masculinity in Contemporary Chinese Digital Media

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_111How to use a DOI?

Keywords

New Scholar Image; Masculinity; Chinese Online Literature; Entrepreneurial Self; Wen-Wu Framework

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the prosperity of Chinese online literature and its film and television adaptations, this study explores the transformations of the scholar image in contemporary Chinese popular culture and embeds the image in the context of the landscape of digital media. It compares the image of the scholar in traditional literature with the new scholar in contemporary works, taking Joy of Life and Nirvana in Fire as core cases. Adopting textual analysis, it constructs a comparative benchmark of traditional scholars from classic literary works and focuses on three aspects of the construction of the new scholar image, namely, talent manifestation, life values and physical characteristics. The research finds that, while retaining the frail physical trait of old scholar, the new scholar possesses modern management wisdom, strategic acumen and characteristics of entrepreneurial self, redefining frailty as an intellectual resource and reconstructing the traditional “wen-wu” masculinity framework. This transformation is attributable to contemporary audiences’ emotional needs amid social uncertainty, the diversification of masculinity perceptions, as well as the algorithm-driven digital cultural production model. This study enriches the theoretical exploration of masculinity in contemporary Chinese popular culture, and sheds light on the research on the modern revival of traditional gender tropes.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yijia Lin
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - The Entrepreneurial Scholar: Transformations of Masculinity in Contemporary Chinese Digital Media
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 12th International Conference on Digital Humanities and Frontiers in Social Sciences (DHFSS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1031
EP  - 1040
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_111
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_111
ID  - Lin2026
ER  -