Hey there! I am an associate professor of communication and media studies at the University of New Hampshire. I graduated from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, with a PhD in Communication, and an MA from NYU’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. I am the author of The Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy (Columbia University Press, 2023), one of the first multi-sited ethnographic accounts of the rising entrepreneurial labor in urban, rural, and transnational China since tech innovation had accelerated in the country after 2008.

My research encompasses a critical examination of technology, innovation, labor, and governance through a global lens. I place particular emphasis on issues of social justice and intersectionality, exploring various sectors including digital platforms, new agriculture, biomedicine, and the broader landscape of knowledge and cultural economy. My primary geographical focus lies on China and the experiences of ethnic Asian communities within a global and comparative context.

As a feminist, diasporic scholar of color, I am driven by these fundamental questions: How can innovation, media, and technology be made more equitable for a broader global population? How do the shifting dynamics brought about by the ascent of nations outside the Global North, particularly China, influence the global technological and political-economic landscape and issues of social justice? Furthermore, how are countries in the Global North, notably the United States, responding to these evolving opportunities and challenges? How do questions of social equity and justice look different if, instead of centering the US, we decolonize our discipline and center our perspective on the Global South/East? My research aims to approach these profound challenges while also expanding the parameters of the disciplines I move across, including Communication and Media studies, Asian/Asian American Studies, STS, Economic Geography, and Anthropology.

To address these questions, I employ a diverse range of research methods. These include ethnographic participant observation, in-depth interviews, historical and archival research, and discourse analysis. Currently, my research follows two interconnected and interdisciplinary research avenues. The first avenue focuses on the dynamics of platform capitalism, examining institutional shifts and the realm of digital labor through a comparative framework while problematizing the dichotomies of democracy vs. authoritarianism. The second avenue delves into the realm of innovation and technology, exploring racialized and gendered transnational knowledge work, and the evolving landscapes of global production networks in the face of geopolitical shifts.

I also write about visual culture, video games, online spoofing culture, and debates on race in cyberspace. You can find my work in the Journal of Consumer Culture, New Media and Society, Economic and Labor Relations Review, International Journal of Cultural Studies, International Journal of Communication, Feminist Media Studies, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, and China Information etc. I also write (occasionally) for non-academic audiences. You can find some of my writings here https://zhanglin-1858.medium.com/

You can reach me via email at Lin.zhang [at] unh [dot] edu.