Fandom, politics and nationalism: A comparative study of idolization at the nexus of state and society in contemporary China

In contemporary China, the development of new media technology has promoted the change and transformation of Chinese cyber nationalism, as it has an increasingly close relationship with youth subculture and fan culture. The idolization of the officials is a manifestation of this phenomenon. This paper conducts a comparative study of the two cases related to two virtual images, "Brother A-zhong" and "Jiangshanjiao", which have been created as the representation of the Chinese officials in the past year. Through getting an insight into why "Brother A-zhong" worked but "Jiangshanjiao" failed, this paper mainly find that these two cases reveal the tension between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people related to public discussion and hegemonic resistance under the fandom nationalism phenomenon.