Tuwei: a stigma caused by class habitus

Abstract: Since 2017, tuwei (土味) culture has emerged in Chinese online space and the manifestation of it varies. On the basis of a case study on two Chinese social media platforms and gathered data from interviews, online videos and relating comments, the aim of thesis was to explore this culture with the main focus on tuwei videos and their producers, including the definition and classification of it, and to examine whether the videos and producers are stigmatized since the videos are called tuwei and they have received unfriendly comments on social medias. The data was analyzed under a qualitative data analysis method. This thesis was mainly guided by the stigma theory and the habitus theory, on the basis of Link and Phelan’s framework of the four components of stigma, and Bourdieu’s theory of the interaction between habitus and class taste. The thesis found that the unfriendly comments indeed indicate a stigmatization against tuwei videos and the producers, and that stigmatization relates to different habitus.