DIGITAL CULTURE AS AN EXPORT COMMODITY: THE ROLE OF CHINESE PLATFORMS IN THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

EDN: OACMDM

DOI: https://doi.org/10.65891/2949-1983-2026-22-3-5-9

Authors:

AFANASYEVA Oksana Nikolaevna, LIPANCHIKOVA Kseniya Vitalievna

Affiliation:

"All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation" (Moscov)

Abstract.

The article examines digital culture as an export commodity and explores the role of Chinese platforms in the commercialization of cultural identity. The authors demonstrate how Chinese digital platforms transform digital culture into a commercial and export product, and how this process influences the international perception of China’s cultural identity. The paper shows how platformization accelerates the spread of cultural codes, creates new forms of cultural consumption, and goes beyond the role of a mere intermediary. Special attention is paid to the sectoral and economic dimensions of this process. It has been shown that digital culture is becoming an independent sector of China’s export specialization: the country’s cultural industry reached 8.58 trillion yuan in 2025, and new digital formats grew at an accelerated pace (14.3 %). Using the examples of online literature, short web dramas (micro‑dramas), and video games, it is shown how cultural content creates stable export flows: foreign revenue from online literature amounted to about 820 million dollars, sales of micro‑dramas in foreign markets reached 2.38 billion dollars, and foreign revenues from the gaming industry exceeded 204 billion yuan. A separate analysis was conducted of the role of platform infrastructure – Douyin/TikTok, Bilibili, WeChat, Xiaohongshu, as well as the payment ecosystems Alipay and WeChat Pay – which reduces the gap between familiarity with a cultural product and its purchase, thereby integrating cultural consumption into cross‑border e‑commerce. The conclusion about the dual nature of commercialization is substantiated: it expands the global popularity of Chinese cultural forms and, at the same time, leads to their simplification and standardization in line with market logic and algorithms.

Keywords:

digital culture, export commodity, Chinese digital platforms, China, cultural identity, Douyin, TikTok, Bilibili, WeChat, Xiaohongshu, platformization, online literature, short web dramas (microdramas), video games, Chinamaxxing

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