Abstract

This paper examines the circulation of the Chinese online literature abroad using Webnovel (Qidian International) as a case study, which will illustrate that the dissemination of Chinese online literature is mediated by the platform instead of diffusing spontaneously as a cultural phenomenon. It is shown that translation systems, participatory fan communities, and monetization architectures are three infrastructural processes that have collaborated to achieve the international success of Webnovel. Translation is introduced as an efficiency-based infrastructure that standardizes genre fiction to be read worldwide; fan communities develop to be cultural intermediaries whose interpretative work and advertising efforts continue to keep the spread going; and access is organized into the process of monetization, simultaneously producing economic classification into reading habits. Combined, these work to make Webnovel an exporter of a whole culture of production. It has been concluded in the paper that overseas dissemination can be seen as a platformized process, which is defined by information management, labor extraction, and ecosystem design, and not as an enactment of cultural soft power.