Lingnan University Department of Digital Arts and Creative Industries
Research Interests
Cultural Sociology
Creative Industries
Digital Media
Popular Communication
Social Theory
Political Communication
Decolonial Studies
Digital Activism
Cyberbullying
Carnivalesque Digital Cultures
Professional Affiliations
- Acting Head of Department
- Associate Professor
- Centre Fellow, Centre for Film and Creative Industries
- Part-time Capstone Project Supervisor
- Editorial Board Member of Journal of the Korean Society for Computer Game
- Academic Editor of PLOS ONE
- Associate Editor of Aguipo Global South Journal
Academic Honors
- The Eduard B. Vermeer Prize for the Best Article
- Hong Kong Studies Outstanding Papers of 2021-2022
- Marion Levy Jr. Award for Comparative Sociology
Professional Experience
Present
Associate Professor
Teaching and research in cultural sociology, creative industries, digital media, and popular communication.
Present
Acting Head of Department
Responsible for academic management and administrative affairs of the Department of Digital Arts and Creative Industries.
Biography
Professor Matthew Chew is a cultural sociologist and Associate Professor at the Department of Digital Arts and Creative Industries, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He earned his MA and PhD in Sociology from Princeton University. His empirical research analyzes creative industries, digital media, and popular communication in China and Hong Kong. His past research focused on the video games industry, comics and animation, the nighttime economy, Internet memes, celebrity systems, and electronic dance music in China. More recently, he has been extending his empirical investigative foci to fantasy webnovels, danmei (boys‘ love) culture, political communication, digital activism, social eating, cyberbullying, rap music, and carnivalesque digital cultures in China.
Awards & Recognition
- The Eduard B. Vermeer Prize for the Best Article
- Hong Kong Studies Outstanding Papers of 2021–2022
- Marion Levy Jr. Award for Comparative Sociology
Publications & Representative Works
Complete Bibliography
2025
How Coloniality Operates Differently in the Global East Than the Global South: The Intellectual Delegitimation Of ‘Lowbrow’ Local Culture In Hong Kong
Springer Nature Singapore
2025
Representing trans in Sinophone films: Uncovering local critical evaluations, storytelling performative marriages, promoting trans decoloniality, and illustrating transgendered cis-casting
Popular Communication
2023
Non-digital fan networking: How Japanese animation and comics disseminated in China despite authoritarian deterrence
International Journal of Cultural Studies
2023
Cybernationalist authoritarianism: Fangirls‘ peer production of the virtual celebrity “Oppa China”
China Information
2023
Chinese gold-farming in the 2000s: Worker empowerment and local development through video games-based digital labor
Games and Culture
2022
Rethinking the cultural relations between Hong Kong and China: An analysis of the Chinese reception of Stephen Chow’s films
Modern China
2022
Open-ended analyses of the sociopolitical impact of celebrity change: Advantages, operationalization, and an illustration with Hong Kong celebrity
Sociological Forum
2021
The translocalism of Hong Kong popular culture: An analysis of a critical Internet meme co-created across Hong Kong and China
Hong Kong Studies
2020
Discovering the digital Stephen Chow: The transborder influence of Chow‘s films on the Chinese Internet in the 2010s
Global Media and China
2019
Toward a Chinese hip-hop feminism and a feminist reassessment of hip-hop with breakdance: B-girling in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China
Asian Studies Review
2011
Virtual property in China: The emergence of gamer rights awareness and the reaction of game corporations
New Media and Society
2009
Research on Chinese nightlife and night-time economies: Significance
