A Comparative Study of Bride Price Representation on Chinese Social Media

In the context of Chinese matrimonial customs, bride price refers to the tradition where the groom or his family provides gifts, money, and/or in-kind to the bride’s family as a symbol of gratitude and dedication to the marital union. Scholarship on bride price typically resides within the realms of sociology and anthropology, with media portrayals receiving relatively scant attention. Utilizing critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a methodological framework, this research examines data extracted from Sina Weibo, a prevalent social media platform in China, to contrast the representation of bride prices by both individual and organizational users. The study delves into the intricate social dynamics that sustain the bride price issue and its broader implications. Findings indicate that individual user representations of bride price on We-media are marked by a spectrum of responses, including agreement, rejection, and neutrality. In contrast, portrayals by organizational media lean towards negativity. This uniformity among organizational portrayals could be attributed to the nation’s profamily and pronatalist agenda, which somewhat skews the representation away from a neutral reflection of reality, as seen in the downplay of the positivity of the long-standing practice.