The Impact of Social Media on Ethnic Identity: Cantonese 
as an Example

Weijing Qin

doi:10.70711/frim.v3i12.7908

The Impact of Social Media on Ethnic Identity: Cantonese as an Example

Weijing Qin

Abstract

Language is one of the important factors in shaping ethnic identity. However, with the rapid development of social media represented by TikTok, dialects are gradually decreasing in the media. Taking Cantonese as an example, this paper analyses the impact of the development of social media on the Cantonese language environment, to explore the relationship between social media and Cantonese ethnic identity.
This paper conducts in-depth interviews with 15 Cantonese speakers of different age groups in Guangdong, and through analyzing the interview data, it is found that the popularity of social media has a two-fold impact on the development of the Cantonese language, the status of the
Cantonese language has gradually declined in the Guangdong region, but it still has a certain degree of vitality, in general, social media has a
certain influence in the Cantonese community, the factors include the construction of cyberspace, the cohesion of scarcity, and the narration of
collective memory. This study combines social media, Cantonese, and ethnic identity to explore the relationship between the three, which is of
great significance to the preservation and transmission of Cantonese and local languages.

Keywords

Cantonese; Ethnic identity; Social media; Dialect protection

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References

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.70711/frim.v3i12.7908

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