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Welcome to Yicong‘s personal website!
YICONG ZHAO 赵一聪
M.A. Communication, Culture, & Technology
Georgetown UniversityFew memories are as vivid as the day when my mother told me she had long suffered from uterine prolapse. Like many other women in my home village, my mother struggled with the gynecological disease caused by the forced implementation of the contraceptive ring during family planning. She was used to “live with the pain and not think about it.” The policy of family planning has been erased from the nation’s present, ghosts of the history nevertheless linger, for apparatuses of the nation-state have left chronic gynecological conditions, imprints that signify the female body was the site of state control. Today, women can talk about their lived experiences by creating or consuming content on social media that reflects their personal agency. While fascinated by the turn towards “female individualization” – as described by Giddens and Beck – I was also drawn to rethink the weight and responsibility of platforms in promoting and providing such feminist-related content.
Through undergraduate studies, I was able to reflect on how images of women have been linked to, and shaped by, power and social structures throughout history. Subsequently, as a new journalist at Phoenix New Media, I investigated the manifestations of feminism on Chinese social media. I reported on the grassroots initiative “Stop Period Shaming”, which resonated in over 300 universities across the country. My other work at China House involved interviewing UNEP representatives and women from over 30 villages in order to gain a better understanding of women’s rights in the public and private spheres in rural China. These two experiences intersected to demonstrate how media has the capacity to make voices heard. However, I also noted that the neoliberal nature of today’s media platforms raises critical questions about how market forces have infiltrated and influenced the landscape through which audiences navigate information across media sites. This sparked my curiosity in taking on analytical roles in media platforms.
Before coming to Georgetown, I worked at large media and marketing institutions such as Kuaishou and Publicis Groupe, where I combined data analytical tools and media production expertise to devise content distribution routes. My particular focus was on the cross-country distribution of female-related content and how actors with discursive power – including businesses and digital media platforms – often use algorithmic recommendations to limit users’ access to information.
I often think of Bell Hook’s words, “I came to theory because of my pain.” I was drawn to study in the Communication, Culture, & Technology program at Georgetown University because I want to find my own language here through interdisciplinary learning, to name the feelings and values of the various women I care about, and further bring this power to wider audiences. I hope to become a scholar-activist in the future, to focus on the issues that are most relevant to women, so that my mother, and many more women, would no longer need to forget about their pain.