Hongwei Bao's Queer Media in China documents emerging queer “community media” practices in the People's Republic of China since 2000. While focusing on digital media and films, the book posits itself as a conscious departure from the conventional media and screen studies approach of textual analysis. Instead, the book is tasked with answering “what ordinary queer people do with and in relation to media” in their everyday lives and social activism (p. 6). As a result, the book is largely about queer institutional and community histories. One argument that Bao makes throughout the book is that these media practices have “constructed queer identities, communities, and politics in the PRC in specific ways,” in part, by mediating individuals’ and communities’ relations to sexuality, society, history, and development in the unique Chinese context of postsocialism and transitional neoliberalism (p. 181).

The book is organized into four parts, each consisting of two chapters. The chapters are short case studies of specific institutions, activist organizations, films, and videos. While Bao gestures toward comparable practices across the country, the examples are focused on Beijing, where he did most of his fieldwork.

Part one, “Contextualising Queer Community Media,” takes readers to the late 1990s and tells a fascinating story about how queer people in China organized themselves around HIV/AIDS response, mental health, and family issues using counterculture means such as zines, telephone hotlines, leaflets, and pagers. Part one also introduces what Bao calls the “queer generation” of Chinese filmmakers who conceived of documentary filmmaking as a means of social activism in the early 2000s (p. 56). Despite the heterogeneity of these early developments, Bao argues that an orientation toward community building and collective action is a common feature of them.

Part two, “Documenting Queer History,” presents two case studies: Cui Zi'en's 2008 film Queer China, “Comrade” China” (Zhi tongzhi) and Zhao Jing and Shi Tou's 2015 film We Are Here (Women Zai Zheli). Both films are said to exemplify how queer self-representations in China have offered empowering alternatives to official and imported stereotypes from the West. For example, Cui's choice not to mask his interviewees challenges the self-pettiness and shame often attached to queer subjects in official representations. In so doing, these films are crucial means of queer people's self-construction and embodiment.

Part three, “Queer Screen Activism,” examines Queer Comrades, a Beijing-based queer video streaming website, and the history of the Beijing Queer Film Festival (BJQFF) since 2001. In analyzing these two platforms, Bao reveals the complex network of stakeholders behind the scenes, including governmental agencies, foreign embassies, and NGOs. Part three is arguably where Bao's critiques are most acute and urgent. For example, he points out that the BJQFF is, in fact, less interested in queer community building and more invested in the “public education and social enlightenment” of neoliberal individualism and other related ideologies (p. 128).

Part four, “Queer International Development,” focuses on the 2011 documentary The Lucky One and the Queer University Film Festival. While The Lucky One serves as a case study of a more collaborative relationship between the filmmaker and their subjects, the Queer University Film Festival is used to index the transnational communities to which many contemporary queer Chinese filmmakers belong. Bao argues that the participatory nature of both the film and the festival is evidence of some Chinese queer community leaders’ effort to engage their own community, while forging exchange with other grassroots organizations in the Global South.

Bao's book is a rich addition to the still nascent subfield of queer studies concerning mainland China. Compared with previous studies, largely coming from anthropology and literary studies, the book is uniquely focused on institutional and community history. Bao's ability to document the complex relationships between grassroots organizations, NGOs, foreign embassies, and government agencies behind the scenes of queer activism in China effectively deconstructs the Cold War notions of censorship and freedom that are often uncritically applied when analyzing media practices in China. Although the book is written with non-Chinese specialists in mind, it offers a view of queer culture in China that is deeply rooted in its communities. By bridging the queer community in China and its international counterparts, the book is an extraordinary work of cultural translation.

My only critique of the book is that, in avoiding textual and visual analysis altogether, Bao has missed the chance to substantiate many of his claims with evidence that are visible within the works themselves. For example, many film posters and stills are used as mere illustrations without any further analytical engagement. In so doing, their makers are given the absolute authority in explaining the works’ meaning and impact, leaving little space for readers to participate in the process of meaning making. The issue at hand is not the methodological debate about whether textual or visual analysis should be given primacy over human intentions, but the production of meaning as an open process which the book is undoubtedly a part of.