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she/they/Ta
Social Sciences Division
Sociology Department
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Faculty
Regular Faculty
Labor and Social Movements
Digital Media
Video Games, Game Design, Game Studies
Gender Studies
China
Rachel Carson College Academic Building
320
by appointment
Rachel Carson College Faculty Services
Mengyang (Zoe) Zhao is an activist scholar specializing in the intersections of technology, work, and social movements in a global context. Their current book project delves into platform-based video game services in China. Their art practice leverages gamification to reimagine ways of commoning and queering the care infrastructure.
I am an interdisciplinary researcher, writer, and artivist of technology, video games, and work in the global context.
Labor, Social Movements, Digital Media, Game Studies, Diaspora, Global China
Platform Economy; Technology and Work; Media Activism
2026 Hellman Fellowship, UC Santa Cruz
2025 UC Underrepresented Scholars Fellowship, University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI)
2025 Flexible Early Career Fellowship, Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies
2025 Catalyze Seed Award, Institute for Social Transformation, UC Santa Cruz
2024 Faculty Research Grant, Center for Labor and Community, UC Santa Cruz
2024 Dissertation Award, Association for Chinese Communication Studies (ACCS), National Communication Association
2024 Outstanding Dissertation Award, Activism, Communication, and Social Justice (ACSJ) Interest Group, International Communication Association
2021-2023 The Center on Digital Culture and Society (CDCS) Doctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
2022-2023 SAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania
2022-2023 Dissertation Fellowship, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, declined
2023 SASgov Discretionary Funding, University of Pennsylvania, honored as the co-founder of Penn Activism, Media and Education Group
2017-2022 Benjamin Franklin Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania
2023 GAPSA Universal Fund, University of Pennsylvania, honored as the co-founder of Penn Activism, Media and Education Group
2021 Mr. Chi-Chung Yu Award, China Times Cultural Foundation
2021 The OYCF-Chow Fellowship for Field Research, The Overseas Young Chinese Forum
2021 Emerging Sci-Tech Artist Awards, Raiden INST, honored as a member of Liquid Dependencies Theory Collective
2020-2021 Gertrude and Otto Pollak Summer Research Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania
2019 Predissertation Travel Grants, The American Council of Learned Societies
2024 Exhibition: “Unbound” at Wu Ju Contemporary Art Center, Guiyang, as member of Liquid Dependencies Theory
2023 Exhibition and Book Contributor: “Care Manifesto” at Care Pavilion at London Design Biennale, https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/551466/care-manifesto/
2023 Exhibition: “Unruly Kinships” at Temporary Gallery, Cologne, Germany, as member of Liquid Dependencies Theory
2021 Exhibition: “Do Not Black Out” at Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum, as member of Liquid Dependencies Theory
2021 “Unknown Games” at Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, as member of Liquid Dependencies Theory
Guest Lectures and Talks:
2025. “Strategic Play: The Labor Politics of Online Gaming in China” at China Reading Group, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, online
2025. “Game and Labor” at JOURN567 “Mass Media and Global Communication,” University of Wisconsin–Madison, online
2025. “Strategic Play: Hacking, Roaming and Mutual Aid Among Platform Game Workers in China” at the Forum on American-Chinese Exchange at Stanford University (FACES)
2024. “Navigating the Cloud: Methodological Insights into China’s Online Gaming Workforce” at Department of Sociology, University at Buffalo, online
2024. “Verify You Are Human: How Video Game Automation Intensifies Extraction of Platform Game Work” at Center for Cultural Studies, UC Santa Cruz
2023. “Digital Labor in China” at SOCI230: Media, Culture & Society in Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania
2023. “Net-like Control: Extra-Platform Intermediation in Chinese Video Game Services” at School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong, online
2022. “’Ready Worker Two’: Gendered Discipline of Platform Game Work” at Family and Gender Workshop, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania
2022. “Gamification as a Design Method” at DAI x Commons•Art, St. Joost School of Art and Design, online
2022. “’Ready Worker Two’: Gendered Discipline of Platform Game Work” at GSWS Graduate Colloquium Series, University of Pennsylvania
2022. “Technology and Labor” at Social Justice Research Academy, University of Pennsylvania
2022. "A Closer Look at China’s Game Industry” at Hamilton Lugar School Chinese Language Workshop, Indiana University Bloomington, online
2022. “Net-like Control: Extra-Platform Intermediation in Chinese Video Game Services” at Ethnography, Culture, and Interaction workshop, University of Pennsylvania, online
2021. “Platform Game Work in China” at Senior Seminar of Labor Sociology, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, in Chinese
2021. “Doing a Social Science Ph.D. in the U.S.”, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in Chinese
2021. “Video Game Ban in China” at Sino-U.S. Relations Group Engagement (SURGE), Tufts University, online
2021. “Platform Game Work in China” at International Summer School, Chinese University of Hong Kong, online
2021. “Platform Game Work in China” at Marxist Feminism Lecture Series, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, in Chinese
2021. Writing Processes of “Solidarity Stalled” at Graduate Seminar of Field Methods of Sociological Research, University of Pennsylvania, online
2020. “Global Video Game Industry” at SOCI137: Sociology of Media and Popular Culture, University of Pennsylvania, online
2018/2019. “Chinese Feminist Activism” at SOCI230: Media, Culture & Society in Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania
Selected Conference Presentations:
2026. “Crossing Borders, Survival, and Navigating: Chinese Migrants and the Making of Racialized Labor Regime in the U.S.” The Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference. Vancouver, Canada.
2025. “Strategic Play: Hacking, Roaming and Mutual Aid Practices of Platform Game
Workers in China.” the 75th Annual International Communication Association Conference. Denver, CO.
2024. “Ghost in Artifacts: Post-Digital Formations of China’s Digital Activism Since 2020.” Everyday Forms of Digital Activism and Resistance: An International Symposium. Philadelphia, PA.
2024. “Multiple Positionalities, Plural Movements: A Feminist and Queer Interrogation of Sinophone Diaspora Activism.” The Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference. Seattle. WA.
2024. “Verify You Are Human: How Video Game Automation Intensifies Extraction of Platform Game Work.” Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). Honolulu, HI.
2023. “Chinese Queer Feminist Solidarities in Transnational Social Movements” Roundtable. National Women’s Studies Association Conference. Baltimore, MD.
2023. “Beyond the Binary: Deconstructing Success and Failure in Digital Social Movements through the Lens of Endurance.” with Devo Probol, Brendan Mahoney, and Alejandra Regla-Vargas. Collective Behavior & Social Movements Workshop. Philadelphia, PA.
2023. “Ready Worker Two: Gendered Discipline of Platform Game Work in China.” Global Perspectives on Platforms, Labor & Social Reproduction Conference. Amsterdam, Netherlands.
2023. “Extending the Research on Digital China: The Transnational Lens.” with Kecheng Fang. the 73rd Annual International Communication Association Conference. Toronto, Canada.
2021. “An Uneasy Fusion of Game Work and Gig Work: Platform Game Work in China.” The WORK2021 – WORK II Conference. Online.
2021. “The Rise of Platform Game Work.” AoIR 2021 Doctoral Colloquium. Online.
2020. “Some Players Are More Equal Than Others: Stratification of Video Game Work in China.” Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Online.
2019. “Solidarity Stalled: When Chinese Activists Meet Social Movements in Democracies.” Third SDSU Conference on Nonviolence and Social Change: Illiberal Democracies East and West. San Diego, CA.
2019. “Geographical Diffusion of Protests: Evidence from China.” with Ye Wang and Han Zhang. 77th Annual Midwest Political Science Association Conference. Chicago, IL.
2018. “Media Freedom and Protest Events in the Global South.” 68th Annual International Communication Association Conference. Prague, Czech Republic.
2018. “Radicalizing Social Movements from a Transnational Perspective: Chinese Diaspora Activists and Liberal-Democratic Models of Activism.” Seventh Annual Radical Democracy Conference. NYC, NY.
Zhao, Mengyang (Zoe), and Huixin Tian. 2025. “Multiple Positionalities, Plural Movements: A Feminist and Queer Interrogation of Sinophone Diaspora Activism.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 27(4):882–907. doi:10.1080/14616742.2025.2548402.
Zhao, Mengyang. 2025. “‘Ready Worker Two’: Gendered Labor Regime of Platform-Based Game Work in China.” New Media & Society 27(6):3293–3313. doi: 10.1177/14614448231222944.
Zhao, Mengyang, and anosartor. 2024. “Ghost in Dissent: Artifacts and the Architecture of Activism in Digital China.” International Journal of Communication 18(0):5673–93.
Zhao, Mengyang. 2023. “Fragmented Control of Platform Game Work in China.” The Economic and Labour Relations Review 34(2):328–42. doi: 10.1017/elr.2023.15.
Zhao, Mengyang, and Kecheng Fang. 2023. “Extending the Research on Digital China: The Transnational Lens.” Information, Communication & Society 26(2):270–85. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2159487.
Zhao, Mengyang. 2021. “Solidarity Stalled: When Chinese Activists Meet Social Movements in Democracies.” Critical Sociology 47(2):281–97. doi: 10.1177/0896920520940007.
Zhao, Mengyang. 2020. “Chinese Diaspora Activism and the Future of International Solidarity.” Made in China Journal 5(2): 97-101.
Zhao, Mengyang. 2019. “Media Freedom and Protest Events in the Global South.” Social Science Quarterly 100(4):1254–67. doi: 10.1111/ssqu.12635.
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