Digital Livelihoods Of Disabled Anchors On The Kwai Platform

In recent years,the short video platform represented by Racer has caught fire in thousands of households,and short video has become a new form of mass-mediated existence.Influenced by the increasingly prosperous live-streaming economy since the epidemic,various short-video platforms have rapidly completed the transformation to the direction of social e-commerce,and cases of ordinary people relying on live-streaming to earn their first bucket of money on the Internet and become among the netizen anchors and e-commerce experts are commonplace.As the national "Internet+" service model for people with disabilities continues to improve,"e-commerce for people with disabilities" has provided a new direction of employment for disabled groups,and has become a new starting point for some disabled people’s careers.On the Racer platform,more and more people with disabilities are joining the anchor industry,and while earning income,anchoring has become an important way for them to express themselves and integrate into society.This study uses the short video platform Racer as a field of observation,a combination of online ethnography,participant observation and in-depth interviews,and focuses on the "people" to study the digital livelihoods of disabled anchors.Firstly,the author compares the changes in the livelihoods of the disabled community before and after digitalisation,in order to gain a preliminary understanding of the phenomenon of disabled people actively turning to digital livelihoods.With few employment opportunities,low-end labour content and low pay,the livelihood journey of people with disabilities is fraught with uncertainty,inadequacy and instability.The development of the internet and digital technology has provided new employment opportunities for people with disabilities who are outside the mainstream labour market,helping them to move out of the difficult employment situation and into an equal,diverse and autonomous labour space.Secondly,after exploring the labour motivations of disabled anchors,we found that,in response to the digital wave,disabled anchors are attracted by the low threshold and high performance profession of online anchoring in the context of the booming live streaming economy,and are driven by the material need to earn money to support their families and the spiritual need to perform and entertain themselves in the digital livelihood of anchoring.The willingness to work is also reinforced by the disability-friendly orientation of the Racer platform.In addition,this study discusses the digital livelihood process of disabled anchors in terms of the creation of an "authentic" image,the expression of everyday images and the establishment of positive interactions.The study found that in addition to the economic benefits,the disabled anchors have gradually integrated into society,become more confident and optimistic in the process of making a living,and in a subtle way,provide comfort and encouragement to disadvantaged people with similar experiences.At the same time,however,the ’labourisation’ of disabled anchors has led them into ’oppressive’ forced labour under the guise of ’autonomy’,with high-intensity,low-return digital labour and The high intensity of digital labour with low returns and the uncertainty of career prospects put disabled people in a more disadvantaged position.To address this issue,this study attempts to propose countermeasures and recommendations for "de-labourisation" at the level of the state,society and the individual anchor,with a view to improving the situation through the standardisation of the industry and the improvement of the quality of anchors,so as to facilitate the establishment of stable and sustainable careers for people with disabilities in the future.