Lingjun (Lettie) Wang

Profile

I am a PhD candidate in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. Before beginning my doctoral studies, I completed an MA in Media Industries at the University of Leeds and a BA in Media and Cultural Studies at Lancaster University. I also have professional experience in the media industry, having previously worked in both a news agency and a television station.

I have presented my research at a range of national and international conferences and symposia, including the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association Conference (MeCCSA), Spotting Red-Flag Symposium organised by King’s College London, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference (SCMS), and the British Association for Chinese Studies Conference (BACS). My extended abstract has also been accepted for presentation in the Family Communication Division at the National Communication Association Annual Convention, where I will present findings from my PhD research in New Orleans in November 2026.

Alongside my research, I served as a Postgraduate Researcher Representative in the School of Media and Communication during the 2024–2025 academic year. In this role, I contributed to building a more connected, supportive and inclusive PGR community by organising monthly and seasonal events that promoted postgraduate researchers’ wellbeing, academic development and sense of belonging. I also served as a co-lead organiser of the 2025 cross-faculty PGR symposium, themed “(Counter)Power”. The symposium brought together postgraduate researchers from different schools and universities, providing a platform for them to share their research, exchange experiences and develop interdisciplinary connections.

Research interests

My PhD research examines how motherhood is represented, governed and interpreted in post-2015 mainland Chinese family dramas within the broader context of China’s shift towards pronatalist population policies. Situated at the intersection of television studies, feminist media studies and audience research, the project explores how dramas construct motherhood through everyday conflicts surrounding employment, children’s education, reproduction, intergenerational dynamics and maternal emotional labour. I argue that these narratives transform wider structural pressures, including workplace inequality, limited care provision and pronatalist expectations, into personal and familial responsibilities that women are expected to manage through self-discipline, emotional regulation and sacrifice. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, thematic analysis and online focus groups with Chinese young female audiences, the research also investigates how viewers negotiate these representations. While many participants recognise the dramas as realistic, they do not accept the maternal ideals; instead, they often interpret the pressures associated with motherhood as structural problems and question narratives that resolve gender inequality through family reconciliation or happy endings.

• Television/Screen Studies
• Gender Studies
• Policy Studies
• Feminism Studies
• Audience Studies
• Representation
• Popular Culture

Qualifications

• MA - Media Industries - the University of Leeds - 2022
• BA - Media and Cultural Studies - Lancaster University - 2021