Mengdi Zhu is a PhD researcher at Leiden Institute for Area Studies. Her research examines social media use in China with a particular focus on Weibo. She explores the interplay between platform affordances, user practices, and playful cultures. She is interested in how state actors (e.g., official media and authorities), commercial actors (institutional and non-institutional, such as entertainment media and influencers), non-human actors (e.g., AI socialbots), and individual users interact.
