Quantifying the Digital Cultural Divide: How Platform Algorithms Shape Rural-Urban Identity Politics in China

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the deep promotion of digital China and rural revitalization strategy, short video platform algorithms, as a new cultural intermediary force, are associated with the reconstruction of the political ecology of urban and rural cultural identity. This study systematically examines the differential associative mechanism of algorithmic recommendation systems on cultural identity among urban and rural residents through a nationwide stratified sampling survey. Research has found that algorithm exposure is significantly positively associated with users' acceptance of rural modernity narratives, manifested as a significant increase in fusion innovation identification; Urban and rural registered residence, as a key social location variable, regulates the associative path between algorithm exposure and reality cognition. Urban user groups show a positive correlation between algorithm exposure and reality recognition, while rural user groups do not show this association. Active search behavior exhibits a weakening association with algorithm domestication, as users resist single narrative infiltration through autonomous information acquisition. The study proposes the concept framework of "Algorithm Domestication Gap" to reveal new forms of cognitive expression of the digital divide. It is clarified that the core concept of "digital cultural divide" in this study specifically refers to the multi-dimensional cognitive gap composed of differences in algorithmic exposure, differentiation in cultural content interpretive capacity, and divergence in downstream cultural identity outcomes under the framework of the third-generation digital divide, rather than a single-dimensional gap in technology access or usage skills. The "Algorithm Domestication Gap" is clearly defined as the specific manifestation of the digital cultural divide at the cognitive domestication level, whose core lies in the cognitive acceptance differences among groups with different social positions associated with the process of algorithmic content domestication. This concept not only inherits the third-generation digital divide's focus on knowledge acquisition and cognitive differences but also expands the core logic of the knowledge gap theory that "information processing capacity affects cognitive outcomes", focusing on the differentiated associative effect of algorithms as a new type of technical intermediary on the cognitive domestication process, providing a theoretical lens for understanding the cultural and political aspects of urban and rural areas mediated by technology.