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Meaning Construction: Online Narratives of Supervisor-Postgraduate Relationships in Digital Communities
Jingjing Zhou1, Yushu Zhang2, Yujie Dong2
1School of Education, South-Central Minzu University, Wuhan 430074, China.
Abstract:
As digital media become deeply embedded in postgraduate students' daily learning and social interactions, online narratives of supervisor-postgraduate relationships have emerged as a crucial means for them to express authentic experiences and seek emotional support. Adopting a sensemaking perspective, this study employs online ethnography and thematic analysis to investigate postgraduate students' narratives of supervisor-postgraduate relationships on a Douban group. The findings reveal four core thematic dimensions of these online narratives: identity formation, emotional interaction, experience sharing, and social connection. These dimensions help postgraduate students clarify their self-perception, release emotions, acquire practical experience, and establish a sense of group belonging, particularly in contexts where institutional support is insufficient. Online narratives essentially serve as a compensatory self-help channel for postgraduate students to cope with real-world challenges. They highlight structural shortcomings in offline supervisory governance and offer theoretical and practical insights to optimize supervisor-postgraduate relationships in the digital age.
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