Experts

Aynne Kokas

Fast Facts

  • Director, UVA East Asia Center
  • Non-resident scholar, Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy
  • Member, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Fellow in the National Committee on United States-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program
  • Expertise on U.S.-China relations, cybersecurity, media industry

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • Asia
  • Domestic Affairs
  • Media and the Press
  • Science and Technology

Aynne Kokas is the C.K. Yen Professor at the Miller Center, director of UVA's East Asia Center, and a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. Kokas’ research examines Sino-U.S. media and technology relations. Her award-winning book Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty (Oxford University Press, October 2022) argues that exploitative Silicon Valley data governance practices help China build infrastructures for global control. Her award-winning first book Hollywood Made in China (University of California Press, 2017) argues that Chinese investment and regulations have transformed the U.S. commercial media industry, most prominently in the case of media conglomerates’ leverage of global commercial brands. 

Kokas is a non-resident scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a fellow in the National Committee on United States-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program.

She was a Fulbright Scholar at East China Normal University and has received fellowships from the Library of Congress, National Endowment for the Humanities, Mellon Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Japan’s Abe Fellowship, and other international organizations. Her writing and commentary have appeared globally in more than 50 countries and 15 languages. In the United States, her research and writing appear regularly in media outlets including CNBC, NPR’s MarketplaceThe Washington Post, and Wired. She has testified before the Senate Finance Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Aynne Kokas News Feed

Senior Fellow Aynne Kokas is quoted in this story.
Aynne Kokas Nikkei Asian Review
Dr. Aynne Kokas, assistant professor of media studies at University of Virginia and author of "Hollywood Made In China," discusses a possible Microsoft Corp. acquisition of the U.S. operations of Bytedance Ltd.'s video sharing app TikTok. Dr. Kokas speaks on "Bloomberg Technology."
Aynne Kokas Bloomberg Technology
To get a better handle on what is going on, UVA Today turned to Aynne Kokas, a University of Virginia media studies associate professor whose work focuses on the intersections between Chinese and U.S. media and technology industries.
Aynne Kokas UVA Today
When the Trump administration issued executive orders Aug. 6 blocking transactions with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and with the messaging platform WeChat, it threw the tech industry into chaos. On a basic technical level, it’s unclear how the executive orders, due to take effect Sept. 20, could even work. How, for example, will these bans be enforced? When users deploy proxy servers to access their favorite platforms — TikTok was downloaded by a record-breaking 67 million new users in the first quarter of 2020, and WeChat, China’s largest messaging app, has an estimated 19 million users in the United States — will the U.S. government start punishing preteens dancing with their grandparents while stuck at home because of the coronavirus?
Aynne Kokas The Washington Post
It is important to have "studios actually working together and keeping track of the types of requests they get, and from whom they get those requests," said University of Virginia media studies professor Aynne Kokas, author of "Hollywood Made in China," at the report's virtual launch event. "Even if they don't share them publicly, if they're able to save that data, then they can actually push back against it collectively."
Aynne Kokas Nikkei Asian Review
For one thing, unlike, say, Nintendo, there’s nothing particularly Chinese about the content on TikTok. Before the latest controversy, many of its users may not have even realized they were using a Chinese product. Aynne Kokas, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia who studies the global reach of Chinese media, says this is likely deliberate. While Chinese blockbuster films like Wandering Earth and Wolf Warrior tend to be too nationalistic for global tastes, “TikTok has been successful because what people are excited about is the platform, rather than the content itself,” she says.
Aynne Kokas Slate