The Power of the Internet in China

Author: Guobin Yang
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231513143
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 488

Book Description
Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has revolutionized popular expression in China, enabling users to organize, protest, and influence public opinion in unprecedented ways. Guobin Yang's pioneering study maps an innovative range of contentious forms and practices linked to Chinese cyberspace, delineating a nuanced and dynamic image of the Chinese Internet as an arena for creativity, community, conflict, and control. Like many other contemporary protest forms in China and the world, Yang argues, Chinese online activism derives its methods and vitality from multiple and intersecting forces, and state efforts to constrain it have only led to more creative acts of subversion. Transnationalism and the tradition of protest in China's incipient civil society provide cultural and social resources to online activism. Even Internet businesses have encouraged contentious activities, generating an unusual synergy between commerce and activism. Yang's book weaves these strands together to create a vivid story of immense social change, indicating a new era of informational politics.

The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China

Author: Jacques deLisle
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812223519
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
The Internet and social media are pervasive and transformative forces in contemporary China. The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China explores the changing relationship between China's Internet and social media and its society, politics, legal system, and foreign relations.

The Chinese Internet

Author: Qingning Wang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000203719
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

Book Description
This book discusses the use of the internet in China, the complicated power relations in online political communications, and the interactions and struggles between the government and the public over the use of the internet. It argues that there is a "semi-structured" online public sphere, in which there is a certain amount of equal and liberal political communication, but that the online political debates are also limited by government control and censorship, as well as by inequality and exclusions, and moreover that the government rarely engages in the political debates. Based on extensive original research, and considering specific debates around particular issues, the book analyses how Chinese net-users debate about political issues, how they problematize the government’s actions and policies, what language they use, what online discourses are produced, and how the debates and online discourses are limited. Overall, the book provides a rich picture of the current state of online political communication in China.

Internet Literature in China

Author: Michel Hockx
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538537
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
Since the 1990s, Chinese literary enthusiasts have explored new spaces for creative expression online, giving rise to a modern genre that has transformed Chinese culture and society. Ranging from the self-consciously avant-garde to the pornographic, web-based writing has introduced innovative forms, themes, and practices into Chinese literature and its aesthetic traditions. Conducting the first comprehensive survey in English of this phenomenon, Michel Hockx describes in detail the types of Chinese literature taking shape right now online and their novel aesthetic, political, and ideological challenges. Offering a unique portal into postsocialist Chinese culture, he presents a complex portrait of internet culture and control in China that avoids one-dimensional representations of oppression. The Chinese government still strictly regulates the publishing world, yet it is growing increasingly tolerant of internet literature and its publishing practices while still drawing a clear yet ever-shifting ideological bottom line. Hockx interviews online authors, publishers, and censors, capturing the convergence of mass media, creativity, censorship, and free speech that is upending traditional hierarchies and conventions within China—and across Asia.

The Great Firewall of China

Author: James Griffiths
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1786995387
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
‘Readers will come away startled at just how fragile the online infrastructure we all depend on is and how much influence China wields – both technically and politically' – Jason Q. Ng, author of Blocked on Weibo 'An urgent and much needed reminder about how China's quest for cyber sovereignty is undermining global Internet freedom’ – Kristie Lu Stout, CNN ‘An important and incisive history of the Chinese internet that introduces us to the government officials, business leaders, and technology activists struggling over access to information within the Great Firewall’ – Adam M. Segal, author of The Hacked World Order Once little more than a glorified porn filter, China’s ‘Great Firewall’ has evolved into the most sophisticated system of online censorship in the world. As the Chinese internet grows and online businesses thrive, speech is controlled, dissent quashed, and attempts to organise outside the official Communist Party are quickly stamped out. But the effects of the Great Firewall are not confined to China itself. Through years of investigation James Griffiths gained unprecedented access to the Great Firewall and the politicians, tech leaders, dissidents and hackers whose lives revolve around it. As distortion, post-truth and fake news become old news James Griffiths shows just how far the Great Firewall has spread. Now is the time for a radical new vision of online liberty.

The Internet in China

Author: Zixue Tai
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135869901
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Book Description
The Internet in China examines the cultural and political ramifications of the Internet for Chinese society. The rapid growth of the Internet has been enthusiastically embraced by the Chinese government, but the government has also rushed to seize control of the virtual environment. Individuals have responded with impassioned campaigns against official control of information. The emergence of a civil society via cyberspace has had profound effects upon China--for example, in 2003, based on an Internet campaign, the Chinese Supreme People's Court overturned the ruling of a local court for the first time since the Communist Party came to power in 1949. The important question this book asks is not whether the Internet will democratize China, but rather in what ways the Internet is democratizing communication in China. How is the Internet empowering individuals by fostering new types of social spaces and redefining existing social relations?

China’s Globalizing Internet

Author: Yu Hong
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000686051
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Book Description
This book considers the Chinese internet as an ensemble of ideas, ownership, policies, laws, and interests that intersect with pre-existing global elements and, increasingly, with deepening globalizing imperatives. It extends traditional inquiry about digital China and globalization and encourages closer attention to contestation, shifting international order, transformation of states, and new requirements of global digital capitalism. Across the three foci of history, power, and governance, this book considers the ways the Chinese internet is entangled with transnational capitals, ideas, and institutions, while at the same time manifests a strong globalizing drive. It begins with a historical political economy approach that emphasizes the dialectics between structural imperatives and historical contingency. As for governance, the Chinese state has set out to re-regulate the internet as the network becomes ubiquitous during the nation’s web-oriented digital transformation. Such a state-centric governance model, however, is likely to affect China’s global expansion, apart from the fact that the state is taking an active interest in global internet governance. This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Communication Studies, Politics, Sociology, Economics, Cultural Studies, and Science and Technology Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Chinese Journal of Communication.

China Online

Author: Veronique Michel
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462915183
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Book Description
Dive into China's new internet subculture of tech-savvy, creative digital citizens with China Online! Using Baidu, China's version of Google, young Chinese internet users have invented their own form of digital language. With this book, you can get an insider's view of how the new generation of Chinese youth communicates in code. Author and translator Veronique Michel acts as your guide on a tour of the lifestyles of modern-day Internet groups, or "tribes," including: The "Moonlight" or "Starlight" Tribe The "Low Carbon Footprint" Tribe The "Ants" The "Corporate Insects" The "Diamond Bachelor" China Online describes a youth culture in transition--using humor and creativity to survive in a hugely competitive environment. Michel describes how users enjoy puns, mix languages, and use ingenious "talking numbers" to say more things with fewer keystrokes and characters. There is a great deal that lies under the surface. Learn the secret lingo used by over half a billion young people in China, and be in the know!

Tencent

Author: Min Tang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429514913
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 121

Book Description
In this book, author Min Tang examines the political economy of the China-based leading global Internet giant, Tencent. Tracing the historical context and shaping forces, the book illuminates Tencent’s emergence as a joint creation of the Chinese state and transnational financial capital. Tencent reveals interweaving axes of power on different levels, particularly interactions between the global digital industry and contemporary China. The expansion strategies Tencent has employed—horizontal and vertical integration, diversification and transnationalization—speak to the intrinsic trends of capitalist reproduction and the consistent features of the political economy of communications. The book also pinpoints two emerging and entangling trends— transnationalization and financialization—as unfolding trajectories of the global political economy. Understanding Tencent’s dynamics of growth helps to clarify the complex nature of China’s contemporary transformation and the multifaceted characteristics of its increasingly globalized Internet industry. This short and highly topical research volume is perfect for students and scholars of of global media, political economy, and Chinese business, media and communication, and society.

The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China

Author: Jacques deLisle
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812292669
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
The Internet and social media are pervasive and transformative forces in contemporary China. Nearly half of China's 1.3 billion citizens use the Internet, and tens of millions use Sina Weibo, a platform similar to Twitter or Facebook. Recently, Weixin/Wechat has become another major form of social media. While these services have allowed regular people to share information and opinions as never before, they also have changed the ways in which the Chinese authorities communicate with the people they rule. China's party-state now invests heavily in speaking to Chinese citizens through the Internet and social media, as well as controlling the speech that occurs in that space. At the same time, those authorities are wary of the Internet's ability to undermine the ruling party's power, organize dissent, or foment disorder. Nevertheless, policy debates and public discourse in China now regularly occur online, to an extent unimaginable a decade or two ago, profoundly altering the fabric of China's civil society, legal affairs, internal politics, and foreign relations. The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China explores the changing relationship between China's cyberspace and its society, politics, legal system, and foreign relations. The chapters focus on three major policy areas—civil society, the roles of law, and the nationalist turn in Chinese foreign policy—and cover topics such as the Internet and authoritarianism, "uncivil society" online, empowerment through new media, civic engagement and digital activism, regulating speech in the age of the Internet, how the Internet affects public opinion, legal cases, and foreign policy, and how new media affects the relationship between Beijing and Chinese people abroad. Contributors: Anne S. Y. Cheung, Rogier Creemers, Jacques deLisle, Avery Goldstein, Peter Gries, Min Jiang, Dalei Jie, Ya-Wen Lei, James Reilly, Zengzhi Shi, Derek Steiger, Marina Svensson, Wang Tao, Guobin Yang, Chuanjie Zhang, Daniel Xiaodan Zhou.