Abstracts

Min JIANG, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina: Caught in the Authoritarian Web? Spaces and Dynamics of Online Public Deliberationin China

“Without legitimacy, words are invalid; invalid words lead man to nowhere” (Mingbuzheng ze yanbushun; yanbushun ze shibucheng).

In 1994, China became connected to the World Wide Web. By mid-1998, Chinese Internet users reached one million. Ten years later in 2008, China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest Internet market with 253 million users, 19% of its population (China Internet Network Information Center [CNNIC], 2008). The exponential growth of the information sector helped China leapfrog into the digital age and galvanized its economy. However, it also amplified voices of the masses. The one-party state has every reason to fear as the Editor-in-Chief of People’s Net remarked in 2006: “What would it look like if everybody went into politics? … China has more than 100 million Internet users. If they were all free to speak their minds, we would have a very serious situation” (quote from Lagerkvist, 2006, p.9). Foreseeing fear of this sort, President Reagan predicted back in 1989 that “[t]he Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip,” (quoted from Kalathil & Boas, 2003, p.5). Yet despite the doom and gloom about the regime’s fate upon the arrival of information technology, it seems the Chinese government has so far managed to weave and guard a sophisticated authoritarian web (Boas, 2006) through various means of censorship. On the other hand, however, the state’s high level of Internet regulation runs against an impressive degree of Internet activism (Yang, 2006) that has led the famed Chinese blogger Roland Song to believe that “the dam is leaking all over the place” (2008).

Online public discussion and debate of social, political, and policy issues is not a unique Western phenomenon. If such practices are promised to expand the public sphere and elevate democratic practice in the West (Chambers, 2003), do they hold any potential for China, a society under the watchful eye of an authoritarian or neo-authoritarian state? What are some of the spaces for public discourse, however limited, that have contributed to a burgeoning online public sphere on Chinese Internet despite government censorship and control? In what ways has online public discourse among Chinese Internet users challenged the state? What are the political parameters of such public discourses? And what implications do they have for social and political liberalization of China, if not political democratization in the one-party dominated state?

This article explores the spaces, dynamics, and implications of online public deliberation in a rapidly changing Chinese society. I draw upon Western theories of public sphere and public deliberation and discuss their implications for Chinese online public discourses. In his earlier writings, Habermas (1989, 1996) described public sphere as a social space where private individuals are able to engage in rational debate to reach a consensus free from coercion. Among Habermas’s various critics, Nancy Fraser (1990) argued that strong publics, those whose discourse encompasses both opinion-formation and decision-making should be differentiated from weak publics, whose deliberative practice consists exclusively in opinion-formation and does not encompass decision-making. Recently, Habermas (2005) also speaks of two types of political deliberation: “(a) among citizens within the informal public sphere and (b) among politicians or representatives within formal settings” (p. 388). While online public deliberation in Chinese contexts rarely amounts to that of strong publics, opinion-formation based on informal conversations between netizens approach weak publics. This paper focuses on the latter and investigates how a sense of community and public reason become possible (Kim & Kim, 2008) in such social spaces.

This does not suggest that such spaces are free from either government or commercial influence or encroachment. On the contrary, the article extends the concept of authoritarian deliberation developed by Baogang He (2006a & 2006b) for China’s offline deliberative experiences to Chinese cyberspace. This concept helps distinguish the oftentimes constrained political discussions that characterize the online Chinese public spaces from those in more advanced democracies that uphold the rights of free speech. In doing so the author examines how China’s peculiar social and political contexts shape Chinese deliberative spaces and dynamics. The paper proposes that there are three major types of spaces for authoritarian deliberation extending from the core to the peripheries of authoritarian rule: central propaganda spaces, government-commercial hybrid spaces, and commercial-civic spaces. These spaces, to different degrees, are exposed to undue influences of the state and bureaucratic capitalism and as a result acquire different characteristics and dynamics. Yet it is in these very spaces that Chinese netizens discuss and debate social, political, and policy issues. Such dialogic deliberation, or everyday political talk, does not always amount to what Yang (2008) calls “Internet contentions,” radical forms of claim-making communicative actions widely known in Chinese media as “Internet incidents” (wangluo shijian) or “mass incidents” (qunti shijians). However, this form of deliberation, helps citizens understand one another, enhances public opinion formation, and bridges their private lives to the larger political world.

In the various online spaces of authoritarian deliberation, not only do citizens engage in information politics, symbolic politics, leverage politics, and accountability politics (Yang, 2006), the Chinese state employs similar counter tactics of informational, symbolic, and legitimacy politics. It is undoubtedly important to examine how individuals and social groups, often from the margins of the society, gain access to public discourse, articulate their problems and opinions and in some instances, drive public debates, it is equally vital to scrutinize in the same instance how the state apparatus reacts to harmonize social frictions, channel online public discourses to support government policies and agendas, and consciously construct a more open image of the government. It is through these very interactions between the state, business, and civic sectors that resources are deployed, rules are negotiated, and precedents are set. The paper utilizes several cases studies of online public deliberation to explore how these sectors engage in three major types of social and political discourses prominent in Chinese contexts: nationalism, exposure of corruption, violations of the rights of vulnerable individuals. By doing so, the paper provides insight into the peculiarities of the spaces and dynamics of Chinese public deliberation and directs attention to instances where individuals and civic groups effectively garner social attention and mobilize public opinion.

Yuan LE and Boxu YANG, New Media Research Laboratory, Centre for Creative Industries Studies, Peking University: Online Political Discussion and Left-Right Ideological Debate: A Comparative Study of Two Major Chinese BBS Forums

Introduction

While it is of an old and fading Internet platform in many countries, Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) has been enjoying tremendous popularity among millions of Chinese Internet users for the enthusiastic discussion on social and political issues.. In such discussions, we notice that the BBS users are sensitive to the ideological groups. We can find it from some labels frequently appearing in the online discourse, such as “Shit Left”（左粪）, “Cynical Right”（右愤）, “Fifty Cents”（五毛 - refers to the official online commentator hired by government for directing public opinion in BBS forums, and it is said that the pay of the job is fifty cents per post） and “Online Secret Agent”（网特 - refers to the secret agent hired by foreign countries in BBS forum, who intentionally post anti- China content online） , etc. In addition, historical issues are increasingly reopened in the online political discussion, especially those referring to Mao or his Cultural Revolution. Many topics are aiming to propose the reappraisal of the rights and wrongs of some official-claimed traitors(汉奸). These topics and discourse obviously have their deep roots in the ideological combat in Chinese history, and thus attract us to explore the association between such historical ideological conflicts and current online political discourse. For example, does the Left-Right ideological combat in history still influence or even dominate current online political discussion? In the new social context, how are Left-Right ideological contestations presented in an online environment?

As part of a systematic research of BBS forums, this paper does not intend to answer all of the questions above, but argues that the in-depth studies of online political discussion should be based on the understandings of ideological groups existing in the BBS forums. Therefore, this study sets out from the conceptualization of “political ideology”, then reviews the trajectories and varied criteria of classification in Left/Right political spectrums, and finally selects two of the most influential political BBS forums for content analysis. This study aims for mapping the ideological groups in the online political discussion. We try to identify whether the Left/Right-voice-dominated forums exist, and compare the different characteristics between them.

1. Ideology and Left-Right political classification
   The term “ideology” was coined by de Tracy and firstly used to refer to the “science of idea” (Kennedy, 1979). Many scholars, including Marx, Mannheim, etc., have contributed to the conceptualization of ideology. Generally speaking, “political ideology” is normally defined as an interrelated set of attitudes and values about the proper goals of society and how they should be achieved (Tedin, 1987). Typically, each type of ideology respectively contains certain ideas on what are considered to be the best government form and the best economy system. Ideologies also identify themselves by their position on the political spectrum. Left-Right political spectrum is a common way of classifying political ideologies, which can be traced back to the French Revolution era. The meaning of the terms “left” and “right” in a political context has changed radically over time. The Right is generally against intentionally political, economic and social change, while the Left is in favor of it (Tansey, 2000). Some commentators, such as Norberto Bobbio, have argued that the key difference between left and right is that the Left prioritizes social equality, while the Right prioritizes individual responsibility and proposes the maintenance of natural and inherent inequalities among people. Bobbio also makes it clear, however, that “left” and “right” are not absolute terms, which meanings vary with countries and periods (Bobbio, 1997). Therefore, the conceptions and criteria originated from and evolved in the western countries have also inevitably assimilated the local meanings in Chinese social context over time.
2. The Evolution of Chinese Left-Right ideological debate
   The Left-Right political classification in China has deeply entrenched in the pursuit of modernization in this country. In the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese intellectuals introduced two different political thoughts—progressivism and Marxism, for steering the struggle of decolonization. The two ideological sources increasingly polarized in the New Cultural Movement and May Fourth Movement. As Gu says, the debate of what is the real spirit of May Fourth Movement has facilitated the antinomy between liberalism and socialism (Gu, 1992). In the following era, the combat between Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party had evolved ideological debate to the struggle of “Three people’s principles” versus “Marxism”, “capitalism” versus “socialism”. The establishment of People’s Republic of China brought the liberal force into the lowest level, while Marxism and the radical-left interpretation of it by Mao Zedong gained the orthodox status in China, which reached the peak in the Cultural Revolution. With the collapse of Mao’s ideology on his death, the liberal idea came to renaissance. Chinese Reform and Open-door Policy proposed in 1978 implies the right-wing liberalism gradually gained the dominance in economic domain. However, with the rise of Chinese New Left in the context of globalization, the debate between Chinese liberalism and New Left arose in 1990s. Simultaneous with these two main combating thoughts, old radical leftism, nationalism and cultural conservatism also got their positions in this vast and comprehensive debate. And all of these thoughts and debates constituted a roughly panoramic view of the political discourse on the Internet in China(Xu, 2004).
3. Chinese online political groups
   1. Liberals and New Left
      As the main force of right wings, liberals articulate the individual rights and freedom, stress the importance of legislative institutions, support free market, and propose to balance and monitor governmental power (Xu, 2006). However, New Leftists criticize that China has been involved into globalization, which makes capitalism overrun. Contrary to liberals, they defend for Mao’s policies, such as Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward Movements etc., and advocate the institutional innovations from Maoism (Zhu, 2003). Xu further concludes that the debate of liberalism and New Left mainly focuses on the attitudes toward the following seven issues: (1) market economy and social inequality; (2) globalization and participating in WTO; (3) the situation of China; (4) Great Leap Forward Movement, People’s Commune System and Cultural Revolution; (5) Thoughts Liberation Movement in 1980s and May Fourth Movement in 1919; (6) Modernization in China; (7) a set of international issues related to the thoughts of extreme nationalism (Xu, 2004).
   2. Old Left
      It is noted that there are several sub-groups within the leftists. One is the old Leftists, who adhere to Marxism originally interpreted by Mao and executed during approximately the first twenty years of PRC’s existence. They share the same legacy of Marxism with the New Left, although they use the ‘different language’ (Gan, 2003): Old Left use traditional Marxist language, while New Left use the language coming from western humanities and social science.
   3. Nationalism
      

      Chinese online political groups have affinity with the thought of nationalism, and the revival of nationalism also intimately relates to the rise of the Internet. With the happening of some international events (One of the most important events is that the Chinese embassy in the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, has been hit and set on fire during Nato air strikes on the city on May 7th, 1999. This event intrigued nationalistic emotions all over the China) in 1999, nationalistic emotions were on the upsurge in China. In this background, the website that belongs to People’s Daily (bbs.people.com) established Qiangguo BBS forum for political discussion. From then on, online political discourse has been activated, and the establishment of Qiangguo forum in 1999 is also regarded as the symbol of routinization of online nationalistic activities (Wang, 2006).

      However, the meaning of “nationalism” is always synonymous with “patriotism” in China. What we called Chinese nationalism usually refers to the ideology that tends to favor a “national/foreign” or “China/West” paradigm which emphasizes “independent, unified and strong China”. Differing from liberals who tend to argue in favor of market/state paradigm, New Left and Chinese nationalism both tend to support the role of one-party state, the value of collectivism, the importance of holding the multi-ethnic Chinese state together (Yu, 2006), and explain many things by attributing to “American Hegemony”. Therefore, Chinese nationalism in the online political discussion is always considered to be another sub-group of the Left (Zheng, 2003). Actually, nationalistic ideologies also include the ethnic conflicts between Majority Han and Minorities in China. Due to its opposite attitude towards the issue of unified China and its favor in independent and liberal political ideologies, they are usually classified to the right group by online discussants.

   4. Cultural Conservatism
      

      In recent years, the voices adhering to the traditional cultural resources, particularly Confucianism, also draw attention on the Internet, and the thought is named as “cultural conservatism” by some scholars (see Xu, 2006). The main controversy about this thought is on whether the neoConfucianism can really embrace liberalism. Some argue that modern neoConfucianism aims for pursuit of “transformation of modernity”, but the inherited spirits of Confucian are far from the “free” and “equal” characteristics of modern society (Wei, 2007). Xu also doubts the “Political Confucian” can be applied, but expects that the “Cultural Confucian” has a bright future. Hence, cultural conservatism cannot be simply categorized as Left or Right. As Qin points out, the key point is how to define “tradition” (Qin, 2006). Indeed, cultural conservatism and liberalism share the same value on traditional culture, such as both accepting the importance of traditional artifacts, but they are still in tension, particularly in the institutional level.

      By now, we have reviewed the main ideological thoughts from history to current online political discussion in China. For better illustration of online political groups in the BBS forums, we combine the Left-Right political classification with current online political context as following figure:

      Figure 1: Classification of Chinese Online Political Groups
      

      Therefore, we argue that the classification of Left-Right political groups is not only associated with the ideological conflicts in history, but also influenced by the important events that happened in current social-political domain. And in this process, online political engagement is considered to play the very important role in generating political discourse.

4. Online Political Engagement
   

   With the rise of Internet and online “virtual community” (Rheingold, 1993), Left-Right ideological contestations have potential to be moved from intellectuals to a broader scale of the Internet users in China. However, there is still few empirical research of online political engagement in China that focuses on the classification of ideologies and its related influences. As to BBS forum in facilitating citizenship, some illustrative case studies have been done. Guo (2002) examined the 24-hour attitudes of discussants in Qiangguo Forum after 9/11, and found that the nationalistic emotions did not lead to widespread schadenfreude. Instead, majority of the voices were rational comments, and only a few discussants opposed American foreign policies. Gu (2006) also found that the nationalistic group in the BBS forums is named as “online young cynic”, who strongly criticize a set of social problems and produce the impression of Left nationalists (Gu, 2006). The researches above at least imply that there are some ideological groups existing in the Chinese BBS forums. We also notice that Left-Right political groups tend to polarize in different BBS forums and a special online political forum is usually dominated by some particular political groups. However, there is no empirical study to test such intuitional judgments. Therefore, we are trying to propose the two hypotheses below to test and illustrate the current status of Chinese online political groups:

   H1: There exist Left/Right-voice-dominated BBS forums in the online political discussion.

   H2: The agendas of respective Left/Right forums have significant differences. And the Left forum prefers the issues of “People’s Welfare” and “Social inequality”, while the Right forum prefers the issue of “liberal democracy”.

Methods

1. Sampling

   This study select the two major Chinese BBS forums—“Qiangguo Forum” (bbs.people.com) and “Maoyan Kanren Forum” (work.cat898.com) as the research subjects. Our purposive selection is mainly based on the following reasons: (1) The two forums are both well-known and influential political forums; (2) Furthermore, because of the background of its establishment, Qiangguo Forum is considered to be the active public platform for Left nationalists; and Maoyan Kanren Forum is also regarded as the online community in which right-wing users would like to go. Therefore, the two BBS forums are expected to reflect the mapping of Chinese online political groups to some extent.

   In addition, the study adopts the method of multi-stage cluster sampling, and collects data, including posts and corresponding replies, from the two BBS forums in January, 2008. We have acquired valid samples of 394 posts and 1291 replies in total.

2. Operationalization

   Left-Right ideologies usually closely associate with the important issues in the specific social context, so we try to introduce the variable “political orientation” to classify the types of ideologies from the debate of some controversial issues. According to the literature reviewed above and the current social context, we code the data into 14 categories from political, economic, social and cultural domain, including three added ones: “historical issue”, “mass media” and “natural environment”. Based on the categories, we further develop 37 indicators to identify the Left-Right political orientation by both keywords and replies.

   In addition, we also refer to the factors of “radicalism” and “tender-mindedess” identified in Eysenck’s research of political attitude (Eysenck, 1956). Considering the great influence of China/West paradigm on Chinese ideological classification, “China” (government/nation) and “West” (particularly America) are used to be the indicators to further classify the “radical” or “moderate” political orientations:

   1. Radical Left: support a strong and unified Chinese state or nation; oppose the current Chinese governmental policies; intensively criticize traditional culture; and express the antipathy of western political and economic institutions.
   2. Moderate Left: support a strong and unified Chinese state or nation; in favor of current Chinese governmental policies; promote traditional culture; but refuse the western political and economic institutions.
   3. Middle: take the neutral standpoint or have no attitude.
   4. Moderate Right: accept the legitimacy of Chinese government, but oppose the overemphasis on the strong and unified nation-state; advocate the critical reflection on traditional culture; and call for using western political and economic institutions for reference.
   5. Radical Right: oppose the legitimacy of Chinese government, against the standpoint of a strong and unified nation-state; intensively criticize traditional culture; and to the utmost advocate following the western (particularly American) political and economicinstitutions.

SHI Zengzhi, Professor, School of Journalism and Communication; Executive Director, Center for Civil Society Studies, Peking University: Chinese Citizenship Embodied through Media Issues Induced by the Internet

Media issues induced by the Internet, which have been frequently occurring and whose influences have reached out to the entire Chinese nation, constitute media spectacle subverting and even decomposing the currently social system and structure in China, which fully embodies the social transformation and evolution that China is undergoing. As is pointed out by scholars, since the 1990s, the Internet and civil society have been developing hand in hand in China; therefore, the occurrence of media issues induced by the Internet in China are closely related to the emergence and development of civil society which calls for reforms on social systems and mechanisms and apparently, cannot be achieved overnight. However, the development of new media such as the Internet provides Chinese citizens with a space different from the traditional public arenas; new media provides people with more channels and opportunities to participate in public affairs. The public opinion fields on the Internet, brought about by media issues, break through the restrictions produced by the traditional political, economic, cultural, and academic fields as well as the corresponding social structures and orders and melt down the distinction between the public space and the private space in the traditional society, and citizen participation has become inevitable for the formation of public opinion fields. In this sense, citizens’ morality, ethics, tolerance, gratitude, stands of social responsibility, mutual understanding, solidarity and capability of participating in public affairs reflected by the awareness of citizenship and their characters and qualities embodied in the public opinion fields on the Internet mean a reconfiguration of citizens’ rights and obligations, reflect the developing process of civil society, and become the bases of the study of civil society. They also provide a new perspective for perceiving the games that various interest groups have been staging during the current period of social transformation. In other words, morality and ethics has become the important bases and means of civic engagement and citizen participation, which is more realistically significant than the reforms on social systems and mechanisms and meanwhile, provides a profound social foundation for the evolution of social systems and mechanisms. Based upon such a theoretical perception and applied mainly multi-sited ethnography on the Internet, content analysis and text analysis as methodologies to two cases, this paper hereby puts forth and looks into the questions as what kind of relationship between the communicative behaviors of citizen participation in media events and the transformation of society, what kind of citizenship they reflect, how citizenship is embodied, and how the construction of citizenship is related to the development of civil society and even, to the development of all aspects of society?

Hang ten LIAO: Special Speech Zones in the Chinese-Written Internet

Internet as a whole has increasingly become a major case in evaluating the economic and political achievement of the Beijing’s "reform and openness". Usually the central question is whether politics in China become more open because of the economic reform. For example, Zheng (2007) argues that Internet is likely to contribute to political liberalization but not necessarily democra-tisation, whereas Zhao (2008) and Schiller (2008) argue that Internet, as part of the larger media and cultural industry, is likely to be appropriated by China’s urban middle class, not to oppose authoritarian state, but to contain domestic social conflicts. Such two views reflect MacKinnon (2008)’s observation that bloggers in China tend to see political freedom online as “the glass half full” as opposed to half empty. It appears any evaluation of political openness is increasingly complicated and likely subjective. However, such problem could simply be over-generalization about China and Internet. Given the fact that the economic and Internet development is uneven in the Chinese-speaking world, there is no reason to expect the political development will be smooth or even “homogenous”. In addition, both the gradual liberalization hypothesis (exemplified by Zheng and MacKinnon) and the unpredictable conflicts hypothesis (exemplified by Zhao and Schiller) are formulated before the world economic crisis in 2008. It is thus critical to hold the impulse to generalize about China and Internet and to understand how the uneven economic development may have different political development across Chinese-speaking regions. In other words, researchers may have to use various “glasses” across regions and social groups to see how some people may be upset when some glasses are fuller than the other. A finer conceptual framework that addresses such critical nuances is thus needed. So are comparative studies that may provide some insights about the ultimate general concern of political openness.

The purpose of this paper is to develop concepts and conduct a case study in order to evaluate Beijing’s "reform and openness" policy’s influence on the political openness and freedom in Chinese-written Internet. In the study, the political openness and freedom will first be explored and evaluated using the conceptual framework of “zoning” to encompass the social phenomenon of household registration, regional/dialect discrimination, special administra-tive/economic zones and Internet filtering. At the same time, a comparative case study of two major Chinese-written online encyclopedias, Baidu Baike and Chinese Wikipedia, will be presented by analyzing the relationship between Internet filtering and their development history, and the interaction between internal editorial processes and external speech regulation environment. The reason for combining a theoretical discussion and a case study is to better understand the implications of the uneven “openness” with theoretical improvement and substantial evidence.

The first set of questions aims to develop the connections between zoning and political openness. What is the meaning of zoning in describing openness and control? Why legal scholars Lessig & Resnick (1999) prefer the concepts of “zoning” Internet speech over censoring or filtering? Why anthropologist Ong (2004:70) coins the term “zoning technologies” to describe Beijing’s strategy to “economically integrate disarticulated political entities as a detour toward eventual political integration”. If such zoning technologies, as Ong (2004) argues, are flexible enough to integrate political entities such as Hong Kong, Macao, and even Taiwan and Singapore, into an “Chinese axis”, then they should be more than appropriate to address the domestic social conflicts inside mainland that are related to urbanization and growing sentiment of “regional discrimination” (地域歧视). Has Internet played an integrative or a divisive role? Can Internet overcome or rather reinforce these differences caused by zoning technologies in China? In general, is “speech zoning” intrinsically contradictory with “free speech” as in the recent phenomenon of “free speech zones” in the United States?

This article argues that the concept of zoning can capture the dynamics of Beijing’s controlled experiment with openness in social, political and economic arenas. It thus has multi-fold implications. First, three layers of city nodes could be roughly categorised according to the socio-economic value of their membership, Internet filtering, and political openness. Second, researchers can better evaluate both the political liberalization and conflicts, and thus possibly make exiting conclusions more sensible and complimentary. Third, without resorting to the usual terms of “self-censorship” or “Great Firewall”, which may be deemed bias, the term “zoning” seems neutral while capturing some of the worldwide economic and political practices. Fourth, the concept of zoning may be used to address not only the economic and political tensions between Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Taipei and Beijing, but also those between urban-rural divide inside mainland.

To test the concept, the study compares two major Chinese-written online encyclopedia, Baidu Baike and Chinese Wikipedia. They are chosen for empirical and theoretical reasons. Empirically they dominate major search engine results. Theoretically, online encyclopedias, like search engines, could be seen as a dynamic index to the whole Internet based on Chinese-written terms. The difference between the two may be the fact that the former relies on editorial content and the latter depends on computer algorithm. However, the difference may be blurred in the future as major search engines attempt to build knowledge repositories and Wikipedia has developed its own search engine. Hence, both can be conceptualized as a certain technical and linguistic configuration for users to access the information online. Studying Chinese-written online encyclopedia is thus necessary to see how such technical and linguistic configuration has been influenced by zoning technologies.

It is then no surprise that the development history of the two online encyclopaedias is intertwined with search engine competition and Beijing’s Internet filtering. Further analysis of the editorial policies and mechanism clearly indicates the zoning effects. In addition, it is also confirmed by the distribution of external links across regions and Chinese orthography: Based on randomly-selected 1,100 entries, Baidu Baike’s external links are less diverse both in linguistic and regional terms. Hence, it is argued that Internet can play an integrative or a divisive role, depending on how the zoning technologies are designed and executed.

Hal ROBERTS, Ethan ZUCKERMAN, John PALFREY, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University: Circumvention Landscape Report: Methods, Tools and Uses

Over the past fifteen years, the internet has transformed from an academic curiosity to an essential engine for commerce and a major platform for free expression, both globally and in China. As China and other counties have connected to the internet, their governments have discovered speech they find threatening, unsettling or counter to national values and norms and have taken measures to limit citizen access to a subset of websites. In the past five years, government filtering of the internet has become endemic. The Open Net Initiative, a research project founded by Jonathan Zittrain as well as Ron Deibert (Toronto), John Palfrey (HLS), and Rafal Rohozinski (Cambridge) and housed, in part, at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, now tracks filtering in forty nations including China (http://opennet.net/research). China now has a vast and complex system which involves filtering international websites as well as pervasive censorship by Chinese internet companies of content published within the nation (http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=23924). As filtering has become more pervasive, a number of efforts have emerged to produce circumvention tools and distribute them to potential users. These tools are likely used by a few million people, mostly from China and other countries where the internet is filtered by the government in concert with private parties, to get access to filtered content. It’s easy to understand why governments and human rights funders would be interested in supporting censorship circumvention tools. As discourse shifts from traditional media to new participatory media, the ability to access and create online information becomes equivalent to the ability to read, listen, and speak freely.

We have produced a report on the functionality of ten circumvention tools, including lab tests and field tests in South Korea, Vietnam and two cities in China. The report includes a narrative description of theoretical approaches to filtering and circumvention as well as separate technical analysis report on each of the following tools: Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing, Anonymizer China, Dynaweb Freegate, Ultrareach, Circumventor/CGIProxy, Psiphon, JAP, Tor, Coral, Hamachi.

Work began on this report almost two years ago, and at this point, some of the information presented here is out of date. This report is certainly no longer a comprehensive overview of the field – important new tools have been introduced that we did not have a chance to evaluate. The Berkman Center requested permission from the study’s sponsors to release this report to the general public because no comparable research on the effectiveness of circumvention tools exist, and we believe the methodology pioneered here will be useful for any future projects evaluating these tools.

• Best of breed tools: Ultrareach, Psiphon, Tor
• Interesting, competent tools: Dynaweb, Anonymizer
• Broken tools: JAP, Circumventor, Hamachi, Coral

The five tools recommended all use a variant of the same basic technology to circumvent internet filtering – the combination of a proxy and encryption. “Proxy” refers to the use of a third computer (aside from the user’s computer, and the web server she’s trying to reach) to retrieve a webpage. Because her computer is prevented from reaching the web server, she reaches a proxy, the proxy fetches the desired web page and delivers it to her. “Encryption” refers to encoding a webpage so that anyone attempting to block it cannot read the content and detect sensitive keywords.

• Centralized vs. Peer-to-Peer Performance. Some tools (Anonymizer, Ultrareach, Dynaweb) use a set of centralized servers as proxies. Other tools (Tor, JAP, Circumventor, Psiphon) rely on peer-to-peer technology to allow volunteers to use their own computers as proxies. The choice of how to host proxy servers has important impacts on the performance of the tools.
• Trust. In most proxy systems, the person or organization managing the proxy has the ability to monitor what content a user is looking at and can filter what the user accesses. Centralized systems require the user to trust the operator of the centralized servers. Tor and JAP rely on an architecture of multiple proxies to hide some user data. Psiphon and Circumventor require the user to trust the operator of the particular node accessed by the user.
• Discovery and Blocking Resistance. Countries that filter the net tend to block access to internet circumvention tools as well. To solve this problem, tools use sophisticated methods to distribute the locations of new proxies, including automated discovery, mailing lists, chat systems and bulletin boards.

Future Research
We believe the methods we advance in this paper to study the effectiveness of circumvention tools should be applied to a broader set of tools and repeated on an annual basis. We strongly advocate that any work in this field include field testing as well as lab testing, as our statistics showed that performance in censored countries was difficult to reproduce in lab testing. We believe a regular process to test tools in censored nations would provide a useful data set both for end users and for tool developers, governments, companies and foundations that wish to support free speech. Looking to the future, we now think it likely that simple web proxies represent at least as great if not greater proportion of circumvention tool usage as do the more sophisticated tools included in this report. An assumption of this report was that only users at the margins would rely on simple proxies because of the trouble of constantly finding new proxies as old ones were blocked by countries. We now have some evidence that that assumption is false (both that users are not using the simple proxies and that filtering countries are blocking simple proxies quickly). We think that any followup studies of the technology of circumvention tools, like that in this study, should rely on a better understanding of which tools are actually used, how they are used, and why people use them.

Rebecca MacKinnon, Assistant Professor, University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre: China’s Censorship 2.0: How Companies Censor Bloggers

This study explores an under-studied layer of Chinese Internet censorship: how Chinese Internet companies censor user-generated content, usually by deleting it or preventing its publication. Systematic testing of Chinese blog service providers reveals that domestic censorship is very decentralized with wide variation from company to company. Test results also showed that a great deal of politically sensitive material survives in the Chinese blogosphere, and that chances for its survival can likely be improved with knowledge and strategy. It concludes that choices and actions by private individuals and companies can have a significant impact on the overall balance of freedom and control in the Chinese blogosphere.

Karin Karlekar and Sarah Cook, Freedom House: Assessing the Chinese Internet in a Comparative Perspective: Findings of Freedom House's Pilot Index of Global Internet Freedom

Over the past generation, the influence of internet-based communications as a means of disseminating news and information has steadily expanded worldwide. The internet has become the principal alternative and challenger to media hegemony in systems where media control has been the standard, as well as a vital tool for mobilization for civil society and activists around the world. The monumental growth in internet usage over the past decade has triggered a clear response from governments seeking to limit citizens' access to this new medium. In order to better respond to these emerging challenges to internet freedom, it is first essential to have a clearer diagnosis of the issues at hand and situation on the ground.

For these reasons, Freedom House has embarked on an effort to develop the first comprehensive, comparative, and numerically based set of indicators for monitoring and analyzing internet freedom--an Index of Global Internet Freedom (IGIF). In order to accommodate the influence of fast-changing technologies, the index encompasses not only the internet but also other ICTs, such as mobile telephones, that are used to disseminate news and information.

• Obstacles to Access--including legal and ownership control over internet service providers (ISPs), and infrastructural and economic barriers to access.
• Controls on Content--including legal regulations on content, filtering and blocking of websites, self-censorship, and the vibrancy/diversity of online news media.
• Violations of Users' Rights--including surveillance, privacy, and repercussions for online activity, such as imprisonment or fines.

Captured in the methodology are not only actions of governments but also "push back" indicators that seek to evaluate the vibrancy, diversity, and activism of the ICT domain in a country, regardless or in spite of state efforts to restrict usage. While a primary focus is on political communication, the use of technology for broader social mobilization, as well as by minorities, is also considered.

Following this newly developed methodology, Freedom House is preparing the publication of a pilot report of 15 countries across six regions: China, India, and Malaysia in Asia; Cuba and Brazil in Latin America; Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran in the Middle East and North Africa; Kenya and South Africa in Sub-Saharan Africa; Russia, Estonia, and Georgia in the Former Soviet Union; and the UK and Turkey in Europe. Each country report will include a composite numerical score and a country report providing narrative detail on the points covered by the methodology questions. The report is scheduled for release in March 2009.

Application to China and Chinese Civil Society

Given the diversity, complexity, and sheer size of online communications in China, much of the analysis on the issue is often focused on the Chinese internet itself, with less attention paid to placing ICT use and government efforts to control it within a broader comparative perspective. Freedom House's pilot Index of Global Internet Freedom seeks to fill this gap.

As part of this conference, we propose to present the findings of the pilot index, addressing three aspects in particular: the methodology and indicators used to assess ICT freedom in the study; the numerical and narrative findings on China; and the placement of these findings within a larger comparative lens.

In particular, regarding the latter aspect, we will address questions such as: in what ways is the Chinese internet freer than elsewhere? In what ways is it less free? What are the primary challenges facing internet users in China, particularly among civil society actors? How is this similar or different to the obstacles facing their counterparts in other countries and regions?

As this is a pilot index, in addition to presenting our findings, Freedom House hopes to take advantage of the unique collection of internet experts to be gathered at the conference in order to receive valuable feedback, particularly regarding the newly developed methodology. Such insight would be highly beneficial in progressing towards more precise and useful assessments of internet freedom going forward.

Dave Lyons, Masters Candidate, Rutgers University: China's Golden Shield Project: Myths, Realities and Context

“The official name for the entire approach, which is ostensibly a way to keep hackers and other rogue elements from harming Chinese Internet users, is the “Golden Shield Project.” Since that term is too creepy to bear repeating, I’ll use “the control system” for the overall strategy, which includes the “Great Firewall of China,” or GFW, as the means of screening contact with other countries.”

A great deal has been written in English language media about the People's Republic of China's Golden Shield Project (金盾工程) since it was launched in 1998. This paper will explore three vital issues that have too often been neglected. First, a great number of articles have mistakenly equated the Golden Shield Project with what is colloquially known as “The Great Firewall” and China's efforts at controlling Chinese citizens access to the Internet . In fact, the Golden Shield Project is more appropriately described as an attempt to 'informatize' law enforcement in China, primarily through the creation of national databases, in which Internet policing is only one small component. This project, in turn, is only one of many Golden projects of massive digital overhaul of the entire PRC bureaucracy. The second unexplored issue to be addressed will the historical context of bureaucracy, identity and forgery in Chinese history. While previous work has focused on Western corporate complicity in providing China with technology that is used for censorship and surveillance, none has examined the longstanding importance of census taking, household registration and other information collecting in the organization and policing of traditional Chinese society. Finally, there is the comparative experience of China and Western nations, in particular the United States, in the 20th Century in developing and implementing modern systems and databases for collecting and sharing information on citizens deemed necessary for the functioning of the state.

Academically, little has been written examining the purpose, structure and organization of the Golden Shield Project, with the notable exception of 'China's Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People's Republic of China', published by Greg Walton of the International Centre Human Rights and Democratic Development in 2001. Walton focused on the role of Western technology companies in providing the Chinese government with the technical capability to monitor and censor Chinese netizens, and his work has since been the de facto reference on Golden Shield for Western media and the U.S. Government. In the eight years that have followed, the Golden Shield Project has progressed rapidly and completed many of its construction and implementation goals. In 2001, the project was still in the early stages, and Walton's paper used English language resources almost exclusively. Since then, there have been numerous reports in the Chinese language media on Golden Shield. This material provides vital information on such aspects of the project as national and regional investment, its interaction with other government agencies such as the Ministry of Information and Industry Technology, the particular national databases being constructed (such as criminal records, fugitive lists, stolen vehicles, drivers licenses, and migration), the role of the second generation national ID card and the battle against a domestic industry of document forgery, interviews with officials, the incorporation of GIS and CCTV technology, the sorts of criminal activity being pursued under the rubric 'Golden Shield', obstacles and limitations (such as the continually increasing IT sophistication of Chinese forgers and too-small lexicons for entering personal names in database records), and the role and integration of Internet monitoring in this context. This paper will not be an exhaustive survey of this material, but will provide some pieces to the puzzle and hopefully provide a framework for future research along the same lines. Other research, such as Rebecca MacKinnon's recent work on the self-censorship policies of Chinese blog service providers, also contributes to the bigger picture by illustrating some of the Internet control responsibilities not managed by the police, but in which the police do sometimes play a supporting role.

The history of bureaucracy and policing in China, from the baojia household registration system in dynastic China to the hukou registration system of the People's Republic, illustrates long held concepts of the administrative functions and informational needs of the state of which the Golden projects are direct descendents, as well as the role of the community in policing behavior deemed inappropriate, just as local PSBs' new 'cyberpolice' websites allow netizens to report websites containing 'harmful information'. The third part of this paper will provide a global context using comparative informational history of the 20th Century, will explore how China is both catching up to the United States, which have gradually developed records on citizens using unique identification (for example, the evolution of the social security system and the emergence of national drivers license databases), and leapfrogging (national ID cards were explicitly developed as universal ID, whereas drivers licenses and social security inadvertently became universally recognized forms of identification), and the implications of China perhaps having the worlds most comprehensive and integrated government databases within a few short years.

Yu HONG: The Representativity of Chinese Online Discussions

This paper tries to answer an important question: can online communities well represent the public? The author compares the demography of the online discussant and the general public and also looks at the compatibility of issues of concern to the two groups. The conclusion is, contrary to what people usually think, online discussions cannot mirror the public opinion.

Key words:

Online discussions; public opinion

本文通过在两个层面对网络讨论者和普通公众予以比较，试图回答一个重要问题：能不能用网上社区代表普通民众？这两个层面分别是：第一，网络讨论者与公众在统计学背景上的相似性；第二，网络讨论者与公众感兴趣的话题的相符性。根据比较的结果，作者认为，网络讨论不能被视为民意的计量器，它甚至都不构成网络社区舆论的计量器。

关键词：

网络讨论；公众舆论

Guobin YANG, Associate Professor, Barnard College/Columbia University: Internet Incidents and Emotional Mobilization in Chinese Cyberspace

Of all aspects of Chinese internet culture, the most important and yet the least understood is its contentious character. Media stories and survey reports have perpetuated two misleading images of the Chinese internet, one of control and the other of entertainment. These two images create the misconception that because of internet control, Chinese internet users do nothing but play. The real struggles of the Chinese people are thus ignored. The radical nature of Chinese internet culture is dismissed. Yet, not only is internet entertainment not apolitical, but political control itself is an arena of struggle. Contention about all other domains of Chinese life fills the Chinese cyberspace and surges out of it.

Of particular importance is China’s contentious cyberspace are the numerous internet incidents (wangluo shijian) in recent years. These contentious events cover a broad range of social and cultural issues and have exerted enormous social, political, and cultural influences. Although scholars have begun to pay attention to these contentious internet events, important theoretical and empirical issues remain unexplored. What are the main features of these internet events? What type of protests do they constitute? What are the mechanisms of mobilization? What is the relative importance of the new media technologies and other social and cultural dynamics in the mobilization of these events? How and why do they achieve broad-based mobilization?

Taking advantage of the newest developments in theories of social movements, this paper explores the dynamics of emotional mobilization in the internet events in Chinese cyberspace. Scholars of social movements have discerned the rise of the so-called “new emotional movements,” where emotions are not only a means but the ends of mobilization. In examining a sample of internet events in Chinese cyberspace, I detect several styles of emotional mobilization, ranging from the prosaic to the playful and the passionate. The paper delineates the main features of online contention in Chinese cyberspace and then uses case studies to explore why internet events have taken on several different styles of emotional mobilization and how different types of emotions are mobilized in different types of contentious incident events. The analysis then raises and explores the broader question of why emotions have become such a central part of contention in Chinese cyberspace and why it is in cyberspace and not elsewhere that they find their most powerful expression.

Elisa OREGLIA, Ph.D Student, School of Information, UC Berkeley: Exploring the Digital Divide Among Migrant Women in Beijing

In the mid-1990s, the concept of Digital Divide became a popular, if simplistic, way to describe lack of access to new technologies. Since then, a much more nuanced understanding of the idea has emerged: digital divide is not only lack of access, but also a wide range of objective and subjective difficulties in using new technologies; in this formulation, it remains a very useful lens to view the challenges and opportunities presented by different technologies. This paper focuses on the digital divide that emerges from the lack of empowerment vis-à-vis new technologies, and in particular the internet, experienced by a group of young Chinese migrant women in Beijing. It is based on eight weeks of observation and interviews of six women in their early twenties, which took place in Beijing in the summer of 2007, and on email exchanges that have followed since. The women I worked with have migrated to Beijing from different provinces, and work in the service industry. Three of them moved to the city to help support their families, and are sending part of their wages back home; the other three moved with a self-realization goal in mind, to find good jobs and improve their chances in life, and without any financial obligation toward their family of origin. The shift from the former “need-based” to the latter “desire-driven” migration shapes the way these women perceive their jobs and their income, but not necessarily the access they have to new technologies and the use they make of them. They all own mobile phones, although of different brands and sophistication, and they can all have access to the internet through work or through internet cafes. However, their use of the internet is shaped by many factors: whether or not they have someone to accompany them to the internet café, whether or not they know how to use a browser, whether or not they have specific goals in mind, and so forth. For these young migrant women, consumption is a key way to express the new autonomy that they associate with upwardly mobile urban life, and mobile phones and new technologies in general (together with fashion items) are items for frequent purchase that symbolize par excellence a participation in urban life. However, the technologies that remain the most familiar, and the most trusted, are more established ones such as television, the omnipresent and constantly referenced source of information, entertainment, and education. Contrary to the internet, and even mobile phones, television is a medium that can easily disappear in the background, and that allows for intermittent attention, which fits well the professional lives of women working in the service sector.

When using the internet (and increasingly when using mobile phones), the most common type of online activity is chatting, mostly through the popular software ‘QQ.’ In general, social uses of technology – as far as both the internet and mobile phones are concerned - are more popular than task-driven activities, such as looking for specific facts or browsing for information. Personal communication of the kind made possible by the Web 2.0 is considered more accessible than impersonal meta-communication (through, for example, a search engine). An interesting finding from the virtual follow-up that has taken place since the summer of my field work has been that I am still in touch, via email, with most of the women I worked with. This seems to go against the perception, common in both scholarly and popular works about migrant workers, of a floating population that does not build long-lasting ties, and that is always a lost mobile phone away from being untraceable. Although the Internet still remains an elite medium in China, more and more people are beginning to use it; in the lives of young migrant women, new technologies play an increasingly critical role, as means of experiencing social connectedness, as providers of shared entertainment, as well as symbols of their newfound urban identity. However, the internet as it is still mostly accessible today – i.e. through computers – does not meet many of their practical and personal requirements. Mobile phones have become widespread because they are handheld, portable, easy to store, always available when needed, but also easily fading in the background as the demands of work shift; they also replicate familiar ways of communicating. The internet, on the other hand, presents a series of challenges that range from access, to usability, to unfamiliarity, and is not as useful and interesting as it is for different demographics of users. The paper will explain the background of these women and illustrate how their different economic situations impact their ownership and use of new technologies; I then discuss the different types of usage that I have observed in different circumstances, compare them with the usage patterns of older technologies, and link my observations to the general literature on the digital divide and on web usability; I will finally introduce some of the changes in internet usage patterns that I have observed in the course of these two years, and that I am planning to follow up through a new round of field work in the summer.

Mo QIAN, Professor, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications; David GOLUMBIA, Professor, University of Virginia: Naxi and the Net: “Modernization” and Digital Culture in a Minority Frame

The Naxi people of southern China (and to a lesser extent of northern Tibet) provide a signal case study for the cultural and linguistic effects of globalization and modernization in the information age. Introduced to the English-speaking world in part via the work of the Austrian-American Joseph Rock (Rock 1948), the Naxi are one of the world’s most distinctive minority groups. One of the 56 minority groups officially recognized by the Chinese government, the Naxi today number more than 300,000 (mostly in the Lijiang Naxi Autonomous County in southwestern Yunnan province, with smaller numbers in northwestern Sichuan province; see Guo Dalie and He Zhiwu 1999; Global Naxi Culture Conservation Society website; “Nakhi”; “The Naxi Nationality”; and “Naxi Minority, Yunnan, China”), and maintain many non-Han Chinese cultural practices (including religion, music, dress, and language). Naxi are generally understood to be “matrilineal” and maintain this social organization at least in part, and perhaps thanks to their geographical remoteness, are among those minority and indigenous groups least directly challenged in cultural terms by invasive globalization and resource exploitation.

For all these reasons, the Naxi raise questions about just what is meant by the cross-cultural availability of the internet and its persistent claims to foster and encourage communicative cultural exchange. On one view, which we might call “optimistic,” according to which the internet is a communication tool lacking any implicit ideology or cultural identity, one might imagine that use of the internet would have no effect on Naxi culture, or might even serve to make the culture more robust and to disseminate knowledge about it to others around the world. On another view, which we might call “pessimistic,” the internet is inherently oriented toward forces of globalization, Western-style modernization, and movements toward cosmopolitan spaces. From this perspective, we might anticipate that despite claims to intercultural communication, the introduction of the internet into the Naxi world would tend to have destructive effects (as outlined in Golumbia 2009, especially Chapters 5 and 6). These effects, as they are in less robust cultures than the Naxi, would tend most notably to be evidenced in the disparaging of Naxi culture by its youth, the adoption of cosmopolitan languages (here, Mandarin Chinese, aka Putonghua), movements away from Naxi localities and toward major cosmopoles (Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, etc.), and widespread adoption of cosmopolitan lifestyles and dress.

While we shall follow this schematization in this paper, it deserves comment from the outset. Some advocates of globalization, by casting cosmopolitan practices as the only ones that can legitimately be called “modern,” effectively suggest that Naxi culture and ones like it can only be viewed as “traditional,” anti-modern, and static, so that it is “only natural” for Naxi youth to want to abandon such practices in favor of the dynamic and rapidly-changing cosmopolitan lifestyle. We argue that this suggestion begs the question: by presuming that Naxi culture and ones like it are not already “modern,” and that its practices fail to provide the kinds of enjoyment, fulfillment and sustenance found in cosmopoles, this perspective inherently underwrites cultural destruction as a necessary and welcome aspect of globalization and modernization (see Giddens 1990, 1991 for a thorough discussion of modernity in this sense). Here we mean to explore exactly this question: is the only modernity the one found in cosmopolitan, majoritarian cultures? Or is there a way to understand Naxi practices and ones like them as no more or less modern than those of, e.g., Beijing, so that the advent of the internet into the Naxi world should bring along just the same kinds of changes it brings to cosmopolitans—no more or less a rejection of Naxi practices than of Beijing practices.

A second set of questions suggested by this investigation have to do with the presence of observers from cosmopolitan cultures in minority cultures. Naxi do not just use the internet: the internet portrays and describes Naxi ways to non-Naxi people, invites them to come to Naxi lands, and situates Naxi practices in global and metropolitan contexts. Do these portrayals help to fashion what we have called a “modern view” of Naxi, expecting and anticipating that Naxi, too, will use the internet in similar ways to the ones used by Beijingers? Or does the portrayal of Naxi culture by outsiders also contribute to a view that their culture is static and moribund, something to be observed in situ but not lived as such in the present day—in familiar academic terms, does the internet “museumize” Naxi culture? Corollary to these questions is a cross-cultural issue in portrayals of Naxi: where English-language, Western-oriented and/or Western-produced websites tend to portray Naxi in great detail as to their cultural structure, history, language, and geographical location, Chinese-language websites tend to portray Naxi simply in terms of tourism, in some sense commodifying the Naxi culture. There is also a global question concerning the role of tourism, including sex tourism based around almost entirely inaccurate public perceptions of Naxi (and Mosuo) lifestyles.

A third specific set of questions revolve around language. The Naxi language, somewhat unusually in the context of minority and indigenous groups worldwide, is considered “vigorous” by linguistic authorities (“Naxi”), and is spoken as a first language by virtually all Naxi, with about 100,000 group members monolingual in the language. Naxi is, however, an oral language, and while a romanized script has been developed for it, “written Chinese [is] in common use” (“Naxi”), and is therefore by definition more easily used on the internet. Famously, the Naxi also maintain a set of pictographs referred to as the Dongba, Tomba or Tompa script (see Cook 2007, “Dongba Script,” Milnor 2006, “Naxi Script”), but it is mistaken to believe that these pictographs are a written version of the spoken Naxi language; instead they are true pictographs used to represent individual concepts or items, and have traditionally been used only for religious purposes in the Naxi community. Thus the efforts to create digital versions of the script (Cook 2007, “eDongba”), while admirable and important, may be seen as contributing to the “museumization” of Naxi culture and at the same time do not actually provide the means for Naxi speakers to use their language online. Indeed, since it is primarily used in its oral form by the people themselves, the Naxi language raises a question that must be faced by speakers of the vast majority of the world’s endangered and indigenous languages as well as by internet technicians: how can the internet be made effective, useful, and non-discriminatory for speakers of oral languages? The answer to this question cannot simply be to write the language down, since this presumes radical changes in social, linguistic, and educational structure that would not otherwise be required, and thus raises questions about the cultural neutrality of the internet.

Through direct interviews with Naxi informants (one of whom is a student of the paper’s co-author who is a professor in Beijing) and direct examination of both Chinese-language and English-language websites about the Naxi and of the use of the internet by Naxi people (especially young Naxi people who have moved to Beijing for work or education), this paper outlines both the hopes for an internet that enables and even encourages non-discriminatory cultural interchange, and also concerns that the introduction of the internet into minority and indigenous communities must be viewed in light of a range of potentially destructive effects it can have on those communities. In an even broader sense, we raise the question of just what is meant by modernity in the information age, and the roles played by culture and digital media in it.

Notes: Another minority group, the Mosuo (made well-known by the international celebrity Yang Erche Namu [2003]; also see “Mosuo,” Lake Lugu Mosuo Cultural Development website, and “The Naxi Nationality) , are considered by some anthropologists to be “matriarchal” (see Cai Hua 2001, Mathieu 2003). While the Chinese government continues to consider the Mosuo and Naxi identical (that is, its official classification of Mosuo is as part of Naxi), it is clear that the groups are distinct culturally, linguistically, and geographically. While we touch occasionally on issues of common interest to the Naxi and Mosuo, our focus in this paper is Naxi culture

Dr Jens DAMM, Freie Universität Berlin, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, and National Central University, The Humanities Center of National Central University: Taiwan’s Online Policy on Multiculturalism and Multiculturalism

This paper deals with the specific form of Taiwan’s multiculturalist policy and its online representation, based on the understanding that the new media, including the new information and communication technologies, are said to play an important role in reshaping the way we deal with and construct collective/cultural/historical memory and (collective) identity.

First of all, theoretical aspects of issues related to multiculturalism are presented, such as questions related to the dilemma presented by essentialism and the fluidity of identities, and universalism or particularism. Thus, I refer not only to Taylor’s ground- breaking work on multiculturalism , but also to Huyssen’s (2003) hypothesis that although a collective memory of the past (probably separated into various groups and classes) used to exist at one time, this clearly differentiated between the past and the present; today, there is a ‘present past.’ In saying this, Huyssen did not intend to give the impression that, today, we are actually more aware of the past, but that, because the new media facilitate the reproduction of things today (be it only in the form of an electronic reproduction), things originally belonging to the past have now become “ubiquitous in our present life: photography, film, recorded music and, above all, the increasing multi-mediazation of the Internet and the voracious media culture have led to the past becoming part of our present which was unimaginable before” (Huyssen, 2003, p. 1), thus leading to new constructs of (ethnic) identities.

In the second part of the paper, the links are explored between Taiwan’s policy on multiculturalism and Taiwan’s more recent societal and political developments and upheavals, including the particular question of the relation between Taiwanese multiculturalist policies and national identity issues.

Thirdly, Taiwanese based ethnicity- oriented multiculturalist online portals and other specific websites are examined, taking into account questions related to the ownership of the websites (state/state organs/enterprises/NGOs/individuals) as well as offering an analysis of the contents , of the issues related to the language employed and of the observed interactivity. The underlying key question is whether the online representation of multiculturalism is congruent with the “state sponsored multiculturalism of Taiwan” or whether the development of certain specific dynamics is triggered by the specific media involved, that is, the Internet and the World Wide Web.

In more detail, websites related to the “four ethnic groups in Taiwan” were chosen: the Taiwanese (Hoklo), the Hakka, the Mainlanders and the indigenous population. Related questions, in particular with reference to inclusiveness, ask to what degree transnational elements play a role.

For the purposes of comparison, Taiwan is unique, as Taiwan’s multiculturalism is - both from the perspective of society and from the perspective of the population - strongly related to questions of an unsolved national identity. Furthermore, Taiwan’s Internet is highly sophisticated, the Internet user rate is proportionately high, there is no explicit censorship and Taiwan, in general, is very much embedded in a global discourse, so that an empirical analysis of Taiwanese multiculturalist web sites may offer insights which go far beyond the regionally restricted issue of a political dispute.

Taiwan offers potentially rewarding opportunities for reflecting on the dichotomy between an “exclusive identity” (which fits into traditional western mindsets) and an “inclusive identity” (which is a common pattern of identity in Taiwanese society, where you can be a Buddhist even if you have a Christmas tree and worship in a Daoist temple). This could be considered as much a theoretical question as it is a factual issue. In this case we can even ask, whether instances of exclusiveness of (political/ethnic/etc.) identity patterns within Taiwanese society are primarily a reaction to outside forces (due to certain forms of political identity being denied), a sign of increasing western influence in Taiwanese thought, mindsets, and popular culture, or the result of both of these tendencies creating new and hybrid forms of identity.

This research forms part of my current project “Cultural Products within the Chinese/Taiwanese Diasporic Cyberspace” which is a subproject of the larger “Cultural Memory and Knowledge Production” project at Academia Sinica, Taiwan and National Central University, Taiwan.

Xiaoyn TENG, Graduate Student, School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University: Women and Online Civic Engagement: Exploring the Gender Gap in the Use of Online Discussion Forums

This study explores the gender gap in online civic engagement by examining the gender difference in the posting behavior of the online discussion forum participants. While the optimists have suggested that the internet offers women more opportunity for participation in public affairs, a lot of studies point out the existence of gender gaps both in access and in use of internet, and also bring out the possibility of enlarged gender inequality.

Compared to the gender difference in the ability of benefiting from the internet, the gender difference in access rate is much easier to diminish. The 22nd China Internet Report by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) shows that Chinese netizens were close to a gender balance by mid 2008, with the share of females at 46.4%. However, the average weekly online time of male users was 30 percent more than that of female users (CNNIC, 2007). There might also be a growing “democratic divide” in civic involvement between men and women, since the internet is to a large extent “activating the active” (Norris, 2001). Nowadays, online discussion forums function as resources for civic engagement in China, because of their ability to promote the collective actions and foster civic deliberation. Thus, whether women and men make equal use of discussion forums is a matter of relevance. Research about female discussion forums and female blogs in China has shown that women are inclined to have limited concerns about the public affairs (Song, 2007; Zhao, 2007), but how women behave in mixed gender online discussion groups in China is not yet clear.

The online behavioral differences between women and men are partly reflections of the offline difference, but there is also possibility that gender difference can be transcended in virtual communication environment. Most research has indicated the gender-linked differences in computer-mediated communication, such as different preferences of online news topics (Knobloch-Westerwick and Hastall, 2006), different discourse styles (Herring, 1994; Colley, 2002; Baron, 2004) and different sentiments towards the online culture (King, 2001). Whereas some other research indicates few gender differences exist in online civic participation (Fuller, 2004).

This research investigates gender difference in the posting behavior in online discussion forums from three aspects: (1) the topics under discussion, (2) the percentage of highly agonistic messages posted, and (3) the “dropout” rates. By exploring these differences, this study aims at identifying some correlation between the characteristics of online discussion forum and the activeness of female participants in the forum.

Approximately 700 discussion threads have been collected for examining from three famous Chinese online discussion forums during December 2007 to June 2008, and each thread contains a series of messages contributed by several participants, sometimes even thousands of participants. The three discussion forums selected are Maoyankanren (seeing through cat’s eyes), Tianyazatan (random talk in Tianya community) and Xinlangzatan (random talk in Sina community). Among these forums, Maoyankanren has the lowest percentage of female participants, which is less than 10 percent, while Xinlangzatan has the highest percentage of female, which is about 35 percent. The three aspects of gender difference in the posting behavior mentioned above will be examined as follows.

The topic under discussion refers to the subject of the first message, also named the root message in each thread. Those root messages of all the threads will be divided into public issues category and private issues category, and public issues will be put into 12 subcategories (economy, culture, technology, health, etc.). After that, the gender of the author of each root message and the gender ratio of the participants in each thread will be recorded for comparison.

Highly agonistic messages are defined as (a) messages totally disagreeing with the root message and also including insulting language; or (b) messages which include lengthy refutation of the root message, without any compromise. The gender of the participants who sent these messages will be recorded, and the percentage of highly agonistic messages appearing in each thread will also be counted.

The “dropout” is defined as a participant who did not log in the forum once in 6 months. This information is acquired through the searching function of the online forums, using the authors of the messages collected as a sample.

Besides the quantitative data, several interviews will also be conducted to help a better understanding of the experience of female participants in online discussion forums. Therefore, this research will add to knowledge of the gender gap in online civic engagement in China.

Fan HU, Doctoral Student, Hong Kong Baptist University; Li JIANG, Doctoral Student, Cornell University; Ning WANG, Doctoral Student, Hong Kong Baptist University: Chinese Diasporic Communities Online and Offline: The Effects of Internet Use on Offline Community Participation and Social Action

Chinese Diasporic Communities Online and Offline:

Internet Use and Community Participation in Canada and the United States

As China gradually becomes a country with the largest number of netizens, much academic attention has been drawn to the role that the Internet plays in China’s social transformation by fostering civic engagement, by encouraging opinion formation and expression, by promoting new networking patterns, etc. While much of the research in this area so far has focused on the general population in their home society, the diasporic population in the host society also deserves investigation.

An emerging body of literature is concerned with Internet usage by transnational diaspora (e.g., Hiller & Franz, 2004; Mitra, 2003; Ong, 2003; Parham, 2004; Parker & Song, 2006; Wong, 2003). The bulk of it examines the roles of disaporic websites in maintaining and reproducing “old” communities, as well as creating and recreating “new” communities, in terms of shaping social, cultural, and political identities and building social networks of diaspora. But less is about the interplay between diaspora’s online and offline life, in other words, the impact of “virtual” communities on “real” communities.

Diasporic websites may serve as an important socialization agent for the diasporic population, as they provide information about both home and host societies and they facilitate connections among diasporas themselves. Prior research has indicated the appropriateness of considering Internet users’ motives and an enriched understanding they can offer for media effects research. Thus, guided by uses-and-gratifications framework, our current study seeks to delineate Chinese diaspora’s motives for using Chinese diasporic websites in North America, and the role of their Internet use in enhancing or inhibiting attitudes towards and behaviors of participating in the offline Chinese communities as well as communities in the larger society.

Prior research has also indicated that collocated virtual communities are more likely to increase social capital than distributed ones, as virtual networks that have overlaps with face-to-face networks can facilitate network density and the flow of information (Blanchard & Horan, 1998). Considering the fact that the two types of Chinese diasporic websites coexist in North America, we take a look at how they function differently for the diasporic population. The present study also aims at comparing the use of Chinese diasporic virtual communities and offline community participation by the Chinese diasporas in Canada and the United States, as the two countries differ in immigration and multiculturalism policies.

A total of 174 respondents living in Canada and the United States completed an online survey between April 1 and April 22 2009. They answered the following fixed response questions: ethnic and English media use frequency, Internet time, use of Chinese diasporic virtual communities, motives for using Chinese diasporic virtual communities, community participation attitudes, and community participation behaviors.

An exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors of motives for using Chinese diasporic virtual communities: social interaction, diversion, local information seeking, news surveillance, and self identity. Regression results show that use of and motives of using collocated Chinese virtual communities have significant influence on both attitude toward and actual behavioral community participation. In contrast, use of and motives of using distributed Chinese virtual communities does not relate to community attitude nor participation.

Our survey results indicated that participants perceived the Internet as a useful source of information about the local society. This study’s findings help expand the theoretical boundaries of the uses-and-effects paradigm by testing it in the context of virtual communities among the Chinese diasporic population. Rather than simply using time spent on the diasporic virtual communities, we examined the social and psychological elements that may shape the relationship between Internet use and community participation. This approach benefitted us with more accurate and meaningful predictions. The genre-specific Internet motives influence offline Chinese community participation attitudes and behaviors when there is an over-lap between collocated online and offline Chinese communities.

We also detected significant national differences between Canada and the United States in terms of participants’ motives for using Chinese diasporic virtual communities. There are few differences between the two countries regarding the attitudes and participation of both Chinese and mainstream community, however, Canadian Chinese diasporas participated more in and are more satisfied virtual community. They are also more satisfied with local Chinese community, probably because collocated virtual participants in Canada can easily incorporate their online discussion into offline interaction.

Our findings also shed lights on how we define the concept of ethnic media in the new media environment. Historically, the influence of traditional ethnic media is limited to the geographic areas where they are available. However, diasporic virtual communities hold the diasporic population in different ways, primarily because they fall between mass and interpersonal media, and they can be made available to those distributed population.

One of the most important findings in this study is that the relationship between the use of Chinese diasporic virtual communities and offline Chinese community participation is conditional. It also depends on the collocation of online and offline Chinese communities to transform social capital formed online to the offline settings. The online-offline connection is successfully established in Canadian Chinese diasporic population with the availability of virtual communities based on geographic locations, which provides a good exemplar for Chinese diasporic population in other countries.

The mixed-mode of Chinese communities, when compared to conventional ethnic media, expands the channels to discuss specific and self-relevant issues, improves the quality of community participation, and reinforces Chinese identity by adding interpersonal dimensions. On the other hand, as virtual entities, online communities require less investment and infrastructures. The Chinese disaporic virtual communities are not limited to big cities as offline Chinatown does and can possibly engage more people who live in dispersed neighborhoods into active community participation.

Sunny S. K. LAM, PhD Candidate, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong: The Impact of ICTs on Familial Solidarity in Translocal China

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a new means of communication play a special role in maintaining intergenerational, as well as intra-generational, familial connections among family members in contemporary translocal societies. Because of the rapid, uneven development of market economy in the major cities of modern societies, social, as well as spatial, mobility has become an indispensable condition and many family members are inevitably separated into different locations for seeking upward mobility in terms of education and career. In this study, in-depth interviews with some translocal Chinese, studying, working and living apart from their families, have been conducted to investigate the impact of ICTs on familial solidarity in terms of caregiving and interactions among family members with a view to providing a promising new direction for social support in contemporary translocal society. Such social support by means of ICTs as new channels for communication in a distant manner can satisfy family members’ desire to obtain help or advice with personal problems and emotional distress. This new model of familial solidarity in contemporary translocal society is named “Translocal Familial Solidarity”. It is proposed to reinvigorate parent-child relationships of the “relational families” in the era of Internet and mobile communication characterized by “autonomy of the generations” for social support among the elderly parents and their adult children in order to partly solve the social pressure of aging population, especially under China’s one-child policy.

Rapid modernization and atomization of modern family have intensified the problems of social support and security including the “socio-emotional needs” of individuals “related to interpersonal exchanges, social discourse, and personal feelings” by caregiving and interactions, the pension systems to support elder people, and the provision and sources of funding for welfare, health and educational services in postindustrial societies. Moreover, it is argued that the traditional functions of family solidarity are being depleted as a result of industrialization as well as postindustrialization that favor increasing individualization. So, a new model of familial solidarity named “Translocal Familial Solidarity” by ICTs with a special attention to the multifacets of mobilities and localities in the lives of the contemporary people is proposed to reinvigorate the intergenerational solidarity for social support among the elderly parents and their adult children. Such a new model is based on the hypothesis that the proper use of ICTs as new channels for communication may contribute to establish a new form of intergenerational, as well as intra-generational, solidarity among the elderly parents and the young family members who are distant and cannot gather together for a long period of time.

Relatively little research has explored how family members, especially the elderly parents, use ICTs in modern society for social support. In-depth, conversational interviews with translocal Chinese, studying, working and living apart from their home towns or rural areas, have been conducted by face-to-face communication or IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to investigate the impact of ICTs on familial solidarity in terms of caregiving and interpersonal communication among family members with a view to providing a promising new direction for social support in China. Such social support by means of ICTs in a distant manner can satisfy family members’ desire to obtain help or advice with personal problems and emotional distress. Familial solidarity is significant to one’s socio-emotional needs and working productivity in terms of quantity of goods manufactured in industrial society and, more importantly, quality of human relations in postindustrial society under the Chinese Confucian philosophy and the modern social theories that ethics, family and responsibility are regarded as “the foundation in building a society of civil order”. In this study, the question is concerned with the possible social impact by the development of “Translocal Familial Solidarity” by ICTs in China. More precisely, is it possible to develop a new model of familial solidarity to reinvigorate the intergenerational familial support among the elderly parents and their adult children in mobile locations by means of ICTs, with regard to the increasing social and spatial mobility of the new generations, the collapsing traditional social bond by family structure and the emerging aging population of demanding social support in contemporary translocal society?

For stable, sustainable social development in China, intergenerational familial solidarity must be reinforced and the role played by the elderly Chinese must not be underestimated. Certainly, it is meaningful to maintain such kind of familial connections to ensure the proper quality of life of the elderly Chinese, as well as their distant children, in terms of socio-emotional stability. Indeed, the elder people can be easily equipped by the more user-friendly, minimal ICT skills and knowledge for the construction of the intergenerational communication and transmission of lifestyles and values. Such social interaction and communication may reduce generational gaps via social and cultural exchanges within families, with a view to innovating a new form of family in translocal China for the networked societies and providing social support for parents and their children who are far away. Bearing this in mind, such new model of familial solidarity by means of ICTs should not replace face-to-face communication and there are other mechanisms of social solidarities such as friendship, partnership and love at play for social support in societies. However, “Translocal Familial Solidarity” as a contemporary form of family ties should play a significant role in social development of contemporary China where the new qualities of parent-child relationships of the “relational families” are characterized by “autonomy of the generations” in the process of modernization, as well as individualization in the era of Internet and mobile communication.

Chen LU, MPhil student, The Chinese University of Hong Kong: Examining the Factors that Influence College Students’ Attitude towards Human Flesh Search in Mainland China

Now in Mainland China, a new pattern of search is prevailing online. It is called renrou sousuo, or "human flesh search"(HFS). Different from search engines in the conventional sense, HFS uses the collective skills of those who are in frequent online forums, community or chat rooms to dig up personal information of their target and then expose it to media. The information leaked out is not only citizens' names, addresses and telephone numbers, but also other important information. It brings serious problems in the process of the virtual world-->real world--> virtual world (-->real world), so a huge controversy exists the first day when it comes into practice. Obviously there is a dilemma. On one hand, HFS will certainly play a role of regulating people's words on Internet and daily behavior in real life, for it will be exposed to the public and create a seeming cyber kangaroo court; one the other hand, it has the potential possibility to intrude privacy, violate basic rights and interests of the target people, and relates to law, and ethics etc. What should be paid more attention is in recent time, this engine is used more and more as a new outlet to vent and brings social sensational events. Until now, there have been several suicides and acts of revenge caused by HFS. Traditionally, the notion of privacy has not been valued in China. Together with other bad traditional customs, such as the lack of legal awareness and lack of tolerance, plus the rapid development of Internet and online community, HFS engine emerges and flourishes. As China own 253 million netizen, becoming the country with the biggest Internet users population, HFS will exert huge impact on the Chinese society.

Many discussions have been conduct recently from the perspectives of media law, Internet regulation, and privacy right etc. However, surprisingly few academic attempts were made. Besides, in Chinese Mainland, college students are the biggest body of the online participants, very active in the online forums and communities and quite representative of the Chinese netizen. Therefore, this study is to examine the factors that predict college students' attitude towards HFS, their related HFS behavior and the relationship between their attitude and behavior.

A total of 401 college students from Mainland China participated in this study. Of the participants, 28.2% were junior college students, 64.1% were undergraduate students, and 7.7% were postgraduate students. As a exploratory work, until now, this study has found something out of the original expectation and worth thinking. First is that college students' attitude towards HFS and their HFS behavior are not correlated. According to Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, intention explained by attitudes toward a behavior, subject norms and perceived ability to control the behavior, is an immediate predictor of the behavior. From the result of this study, we found that attitude toward a certain behavior is not the most powerful factor to the behavior; also HFS behavior is not a totally planned behavior, it can be activated by many occasional factors, especially in females samples. Second, the factor that can predict college students' attitude towards HFS is active online participation, while general privacy attitude are the factor that strongest predict college students' HFS behavior, and online trust are the second strongest factors. It reflected that general attitude towards something in real world has a great impact on their online behavior related to this thing, and people's own online behavior or online participation influences their attitude towards some online behavior a lot. Different from my hypothesis, gender is proven not an intervening factor in both Mainland China college students' attitude towards HFS and their HFS behavior, while education level served as an important intervening factor.

HFS is a more complicated online participation than general participation. Based on the present finding, subjective consciousnessmore in Internet China and more social psychological factors will be taken into this study in the next several months. I hope to present further results of this additional work in May.

Dian PARAMITA, Global Media and Communications (Double Degree) Fudan University, China and London School of Economics, United Kingdom: Chinese Cyber-Nationalism: The Case of 2008 Tibet Uprising Discussions on Facebook

The expression of Chinese nationalism on the Internet has received much attention over the past decade (see Herold, 2008; Hughes, 2000; Liu, 2006). Wu (2007) coined the term cyber-nationalism to describe the activities through which nongovernmental actors utilize the Internet to promote nationalistic causes in the globalized world. Chinese cyber-nationalism is particularly significant because it is only within cyberspace that Chinese netizens have the freedom to voice their opinions and participate in the global public sphere (Bhattacharya, 2008). In an authoritarian environment where political leaders have direct control over all media, as in China, the perception of reality is limited to the reality that the state portrays (Couldry & Curran, 2003; Downing, 2001).

With the advent of the Internet, the Chinese now have direct access to a dominant reality shaped by the powerful international, mostly Western media, a reality that overrides the reality represented in the Chinese national media. The emergence of the Internet in China has also led to the development of a cyber-public sphere that allows netizens to represent an alternative reality that challenges the reality portrayed by both the government and international media institutions.

The ability of Chinese netizens to challenge dominant reality became evident during the 2008 Tibetan uprising, an event for which many sociopolitical organizations heavily criticized China for human rights violations. This incident drew significant international press coverage, particularly as China was already a focus on account of the upcoming Olympics. Attempting to counter an alleged Western media bias, Chinese netizens spread nationalistic spirit through Internet chat rooms, blogs, forums, and mobile text messages (Bhattacharya, 2008). The Web site anti-cnn.com, created by Qi Hanting “to expose the lies and distortions in the western media,” is one example of this phenomenon (Qiang, 2008). Qi claimed that he created the Web site not to oppose the Western media but rather counter its factual distortions and fabricated stories. Through anti-cnn.com, many Chinese netizens were able to express another side of the argument regarding the Tibetan unrest, and thus represent an alternative reality beyond that portrayed by the Western media.

Although it promotes virtual freedom, Chinese cyber-nationalism has created anxiety among media scholars and journalists. They are particularly concerned that netizen participation in cyberspace allows for expression of hatred among different countries, races, and religions, which can negatively impact China’s social stability and international image (Bhattacharya, 2008; “Cyber-Nationalism,” 2008). Indeed, many self-organized nationalist communities utilize social networking to promote aversion against certain institutions. In response to the Tibetan issue, netizens created Facebook groups such as “Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China” and “If Tibet isn't part of China, than California isn't part of the US either!!!!!!”

In my research, I propose using the Facebook group “Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China” as a case study to investigate anxiety regarding Chinese cyber-nationalism in the context of globalization. I will focus on the English- language discussions instead of the more popular Chinese-language discussions, mainly because the former are accessible to and allow for participation from both non-Chinese and Chinese netizens. By utilizing computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) as my methodology, I aim to identify the characteristics of Chinese cyber-nationalistic discussions on the Tibet uprising and determine whether these dialogs are infused with a level of hatred that could negatively impact China’s social stability and international image. My hope is that this empirical, small-scale study will contribute to the Chinese cyber-nationalism literature by providing a quantitative analysis of the discourse within Chinese cyber-nationalistic discussions.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study aims to answer the following two research questions:

RQ 1: What are the characteristics of the discourse contained within cyber-nationalistic discussions of the Tibet uprising on Facebook?

AND

RQ 2: To what extent are the Chinese cyber-nationalistic discussions on Facebook infused with messages of hatred?

Because both research questions are highly interconnected, I will address both using the same approach, which will be a qualitative, CMDA analysis of the online discussions within the selected Facebook group.

1. The relationship between nationalism and the Internet
   The creation of the Internet made possible the realization of Anderson’s (1983) idea of a nation as an imagined community. Through the Internet, communities within a nation are able to interact beyond time, space, and territorial boundaries. Eriksen (2007) explained that at the advent of the Internet, many scholars predicted that its use would threaten the cultural integrity of a nation by leading to fragmentation of ideologies, and thus destroying the collective sense of national identity. However, the current development of the Internet indicates that nations essentially thrive in cyberspace. Based on his findings, Eriksen concluded that the Internet is utilized to strengthen, instead of weaken, national identities in the globalized world. One reason why the Internet is currently the most powerful medium for strengthening nations and their identities is that it blurs the line between the producers and consumers of content, making possible the realization of a cyber-public sphere in which social actors can conduct public debates and discussions for the benefit of society (Atton, 2004; Downing, 2001). Although many scholars perceive the Internet as an ideal cyber-public sphere for fostering political discussions, some argue that because online political discussions tend to bring like-minded rather than opposing individuals together, they may lead to political polarization. However, a recent study of Facebook political discussions indicates that although fewer opposing than like-minded perspectives are expressed in Facebook discussions, opposing viewpoints are indeed expressed, indicating interaction among those with different perspectives (Kushin & Kitchener, 2008). With this finding in mind, I will conduct this study from the perspective that the Internet is a powerful tool for strengthening nations and national identities because it provides a platform for the fostering of political discussions, particularly through social networking sites such as Facebook.
2. Chinese Cyber-Nationalism
   In the context of China, the political participation of netizens in cyberspace is particularly unique because of two factors. First, with over 200 million netizens, China has the largest online population in the world (Bhattacharya, 2008), and their massive number allows Chinese netizens to influence opinion within the global political arena (Herold, 2008). Second, realizing the potential power of its netizens to impact the offline state of affairs, the Chinese central government has acknowledged the use of cyberspace as a free and independent sphere for the discussion and criticism of local issues (Harold, 2008). However, it continues to suppress harsh criticism and attacks against the ruling party. Describing Chinese cyberspace as “an autonomous political domain independent of state nationalism” (p. 144), Liu (2006) argued that Chinese cyber-nationalism is a self-governing, popular nationalism that exists outside any governmental control. Exercising their cyber-nationalism, netizens have successfully organized political activities, such as a demonstration against the Indonesian embassy to protest violence against Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese population (Hughes, 2000), a protest urging the government to abolish custody and repatriation centers in China following the death of Sun Zhigang in 2003 (Beach 2005), a boycott of Japanese goods following Japan’s permanent appointment to the United Nations Security Council (Liu, 2006), and a movement against the allegedly biased reports of the Western media on the 2008 Tibetan unrest (Bhattacharya, 2008; “Cyber-Nationalism,” 2008; Li, 2008). This participation of Chinese netizens under the auspices of cyber-nationalism has created anxiety among many scholars, primarily due to the fact that some nationalistic expressions are infused with hatred. Bhattacharya (2008) explained that instead of serving as positive debates on the Tibetan uprising, Internet discussion groups often escalate into forums for hatred due to the frequent use of obscene and insulting comments in expressions of nationalistic feelings. This diffusion of hatred within cyberspace has become easier with the sharp decrease in the cost of producing, storing, and distributing digital content, especially on social networking sites (“Cyber-Nationalism,” 2008). Building upon this theoretical framework, I aim to further investigate the nature of Chinese cyber-nationalistic discussions and the relationship between expressions of nationalism and expressions of hatred within the dialogs regarding the 2008 Tibetan uprising in the selected Facebook group.

1. Rationale

   My research aims to define the characteristics of Chinese cyber-nationalistic dialogs and the extent to which hatred infuses nationalistic expressions in Facebook group discussions. To do so, I will conduct an in-depth investigation using a qualitative research method. Using CDMA, guided by Herring’s (2004) explanation that “what defines CMDA at its core is the analysis of logs of verbal interaction” (p. 339), I will explore in detail the process by which semiotic symbols are used within online interactions and meaning-making negotiations.

2. Procedure

   I selected the Facebook group “Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China” as the focus of my analysis because it has the largest number of members of all the public groups pertaining to this topic, and I hypothesize that the larger a group, the more diverse its participants. I selected only one group for analysis because focus on only one group will allow for a deeper examination of the discussions among the group members.

   I will draw my sample from the discussion boards with the most interaction (i.e., the largest number of posts). Using each individual posting within the chosen discussion boards as the unit of analysis, I will begin a one-month fieldwork phase on February 5, 2008 by collecting data from the discussions that began with the group’s first posting on March 17, 2008 until the most recent posting.

   During the data analysis phase, which I will also conduct over a one-month period, I will employ Kushin and Kichener’s (2008) method of repeated data analysis in order to identify the coding categories. I will use the first week of this phase to develop coding categories for the characteristics and the tones of the discussions and the remaining 3 weeks for data coding. In order to ensure validity and reliability, I will employ two qualitative coders who are familiar with the subject matter to interpret the data and then discuss each coder’s interpretation of the data coding until reaching consensus regarding the research findings.

Fan DONG: From nationalism to emerging public sphere: The case of global Olympic torch relay dispute online

Introduction

Habermas’ concept of “public sphere” has been extensively studied in the Western context, yet it has always been a vexing notion in the study of Chinese society. Resonant with Fraser’s argument of the multitude of public sphere and the problematic dichotomy between state and society(1992), Rankin(1986) started off by exploring the Chinese variety of public sphere where although the bourgeois public sphere does not fit, distinctions between official, public and private activities has always been drawn in the text. Empirically, using the alternative civil society in Eastern Europe observed by Western scholars as a reference, "where people could interact freely and without government interference, where they could turn their backs on the Party-state's corruption" (Chirot, 1992:234), scholars like Wakeman (1993) has identified the incipiency of public sphere in late imperial China mainly in the realm of non-state economic institutions. Madsen (1993) pushed Habermas’ socio-philosophical intent further and urged a highlight on the moral and cultural dimensions of the public sphere. According to him, “the search for ways to institutionalize a public sphere under modern (or postmodern) circumstances brings China and the West together in a common quest.” (1993:185) Acknowledging the inadequacy of the bourgeois public sphere to illustrate the Chinese case, Huang (1993) rejected abstract and generalized application of the multiple meanings of public sphere. On the one hand, he repudiated Rankin’s approach of substituting segmented rural communities in China for integrated urban public sphere, which left little value to retain the concept of public sphere; on the other hand, he worried that Madsen’s moral/rational-centred research agenda may prevent us from spotting other important changes and developments. Instead, Huang proposed the concept of “third realm”, which “would free us of the value-laden teleology of Habermas's bourgeois public sphere” and “ define more unequivocally than Habermas's public sphere a third space conceptually distinct from state and society” ( Huang, 1993:225). However, Huang’s highly political economy approach led to his belief that the third realm is a more promising space than private societal autonomy in bringing about political changes in China.

Throughout these scholars’ discussions, they have commonly ignored the role of communication technologies and its implications on the growth of public sphere. Moreover, how boundaries between the public, private and even the “third realm” have been problematized as a result is left unexplained. Among various communication technologies, the Internet has been the avant-garde in catalyzing social changes in the Chinese society. On July 25th, 2008, USA Today announced that with 253 million users, China has replaced the United States as the No.1 nation in Internet users. Yang (2003) argued that this massive social use of the Internet fostered public debate and the functioning of existing institutions. More importantly, he emphasized the “co-evolutionary development of civil society and the Internet”(2003:406). More specifically, Zhang (2006) studied the subaltern public sphere among undeveloped middle class online which successfully constructed their own discourse different from the market version and the dominant state preach, yet he pointed out the double –sword effect of their cooperation with mass media which may ultimately harm the power of this subaltern space. Chow (2006) extended the inquiry to transnational interaction in the case of the anti-Japan alliance online and offline praxis. He argued that the Internet may influence international policy, but does not necessarily promote the domestic civil society in China since users are always at the mercy of the government. Nevertheless, the interplay between the state and individuals have shifted dramatically during the Olympic torch relay dispute, the Chinese government has enacted a series of new policies to improve freedom of speech both domestically and to foreign news agencies; on June 20th, president Hu jintao even initiated the unprecedented interaction with Chinese netizens at People’s Net and demanded regular exchange with Internet users at different levels of the government to improve the decision-making process. Hence, this incidence serves as a good example to examine how public discourses online has propelled the burgeoning of public sphere in China.

Nonetheless, the issue of Internet in China has always been entangled with state control which jeopardizes the cultivation of public sphere. In fact, as I have demonstrated in the article “the actual effectiveness of Internet control in China” (2008, forthcoming), despite conventional wisdom that the state possesses a landslide control over the Internet, the actually ecology of the Internet contains a vigorous interaction between individual users and control bodies at different levels, at each layer of the control mechanism, the state experience a dynamic power struggle with various interest parties. It is exactly through these dynamics that individuals and institutions configure their version of the public atmosphere. Hence, Asen and Brouwe (2001) reminded us to think of the public sphere more inclusively. By this they mean to appreciate the multiplicity of the public sphere and permeability of borders, more importantly, we should reconsider the public sphere and the state divide. They emphasized that this “separatist” model of the public sphere and the state “discounts the capacity of an activist state to intervene in society in an effort to improve conditions for citizen participation in opinion-forming and decision-making activities” (2001:15). In particular, those pains the state undertakes to maintain its stability serve as a battlefield for us to see the interplay between domestic and global public sphere.

Given this tenor, I argue that the Olympic torch relay dispute and online deliberation not only cultivates the growth of public sphere within China but also enables Chinese Internet users to see the feasibility of participating in the global public sphere. Their identity as a nationalist movement participant encompasses two implications in parallel: in the domestic arena, they represent the public that promotes the establishment of public sphere, in the global arena, they undertake the role of counterpublics that fight against dominant Western beliefs and values. Although originated from nationalism discourse, interaction and open debate with people from both China and abroad both online and offline functions as socialization process for Chinese netizens to formulate a consciousness of the pubic sphere as well as enrich their understanding of requirements that sustain this domain.

Bingchun MENG, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science: Riding on eMule: A case study on the file sharing community in China

Research context:
The development of digital technology and information networks has given rise to increasingly decentralized forms of media production and consumption. Phrases like “social media” and “user-generated content” are often used to convey a positive connotation of increased public participation and civic engagement. Nonetheless, one particular form of decentralized content distribution, namely peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, has been carrying the stigma of illegality. Media industries have initiated many lawsuits against file sharing for the alleged copyright violation and persistently propagated the notion that file sharing is criminal. This project questions such top-down attempts to enclose new communication spaces with old institutional arrangements. Instead, I propose a bottom-up view to understand how file sharing technologies are being used and the implications of that usage.

Research objectives and research questions:
The primary objective of this study is to investigate the cultural significance of P2P file sharing in order to understand the contested nature of new media usage. While the development of digital networks could lead to wider public access to more diversified information, existing institutional forces and social norms have a strong influence on how the empowering potential of new media can be realized. P2P file sharing in China is an especially significant case that warrants close examination. On the one hand, China is viewed by the West as the chief infringing or pirate nation where file sharers steal everything from the Windows operating system to the latest Hollywood movies. On the other, Internet file sharing sites in China function as alternative communication spaces that are separate, although not completely autonomous, from both state-controlled and market-oriented media production and distribution.
This project is designed to challenge the mainstream discourse on P2P file sharing as intellectual property theft. I will examine this activity from the perspective of participatory culture. This approach denotes a shift from intellectual property owners’ viewpoints to that of the users. The empirical study will map how selected communities of file sharers are constituted and how they are related to institutions in China which are charged with responsibilities for copyright regulation and information censorship. I will investigate the following research questions: 1) Why do people engage in file sharing through volunteer work, such as translating subtitles for P2P distributed foreign movies? 2) How do file sharers relate to each other on and offline? What are the common cultural perspectives that binds them together? How do file sharers seek to negotiate their position with state censors and commercial establishments in China and with what outcomes?

Research methods and research design:
This initial study will involve an ethnographic case study on one of the most popular file sharing websites in China (www.VeryCD.com, an eMule-based file sharing community). I will use participant observation and in-depth interviews to collect data about how the community functions in terms of file distribution and content management. Approximately 15 interviews will be conducted with members of the team that maintains the website as well as with the most active participants who contribute to the site on a regular basis.

Weiyu Zhang, National University of Singapore: In search of collective action: Interest-oriented vs. relationship-oriented social network sites in China

Collective action, as defined by Bimber, Flanagin & Stohl (2006), refers to a set of communication processes involving the crossing of boundaries between private and public life. They involve efforts and incentives to persuade people to cross their well-defined and well-maintained private-public boundaries by expressing or acting on an individual interest in ways observable to relevant others. In a context of solid, well demarcated boundaries between the private and public, making the transition is typically costly. When boundaries between private and public domains are porous and easily crossed, however, people’s negotiation of the boundary typically involves less intentionality and calculation.

The theoretical model proposed by Flanagin, Stohl, & Bimber (2006) conceptualizes collective action along two dimensions: (a) the mode of interpersonal interaction and (b) the mode of engagement that shapes interaction. According to their classification, many web applications such as MoveOn.org supported collective actions that entail impersonal interaction and entrepreneurial engagement. Impersonal interaction emphasizes the expression or pursuit of interests and concerns, and involves no personal, direct interaction with known others. Consequently, individuals remain largely unknown to each other in spite of their shared affiliation. Impersonal interaction tends to reify private/public boundaries and a great deal of effort must be expended to overcome these boundaries. In the entrepreneurial mode, participant engagement is not well bounded by the constraints or rules of action associated with the organization or group. Coalitions are idiosyncratically enacted and likely to be short-lived. Self-organizing mechanisms predominate, whereas bureaucratic mechanisms of coordination and control are minimal. Individuals can move easily and are more likely to bridge the divide between the private and public realms.

The combination of impersonal interaction and entrepreneurial engagement makes web a complex space for collective action. On the one hand, the impersonal interaction implies difficulties for crossing the boundaries between private and public life; on the other hand, the entrepreneurial mode of engagement allows participants to bridge the divide. The recent development of web 2.0 changes the dimensions of collective action that web applications ally with. Social network sites (SNSs) are considered as one such web application that can facilitate collective action.

The uniqueness about SNS is that it differs from previous web applications such as MoveOn.org in the two dimensions illustrated by Flanagin, Stohl, & Bimber (2006). SNSs can afford both personal interaction and impersonal interaction in the entrepreneurial mode of engagement. Personal interaction involves repeated, organized interaction with known others over time and the development of interpersonal relations, in which interaction is centered on sustained relationships with others whose specific identities or personal attributes matter. Such sustained contact may generate ‘‘strong’’ ties among interactants, which typically embody mutual trust, shared norms, and close identification. Moreover, such personal forms of interaction facilitate boundary crossing between the private and public realms.

Coleman (1990) and Putnam (2000) posit that societies or communities succeed better at solving collective problems when they have greater stocks of social capital. Social networks of trust and reciprocity foster the formation and maintenance of social capital. Opportunities for collective action are threatened by the decay of a wide range of traditional civic associations that once to be the social network sites for face-to-face engagement. Putnam notes that at the same time that relationship-oriented groups, many of which date from the American industrial revolution and Progressive eras, have suffered nearly universal declines in membership (often declining 50% from peak twentieth-century levels), anonymous interest-oriented groups have grown rapidly. These groups involve typically anonymous membership, the exchange of some kind of value such as dues for political representation or information and newsletters, but typically no personal interaction or accountability among members. In contrast to these interest-impersonal vs. relationship-personal division, the internet has shown opportunities to transform the association between interest-oriented groups and impersonal interaction. From email-list to Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), the internet offers participants who share a common interest or concern to locate each other and to interact directly with each other. The emergence of SNSs enlarges the space of collective action by further strengthening the personal interaction between participants in interest-oriented groups.

So far most studies on SNSs focus on relationship-oriented sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Although the search function and applications such as groups on these sites can facilitate the formation of new ties (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007), these relationship-oriented sites are found to be mainly used to develop strong ties among existing social contacts (boyd & Ellison, 2007). One problem with strong ties is that they tend to be homogeneous (Flanagin, Stohl, & Bimber, 2006). Homogeneity or homophily in social networks may discourage tolerance and encourage enclaving of small groups, which is argued to be unhealthy for democracy (Sunstein, 2007). If we define collective action as crossing boundaries between public and private life, homogeneous networks seem to reinforce the connections within private life but demonstrates no particular strength in turning the private activities into public. In other words, homogeneity of the network puts constraints on the scope and type of collective action that may take place.

In addition, organization researchers found that strong ties impede the ability of network members to adapt to significant changes (Gargiulo & Benassi, 1998). Collective action seems to emerge when changes are expected. Changes offer the incentives and resources that are necessary for collective actions to happen. The relatively weak ability of cohesive networks to deal with changes implies that they are not friendly to collective action during reformative time.

SNSs seem to be homogeneous if we only examine the relationship-oriented sites such as Facebook and MySpace (Thelwall, in press; Vie, 2007). Liu, Maes, & Davernport (2006) suggest that the profiles on relationship-oriented sites imply deeper patterns of culture and taste. But this fabric of taste, as described by the authors, is only a latent one. It means that private interest such as music, books, films, and food revealed in profiles is not the primary organizational principle of the social networks afforded by these sites. Offline pre-existing contacts dominate the formation of ties on such sites. Our investigation of SNSs is limited by the focus on relationship-oriented sites. Interest-oriented sites that privilege the formation of new ties among strangers may provide distinct implications regarding the meanings of SNS. However, almost no researches have been done on interest-oriented social network sites. The lack of academic examination might be due to the fact that there is not a site in the US or Europe that is popular enough to catch attention.

This paper aims to examine such a site in China, namely, douban.com. This website is different from popular SNSs such as Facebook in that the social networks formed there are based on private interest rather than pre-existing social relationship and the ties fostered there are predominantly among strangers rather than any types of acquaintances. Douban.com reached a total number of 1 million registered users in 2007, a year earlier than Facebook-type SNSs such as xiaonei.com and kaixin001.com swept China. In this article, I compare douban.com and kaixin001.com by looking at the structural design of the two SNSs and the networks generated on the sites. Through link and profile analyses, I attempt to reveal the mode of interaction and the mode of engagement that shape possible collective action among the users. The implications of such collective action spaces for both Chinese civil society and public communication in general are discussed.

Fei JIANG, Associate Professor, Institute of Journalism and Communication: Game Between “Quan” and “Shi”: Research on Post-Olympic Culture - “Shanzhai” Culture in China Cyber Space

"Shanzhai" is one word from Cantonese. A former word represents the fortress of the “king” of the mountains for a site that is not under the jurisdiction of the official. Nowadays, in Chinese, the word turned to be a metaphor representing the whole phenomena of production of digital products, which is a kind of copying model industry launched by Chinese folk IT forces. Its main characteristic is fake, quick and civilian. Imitate manufacturing mobile phones, digital products, and in different fields under famous brand. This kind of production, on the other hand, is good at walking at the edge of the national industrial policy, and controversial. “Shanzhai” culture initiated in copying famous mobile phone in Shenzhen in 2003 , followed by copying of buildings , beers , medicine etc, the extreme of “Shanzhai” culture is a collection of copying products in a whole street in Nanjing . Former studies have named it imitated products such as the “Silk Street” in Beijing. But after years of works and almost succeeding to strike pirate by Chinese government on the “Silk Street” in Beijing, it has made a successfully comeback under the new name of “Shanzhai” Culture, claiming attention by so called “Shanzhai” spirit: “an overthrowing performance chain to business authority by folk creativity initiated from bottom to top” . Though the spirit seemed far-fetched and doesn’t square with the known facts, yet they have lots of staunch supporter from the bottom, especially those Netizens. Generally, this issue was always discussed under the topic of copyright by scholars from law and economic school, but in 2008, when a IT staff in Beijing named Shi Mengqi claimed to hold a “Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala Evening” PK the traditional Spring Festival Gala Evening held by CCTV (Chinese Central Television), “Shanzhai” culture then went far beyond copy and imitation, turned to be a real cultural phenomena attracting the eyes of the government and cultural scholars.

In November 2008, an IT worker, Sichuan-Beijinger, named Shi Mengqi posted on the website claiming to hold a “Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala Evening”, it was followed by millions of replying on the website, then it was reported by lots of traditional media such as newspaper and broadcasting, even Tv programs. In very short time, hundreds of programs signed up to join him. Encouraged by this, Shi opened a special website: www.ccstv.net under the name of CCSTV(CHINA COUNTY SIDE TV中国山寨电视 literally: Zhong guo Shan zhai Dian shi) . Because of these Shanzhai Culture, 2008 was called “Shanzhai Year” in China. Just few days later, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television of China (SARFT) notified all the Television Stations informally no participating and no broadcasting to Shanzhai culture , it brought abortion of the broadcasting plan to the Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala Evening by Guizhou Tv Station in Dec 29, 2008.

This paper just focusing on “Shanzhai” culture initiated from Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala Evening project, and made the point that the emerging of “Shanzhai” Cultural phenomena in China is to some extent an Adult Ceremony (せいじんしき) for Chinese Netizens (or the audience under the perspective of communication research) .

“Shanzhai” culture doesn’t come all of a sudden, (1) By the end of 2003, China had 78 million Internet users, in 2004, it was 80 million, by the end of June 2008, the number reached 253 million, and the latest number is by the end of November 2008, it was 290 million, Surpassing the United States and becoming the country with the largest number of Netizens in the world. (2) by the end of June 2008, China had 600 million cell phone users, and 120 million of them are WAP phone users , in January 7, 2009, China approved the issuance of licenses for next generation (3G) mobile networks . (3) Academic researches in China have formally acknowledged the great role of internet and mobile phone in mass communication since 2004 ; (4) China Netizens have experienced a lot on the shifting of policy from the government, on the personal practices in big media events such as reporting of Wenchuan Earthquake in Sichuan, 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Tibet issues etc; especially the official inspection of the People’s Daily Online and chatting with netizens by President Hu Jintao in June 20, 2008, which was the first time that the highest Chinese government leader chatting with Netizens in China, has to some extent claimed the existence of Chinese Netizens and confirmed their cultural role formally.

Theoretically speaking, cyber culture is an international phenomena and acted differently in different states; but in China, “Shanzhai” Culture, as the latest and the extreme point of cyber culture in China, has its special contexts for emerging and need special framework to analyze as well. In this paper, the author will describe the literature dealing with the history of “Shanzhai” culture firstly, then apply the discourse analysis to find out why “Shanzhai” culture emerged in China, in 2008 after Olympic Games? What has been signified through “Shanzhai” culture and what’s the real meaning behind those texts? All of these analysis were aimed to find the location of “Shanzhai” culture in the shifting era of Chinese traditional culture and the predominate forces in the shifting of “Shanzhai” culture itself.

The key concepts for this paper is “Quan” (权) and “Shi” (势), two typical Chinese words which are full of cultural meaning and hard to find equivalent words in English, especially the later one, “Shi” (势). Let me try to explain it one by one. “Quan”, basically it means power, people who has “Quan” means to go to power, no matter how high/low position it is. In China, to obtain “Quan” means getting the great seal (see figure on the right) officially whether from the empire or upper officials which are made by gold, silver, copper or stone, this seal was unique and has never been copied only when it was destroyed or lost. To use the power is to seal any formal documents distributed from an official, and obedience to the power is to recognize the seal firstly before carrying it out. Nowadays, there is still seal using when nominate an official in China (see example figure on the left, Zeng Yinquan accept the nomination of Chief Executive, Hongkong Special Administrative Region from Premier Wen Jiaba.), but together with the personal signature. This is “Quan”.

“Shi” (势) in Chinese is always been used together with and always after “Quan”, say, “Quanshi”(权势). In old Chinese, “Shi” has its concrete meaning, the virila, the male genital organ. Some old civilizations such as Egypt, Rome, Greece and China all have castrated person in their history. In China, to cut the virila was called “Qu Shi” (去势)in written works. Then, after emasculation, the people were sent to the forbidden city to serve the empire, his wife and concubines. Castrated person always physically lost their male characteristics such as beard and acted like female, in China, even now if a man spokes small and acted like a woman will be called lacking of vigor, force, and masculinity, namely, lack of “Shi”. Once “Shi” was used literally after “Quan”, namely “Quanshi”, it (“Shi”) always means treatments one accepted once he/she got the “Quan” (power), such as size of the staff following in attendance, rank or quality of living (at home and in hotel), fields and degrees that his/her power (“Quan”) accessed to, for instance, is it only limited in his/her office or has more influences in other certain fields, and how far it is etc.

So, after these detail deduction of the relationship between “Quan” and “Shi”, one may found the inner logic relation between the government and the media: the government has “Quan” (power), yet the media was not naturally fasten together with “Quan”, though the emergence of mass media has been named “the Fourth Estate” or “the Fourth Power”, but whose power it is? Does it serves the majority of citizens? It is controversial so far. It is the power of the authorities most of the time, say, the state, ‘In the increasing degree seize art effectively to use the fourth power for achievement of the political and economical targets’ . But naturally, the media has “Shi”, for example, the reporter has no right to decide the judgment (who has “Quan”) in a case, but the press can give the case a tremendous build-up and influence the judge in the end. So, that was “Shi” working. The media got some degree of “Quan” after years of build-up of “Shi”, but one must be alerted that this “Quan” is tentative for one case, the single key to got “Quan” is its build-up of “Shi”.

Then, move back to the topic of “Shanzhai” culture in China. The traditional mass media (mouthpiece, literally in Chinese: Hou She 喉舌) in China has to some degrees gotten “Quan”, or in other words, an extension of the governmental “Quan”. When internet users mushroomed in China, the traditional media also control the reporting “Quan” through selection of contents, right moment of reporting and degrees when dealing with some sensitive topics. But the “Shi” of Netizens has grown up and almost went out of control of traditional media, even in some cases, the internet set up the agenda for traditional media. So, the “Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala Evening” wishes to break the 25 years absolute control of CCTV to “Spring Festival Gala Evening” in this context and appear in the cultural stage of China. It is the outcome of competing between “Quan” and “Shi”, its future will be decided by the game of “Quan” and “Shi” as well. Since the eve of traditional Chinese Lunar New Year will be January 25 in 2009, the author will keep an eye on how these game works and how about the future of “Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala Evening” and the future of “Shanzhai”Culture will be the key topic of this paper and a main issue in the next few years as well.

Xin XIN, RCUK Academic Fellow, China Media Centre, University of Westminster: Web 2.0, Grassroots Journalism and Social Justice in China

The relationship between new communication technologies and democracy has always been the central concern of the ‘technology determinism’ paradigm. Under the influential ‘network society’ framework, many scholars have begun to investigate the socio-cultural implications of the emergence of internet-based social networks among young people in Western democracies. However, few studies have so far drawn attention to how different social groups adopt new communication technologies for ideological control and counter-control in a non-Western authoritarian society, such as China. This chapter aims to examine the political implications of the rise of ‘grassroots journalism’ (GJ) in China. Here the notion of GJ is used to differentiate GJ from mainstream journalism, where the whole process of news production and distribution is highly institutionalized and bureaucratized. GJ in the Wed 2.0 environment is mainly characterized by ‘self-publishing’ (such as blogging and podcasting) and sharing ‘user-generated content’ (UGC) (including news and views) within Internet-based communities or social networks.

Based on four case studies, this study argues that the progressive role of the Web 2.0 technologies in empowering grassroots to fight against the current political, economic and ideological establishment in an authoritarian society is largely exaggerated. At best, GJ is used by grassroots-citizens for attracting media or official attention to cases of social injustice or human rights violations at local levels, particularly when the mainstream media are absent because of political or economic constraints. In such cases, GJ has become a supplementary news source for mainstream journalism. Alternatively, GJ is used by mainstream journalists as an alternative channel to disseminate ‘politically sensitive information’, when such information is blocked by mainstream media channels because of self-censorship. In such cases, GJ functions as a supplementary news distribution channel of mainstream journalism. At worst, GJ is used for delivering ‘hate speeches’ or ‘extreme nationalistic views’, in which case GJ coverage can be either similar or completely different from the official agenda. Another circumstance is when official and commercial censorship work together in the name of ‘national interests’ to silence both GJ and mainstream journalism. In such circumstances, GJ fails to empower grassroots to fight for social justice. Overall, however, this paper argues that, by exploiting new communication technologies, GJ does have positive impact on transparency of public information and communication. In particular, it poses challenges to information censors in China, particularly when mainstream media fail to provide prompt, accurate and detailed information about ‘politically sensitive issues’ concerning public safety and health issues. Still, such positive role that GJ is supposed to perform in the authoritarian society is likely to be hindered by a range of constrains, varying from politico-economic conditions to journalistic-social factors.