Futures of Learning

I began this blog series by noting the widespread transformations that have been taking place in China over the last 30 years. Though news reports about China most often highlight the country’s stunning economic growth, the government’s policy of reform and opening has not only been about adopting certain market mechanisms and streamlining production. China’s original quest to “link tracks with the rest of the world” (yu shijie jiegui) encompassed a desire to join the market economy as well as broader goals of cultural exchange and technological development. These latter objectives underpin the first email message sent in China in September 1987 by a university professor: “Beyond the Great Wall, Joining the World (yueguo changcheng, zouxiang shijie)” (cited in Qiu, 2004, p. 99). Clearly, the expansion of telecommunications in China, especially the Internet and mobile phones, has given Chinese citizens, particularly Chinese youth, access to new ideas, lifestyles, and forms of leisure that are both local and global, and an opportunity, even if not utilized, to connect with others – Chinese and non-Chinese – around the world.

In examining new media practices in China, we must pay attention to how these emerge within distinct social, political, and economic constraints and contradictions that vary for different populations of users. For example, for China’s young adult migrant population, who, compared to their urban counterparts, face disparate access to social and economic resources and a highly circumscribed social world, the significance of the connectivity provided through the mobile phone should not be underestimated, nor should the way it is used by migrant women to challenge traditional arrangements of power and authority in establishing intimate relationships. For China’s gamers, the online realm offers a world of fun, fantasy, and escape, or, if one is a gold farmer, a life of extreme competition for minimal reward and quite a bit of drudgery. China’s political bloggers, on the other hand, struggle not for gold coins or other virtual loot, but are instead engaged in a delicate game of cat and mouse as they push the conventional limits on freedom of expression and undermine the government’s discursive authority. In this way, they are involved in a Gramscian “war of position,” a protracted struggle, with both wins and losses, advancements and setbacks, for a more politically open China.

In addition to being the year that commemorates three decades of reform, 2009 will mark the anniversaries of other significant events in China’s recent history: the 1919 May Fourth student movement, the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations, and the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. As the nation’s economy faces serious challenges – the lowest economic growth rate in 10 years, 20 million migrant workers laid-off, and millions of college graduates who cannot find work – each of these anniversaries carries with it the potential for sparking social unrest, particularly among disenfranchised youth. (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KB05Cb01.html). If such demonstrations do occur, certainly the Internet and mobile phones will be involved. Seen in this light, and along with Charter 08, the current Internet crackdown mentioned in part four might be just the beginning. On the other hand, most of China’s digital youth will continue to use new media technologies the way other youth around the world do – to listen to music, chat with friends, express intimate feelings, play games, poke fun, and browse news, among other things. And in engaging in these forms of personal expression, they will feel, in one young migrant woman’s words, that their lives are “much richer.” To discover this richness, future research should provide further insights into youth uses of new media in various contexts: among urban youth; among rural youth experiencing mobile telephony for the first time; among returned migrants, particularly women who have gained certain skills and a degree of autonomy through their migration experience; and within various learning environments. By examining the new media practices of different groups of users and reflecting on how these emerge within particular circumstances and discourses, we will gain a deeper understanding of the larger societal transformations taking place in China and about the role of new media in these.

References
Qiu, J. L. (2004). The Internet in China: Technologies of freedom in a statist society. In M. Castells (Ed.), The network society: A cross-cultural perspective (pp. 99-124). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.