China
Launch!
I’m happy to be launching a new blog that documents a new research effort just getting under way, a follow on to some of the work that I have been doing with the MacArthur Foundation Digltal Media and Learning initiative. After completing three years of ethnographic research on youth new media practice with an extended research team, I am taking a step back and trying to get a better sense of what has been happening in the field while I’ve been deeply immersed in the empirical work. I’ll be among a really great international group of researchers, who will be taking a few months to do reading on research and practice in the area of new media and learning, and also to visit different institutions and projects in the US and elsewhere that are innovating in this space. Along the way, we will be using this blog as a way to share some of what we are learning, and to solicit feedback on our work in progress. We will be posting book and article reviews and reports from our visits to various sites and conferences.
This work is one small piece of the broader effort of the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning initiative and its many partners to support the growth of a field of new media and learning. Our ambition its to help grow a field of research and practice that is grounded in deep knowledge of the changing landscape of new media, as well as in an understanding of innovation in educational and design practice. Just as we hope our earlier research on youth new media practice can inform the research community as well as practitioners in education and technology development, so we hope this review of work in the field can help inform a wide range of stakeholders in this field.
Migrants, Mobiles, and Social Networks
As China has become an increasingly central actor on the world stage, and with the 2008 Olympics recently held in Beijing, there is a great deal of interest in this vast and diverse nation. China is undergoing numerous changes, not least of which is its rapid growth in telecommunications: it currently leads the world in both number of mobile phone subscriptions and Internet users, with roughly 616 million and 253 million, respectively, according to Chinese government statistics. In this post I will discuss one aspect of digital media use in China: how young rural-to-urban migrants in Beijing are using mobile phones as a crucial tool for building and enriching their social networks. My discussion here is based on a portion of my recently completed research in Beijing (Wallis, 2008), in which I was concerned with how young migrants, especially young women, engaged with mobile phones to create meaning in their lives in the city, and what economic, social, cultural, and structural forces enabled and constrained such usage within the dislocations and contradictions that characterize contemporary China. I was primarily concerned with what I call “socio-techno practices,” or the ways in which new communication technologies are integrated into existing social practices and at the same time open up new spaces or possibilities for their enactment.
To briefly provide some context, while rural-to-urban migration is common throughout the world, the role of the state in China makes migration there an interesting phenomenon. Prior to the government’s policy of “reform and opening” (gaige kaifang) in the late seventies, China’s household registration system (hukou) severely restricted people’s mobility and with few exceptions kept the rural and the urban populations separated geographically and culturally. Though substantially weakened, the hukou still serves as an institutional barrier that prevents those from rural areas from gaining full urban citizenship, and it works as a cultural barrier, helping to perpetuate myriad forms of exploitation and discrimination against rural “peasants” who migrate from the countryside to seek work in China’s cities. Deemed a “floating population” (liudong renkou), migrant workers are largely responsible for building the incredible infrastructure that has gone up in China’s cities in recent years, including Beijing’s National Aquatics Center (the Water Cube) and the National Stadium (the Bird’s Nest) that were on display during the Olympics. And though migrants also staff the shops, restaurants, and marketplaces that are now everywhere, for the most part they cannot participate in such modes of consumption and leisure enjoyed by China’s rising middle class (and elites). Young migrant women are often called dagongmei, meaning “working little sister” or “maiden worker,” a term that connotes a young, unmarried woman with low status and few rights. In the media and official documents, they are frequently portrayed as weak and vulnerable, even though they might not see themselves that way.
My study involved about 70 women and 20 men who were young (aged 16 to 25), single, and had journeyed to Beijing after finishing some or all of middle school. They were employed in restaurants, marketplaces, and hair salons, where they hoped to earn some income, learn some skills, and “see the world,” as they put it. They tended to earn rather low wages, and many worked 10 or 12 hours a day, some with one or two days off per month and others with no days off except during Chinese New Year. The women in particular occupied a very limited social space; usually their lives revolved around their jobs and their dorm or tiny apartment, which was often supplied by their employer. Their circumscribed place was further enforced by spatial and discursive power relations that construct the city as unsafe and unwelcoming due to their position as women and outsiders, marked by their accent, their build, and their mannerisms. Several women told me that though they might have a relative in Beijing, such as an aunt, uncle, or sibling, their friends (as opposed to co-workers) did not live in Beijing, and even when they had friends in Beijing, it was often hard for them to meet due to work schedules and distances (Beijing is a very large city and traveling by bus, as migrants do, is often quite time consuming).
So how does a mobile phone make a difference for them? Many of the men and women I interviewed had grown up without a landline in their family home. They also did not have one in their residence in Beijing, and their access to fixed-line phones at work was either non-existent or very limited. While there are pay phones and “call bars” all over Beijing, these are inconvenient and lack privacy. Perhaps it is not surprising then that the first “big” item bought by all the migrants I knew was a cell phone. Buying their first phone was such a significant event that nearly every participant in my study could tell me the date, time, and place of the purchase, who had accompanied them, the price, and how long it had taken them to save up enough money (usually several months). Often sacrifices were involved in buying a mobile phone and tough choices had to be made: a phone was bought instead of new clothes, a television, a bike, or even a precious train ticket home after months of being away.
As the first major item purchased with one’s urban wages, and one on which an inordinate amount of money is spent – often one or two month’s salary even when cheaper models are available, as also noted in prior research among migrant workers in China’s southern factories (Law & Peng, 2006; Yang & Chu, 2006) – clearly a cell phone has symbolic meaning. But more importantly, such telephonic “leapfrogging” makes a profound difference in migrants’ ability both to increase and enhance their social networks. In other words, it allows them to build up contacts in a manner previously unavailable and provides an important means for expanding their personal networks (guanxiwang), something extremely vital in a culture where personal relationships and bonds of reciprocity are often crucial for facilitating numerous types of social functions. Perhaps even more important than the expanded social networks enabled by the mobile phone, however, is the way the cell phone is used to enrich social relationships. Given the constraints on migrants’ time, the circumscribed social world they occupy in the city, and the far distances that often separate them from those with whom they are emotionally close, the ability to surpass these spatial, temporal, and structural barriers is extremely important. What I noted on many occasions was that many close friendships were maintained strictly through a mobile phone; that is, it is not mostly a “supportive communication technology” (Yoon, 2003) for relationships that are primarily sustained through face-to-face contact. It was instead what I call an “expansive communication tool,” used not only for maintaining ties with friends who are now spread all over China but also with those who although in the same city are nonetheless geographically unreachable.
For this reason, the connectivity provided through the mobile phone should not be underestimated. Connectivity means communication, which lies at the heart of the social world, and such connectivity allows migrants – often isolated, often discriminated against – an anchoring and inclusion in networks of sociality that are crucial to their well-being in the city. In this regard, the sheer convenience of the cell phone is also not a trivial matter (and it is interesting to note that not one of my informants ever mentioned safety as a reason for buying a phone). For most migrants, especially young women, the mobile phone is not just one more communication device added to a fixed-line phone and/or a computer with Internet access. It is their primary, if not only, means of keeping in touch with others. Certainly prior to the arrival of the mobile phone, migrant workers remained in contact with family and very close friends, through using public phones, writing letters, with pagers, and so forth. However, the transformation in ease and frequency of access facilitated via the mobile phone is hard to fathom for those of us who have been surrounded by ubiquitous telephony our entire lives. For China’s young rural-to-urban migrants, and most likely for other populations with similarly constrained material circumstances, inclusion in social networks via the mobile phone thus serves as a counter-domination tactic against such limiting and limited life conditions. Often studies of how marginalized populations use new communication technologies such as cell phones understandably put heavy emphasis on economic outcomes, yet the affective/emotional benefits for such groups are also extremely significant and a rich area for further exploration.
References
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) (http://www.cnnic.cn).
China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (http://www.miit.gov.cn).
Law, Pui-lam, and Yinni Peng. “The Use of Mobile Phones among Migrant Workers in Southern China.” In New Technologies in Global Societies, edited by Pui-lam Law, Leopoldina Fortunati, and Shanhua Yang, 245-258. Singapore: World Scientific, 2006.
Yang, Shanhua, and Wai-chi Chu. ”Shouji: Quanqiuhua Beijingxia de ‘Zhudong’ Xuanze—Zhusanjiao Diqu Nongmingong Shouji Xiaofei de Wenhua he Xintai de Jiedu (“Mobile Phone: ‘Selecting Their Own Initiative’ under the Background of Globalization”).” In Jincheng Nongmingong: Xianzhuang, Qushi, Women Neng Zuo Xie Shenme (Rural-Urban Migrants: Situations, Trends and What we can do), 301-308. Beijing, China: People’s University Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development, 2006.
Yoon, Kyongwon. “Retraditionalizing the Mobile: Young People’s Sociality and Mobile Phone Use in Seoul, Korea,” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 6.33 (2003): 327-343.
Wallis, Cara. “Technomobility in the Margins: Mobile Phones and Young Rural Women in Beijing.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Southern California, 2008.
New Media Practices in China, Part 1: An Introduction
Cara Wallis
China is a country where extraordinary transformations are taking place, caused in large part by the government’s policy of “reform and opening” (gaige kaifang) – known as the Open Door policy outside China – initiated three decades ago. We are all probably familiar with China’s economic growth: although China is feeling the effects of the current global economic downturn, the country’s GDP has hovered in or near the double digits for most of the last two decades. The 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing last August were a chance for the nation not only to showcase its athletic prowess, but also to present Beijing as a modern, high-tech, global metropolis and China as a significant player on the world stage. In everyday life, however, it is not just that people’s material standard of living has changed. Rapid urbanization, the birth of a consumer society, a policy emphasis on “informatization,” and a degree of liberalization of the media have helped to usher in new values, life opportunities, and modes of being in the world. Through a “compromise legitimacy” the Communist Party promises to deliver economic growth and “a relatively comfortable lifestyle” (xiaokang) (Lu, 2004) in exchange for “self discipline” by ordinary citizens in matters of political dissent.
Clearly, new media technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones have become an important part of both realizing and troubling this agreement. While the government has invested heavily in telecommunications infrastructure, it is also wary of what it perceives as harmful influences – moral, political, social – that are spread through such technologies. This point has been driven home by the government’s recent banning of hundreds of websites, both foreign and domestic, for “pornography” and “vulgarity,” which also seem to include politically sensitive content (a topic that will be explored in more detail in my post focusing on the Internet). Still, while the Internet and cell phones circulate viewpoints and feelings that can be perceived as subverting the official discourse, they also have become key platforms for nationalistic sentiments. These tensions, combined with the profound changes that have occurred and are continuing to occur in nearly every realm of Chinese society, make China a fascinating country to observe how new media practices emerge and are constitutive of certain social, cultural, political, and economic factors.
In this introductory blog post, I will present an overview of background information relevant to understanding people’s engagement – particularly youth engagement – with new media in China, with a particular focus on demographic data and telecommunications development and standards.
Demographic Data
China has about 1.3 billion people, which accounts for one fifth of the total world population. 20 percent of China’s citizenry is under 15, (http://www.prb.org/Countries/China.aspx) and another 23 percent is aged 15 to 29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_People’s_Republic_of_China). Due to China’s one-child policy, instituted in 1979, nearly all of China’s urban youth have grown up without siblings. Because they enjoy the attention of their parents as well as doting grandparents, they are often called “little emperors” who are spoiled and who do not know how to “eat bitterness” (chi ku). However, these youth also face tremendous pressure as huge expectations are often placed on their shoulders in terms of academic performance and future professional success. In rural areas the situation is quite different because rural families are allowed two children if the first child is a girl or disabled. In reality, it is quite common for rural families to exceed the regulated number of children and to pay fines as a result (most of China’s 55 ethnic minorities are allowed two or even three or four children). Rural youth are often disadvantaged compared to their urban peers, particularly in terms of material standard of living, access to quality education, and future opportunities. Most rural youth “go out to labor” (chu dagong) in urban areas after finishing middle school or part of high school. The youth (aged 15 to 24 years old) literacy rate in China is 99 percent, according to UNICEF statistics (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/china_statistics.html#46); however, this statistic refers primarily to urban areas.
Currently, China’s urban population makes up about 44 percent of the total population, compared to just 20 percent during the 1980s (http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2007-10/22/content_6921882.htm). The reason for this change is that starting from the mid-90s as China sought to transition more rapidly from a centrally-planned to a market-oriented economy, there was a parallel shift from an agrarian to an industrialized, urban society. While some formerly rural areas were incorporated into urban areas, this shift also necessitated the loosening of China’s restrictive household registration system, or hukou, which in the past severely restricted population mobility and created a bifurcated society divided between the urban and rural – with the former enjoying a range of state welfare benefits, material standard of living, and perceived degree of “culture” far surpassing the latter. Though the hukou policy has been severely eroded (but not eliminated), it continues to serve as an institutional barrier for those rural residents – many of them young adults – who have poured into China’s cities in search of jobs and a better life. Currently there are an estimated 130 million of this so-called “floating population” (liudong renkou), and they usually take jobs in the low-level service and industrial sectors. In urban areas, migrants often face discrimination and exploitation, and are blamed for overcrowding and crime. Unlike urban residents, many of whom now enjoy new housing, cars, and myriad forms of leisure and entertainment (the exception being laid-off state workers), migrants in the city are often treated as second-class citizens in their own country.
Telecommunications Data
Though China now has the greatest peacetime internal migration on the planet, the rapid growth in its telecommunications landscape over the last couple of decades is almost equally as staggering. Through a series of reforms and restructurings designed to increase competition (the latest was begun in May 2008 and completed in October 2008), there are now three major telecom companies in China, all state-owned, and all offering fixed-line, broadband, and mobile services: China Telecom (formerly a fixed-line and broadband provider only), China Mobile (formerly a mobile carrier only), and China Unicom (which swallowed up fixed-line and broadband provider China Netcom). These are all overseen by the newly formed Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
To understand the dynamic growth of China’s telecom industry, it is useful to consider that in 1980, shortly after the Open Door policy began, there were only 4.1 million fixed-line telephones in China, for a teledensity (the number of telephones per 100 persons) of .4 (Lee, 1997). By 1990 this number had tripled (He, 1997), and by 2007 China had roughly 365 million fixed-line telephone subscribers, with a teledensity of 27.8 (http://www.miit.gov.cn). Though the urban areas have more than double the number of fixed-line phones as the countryside, rural areas have also seen tremendous growth in recent years, a result of both government policy and market strategies.
Although the number of fixed-line phones continues to grow, China’s mobile phone growth has also been remarkable. In 1999 there were nearly 15 million mobile phone subscriptions; in 2004 the number had risen to 188 million; by 2006 the figure was 398 million; and currently China has roughly 616 million mobile phone subscribers, the largest number in the world and representing a penetration rate of nearly 47 percent (http://www.miit.gov.cn). China has both CDMA and GSM networks, although the latter is more widespread. After much delay and anticipation, in January 2009 China finally issued 3G licenses to the three state-run carriers. China Mobile, which is the world’s largest mobile phone operator and home to about three quarters of China’s mobile phone subscribers, was given a license for TD-SCDMA, China’s domestically developed 3G standard, which, though heavily supported by the government, is still viewed as subpar by many. China Unicom and China Telecom were granted licenses for WCDMA and CDMA 2000, respectively, 3G standards which are already used globally.
About 90 percent of mobile phone users in China rely on pre-paid phone cards, which come in a range of plans (e.g., caller pays, bulk text messaging, etc.). As elsewhere, pre-paid services in China are valued for their flexibility and convenience. Cards come most often in increments of 50 to 100 yuan (approximately $6.50 to $13.00), and vendors selling pre-paid cards are ubiquitous in supermarkets, outdoor newsstands, and mobile phone stores. Though a range of services is available on mobile phones, text and voice are the most commonly used functions. However, as of December 2008, 117 million Chinese had used their mobile phone to surf the Internet (http://www.cnnic.com). Mobile music is also seen as a huge market for growth (M:Metrics, 2008).
Because major cities like Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai have become relatively saturated with mobile phones, the number of new subscriptions in these cities is declining. This has caused China’s mobile operators to look to rural areas (where teledensity is still only 12 percent) as a source of new growth. In 2007 China Mobile added roughly 68 million new subscribers, and nearly half of these were in rural areas (Nystedt, 2007). Still, China’s countryside is vast with large disparities between more well-off areas where mobile operators are likely to set their sights first, and impoverished regions where many people do not have landlines. For this reason, mobile phones are, at this moment and in particular for rural youth, largely configured as part of an urban, cosmopolitan lifestyle.
Internet growth in China has also been rapid and unevenly distributed between the cities and the countryside. From 9 million in 1999, to nearly 80 million in 2003, to 137 million in 2006, China now has the largest number of Internet users in the world, with 298 million as of December 2008, representing a 22. 6 percent penetration rate, mostly concentrated in urban areas (http://www.cnnic.cn). More than 90 percent of China’s “netizens” (wangmin) access the Internet via broadband. Most use desktop computers for such access although the use of mobile phones, as mentioned above, as well as laptops is growing. Currently there are 84.7 million domestic computers (desktop and laptop) that have Internet access in China. 78 percent of Internet users access the Internet from home while only about 21 and 11 percent access the Internet from work and school, respectively.
It is common for urban families to have a computer with a broadband Internet connection in their homes, for which the monthly fee is around US $20 for unlimited use. For those without home or school access – in particular for rural-to-urban migrants – Internet cafes have become extremely important and are used by 42 percent of Internet users. The majority (68.6%) of China’s netizens are under 30 years old, and junior and senior high school youth continue to be the fastest growing online population (http://www.cnnic.cn). As will be discussed in more detail later, the Internet in China is most commonly seen as a medium for entertainment (Guo, 2007).
In future posts I will be examining a range of new media practices in China, starting with mobile phones on Wednesday, followed by gaming, Internet practices, and digital media production. The information presented draws from both Chinese and English sources – academic and popular – as well as my own research in China. I look forward to readers’ comments and suggestions.
References
China Internet Network Information Center, China’s Internet development statistical report (multiple years) (in Chinese).
China Ministry of Information Industry, 2007 national communications industry development statistical report (in Chinese).
Guo, L. (2007, November). Surveying Internet usage and its impact in seven Chinese cities (the CASS China Internet Project Survey Report 2007). Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
He, Z. (1997). A history of telecommunications in China: Development and policy implications.” In P. S. N. Lee (Ed.), Telecommunications and development in China (55-87). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Lee, P. S. N. (1997). Telecommunications and development: An introduction. In P. S. N. Lee (Ed.), Telecommunications and development in China (3-20). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Lu, H. (2000). To be relatively comfortable in an egalitarian society. In D. S. Davis (Ed.), The consumer revolution in urban China (124-41). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
M:Metrics. (2008, February). M:Metrics now measuring China, the World’s Largest Market.
Nystedt, D. (2008, March). China Mobile posts strong 2007 growth, gains music, users. Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/03/23/AR2008032300447.html.
New Media Practices in China, Part 2: Mobile Phones
Mobile “Graffiti Advertising,” Beijing, 2007 ** Bandit Phone Display, Shenzhen, August 2008
As mentioned in my previous post, China’s mobile phone market has seen tremendous growth in a relatively short period of time. With the diffusion of cell phones in China, certain distinctive (though not wholly unique) traits of mobile phone use have emerged. The first is that although business people in China make voice calls frequently, the majority of mobile phone users, including youth, communicate primarily via text message. The sheer volume of text messaging in China is astounding. In 2007, 592.1 billion text messages were sent, for an average of 1.6 billion/day and a daily revenue of 160 million yuan (roughly US $21 million) (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/08/content_7581868.htm). In most cases, text messaging is not necessarily used for reasons of courtesy to those occupying the same public space (as in Japan). On the contrary, loud mobile phone conversations on public transport, in restaurants, and on elevators are not uncommon. I have even heard people answer their cell phones in movie theaters. Rather, one reason for the prevalence of texting is it is cheap: about US 1.4 cents per message.
Text messages in China are often self-written, but the use of pre-written messages is also common. These types of messages are widely available and can either be copied from inexpensive books for sale at kiosks and mom and pop stores or downloaded from the Internet, though most people merely forward messages they have received. The contents are usually jokes, sentimental poems, erotica, or holiday greetings. For example, during the 2008 Chinese New Year period, approximately 17 billion text messages were sent. Though people from all walks of life send pre-written messages, among the rural-to-urban migrant women I met during my fieldwork in 2006-07 there was a large reliance on such messages. One reason was in order to compensate for low literacy levels (especially difficulty with inputting characters) (Wallis, 2008). Another was to communicate emotions the women felt they could not properly express in their own words and to explore their sexual identity (Lin, 2005; Wallis, 2008). However, the flowery language of many such messages means that they are often disparaged by those who are more educated (Wallis, forthcoming). There is also a growing awareness in China that most pre-written messages are meant to cater to the tastes of lower social strata (Cartier, Castells, & Qiu, 2005).
Though most cell phone users in China use pre-paid cards due to their flexibility and convenience, mobile phone calling plans in China are not merely innocuous economic configurations based on rational market forces. Like so many other products and services that have arisen in the past decade or so, they bear distinct attributes intended to bestow status and to differentiate among users. One of the most noticeable examples of this distinction derives from mobile phone numbers themselves. First, cell phone prefixes are linked to a specific provider, with more prestige going to China Mobile. As the incumbent in the mobile phone market, China Mobile tends to offer better coverage and more service options in most areas (though the recent telecom restructuring might change this). Second, one’s number also reveals the type of service plan one has. For example, China Mobile’s “GoTone” brand provides subscribers with a variety of services, including international roaming, mobile Internet, mobile banking, MMS, GPS, and a “mobile secretary.” Beyond phone services, GoTone, as the package for “high-class customers,” also offers VIP clients “distinguished” airport service and a professional style golf club (http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/). On China Mobile’s website, the company boasts GoTone’s “intangible assets” that are “symbolized in success, self-confidence, and high taste” (http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/intro/). The blurb for the service even indirectly invokes the language of quality (suzhi) through comparing GoTone customers’ level and quality of “development” to its own. This information is not only available to subscribers or those who have perused China Mobile’s promotional materials. Because it is widely known that GoTone uses the 134 through 139 prefixes, these three-digit prefixes confer status on their users (This is perhaps somewhat akin to area codes in certain parts of the U.S., as in Los Angeles, for example, where a 310 area code, which signifies a Westside residence, carries more prestige than an 818 area code, which is used for phone numbers in the San Fernando Valley).
Regardless of provider or service plan, one’s mobile phone number itself is a mark of prestige. Unlike in the U.S. where numbers are usually randomly assigned to a cell phone subscriber, in China SIM cards with mobile numbers must be purchased separately in order to use a phone. Since mobile numbers in China are rather long (11 digits), numbers that have repeating digits are more expensive because these types of numbers are easier to remember. Numbers are also more costly based on whether they are considered lucky or unlucky. A phone number with a large amount of eights, for example, will be more expensive, and again confer status, since eight is an auspicious number in Chinese culture. On the other hand, a number ending in four (a homonym for death in Chinese) will be inexpensive and possibly create discomfort for a caller.
Mobile phones have now become a personal necessity for a vast majority of China’s city residents and they seem to be everywhere. Whole city blocks full of cell phone shops exist in cities as diverse as Beijing in the north and Nanning in the south. Urban metro stations, bus stops, and rooftops have all become display sites for ubiquitous cell phone advertising. Radio and TV shows, Internet portals, and advertising companies all vie for attention on and through people’s cell phones, and for those who don’t have the money to promote their services by such legitimate means, spray painting one’s mobile number on walls or sidewalks has become a new kind of guerrilla advertising (often for quasi-illicit services), as in the image above on the left.
Mobile users in China, particularly urban youth, tend to change handsets quickly. One reason is that the mobile handset industry in China consists of both global brands as well as a number of domestic manufacturers that release new models much more frequently than in other parts of the world. Another factor is that the heavy use of pre-paid phone cards means users are not locked into a contract with a particular phone. A recent trend has been the popularity of “bandit” phones (shanzhaiji), so-called because they fall into a grey zone in that they are not black-market phones, but they are not fully legal either. They are manufactured by small companies in southern China and are distinguished by being relatively cheap and loaded with functions. Sometimes they look like replicas of popular models, such as the iPhone, but come with a name such as “Hiphone.” Other bandit phones have cool or kitsch designs (see image above right). Bandit phones are popular among low-income groups such as migrants as well as trendy, geeky kids, but also among those who buy them to express a nationalist sentiment by not buying a global brand such as Nokia. Ironically, however, in purchasing a bandit phone, they are undercutting China’s legitimate domestic phone market (Zheng & Chen, 2008).
In terms of in-depth research on mobile phone use, thus far the focus has been on either the urban or the rural-to-urban migrant population, though exceptions where both populations have been included in the same study do exist, such as in the work of Fortunati, Manganelli, Law, and Yang (2008) and Yang (2006). This split in research design is in line with what are perceived to be vast gaps between these two populations in terms of material resources, life conditions, and opportunities. Both bodies of literature have found, not surprisingly, that young migrant workers in southern factories and “cool” (linglei) urban youth in Beijing voiced similar connections between owning a mobile phone and perceived social status or maintenance of “face” (Yang & Chu, 2006; Wang, 2005). In addition, gendered differences in preferences of mobile phone types as well as discourses about mobile phones have also been found among both groups (Yu & Tng, 2003; Wallis, 2008).
Perhaps because of the particular position they occupy within Chinese society, more in-depth research has been done on mobile phone use among rural-to-urban migrants than among urban residents. Cartier, Castells, & Qiu (2005) argue that “working class ICTs” such as the xiaolingtong (“Little Smart”), a less expensive mobile phone with limited geographic mobility (it runs off the fixed-line telephone system), as well as pre-paid calling cards enable migrants to become part of the “information have-less” (as opposed to have-nots). Recently, the popularity of Little Smart phones seem to be declining as the costs of standard mobile phones also decrease. Cell phones have become crucial tools for migrants, who often have minimal access to landlines outside of public call bars (huaba), to maintain as well as expand their social networks (Chu & Yang, 2006; Law & Peng, 2006). Dating via the mobile phone – where a relationship is initiated and sustained through text messaging and voice calls with a face-to-face meeting not taking place for several months – has also become a common feature of mobile phone use among young adult migrants (Law & Peng, 2006; Wallis, 2008). In using mobile phones to autonomously establish intimate relationships, young migrant women in particular challenge parental authority in such decisions. However, I noticed that they also engage in practices that blend the traditional as much as the technological, through, for example, relying on intermediaries for introductions (Wallis, 2008). However, more widespread availability of QQ (a chat program) on cell phones may be changing this situation, as QQ has become a popular venue for anonymous sexual solicitations. Still, whatever the means, those migrant women who establish intimate relationships outside of parental approval are not always able to follow through on their plans for the future, for reasons of self-protection, filial obligation, and financial security (Ma & Cheng, 2005). Thus, the long-term effects of such autonomy remain unknown.
Due to the nature of Chinese social relationships and the distinctions made between friends, colleagues, classmates, and the like, several studies have found that many rural-to-urban migrants do not have anybody they consider a “real friend” in their immediate vicinity (Law & Peng, 2006; Ma & Cheng, 2005). Thus, the cell phone emerges not so much as a “supportive communication technology” (Yoon, 2003) for relationships that are primarily maintained through face-to-face contact, but as an “expansive communication tool” used for maintaining ties with friends and lovers who are spread all over China (Wallis, 2008). In other words, many migrants have a number of close relationships that are maintained almost strictly through their mobile phone.
A final body of research on mobile phones in China has examined how cell phones, particularly via text messaging, are increasingly used for popular mobilization and subverting the dominant discourse. Such usage first became widespread during the SARS outbreak in 2003, when ordinary citizens used SMS to counter the government’s attempt to block dissemination of information about the epidemic through traditional media channels (Castells, et al., 2007). Yu (2004) argues that such usage constituted a “third realm” in state-society relations and a means of “informed citizenship” (p. 31). Since that time, SMS has been implicated in everything from organizing protests to block the construction of a toxic chemical plant (Nanfang Dushibao) to mobilizing “angry youth” during anti-Japanese riots in 2005. Though the government has tried to keep pace with the information spread via text messaging through devising new filtering and tracking techniques, it certainly cannot control all of the content sent through SMS (Qiu, 2007). For this reason, it uses both “hard power” techniques such as periodically arresting users for spreading “malicious rumors,” as well as softer measures, including sponsoring contests for ordinary citizens to write “red” (“healthy” or encouraging) messages and quash so-called “yellow” (sexual or pornographic) messages (Zhang, 2006). Because text messages often contain politically and morally subversive content, He (2008) argues that SMS, as a “fifth” media channel, has become a “major carrier of the nonofficial discourse” in China. This certainly was the case during the 2008 Olympics, when I received SMS jokes skewering the skills (or lack of) of China’s soccer team and praising the athletic as well as sexual ability of China’s gymnasts. The role of text messaging in China in creating a space for alternative discourse and a virtual public sphere is clearly a fascinating topic for further research.
References
Cartier, C., Castells, M., & Qiu, J. L. (2005). The information have-less: Inequality, mobility, and translocal networks in Chinese cities. Studies in Comparative International Development, 40(2), 9-34.
Castells, M., Fernandez-Ardevol, M., Qiu, J. L., & Sey, A. (2007). Mobile communication and society: A global perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chu, W.-C. & Yang, S. (2006). Mobile phones and new migrant workers in a South China village: An initial analysis of the interplay between the ‘social’ and the ‘technological.’ In P.-L. Law, L. Fortunati & S. Yang (Eds.), New technologies in global societies (pp. 221-244). Singapore: World Scientific.
Fortunati, L., Manganelli, A. M., Law, P., & Yang, S. (2008). Beijing calling… Mobile communication in contemporary China. Knowledge, Technology, Policy, 21, 19-27.
He, Z. (2008). SMS in China: A major carrier of the nonofficial discourse universe. The Information Society, 24, 182-190.
Law, P.-L. & Peng, Y. (2006). The use of mobile phones among migrant workers in Southern China. In P.-L. Law, L. Fortunati & S. Yang (Eds.), New technologies in global societies (pp. 245-258). Singapore: World Scientific Press.
Lin, A. (2005, June). Romance and sexual ideologies in SMS manuals circulating among migrant workers in Southern China. Paper presented at the International Conference on Mobile Communication and Asian Modernities. City University of Hong Kong
Ma, E. & Cheng, H. L. H. (2005). ‘Naked’ bodies: Experimenting with intimate relations among migrant workers in South China. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 8(3), 307-328.
Qiu, J. L. (2007). The wireless leash: Mobile messaging service as a means of control. International Journal of Communication, 1, 74-91.
Wallis, C. (2008). Technomobility in the margins: Mobile phones and young rural women in Beijing. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Southern California.
Wallis, C. (forthcoming). (Im)mobile mobility: Marginal youth and mobile phones in Beijing. In R. Ling & S. Campbell (Eds.), Mobile communication: Bringing us together or tearing us apart? New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Wang, J. (2005). Youth culture, music, and cell phone branding in China. Global Media and Communication 1(2), 185-201.
Yang, B. (2006, October). Privatizing public spaces and personalizing private spaces: The role of the mobile phone in social networking in Beijing. Paper presented at Beijing Forum 2006, Beijing University.
Yang, S. H. & Chu, W.-C. (2006). Shouji: Quanqiuhua beijingxia de ‘zhudong’ xuanze—Zhusanjiao diqu nongmingong shouji xiaofei de wenhua he xintai de jiedu (“Mobile phone: ‘Selecting their own initiative’ under the background of globalization”). In Jincheng nongmingong: Xianzhuang, qushi, women neng zuo xie shenme (Rural-urban migrants: Situations, trends and what we can do) (pp. 301-308). Beijing People’s University Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Yoon, K. (2003). Retraditionalizing the mobile: Young people’s sociality and mobile phone use in Seoul, Korea. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(33), 327-343.
Yu, H. (2004). The power of thumbs: The politics of SMS in urban China.” Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, 2(2), 30-43.
Yu, L. & Tng, T. H. (2003). Culture and design for mobile phones in China. In J. E. Katz (Ed.), Machines that become us: The social context of personal communication technology (pp. 187-198). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Zhang, Y. (2006). “Hong duanzi” weijiao “huang duanzi.” (“Red” messages suppress “yellow” messages). Jiaoshi Bolan (Teachers Digest) 139, 31-32.
Zheng, T., & Chen, Y. (August 21, 2008). Fengkuang shanzhaiji (Crazy bandit phones). Nanfang Renwu Zhoukan (Southern People Weekly), 24, 56-59.
New Media Practices in China, Part 3: Gaming
Gaming in China has become a huge phenomenon in recent years, both in terms of China’s own domestic gaming industry and the number of Chinese gamers. As Cao and Downing (2008) explain, digital gaming in China began in the 1980s with video arcades and home game consoles. Since that time China’s online gaming industry has progressively developed – particularly in the last few years – into a multibillion-dollar business. While PC-based games are still played, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs or MMOGs) such as World of Warcraft and domestic titles including NetEase’s Fantasy Westward Journey (which is loosely based on the Journey to the West and the legend of the Monkey King, see image above) are extremely popular, especially among youth. According to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), in June 2008 online games were the seventh most used Internet application, with around 58 percent of Internet users, or 147 million people, reporting that they had played some type of online game (although this represented a 1 percent decrease from December 2007). Of these, 53 percent, or 78 million, played role-playing games for an average of 11.9 hours per week. According to CNNIC’s most recent report, by the end of 2008, 187 million people were playing online games, accounting for approximately 63 percent of those online. Such growth was attributed to the enriched content and format of gaming products as well as various social networking sites adding gaming elements to their offerings (http://www.cnnic.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/1/13/92458.pdf). In 2008, online game revenue was over 18 billion yuan (around $2.7 billion), reflecting a growth rate of nearly 77 percent (Wang, 2009).
With the popularity of online games in China has come a focus in both popular and government discourse on the negative effects of gaming. For example, in Guo’s (2007) study of the Internet usage in seven cities in China, 55.5 percent of users and 49.5 percent on non-users of the Internet agreed that online gaming should be managed or controlled. The Chinese government has been a major proponent of controlling online gaming because of what it perceives as a direct connection between game playing and Internet addiction, and because of its desire to promote a “civilized” or “healthy Internet culture.” The state-run media runs fairly regular stories on the perils of Internet addiction – exhaustion, failure in school, and even death – and to deal with the issue the government has taken a number of measures. These have included everything from setting up boot camps to cure Internet-addicted youth, to electronically limiting to three hours a day the number of hours a minor can play an online game (through a program called an “anti-indulgence system,” http://www.china.org.cn/english/entertainment/217375.htm), to forbidding the opening of new Internet cafes throughout most of 2007. However, the government does not want to ban gaming altogether, especially in light of what a huge revenue source it is. For this reason, it exhorts gaming companies to exercise “self discipline” and to make games that are “healthy.” In line with such exhortations, in early 2008 the Ministry of Culture released its “Third Round of Suggestions for Appropriate Network Game Products for Minors,” which endorsed 10 games (all Chinese made) that were ostensibly “healthy and beneficial” for “brain development” and educating through entertainment (http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/20008-02/08/content_7581520.htm). In general these games also align with the government’s view that games should promote traditional Chinese culture and values, and in fact games that draw upon Chinese history, legends, and martial arts are indeed popular. Chan (2006) notes that discourses of Asianness within games produced not only in China but also Korea function as a “common reference point for in-game narratives, characters and imagery” and invoke a form of authenticity while also allowing for hybridity.
Reflecting the tension between the perceived benefits and drawbacks of online gameplay, the academic literature on gaming in China seems to take two general tracks. In one body of research, especially studies that adopt a social-psychological perspective, online gaming is often associated with Internet addiction. For example, Huang et al. (2007) have developed a “Chinese Internet Addiction Inventory” to assess the correlation between long hours online (usually gaming) and “conflicts, mood modification, and dependence.” Similarly, Wu and Li (2005) compared “normal” university students to those that have failed in their coursework and found online game playing to be a factor in the latter’s poor academic performance.
In contrast to fears about gaming and Internet addiction, other research has noted that discourses about the harmful effects of the Internet seem to be a stand-in for more general anxieties associated with the rapid changes going on in Chinese society, which have led to what many regard as a breakdown in traditional values and created a vast generation gap between Chinese youth and their parents. For example, in their analysis of Internet-addiction and video-game related suicide discourses in China, Golub and Lingley (2008) argue that a “medicalization of social relationships” and the rise of “new forms of self-fashioning enabled by new media that are not socially sanctioned” have emerged as constitutive of more general changes in the nation’s moral order (p. 60). While acknowledging that some online games and users’ gaming habits might be problematic, some educators in China have also reacted strongly to what they perceive as discourses that serve to stigmatize and victimize adolescent Internet users (Chen, 2007).
Still another body of research on gaming seeks to find the positive benefits and the informal learning that takes place through game playing. Echoing work done in other cultural contexts, Liu (2006) argues that multiplayer online role-playing games teach Chinese college students about cooperation, teamwork, and the ability to deal with real-world issues. In a similar vein, Lindtner et al. (2008) stress the collaborative learning that takes place among World of Warcraft players in Internet cafes in China and argue that cultural values as well as socio-economic considerations combine to construct a hybrid cultural ecology of online gaming in China. Wu, Fore, Wang, and Ho (2007) looked specifically at in-game marriage among Chinese players in MMORPGs and concluded that such role-playing allows players to deconstruct gender binaries, question the significance of marriage in the real world, and develop intimate friendships. They thus emphasize the potentially transformative role of online gaming.
Perhaps most clearly revealing the intersections of culture, economics, and moral discourses circulating around gaming in China is the phenomenon of “gold farmers” – primarily young males of rural origin who are paid paltry wages to play online games, especially World of Warcraft, 12 hours a day in what can justifiably be called gaming sweatshops. Rather than reaping the rewards of their gameplay, the gold farmers (also dubbed “peons for hire”) instead turn over whatever game coinage they accumulate to their employer, who then relies on a middleman to sell the virtual loot to a distant customer, usually western, who does not have the time and/or inclination to advance in the game by their own efforts and skill (Dibbell, 2007). Though such practices exist in other countries, China is believed to have the largest number and most extensive network of gold farmers. On the Chinese Internet advertisements for such work can easily be found (e.g., http://bbs.jhnews.com.cn/redirect.php?tid=472192&goto=lastpost), as can reports on the hardship faced this by this class of gamers, who are often treated like “indentured servants” by their bosses and as disappointments by their parents (http://news.iresearch.cn/0200/20080324/78191.shtml). Like their counterparts laboring in factories, restaurants, and data input companies, their long hours and meager pay are still considered by most to be a better option than actual farming in the countryside.
In various realms the gold farming phenomenon has generated debates about everything from gaming ethics to labor in the virtual, global economy, and it has even inspired a documentary (http://chinesegoldfarmers.com/; for an interview with the filmmaker and clips of the film, see http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2008/05/homo-ludens-ludens-desire.php). Outside of China, especially in countries such as the U.S., the Chinese gold farmers have been the target of much hostility because they are perceived as violating the spirit, if on not the rules, of the game. Many have argued that gamers who legitimately compete in World of Warcraft are justified in their anger at the gold farmers. However, others have noted troubling discourses in the game realm in which frustration with the gold farmers (and similarly with Chinese adena farmers in Lineage II) becomes justification for hostility toward China and Chinese people more generally (Steinkuehler, 2006; Yee, 2006). It appears that as gameplay competition becomes divided along racial and ethnic lines, the resentment generated in the game becomes mapped upon and aligned with deeper anxieties and suspicion of China as a “threat” and as a country that doesn’t “play fair” (e.g. intellectual property, copyright).
Finally, just as the practice of gold farming raises issues of race, ethnicity, and nationality, like many new media practices in China, online gaming has also been a space for overt expressions of nationalism. As mentioned above, strains of nationalism run through government discourses related to both the promotion of China’s domestic gaming industry as well as game content. Some Chinese gamers as well have used cyberspace to voice overtly nationalistic sentiments and to mobilize against perceived threats to their (virtual) national sovereignty. The most famous incident occurred in 2006 within Fantasy Westward Journey when a virtual mob of thousands gathered to protest a Jianyi city (a fictional city) government office that was alleged to have an image remarkably similar to a Japanese “rising sun” flag on its wall. The protestors scrawled anti-Japanese insults into the virtual space and demanded the image be removed. This incident was apparently linked to a player of the game who had had his name and guild (both anti-Japanese) revoked. The story was first covered by the Beijing Evening News (Beijing Wangbao)
(http://epaper.bjd.com.cn/wb/20060707/200607/t20060707_45533.htm) and then by major Chinese news sites such as Sina and Xinhua (http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2006-07/07/content_4806343.htm). Of course it also spread rapidly across the Chinese blogosphere (http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060709_1.htm). Writing about the event, Henry Jenkins notes that it reflects the gamers’ internalization of government policies that seek to promote Chinese national culture and pride within games, yet most likely in a way never anticipated (http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/08/national_politics_within_virtu_1.html). It certainly reveals the Internet as a virtual public sphere, an issue that will be picked up in my next blog post.
References
Cao, Y., & Downing, J. D. H. (2008). The Realities of Virtual Play: Video Games and their Industries in China. Media, Culture & Society, 30(4), 515-529.
Chan, D. (2006). Negotiating intra-Asian games networks: On cultural proximity, East Asian game design, and Chinese farmers. Fibreculture, 8. Retrieved March, 3, 2007, from http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue8/issue8_chan.html
Chen, W. (2007, August 19). Chenmi de weiji neng fou zhuanhua wei shangshang dongli? (Can a sinking crisis be transformed into an upward force?). China Youth Daily. Retrieved November 22, 2007, from http://zqb.cyol.com/content/2007-08/19/content_1864591.htm
Dibbell, J. (2007, June 17). The life of a Chinese gold farmer. New York Times. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Golub, A., & Lingley, K. (2008). ‘Just like the Qing empire:’ Internet addiction, MMOGs, and moral crisis in contemporary China. Games and Culture, 3(1), 59-75.
Guo, L. (2007, November). Surveying Internet usage and its impact in seven Chinese cities (The CASS China Internet project survey report 2007): Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Huang, Z., Wang, M., Qian, M., Zhong, J., & Tao, R. (2007). Chinese Internet addiction inventory: Developing a measure of problematic Internet use for Chinese college students. Cyberpsychollgy & Behavior, 10(805-811).
Lindtner, S., Nardi, B., Wang, Y., Mainwaring, S., Jing, H., & Liang, W. (November 8-12, 2008). A hybrid cultural ecology: World of Warcraft in China. CSCW ‘08.
Liu, X. (2006). Qianyi wangluo youxi dui daxuesheng xiaoyuan shenghuo de yinxiang (The influence of online games on college students’ campus life). Journal of Nanchang Institute of Aeronautical Technology, 8(3), 83-85.
Steinkuehler, C. (2006). The mangle of play. Games and Culture, 1(3), 199-213.
Wang, X. (2009, January 14). China’s online game market grows 76.6% in 2008. China Daily. Retrieved January 20, 2009, from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-01/14/content_7397315.htm
Wu, W., Fore, S., Wang, X., & Ho, P. S. Y. (2007). Beyond virtual carnival and masquerade: In-game marriage on the Chinese Internet. Games and Culture, 2(1), 59-89.
Wu, Y.-W., & Li, X.-L. (2005). Xueye shoucuo daxuesheng yu yiban daxuesheng shangwang zhuangkuang bijiao (A comparative study of Internet usage status between normal and study-failed college students). Chinese Mental Health Journal, 19(2), 116-118.
Yee, N. (2006, January). Yi-Shan-Guan. The Daedalus Project. Retrieved October 10, 2007, from http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001493.php
New Media Practices in China, Part 4: The Internet
As mentioned in my introductory blog post on new media practices in China, the diffusion of the Internet in China has been extremely rapid, with the nation now having the largest number of Internet users on the planet, many of them with broadband access. According to CNNIC, as of June 2008 the top ten Internet activities in China were: listening to or downloading music, reading news, instant messaging, watching videos, using a search engine, emailing, gaming, using a blog or personal space, participating in a BBS or forum, and shopping (http://www.cinnic.com). Though Chinese use the Internet to read news, according to Guo (2007), much of this news is “infotainment” (e.g., about celebrities) and thus, as mentioned earlier, Chinese cyberspace is mainly perceived as an entertainment medium. Because of the rapid growth of the Internet in China and the particular socio-cultural-political context in which it has emerged, much has been written on the topic in both Chinese and English. A focus that seems to be more prevalent in the Chinese literature is gender differences in Internet usage (Bu, 2002; Yang, Wang, Chen & Wang, 2004; Zhou, 2005). In what follows I will not attempt an exhaustive overview of the Chinese Internet but instead will highlight practices that are especially interesting within the Chinese context. These include the use of blogs, BBS (online forums), and, increasingly, social networking sites. All of these virtual spaces provide an arena where ordinary citizens are able not only to enjoy themselves, but also to express opinions (particularly those that might not be sanctioned in real life), vent frustrations, engage in fantasy, and mobilize for collective action (within limits).
The first blog went online in China in 2002, and since then the number of bloggers has increased dramatically every year. In 2006, there were 33 million blog spaces in China and in 2007 this number had risen to 40 million. By June 2008 the figure had increased to 107 million, with more than 42 percent of those online in China stating that they had their own blog (http://www.cinnic.com). According to CNNIC’s latest report, by the end of 2008 China had 162 million bloggers (http://www.cnnic.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/1/13/92458.pdf). Popular blog hosting sites in China include Sina.com, Sohu.com, Bokee, Blogbus, and MSN Spaces. Of course, not all of China’s millions of blogs are active, nor are they political. Like their western counterparts, most are personal narratives written by young people, usually college students, about their daily lives (MacKinnon, 2008a). Still, one analysis of global blog-posting over a 24-hour period found the activity of Chinese netizens on MSN Spaces to be three times that of any other country (Hurst, cited in MacKinnon, 2008b).
Though the Chinese blogosphere has become an important source of information outside official (state) media channels for many of China’s netizens, the most popular blogs in China are those written by celebrities, including movie stars, authors, athletes, and successful entrepreneurs (Nie & Li, 2006). During one point in 2006, the blog of Chinese actress Xu Jinglei even displaced Boing Boing as the number one visited blog in the world, according to Technorati. As elsewhere, celebrities in China capture the public’s attention because of their larger than life personas and the fantasies projected by their lifestyles. What first catapulted blogging into popular consciousness in China, however, was the sex diary of Mu Zimei (real name Li Li), a young woman in Guangzhou (in southern China) who stirred up controversy in 2003 when she began blogging about her active sex life (often quite explicitly), her multiple sex partners (some of whom she publicly named), and her rejection of conventional notions of romantic love. For example, she told one western reporter, “I do not oppose love, but I oppose loyalty. If love has to be based on loyalty, I will not choose love” (Yardley, 2003). As James Farrer (2007) notes, the “Mu Zimei phenomenon” brought the issue of sexual politics into the Internet age in China. After a notorious post about a one-night stand with a Chinese rock star, Mu Zimei’s blog became the number one blog in China for a time, gained substantial attention from numerous media outlets, and invoked admiration as well as scorn from journalists and netizens alike who wrote articles and posted comments in online forums. Although her blog was eventually shut down, she was fired from her job, and her book was banned, she continues to make headlines through, for example, uploading podcasts of her sexual encounters. She has also gained the admiration of many young Chinese women and has inspired numerous imitators, the most famous being Furong Jiejie (Sister Hibiscus) and Liumang Yan (Hooligan Yan). Archived versions of her blog are available online (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.wenxue.com/T3/?q=blog/353), and she even has her own entry in Wikipedia’s English version (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzi_Mei).
Of course, China does have its share of bloggers who focus on social or political issues rather than pleasure and entertainment. The degree of freedom they have to address sensitive political topics (anything from corruption to individual rights) seems to ebb and flow with the political winds of Beijing. While many noticed a somewhat relaxed atmosphere in the period leading up to and during the Olympics, the current crackdown on websites deemed vulgar or pornographic seems motivated as much by a desire to limit social and political commentary as it does to clean up “harmful” sexual content. This seems particularly true in the wake of Charter 08 – a document posted on the Internet in December of last year calling for greater democratic and legal reforms, and thus far carrying over 8,000 signatures (for a link to a translation and articles about Charter 08 see http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/12/china-detains-prominent-dissident-ahead-of-human-rights-day/). This situation has led to a long-term debate about the potential of the Chinese Internet (the blogosphere as well as online forums, discussed below) to serve as a public sphere in China (Damm & Thomas, 2006; Esarey & Xiao, 2008Giese, 2006).
Although blogs are a relatively new addition to China’s Internet environment, online forums and “bulletin board systems” (or BBS) have been popular in China since the late 90s, and they continue to be a virtual space where people feel comparatively free to post news and opinions. This is largely due to the fact that their “free-for-all structure” allows for more anonymity even though many are more closely regulated now than they were in the past (MacKinnon, 2008b). Another reason is that there seem to be as many online forums as there are available topics. Online forums have given rise to various forms of mobilization related to everything from environmental protests to exposing government lies about tainted products. They have also been the arena for what many regard as distasteful forms of “Chinese cyber nationalism” (Xu, 2007). For example, China’s “angry youth” (fenqing) have used BBS and online forums to voice outrage, some of it quite violent, at what are perceived as affronts to China’s national sovereignty or dignity, as evidenced in the anti-Japan protests of 2005 (Liu, 2006) and most recently during the controversies surrounding the March 2008 uprising in Tibet and the 2008 Olympic Torch relay.
These sites have also become the location for a peculiar form of cyber vigilantism known as the “human flesh search engine” (ren rou sou suo), basically an Internet mob that tracks down real individuals for alleged crimes, posts their private information online, and heaps verbal abuse upon them (Liu, 2008). The most notorious case involved a woman, who, after posting the details of her husband’s extra-marital affair online, jumped from a window to her death. After her “death-blog” spread online, netizens took it upon themselves to find the “cheating husband,” (named Wang Fei) provide his personal information for all to see, and then harass him in real life. Other targets have been a woman who smashed a kitten’s head with her high-heeled pumps and a Chinese student at Duke University who had tried to mediate between pro-Tibet and pro-Chinese protestors during the Olympic Torch relay. Many attribute this form of mob behavior to Mao-era customs of “people’s war” and “struggle” or to a “herd mentality” (http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=964203448cbf700c9640912bf9012e05). A recent survey conducted by the China Youth Daily online found that 80 percent of those polled agreed that human flesh search engines should be regulated in some manner (http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/ 2008-06/30/content_8462156.htm). Most recently, Wang Fei (the harassed husband) won a law suit against the web site that posted his deceased wife’s blog (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/18/content_10525436.htm).
The practice of the human flesh search engine originated through an entertainment website called mop.com in 2001 with a game where participants were supposed to gather trivia about films, songs, and books and post clues on the website’s “human flesh search engine” area in order to win “mop money.” Mop.com is now a sort of Chinese MySpace and it represents the growing popularity of social networking sites in China. Because most of these sites are relatively new, like many of the practices discussed in this section, there is very little academic research on Chinese SNS. However, although online forums and blogging continue to be extremely popular (for example, the Fourth Chinese Bloggers Conference was held in Guangzhou from November 15-16, 2008), social networking has begun taking off in China. This has caused some such as blogger Maitian to suggest that blogging has run its course in China, particularly since QQ (an online chat platform) and social networking sites are more interactive (http://maitian.blog.techweb.com.cn/archives/233). China now has its own version of Facebook, called Xiaonei (see the image above), with 30 million users, and 51.com, another social networking site, has 100 million (Yu, Zhang, & Li, 2008). As these gain popularity and as more SNS emerge, they are becoming fertile ground for research on digital youth in China.
A final Internet practice worth mentioning involves the techniques that more politically-minded, savvy netizens use to get around Internet censorship. Not surprisingly, a whole body of western-based scholarship and media accounts are concerned with examining the government’s protracted efforts at controlling the Internet and censoring information through methods that are both technological (the “Great Firewall”) and human (“little sister is watching you”) (French, 2003; Zhang, 2006; Zittrain & Edelman, 2003). Despite the actual reality of censorship in China, the majority of Internet users do not seem to be as concerned about this. However, users who do want to express views the government might frown upon (or worse) have invented extremely creative methods to get their messages out, as the graphic below demonstrates.
References
Bu, W. (2002). Shehui xingbie shijiaozhong de chuanbo xinjishu yu nuxing (New communication technology and women in the gender light). Funu Yanjiu Luncong (Collection of Women’s Studies), 45(2), 37-42.
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Damm, J., & Thomas, S. (2006). Chinese cyberspaces: Technological changes and political effects. London: Routledge.
Esarey, A., & Xiao, Q. (2008). Political expression in the Chinese blogosphere. Asian Survey, 48(5), 752-772.
Farrer, J. (2007). China’s women sex bloggers and dialogic sexual politics on the Chinese Internet. China Aktuell: A Journal of Contemporary China, 36(4), 10-44.
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Liu, S.-D. (2006). China’s popular nationalism on the Internet. Report on the 2005 anti-Japan network struggles. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 7(1), 144-155.
MacKinnon, R. (2008a). Blogs and China correspondence: Lessons about global information Flows. Chinese Journal of Communication, 1(2), 242-257.
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Yu, H., Zhang, Z., & Li, L. Brand experience on SNS: Personal + experiential + interactive = Enhanced emotive connection between brands and youth.” http//: chinayouthology.com/blog
Zhang, L. (2006). Behind the ‘Great Firewall’.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 12(3). 271-91.
Zhou, Y. (2005). Nuxing yu hulianwang yanjiu xianzhuang huigu (A review of studies of the female sex and the Internet). Funu Yanjiu Luncong (Collection of Women’s Studies), 64(2), 71-76.
Zittrain, J., and Edelman, B. (2003). Empirical analysis of Internet filtering in China. Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School.
New Media Practices in China, Part 5: New Media Production
Due to the nature of China’s Internet development and because only recently have technologies like webcams, inexpensive video recorders, and software editing become widely available, new media production in China is a relatively new trend. For this reason, much of the information on user practices comes from the popular media, in particular Chinese blogs, video-sharing sites, and Internet forums where such media projects are circulated. When these either generate controversy or become a widespread phenomenon, as is sometimes the case, it is also possible to find news and commentaries in official media outlets, both Chinese and foreign.
The most common form of new media production in China is e’gao, a combination of the words “evil” and “to make fun of” that now signifies a multimedia expression that pokes fun at an original work (Jiao, 2007). The term has its roots in Japanese kuso, a subculture associated with both gaming and satire. In China, e’gao is closely linked to tech-savvy, digital youth and has become hugely popular: a search with the word in Chinese Google brings up over 12,000,000 hits. Over the past few years e’gao has become an umbrella term used to cover an array of practices including photo-shopping images, creating lip synching videos or parodies of famous films, and imitating celebrities in a humorous way. While some view e’gao as having no agenda or logic, others see in these types of productions small forms of protest against the cultural and political establishment, as a few examples below will illustrate.
Photo-shopping images and circulating them on the Internet is most closely associated with “Little Fatty” (Xiao Pang), a Shanghai teenager (real name Qian Zhijun) whose photo was snapped by someone during a training at a gas station and then uploaded to the Internet in 2003. His round face with his slightly hesitant sideways glance somehow captured the imagination of a slew of photo-shoppers, and his image was soon replacing the visage of everyone from the Mona Lisa to Jackie Chan to Johnny Depp, as in the image above (in English, see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-new-cultural-revolution-how-little-fatty-made-it-big-424469.html; in Chinese with images, see (http://www.gs.xinhuanet.com/jiaodianwt/2004-05/20/content_2160773.htm). Explanations for why Little Fatty’s face generated such a craze abound, but perhaps most interesting is how the phenomenon demonstrates a newfound means of creative expression and satire in China. It also reveals new channels for stardom and success: apparently as a result of his Internet fame Little Fatty garnered a movie deal with New Line Cinema, to star – most appropriately – in a film based on a popular online novel (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/03/content_908628.htm).
Perhaps the most famous e’gao video production is Hu Ge’s “The Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun,” (Yige Mantou Yinfa de Xue’an). The 20-minute film, widely available on YouTube and Chinese video-sharing sites such as Tudou, is a parody of Chen Kaige’s 2005 The Promise, one of the most expensive films ever made in China at 350 million yuan (US $4.2 million), and one that was largely panned by critics and the public alike. In contrast, Hu’s video cost virtually nothing and soon became a viral sensation. As noted by the Shanghai Daily (an official English publication) in an article titled, “Director Gets his Nose Properly Rubbed in it,” Hu’s film was not “just a victory of grassroots wisdom over a film guru’s mediocrity. It’s the hallmark of a new era in China, when small potatoes are free to satire public figures in a way that’s short of actual malice…. it has won the hearts of tens of millions of netizens, who share its author’s joy in undoing that pompous film” (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art_print/242736.htm). The short film gained even more notoriety when Chen Kaige decided to sue Hu Ge for copyright violation. When online forums exploded with commentary and support for Hu, the case was eventually dropped.
In the wake of Hu’s success, several other grassroots artists have gone viral, most notably the Backdorm Boys (Houshe Nansheng), two art students from Guangzhou whose lip-synching and face-making catapulted them first into fame as viral stars and now as celebrities with a multi-year contract. As Meng (forthcoming) states, e’gao is a significant form of cultural expression in China because as a decentralized form of communication, it challenges both “the established mechanisms of media production and distribution as well as the officially sanctioned norms of media content in China.” She further notes that its carnivalesque and iconoclastic attitude towards “mainstream” and “officialdom” are a means for ordinary Chinese to express criticism and dissatisfaction in a media environment that is heavily censored. Well aware of this side of the e’gao phenomenon, the Chinese government has taken steps to control its dissemination. For example, in 2007 the government declared that all music that was changed from its original form first had to be submitted for approval before being uploaded. In 2008, new regulations limited the broadcasting of videos to websites of state-controlled companies. How rigorously enforced these laws are is not entirely clear.
While most e’gao videos are only indirectly political, images containing visual mashups with political meanings have also become a trend. One example, shown below, is the “river crab wearing three watches,” which appeared in 2007 in the Chinese blogosphere. Because the current Chinese government has enacted a variety of policies and made numerous public announcements regarding the need to build a “harmonious society” (hexie shehui), when blog or Internet forum posts containing “sensitive” material are deleted by censors or when a website is blocked, it is common for the one censored to say he or she has been “harmonized.” As MacKinnon (2007) notes, the river crab meme emerged as a play on the Chinese words for “harmony” and “river crab,” both homophones that use different Chinese characters. Because the word for harmony or harmonious is so frequently used sarcastically online, it is often censored, and thus those who are discussing censorship use the characters for river crab. Because a well-known political blogger, Wang Xiaofeng, writes under the name Dai sange biao, or “wear three watches,” itself a play on the government policy of the “three represents,” eventually someone photo-shopped a crab wearing three watches:
Regardless of whether it has a political content and despite its popularity, e’gao, like many practices in the realm of Chinese cyberspace, has not necessarily been wholeheartedly embraced by the general public. Its irreverent humor and “nothing’s sacred” attitude have generated concerns that it degrades the common culture. As with online gaming, youth have been viewed as especially vulnerable to its corrupting influence. In addition, issues regarding copyright and intellectual property have also raised, as with the Hu Ge case. Nonetheless, the e’gao phenomenon shows no signs of abating and it and the range of production practices associated with it are likely to continue as a vehicle for creative expression and counter-hegemonic voices.
References
Jiao, W. (2007, January 22). E’gao: Popular art criticism or just plain evil?” China Daily.
MacKinnon, R. (2007, September 12). “Eating ‘river crab’ at the harmonious forum. Retrieved November 22, 2008, from http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/09/eating-river-cr.html.
Meng, B. (forthcoming). Regulating egao: Futile efforts of recentralization. In X. Zhang and Y. Zheng (eds.), China’s information and communications technology revolution: Social changes and state responses. New York: Routledge.
New Media Practices in China, Part 6: Conclusion
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.
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