The Internet, Social Networks and Civic Engagement in Chinese Societies
The Internet, Social Networks and Civic Engagement in Chinese Societies

Author: Wenhong Chen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 1317591151

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The Internet in China reflects many contradictions and complexities of the society in which it is embedded. Despite the growing significance of digital media and communication technologies, research on their contingent, non-linear, and sometimes paradoxical impact on civic engagement remains theoretically underdeveloped and empirically understudied. As importantly, many studies on the internet’s implications in Chinese societies have focused on China. This book draws on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to advance a balanced and context-rich understanding of the effects of digital media and communication technologies, especially social media, for state legitimacy, the rise of issue-based networks, the growth of the public sphere, and various forms of civic engagement in China, Taiwan, and the global Chinese diaspora. Using ethnography, interview, experiment, survey, and the big data method, scholars from North America, Europe, and Asia show that the couture and impacts of digital activism depend on issue and context. This book was originally published as a special issue of Information, Communication & Society.

The Internet, Social Networks and Civic Engagement in Chinese Societies
The Internet, Social Networks and Civic Engagement in Chinese Societies

Author: Wenhong Chen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1317591143

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The Internet in China reflects many contradictions and complexities of the society in which it is embedded. Despite the growing significance of digital media and communication technologies, research on their contingent, non-linear, and sometimes paradoxical impact on civic engagement remains theoretically underdeveloped and empirically understudied. As importantly, many studies on the internet’s implications in Chinese societies have focused on China. This book draws on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to advance a balanced and context-rich understanding of the effects of digital media and communication technologies, especially social media, for state legitimacy, the rise of issue-based networks, the growth of the public sphere, and various forms of civic engagement in China, Taiwan, and the global Chinese diaspora. Using ethnography, interview, experiment, survey, and the big data method, scholars from North America, Europe, and Asia show that the couture and impacts of digital activism depend on issue and context. This book was originally published as a special issue of Information, Communication & Society.

Networked China: Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement
Networked China: Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement

Author: Wenhong Chen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-05-08

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1317556887

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The Internet and digital media have become conduits and locales where millions of Chinese share information and engage in creative expression and social participation. This book takes a cutting-edge look at the impacts and implications of an increasingly networked China. Eleven chapters cover the terrain of a complex social and political environment, revealing how modern China deals with digital media and issues of censorship, online activism, civic life, and global networks. The authors in this collection come from diverse geographical backgrounds and employ methods including ethnography, interview, survey, and digital trace data to reveal the networks that provide the critical components for civic engagement in Chinese society. The Chinese state is a changing, multi-faceted entity, as is the Chinese public that interacts with the new landscape of digital media in adaptive and novel ways. Networked China: Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement situates Chinese internet in its complex, generational context to provide a full and dynamic understanding of contemporary digital media use in China. This volume gives readers new agendas for this study and creates vital new signposts on the way for future research. .

The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China
The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China

Author: Jacques deLisle

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2016-04-05

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0812223519

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

The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China
The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China

Author: Jacques deLisle

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2016-03-08

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0812292669

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

New Media and Chinese Society
New Media and Chinese Society

Author: Ke Xue

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-10-24

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9811067104

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This book focuses on the influence of social media on Chinese society. The respective chapters present research by top-tier communication scholars from prominent Chinese universities and offer revealing findings on the interplay between media / social media, economics and politics. To that end, both qualitative and quantitative methods based on classical theories of communication and economics are drawn upon. The book explores four main areas: the challenges and opportunities for Chinese journalism and communications, changes in Chinese economic development, influences and forecasts for Chinese politics, and the impacts on Chinese culture. As the chapter contributors hail from diverse regions within China and represent three generations of communication scholars, the book offers a comprehensive guide, helping readers understand the impact of social media on China’s development from a broad range of perspectives, and sharing insights on its impacts around the world.

The Internet, Social Networks and Civic Engagement in Chinese Societies
The Internet, Social Networks and Civic Engagement in Chinese Societies

Author: Taylor & Francis Group

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-18

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 9780367739447

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The Internet in China reflects many contradictions and complexities of the society in which it is embedded. Despite the growing significance of digital media and communication technologies, research on their contingent, non-linear, and sometimes paradoxical impact on civic engagement remains theoretically underdeveloped and empirically understudied. As importantly, many studies on the internet's implications in Chinese societies have focused on China. This book draws on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to advance a balanced and context-rich understanding of the effects of digital media and communication technologies, especially social media, for state legitimacy, the rise of issue-based networks, the growth of the public sphere, and various forms of civic engagement in China, Taiwan, and the global Chinese diaspora. Using ethnography, interview, experiment, survey, and the big data method, scholars from North America, Europe, and Asia show that the couture and impacts of digital activism depend on issue and context. This book was originally published as a special issue of Information, Communication & Society.

Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media
Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media

Author: Gary D. Rawnsley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-04-24

Total Pages: 505

ISBN-13: 1317635922

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The study of Chinese media is a field that is growing and evolving at an exponential rate. Not only are the Chinese media a fascinating subject for analysis in their own right, but they also offer scholars and students a window to observe multi-directional flows of information, culture and communications within the contexts of globalization and regionalization. Moreover, the study of Chinese media provides an invaluable opportunity to test and refine the variety of communications theories that researchers have used to describe, analyse, compare and contrast systems of communications. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media is a prestigious reference work providing an overview of the study of Chinese media. Gary and Ming-Yeh Rawnsley bring together an interdisciplinary perspective with contributions by an international team of renowned scholars on subjects such as television, journalism and the internet and social media. Locating Chinese media within a regional setting by focusing on ‘Greater China’, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities; the chapters highlight the convergence of media and platforms in the region; and emphasise the multi-directional and trans-national character of media/information flows in East Asia. Contributing to the growing de-westernization of media and communications studies; this handbook is an essential and comprehensive reference work for students of all levels and scholars in the fields of Chinese Studies and Media Studies.

Social Media in Industrial China
Social Media in Industrial China

Author: Xinyuan Wang

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2016-09-13

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 191063462X

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Life outside the mobile phone is unbearable.’ Lily, 19, factory worker. Described as the biggest migration in human history, an estimated 250 million Chinese people have left their villages in recent decades to live and work in urban areas. Xinyuan Wang spent 15 months living among a community of these migrants in a small factory town in southeast China to track their use of social media. It was here she witnessed a second migration taking place: a movement from offline to online. As Wang argues, this is not simply a convenient analogy but represents the convergence of two phenomena as profound and consequential as each other, where the online world now provides a home for the migrant workers who feel otherwise ‘homeless’. Wang’s fascinating study explores the full range of preconceptions commonly held about Chinese people – their relationship with education, with family, with politics, with ‘home’ – and argues why, for this vast population, it is time to reassess what we think we know about contemporary China and the evolving role of social media.

The Other Digital China
The Other Digital China

Author: Jing Wang

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2019-12-10

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0674243676

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A scholar and activist tells the story of change makers operating within the Chinese Communist system, whose ideas of social action necessarily differ from those dominant in Western, liberal societies. The Chinese government has increased digital censorship under Xi Jinping. Why? Because online activism works; it is perceived as a threat in halls of power. In The Other Digital China, Jing Wang, a scholar at MIT and an activist in China, shatters the view that citizens of nonliberal societies are either brainwashed or complicit, either imprisoned for speaking out or paralyzed by fear. Instead, Wang shows the impact of a less confrontational kind of activism. Whereas Westerners tend to equate action with open criticism and street revolutions, Chinese activists are building an invisible and quiet coalition to bring incremental progress to their society. Many Chinese change makers practice nonconfrontational activism. They prefer to walk around obstacles rather than break through them, tactfully navigating between what is lawful and what is illegitimate. The Other Digital China describes this massive gray zone where NGOs, digital entrepreneurs, university students, IT companies like Tencent and Sina, and tech communities operate. They study the policy winds in Beijing, devising ways to press their case without antagonizing a regime where taboo terms fluctuate at different moments. What emerges is an ever-expanding networked activism on a grand scale. Under extreme ideological constraints, the majority of Chinese activists opt for neither revolution nor inertia. They share a mentality common in China: rules are meant to be bent, if not resisted.