Governance in Asia, no. 4. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2015. xii, 310 pp. (Illustrations.) £18.99, paper. ISBN 978-87-7694-176-5.
This is an impressive volume that covers much new ground in the study of Chinese cyberspace and successfully reaches out to a broad audience interested in keeping up to date with contemporary developments.
When I began to conduct research on the newly emerging phenomenon of the Internet in China more than fifteen years ago, I was struck by the optimism shared by the media, academics, and politicians in the West. Despite different approaches, all agreed that the Internet would change China because of a putatively democratizing function arising from its ability to transfer free information to a theoretically unlimited audience. This way of thinking influenced the agenda of early Chinese internet studies so that academic inquiry mainly focused on the political environment surrounding this new technology, such as its usage to promote online activism, governmental efforts of control and suppression, and the ways citizens devised to circumvent and resist regulations and limits imposed by the government.
Even though this volume still focuses on the contested aspects of China’s Internet, it presents a much broader and more complex picture, signaling a departure from the old simplistic, politicized framework that has dominated study of the Chinese Internet from its inception. As the editor states in his introduction: “along with the changing forms of Internet governance in China, especially the growing use of propagandistic and ideological (as opposed to coercive) methods, critical analysis of the Chinese Internet must also be increasingly attentive to these subtleties of state power and not be confined to the old dichotomies of resistance and control” (4–5).
In fact, a number of authors have demonstrated the obsolete nature of the “old dichotomy” by addressing new phenomena arising from the Internet in the past several years. As I have pointed out in earlier research, the Internet is merely a new technology, and different people can use it for different purposes in different times and contexts (see Zhou Yongming, Historicizing Online Politics: Telegraphy, the Internet and Political Participation in China, Stanford University Press, 2006). The Internet can be used to help democratize China, but it can equally be used to reinforce government rule. Jesper Schlæger and Min Jiang illustrate this paradox by choosing the very revealing case of official microblogging by local governments in China. Using the phrase “social management” instead of government control, the authors show “an extension of sophisticated e-government efforts for managing social tensions and conflicts,” and thus go beyond the “overarching ‘confrontational’ framework.” (193)
Using a similar approach, Steven J. Balla examines the practice of the government using the Internet to solicit feedback on particular policy issues. By addressing often-neglected proactive government initiatives, he concludes that, “although the Internet is not a monolithic entity, overarching narratives of censorship and revolution are often ascribed to Chinese digital spaces. Neither of these narratives holds much explanatory power in the context of online consultation, which operates as an incremental innovation in facilitating communications between citizens and government officials” (94).
Indeed, the term “incremental” is very useful to describe the “contested” state of the digital space in China today. Ning Zhang’s article focuses on online activism by web-based backpacking communities. Even though these communities seem to be mostly related to leisure, consumerism, and individual choice, she uses these newly emerging groups to illustrate “a new trend of online activism that does not aim to cause cyberwar or social unrest, but rather to raise public awareness and bring about social change through peer sharing, volunteer work and online and offline charity” (108). This can be viewed as an “incremental” case of social improvement through both online and offline activities.
Silvia Lindtner is also keenly aware that “simple binaries of resistance versus system, citizen versus netizen, users and producers do not hold” (65). Her article on Chinese hackers (makers) stands out in its presentation of people as not merely users, but also co-producers of the Internet. As she claims: “[p]eople do not only access and use the Internet; they also make – to various degrees – their own devices, tools and software applications” (47). Her decision to add “industries” or “capital” to the discussion is particularly helpful. According to her, Chinese makers are not in constant conflict with the state, but in practice sometimes forge alliances with established industries and the government under the umbrella of promoting a creative society. The flexible relationships between the various internet players, such as the market, capital, industries, government, producers, and users is extremely complicated, and indeed the volume might have usefully paid more attention to a full exploration of these relationships.
Since authors of this volume are from multiple disciplines, ranging from literary criticism through communications studies to political science, anthropology, and sociology, they deploy a variety of methods to explore the Chinese Internet, including both quantitative and qualitative approaches. As an anthropologist, I was especially interested to note that a number of authors adopted ethnographic methodology in their studies. Although the quality of ethnographic practice might initially appear uneven, with papers ranging from long-term in-depth fieldwork to interviews of only a few subjects, I do think this is a welcome trend. The ethnographic method is especially well suited to conducting nuanced case studies, both online and offline.
Finally, several articles in the volume cover issues such as ethnic identity, racial contestation, the digital divide, self-identification, and online spectatorship, collectively reflecting the multiplicity of the seemingly unbounded area that we call Chinese cyberspace. By delving into the Chinese Internet’s “structure of feeling,” these articles raise issues that are derived from the rapid development of cyber technologies. I was earlier concerned about the over-politicized agenda of Chinese Internet studies that was deeply rooted in Western thinking. After reading this volume, I am much happier that a consensus has been forged to examine, to quote Lindtner in the volume, “other ways of theorizing the sociality of the Chinese internet . . . beyond the binary of the netizen versus the state” (48). In this spirit, I very much support the editor’s advocacy of “deep Internet studies” (14) that would explore the breadth and depth of an exciting, vibrant, and complex Chinese digital space, including, but reaching much further than, its explicitly political areas.
Zhou Yongming
University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
pp. 341-343