ABSTRACT

This book discusses the rich and varied culture of China's online society, and its impact on offline China.  It argues that the internet in China is a separate 'space' in which individuals and institutions emerge and interact. While offline and online spaces are connected and influence each other, the Chinese internet is more than merely a technological or media extension of offline Chinese society. Instead of following existing studies by locating online China in offline society, the contributors in this book discuss the carnival of the Chinese internet on its own terms.

Examining the complex relationship between government officials and the people using the Internet in China, this book demonstrates that culture is highly influential in how technology is used.  Discussing a wide range of different activities, the contributors examine what Chinese people actually do on the internet, and how their actions can be interpreted within the online society they are creating. 

chapter |19 pages

Introduction

Noise, spectacle, politics: carnival in Chinese cyberspace

part |47 pages

Creating the carnival

chapter |17 pages

Cultural convulsions

Examining the Chineseness of cyber China

chapter |13 pages

The Internet police in China

Regulation, scope and myths

chapter |15 pages

Grassroots agency in a civil sphere?

Rethinking Internet control in China

part |55 pages

Celebrating the carnival

chapter |17 pages

China's many Internets

Participation and digital game play across a changing technology landscape

chapter |18 pages

Lost in virtual carnival and masquerade

In-game marriage on the Chinese Internet

part |84 pages

Instrumentalizing the carnival

chapter |19 pages

Human flesh search engines

Carnivalesque riots as components of a ‘Chinese democracy'

chapter |19 pages

In search of motivations

Exploring a Chinese Linux User Group

chapter |19 pages

Identity vs. anonymity

Chinese netizens and questions of identifiability

chapter |16 pages

Taking urban conservation online

Chinese civic action groups and the internet

chapter |9 pages

Conclusion

Netizens and citizens, cyberspace and modern China