ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an historical overview of the different kinds of uses to which Internet technologies are put and the ways in which users imagine their relationship with these technologies. It discusses social imaginaries of the Internet in China through three interrelated metaphors: the Internet as jianghu, as a battlefield, and as a playground. The Internet jianghu is the birthplace of Chinese grassroots entrepreneurship. Almost all major players in China’s Internet industry, including B(aidu)A(libaba)T(encent), are early users of the computer-mediated communication and the Internet. The Internet as a playground metaphor highlights “play” as a prominent and ubiquitous feature of the Chinese Internet and is central to the heteroglossia in contemporary Chinese culture. The Chinese Internet can be studied through images, imageries, and imaginaries that ordinary Chinese can easily relate to and identify, rather than the usual focus on access and usage or censorship and resistance.
