ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some divergent histories for the rise of social and mobile media–China and Japan. Social mobile media has become integral in many people’s everyday life and interpersonal relationships, especially in and around family communication. It is this intergenerational communication that envelops the mundane intimacies with hybrid forms of new media literacy. In September 1987, 19 years after the birth of the American Advanced Research Project Agency Net, the Internet came to China. The China Academic Network officially established the first international Internet email node in Beijing, and sent out the first email from China to Germany on 14 September 1987. The blog bears a revolutionary significance in Internet history, especially in China. For the first time, blogs made it possible for the writings of the grassroot class in China to be read by others on a large scale. The political and social influences of the new media have also been observed in China.
