Introduction

This Introduction chapter offers a brief overview of this book and contextualizes the story of Alibaba in the globalization of the Chinese Internet. Through a case study of Alibaba, it contributes to a number of important fields in Media and Communications. First, it complements recent scholarship on the dynamics between platforms and infrastructures by bringing a key player in the Global South into the discussion. Second, it extends previous literature on China’s Internet by focusing more attention on the increasing outward expansion of China’s Internet giants. Finally, it contributes to the growing literature of the political economy of the Internet by foregrounding the role of Internet corporate power in China. The last section of this chapter delineates the methods and organization of the book.