Organizer: Randy Kluver, Texas A & M University, USA New media and digital technologies have become more fully integrated into various levels of Chinese society. In spite of the fact that projections that information technology would “democratize” China have been largely disappointing, it is clear that these new technologies are indeed contributing to significant reconfigurations of Chinese society, in terms of issues such as authority, responsibility, inclusion, and marginality. Analysis from a variety of disciplines tends to focus on discrete social areas, and it also tends to isolate the technological, social, or economic dislocations from other aspects of China’s rapidly transforming society. The papers in this panel will examine the ways in which technological diffusion and use occur within larger social changes, and how they contribute to and condition those changes in areas such as migration, governance, health reform, and youth culture. This panel promises to locate technological innovation, diffusion, deployment and evolution within the social context of changing social patterns, norms, and configurations, and so demonstrate the ways in which the technology amplifies, mitigates, or otherwise conditions social and cultural transformation. By focusing on the ways in which digital technologies interact with other forms and conditions of social change, rather than relying on a technological-determinist perspective, we can better understand the ways in which technology can enhance existing social, cultural, economic, and political pressures.
This panel is part of the Changing China multi-session series sponsored by the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs.
In October 2008, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced the broad outlines of a proposal to reform the nation’s health system. The NDRC laid out the reform plan on the Internet, and announced the opening of a one-month period during which interested parties were invited to comment via the Internet on aspects of the proposal such as establishing a universal health system and reducing disparities in care received by urban and rural residents. The paper will take a multi-method approach to study two specific research questions. In order to advance understanding of the Internet in China, the paper will explicate the government’s use of the Internet to solicit feedback from interested parties on health system reform, one of the most pressing issues facing the nation as it continues to develop socially and economically. The paper will also establish a benchmark for studying the relationship between government and civil society as regards the creation of public policy. Governments at the central, provincial, and local levels are increasingly turning to Internet participation as a means of generating information about difficult public problems. As a result, the paper will serve as a model for future analyses of online consultation and, more broadly, inform debates about the conditions under which the Internet is likely to enhance or undermine the legitimacy of government decision makers.
This paper presents a case study of 32 young rural-to-urban migrant women enrolled in a three-month computer-training course at a government-sponsored school outside a major city in China. The school functions to produce dagongmei (working little sisters) by providing rural women with training in basic computer and life skills. Through weekly classroom observations, interviews with the young women during various stages of their training, subsequent graduation and job placement, and interviews with school administrators and instructors, this study shows that the hopes of these women, built upon the promises of technological competence, were not realized once they entered the labor market, where they remained marginalized. This paper argues that such technological training – designed to raise the “quality” (suzhi) of the rural migrant populace – functions as a mode of governmentality, serving a state policy of informatization while perpetuating a neo-liberal emphasis on individual achievement that masks inequitable structural forces.
Online gaming and other forms of digital entertainment are often used as examples in broader debates over the impact of Internet technology in China. While officials recognize the economic and creative potential of the gaming industry, digital gaming is also rendered as a site where Internet addiction and immoral attitudes thrive. We would like to complicate some of the binary views of the role of Internet technology in China by pointing to how individuals and emergent collectives utilize various “Internets” for their local and translocal engagements, forming networks of alternate geographies across multiple spaces, e.g. Internet cafes, student dormitories, and elite entertainment clubs. We ground our explorations in ethnographic fieldwork on digital entertainment practices in China. Rather than simply equalizing social distinctions or exacerbating differences, Internet technology is a complex system of overlapping sites where social relations and distinctions are negotiated and enacted. In our paper, we explore how these various sites of Internet use and creation become meaningful in people’s everyday lives, for the production of social status and capital, but also for the formation of new identities in relation and/or contrast to dominant narratives of modernization. In particular, we point to digital gaming, which, due to its participatory and mundane nature, is an ideal site for asking broader questions about the relationship between policy, discourse, and everyday forms of technology practice.
Online gaming and other forms of digital entertainment are often used as examples in broader debates over the impact of Internet technology in China. While officials recognize the economic and creative potential of the gaming industry, digital gaming is also rendered as a site where Internet addiction and immoral attitudes thrive. We would like to complicate some of the binary views of the role of Internet technology in China by pointing to how individuals and emergent collectives utilize various “Internets” for their local and translocal engagements, forming networks of alternate geographies across multiple spaces, e.g. Internet cafes, student dormitories, and elite entertainment clubs. We ground our explorations in ethnographic fieldwork on digital entertainment practices in China. Rather than simply equalizing social distinctions or exacerbating differences, Internet technology is a complex system of overlapping sites where social relations and distinctions are negotiated and enacted. In our paper, we explore how these various sites of Internet use and creation become meaningful in people’s everyday lives, for the production of social status and capital, but also for the formation of new identities in relation and/or contrast to dominant narratives of modernization. In particular, we point to digital gaming, which, due to its participatory and mundane nature, is an ideal site for asking broader questions about the relationship between policy, discourse, and everyday forms of technology practice.
Although a tremendous amount of attention has been paid to the tension between Internet control and its potential for political dissent and organization, far less attention has been paid to the ways in which the various e-government initiatives of the Chinese government have sought to reconfigure authority relations by imposing technological solutions to deeply embedded social problems, problems such as local official disregard for central authority, corruption, and information collection. These e-government initiatives have had various goals, but the overriding goal of all the initiatives is to improve governance so as to further legitimate the Chinese state and the power of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese government has come under increasing pressure to develop sophisticated governance mechanisms in the face of an overwhelming number of social, demographic, and economic tensions, and in the context of a profound social transformation that undermines the traditional role of the party and the state. This paper examines not only these e-government initiatives from an overall policy perspective, but also the compelling political and social context in which they arise, and examines their value in terms of reconfiguring governmental accountability and transparency.
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