Online Society in China: Creating, Celebrating, and Instrumentalising the Online Carnival

David Kurt Herold, Peter Marolt

Taylor & Francis, Mar 25, 2011 - Computers - 240 pages

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.

Contents

• noise spectacle politics carnival in Chinese cyberspace: 1
• Creating the carnival netizens and the state: 21
• examining the Chineseness of cyber China: 23
• regulation scope and myths: 40
• 3 Grassroots agency in a civil sphere? Rethinking Internet control in China: 53
• Celebrating the carnival fun freakshows and masquerades: 69
• 4 Parody and resistance on the Chinese Internet: 71
• participation and digital game play across a changing technology landscape: 89
• ingame marriage on the Chinese Internet: 106
• Instrumentalizing the carnival rioting as activism: 125
• carnivalesque riots ascomponents of a Chinese democracy: 127
• exploring a Chinese Linux User Group: 146
• Chinese netizens and questions of identifiability: 165
• Chinese civic action groups and the Internet: 184
• netizens and citizens cyberspace and modern China: 200
• Index: 209

Bibliographic information

• Title: Online Society in China: Creating, Celebrating, and Instrumentalising the Online Carnival; Volume 25 of Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia Series
• Editors: David Kurt Herold, Peter Marolt
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis, 2011
• ISBN: 1136808868, 9781136808869
• Length: 240 pages
• Subjects: Computers / Information Technology; Computers / Internet / General; Computers / Social Aspects; History / Asia / China; History / General; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General; Social Science / Media Studies; Social Science / Popular Culture; Social Science / Regional Studies; Social Science / Sociology / General