China's Contested Internet

Abstract

Guobin Yang (ed.), China's Contested Internet, Copenhagen, NIAS Press, 2015, 310 pp.China's Contested Internet is a collective book composed of 10 chapters, seven of which were previously published in a special issue of China Information in July 2014. With case studies ranging from around 2006 to 2013, this collection of papers covers some of the most salient phenomena that characterised the Chinese Internet over the last decade: e-government initiatives such as public consultation on the health system reform project (Steven J. Balla), and municipal microblogs (Jesper Schlaeger and Min Jiang); the rise of online culture and subcultures, for example in literature (Thomas Chen), and amongst Internet developers (Silvia Lindtner), the backpacking upper middle class (Ning Zhang), and selflabelled losers (diaosi %&) (Marcella Szablewicz); moral controversies about Chineseness and race (Robeson Taj Frazier and Lin Zhang); the rise of V opinion leaders (Marina Svensson); and the censorship of a Southern Weekly editorial in 2013 (Sally Xiaojin Chen).Guobin Yang chose to group the chapters into pre-weibo and postweibo contributions, but the main value of the book does not lie in a discussion of weibo as a potential game-changer in the Chinese Internet landscape. True, the period between 2009 and 2013 - when weibo was at its height - could be considered a turning point in the history of the Chinese Internet. But there is more than the rise of weibo behind it, and it was more gradual than a change of platforms would suggest. With hundreds of millions of Internet users (now about 50% of the population), the Chinese online population has become increasingly pluralistic, hence disorderly and contentious. Even more significantly, this period coincides with a specific moment in Chinese Internet politics. In 2010, a White paper on the Internet in China kicked off a period of more assertive cyberpolicy and public opinion censorship, more sophisticated influence and propaganda techniques, as well as several waves of repression against prominent opinion leaders.Against this background, this group of papers samples an exciting new generation of research on the Internet in China that focuses less on critical content and mobilisation repertoires and instead digs deeper (as highlighted byYang) into the fabric of the Internet and Internet uses, with original methods and fieldwork.First, it nuances the idea that the Internet has empowered the underprivileged by documenting digital divides, with attention to social status and gender. For example, Balla notes that 80% of those posting comments on the government-sponsored consultation platform concerning health system reform in 2008 were male; that 3/4 were in cities; and that they were older and more educated than the average Internet user. He also notes that female commentators tended to post more substantial and more positive comments. Looking at various surveys and through several fieldwork studies with NGOs and migrant workers, Svensson also provides an important insight into the ability of different categories of Internet users to have a voice on Sina Weibo. She notes that Sina Weibo users are mostly from coastal regions, with rural and migrant users being largely underrepresented and tending to favour other platforms such as QQ or Tencent Weibo. Although women users seem to catch up with men, they are still a minority of the Big Vs on Weibo. These factors clearly affect the communication strategies of NGOs, which can use Weibo for advocacy or information dissemination, but clearly not to reach out to underprivileged communities on the ground.Secondly, this group of chapters highlights how online features are the results of complex interactions between a variety of actors with diverse, sometimes conflicting motivations and agendas. This is highlighted by Sally Chen's interviews of Southern Media Group staff and participants in the street protest. …

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