The Internet and China
Co-founder of Global Voices Rebecca MacKinnon led a discussion about how technology is affecting Chinese society with rapporteur Rachel Rawlins (Global Voices), and Jean-Marc Coicaud (UNU), Rudy Chan (China.com), David Schlesinger (Reuters), Michael Tong (NetEase.com) and Marcus Xiang (PDX.CN). Although Westerners originally thought freedom of expression and information on the Internet would bring down the Communist Party, the powers in Beijing have become adept at searching out and striking down the information they deem dangerous.
The Internet only reaches about 8% of the Chinese population and this 8% is fairly homogenous; a “thin layer” of educated urban elites. The CPC doesn’t necessarily feel threatened either. Most people stay away from political talk on their blogs, discussing everyday topics like movies, music and their daily lives.
What’s more, there is no organized group of Chinese political bloggers. Dissidents are individuals; this is what the West hears most about.
The Internet may only be at 8% penetration, but mobile phones are a powerful force, reaching up to 4 times as many people. The appeal of mobile phones is portability. But despite 3G technology, the design of mobile phones is not very conducive to Web surfing. Xiang figures that because of this factor, computers will become more popular for surfing the Web.
TAG: wemedia
A definite highlight of the conference. I think this reaffirms the notion that those inside a particular country may have differing ideas on what needs to be talked about may be different than what the west may want to talk about. It shouldn’t be an either/or practice, but also listen to the other voices out there.
I really do not follow China much, but Andrew Lih’s comments about China’s history and the work with Wikipedia were such a needed and valuable contribution. It also provided much more depth to the regular stories that I may read about China.