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The Internet and digital media have become conduits and locales where millions of Chinese share information and engage in creative expression and social participation. This book takes a cutting-edge look at the impacts and implications of an increasingly networked China. Eleven chapters cover the terrain of a complex social and political environment, revealing how modern China deals with digital media and issues of censorship, online activism, civic life, and global networks. The authors in this collection come from diverse geographical backgrounds and employ methods including ethnography, interview, survey, and digital trace data to reveal the networks that provide the critical components for civic engagement in Chinese society.
The Chinese state is a changing, multi-faceted entity, as is the Chinese public that interacts with the new landscape of digital media in adaptive and novel ways. Networked China: Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement situates Chinese internet in its complex, generational context to provide a full and dynamic understanding of contemporary digital media use in China. This volume gives readers new agendas for this study and creates vital new signposts on the way for future research.
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List of contents
Foreword
Guobin Yang
Preface
Introduction
A New Agenda: Digital Media and Civic Engagement in Networked China
Wenhong Chen and Stephen D. Reese
PART I. Digital Media Technologies and Civic Engagement: Implications, Conditions, and Contradictions
1
Internet Use, Socio-Geographic Context and Citizenship Engagement: A Multilevel Model on the Democratizing Effects of the Internet in China
Baohua Zhou
2
Networked Anti-Corruption: Actors, Styles and Mechanisms
Jia Dai, Fanxu Zeng, and Xin Yu
3
Memetic Engagement as Middle Path Resistance: Contesting Mainland Chinese Immigration and Social Cohesion
Pauline Hope Cheong and Yashu Chen
4
Engaging Government for Environmental Collective Action: Political Implications of ICTs in Rural China
Rong Wang
5
Mobile Activism and Contentious Politics in Contemporary China
Jun Liu
6
Campaigning on Weibo: Independent Candidates' Use of Social Media in Local People's Congress Elections in China
Fei Shen
PART II. Glocalized Media Space: Emergence, Composition, and Function
7
The Unintended Consequences of Deliberative Discourse: A Democratic Attempt for HIV NGOs in China
Samuel Galler
8
The Importance of "Bridges" in the Global News Arena: A Network Study of Bridge Blogs about China
Nan Zheng
9
Online Political Discussion in English and Chinese: The Case of Bo Xilai
Ericka Menchen-Trevino and Yuping Mao
10
Fandom of Foreign Reality TV Shows in the Chinese Cyber Sphere
Weiyu Zhang and Lize Zhang
11
The New Political of Mediated Activism in China: A Critical Review
Elaine Yuan
About the author
Wenhong Chen is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Texas Austin where she studies implications of digital media and communication technologies.
Stephen D. Reese is professor of Journalism and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the College of Communication at the University of Texas Austin.
Summary
This volume examines the implications of digital media and technologies for civic life and global networks in rich social and historical context, exploring how people navigate, negotiate, and transform social landscapes rooted in the Chinese context. Chapters are organized around three interrelated themes: digital media access and use, transnational/global networks, and civic engagement.
