Media and Society in Networked China

Media and Society in Networked China
Author: Jack Linchuan Qiu
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2018-01-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004355146

This is a collection of seven essays on media and society in China translated from the leading Chinese-language journal Open Times. Authored mostly by scholars based in China, this volume offers a panoramic view on contemporary Chinese thoughts regarding media industries in a rapidly transforming society, especially the central role played by digital media such as Internet and smart phone. The book consists of three parts: (a) socialist media, transformed; (b) critical events and public interests; and (c) Internet, grassroots and social movements. Together they reflect a wide range of views – left, right, and center – on the past, present, and future of media reform and social transformation in China today.

Working-Class Network Society

Working-Class Network Society
Author: Jack Linchuan Qiu
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2009-01-30
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 026217006X

An examination of how the availability of low-end information and communication technology has provided a basis for the emergence of a working-class network society in China. The idea of the “digital divide,” the great social division between information haves and have-nots, has dominated policy debates and scholarly analysis since the 1990s. In Working-Class Network Society, Jack Linchuan Qiu describes a more complex social and technological reality in a newly mobile, urbanizing China. Qiu argues that as inexpensive Internet and mobile phone services become available and are closely integrated with the everyday work and life of low-income communities, they provide a critical seedbed for the emergence of a new working class of “network labor” crucial to China's economic boom. Between the haves and have-nots, writes Qiu, are the information “have-less”: migrants, laid-off workers, micro-entrepreneurs, retirees, youth, and others, increasingly connected by cybercafés, prepaid service, and used mobile phones. A process of class formation has begun that has important implications for working-class network society in China and beyond. Qiu brings class back into the scholarly discussion, not as a secondary factor but as an essential dimension in our understanding of communication technology as it is shaped in the vast, industrializing society of China. Basing his analysis on his more than five years of empirical research conducted in twenty cities, Qiu examines technology and class, networked connectivity and public policy, in the context of massive urban reforms that affect the new working class disproportionately. The transformation of Chinese society, writes Qiu, is emblematic of the new technosocial reality emerging in much of the Global South.

Reconceptualizing New Media and Intercultural Communication in a Networked Society

Reconceptualizing New Media and Intercultural Communication in a Networked Society
Author: Bilge, Nurhayat
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2018-04-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1522537856

Over one billion people access the internet worldwide, and new problems of language, security, and culture accompany this access. To foster productive and effective communication, it becomes imperative to understand people’s different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as well as their value systems. Reconceptualizing New Media and Intercultural Communication in a Networked Society is a critical scholarly resource that addresses the need for understanding the complex connections between culture and new media. Featuring a broad range of topics such as social presence, crisis communication, and hyperpersonal communication model, this book is geared towards academicians, researchers, professionals, practitioners, and students seeking current research on the discipline of intercultural communication and new media.

Networked China: Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement

Networked China: Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement
Author: Wenhong Chen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2015-05-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317556879

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. .

The Web of Meaning

The Web of Meaning
Author: Elaine Jingyan Yuan
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2021-04-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1487537638

Taking off at the height of China’s socio-economic reforms in the mid-1990s, the Internet developed alongside the twists and turns of the country’s rapid transformation. Central to many aspects of social change, the Internet has played an indispensable role in the decentralization of political communication, the expansion of the market, and the stratification of society in China. Through three empirical cases – online privacy, cyber-nationalism, and the network market – this book traces how different social actors engage in negotiating the practices, social relations, and power structures that define these evolving institutions in Chinese society. Examining rich user-generated social media data with innovative methods such as semantic network analysis and topic modelling, The Web of Meaning provides a solid empirical base to critique the power relationships that are embedded in the very fibre of Chinese society.

Trade and Society, the Amoy Network on the China Coast, 1683-1735

Trade and Society, the Amoy Network on the China Coast, 1683-1735
Author: Chin-Keong Ng
Publisher: NUS Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 1983
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789971690694

The book examines the social and economic changes in south Fukien (Fujian) on the southeast coast of China during late imperial times. Faced with land shortages and overpopulation, the rural population of south Fukien turned to the sea in search of fresh opportunities to secure a livelihood. With the tacit support of local officials and the scholar gentry, the merchants played the pivotal role in long-distance trade, and the commercial networks they established spanned the entire China coast, making the port city of Amoy (Xiamen) a major centre for maritime trade. In the work, the author discusses four interrelated spheres of activity, namely, the traditional rural sector, the port cities, the coastal trade and the overseas trade links. He argues that the creative use of clan organizations was key to the growth of the Amoy network along the coast as well as overseas.

Media Compass

Media Compass
Author: Aljosha Karim Schapals
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2024-09-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1394196245

An extensive and inclusive account of the media environments of 45 countries worldwide In Media Compass: A Companion to International Media Landscapes, an international team of prominent scholars examines both long-term media systems and fluctuating trends in media usage around the world. Integrating country-specific summaries and cross-cutting studies of geopolitical regions, this interdisciplinary reference work describes key elements in the political, social, demographic, cultural, and economic conditions of media infrastructures and public communication. Enabling the mapping of media landscapes internationally, Media Compass contains up-to-date empirical surveys of individual countries and regions, as well as cross-country comparisons of particular areas of public communication. 45 entries, each guiding readers from a general summary to a more in-depth discussion of a country’s specific media landscape, address formative conditions and circumstances, historical background and development, current issues and challenges, and more. Designed to facilitate quick lookup of individual entries, as well as comparative readings of a country’s position in the wider media environment, Media Compass: A Companion to International Media Landscapes is an invaluable addition to libraries and institutions of higher education, and a must-read volume for students, educators, scholars, and practitioners working in communication and media studies, journalism, and media production.

Digital Media and Society

Digital Media and Society
Author: Simon Lindgren
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2021-11-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1529787076

What does it mean to live in a digital society? Does social media empower political activism? How do we form and express our identity in a digital age? Do algorithms and search engine results have a social role? How have software and hardware transformed how we interact with each other? In the early 21st century, digital media and the social have become irreversibly intertwined. In this cutting-edge introduction, Simon Lindgren explores what it means to live in a digital society. With succinct explanations of the key concepts, debates and theories you need to know, this is a must-have resource for students exploring digital media, social media, media and society, data and society, and the internet. “An engaging story of the meaning digital media have in societies. The writing is relatable, with diverse and comprehensive references to theories. Above all, this is a fun book on what a contemporary digital society looks like!” - Professor Zizi Papacharissi, University of Illinois at Chicago Simon Lindgren is Professor of Sociology at Umeå University in Sweden. He is also the director of DIGSUM, an interdisciplinary academic research centre studying the social dimensions of digital technology.

Networked Public

Networked Public
Author: Wei He
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2016-10-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3662477793

This book coins the term “Networked Public” to describe the active social actors in new media ecology. The author argues that, in today’s network society, Networked Public Communication is different than, yet has similarities with, mass communication and interpersonal communication. As such it is the emergent paradigm for research. The book reviews the historical, technological and social context for the rising of Networked Public, analyzes its constituents and characteristics, and discusses the categories and features of social media in China. By analyzing abundant cases from recent years, the book provides answers to the key questions at micro, meso and macro-levels, including how information flows under regulation in the process of Networked Public Communication; what its features and models are; what collective action strategies and“resistance culture”have been developed as a result of Internet regulate; the nature of power games among Networked Public, mass media, political forces and capital, and the links with the development of Chinese civil society.

Networking China

Networking China
Author: Yu Hong
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2017-01-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0252099435

In recent years, China 's leaders have taken decisive action to transform information, communications, and technology (ICT) into the nation's next pillar industry. In Networking China , Yu Hong offers an overdue examination of that burgeoning sector's political economy. Hong focuses on how the state, in conjunction with market forces and class interests, is constructing and realigning its digitalized sector. State planners intend to build a more competitive ICT sector by modernizing the network infrastructure, corporatizing media-and-entertainment institutions, and by using ICT as a crosscutting catalyst for innovation, industrial modernization, and export upgrades. The goal: to end China's industrial and technological dependence upon foreign corporations while transforming itself into a global ICT leader. The project, though bright with possibilities, unleashes implications rife with contradiction and surprise. Hong analyzes the central role of information, communications, and culture in Chinese-style capitalism. She also argues that the state and elites have failed to challenge entrenched interests or redistribute power and resources, as promised. Instead, they prioritize information, communications, and culture as technological fixes to make pragmatic tradeoffs between economic growth and social justice.