The Internet in China: Policy Context and Social Impact
29 November 2007
Qian (Sarah) Gong, University of Leeds
The Internet in China has been given a lot of expectations in terms of democratisation. Compared with other media, the Internet is considered to have more potential to facilitate a participatory democracy in China due to its technological characteristics. The high expectations on the Internet however, are constrained by media policies that strictly control the Internet infrastructure and content.
The first part of the seminar aims at outlining the political context in which the Internet is situated. As the political structure in China is described as 'fragmented authoritarianism', I will introduce multiple media regulatory bodies that have jurisdiction on the Internet, followed by key media policies issued by these regulatory bodies on both Internet infrastructure and content.
The second part discusses social impact of the Internet based on its potential to aggregate public opinion and influence government policy-making within the existing political structure. Based on my PhD research, I use Qiangguo Forum as an example, to illustrate how citizen journalism based an online forum challenges media discourse dominated by traditional media. I particularly examine how public opinion enabled by this forum can influence the Party official newspapers, such as People's Daily and therefore enhance public-government communication.
