The evolution of the Chinese internet : creative visibility in the digital public / Shaohua Guo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guo, Shaohua, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internet--Social aspects--China.

Internet.

Internet--Political aspects--China.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 p.)

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2021]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Despite widespread consensus that China's digital revolution was sure to bring about massive democratic reforms, such changes have not come to pass. While scholars and policy makers alternate between predicting change and disparaging a stubbornly authoritarian regime, in this book Shaohua Guo demonstrates how this dichotomy misses the far more complex reality. The Evolution of the Chinese Internet traces the emergence and maturation of one of the most creative digital cultures in the world through four major technological platforms: the bulletin board system, the blog, the microblog, and WeChat. Guo transcends typical binaries of freedom and control, to argue that Chinese Internet culture displays a uniquely sophisticated interplay between multiple extremes, and that its vibrancy is dependent on these complex negotiations. In contrast to the flourishing of research findings on what is made invisible online, this book examines the driving mechanisms that grant visibility to particular kinds of user-generated content. Offering a systematic account of how and why an ingenious Internet culture has been able to thrive, Guo highlights the pivotal roles that media institutions, technological platforms, and creative practices of Chinese netizens have played in shaping culture on- and offline.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

1 A Cultural Revolution in China’s Digital Age

2 A Historical Overview through Technological Platforms

3 Tracking Playfulness

4 National Blogging and Cultural Entrepreneurship

5 Taboo Breakers and Microcultural Contention

6 Digital Witnessing on Weibo

7 WeChat

8 Ambivalent Revolution

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781503614444

1503614441

OCLC:

1226362595