Towards Democratisation?: Understanding university students’ Internet use in mainland China
Climbing over the Great Wall: liberalised Internet, liberalised China?
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- 6.5.1 Introduction
- 6.5.2 Lack of motivation: an obstacle to a liberalised Internet
- 6.5.3 Liberalised Internet, same perspective
- 6.5.4 Liberalised Internet, more active political engagement
- 6.6 Beyond the Internet and beyond politics: civic talk and civil society
- 6.6.2 Civic talk beyond the Internet
- 6.6.3 The rise of online civil society
6.5 Climbing over the Great Wall: liberalised Internet, liberalised China?Providing people with tools to circumvent censorship will be nearly as effective as giving someone with no appreciation of modern art a one-year pass to a museum. In 99 percent of cases, it’s not going to work. Morozov, 2011, p.81 6.5.1 IntroductionThere is a common belief or assumption that a liberalised Internet will bring liberal democracy to China. Censorship and the party-state’s control of the Internet are widely blamed as the shackle that chains the democratising power of the Internet. It is assumed that citizens in China will inevitably turn to political content unavailable under control like ‘reports documenting human rights abuses’ by their government and ‘rebel against repressive rule’ once they break through the barrier erected by the party-state. Previous studies (Guo, 2007; Morozov, 2011) and the findings of the participants’ experience and understanding of their climbing over the Great Wall prove that assumption wrong. The researcher, therefore, argues that the Internet is just a medium that goes between the reality and the people and it mirrors or amplifies what is there in the reality. The Internet together with other driving forces in the reality will determine the direction of the political system in China. It is never the Internet alone which is the deciding factor. Censorship and the Chinese government’s control of the Internet is just one of the constraints, not even the most important one. The researcher’s argument is supported by the findings about participants’ experience and understanding of their climbing over the Great Wall. Using a number of tools, Internet users in China can access the liberalised Internet that citizens in democratic countries enjoy. Guo’s (2007) survey of Internet usage in seven cities in China demonstrated that 61.4% Internet users had never climbed over the Great Wall; 21% seldom climbed over; and only 5.5% always climbed over. Although their surveys found that the percentage of Internet users who had never climbed over the Great Wall dropped from 71.2% in 2005 to 61.4% in 2007, the proportion that always use (including sometimes, often and frequently) also decreased from 9% to 5.5% (different measurement scales might partly contribute to the difference). What stops them from stepping into the liberalised online world, especially for those who know how to climb over but seldom try? What do they do in the liberalised online world after climbing over? The findings of the project provide some new fragments and fresh perspectives on those questions. The project answers three questions: Is climbing over the Great Wall a technical matter or a matter of interest or motivation? Will climbing over the Great Wall change the user’s perspective about the political system? Will climbing over the Great Wall make the user more politically active? 6.5.2 Lack of motivation: an obstacle to a liberalised InternetTo the first question, it is a matter of interest or motivation instead of a technical matter for the participants studied. The fact that a first year undergraduate in English, a first year master in law and all his roommates could climb over the Great Wall proves that it does not require sophisticated techniques that a university student cannot acquire or cannot overcome with the help of others if they are motivated to do so. Moreover, all participants were equally capable in terms of Internet skills according to their reports (see Table 7). The fact that a third year master in computer science climbed over once to access a blocked website, turned it down without knowing the name of the website, and never climbed over again raises the question of what the logic behind her action is. P07 described her sole experience of climbing over the Great Wall. She stated, “I climbed over (the Great Wall) once. It was a website recommended by a friend of mine. I viewed once. I do not remember what the website is because I viewed only once. I had a look by climbing over the Great wall. The comments on some events are shocking. Their views are completely different from and contradict what we learned from domestic websites. I was shocked at the moment and shut it down without further reading” (see Table 91). Why was P07 not even curious to gain further knowledge of the website or the content while she had a clear idea that there were messages and opinions completely different from what she had learned before? It is unclear and beyond the scope of the project to explore why P07 shut down the website and never climbed over again. It is unclear what suffocated her curiosity or why her curiosity was not invoked. However, one conclusion can be drawn that there must be other reasons rather than the government’s technical control of the Internet that stop Internet users from enjoying the liberalised Internet. The project provides one possible explanation. Although university students are discontent with some political and social problems such as corruption, social inequality, misconduct of the government, and so on, they do not think that those problems affect their lives (see Chapter 7, 7.1.4) and they are generally satisfied with the current situation or their current lives. For example, when P03 explained why he had never used the mayor online mailbox, he said, “I think that Chongqing is good” (see Table 48). P05 also expressed explicitly the same idea. She said, “in general, the over-all situation in China, I think, can be described as harmonious. To us, to live in such a situation is not bad, as well and good. Well (something) cannot be changed. Anyway, in whichever country, USA or other countries, there must be some conflicts. There are some conflicts in China. That is Tibet” (see Table 16). The Internet for them is utilised as a tool for leisure, entertainment, networking, and information for life, environment and study, not a tool to achieve political goals, or to speak of democracy. The controlled Internet meets all their needs, thus, it is not necessary for them, or to be accurate, they have never thought about such a need to circumvent ‘the Great Wall’ to reach the liberalised online world that the few activists at home and abroad advocate they should enjoy. Moreover, P05’s account evidences the influence of the party-state ‘mass persuasion’ strategy to ‘demonize the United States’ (Brady, 2008, p.98), to refrain from ‘promoting the views of the enemy’ (p.99), and to selectively report international news. According to the understanding of P06, three types of people tend to climb over the Great Wall: democracy lovers, film watchers and fans, and teachers and professionals. He said, “climbing over the Great Wall is common among people I know. Those I know are usually democracy lovers. I feel that they are crazy about democracy. There are also students like us who climb over the Great Wall to watch films, follow stars, and read politics. I do the three. There are teachers and professionals who climb over to collect academic resources. But among the peers around me, there hardly is anybody who I know is a climber.” Common university students do not belong to any of the three groups. The picture is not that most participants demanded democracy or knowledge about democracy, but were held back by the government control. In fact, most participants were definitely not democracy lovers. If they were, they were capable of finding ways to circumvent the Wall and access the liberalised world they desire. In fact, neither did they know more than what they were allowed to know about democracy, nor were they interested or motivated to learn more. For example, P11 explicitly stated her disinterest in climbing over the Great Wall. When P09 and P07 described their experience of climbing over the Great Wall, P11 tried to change the topic by saying, “having heard what they said, I think that I am not interested in the topic of climbing over the Great Wall.” They were aware that the Internet was censored and they only knew what they were allowed to know without climbing over the Great Wall (see Table 77). They, however, did not make any attempt to know more due to both the party-state’s successful propaganda and mass persuasion strategies and their unwillingness to leave their comfort zone with very little challenging, conflicting or contradicting information.
It has also been found that the tendency to value Western values more than the Chinese ones could be a consequence of factors other than climbing over the Great Wall. For example, P06 claimed that his favour of Western countries had started since he was a kid when the researcher does not assume that he climbed over the Great Wall. Accessing the blocked Internet by climbing over the Great Wall did not expose him to something unexpected, but reinforced the ideas he had long held. P09 explicitly expressed the idea. He said, “usually viewing blocked content does not change my original conclusions, only when I neglect some important aspects. Because I think that I view information from foreign countries about an issue just to see if there are other opinions from other perspectives” (see Table 58). In addition, when climbing over the Great Wall people might turn a deaf ear to what they choose not to hear for various reasons as P07 did. Therefore, the researcher argues that climbing over the Great Wall to access a liberalised online world does not necessarily change people’s opinions about their political system.
If a one-time experience of climbing over the Great Wall counts, there were three participants who have climbed over the Great Wall. P07 did not claim any effect on her regarding her one-time climbing over the Great Wall experience. The only effect the researcher can assume is that she then at least knew there existed opinions about certain issues completely different from or contradicting what she had learned. However, she also claimed, “my friend also said that I should not believe that much certain content written outside China. So I did not read further and did not care much about it.” P09 behaved rather reservedly online on public and stranger platforms. It is unclear whether or not his reserved behaviour was the result of his regular climbing over the Great Wall. It is clear, however, that climbing over the Great Wall did not make him politically active. P06 climbed over the Great Wall regularly and he was politically active. It cannot be claimed, however, that it is climbing over the Great Wall or climbing over the Great Wall alone that makes him politically active, because P09, another regular climber, and P07, a one-time climber, were not politically active. Nor can it be claimed that climbing over the Great Wall makes the user more active than those who do not climb over, because P01 who had never climbed over the Great Wall was more politically active than P09 and P07. In conclusion, the findings disprove the assumption that a liberalised Internet will automatically or necessarily bring democracy. The findings demonstrate that on a liberalised Internet a user does not necessarily acquire knowledge or information that substantially changes his/her views about a political system. It is also found that climbing over the Great Wall does not necessarily make a user more politically active than one who stays within a controlled Internet. Though it has not been explored in this project, it is proved that there must be other reasons rather than censorship and the government control that stop people from using the Internet as a tool for political purposes. However, it is important to note that living in an environment with a controlled Internet and accessing the unfettered Internet by climbing over the Great Wall is different from living in an environment with an unfettered Internet. There are a considerable number of ideas, issues and events that the users within the Great Wall have not any idea or knowledge about due to the censorship. It would be impossible for them to search for something whose existence is unknown to them. In addition, the users’ knowledge about the world and ways of thinking have already been skewed by the controlled Internet before reaching the unfettered Internet. It will take time for them to indulge in such a liberalised environment to be noticeably influenced. P07 accessed a blocked websites only once. Seldom did P06 climb due to the inconvenience of climbing over the Great Wall (see Table 59). Foreign websites accessed by climbing over the Great Wall is only one of P09’s five news sources and the other four are all located within the Great Wall. Therefore, more evidence is needed to support a conclusion about the liberalising influence of an unfettered Internet. 6.6 Beyond the Internet and beyond politics: civic talk and civil society?6.6.1 IntroductionThe findings resonate with existing studies on the influence of online public opinion on solving social problems and checking government misconduct, especially the local government. Most participants claimed that they believed in the positive effect the Internet had (see Table 79). The study explored and will present what has been less studied, how the Internet casts its influence in ways beyond the Internet and in the domains beyond politics. 6.6.2 Civic talk beyond the InternetThe study has found that censorship and government control did not prevent the participants from reading and seeking political content, even the sensitive content, but it affected their online political deliberation because they knew that they were watched and they were afraid of being caught. A question arises. Did the participants communicate political content after reading online? Yes, they did (see Tables 67 & 68). The study finds that civic talk went within and beyond the Internet. Hsieh and Li (2014) suggested the same phenomenon that those who did not discuss politics in public could still engage in politics through civic talk. The democratic potential of civic talk has been well-established. Hsieh & Li (2014) found a positive association between online civic talk and online political participation in the context of Taiwan. A few other studies (e.g. Nisbet & Scheufele, 2004; Shah, et al., 2005; Best & Krueger, 2006) also observed that practicing civic talk was positively related to engagement in civic and political activities. 6.6.3 The rise of online civil societyIn the first section of the literature review, the author defined civil society and analysed how it promotes democracy (see Chapter 2, 2.2.4) to provide a theoretical framework to analyse participants’ associative activities online. The three levels of associative activity proposed by Young (1999) are adopted, i.e., private association, civic association and political association. According to Young (1999), private association is ‘activity for the participants or members of the association’ (p.145). Examples of private association include families, social clubs, private parties and gatherings. On the other hand, civic associations refer to ‘activities with a civic purpose [which] aim to serve not only members, but also the wider community’ (Young, 1999, p.146). Associations and activities such as some crime-watch groups or the United Way0 are considered as civic associations. Political association consists of ‘any activity whose aim is to politicize social or economic life, to raise questions about how society should be organized and what actions should be taken to address problem or do justice’ (Young, 1999, p.148), for example, political parties, lobbying organisations, and special-interest associations. The Internet and civil society in China interact in ways that shape the development of both. The Internet facilitates civil society activities by offering new possibilities for citizen participation while civil society facilitates the development of the Internet by providing the necessary social basis – citizens and citizen groups – for communication and interaction (Yang, 2002, p.303). Participation in activities, associations or organisations with objectives in the political domain is found to be rare among the participants (see Table 51), while involvement in QQ groups and online forums and communities is found to be common among the participants (see Tables 24 to 27, 46 & 47). Although there were not any explicitly stated political objectives, the researcher argues that the flourishing of online groups, forums and communities marks the rise of civil society on the Internet in mainland China. Every participant joined a number of QQ groups and the number of groups varied from less than ten to nearly thirty (see Table 24). The application QQ group allows common QQ users to establish QQ groups each of which has the capacity to host up to 500 members. It provides interfaces for group discussion, sharing of multi-media materials, group space, and group live discussion in audio or video forms. It also allows members to communicate with each other personally. Thanks to its nature of group communication, QQ group has great power of networking and organising. Usually it is just chatting, funny conversation, sharing of meaningless information, and caring about each other going on in the groups. The seemingly meaningless communication has a function to keep the network alive and members involved. Moreover, they also discuss issues of group interests (see Table 25). Another function of QQ groups is organising. The results show that all participants, except P04 who lived at home with her parents, reported that their QQ groups functioned as a platform to arrange group activities (see Table 25). The networking and organising capacity of the Internet is great even among strangers. Online forums and communities and QQ groups bring together strangers with the same interests regardless of distance. P06 is a good case. He has actively employed different channels of the Internet to make friends online and offline and to travel (see Tables 21, 24, 33 & 54). His friends made online can be categorised into two groups: travel friends and music fans. Travel friends are more like one-time personal relationships. They are usually first known from online communities that provide communication space for people of the same interests. And then further relationships are developed through offline group activities or through QQ contact, a personal communication channel. For example, 58 City Community is such an online community (see Table 54) where there are division communities for more than 320 cities in China. The community provides categorised information in each city and also space for communication for people of different interests. Users can communicate and arrange activities in the space provided. P06 participated several times in long distance trips and hanging out together arranged by his hometown community. There are also specialised travelling websites or communities where users can make couchsurfing friends to travel in an economical way. Before deciding to go to each other’s city, they try to know each other further though QQ communication. Compared with travel friends, music fan friends are more long-lasting and organisational. They are first known from specialised fan websites created by fans of a special singer on Baidu Tieba. And then further communication and organisation moves on to the QQ groups users choose to join. P06 joined the local QQ group of Chongqing where his hometown and his university are based. As P06 reported, through sharing information and joining arranged activities together, he felt the group was like a family (see Table 25). Music fan friends mix with travel friends. For example, seven of the P06’s couchsurfing friends came from Baidu Tieba for music fans. They shared an interest in music and posted in the same Tieba. They first met at Mariah Carey’s concert and then exchange QQ contacts. The case of P06 demonstrates that the Internet has great potential to bring people of the same interest together across space and has great potential to organise activities. More importantly, the potential has been turned into reality. Members of such online communities develop group identities, learn from each other about different places and cultures, and make possible offline opportunities that would not be possible without the Internet. In addition to networking and organising, QQ groups have the power to mobilise and to influence. Members of a group gain a sense of support from the group and are more likely to take action. The case of the teaching quality group discussion reported by P03 demonstrates how a QQ group can mobilise its members and influence reality (see Table 25). P03 reported that his current university class discussed bad teachers or courses in their QQ group. There was a teacher whose lectures were incomprehensible for most of the students, which resulted in averagely poorer performance of their class in examination compared with other classes of the course. They discussed it in their group, reported the problem to their tutor, and also had direct communication with the teacher. Although they did not achieve the result they desired, improved teaching quality, the group discussion turned their complaining into action. They did not publicise the problem on a more public platform, the university BBS, which might have a bigger influence, because they considered that it would have bad effects on the teacher. The influencing power of the Internet is also evident in online local communities, professional communities, and professional QQ groups and object-centred QQ groups like online game QQ groups and music software QQ groups. University BBS is one of the online local communities that a great proportion of university students use. University students use their campus BBS as a window to see what is going on around them and to know the university they study in from the students who they can trust as reliable sources of information. University BBS is also used as a platform for students to publicise and discuss the problems in the university. For example, P01 reported that he would write something if he knows about it on University BBS (see Table 45). And P03 believed that deliberation on campus BBS influenced the discussion-making process in a university. Online professional communities and QQ groups have the potential to influence professional ethics, protocols, norms and so on. They constitute what Habermas (1989) called the occupational sphere. For example, P07 reported that she and her classmates used specialised websites and forums to search for and learn information in their fields, and also to upload codes they wrote. Users of the websites or forums are common registered users like them (see Table 46). Such an exchange of information on the frontier technology in the fields certainly has impact on the development of new norms, protocols and ethics in the fields. Such online communities can achieve a ‘shared repertoire of rules, practice and standards’ in their fields though long-time shared practice and negotiation (Liu & Seta, 2014, cited in Marolt & Herold, 2014). Another important source of influence is a product of market competition. To attract and develop loyal customers, traders of electronic products like mobile phones, music software, computer games etc. create online communities and QQ groups to provide customers with information, service and space for communication and also to learn about their customers. For example, P02 reported his use of a specialised forum to seek information about digital products, to seek answers or solutions to the questions or problems with his digital products (see Table 46). He also voted for the post whose message was helpful. P03 mentioned a music software QQ group created by the people who manage the software (see Table 24). In that group, members shared opinions about the software, provided information and mutual help with the software, mobile phones or music searching, and music recommendations. In addition, P03 has followed the official Weibo of Q Pet Game. He shared information released by the account. As a channel to bridge the developers and the customers, such online functions certainly affect the development and production of the products. Another important effect is peer production enabled by the Internet. Benkler (2006) believes that peer production, as a nonproprietary model of production, frees production of knowledge, information and culture from the influence of market and government forces. As a result, it ‘creates the opportunities for greater autonomous action, a more critical culture, a more discursively engaged and better informed republic, and perhaps a more equitable global community’ (pp.102-3). For example, P05 shared self-generated study materials on Baidu in a hope that others might find it useful. She participated in knowledge production online that has potential to influence others. Baibu provides a platform for users to share their knowledge and information. Users can both upload what they have and download what others share. The platform forms a loosely tied community of peer production. Users are quite autonomous in their action. Peer production provides an alternative to production of knowledge, information and culture driven by market or governmental forces, and thus opportunities of the birth of alternative knowledge, world views, values, and cultures. Such peer production communities include topic oriented forums P02 participated and professional-based communities P07 joined (see Tables 46 & 47). Participants not only participated in those groups. They also actively used Internet applications to establish groups to serve their own purposes. For example, P02 reported that he found his hometown fellows in the university which he studied in through a schoolmate website, created a QQ group and then added them in. His purpose was to help the fresh students, get help from the junior or senior students and facilitate communication (see Table 27). P01 also reported that he joined groups established by classmates or schoolmates. To sum up, associations at civic or political level are found uncommon among the studied participants while associations at private level extremely common. A number of Internet applications like online forums, communities, QQ groups and so on, are utilised to bring together people who share an interest. In online communities, forums, or groups, common users communicate, exchange information, and arrange activities for the benefit of their members, which cast an influence on the real world. Moreover, Internet users also use the Internet to organise activities and groups to serve their own purposes. Their participation in and organisation of associations and activities provides their opportunities to practice ‘skills of democratic citizens’ (Diamond, 1994). Moreover, the activity of creating and joining online communities to serve individual’s purposes and those of the communities is also found among other cohorts of Chinese Internet users, eg. the Chinese Educated Youth (Yang, 2003a), the county’s emigrants (Pang, 2014, cited in Marolt & Herold, 2014). The author argues that this trend of Internet use marks a rise of civil society online. Download 3.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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