Towards Democratisation?: Understanding university students’ Internet use in mainland China

Download 3.43 Mb.

Page	2/32
Date	28.05.2018
Size	3.43 Mb.
	#50834

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... 32

Illustrations

Abstract 1

Contents 4

Illustrations 10

Tables 10

Figures 14

Acknowledgements 14

Chapter 1: Introduction 17

1.1 Introduction 17

1.2 Aim, objectives, and rationale of the research 17

1.3 Research background 20

1.4 Limitations of existing literature 22

1.5 The structure of the thesis 27

Chapter 2: Literature review 32

2.1 Introduction 32

2.2 Democracy and democratisation 32

2.2.1 Democratisation and favourable conditions 33

2.2.2 Democracy and its people 34

2.2.3 Political culture 36

2.2.4 Free markets, capitalism, and economic growth 37

2.2.5 Strong civil society and public sphere 40

2.2.6 Political participation and disengagement 48

2.2.7 The role of mass media 51

2.3 China’s political tradition 53

2.3.1 Dominant political ideas 53

2.3.2 Persistence of authoritarian regimes 58

2.4 Contemporary China in the process of democratisation 59

2.4.1 Economic reform and opening-up policy 62

2.4.2 Political reform 67

2.4.3 Standard of living, urbanisation, education and media exposure 70

2.5 The development of the Internet in China 77

Chapter 3: Methodology 82

3.1 Introduction 82

3.2 Grounded theory 82

3.3 Research design 84

3.4 The population: university students 85

3.4.1 Student protest and social movements in Modern China 86

3.4.2 University students and Internet use 86

3.5 Data collection 87

3.5.1 In-depth interviews 87

3.5.2 Focus group research 96

3.5.3 Web content analysis, digital auto-ethnography, and literature review 108

3.6 Data analysis 109

3.6.1 Four coding phrases 109

3.6.2 Emerged categories 113

3.6.3 The participants 116

3.6.4 Other media use 120

Chapter 4: Participants’ Internet use 122

4.1 Introduction 122

4.2 Internet use habit and online activities 122

4.3 Online news reading, information search, and lecture 127

4.3.1 Online news reading 127

4.3.2 Online information search 142

4.3.3 Online lecture 148

4.4 Between acquaintances and strangers 149

4.4.1 QQ 149

4.4.2 Renren 160

4.4.3 Weibo (Microblog) 163

4.4.4 Between acquaintances and strangers 183

4.5 University intranet and online forums 187

4.5.1 University Intranet 187

4.5.2 Online forums 194

4.6 Online and offline political participation, participation, and volunteering 200

4.7 Online travelling and movies 205

4.7.1 Online travelling 205

4.7.2 Online movies 208

4.8 Climbing over the Great Wall, Twitter, and Facebook 210

4.8.1 Climbing over the Great Wall 210

4.8.2 Twitter and Facebook 213

4.9 Participant as a communicator 214

4.10 Civic talk 223

Chapter 5: Participants’ perceptions of the Internet 228

5.1 Introduction 228

5.2 Belief in the Internet’s effect 228

5.2.1 The Internet’s effect on Chinese society 229

5.2.2 Individual’s effect through the Internet 245

5.2.3 The Internet’s effect on individuals 247

5.3 Understanding of online comments and user-generated content 256

5.4 Disbelief in relevance of social problems 259

5.5 Understanding of censorship 262

5.6 Attitude toward government corruption 268

Chapter 6: Discussion 270

6.1 Introduction 270

6.2 Political disengagement and why 271

6.2.1 Introduction 271

6.2.2 Political disengagement 271

6.2.3 Censorship 273

6.2.4 Political socialisation and irrelevance 276

6.2.5 Belief in a shock therapy and low political efficacy 280

6.2.6 Lack of civic organisations and activities 282

6.3 The power of disengagement and mass entertainment 283

6.3.1 Introduction 283

6.3.2 Who communicates to the participants online 284

6.3.3 The power of political disengagement and mass entertainment 287

6.3.4 Control or liberation: Huxley vs. the gadget theory 294

6.4 How do participants understand the influence of Internet use on them? 297

6.4.1 Introduction 297

6.4.2 Why Internet users? 297

6.4.3 The Internet and better-informed citizens 299

6.4.4 Strangers and internal political efficacy 301

6.4.5 Belief in ‘We’ effect and external political efficacy 303

6.4.6 Summary 304

6.5 Climbing over the Great Wall: liberalised Internet, liberalised China? 305

6.5.1 Introduction 305

6.5.2 Lack of motivation: an obstacle to a liberalised Internet 306

6.5.3 Liberalised Internet, same perspective 308

6.5.4 Liberalised Internet, more active political engagement? 308

6.6 Beyond the Internet and beyond politics: civic talk and civil society? 310

6.6.1 Introduction 310

6.6.2 Civic talk beyond the Internet 310

6.6.3 The rise of online civil society 310

Chapter 7: Conclusions 317

7.1 Introduction 317

7.2 Reflective summaries 317

7.3 Scope and limitations of the research 323

7.4 Contributions of the research 325

7.5 Further research 329

Appendices 333

Appendix I: Interview Guide for In-Depth Interview 333

Appendix II: Informed Consent Form Template for In-Depth Interviews 342

Appendix III: An interview invitation letter 348

Appendix IV: Informed Consent Form Template for Focus Group 350

Appendix V: The researcher as an instrument 356

Appendix VI: Youg’s Internet Addiction Test 359

Appendix VII: Other Internet use 360

Bibliography 365

Illustrations

Tables

Table 1. Comparison between rate of population age 6 and over by educational level 72

Table 2. Statistics of Chinese overseas students from 1978 to 2009 72

Table 3. Features of focus group participants 102

Table 4. Categories emerged from the focused coding 114

Table 5. Who are the participants? 116

Table 6. Online skills 117

Table 7. Participants’ online skills? 117

Table 8. How did the participants describe themselves? 118

Table 9. Other media use 120

Table 10. Interne use habit I 122

Table 11. Internet use habit II 124

Table 12. The participants’ online activities 126

Table 13. News reading: channel and frequency 129

Table 14. Online news reading: reading habit 132

Table 15. Online news reading: what do I read? 135

Table 16. Online news reading: how do I understand news? 138

Table 17. Online news reading: why do I read news? 140

Table 18. Online information search: channel and message 143

Table 19. Online information search: search habit 145

Table 20. Online lecture 148

Table 21. QQ contacts: number, categories and frequent contacts 150

Table 22. QQ contacts: message 152

Table 23. QQ contacts: habit 153

Table 24. QQ groups: number, categories and active groups 154

Table 25. QQ groups: what they do or do not communicate 156

Table 26. QQ groups: habit 157

Table 27. QQ groups: participant as an organiser of QQ groups 158

Table 28. Qzone: who and message 158

Table 29. Qzone: frequency and habit 159

Table 30. Renren: friends and frequency 161

Table 31. Renren: what do they communicate? 162

Table 32. Weibo: service provider, anonymity, frequency and number of followers 165

Table 33. Weibo: who do I follow? 166

Table 34. Weibo: why do I follow? 175

Table 35. Weibo: what do I follow and how? 176

Table 36. Weibo: tweet and comment 177

Table 37. Weibo: what do I retweet? 180

Table 38. Weibo: who follows me? 181

Table 39. Weibo: why do I retweet? 182

Table 40. Weibo: who do I interact or converse with? 182

Table 41. Between acquaintances and strangers: channel 183

Table 42. Between acquaintances and strangers: communication and interaction 184

Table 43. Between acquaintances and strangers: development of relationship 186

Table 44. University Intranet: participants as audience 188

Table 45. University Intranet: participants as communicators 193

Table 46. Online forum: topic, purpose and participant’s contribution 196

Table 47. Online forum: topic, number, and effect 198

Table 48. Report problems or make suggestion to government online 200

Table 49. Participation in political activities or organisations through the Internet 201

Table 50. Participation in the local people’s congress election (supposed) 202

Table 51. Online participation 203

Table 52. Online volunteering 204

Table 53. Offline volunteering and participation 205

Table 54. Online travelling 206

Table 55. Online movies：channel, content and frequency 208

Table 56. Online movies: habit and effect 209

Table 57. Climbing over the Great Wall I 210

Table 58. Climbing over the Great Wall II 212

Table 59. Twitter 213

Table 60. Facebook 214

Table 61. Participant as a communicator: why 214

Table 62. Reasons for silence: censorship 215

Table 63. Reasons for silence: lack of motivation 217

Table 64. Reasons for silence: lack of experience or expertise and lack of trust 217

Table 65. Reasons for silence: personality and online labelling 218

Table 66. Participant as a communicator: channel, message and frequency 219

Table 67. Civic talk: channel, deliberator and message 224

Table 68. Civic talk: Role of the participant and frequency 225

Table 69. The Internet’s effect in general: what it affects 229

Table 70. How it affects: the properties of the Internet 233

Table 71. How Internet affects: media exposure and government 234

Table 72. How Internet affects: public opinion and concern 235

Table 73. How Internet affects: opinion leaders and extreme comments 239

Table 74. How it affects: doubt about the current system 240

Table 75. How it affects: gradual effect 240

Table 76. The Internet’s effect in general: what it does not affect 241

Table 77. What contributes to limited political influence of the Internet: the government 242

Table 78. What contributes to limited influence of the Internet: the public 243

Table 79. What contributes to limited influence of the Internet: pioneers 244

Table 80. What contributes to limited influence of the Internet: environment 245

Table 81. The participants’ belief of their influence through the Internet 245

Table 82. Internet’s effect on participants’ view 247

Table 83. Internet’s effect on participants’ behaviour 251

Table 84. Internet’s effect on participants’ attitude 254

Table 85. Understanding of online comments and user-generated content I 256

Table 86. Understanding of online comments and user-generated content II 257

Table 87. Participants’ belief in irrelevance of social problems 260

Table 88. Belief in moral high ground or self-discipline 261

Table 89. Lack of ethics of animal research and product 261

Table 90. Understanding of censorship: influence of censorship on the participant 262

Table 91. Understanding of censorship: attitude to censorship 264

Table 92. Understanding of censorship: what is censored? 266

Table 93. Understanding of censorship: privacy concern 267

Table 94. Attitude toward government corruption 268

Table 95. Online shopping: channel, window shopping, buying and selling 361

Table 96. Online shopping: communication and networking, and understanding 362

Table 97. Online music 363

Table 98. Online games 363

Table 99. Downloading 364

Table 100. Online novels 364

Table 101. Online literature 364

Table 102. Online magazines 365

Table 103. Email 365

Download 3.43 Mb.

Share with your friends:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... 32