Futures of Learning

Gaming in China has become a huge phenomenon in recent years, both in terms of China’s own domestic gaming industry and the number of Chinese gamers. As Cao and Downing (2008) explain, digital gaming in China began in the 1980s with video arcades and home game consoles. Since that time China’s online gaming industry has progressively developed – particularly in the last few years – into a multibillion-dollar business. While PC-based games are still played, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs or MMOGs) such as World of Warcraft and domestic titles including NetEase’s Fantasy Westward Journey (which is loosely based on the Journey to the West and the legend of the Monkey King, see image above) are extremely popular, especially among youth. According to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), in June 2008 online games were the seventh most used Internet application, with around 58 percent of Internet users, or 147 million people, reporting that they had played some type of online game (although this represented a 1 percent decrease from December 2007). Of these, 53 percent, or 78 million, played role-playing games for an average of 11.9 hours per week. According to CNNIC’s most recent report, by the end of 2008, 187 million people were playing online games, accounting for approximately 63 percent of those online. Such growth was attributed to the enriched content and format of gaming products as well as various social networking sites adding gaming elements to their offerings (http://www.cnnic.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/1/13/92458.pdf). In 2008, online game revenue was over 18 billion yuan (around $2.7 billion), reflecting a growth rate of nearly 77 percent (Wang, 2009).

With the popularity of online games in China has come a focus in both popular and government discourse on the negative effects of gaming. For example, in Guo’s (2007) study of the Internet usage in seven cities in China, 55.5 percent of users and 49.5 percent on non-users of the Internet agreed that online gaming should be managed or controlled. The Chinese government has been a major proponent of controlling online gaming because of what it perceives as a direct connection between game playing and Internet addiction, and because of its desire to promote a “civilized” or “healthy Internet culture.” The state-run media runs fairly regular stories on the perils of Internet addiction – exhaustion, failure in school, and even death – and to deal with the issue the government has taken a number of measures. These have included everything from setting up boot camps to cure Internet-addicted youth, to electronically limiting to three hours a day the number of hours a minor can play an online game (through a program called an “anti-indulgence system,” http://www.china.org.cn/english/entertainment/217375.htm), to forbidding the opening of new Internet cafes throughout most of 2007. However, the government does not want to ban gaming altogether, especially in light of what a huge revenue source it is. For this reason, it exhorts gaming companies to exercise “self discipline” and to make games that are “healthy.” In line with such exhortations, in early 2008 the Ministry of Culture released its “Third Round of Suggestions for Appropriate Network Game Products for Minors,” which endorsed 10 games (all Chinese made) that were ostensibly “healthy and beneficial” for “brain development” and educating through entertainment (http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/20008-02/08/content_7581520.htm). In general these games also align with the government’s view that games should promote traditional Chinese culture and values, and in fact games that draw upon Chinese history, legends, and martial arts are indeed popular. Chan (2006) notes that discourses of Asianness within games produced not only in China but also Korea function as a “common reference point for in-game narratives, characters and imagery” and invoke a form of authenticity while also allowing for hybridity.

Reflecting the tension between the perceived benefits and drawbacks of online gameplay, the academic literature on gaming in China seems to take two general tracks. In one body of research, especially studies that adopt a social-psychological perspective, online gaming is often associated with Internet addiction. For example, Huang et al. (2007) have developed a “Chinese Internet Addiction Inventory” to assess the correlation between long hours online (usually gaming) and “conflicts, mood modification, and dependence.” Similarly, Wu and Li (2005) compared “normal” university students to those that have failed in their coursework and found online game playing to be a factor in the latter’s poor academic performance.

In contrast to fears about gaming and Internet addiction, other research has noted that discourses about the harmful effects of the Internet seem to be a stand-in for more general anxieties associated with the rapid changes going on in Chinese society, which have led to what many regard as a breakdown in traditional values and created a vast generation gap between Chinese youth and their parents. For example, in their analysis of Internet-addiction and video-game related suicide discourses in China, Golub and Lingley (2008) argue that a “medicalization of social relationships” and the rise of “new forms of self-fashioning enabled by new media that are not socially sanctioned” have emerged as constitutive of more general changes in the nation’s moral order (p. 60). While acknowledging that some online games and users’ gaming habits might be problematic, some educators in China have also reacted strongly to what they perceive as discourses that serve to stigmatize and victimize adolescent Internet users (Chen, 2007).

Still another body of research on gaming seeks to find the positive benefits and the informal learning that takes place through game playing. Echoing work done in other cultural contexts, Liu (2006) argues that multiplayer online role-playing games teach Chinese college students about cooperation, teamwork, and the ability to deal with real-world issues. In a similar vein, Lindtner et al. (2008) stress the collaborative learning that takes place among World of Warcraft players in Internet cafes in China and argue that cultural values as well as socio-economic considerations combine to construct a hybrid cultural ecology of online gaming in China. Wu, Fore, Wang, and Ho (2007) looked specifically at in-game marriage among Chinese players in MMORPGs and concluded that such role-playing allows players to deconstruct gender binaries, question the significance of marriage in the real world, and develop intimate friendships. They thus emphasize the potentially transformative role of online gaming.

Perhaps most clearly revealing the intersections of culture, economics, and moral discourses circulating around gaming in China is the phenomenon of “gold farmers” – primarily young males of rural origin who are paid paltry wages to play online games, especially World of Warcraft, 12 hours a day in what can justifiably be called gaming sweatshops. Rather than reaping the rewards of their gameplay, the gold farmers (also dubbed “peons for hire”) instead turn over whatever game coinage they accumulate to their employer, who then relies on a middleman to sell the virtual loot to a distant customer, usually western, who does not have the time and/or inclination to advance in the game by their own efforts and skill (Dibbell, 2007). Though such practices exist in other countries, China is believed to have the largest number and most extensive network of gold farmers. On the Chinese Internet advertisements for such work can easily be found (e.g., http://bbs.jhnews.com.cn/redirect.php?tid=472192&goto=lastpost), as can reports on the hardship faced this by this class of gamers, who are often treated like “indentured servants” by their bosses and as disappointments by their parents (http://news.iresearch.cn/0200/20080324/78191.shtml). Like their counterparts laboring in factories, restaurants, and data input companies, their long hours and meager pay are still considered by most to be a better option than actual farming in the countryside.

In various realms the gold farming phenomenon has generated debates about everything from gaming ethics to labor in the virtual, global economy, and it has even inspired a documentary (http://chinesegoldfarmers.com/; for an interview with the filmmaker and clips of the film, see http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2008/05/homo-ludens-ludens-desire.php). Outside of China, especially in countries such as the U.S., the Chinese gold farmers have been the target of much hostility because they are perceived as violating the spirit, if on not the rules, of the game. Many have argued that gamers who legitimately compete in World of Warcraft are justified in their anger at the gold farmers. However, others have noted troubling discourses in the game realm in which frustration with the gold farmers (and similarly with Chinese adena farmers in Lineage II) becomes justification for hostility toward China and Chinese people more generally (Steinkuehler, 2006; Yee, 2006). It appears that as gameplay competition becomes divided along racial and ethnic lines, the resentment generated in the game becomes mapped upon and aligned with deeper anxieties and suspicion of China as a “threat” and as a country that doesn’t “play fair” (e.g. intellectual property, copyright).

Finally, just as the practice of gold farming raises issues of race, ethnicity, and nationality, like many new media practices in China, online gaming has also been a space for overt expressions of nationalism. As mentioned above, strains of nationalism run through government discourses related to both the promotion of China’s domestic gaming industry as well as game content. Some Chinese gamers as well have used cyberspace to voice overtly nationalistic sentiments and to mobilize against perceived threats to their (virtual) national sovereignty. The most famous incident occurred in 2006 within Fantasy Westward Journey when a virtual mob of thousands gathered to protest a Jianyi city (a fictional city) government office that was alleged to have an image remarkably similar to a Japanese “rising sun” flag on its wall. The protestors scrawled anti-Japanese insults into the virtual space and demanded the image be removed. This incident was apparently linked to a player of the game who had had his name and guild (both anti-Japanese) revoked. The story was first covered by the Beijing Evening News (Beijing Wangbao)
(http://epaper.bjd.com.cn/wb/20060707/200607/t20060707_45533.htm) and then by major Chinese news sites such as Sina and Xinhua (http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2006-07/07/content_4806343.htm). Of course it also spread rapidly across the Chinese blogosphere (http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060709_1.htm). Writing about the event, Henry Jenkins notes that it reflects the gamers’ internalization of government policies that seek to promote Chinese national culture and pride within games, yet most likely in a way never anticipated (http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/08/national_politics_within_virtu_1.html). It certainly reveals the Internet as a virtual public sphere, an issue that will be picked up in my next blog post.

References

Cao, Y., & Downing, J. D. H. (2008). The Realities of Virtual Play: Video Games and their Industries in China. Media, Culture & Society, 30(4), 515-529.

Chan, D. (2006). Negotiating intra-Asian games networks: On cultural proximity, East Asian game design, and Chinese farmers. Fibreculture, 8. Retrieved March, 3, 2007, from http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue8/issue8_chan.html

Chen, W. (2007, August 19). Chenmi de weiji neng fou zhuanhua wei shangshang dongli? (Can a sinking crisis be transformed into an upward force?). China Youth Daily. Retrieved November 22, 2007, from http://zqb.cyol.com/content/2007-08/19/content_1864591.htm

Dibbell, J. (2007, June 17). The life of a Chinese gold farmer. New York Times. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Golub, A., & Lingley, K. (2008). ‘Just like the Qing empire:’ Internet addiction, MMOGs, and moral crisis in contemporary China. Games and Culture, 3(1), 59-75.

Guo, L. (2007, November). Surveying Internet usage and its impact in seven Chinese cities (The CASS China Internet project survey report 2007): Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Huang, Z., Wang, M., Qian, M., Zhong, J., & Tao, R. (2007). Chinese Internet addiction inventory: Developing a measure of problematic Internet use for Chinese college students. Cyberpsychollgy & Behavior, 10(805-811).

Lindtner, S., Nardi, B., Wang, Y., Mainwaring, S., Jing, H., & Liang, W. (November 8-12, 2008). A hybrid cultural ecology: World of Warcraft in China. CSCW ‘08.

Liu, X. (2006). Qianyi wangluo youxi dui daxuesheng xiaoyuan shenghuo de yinxiang (The influence of online games on college students’ campus life). Journal of Nanchang Institute of Aeronautical Technology, 8(3), 83-85.

Steinkuehler, C. (2006). The mangle of play. Games and Culture, 1(3), 199-213.

Wang, X. (2009, January 14). China’s online game market grows 76.6% in 2008. China Daily. Retrieved January 20, 2009, from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-01/14/content_7397315.htm

Wu, W., Fore, S., Wang, X., & Ho, P. S. Y. (2007). Beyond virtual carnival and masquerade: In-game marriage on the Chinese Internet. Games and Culture, 2(1), 59-89.

Wu, Y.-W., & Li, X.-L. (2005). Xueye shoucuo daxuesheng yu yiban daxuesheng shangwang zhuangkuang bijiao (A comparative study of Internet usage status between normal and study-failed college students). Chinese Mental Health Journal, 19(2), 116-118.

Yee, N. (2006, January). Yi-Shan-Guan. The Daedalus Project. Retrieved October 10, 2007, from http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001493.php

Mobile “Graffiti Advertising,” Beijing, 2007 ** Bandit Phone Display, Shenzhen, August 2008

As mentioned in my previous post, China’s mobile phone market has seen tremendous growth in a relatively short period of time. With the diffusion of cell phones in China, certain distinctive (though not wholly unique) traits of mobile phone use have emerged. The first is that although business people in China make voice calls frequently, the majority of mobile phone users, including youth, communicate primarily via text message. The sheer volume of text messaging in China is astounding. In 2007, 592.1 billion text messages were sent, for an average of 1.6 billion/day and a daily revenue of 160 million yuan (roughly US $21 million) (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/08/content_7581868.htm). In most cases, text messaging is not necessarily used for reasons of courtesy to those occupying the same public space (as in Japan). On the contrary, loud mobile phone conversations on public transport, in restaurants, and on elevators are not uncommon. I have even heard people answer their cell phones in movie theaters. Rather, one reason for the prevalence of texting is it is cheap: about US 1.4 cents per message.

Text messages in China are often self-written, but the use of pre-written messages is also common. These types of messages are widely available and can either be copied from inexpensive books for sale at kiosks and mom and pop stores or downloaded from the Internet, though most people merely forward messages they have received. The contents are usually jokes, sentimental poems, erotica, or holiday greetings. For example, during the 2008 Chinese New Year period, approximately 17 billion text messages were sent. Though people from all walks of life send pre-written messages, among the rural-to-urban migrant women I met during my fieldwork in 2006-07 there was a large reliance on such messages. One reason was in order to compensate for low literacy levels (especially difficulty with inputting characters) (Wallis, 2008).  Another was to communicate emotions the women felt they could not properly express in their own words and to explore their sexual identity (Lin, 2005; Wallis, 2008). However, the flowery language of many such messages means that they are often disparaged by those who are more educated (Wallis, forthcoming). There is also a growing awareness in China that most pre-written messages are meant to cater to the tastes of lower social strata (Cartier, Castells, & Qiu, 2005).

Though most cell phone users in China use pre-paid cards due to their flexibility and convenience, mobile phone calling plans in China are not merely innocuous economic configurations based on rational market forces. Like so many other products and services that have arisen in the past decade or so, they bear distinct attributes intended to bestow status and to differentiate among users. One of the most noticeable examples of this distinction derives from mobile phone numbers themselves. First, cell phone prefixes are linked to a specific provider, with more prestige going to China Mobile. As the incumbent in the mobile phone market, China Mobile tends to offer better coverage and more service options in most areas (though the recent telecom restructuring might change this). Second, one’s number also reveals the type of service plan one has. For example, China Mobile’s “GoTone” brand provides subscribers with a variety of services, including international roaming, mobile Internet, mobile banking, MMS, GPS, and a “mobile secretary.” Beyond phone services, GoTone, as the package for “high-class customers,” also offers VIP clients “distinguished” airport service and a professional style golf club (http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/). On China Mobile’s website, the company boasts GoTone’s “intangible assets” that are “symbolized in success, self-confidence, and high taste” (http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/intro/). The blurb for the service even indirectly invokes the language of quality (suzhi) through comparing GoTone customers’ level and quality of “development” to its own. This information is not only available to subscribers or those who have perused China Mobile’s promotional materials. Because it is widely known that GoTone uses the 134 through 139 prefixes, these three-digit prefixes confer status on their users (This is perhaps somewhat akin to area codes in certain parts of the U.S., as in Los Angeles, for example, where a 310 area code, which signifies a Westside residence, carries more prestige than an 818 area code, which is used for phone numbers in the San Fernando Valley).

Regardless of provider or service plan, one’s mobile phone number itself is a mark of prestige. Unlike in the U.S. where numbers are usually randomly assigned to a cell phone subscriber, in China SIM cards with mobile numbers must be purchased separately in order to use a phone. Since mobile numbers in China are rather long (11 digits), numbers that have repeating digits are more expensive because these types of numbers are easier to remember. Numbers are also more costly based on whether they are considered lucky or unlucky. A phone number with a large amount of eights, for example, will be more expensive, and again confer status, since eight is an auspicious number in Chinese culture. On the other hand, a number ending in four (a homonym for death in Chinese) will be inexpensive and possibly create discomfort for a caller.

Mobile phones have now become a personal necessity for a vast majority of China’s city residents and they seem to be everywhere. Whole city blocks full of cell phone shops exist in cities as diverse as Beijing in the north and Nanning in the south. Urban metro stations, bus stops, and rooftops have all become display sites for ubiquitous cell phone advertising. Radio and TV shows, Internet portals, and advertising companies all vie for attention on and through people’s cell phones, and for those who don’t have the money to promote their services by such legitimate means, spray painting one’s mobile number on walls or sidewalks has become a new kind of guerrilla advertising (often for quasi-illicit services), as in the image above on the left.

Mobile users in China, particularly urban youth, tend to change handsets quickly. One reason is that the mobile handset industry in China consists of both global brands as well as a number of domestic manufacturers that release new models much more frequently than in other parts of the world. Another factor is that the heavy use of pre-paid phone cards means users are not locked into a contract with a particular phone. A recent trend has been the popularity of “bandit” phones (shanzhaiji), so-called because they fall into a grey zone in that they are not black-market phones, but they are not fully legal either. They are manufactured by small companies in southern China and are distinguished by being relatively cheap and loaded with functions. Sometimes they look like replicas of popular models, such as the iPhone, but come with a name such as “Hiphone.” Other bandit phones have cool or kitsch designs (see image above right). Bandit phones are popular among low-income groups such as migrants as well as trendy, geeky kids, but also among those who buy them to express a nationalist sentiment by not buying a global brand such as Nokia. Ironically, however, in purchasing a bandit phone, they are undercutting China’s legitimate domestic phone market (Zheng & Chen, 2008).

In terms of in-depth research on mobile phone use, thus far the focus has been on either the urban or the rural-to-urban migrant population, though exceptions where both populations have been included in the same study do exist, such as in the work of Fortunati, Manganelli, Law, and Yang (2008) and Yang (2006). This split in research design is in line with what are perceived to be vast gaps between these two populations in terms of material resources, life conditions, and opportunities. Both bodies of literature have found, not surprisingly, that young migrant workers in southern factories and “cool” (linglei) urban youth in Beijing voiced similar connections between owning a mobile phone and perceived social status or maintenance of “face” (Yang & Chu, 2006; Wang, 2005). In addition, gendered differences in preferences of mobile phone types as well as discourses about mobile phones have also been found among both groups (Yu & Tng, 2003; Wallis, 2008).

Perhaps because of the particular position they occupy within Chinese society, more in-depth research has been done on mobile phone use among rural-to-urban migrants than among urban residents. Cartier, Castells, & Qiu (2005) argue that “working class ICTs” such as the xiaolingtong (“Little Smart”), a less expensive mobile phone with limited geographic mobility (it runs off the fixed-line telephone system), as well as pre-paid calling cards enable migrants to become part of the “information have-less” (as opposed to have-nots). Recently, the popularity of Little Smart phones seem to be declining as the costs of standard mobile phones also decrease. Cell phones have become crucial tools for migrants, who often have minimal access to landlines outside of public call bars (huaba), to maintain as well as expand their social networks (Chu & Yang, 2006; Law & Peng, 2006). Dating via the mobile phone – where a relationship is initiated and sustained through text messaging and voice calls with a face-to-face meeting not taking place for several months – has also become a common feature of mobile phone use among young adult migrants (Law & Peng, 2006; Wallis, 2008). In using mobile phones to autonomously establish intimate relationships, young migrant women in particular challenge parental authority in such decisions. However, I noticed that they also engage in practices that blend the traditional as much as the technological, through, for example, relying on intermediaries for introductions (Wallis, 2008). However, more widespread availability of QQ (a chat program) on cell phones may be changing this situation, as QQ has become a popular venue for anonymous sexual solicitations. Still, whatever the means, those migrant women who establish intimate relationships outside of parental approval are not always able to follow through on their plans for the future, for reasons of self-protection, filial obligation, and financial security (Ma & Cheng, 2005). Thus, the long-term effects of such autonomy remain unknown.

Due to the nature of Chinese social relationships and the distinctions made between friends, colleagues, classmates, and the like, several studies have found that many rural-to-urban migrants do not have anybody they consider a “real friend” in their immediate vicinity (Law & Peng, 2006; Ma & Cheng, 2005). Thus, the cell phone emerges not so much as a “supportive communication technology” (Yoon, 2003) for relationships that are primarily maintained through face-to-face contact, but as an “expansive communication tool” used for maintaining ties with friends and lovers who are spread all over China (Wallis, 2008). In other words, many migrants have a number of close relationships that are maintained almost strictly through their mobile phone.

A final body of research on mobile phones in China has examined how cell phones, particularly via text messaging, are increasingly used for popular mobilization and subverting the dominant discourse. Such usage first became widespread during the SARS outbreak in 2003, when ordinary citizens used SMS to counter the government’s attempt to block dissemination of information about the epidemic through traditional media channels (Castells, et al., 2007). Yu (2004) argues that such usage constituted a “third realm” in state-society relations and a means of “informed citizenship” (p. 31). Since that time, SMS has been implicated in everything from organizing protests to block the construction of a toxic chemical plant (Nanfang Dushibao) to mobilizing “angry youth” during anti-Japanese riots in 2005. Though the government has tried to keep pace with the information spread via text messaging through devising new filtering and tracking techniques, it certainly cannot control all of the content sent through SMS (Qiu, 2007). For this reason, it uses both “hard power” techniques such as periodically arresting users for spreading “malicious rumors,” as well as softer measures, including sponsoring contests for ordinary citizens to write “red” (“healthy” or encouraging) messages and quash so-called “yellow” (sexual or pornographic) messages (Zhang, 2006). Because text messages often contain politically and morally subversive content, He (2008) argues that SMS, as a “fifth” media channel, has become a “major carrier of the nonofficial discourse” in China. This certainly was the case during the 2008 Olympics, when I received SMS jokes skewering the skills (or lack of) of China’s soccer team and praising the athletic as well as sexual ability of China’s gymnasts. The role of text messaging in China in creating a space for alternative discourse and a virtual public sphere is clearly a fascinating topic for further research.

References
Cartier, C., Castells, M., & Qiu, J. L. (2005). The information have-less: Inequality, mobility, and translocal networks in Chinese cities. Studies in Comparative International Development, 40(2), 9-34.

Castells, M., Fernandez-Ardevol, M., Qiu, J. L., & Sey, A. (2007). Mobile communication and society: A global perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chu, W.-C. & Yang, S. (2006). Mobile phones and new migrant workers in a South China village: An initial analysis of the interplay between the ‘social’ and the ‘technological.’ In P.-L. Law, L. Fortunati & S. Yang (Eds.), New technologies in global societies (pp. 221-244). Singapore: World Scientific.

Fortunati, L., Manganelli, A. M., Law, P., & Yang, S. (2008). Beijing calling… Mobile communication in contemporary China. Knowledge, Technology, Policy, 21, 19-27.

He, Z. (2008). SMS in China: A major carrier of the nonofficial discourse universe. The Information Society, 24, 182-190.

Law, P.-L. & Peng, Y. (2006). The use of mobile phones among migrant workers in Southern China. In P.-L. Law, L. Fortunati & S. Yang (Eds.), New technologies in global societies (pp. 245-258). Singapore: World Scientific Press.

Lin, A. (2005, June). Romance and sexual ideologies in SMS manuals circulating among migrant workers in Southern China. Paper presented at the International Conference on Mobile Communication and Asian Modernities. City University of Hong Kong

Ma, E. & Cheng, H. L. H. (2005). ‘Naked’ bodies: Experimenting with intimate relations among migrant workers in South China. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 8(3), 307-328.

Qiu, J. L. (2007). The wireless leash: Mobile messaging service as a means of control. International Journal of Communication, 1, 74-91.

Wallis, C. (2008). Technomobility in the margins: Mobile phones and young rural women in Beijing. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Southern California.

Wallis, C. (forthcoming). (Im)mobile mobility: Marginal youth and mobile phones in Beijing. In R. Ling & S. Campbell (Eds.), Mobile communication: Bringing us together or tearing us apart? New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Wang, J. (2005). Youth culture, music, and cell phone branding in China. Global Media and Communication 1(2), 185-201.

Yang, B. (2006, October). Privatizing public spaces and personalizing private spaces: The role of the mobile phone in social networking in Beijing. Paper presented at Beijing Forum 2006, Beijing University.

Yang, S. H. & Chu, W.-C. (2006). Shouji: Quanqiuhua beijingxia de ‘zhudong’ xuanze—Zhusanjiao diqu nongmingong shouji xiaofei de wenhua he xintai de jiedu (“Mobile phone: ‘Selecting their own initiative’ under the background of globalization”). In Jincheng nongmingong: Xianzhuang, qushi, women neng zuo xie shenme (Rural-urban migrants: Situations, trends and what we can do) (pp. 301-308). Beijing People’s University Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development.

Yoon, K. (2003). Retraditionalizing the mobile: Young people’s sociality and mobile phone use in Seoul, Korea. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(33), 327-343.

Yu, H. (2004). The power of thumbs: The politics of SMS in urban China.” Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, 2(2), 30-43.

Yu, L. & Tng, T. H. (2003). Culture and design for mobile phones in China. In J. E. Katz (Ed.), Machines that become us: The social context of personal communication technology (pp. 187-198). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Zhang, Y. (2006). “Hong duanzi” weijiao “huang duanzi.” (“Red” messages suppress “yellow” messages). Jiaoshi Bolan (Teachers Digest) 139, 31-32.

Zheng, T., & Chen, Y. (August 21, 2008). Fengkuang shanzhaiji (Crazy bandit phones). Nanfang Renwu Zhoukan (Southern People Weekly), 24, 56-59.

Cara Wallis

China is a country where extraordinary transformations are taking place, caused in large part by the government’s policy of “reform and opening” (gaige kaifang) – known as the Open Door policy outside China – initiated three decades ago. We are all probably familiar with China’s economic growth: although China is feeling the effects of the current global economic downturn, the country’s GDP has hovered in or near the double digits for most of the last two decades. The 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing last August were a chance for the nation not only to showcase its athletic prowess, but also to present Beijing as a modern, high-tech, global metropolis and China as a significant player on the world stage. In everyday life, however, it is not just that people’s material standard of living has changed. Rapid urbanization, the birth of a consumer society, a policy emphasis on “informatization,” and a degree of liberalization of the media have helped to usher in new values, life opportunities, and modes of being in the world. Through a “compromise legitimacy” the Communist Party promises to deliver economic growth and “a relatively comfortable lifestyle” (xiaokang) (Lu, 2004) in exchange for “self discipline” by ordinary citizens in matters of political dissent.

Clearly, new media technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones have become an important part of both realizing and troubling this agreement. While the government has invested heavily in telecommunications infrastructure, it is also wary of what it perceives as harmful influences – moral, political, social – that are spread through such technologies. This point has been driven home by the government’s recent banning of hundreds of websites, both foreign and domestic, for “pornography” and “vulgarity,” which also seem to include politically sensitive content (a topic that will be explored in more detail in my post focusing on the Internet). Still, while the Internet and cell phones circulate viewpoints and feelings that can be perceived as subverting the official discourse, they also have become key platforms for nationalistic sentiments. These tensions, combined with the profound changes that have occurred and are continuing to occur in nearly every realm of Chinese society, make China a fascinating country to observe how new media practices emerge and are constitutive of certain social, cultural, political, and economic factors.

In this introductory blog post, I will present an overview of background information relevant to understanding people’s engagement – particularly youth engagement – with new media in China, with a particular focus on demographic data and telecommunications development and standards.

Demographic Data

China has about 1.3 billion people, which accounts for one fifth of the total world population. 20 percent of China’s citizenry is under 15, (http://www.prb.org/Countries/China.aspx) and another 23 percent is aged 15 to 29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_People’s_Republic_of_China). Due to China’s one-child policy, instituted in 1979, nearly all of China’s urban youth have grown up without siblings. Because they enjoy the attention of their parents as well as doting grandparents, they are often called “little emperors” who are spoiled and who do not know how to “eat bitterness” (chi ku). However, these youth also face tremendous pressure as huge expectations are often placed on their shoulders in terms of academic performance and future professional success. In rural areas the situation is quite different because rural families are allowed two children if the first child is a girl or disabled. In reality, it is quite common for rural families to exceed the regulated number of children and to pay fines as a result (most of China’s 55 ethnic minorities are allowed two or even three or four children). Rural youth are often disadvantaged compared to their urban peers, particularly in terms of material standard of living, access to quality education, and future opportunities. Most rural youth “go out to labor” (chu dagong) in urban areas after finishing middle school or part of high school. The youth (aged 15 to 24 years old) literacy rate in China is 99 percent, according to UNICEF statistics (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/china_statistics.html#46); however, this statistic refers primarily to urban areas.

Currently, China’s urban population makes up about 44 percent of the total population, compared to just 20 percent during the 1980s (http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2007-10/22/content_6921882.htm). The reason for this change is that starting from the mid-90s as China sought to transition more rapidly from a centrally-planned to a market-oriented economy, there was a parallel shift from an agrarian to an industrialized, urban society. While some formerly rural areas were incorporated into urban areas, this shift also necessitated the loosening of China’s restrictive household registration system, or hukou, which in the past severely restricted population mobility and created a bifurcated society divided between the urban and rural – with the former enjoying a range of state welfare benefits, material standard of living, and perceived degree of “culture” far surpassing the latter. Though the hukou policy has been severely eroded (but not eliminated), it continues to serve as an institutional barrier for those rural residents – many of them young adults – who have poured into China’s cities in search of jobs and a better life. Currently there are an estimated 130 million of this so-called “floating population” (liudong renkou), and they usually take jobs in the low-level service and industrial sectors. In urban areas, migrants often face discrimination and exploitation, and are blamed for overcrowding and crime. Unlike urban residents, many of whom now enjoy new housing, cars, and myriad forms of leisure and entertainment (the exception being laid-off state workers), migrants in the city are often treated as second-class citizens in their own country.

Telecommunications Data

Though China now has the greatest peacetime internal migration on the planet, the rapid growth in its telecommunications landscape over the last couple of decades is almost equally as staggering. Through a series of reforms and restructurings designed to increase competition (the latest was begun in May 2008 and completed in October 2008), there are now three major telecom companies in China, all state-owned, and all offering fixed-line, broadband, and mobile services: China Telecom (formerly a fixed-line and broadband provider only), China Mobile (formerly a mobile carrier only), and China Unicom (which swallowed up fixed-line and broadband provider China Netcom). These are all overseen by the newly formed Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

To understand the dynamic growth of China’s telecom industry, it is useful to consider that in 1980, shortly after the Open Door policy began, there were only 4.1 million fixed-line telephones in China, for a teledensity (the number of telephones per 100 persons) of .4 (Lee, 1997). By 1990 this number had tripled (He, 1997), and by 2007 China had roughly 365 million fixed-line telephone subscribers, with a teledensity of 27.8 (http://www.miit.gov.cn). Though the urban areas have more than double the number of fixed-line phones as the countryside, rural areas have also seen tremendous growth in recent years, a result of both government policy and market strategies.

Although the number of fixed-line phones continues to grow, China’s mobile phone growth has also been remarkable. In 1999 there were nearly 15 million mobile phone subscriptions; in 2004 the number had risen to 188 million; by 2006 the figure was 398 million; and currently China has roughly 616 million mobile phone subscribers, the largest number in the world and representing a penetration rate of nearly 47 percent (http://www.miit.gov.cn). China has both CDMA and GSM networks, although the latter is more widespread. After much delay and anticipation, in January 2009 China finally issued 3G licenses to the three state-run carriers. China Mobile, which is the world’s largest mobile phone operator and home to about three quarters of China’s mobile phone subscribers, was given a license for TD-SCDMA, China’s domestically developed 3G standard, which, though heavily supported by the government, is still viewed as subpar by many. China Unicom and China Telecom were granted licenses for WCDMA and CDMA 2000, respectively, 3G standards which are already used globally.

About 90 percent of mobile phone users in China rely on pre-paid phone cards, which come in a range of plans (e.g., caller pays, bulk text messaging, etc.). As elsewhere, pre-paid services in China are valued for their flexibility and convenience. Cards come most often in increments of 50 to 100 yuan (approximately $6.50 to $13.00), and vendors selling pre-paid cards are ubiquitous in supermarkets, outdoor newsstands, and mobile phone stores. Though a range of services is available on mobile phones, text and voice are the most commonly used functions. However, as of December 2008, 117 million Chinese had used their mobile phone to surf the Internet (http://www.cnnic.com). Mobile music is also seen as a huge market for growth (M:Metrics, 2008).

Because major cities like Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai have become relatively saturated with mobile phones, the number of new subscriptions in these cities is declining. This has caused China’s mobile operators to look to rural areas (where teledensity is still only 12 percent) as a source of new growth. In 2007 China Mobile added roughly 68 million new subscribers, and nearly half of these were in rural areas (Nystedt, 2007). Still, China’s countryside is vast with large disparities between more well-off areas where mobile operators are likely to set their sights first, and impoverished regions where many people do not have landlines. For this reason, mobile phones are, at this moment and in particular for rural youth, largely configured as part of an urban, cosmopolitan lifestyle.

Internet growth in China has also been rapid and unevenly distributed between the cities and the countryside. From 9 million in 1999, to nearly 80 million in 2003, to 137 million in 2006, China now has the largest number of Internet users in the world, with 298 million as of December 2008, representing a 22. 6 percent penetration rate, mostly concentrated in urban areas (http://www.cnnic.cn). More than 90 percent of China’s “netizens” (wangmin) access the Internet via broadband. Most use desktop computers for such access although the use of mobile phones, as mentioned above, as well as laptops is growing. Currently there are 84.7 million domestic computers (desktop and laptop) that have Internet access in China. 78 percent of Internet users access the Internet from home while only about 21 and 11 percent access the Internet from work and school, respectively.

It is common for urban families to have a computer with a broadband Internet connection in their homes, for which the monthly fee is around US $20 for unlimited use. For those without home or school access – in particular for rural-to-urban migrants – Internet cafes have become extremely important and are used by 42 percent of Internet users. The majority (68.6%) of China’s netizens are under 30 years old, and junior and senior high school youth continue to be the fastest growing online population (http://www.cnnic.cn). As will be discussed in more detail later, the Internet in China is most commonly seen as a medium for entertainment (Guo, 2007).

In future posts I will be examining a range of new media practices in China, starting with mobile phones on Wednesday, followed by gaming, Internet practices, and digital media production. The information presented draws from both Chinese and English sources – academic and popular – as well as my own research in China. I look forward to readers’ comments and suggestions.

References
China Internet Network Information Center, China’s Internet development statistical report (multiple years) (in Chinese).

China Ministry of Information Industry, 2007 national communications industry development statistical report (in Chinese).

Guo, L. (2007, November). Surveying Internet usage and its impact in seven Chinese cities (the CASS China Internet Project Survey Report 2007). Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He, Z. (1997). A history of telecommunications in China: Development and policy implications.” In P. S. N. Lee (Ed.), Telecommunications and development in China (55-87). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Lee, P. S. N. (1997). Telecommunications and development: An introduction. In P. S. N.  Lee (Ed.), Telecommunications and development in China (3-20). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Lu, H. (2000). To be relatively comfortable in an egalitarian society. In D. S. Davis (Ed.), The consumer revolution in urban China (124-41). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

M:Metrics. (2008, February). M:Metrics now measuring China, the World’s Largest Market.

Nystedt, D. (2008, March). China Mobile posts strong 2007 growth, gains music, users. Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/03/23/AR2008032300447.html.