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A lot of last-minute scrambling went into getting me here to cover the 2008 Chinese Internet Research Conference @ Hong Kong University. I’ll try to go into those details later just to vent, but the important thing is that I’m here.

This event promises to be an interesting affair, with the express goal of deepening our understanding of the interaction between Chinese society and the Internet, as well as discovering the perspectives and insights of scholars studying this field.

I’ll be live-blogging this event as it unfolds. As with any academic conference, there’s bound to be a ton of research papers loaded down with with statistical jargon and the corresponding stilted academic details that seem relevant and interesting only within the ivory tower. That’s fine. Now, I’ll be taking notes and updating as we go along. If you’re following along at the same time, it may get confusing. I’ll revise for clarity and coherence with every free moment I get, as well as highlight any points I find interesting enough to mention. Additional live-blogging coverage by the fine people shown below can be found at the official CIRC blog, and I’ll be honest, so far they’ve been far faster at absorbing and regurgitating the presentations than I have been.

Note: Most italicized text are my own random comments, not those of the presenters.

Let’s get to it…

SESSION 1: New Scholars Panel: Survey Findings

1. “Don’t Blame the Internet Anymore! - A Revisit to the Internet’s Influence on Traditional Media Use and Sociability”
by Peng Tai-Quan and Jonathan Zhu, Ph.D Candidate and Professor, City University of Hong Kong.

• Existing academic research regarding the Internet vs Traditional media falls into camps: 1) Displacement: Internet use replaces Traditional Media use, and 2) Complementary: Internet use increases Traditional Media use.
• Existing acadmeic research regarding Internet vs. Sociability can also be defined with two perspectives: 2) Pessimistic: Internet use decreases offline social interactions, and 2) Optimistic: Internet use improves an individual’s social interaction scope. Pessimistic: More World of Warcraft = Less Friday night pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons games. Optimistic: Making new friends and chasing skirt by stalking them on MySpace/Facebook first.
• One of the problems with analyzing these issues is that “[w]e live in a complex, multivariate world…” In other words, the world is so complex with so many variables that trying to figure it out is ultimately pointless. Nonetheless, the Hong Kong Internet Project uses a multitude of variables in its methodology to draw conclusions about how Internet usage correlates with or impacts Traditional Media consumption and an individual’s offline social life. Amusingly, the variables for measuring “sociability” were defined as “chatting, exercising, and shopping with friends/family. Okay, I get chatting, but exercising and shopping? Are your serious?
• The results show that internet use does somewhat conflict with consumption of traditional media. This would be reasonable so long as the information absorbed through either are significantly similar to become redundant. Watching a sports game on television is qualitatively different from following updated box scores on the internet.
• However, a distinction needs to be made highlighting individuals who are simply voracious consumers of media, whether online or offline. For such individuals, internet use and consumption of traditional media are complementary rather than supplementary.
• Results also show that internet use did not seem to have much of an effect on the user’s offline sociability. At the end of the day, porn and cybersex is no substitute for the real thing.

2. “Perceived Credibility of Online Health Information in China: A Survey of College Students in Ganzhou”
by Zeng Jie and Zhou Xiang, M.A. Candidate and Professor, Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication, Shantou University.

• Their research asks three questions: 1. Why do college students search for health information online? Self-diagnosis of STDs by browsing symptom pictures? 2. How do they perceive the credibility of the information they find? Are they affected by their gender or experience with the internet? 3. What factors affect these perceptions of credibility? How does the college student’s own medical knowledge or their involvement in the searching itself affect these perceptions?
• In conducting their research, they distributed 480 questionnaires to students at universities, vocational colleges, and medical schools, out of which they received 388 responses that they then stratified by school and gender. Is it me or does the number 8 appear disproportionately more whenever the Chinese are involved?
• Some results are reasonably expected. For example, college students search online simply because it is easy and convenient to access a multitude and variety of information. Being female or male did not seem to affect how a student interpreted the credibility of the information they found online.
• With regards to the third question, they analyzed the following factors: expertness, website function, website presentation, personalization, surface authority.

3. “Uses and development of the Internet in less developed regions”
by Li Xuefang, M.A. Candidate, Communication University of China.

• How are those in less developed, rural areas using or the web productively or view the web as a tool for productivity, as opposed to just using the web for amusement (i.e. listening to music, watching videos, etc.).

4. “Information and Expression in Web 2.0: A Study of Internet Users in Shanghai”
by Zhou Baohua, Lecturer, Journalism Department, Fudan University.

• …

Concluding Session Commentary and Discussion:
Francis Lee, Assistant Professor of City University of Hong Kong, provides commentary on the forgoing research papers/studies:

1. Technically good study, but may be better if there was more discussion of the underlying conceptional arguments, such as time-displacement (more internet = less traditional media and offline social interaction) and efficiency (is internet more efficient for communicating information and facilitating social interaction)

2. Very interesting

3. Difficult to comment on as a big-city Hong Konger who doesn’t have rural life experience. Suggests elaborating further the rural context to help others better understand the usefulness or usage of the internet by rural populations and the other statistics gathered in her research.

4. What is the “concept” of Web 2.0?

Overall: All papers suggest that Chinese are increasingly sophisticated internet users. Yeah…but is anyone actually suggesting otherwise or care to suggest otherwise?

SESSION 2: New Scholars Panel: Comparative Perspectives

1. “Chinese-written Internet: Diversity and Segregation”
by Zhou Baohua, Lecturer, Journalism Department, Fudan University.

• What is Chinese internet? How is it different from China’s Internet? Despite the utter simlistic obviousness of this distinction, it is remarkable how this is lost amongst the vast majority when it comes to viewing the “Chinese.”
• Chinese internet is diverse, while China’s internet is increasingly segregated from the Chinese internet due to government interference, such as the Great Firewall (GFW). Chinese internet is NOT homogenous, despite
• Gang Tai Wen Hua (港台文化) = Hong Kong Taiwan Culture, is it bad for the youth of China? Because, you know, they’ve had too much degenerate and debaucherous British and American influence.

2. “Virtual Jingpo: A Jingpo/Kachin Techno-community?”
by Daphne Richet-Cooper, Intern, French Centre for Research on Contemporary China.

• Jingpo/Kachin = a transnational (China/Burma) group, separated by a national border but still the same social group.
• Both Chinese and Burmese governments are repressive towards minority groups. Well…that’s debatable.
• Although they are technically the same cultural group, the internet reflects and influences them to diverge and emphasis self-identity upon their geographic location and thus national lines.

3. “The situation characteristics of language on the Internet.”
by Chen Yenling, Assistant Professor, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan.

• Communications online (including SMS) can differ from communication offline. Is this like saying “L-O-L” in real life?
• How is internet language arising from growing up in the internet culture contributing to generational gaps or gaps between those “in the know” versus those who aren’t.
• Abbreviations of words like “u” for “you” is common on the internet. What about the rampant use of casual internet abbreviations and lingo in other situations/contexts, such as professional correspondence? This is common to the youth, recent graduates, but not limited to them.
• “3166″ = Sounds like “sayonara” when spoken in Mandarin Chinese. What about “914?” A cookie for the first person to explain what this means in the comments.
• Popular culture affects what words we use to express ideas. Example given of using “Brokeback Mountain” to represent “homosexuality.” It’d be cool if she started talking about the use of images as responses/comments. Even better, cat pictures. Moar!

4. “Identification, Monitoring and State Extractive Capacity: China’s Golden Tax Project”
by Ou Shujun, Ph.D Candidate, Department of Government and Public Administration, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

• Use of internet to improve tax collection. Hehehehe.
• How can the government use the internet to improve governance as opposed to how the government can control the internet?

Concluding Session Commentary: Jack Qiu, Assistant Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Regarding the Daphne Richet-Cooper’s paper: Very interesting and full of potential, we should be paying more attention to ethnic minorities. Is the marginalization or erasure of minorities simply part of the process of nation-building or development? What about the difference between minorities within a country and minorities within a country (Xinjiang, Tu, Hui, Tibetans) that is represented by a external, separate state *Turks, Khazaks, Thai, Koreans, etc.).

Question from the audience to all the panelists: A minority can use the internet to create a disproportionate representation of reality. How have these studies corrected for this phenomenon?

SESSION 3: Presentation & Discussion: Chinese Internet User Survey

Roland Soong, of EastSouthNorthWest fame:

General Population > Internet users > Bloggers > Blogger Segments

Segmentation of interest: Psychographics

Three identifiable segments (not all-inclusive): Angry young people, followers, and progressives.

Usage of data from 144 million internet users.

Bloggers represent 0.74% of the general population. Of bloggers, females are more likely to be bloggers than males. Bloggers tend to visit portals and read blogs far more than general internet users. 80% of bloggers read blogs, compared to only 4% of the average internet user.

Deborah Fallows, Pew Internet Project: What has China’s earthquake done to its internet? What have we seen and what should we look for?

• China’s internet: two old myths and a new reality:
• Myth 1: China’s internet is all about entertainment. The new opiate of the masses?
• New Reality: China’s interent is about much, much more, as reavealed by the Chinese internet’s response to the Sichuan earthquake.
• Myth 2: China’s internet users chafe under government internet control and management. Definitely a myth. “The West” certainly chafes more than the Chinese themselves.
• New Reality: Could myth #2 actually become true, in a new online world triggered by the earthquake? Whereas Myth 2 was largely a false impression born out of the Western-projected values, could the widespread tragic events, media coverage, and government response surrounding the earthquake actually prompt Chinese to become more aware and critical of the government’s control of the internet?
• How can we compare the China internet response to the earthquake vs. the American internet response to 9/11?
• China’s internet responded to the earthquake as the immediate and first responder, an aggregator of content, creating of new applications, and a humanizer. What was the voice of the post-earthquake China internet? More unified voice (of shock), more humane and tempered, more spiritual/religious, more shocking images and videos (really?), more unedited and less censored.

Roland Soong comments that he became increasingly frustrated with the information on the internet after the earthquake. It is good at identifying problems but not good at providing solutions or answers. Certain answers were still best gotten through the mainstream media who had the means to find answers, by sending in investigative teams, etc. Soong expresses his doubt as to whether the internet is capable of providing the quality of information/answers that the mainstream media can. So is this the age battle between a marketplace of ideas and the confidence in authority?

Obvious response and question from the audience: What about mainstream/traditional media websites? Roland Soong responds that he mispoke and clarifies the issue as the difference between professionals and citizen journalists/amateurs/the unwashed masses.

Question from audience: Are people turning to the internet a representation of the inadequacy or censorship of mainstream/traditional media? Roland Soon responds that he agrees, and that his website features a lot of information and news translated from Chinese news sources that the Western media tends to pick up a day or two later.

SESSION 4: Myths vs. Realities

This is the theme of this year’s conference. Is the internet a social phenomenon, a marketing phenomenon, an advertising phenomenon? How we understand the internet can be shaped by different groups, by marketers or even academics.

1. “Discussion of methods and perspectives used in Internet research”
by Bu Wei, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

• Low fieldwork done.
• Perspectives usually from government or academics.

2. “The Great Firewall as Iron Curtain 2.0: the Implications of China’s Internet most dominant metaphor for U.S. Foreign Policy.”
by Lokman Tsui, Ph.D Candidate, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

• “Do you believe that China will inevitably change with the Internet?”
• Results of the Zogby International telephone survey in the United States on Jan 31, 2007: 43% yes.
• Contextual presumptions reflected by this question is that change hasn’t happened and that we’re thinking specifically about political issues such as free speech and other freedoms.
• Is the Great Firewall the explanation for assumptions or perceptions of internet-driven change (or lack thereof) in China?
• Lots of information about US governmental action targetting China internet interests.

3. “The Chinese Diasporic Cyberspace: Overseas Chinese Essentialism vs. Hybrid Transnationalism”
by Jens Damm, Assistant Professor, Freie Universität Berlin.

• Historically, the Chinese language itself, especially in mass media, linked ethnic Chinese around the world and linked them back to their homeland (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). Think of Chinese parents in America watching Chinese channels nightly through cable.
• Today, how is the internet helping link and diversify the Chinese diaspora?
• Essentialist websites: Focus on the “essential/eternal/unchanging nature of Chinese culture.” Often PRC academic and museum websites.
• Chinese cyber nationalism.
• The role of the internet and new technologies with connecting the Chinese diaspora.

Questions from the audience:

• What term should we use to refer to China’s internet regulation/censorship other than the Great Firewall if it is such a problematic Cold War-esque term? Lokman Tsui replies that as an academic he’s good at finding problems but not solutions.
• Jeremy Goldkorn, of danwei.org fame, makes another failed attempt to advance “Net Nanny” to replace “Great Firewall.”
• Jens Damm emphasizes his attempt to give a “post-modern” definition of “diaspora” as opposed to the “diaspora” laden with Jewish connotations.

SESSION 5: Roundtable - Corporate Action and Responsibility

Moderated by Rebecca MacKinnon, Assistant Professor, Journalism & Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong, featuring…

• Issac Mao, Co-founder, CNBlog.org
• Charles Mok, Chairman, Internet Society of Hong Kong.
• Ching Chiao, VP Community Relations, DotAsia.
• Joshua Rosenzweig, Manager of Research and Programs, Duihua Foundation
• Duncan Clark, Chairman, BDA

Discussion:

Questions from CIRC 2005:

• The Internet is changing China..but how is China changing the Internet? Many discuss the former, far fewer explore the latter…
• Role of business: What is the role of Internet and telecom companies–both foreign and Chinese–in helping to shape China’s standards, practices, and regulatory norms? Points at Cisco, Yahoo, Google, etc…
• Companies are sandwiched between governments and users.
• Quote: “Ultimately, to succeed in China, businesses must assume the goals of the Communist Party as their own.” - “Mr. X,” a “foreign media entrepreneur based in China” in the Far Eastern Economic Review.
• Foreign companies sayL “We have no choice…we have to abude by the same rules that apply to Chinese companies, or we can’t do business here.”
• Question: Is it really true that they have absolutely no choice whatsoever? Obviously not. Are companies acknowledging that they have choices?
• Rebecca MacKinnion has been doing some blog censorship testing, by posting various content across 17 blog hosts to see how they if and how they censor.
• Different websites have different censoring methods, and sometimes would even censor content from China’s own Xinhua news.
• Can we frame this issue as “consumer rights” instead of falling into the traditional “Cold War” framework of interpretation?
• Race to the bottom? As the China market becomes increasingly important, will we see companies and standards become more “Chinese?”
• MacKinnion ask Isaac Mao: Can this “consumer rights” perspective be applicable in China?
• Isaac Mao: Hard to know what the government wants, since there isn’t necessarily a single “government” player. Chinese people not yet comfortable with the concept of consumer rights. Google is so “jian.”
• MacKinnion ask Joshua Rosenzweig: Is there a solution for companies to determine what information they can or cannot hand to the government?
• Joshua Rosenzweig: Companies need to know what to do, a policy, with regards to what they’re going to do when the government comes knocking on your door. It can’t be US-centric, and must reflect the actual situation in China. Uses case of Yahoo and Shi Tao. Chinese constitution grants Chinese citizens all basic rights, but also states that such rights are subordinate to the interests of the state and the security of the state. Duihua tries to talk about the problems in China in the context of similar problems in the U.S.
• Duncan Clark: US Internet companies have overplayed their hand, they’re generally doing poorly in comparison to local entities. Chinese companies will bump into the lack of institutional change within China. They won’t have access to lucrative Western markets without some recriprocity. Echoes what Isaac Mao said about different parts of the government (central, provincial, municipal, etc.) having their own motivations and desires.
• MacKinnion asks Charles Mok: Can Hong Kong companies set or be an example for Chinese mainland companies?
• Charles Mok: First question is just “what is a Hong Kong company?” He believes many HK companies do not actually have a strong sene of corporate social responibilities beyond what their basic legal responsibilities and liabilities are. The closest thing by HK companies is when they complain about their corporate e-mail getting blocked by China. HK companies only get concerned if it gets in their way of doing business. Second question: Do HK companies feel they have a role to play? If we look at the media, we already see a lot of self-censorship. So can we expect companies to be the guardians of free speech in Hong Kong? “I doubt it.”
• MacKinnion asks Ching Chiao: Interested in your comparative perspective from a Taiwan perspective.
• Ching Chiao: The past 8 years have been DPP-oriented, so much so that even the websites have noticably become more “green” in color, where the color of green somehow represents the website’s love for Taiwan. One good thing in Taiwan is that the internet has been regarded as a communication/information tool, and hence hasn’t been severely subjected to surveilance and control.

For anyone in Hong Kong, various people from the event will be sharing drinks tonight at The Pawn, located at 62 Johnston Road in WanChai. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we start at 9:00am.