About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

Wheee! We’re back! …in rainy, dreary Hong Kong. Let’s get to it.

SESSION 6: Society, Continuity & Change
Moderator/Discussant: Jack Qiu, Assistant Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

“Coal and the Internet in China Digital governance and politics of markets”
by Jesper Shlaeger, Ph.D Candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.

• Coal and internet? How’re they related?
• The coal industry in China was one of the last vestiges of a planned economy. Every year, coal was allocated at a summit.
• Change of coal industry to being market-driven was partially influenced by the development and availability of internet technology.

“The Online Game Industry in China: A Preliminary Observation on the Political Economic Structure.”
by Chung Peichi, Assistant Professor, Communications and New Media Programme, National University of Singapore.

• Online gaming industry in China, South Korea, and Singapore.
• Video Game Spending Growth grew 35.1% in 2002, 19.1% in 2008, estimated 5.3% by 2011.
• Will still be lower than Japan and South Korea in total money spent.
• Research Question: What is the meaning of globalization in the Asian context?
• Research Question: What is the strucutre in the online game industry in China?
• Research Question: The local industry dynamics?
• Rapid increase in local production of online games in China: 61 games in 2002, up to 203 games in 2007, with many of them being ported over from Korea but locally operated.
• In 2002, game developers were usually the US and Korea with China being the Publisher and Distributor.
• By 2007, many games were developed, published, and distributed within China itself. 
• Government agencies: Ministry of Infomration INdustry, Ministry of Culture, General Administration of Press and Publications.
• Corporate Strategies of various China game companies:
• Shanda - releases international titles in China.
• NetEase: Developes in-house games (80%).
• The9: Released World of Warcraft (98%).
• Hybridized Games: games that are thematically a blend of multiple real-world cultures (i.e. costume design merging Asian and European motifs).

“Virtual-World Unrest and the Gamer Rights Protection Movement in China”
by Matthew Chew, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University.  

• Interested as a sociologist, sociologies consider internet to be the single most powerful phenomenon driving modern society.
• Presents Chronology of Gamer Activism. Wow, don’t piss off addicted gamers who are willing to protest, vandalize, and physically kick ass in the real world over virtual game issues.
• Gamer grievances: Rent-seeking activities, mistreatment of virtual property theft, mistreatment of duping problems, termination of individual online games, technicaly instability (game crashes, lag), and “corrupted, authoritatrian rule of virtual worlds” by game corporations.
• Theoretical Implications: Game corporations as media businesses in the real-world but authoritarian states of virtual-worlds. Gamers as real-world middle-class cultural consumers but grassroot, politically active virtual-world citizens. So the natural thought progression would be: Will virtual world activism (demand for rights, freedoms, fairness, stability, etc.) spill over into the real world? Can virtual world gamers become a source of real-world political change?
• On the other hand, people often retreat into virtual worlds precisely to avoid the limitations they face in the real world. Political or social activism in virtual-worlds, therefore, may only be people grasping to protect their fantasies, viewing the gaming corporations that provide the framework for these fantasies as being far more malleable and subject to the people’s will than real world governments and intitutions. Is online gaming as a commercial transaction premised fundamentally on customer satisfaction for continued business significantly different from the social contract between the government and the governed?

Discussion:

• All papers show Internet-driven social change, whether in coal industries or entertainment gaming.

SESSION 7: Law, Regulation and Governance
Moderator: Peter Yu, Professor & Director, Intellectual Property Law Center, Drake University Law School
Discussant: Doreen Weisenhaus, Director of the Media Law Project & Assistant Professor, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong

“Regulation of Internet: technical, normative or cultural conception; a cross comparison between Europe and China.”
by Olivier Arifon, Assistant Professor, Robert Schuman University / CERIME laboratory, Strasbourg France.

“Government & Online Video in China: WeTube, not YouTube?”
by Duncan Clark, Chairman, BDA.  

• Massive VC funding of Chinese internet companies. 
• Google acquisition of YouTube an inspiration for Chinese look-alike me-toos. 
• Hard to determine who is winning amongst the top 3 online video sharing sites: Tudou, youku, and 56.
• Online video sites depend almost exclusively on advertising, but none of them are making much money so far. High bandwidth costs therefore make ongoing capital funding critical.
• Regulatory uncertainties will not go away. Traditional media such as state owned television broadcasters will use regulatory interventions to protect their position.
• Larger issue than regulatory uncertainty is the lack of profitability in the industry (server costs, bandiwdth costs, growing but low advertising revenues).
• Piracy still a main driver of demand for these sites.

Norms and the Legitimacy of Law in China: the Case of ‘Black Internet Cafes’
by Johan Lagerkvist, Research Fellow, The Swedish Institute of International Affairs. 

• …

“Myths and Reality: Too Little or Too Much Freedom for Mainland Netizens?”
by Anne Cheung, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong.  

• dsdsdToo Littel Freedom or Too Much Speech?
• Cyberbullying: Intentional, deliberate, and atargeted attack on a private citizen in the form of abusive, threatening, harassing speech, that may be recurring or repeated, over a consistent period of time, by an anonymous individual or group.
• Chinese laws protect against infringements of reputation and imply that ISPs are responsible for controlling online content.
• Suggests that the best way to prevent “cyberbullying” is to make ISPs liable.

Discussion:

• Yesterday, Rebecca MacKinnion showed us that censorship at the provider level (in her case, blog providers) was inconsistent, subject the subjective interpretations of the employees at those providers. Even if we ignore all of the issues about defining cyberbullying and the rights of free speech, how would Anne Cheung’s proposal be feasibly carried out?
• The CIRC IRC channel lit up with Anne Cheung’s presentation and quite a few good questions were asked of her, to which she conceded that she didn’t have all the answers. So, the age-old question between freedom of expression and (perhaps) the “right” to or of privacy remains?
• Interestingly, none of the examples Anne Cheung gave referenced the recent online “shaming” by Chinese netizens against perceived multinational iron-roosters with regards to Sichuan Earthquake donations. Under her prescription, could we have relied upon the law and the ISPs technically bound by these laws to stop public dissatisfaction with the charitable or lack of charitable actions by others?

SESSION 8: DISCUSSION: Internet, Tibet, and the Olympics
Moderator: Jeremy Goldkorn, Founder, Danwei.org
Discussion with bloggers Roland Soong of EastSouthWestNorth and Isaac Mao of CNBlog.org

• What happened on the Chinese Internet in 2008? Top picks: Snow Storms, Tibet, Olympics, Earthquake…
• However, according to traffic spikes at ESWN, was Sexy Photo Gate (the Edison Chen photo scandal) the biggest thing?
• The deluge of traffic from mainland China over the Edisen Chen scandal resulted in HK websites trying to get themselves blocked by Chinese GFW by posting Tiananmen 6/4 material.
• Roland talks about Tibet coverage becoming anti-CNN movement.
• Olympic Torce Relay becomes Carrefour Boycott.
• Civilian journaists are local sources who are great at providing tips. However, they cannot follow through to verify. Most cases require mainstream media to devote resources to follow through. But mainstream media also need the eyes and ears of the civilian journalists to tip them. This is a symbiotic relationship.
• Chinese netizens are heterogeneous and constantly evolving.
• Size matters because 0.01% of 210 million Chinese netizens is 21,000.
• External events are change agents, especially so far in 2008.
• What next…?
• Isaac Mao reiterates the new symbiotic relationship between traditional media and social/civilian media.

SESSION 9: Blogging and online discourse
(Part 1) Moderator: Rebecca MacKinnon, Assistant Professor, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong.

“Authoritarian Deliberation: Public Deliberation in China”
by Jiang Min, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, UNC-Charlotte. 

• Key Questions:
• Can public deliberation take place in less democratic countries? Yes.
• Do countries have to democratized first in orer to achieve public deliberation? No.
• …
• Chinese civil society and media are dominated by governemnet, and increasingly commercial influence.
• Chinese public deliberative insitiutions tend to be voluntary, dispersive, and less institutionalized.
• Conclusion: EMerging empirical evidence of public deliberationin China.  

“The Rise of Online Public Opinion and Its Political Impact”
by Xiao Qiang, Adjunct Professor, University of California at Berkeley.

• Chinese adverse to being direct with opinions. Hence propensity and pervasiveness of “zheng hua fan shuo” or saying precisely the opposite of what you mean.

Political Discourse in the Chinese Blogosphere: A Quantitative Approach”
by Ashley Esraey, Assistant Professor, Middlebury College. ”

• Research questions: Do blogs threaten the state’s ability to control access to political info in China? How different is political discourse in blogs compared to that of official media? To what extend does propaganda exist in the blogosphere? How popular are political bloggers? How interlinked are bloggers?
• Studying Blog Content: Methodological concerns: How to selecte a random or representative sample relating to politics? Could content analysis be used on the medium? What kind of protocol could capture the nuances of blogger’s language?
• Newspapers used as reference to compare blogs against. 
• Presence of pluralism and criticism more common in Chinese blogs than Chinese newspapers. Presence of national andlocal propaganda far less common in Chinese blogs than Chinese newspapers.
• Criticism in Chinese blogs approaches the levels found in Taiwanese and USA newspapers.
• Principal Findings:
• Bloggers frequently criticize corporations, often gripe about national affairs, and occassionally criticize top leaders.
• Cautious Criticism: postings that are critical often cite governmental sources aka pracice ”Rightful Resisteance.” 
• Overall, political discourse is much freer, debate more frequent, and much less propaganda.
• 25% of bloggers in sample had moderate to high traffice (250 hits or more per posting).
• Inferences:
• “Hidden transcripts” go public in new political discourse. Meaning what we used to not say is now easier to say because we have the an easier means to do so.
• Vibrant blog content could boost political knowledge.
• Interlinkages among bloggers increase the resources for political opposition.
• A small number of bloggers have shown a tendency to champion popular interest.
• Harbinger of “higher popular participation” in politics, not necessarily a “revolution.”

Discussion:

• Rebecca MacKinnion on Jiang Min’s work: Challenges the persistent, often Western, discounting of political discourse and deliberation in China simply because it does not operate under the framework of a “multi-party” system, where the notion that China is a “Communist” state fails to acknowledge that the internet (amongst other things and mediums) are enabling more popular participating in political and social matters in China.
• Does increased public deliberation in China actually prolong the existence of the one-party state, so that continuous, even minimal, improvement and empowerment becomes the excuse that a revolution is unnecessary? “We don’t need to change so long as we’re improving.”
• Ashley Esraey: Blogging may not result in revolution but it will at help people become more comfortable with expressing themselves.
• Comment from audience: The internet is taking from the government the monopoly to shape public opinion.
• Declaration of academic imperialism from the audience!
• Ashley Esraey: Research finding: Most critical blog postings made between midnight and 4am.

(Part 2) Moderator: Hu Yong, Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University

“Crossing the River by Groping for Stones: From Free Expression to Shared Meanings to Collective Political Action in China’s Blogosphere.”
by Peter Marolt, Ph.D Candidate, University of Southern California. 

• Chinese continue to believe that the power of the individual is ultimately limited but do recognize the emergence of blogging as a tool of expression.
• The Process of Social Learning: “Everything starts with free thinking.” Next step is “free expression.”

“What Chinese bloggers blog - examining the top 100 weblogs in China.”
by Hsu Chiung-wen, Assistant Professor, Department of Radio & Television & Graduate Program, College of Communication, National Chengchi University.  

• Research on Chinese-language blogs is rare, of which most focus on the censorship by China’s government and the democratizaing effects of blogging under a deterministic view of technology leading to societal and political developments. So do we have a lot of “research” that boils down to finding what we’re looking for?
• Compares the content of blog posts from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, sampled from the top 100 blogs off Blog Look.
• Findings: Technology, celebrity, and leisure blogs occupy 80% more of the top 100. No individual blog dedicated to political topics.

SESSION 10: ROUNDTABLE - Chinese journalism in the Internet age
Chair and key presenter: Qian Gang, Co-Director, China Media Project, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong
Moderator/facilitator: David Bandurski, Research Associate, China Media Project, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong.

Panel of Chinese journalists and bloggers:

• Hu Yong, Associate Professor, Peking University
• Li Yong-gang, Assistant Director, Universities Service Centre for China Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Song Zheng, Editor-in-chief, Tianya
• Zhang Dong-sheng, Editor-in-chief (Editorial Department), QQ.com
• Zhai Minglei, Editor-in-chief, 1 Bao

Left to right: ZHAI Minglei, ZHANG Dong-sheng, LI Yonggang, and SONG Zheng.

• David Bandurski asks how the government has been controlling the social internet recently. SONG Zheng responds that it isn’t convenient for him to answer.

Exciting panel but as the event has been running late and my flight back to Shanghai looms, I have to make a speedy exit. For further coverage, head on over here.