The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society

The Internet in China examines the cultural and political ramifications of the Internet for Chinese society. The rapid growth of the Internet has been enthusiastically embraced by the Chinese government, but the government has also rushed to seize control of the virtual environment. Individuals have responded with impassioned campaigns against official control of information. The emergence of a civil society via cyberspace has had profound effects upon China–for example, in 2003, based on an Internet campaign, the Chinese Supreme People’s Court overturned the ruling of a local court for the first time since the Communist Party came to power in 1949.
The important question this book asks is not whether the Internet will democratize China, but rather in what ways the Internet is democratizing communication in China. How is the Internet empowering individuals by fostering new types of social spaces and redefining existing social relations?

The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society
By Zixue Tai
Edition: illustrated
Published by CRC Press, 2006
ISBN 0415976553, 9780415976558
365 pages
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Jodi Dean, Jon W. Anderson, Geert Lovink (eds.): Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civil Society (2006)

“Reformatting Politics examines the ways in which new information and communication technologies (ICTs) are being used by civil society organizations (CSOs) to achieve their aims through activities and networks that cross national borders. These new ICTs–the internet, mobile phones, satellite radio and television–have allowed these civil society organizations to form extensive networks linking the local and the global in new ways and to flourish internationally in ways that were not possible without them.

The book consists of four sections containing essays by some of the top scholars and activists working at the intersections of networked societies, civil society organizations, and information technology. The book also includes a section that takes a critical look at the UN World Summit of Information Society and the role that global governance has played and will play in the use and dissemination of these new technologies. Finally, the book aims to influence this important and emerging field of inquiry by posing a set of questions and directions for future research. In sum, Reformatting Politics is a fresh look at the way critical network practice through the use of information technology is reformatting the terms and terrains of global politics.”

Publisher CRC Press, 2006
ISBN 0415952980, 9780415952989
237 pages

Key terms: ICANN, weblogs, Islamic fundamentalism, mobile phone, Suharto, MacBride Report, Internet governance, WSIS, Indymedia, CSOs, neoliberal, NWICO, power law, Taliban, Information Society, open publishing, ICTs, BitTorrent, Laskar Jihad, microfinance

Review: Athina Karatzogianni.

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Geoff Cox, Joasia Krysa (eds.): Engineering Culture: On ‘The Author as (Digital) Producer’ (2005)

“Social change does not simply result from resistance to the existing set of conditions but from adapting and transforming the technical apparatus itself. Walter Benjamin in his essay ‘The Author as Producer’, written in 1934, recommends that the ‘cultural producer’ intervene in the production process in the manner of an engineer. The term ‘engineer’ is to be taken broadly to refer to technical and cultural activity, through the application of knowledge for the management, control and use of power. To act as an engineer in this sense, is to use power productively to bring about change and for public utility. This collection of essays and examples of contemporary cultural practices asks if this general line of thinking retains relevance for cultural production at this point in time – when activities of production, consumption and circulation operate through complex global networks served by information technologies.”

Contributors: The Institute for Applied Autonomy | Josephine Berry Slater | William Bowles | Bureau of Inverse Technology | Nick Dyer-Witheford | etoy | Matthew Fuller | George Grinsted | Harwood | Jaromil | Armin Medosch | Raqs Media Collective | Redundant Technology Initiative | Pit Schultz.

Publisher Autonomedia, 2005
DATA browser series, 2
Creative Commons License
ISBN 1570271704
240 pages

Authors, (2)

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