Dances with wolves? China’s integration into digital capitalism

Abstract

Wonders whether, owing to severely restricted access, China’s government policy towards digital communications will remain in a constant state of flux – or will it gain economic benefits without a social penalty? Concludes that China has to link the forces of change to channel and deflect domestic resistance.

Social Foundations of the Internet in China and the New Internet World: A Cross-National Comparative Perspective

“…Among all countries analyzed, Chinese respondents stood out for their high levels of Internet use for entertainment and leisure activities, particularly shopping. This finding on its own is not inconsistent with observations by commentators who see the Chinese media as overly, and intentionally, consumerist (Zhao and Schiller 2001). According to this interpretation, Chinese users are diverted to entertainment and leisure users of the Internet to undermine the potential of Internet use for information sharing, organizing and political activities.…”

The Beijing Olympics: complicit consumerism and the re-invention of citizenship

“…However, they at least present the possibility of an uncertain ideological future in which the more (however illusory) freedoms that consumption offers, the more potentially Chinese consumers might question their relationship to the state. Furthermore, as Zhao so rightly points out, as digital media inputs become increasingly transnational in scale, the state has increasingly less control of the reintegration of the national political economy and hence over the way in which the Chinese people might engage with consumerism (Zhao & Schiller, 2001).…”

Product Placement and Digital Piracy: How Young Chinese Viewers React to the Unconventional Method of Corporate Cultural Globalization

“…These people have found unprecedented opportunities to enrich themselves via the reform process and are the driving forces behind China's continuous integration into global capitalism. Meanwhile, the Chinese party-state, through global integration, has transformed into a capitalist, bureaucratic-authoritarian system (D. Schiller, 2005;Hu, 2003;Lee et al, 2006;Zhao, 2003Zhao, , 2008Zhao & Schiller, 2001). It preaches ''developmentalism'' and portrays commercialization as the destined path for China's future.…”