Organizer: Daria Berg, University of Nottingham
Chair and Discussant: Yongnian Zheng, University of Nottingham
This panel proposes innovative and interdisciplinary
approaches to the analysis of cyberspace, consumerism, and cultural creativity
in order to assess the impact of the Internet on contemporary Chinese culture
and society. Recent research maintains that the Internet in China has broken
the blockade of information imposed by the state-controlled old media while
the government continues to pay a heavy political price for censorship (Yongnian
Zheng, 2007). The papers aim to establish a dialogue between the humanities
and social sciences by examining the cultural and political implications of
websites and online activities from different perspectives. Berg argues that
linglei cyberculture, including bodywriters and bloggers such as Muzi Mei and
Sister Hibiscus, appears to give access to “unscripted
modernity” while creating an urban utopia thriving on consumerism that
nevertheless harbors the potential for political dissent. Yang Guobin shows
from a sociological perspective how Internet literature has encroached upon
China’s print literary establishment, providing new avenues for publishing
while reflecting changes in cultural production and consumption. Zhou examines
the new Internet phenomenon of egao as a carnivalesque and iconoclastic process,
offering a new space for individualistic expression. Yang Boxu investigates
the historical and current roles of the media, power structures associated
with media control, and the creation of public spaces for personal expression
on the Internet. This panel takes an innovative approach to presentation by
publishing key issues online (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/chinese/) before the
meeting, inviting questions and discussion. The presentations will elaborate
on these themes to create a forum for multidisciplinary debate.
Daria Berg, University of Nottingham
The growth of the Internet in the post-Deng era has changed the dynamics
of cultural production and consumption in China. Online reality shows, intimate
weblogs, and videologs have gained popularity in Chinese cyberspace, providing
the illusion of instant access to uncensored insights into lived experience.
Webcasting moreover empowers the audience in the public sphere by encouraging
netizens to participate in the cultural discourse. Muzi Mei’s blogs and
podcasts have taken the concept of body and book as commodities further, exploiting
the new media as a vehicle for an unofficial and interactive discourse that
renders the government ban on her writings futile. Muzi Mei’s writings
react to and resonate with another body of texts that critics have labeled “body
writing” (shenti xiezuo). This study explores the social network of negotiations
and exchanges involved in the production and consumption of Muzi Mei’s
cyberactivities, tracing the flow of social energy between artifact and audience.
This approach analyzes Muzi Mei’s works in its cultural context, in particular
the discourse on the body, post/modernity, youth culture, the linglei chic of “alternative
cool”, the urban neo-neo tribes (xin xin renlei), the blogs of Sister
Hibiscus (Furong jiejie), and the advertising industry. This paper argues that
the linglei cyberdiscourse constructs social experiments, rather than depicting
perceived “reality”, and dramatizes an urban utopia that thrives
in the area of tension between consumer culture and political censorship.
The linglei discourse invites a reading as an expression of dissent by displacement
that harbors the potential for political dynamite.
Guobin Yang, Barnard College
In October 1999, Netease.com announced a literary competition to select “Netease
Chinese Internet Literature Awards”. This created an uproar in Chinese
cyberspace because the award committee consisted of well-known writers and critics
who were to judge Internet literature. Not everybody agreed on their suitability.
The controversy surrounding this Internet literature award is symptomatic of
the complex relations between newly emerging Internet writers and the literary
establishment of print culture. This article analyzes these complex relations
using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the literary field. The paper shows
that Internet literature has some unique new features in content, form, and
channels of publishing and distribution and its emergence is inseparable from
the new technological capabilities of the Internet. It is argued, however, that
the rise of Internet literature also reflects the changing conditions in the
field of cultural production and consumption in contemporary China; it depends
crucially on Internet authors’ symbolic struggles for recognition and
the promotional strategies of literary web sites. The rise of Internet literature
has encroached upon China’s print literary establishment in notable ways.
The ease of self-publishing on the Internet complicates the social organization
of print literature and undermines the power of the gate-keepers of the print
literary establishment. The new features in content and form represent an
expansion of the horizons of literary writing. Paradoxically, the success of
Internet literature also helps to reproduce the existing cultural order in some
ways.
Yongming Zhou, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Few followers of the Chinese Internet could have failed to notice the prominence
of the phenomenon of "egao" in Chinese cyberspace. Literally, egao
means malicious and reckless actions. These can take textual, visual, audio,
and video forms and are usually disseminated through the Internet. Since its
sudden arrival in 2006, egao has enjoyed an unprecedented popularity and following,
but has received uneasy responses from government, commercial establishments,
and cultural elites. There is no sign that egao will fade away any time soon,
and most likely it will become a regular feature in Chinese cyberspace. How
can we make sense of its unusual popularity online? Is it of some significance
politically and culturally? Considering egao is a recent phenomenon that is
still developing, this article will attempt to provide a preliminary reading
by situating it within the historical context of Western satirical art and electronic-based
culture, as well as in the political and cultural contexts of contemporary China.
Decentralized Internet technologies have made egao a popular avenue of expression
in cyberspace. Conflicts between egao and political core values, elitist cultural
tastes, and private commercial rights will continue, but at least for now, egao
serves as a spontaneous carnivalesque process for many Chinese netizens, providing
an iconoclastic challenge to established norms and values. Even though we might
see egao practitioners acting like civil subjects in a country without a true
civil society, the genre’s popularity in Chinese cyberspace signals that
Chinese society has expanded space for individual activities into new forms.
Boxu Yang, Beijing University
Taking an historical approach, this paper aims to shed light on the structuring
processes of the roles played by the media in Chinese society in the past,
in order to identify the role of the new media in China today. This study argues
that, traditionally, the main agents were emperors, Confucians, and landlords
while the others were forced into submission. The Confucians controlled and
manipulated the political and social ideology and did not allow for public
space. The rise of print technology enhanced the status quo for the Confucians
who were able to control the contents of the media with the help of the state.
Advances in print technology did not change social hierarchies, nor did the
old power structures disappear after 1911. Newspapers and broadcasting have
continued to promote the various dominant state ideologies, serving political
and commercial interests. China’s economic reforms however have opened
the door not only to transnational corporations, but also to new information
and communication technologies. State control of the new media has proven difficult
to maintain. This time, the traditionally suppressed citizens appear as agents
who create virtual public spaces and personalize private spaces, for the first
time challenging the status quo. It is difficult to predict how Chinese society
will develop in the future, but it is reasonable to ask what will happen when
the newly empowered citizens successfully develop a public space and turn the
private space into a personal space. This paper tentatively argues that the
new media are facilitating the emergence of a civil society in China.
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