This book explores new connections among Chinese people forged by the rapid spread of information and communication technologies. Covers virtual, actual and local interactions, probes impact on migrant workers, challenges to traditional social order and more.

The fast diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in China has brought forth new forms of connection among the Chinese and has changed their social lives. Virtual networks have been developed and in turn have led to the formation of networks in the actual world. This collection explores the resultant complications in the relationship between virtual, actual, and local interactions. It discusses various aspects of the implications of the new connectivities on these three types of interactions in China. The topics examined include: the possibility of the development of civil society in China, the implications for the migrant workers in the south, the challenge posed to the traditional social order, and the relationship between the new connectivities and the Chinese social context.

The first edited collection on the social consequences of the adoption of the mobile phone and the internet in China Provides the most updated research information and communication technologies in China Presents research frameworks on new media technologies in China written from a sociological perspective

Inhalt

Acknowledgements.- Notes on Contributors.- Chapter 1. Introduction. PART I. THE INTERNET COMMUNICATION AND THE ISSUE OF CIVIL SOCIETY.- Chapter 2. NPOs in China: Some Issues Concerning Internet Communication; Boxu Yang.- Chapter 3. Dot the I's and Cross the T's: A Sociological Interpretation of Chinese Cyberspace and Grace Wang Qianyuan Incident; Chung-tai Cheng.- Chapter 4. Rage and Reflection: Chinese Nationalism Online Between Emotional Venting and Measured Opinion; David Kurt Herold.- PART II. STUDIES ON mOBILE PHONE USES IN BEIJING.- Chapter 5. Beijing Calling... Mobile Communication in Contemporary China; Leopoldina Fortunati, Anna Maria Manganelli, Pui-lam Law, Shanhua Yang.- Chapter 6. The Mobile Face of Contemporary China; Leopoldina Fortunati, Anna Maria Manganelli, Pui-lam Law, Shanhua Yang.- Chapter 7. A Preliminary Study on the Use of Mobile Phones amongst Migrant Workers in Beijing; Ke Yang.- PART III. THE ICTs AND MIGRANT WORKERS IN SOUTHERN CHINA.- Chapter 8. Mobile Cultures of Migrant Workers in Southern China: Informal Literacies in the Negotiation of (New) Social Relations of the New Working Women; Angel Lin and Alvin Tong.- Chapter 9. Internet Use of Migrant Workers in the Pearl River Delta; Yinni Peng.- Chapter 10. The Relationship of Mobile Telephony to Job Mobility in China's Pearl River Delta; Raymond Ngan and Stephen Ma.- Chapter 11. Mobile Communication and the Issue of Identity: An Exploratory Study of the Uses of Camera Phone among Migrant Workers in Southern China; Pui-lam Law.- PART IV. NEW NETWORK AND NEW IDENTIFICATION.- Chapter 12. Beyond Privileges: New Media and the Issues of Glocalization in China; Boxu Yang.- Chapter 13. The Principled Machine: A Socio-political Inquiry of Mobile Voting in Chinese Society; Chung-tai Cheng.- Chapter 14. The Use of ICT Products and White-collarization of White Collars Workers: An Everyday-Life Perspective; Shanhua Yang and Jing Li.- Chapter 15. Home andAway: A Case Study of Emerging Technocultures and Mobility in Shanghai; Larissa Hjorth.- PART V. NEW CONNECTIVITIES AND CHINESE SOCIAL CONTEXT.- Chapter 16. Is there a Chinese Digital Sublime? Some Reflections on the Cultural Representations of Technology; Matteo Tarantino.- Chapter 17. ICT Use with Chinese Characteristics; Wai-Chi Chu and Yinni Peng.- Chapter 18. ICT4D: Internet Adoption and Usage among Rural Users in China; Jinqiu Zhao.-