(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Title: Cultural characteristics, social and political significance of online relationships in
China
Authors: Dr. Olga Bailey, Yann-Ling Chin
Affiliation: College of Arts and Science, Nottingham Trent University
Introduction
With the support of a research group led by Professor Werner Zorn from Karlsruhe
University in Germany, Professor Wang Yunfeng and Doctor Li Chengjiong sent out the first
email from China to Germany on 20 th September 1987. The email title was "Across the Great
Wall we can reach every corner in the world" (Jing, 2007). Since the Internet service became
publicly available in January 1995, the number of netizens in China has grown from less than
40,000 to 420 million as of June 2010 following the government’s investment in
infrastructure development and incentives for its adoption (CNNIC, 2010). China is now the
country with the largest Internet population in the world, albeit under strict government
control on contents.
Although the digital divide remains an issue for those who “have”, the Internet has had a
profound impact on various aspects of their daily life, especially in terms of leisure and
entertainment, communication and socialization, news and information resources (ibid). In
fact, Chinese netizens seem to embrace the Internet more extensively and forcefully than their
US counterparts as shown in a study comparing Chinese and American youths’ attitude
towards the Internet, conducted by IAC and JWT in 2007. Less than a third of Americans
(30% out of the 1079 American participants) agreed with the statement “The Internet helps
me make friends”, significantly lower than the 77% of the 1104 Chinese participants. 61% of
the Chinese surveyed said they have a parallel life online, compared to only 13% of the
Americans. Most striking is that although Americans are generally known to be more
sexually liberated and open, only 11% of the American respondents compared to 32% of
Chinese respondents willingly admit that the Internet has broadened their sex life.
Shanahan, Poynter and Ho (2008) suggested that the one-child policy could be behind the
extensive adoption of Web 2.0 in China. Moreover, under the cultural influence of
Confucianism, Chinese value personal relationships and social harmony (Ong, 2005). The
society has long been operated within the notion of ‘guanxi’, whereby established social
connections are used to facilitate interpersonal exchanges of favours -fundamentally a classic
form of social networking (Chan et al., 2006). The Internet has opened up tremendous
networking opportunities for Chinese youth today, compared with earlier generations who
relied on face-to-face interactions in close proximity. At first glance, it appears that the
Internet has brought about a brave new world for Chinese people by affording them abundant
opportunities to pursue the relationships of their choice, liberating them from physical, social
and cultural constraints. However, it would be too simplistic and naïve to focus only on this
utopian dimension of social life online.
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