(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Dating students, together with their parents are usually called in for counselling by the school
authority. Despite the official constraints, youths have developed their own standards of
permissiveness with affection to resist the school policies (Farrer, 2006). Recourse to the
discourse of natural emotional and biological needs is a powerful rhetorical device in a
society that believes in and prioritizes scientific truth (Evans, 1997). The Internet provides
them with an alternative avenue not only to conduct their relationships safely, but also to tell
and share their romantic stories with one another primarily based on the code of romance.
Recourse to such a code equips many with an ethical standpoint to criticize and resist the
school policies
Not only is dating among adolescents prohibited, but college students who are found to have
sexual intercourse can be expelled (Farrer, 2002). Only since March 2005, have the
authorities allowed college students to marry while still pursuing their higher education (Jin,
2009). In recent years, public opinions towards college students’ dating behaviours have
changed from the initial outright objections to implicit condoning. However, the dominant
discourse still discourages dating activities among the college students. Students are urged to
pay full attention to their study and made believe that they are too young to try dating (ibid).
Online dating becomes an important alternative for them to explore and satisfy their
emotional needs.
In a study conducted in 2007, 18% of the 4811 students from 10 universities in China
admitted to having one or more online lovers. 38% of them know other classmates who have
online relationships. The majority of them (88%) assert that online romance can help to fulfil
emotional needs, providing solace which is lacking in their everyday life. Nearly half of the
respondents neither agree nor disagree with online romance, only 11.6% openly rejected
online romance (Wei et al., 2007). An earlier study involving 516 students from six
universities in Beijing showed that 44% of them think that it is possible to have a successful
online romance, compared to 29% who do not, 28% were not sure about the prospects of the
relationships (Han, 2004). It seems that significant numbers of netizens possess an
ambivalent attitude towards online romance. This could possibly be due to the confusing and
inconsistent definition of online romance in China.
Online romance has an ambiguous definition in China. For some, it refers to romantic
relationships conducted exclusively online without any offline contact. Others conform to the
mainstream understanding of romantic relationships initiated online and gradually expanded
into the offline world. In the study mentioned earlier, 38% think that it is possible to expand
the relationship offline and 23.5% conceived of online romance as a relationship that is
confined exclusively within cyberspace. Another key metaphoric conceptualization of online
romance (chosen by 35.3% of the participants) is it represents a relational game or play that
does not require commitment and responsibilities (Wei et al., 2007). Similarly, Zeng (2004)
also postulates that there are two types of online romance; one is romantic relationships that
exist virtually, from initially meeting to falling in love and even marriage, all conducted
exclusively online. Couples remain distant and anonymous to each other in everyday life.
This type of online romance is often called, “Platonic relationship”. The second type of
online romance utilises the Internet as a means to conduct relationships with the ultimate goal
of meeting in person and ideally cumulating in marriage in the actual world. Online romance
17