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MA ADA 2007 > articles > Internet cafés in China
Internet cafés in China
May 8, 11:30 PM · Jo Choi
Internet cafés are located world-widely. Many people, especially travelers, like using them to access to webmail and instant messaging services to keep in touch with their families and friends. In China, the development of Internet cafés has been rapidly expanding in recent years. Internet cafés are not only for information exchange or sending e-greetings of virtual postcards, but also particularly popular for people using them for multiplayer gaming. This phenomenon is very common especially in some poor counties because this kind of shared-access model is more affordable than owning one’s own computer equipments. Thus, many people tend to visit Internet cafés for entertainment, tel-communicating and even earning money. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 2007)
In China, Huge population, crowded Internet cafés!
According to the ‘Survey of China Internet Café Industry’ from the Ministry of Culture (2005), China had 113,000 Internet cafés, serving about 40 million people every day, having 8.284 million computers and employing 1.056 million people. The Internet cafe industry generated 25.68 billion in revenues which led to an enormous enhancement of China’s economy. To some extent, the proper use of Internet Café and the extending interaction through Internet use are favourable for the extremely huge population of China. Spaces of sociality merge around Internet use in Internet Café and that can help people to maintain relatively closer relationships, both in online and offline worlds. (Miller and Slater 2000)
Accomodation Internet café in Shanghai ;-)
Nowadays, China’s market is opened; however, because of the high-handed control of the central authority for maintaining a social and political stability, all Internet cafés are targeted for rectification. (Yang 2003) TheChinese Communist Party censors websites and blocks some of them which are regarded as inapplicable to the society. It is done through its cyber police by watching the net 24 hour per day. It would affect people on receiving and exchanging information. On the other hand, for some who are addicted to Internet use, an indulgence on internet – all can lead to disturbances in their relationships with others and the outside world, both politically and socially. Virilio warns that it can be a deep crisis which will seriously affect the society, and hence the democracy. (Trend 2001)
References:
Dali L. Yang. (2003). China in 2002: Leadership Transition and the Political Economy of Governance. Source: Asian Survey, Vol. 43, No. 1, A Survey of Asia in 2002 (Jan., 2003), pp. 25-40.
Miller D. and Slater D. (2000). The internet: an ethnographic approach, Oxford: New York.
Trend D. (ED) (2001). Reading digital culture, Malden, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
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