Fili’s world

Definition

A Netizen[i] is an abbreviation for “Internet citizen” given to people who are highly involved with online communities, sometimes also referred to as a “cyberspace citizen”. Netizens are believed by some to be distinguishable from other Internet users in that they focus on using the Internet as a social tool to engage in various social activities, making use of the opportunities the Internet provides in order to expand social involvement and influence, forming connections that would otherwise be impossible. Netizens engage in all forms of online social activities, such as exchanging viewpoints, reporting and discussing recent news and information, engaging in social interactions for either intellectual goals or pleasure – mostly in regards to their social affiliation or the subject of their social group.

This term has been used often up to a point that it’s almost synonymous with the Internet users of East-Asia, and mainly China, where the netizens movements constitute to most of the Internet users and online activity.

Internet usage

Chinese Internet statistics are reported by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC[ii]) which is the “state network information center of China” and is responsible for the “Internet Survey and Relevant Information Services, having actively carried out series of statistical surveys on the Internet information resources for public welfare”. In its latest survey from the 23/01/2007 for the Internet development in China CNNIC reported[iii] that:

Internet users in China reached 137 million, account for 10.5% of China’s population. The Internet penetration in Beijing exceeded 30% for the first time. 75.9% of Chinese Internet users or 104 million people use broadband connections that include xDSL, Cable Modem and leased line. The scale of mobile phone Internet users has also expanded with the total number reached 17 million.

Comparing to the same period last year, China’s Internet users increased by 26 million. The growth rate (23.4%) rose again since the rate dropped in 2004 (18.2%) and 2005 (18.1%).

These Internet usage statistics point out that China is 2^nd place in the number of Internet users, gaining on the US fast and is predicted to surpass the US with its 207 million Internet users[iv] in less than 3 years.

Due to its enormous population, penetration rate for Internet in China is still considered very low, but broadband rate within the Internet users is considered relatively high, meaning that a lot of the users are surfing on high speed and can connect to the Internet around the clock. So, it’s not only that there are most Chinese Internet users, but that the amount of time that the Chinese spend on the Internet rises significantly, as well as the diversity of their activities online.

A new report shows that netizens in China are spending more time than ever online. A group called CTR Market Research[v], described as “The leading market information company in China” which performs an on-going analysis of the Chinese Internet, is reporting that the time Chinese netizens spend on the Internet everyday has increased in the last 4 years from ~88 minutes to ~138 minutes showing a 56% growth, and this is expected to continue growing at a similar rate. The report suggests that Internet usage is replacing the more traditional family activities such as watching television.

Characteristics

A report titled “Surveying Internet Usage and Impact in Five Chinese Cities” (EG “Internet survey”) produced by the Research Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is conducted a bi-annual in-depth assessment of the Chinese Internet by using door-to-door interviews in 5 of China’s largest cities.

Profile

The Internet survey shows that China’s Internet users are exceptionally young and that Internet adoption for the ages of up to 24 is over 80% (!) and between 60 and 80% for those between 25 and 29. Highest adoption rate for Internet is among male (57.2%), highly educated (90%), and single persons (77.2%). “Thus, a typical Internet user in China most likely is young, male, holding a job as a teacher or a white-collar worker with a high income, or a student”.

Location

It seems that most people use the Internet at home (76.1%) but that can be attributed to the relatively small numbers of Internet cafes till 2003. It was only on July 2003 that the PRC government granted licenses to open Internet cafe chains[vi]. Internet Café usage is at ~30%, mainly used for chatting and playing online games and is decreasing each year – probably in favor of home and mobile connectivity.

Online Activities

Determining how Chinese use the Internet could be a bit tricky, but one of the methods used to check that is through sites offering unbiased targeted traffic statistics and seeing what the most popular Chinese websites are. The most influential traffic statistics are provided by Alexa and it’s China targeted ranking[vii] pointing to the following website as being the most popular Chinese websites: Baidu.com, Qq.com, sina.com.cn, sohu.com, 163.com, yahoo.com.cn, and taobao.com. The Chinese sister site China Internet Index (CIIS[viii]) supports those rankings, but also provides a more detailed information on every niche in China and their global China rankings. Examining those websites it seems that most of them are portals that include news and information as well as a very developed forum/BBS and blogging services.

The Internet survey reports that 65.9% use the Internet to read news and a similar percentage does “general browsing”. China’s Internet usage is quite unique in the amazingly high usage percentage for the next 3 most popular activities – 62% “always” or “usually” play online games, 56.7% “always” or “often” download music and 53.5% download “entertainment information”. I believe that online games are much more than just entertainment and serve as busy online communities that resemble BBS and forum usage. The rate of downloading music and video is probably due to the Intellectual Property Rights (/piracy) problem in China that allows downloading or offering for download just about anything with out fear of a fine and legal persecution.

The most frequent form of communication is IRC (Internet relay chat) (68.7%) followed by ICQ/QQ (66.6%), email (63%), BBS (44.8%), MSN (43.9%) and blogs (29.5%).

Attitudes

Of all the questions posed in the Internet survey, an intriguing one is that of the Netizens’ attitude towards Internet censorship. Here is a diagram showing attitude towards “Internet management” on 2001, 2003, and 2005:

The diagram shows that over 80% of the Internet users think that the Internet should be controlled. Looking deeper into that issue, here’s a diagram of what type of control should be practiced -

The diagram clarifies that the “control” they’re referring to is in regard to issues of pornography, violence and junk messaging; while very few think that it should be used on issues of politics.

I believe this might be an important representation of how the Chinese netizens think about “Information management” which is a little different than how most western countries view this issue. It seems that the Chinese netizens expect their government (/society) to intervene on social ills, although they do not want this happen on political issues. This finding will be demonstrated when discussing Netizens case studies later on.

Internet Impact

The growth of the Internet usage in the China has a profound influence over the Chinese society. Here are a few of the apparent implications of the Internet on life in China for the average Chinese citizen:

· Internet allows bridging between people from different parts of China, making huge China much smaller and approachable. Physical distance limitations and regulatory separation between city and countryside and between north and south or inland and coastline become less significant in those parts where Internet is accessible.

· Internet serves as a foundation for domestic and international economical growth. The Chinese Internet is still very much China focused, offering endless e-commerce opportunities and allowing small businesses and individuals to compete with the big brands. With the Chinese Internet, initial investment required for starting an online business and doing marketing through the Internet is much lower allowing a more fierce competition.

· The social affiliation is slowly changing from the traditional concepts of a work-unit, the university, the neighborhood or the city to online societies formed on the basis of mutual interests. Pop-culture, pop-stars, fashion and trends spread much faster.

· Due the incredible amount of information available on the Internet, information is more accessible – regardless of government or self-censorship. Like everywhere else - the average netizens have access to much more information than was available to them before.

Netizen celebrities

The Chinese Internet has created a few “online celebrities” over the years with some netizens who have become extremely popular and known throughout virtual and real China because of their unique online activities. Those online celebrities are usually characterized by doing something that’s never been done before, with some raising a social controversy over their personalities that sparks their popularity. Here are a few interesting examples of “online celebrities” with a short discussion on what they did that made them celebrities and how the Chinese society treated them:

Furong Jiejie or Hibiscus Older Sister

As of the beginning of 2007 the most popular Netizen is a blogger girl that goes by the name of Furong Jiejie or Hibiscus Older Sister who’s been dominating Baidu search engine rankings on the “personalities” category[ix].

In the beginning of 2005 this young girl going by the online alias of “frjj” on the Tsinghua and Beijing University BBSes started to upload her photos and write about her life. She soon became a big online celebrity with a lot of devoted fans and coverage in both online and traditional media. The China Daily[x] summarized with an article “Hibiscus Blooms’ and Creates a Buzz on the Net” saying that “Sister Hibiscus (Sister Furong) is not beautiful - by most accepted standards, that is. But, going by the philosophy that ‘if you haven’t got it, flaunt it’, she has created quite a buzz in China’s online world”. It seems that her celebrity status was related to the online Cinderella story of a girl born in a peasant family in Shaanxi Province who was fighting her way into the prestigious Beijing universities. Sister’s Furong’s explanation for her popularity is "my sexy appearance and ice-and-jade pure quality bring me a lot of attention wherever I go. I’m always the centre of everything. People never tire of looking at my face, and my physique gives men nose-bleeds". Other reasons given in attempt to try and explain her popularity are her extremely blunt self confidence for what is believed to be average looks and also her detailed indulgence in “girly matters” like looks and pursuing a boyfriend with some titling her as “a pioneer in anti-intellectualism”.

The British Telegraph gave a good overview of her story with a “Beijing halts internet adventures of Sister Lotus”[xi] explaining that it was the fact that she was controversial and ridiculed that brought her more fame and glory, so that the more she was discussed, the more popular she became. The controversy was so intense that at some point the Chinese government decided to interfere - “The Propaganda Department told the television stations and big newspapers to stop covering me. For some reason, they were uncomfortable” and in a matter of days all publishers and media canceled their plans for the sister. It was quite strange that the Chinese government banned her although she wasn’t politically active or too sexual, and the journalists’ speculations on the reason for this action were that “the Politburo becomes uneasy when any ordinary member of the public gains a following and, with it, influence. Potentially this girl, or any famous individual like her, could one day be a threat to the government".

Muzi mei

Muzi Mei[xii], or LiLi, is a young female journalist who, during 2003, blogged about her sexual affairs in Guangzhou with various men that she met, and by that was the first girl to publicly address those issues. After explicitly writing about her sexual encounter with one Chinese rock super-star, Muzi soon became famous and in the center of a very widespread controversy in both online and traditional media, being the highlight of gossip pages, BBS and chat-forum discussions. She was quickly banned officially by the authorities and thrown off all media mentions.

Her writings[xiii] are believed to have initiated a more public and open discussion of sex in China, starting the “Chinese sexual revolution[xiv]”. Her story has made big headlines not only in the Chinese net but also in international media, as her writings have been covered a few times by important western newspapers[xv] and have recently translated to French and edited into a book “Journal sexuel d’une jeune Chinoise sur le net”.

Hou She Boys (Back dorm boys[xvi])

Huang Yixin and Wei Wei are two boys who study at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and have become internationally famous for lip-syncing famous international and Chinese artists. Their online presence and extreme popularity has resulted in an Internet trend of lip-syncing celebrities and has contributed to the two boys’ success. Their Sina blog[xvii] is highly ranked in Chinese search engines, and their English blog (which turned out to be a fake by a fan) was an

Of all the Chinese top online celebrities, the Back dorm boys are unique in that they are not in controversy but are rather liked for their comical abilities.

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(This article is the first part of an essay submitted for a course about "modren society in urban China" summarizing my China Netizens online reading throughout the past year)

[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netizen

[ii] http://www.cnnic.net.cn/en/index/

[iii] http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2007/02/05/4432.htm

[iv] http://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm

[v] http://www.ctrchina.cn/en/index.html

[vi] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_mainland_China

[vii] http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?cc=CN&ts_mode=country&lang=none

[viii] http://ciis.chinalabs.com

[ix] http://top.baidu.com/renwu.html

[x] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-07/01/content_456357.htm

[xi] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/14/wchin14.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/14/ixworld.html

[xii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Zimei

[xiii] http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/12/20051219aextra.asp

[xiv] http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article332352.ece

[xv] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1137697,00.html

[xvi] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Dorm_Boys

[xvii] http://blog.sina.com.cn/m/housheboy