Three Phases in the Development of China’s Network Society

While Raine and Wellman (Chapter 1, this volume) focus on contemporary uses and impacts of the Internet in the US, this chapter provides a more historical perspective on the evolution of China’s network society since the 1990s. Jack Linchuan Qiu argues that during a time of rapid industrialization and globalization, China’s network society went through three phases—which he characterizes as Asteroids, Bees, and Coliseums—with each phase having a unique pattern of institutional formation, class relationships, and sociopolitical dynamics. The chapter develops a typology of these three phases to capture and explain the formation of China’s network society. The overall trajectory of China’s network society, the author argues, has an important relationship with the growth of civil society in China from the 1990s into the twenty-first century. The turn of the millennium has seen consumerism and nationalism increase dramatically, thereby shaping life online.