Welcome to Cinternet
Welcome to Cinternet
Welcome to Cinternet
However, there's another question that has been left at the margins of the debate until now: how does Internet in China actually work, and which are the main trends going on beyond the Great Wall? We've tried to gain a better understanding of the topic through an interview to Donnie Hao Dong, a well-known expert of the fieldand currently a visiting scholar at the Berkman Center, Harvard.
One first evidence, highlighted by our interviewee and confirmed by all recent surveys, has to do with the quantitative dimensions of the phenomenon: internet in China is huge, and the magnitude and intensity of its growth are hardly understandable by the usual Western standards. According to the 25th Survey of the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) there are currently more than 384 millions netizens in China (+86 millions more than 2008) and the expansion is sustained in all sectors of the web-sphere: online business, search, social networks, online games. More than 233 millions of Chinese people access the Net through their mobile phones.
But there's more than just numbers to this story. And that's because, according to Dong, the Chinese web-sphere comes with cultural, linguistical and normative characteristics that are very peculiar to it, and that make it somehow different from the Western Net. To the extent that our interviewee has crafterd a brand new word- Cinternet- to better describe the phenomenon. "The wording of 'Cinternet'- as he explains in the answers he has mailed to Il Sole 24 Ore " does not mean I think there is a network isolated from the Internet with clear physical or software boarders. Simply, I use this term to summarize an "Internet" reflecting the combination of the impressions of the Chinese Internet users, policy makers and ISPs, an Internet that is further reflected in the mode of E-commerce, the way of Internet governance and even the style of the webpage ".
Cultural difference is thus the key for a better understanding of Cinternet. According to Dong, indeed, Chinese culture is somehow mirrored in all dimensions of digital life, from web-pages design to online action and interaction.
"Take pokes, in example: "poke" someone may be a very good design for Facebook as an SNS in western world. But Chinese people, even they understand it is a way of saying hello, will not feel it is funny, but weird.
And something similar occurs when it comes to websites architecture. Differently from what happens with Western webites, he explains, the main Chinese websites are structured around the- very popular there- IM services, and present themselves as multifunction portals, each providing news, games social network and online business within its boundaries.
Furthermore, there are some aspects that are peculiar to the Cinternet trajectory through the years. First of all, Dong explains, public authorities have progressively changed their attitudes towards the Net. "In early 2000s, the impact of the Internet to Chinese society was still not strong enough, hence the authority did not pay so much attention to the Internet. Gradually, the Internet has stronger influence to Chinese society. The governmental administration then tried to control the content with technological methods. After 2007, the limitations of the technological controlling are more and more explicit, so the focus of the Internet governance moved from the technological means to the legal enforcement."
However, our interviewee continues, as the degree of consciousness- and of intervention- of the Legislator has increased, new issues have emerged, namely with regard to the fragmentation and lack of coordination of the normative framework. "The main cyber legal system currently enforced by Chinese authority has been promulgated by lower level of the government (most regulations were made by the Ministries but not the people's congress or the State Council). And the regulations were based mostly on the old and superficial understanding to the Internet." The result is a "normative jungle" that is likely to limit the civil and economic development of the Internet phenomenon as a whole.
And what about the future? With regard to the Cinternet itself, Dong maintains that it will continue to grow, and that the above described regulatory jungle will be fixed through a new round of legislation. But the real issue, he continues, has to do with the recognition, at the international level, of the differences that exist between the different ares of the web-sphere. "The Cyber world is a world with diversities and it can hardly stay beyond the real world independently without the influences of different culture and regimes". Thus, as Dong states in an indirect answer to the supporters of the "global and single internet", it is necessary to take a more "pluralistic" approach with regard to the understanding of the Net. "Once most (if not all) stakeholders (either in the east or in the west) accept that their individual impressions of the Internet should not definitely be the solely right one, the connection among the networks (no matter at infrastructure level or at the legal level) may be more smooth. "
Giovanni Arata
Freelance Journalist
mail to: giovanni.arata@gmail.com
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