Cyber-Nationalism in China: Challenging Western Media Portrayals of Internet Censorship in China

The prevailing consumerism in Chinese cyberspace is a growing element of Chinese culture and an important aspect of this book. Chinese bloggers who have strongly embraced consumerism and tend to be apathetic about politics have nonetheless demonstrated political passion over issues such as the Western medias negative coverage of China.In this book Jiang focuses upon this passion -- Chinese bloggers angry reactions to the Western medias coverage of censorship issues in current China -- in order to examine Chinas current potential for political reform. A central focus of this book then is the specific issue of censorship and how to interpret the Chinese characteristics of it as a mechanism currently used to maintain state control.While Cyber-Nationalism in China examines fundamental questions surrounding the political implications of the Internet in China it avoids simply predicting that the Internet does or does not lead to democratization. Applying a theoretical approach based on the Foucauldian notion of governmentality the book builds on current scholarship that has attempted to move beyond examining the dynamics of the socio-cultural and political use of new media technologies.Instead this books more intricate theoretical approach does not only accommodate the kind of liberal (apolitical or political) use observed on the Internet in China but indicates that desires for political change such as they are are implicitly embedded in the relationship between Chinas online communities and state apparatus -- noting however that the latter claims total governance over the Internet in the name of the people.