睡在网吧SXSW | Austin, Texas | March 12, 2011 | triciawang.com #300MM

The Next 300 Million Chinese Users@triciawang

#300MM @triciawang

?who has been to an internet cafe in China?

photo credit: chinasmack.com

#300MM @triciawang

#300MM @triciawang

playing games

watching porn

sleeping, a lot

what are people doing inside these internet cafes?

#300MM @triciawang

police, schools, media, and parents are freaking out!

PANIC

Use the internet in a civilized way.Stay away from internet cafeStay away from Internet addiction, start from yourself. ”

“

#300MM @triciawang

photo credit: xinhua

policeman is making a speech to kids about the dangers of internet use

we monitor• IM chats• text messages• forums• emails

the government has created the largest virtual police force: The Sky Net Team

Citizens, like these elderly women, are encouraged to volunteer their time at internet cafes urging youth to go home.

Whatʼs all this panic over games and porn? #300MM

@triciawang

photo credit: imagine china

#300MM @triciawang

(thereʼs a lot more going on here than it seems)

#300MM @triciawang

For outsiders, what you see here is what most middle-class and elite Chinese citizens also see - a bunch of poor migrants watching porn and playing games.

#300MM @triciawang

use bathrooms

talk to friends

stay in touch with family

find jobs

cheap child-care

affordable shelter

relax

whatʼs really going on inside:

#300MM @triciawang

contrary to whatʼs been said about internet cafes, I argue that they are places of

safety stability comfort

social interaction

#300MM @triciawang

internet cafes are important sites of

#300MM @triciawang

new processes!!!!

migrants using

technology!

building new forms of

community!

urbanization through

digital tools!

#300MM @triciawang

but it’s an old story

poor people come to cities elites panic government

steps in

#300MM @triciawang

this happened in the US around the early 20th century when immigrants came to the

US from Europe ....

millions of them

21st century - Chinese rural to urban migrants

20th century - Irish & Italian immigrants

#300MM @triciawang

immigrants, just like anyone else, need places to hang out

saloons were the leisure hang out spaces for immigrants

#300MM @triciawang

government, middle-class, & elites started freaking out!

PANIC

anti-alcohol propoganda posters

Anti-Saloon Movement lead to Prohibition

#300MM @triciawang

sociologists sent into saloons to find out why

immigrants spent so much time in them

they found out that saloons were important places for

immigrants to relax, socialize, use the bathroom

#300MM @triciawang

sociologist Ray Oldenburg argued that saloons were important third places in cities

third places: important spaces for healthy cities such as places that are neither home or work, such as pubs, cafes, libraries, and public spaces.

#300MM @triciawang

just like internet cafes for Chinese migrants now, saloons were important spaces for

immigrants in the early 20th century

In China, privately owned spaces of communication technology access are the new

(internet cafe)

third placespeople are actively reprogramming urban space

#300MM @triciawang

blurring private/public

re-mixingdigital/material

blurring kinship ties

building communitypublicly virtual

the new “street corner”

this is my field work site

•living with migrants•going to schools•hanging out in internet cafes•working in factories #300MM

@triciawang

Iʼm a sociologist and ethnographer

#300MM @triciawang

some of the larger questions that I try to answer in my research are:

what the future of the internet will look like?

how will the next 3 billion users experience everyday digital life? #300MM

@triciawang

what can we learn from 300 million rural-urban migrants?

#300MM @triciawang

Where are potential areas for social change?

#300MM @triciawang

1 change from the bottom up will take form in

this happens when people on the margins experience the limits of consumer citizenship

disruptive citizenship

#300MM @triciawang

2 Leisure activities become even more intense sites of social interaction because they are

politically benign

#300MM @triciawang

3 Leisure activities becomes important areas of

cultural control

#300MM @triciawang

"Even if dominant institutions are not directly overthrown by new technologies, fundamental aspects of culture are transformed by them." Mark Poster

4 Restrictions are often seen as unique challenges

restrictions

free for all

dreamers

+

+= unique set of conditions

for innovation!

#300MM @triciawang

China is a humongous living experiment

#300MM @triciawang

Text

#300MM @triciawang

disposable urban household income in China has to keep growing to maintain economic growth

#300MM @triciawang

In order for China to sustain its urban growth and its entire population, it has to bring these millions of migrants flowing into cities into the middle class

To accomplish this, China is digitally networking the consumption desires of millions of people

#300MM @triciawang

#300MM @triciawang

This is unfolding through a process I call Digital Urbanism

Digital Urbanismon the margins

#300MM @triciawang

millions of rural-urban migrants are becoming urbanized through low-cost digital tools

people

(subjectivity,

identity)

product

(hardware,

content)

tech &

economic

policy (legislation)

protocol

(code/networks/

standards)

practice

(communication,

spatial)

workings of digital urbanism

state managed growth

software: social media/

Hardware: low-cost tech

tools

widespread infrastructure

open web standards and programming

rural-urban

digitization of information

organization workflow

non co-present communication

desires

dreams

internet filtering regime

changingkinship ties

work

belonging

blurring private/public

re-mix digital/material

#300MM @triciawang

community

#300MM @triciawang

A core part of my research is understanding people’s dreams, desire, and identity

because these are the things that influence their everyday lives & their buying, gaming,

and media consuming practices.

#300MM @triciawang

getting insight into 300 million Chinese migrants is only the beginning, we are adding another 3

billion to our planet in the next 30 years!

less evenly developed

more evenly developed

world population: add 3 billion in 30 years it took 10,000 years to reach 3 billion

2011: 6.7 billion

BUT can the planet support the millions of migrants who have dreams to join the Chinese middle-class?

#300MM @triciawang

photo credit: edward burtynsky

#300MM @triciawang

Will cheap digital tools be the game changer?

Iʼll have some observations to report

in 2012! (if the world doesnʼt end)

#300MM @triciawang

.com

weekly posts from my fieldsite in China

writings on technology and cultureI’m blogging here about my research for

the next year!

thank you! to friends who listened, provided links, & gave me advice: kristen taylor, kevin slavin, kenyatta cheese, jin ge, & morgan ames.

triciawang.com @triciawang

I would love to chat with you!