How to deal with information paternalism in China - Tricia Wang

+Tricia Wang 

The outside world calls it censorship, but sociologist Tricia Wang prefers the term "information paternalism". Chinese teens are finding new ways to express themselves. 88-bar summarizes a speech of Tricia on online identity.

88-Bar:

Tricia’s research discusses how Chinese youth are experiencing their coming of age in a culture of information paternalism. That she does not call it censorship is an important distinction, because in China today, the dominant narrative around control is “father knows what’s best for you.” Here, “father” can refer to an actual teen’s parents, relatives, teachers or the Chinese government.

This dense sphere of paternalistic control (on top of the historical-cultural forces at work) drives Chinese teens to seek alternate channels of expression and socialization online.

To effectively escape, Chinese teens experiment with their identity and grow up online by cloaking themselves under pseudonyms and login handles. This type of experimentation, the polar opposite of on and offline real-name social networks, allows youth to develop what Tricia calls an “elastic self.” One great finding was that Chinese youth had developed an entire chain of rituals to convert an anonymous social interaction into a real life close connection. Interactions begin by finding people on social networks with similar interests or horoscopes. This then turns into casual conversation and e-cards for birthdays. That in turn leads to people sending little physical gifts to each other to verify a physical address. And then people will share their phone number, followed by a photo and then, lastly, a 30-second video conference to ensure the veracity of the photo. In the same way Chinese youth are finding each other online, they are also discovering more parts of themselves. Tricia structures the phases of the elastic self as 1) exploratory, 2) trusting, and 3) participatory. Only in the last phase do teens become politically active, and not everyone makes it to third phase.

More at 88-Bar.

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you a media representative and do you want to talk to one of our speakers? Do drop us a line.

Are you looking for more internet experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check our website.

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Talking to strangers: Tricia Wang at the Berkman center

+Tricia Wang 

Young Chinese use social media to develop a new public sphere, away from the old concepts of family ties and Guanxi, argues sociologist Tricia Wang in her Phd. On February 18 she will talk about this subject at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard University. 

From the invite:

When we read about the Chinese internet in the Western press, we usually hear stories about censorship, political repression, and instability. But there's a lot more to be learned about life on the other side of “The Great Firewall.” 

Based on over 10 years of ethnographic research, Tricia Wang's fieldwork reveals that social media is creating spaces in China that are shifting norms and behaviors in unexpected ways. Most surprisingly, Chinese youth are sharing information and socializing with strangers. She argues that they are finding ways to semi-anonymously connect to each other and establish a web of casual trust that extends beyond particularistic guanxi ties and authoritarian institutions. 

Chinese youth are discovering their social world and seeking emotional connection—not political change. Tricia argues that this reflects a new form of sociality among Chinese youth: an Elastic Self. Evidence of this new self is unfolding in three ways: from self-restraint to self-expression, from comradeship to friendship, and from a “moral me” to a “moral we.” This new sociality is lying the groundwork for a public sphere to emerge from ties primarily based on friendship and interactions founded on a causal web of public trust. The changes Tricia has documented have potentially transformative power for Chinese society as a whole because they are radically altering the way that people perceive and engage with each other.

You can rsvp for the meeting at 18 February at 12:30pm ET, or follow the proceedings online. Please follow the link for the details at the Berkman site.

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you a media representative and do you want to talk to one of our speakers? Please drop us a line.

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• Tricia Wang's PhD dissertation - Talking to Strangers: Chinese Youth and Social Media

Talking to Strangers: Chinese Youth develop a new public sphere - Tricia Wang

+Tricia Wang 

Sociologist Tricia Wang explains in her PhD how Chinese youth develop a new public sphere, away from old concepts as blood ties and guanxi.Talking to Strangers: Chinese Youth and Social Media, based on years of field study, and a painstaking writing process was published earlier this week.

Tricia Wang:

My research reveals that by creating an Elastic Self, Chinese youth find ways to connect to each other and to establish a web of casual trust that extends beyond particularistic guanxi ties and authoritarian institutions. To be clear, this new form of sociality gives youth a way to navigate Chinese society, not to disconnect from or to rebel against it. In doing so, youth are building the infrastructure of a civil society by establishing relationships in which they start out as strangers, thereby bypassing potentially restrictive social labels and structures that could otherwise prevent connection. Through semi-anonymous informal interactions, Chinese youth are primarily seeking to discover their own social world and to create emotional connections—not grand political change. Rather than attempting to revolutionize politics, Chinese youth are using these new forms of social engagement to revolutionize their relationships with themselves and each other. 

Even though Chinese youth do not feel that internet censorship is a hindrance in their everyday lives, real name identification policies that limit communication to formal interactions threatens the viability of crucial informal online spaces where Chinese youth have been able to freely explore their identities. The future of the Chinese internet and Chinese society at large rests in this very tension that Chinese youth are negotiating between finding informal spaces where they can present an Elastic Self and formal spaces where they feel compelled to present a prescribed identity. The social and emotional changes catalyzed by the Elastic Self can only persist if the circumstances that allow them to flourish remain unencumbered.

You can read the full abstract here, with links to the PdD. 

More links to her earlier stories and speeches, you can find here.  

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you a media representative and you want to talk to one of our speakers? Do drop us a line.

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The trouble with big data - Tricia Wang

Tricia Wang

The problem with big data is that they need interpretation, argued sociologist Tricia Wang on the recent EPIC2013 in London. In the way they seem like the oracles in Ancient Greek. More numbers does not mean we are better in predicting the future. A report by Erin Taylor.

Erin Taylor:

The big problem with “big” data, claims Wang, is that we feel that it reflects truth, yet it really requires interpretation. And we can get our interpretations incredibly wrong. She presents the case of an American family who were visited by an anti-terrorism force after the Boston bombing. The woman had googled “pressure cooker” and her husband searched for “backpack.” 

It’s not just the government who can’t see the context forest for the data trees. Wang reports that Kodak filed for bankruptcy despite being early players in the digital camera market. The problem was that they assumed that customers would use digital cameras in exactly the same way as analog cameras. But sharing and printing practice changed completely as cameras were integrated into a polymedia landscape. 

Wang uses these divergent cases to argue that ethnography gives data context: all numbers need interpretation and analysis. 

Curiously, some parties are trying to quantify the qualifiers. Apparently, Unilever now require all ethnographers who work with them to be accredited by Unilever themselves. They’ve invented a host of metrics to determine what counts as good ethnography. It’s nothing if not ironic that they are using quantification to judge a method that is being used to solve problems that quantification can’t handle.

The full report by Erin Taylor.

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

China Weekly Hangout
What is behind due diligence firms in China, we asked ourselves as one of the leading voices in the industry, Peter Humphrey was arrested last summer for illegal business practices. The +China Weekly Hangout will discuss due diligence of the due diligence firms on September 25. You can read our announcement here, or register for participation at our event page. Joining us from Taiwan is Miguel De Vinci (aka 李洛傑).

Are the cyber wars a new cold war in a new coat, the +China Weekly Hangout asked on June 7? Joined by media lecturer +Paul Fox from HKU, security consultant +Mathew Hoover from Hong Kong and China-Africa scholar +Winslow Robertson from Washington DC. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra, of the China Speakers Bureau, from Lausanne, Switzerland.

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My Elastic self - Tricia Wang

Tricia Wang

Ethnographer Tricia Wang discusses how online identities become more elastic, moving between formal and informal ways of expression. She is charting new online roads, based on long-time fieldwork, watching how people express themselves online. And why talking to strangers is important.

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form. 

China Weekly Hangout 

Shadow banking is on the agenda of the +China Weekly Hangout for Friday 30 August, featuring shadow-banking expert assistant professor Sara Hsu . You can read or announcement here, ask questions, or register for live participation at our event page. 

Are the cyber wars a new cold war in a new coat? In June, the +China Weekly Hangout brought together media lecturer +Paul Fox from HKU, security consultant +Mathew Hoover from Hong Kong and China-Africa scholar +Winslow Robertson from Washington DC to discuss this new way of online expression. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra, of the China Speakers Bureau, from Lausanne, Switzerland.  

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How personal is a PC in China? - Tricia Wang

Tricia Wang

Personal space is scarce in China, reason why many Chinese see their PC and mobile devices as their most personal space, writes sociologist Tricia Wang in 88-bar.com. While other academics argue the PC is a shared object, Tricia Wang points at the many advertisements  selling PC's as a personal object.

Tricia Wang:

 I’ve seen people more attached to their computers and mobile phones because that is the ONLY space that they can claim is entirely theirs. Apartments are small, space is crowded, sometimes rooms have to be shared, in-laws come over any time – everyone is nosy – but the digital tool is their object. 

Even migrants who buys a PC are very attached to it and have strict rules around sharing it because it is considered a personal space. Take a walk in any electronics mall or on Taobao and you’ll see ads that sell computers as a personal object. It just isn’t true that a computer won’t sell if isn’t advertised as a shared object.

Advertisement selling PC's

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.  

China Weekly Hangout

Once a week the China Weekly Hangout discusses current affairs in China with international participants on different continents. Moderator Fons Tuinstra, also president of the China Speakers Bureau, explains the idea in a new introduction. An overview of earlier hangouts, you can find here. 

Coming Thursday the China Weekly Hangout will discuss the changes in China's labor force, especially the blue collar workers with +Dee Lee (Inno), running since 2007 a workers' hotline at Inno in Guangzhou. Expected is also economist Heleen Mees from New York. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra, president of the China Speakers Bureau. Our first announcement is here,and you can register for the hangout here.

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