sleeping in internet cafes: the next 300 million chinese users (sxsw talk, #300mm)
TRANSCRIPT
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睡在网吧SXSW | Austin, Texas | March 12, 2011 | triciawang.com #300MM
The Next 300 Million Chinese Users@triciawang
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#300MM @triciawang
?who has been to an internet cafe in China?
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photo credit: chinasmack.com
#300MM @triciawang
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#300MM @triciawang
playing games
watching porn
sleeping, a lot
what are people doing inside these internet cafes?
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#300MM @triciawang
police, schools, media, and parents are freaking out!
PANIC
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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
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we monitor• IM chats• text messages• forums• emails
the government has created the largest virtual police force: The Sky Net Team
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Citizens, like these elderly women, are encouraged to volunteer their time at internet cafes urging youth to go home.
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Whatʼs all this panic over games and porn? #300MM
@triciawang
photo credit: imagine china
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#300MM @triciawang
(thereʼs a lot more going on here than it seems)
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#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.
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#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:
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#300MM @triciawang
contrary to whatʼs been said about internet cafes, I argue that they are places of
safety stability comfort
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social interaction
#300MM @triciawang
internet cafes are important sites of
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#300MM @triciawang
new processes!!!!
migrants using
technology!
building new forms of
community!
urbanization through
digital tools!
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#300MM @triciawang
but it’s an old story
poor people come to cities elites panic government
steps in
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#300MM @triciawang
this happened in the US around the early 20th century when immigrants came to the
US from Europe ....
millions of them
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21st century - Chinese rural to urban migrants
20th century - Irish & Italian immigrants
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#300MM @triciawang
immigrants, just like anyone else, need places to hang out
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saloons were the leisure hang out spaces for immigrants
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#300MM @triciawang
government, middle-class, & elites started freaking out!
PANIC
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anti-alcohol propoganda posters
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Anti-Saloon Movement lead to Prohibition
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#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
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#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.
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#300MM @triciawang
just like internet cafes for Chinese migrants now, saloons were important spaces for
immigrants in the early 20th century
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In China, privately owned spaces of communication technology access are the new
(internet cafe)
third placespeople are actively reprogramming urban space
#300MM @triciawang
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blurring private/public
re-mixingdigital/material
blurring kinship ties
building communitypublicly virtual
the new “street corner”
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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
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#300MM @triciawang
some of the larger questions that I try to answer in my research are:
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what the future of the internet will look like?
how will the next 3 billion users experience everyday digital life? #300MM
@triciawang
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what can we learn from 300 million rural-urban migrants?
#300MM @triciawang
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Where are potential areas for social change?
#300MM @triciawang
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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
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2 Leisure activities become even more intense sites of social interaction because they are
politically benign
#300MM @triciawang
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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
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4 Restrictions are often seen as unique challenges
restrictions
free for all
dreamers
+
+= unique set of conditions
for innovation!
#300MM @triciawang
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China is a humongous living experiment
#300MM @triciawang
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Text
#300MM @triciawang
disposable urban household income in China has to keep growing to maintain economic growth
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#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
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To accomplish this, China is digitally networking the consumption desires of millions of people
#300MM @triciawang
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#300MM @triciawang
This is unfolding through a process I call Digital Urbanism
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Digital Urbanismon the margins
#300MM @triciawang
millions of rural-urban migrants are becoming urbanized through low-cost digital tools
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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
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#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.
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#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!
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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
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BUT can the planet support the millions of migrants who have dreams to join the Chinese middle-class?
#300MM @triciawang
photo credit: edward burtynsky
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#300MM @triciawang
Will cheap digital tools be the game changer?
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Iʼll have some observations to report
in 2012! (if the world doesnʼt end)
#300MM @triciawang
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.com
weekly posts from my fieldsite in China
writings on technology and cultureI’m blogging here about my research for
the next year!
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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!