Abstract
The characteristics of Internet communication enable political, social, and cultural participation from the grassroots not only because the platforms provided by the Internet are open to all and inherently interactive but also because users are able to maintain their anonymity. Although, in theory, Internet communication is well-suited to the purposes of non-profit organization(s) (NPO(s)), in practice, Chinese NPOs do not to take full advantages of the Internet because of their bureaucratic and elitist approach. However, many Chinese who were once passive observers have been transformed into active participants as a result of Internet communication. This is significant because a civil society in China can only be achieved by the efforts of agents, not observers. Internet users have been actively learning the goals of civil society and participating in civil and political activities on the Internet, while Chinese NPOs rarely use the medium for advocacy.
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Notes
BBSs dedicated to the sharing or exchange of messages or other files. A BBS may be accessible from a dial-up modem, Telnet, or the Internet. Most bulletin boards serve specific interest groups.
It should be pointed out that Internet communication is still censored to some degree in China.
More than 70% of users are 30 or younger.
It is interesting to note that the latest report released by CNNIC (2007) has no statistics on BBS usage.
The author of the posting used the nickname “light as heavy” to preserve anonymity. Accessed August 2, 2007, from http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/free/1/450349.shtml. (in Chinese).
The concepts they questioned included GDP, development, national conditions, and tax.
Indeed, this has been a recurring theme in the BBS and blogs. I typed “I don’t want to be represented” in Chinese into Baidu, a well-known search engine in China, and 16,900 Web pages were found. Accessed August 4, 2007, from http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%B2%BB%CF%EB%B1%BB%B4%FA%B1%ED&cl=3.
These numbers are obtained through Baidu, a Chinese search engine, by typing the key word “NPO” first. And then the keyword “blog” was searched within the identified NPO-related Web pages. Accessed August 5, 2007, from http://www.baidu.com/
The People Website is the main Internet platform of the Chinese Communist Party. As of August 13, 2007, it carried 276 postings criticizing “Internet violent mobs.” Accessed August 13, 2007 from http://www.people.com.cn/.
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Yang, B. NPOs in China: Some Issues Concerning Internet Communication. Know Techn Pol 21, 37–42 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-008-9039-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-008-9039-7