Internet architecture,freedom of expression and social responsibility: critical realism and proposals for a better future

The article opens by explaining the architecture of the Internet. Given its present raison d'être, a free highway allowing maximum freedom, one may argue that the bounds of free expression are broader in scope on the Net compared with the bounds of legitimate speech allowed on other forms of communication. Contesting this assertion, it is argued that legally speaking, there is no difference between electronic communication and other forms of communication. I probe some problematic forms of expression: terrorism, criminal activity, and cyberbullying, arguing that freedom of expression is important but so is social responsibility. The article concludes by offering a new paradigm Internet for the future called CleaNet©. CleaNet© will be sensitive to prevailing cultural norms of each and every society and will be clean of content that the society deems to be dangerous and antisocial. No cyberbullying, child pornography, hateful bigotry, criminal activity, and terrorist material will be available on the new Net. Netusers, with the cooperation of ISPs and web-hosting companies, will together decide which content will be considered illegitimate and unworthy to be excluded from CleaNet©.     

On the relation between ‘visual research methods’ and contemporary visual culture

One of the most striking developments across the social sciences in the past decade has been the growth of research methods using visual materials. It is often suggested that this growth is somehow related to the increasing importance of visual images in contemporary social and cultural practice. However, the form of the relationship between ‘visual research methods’ and ‘contemporary visual culture’ has not yet been interrogated. This paper conducts such an interrogation, exploring the relation between ‘visual research methods’ – as they are constituted in quite particular ways by a growing number of handbooks, reviews, conference and journals – and contemporary visual culture – as characterized by discussions of ‘convergence culture’. The paper adopts a performative approach to ‘visual research methods’. It suggests that when they are used, ‘visual research methods’ create neither a ‘social’ articulated through culturally mediated images, nor a ‘research participant’ competency in using such images. Instead, the paper argues that the intersection of visual culture and ‘visual research methods’ should be located in their shared way of using images, since in both, images tend to be deployed much more as communicational tools than as representational texts. The paper concludes by placing this argument in the context of recent discussions about the production of sociological knowledge in the wider social field.     

Discourse on Shanzhai cultural production in Chinese newspapers: authenticity and legitimacy

Emerging from the early Shanzhaiji, or bandit cell phones, the notion of Shanzhai has developed into a prominent cultural phenomenon in China since 2008. This paper examines the discourse on Shanzhai cultural production in Chinese metropolitan newspapers and those of the Communist Party. The research questions pertain to how a grassroots cultural phenomenon is discursively constructed and how social and media structures manifest themselves in this process of discourse construction. Within the framework of discourse analysis, the dimensions of authenticity and legitimacy cut across all discursive categories regarding Shanzhai cultural production. Depending on the relationships between the two dimensions, a rival discourse and a harmony discourse were found in the archived news reports and editorials. The author argues that authenticity is oriented toward power relationships or content and themes of the cultural productions in the two discourses, respectively. The discourses reflect contesting efforts to construct cultural hegemony in Chinese society.     

Fan activism sustained and challenged: participatory culture in Chinese online translation communities

Henry Jenkins, in Convergence Culture, argues that “[p]opular culture may be preparing the way for a more meaningful public culture”. This article examines this argument in the context of online translation communities in China, which originated from fan groups interested in foreign comics, games, movies, and television dramas. Drawing on evidence collected through participant observation and 23 in-depth interviews, this article first reviews the historical development and the structural layout of such online translation communities. It then focuses on the motivations of their members to contribute to the translation tasks, which show that personal interests speak louder than collective goals. Finally, it analyzes how the collaboration structure, mindset of collaboration, skills, and sense of agency are transferred from translating entertainment content to civic education content (i.e. open courses). Participatory culture fostered through fan activities is found to be transferred into civic engagement; however, the transfer between fan activism and political participation is yet to be seen.     

A Chinese beauty story: how college women in China negotiate beauty,body image,and mass media

This study examines how young Chinese women negotiate beauty and body image in context with mass media, paying particular attention to the relationship between ongoing sociocultural change in contemporary Chinese society and the attitudes and behaviors among young women towards beauty. Qualitative in nature, this study explores the “beauty stories” of 13 college women in mainland China through in-depth interviews. Several distinctive themes were found: (1) These women believed the ideal beautiful Chinese woman should have a tall and thin body, big eyes, a watermelon seed-shaped face, fair skin, and qi zhi (inner beauty); (2) Body image issues were centralized in these women's everyday experiences, and they were under significant cultural, societal, familial, and peer pressure to pursue physical beauty; (3) Cultural and media influences on their perceptions of beauty were complex and multi-layered; and (4) The women were hopeful of both potential positive social change and the liberation of Chinese women, and they were concerned about the superficiality and extreme beauty standards advocated in the media. The findings suggest that the contemporary Chinese beauty story is essentially different from the Western one, extending the existing literature on beauty and body image to include an Eastern and Chinese perspective.