Abstract
In 2009, for the first time, Internet penetration rates in China have surpassed the global average level, with over 298 million users. In this burgeoning of use, QQ, one of the largest and oldest social networking systems (SNS) in China, has become part of the daily diet of many Chinese, particularly in cities and big towns. While many studies of the Internet in China have focused upon blogging as a vehicle for the expression of public opinion, there has been less research conducted on social media such as QQ, despite its importance in everyday life. In this chapter, we explore the role of QQ—and SNS more generally—through a case study of university students studying in Shanghai. As we posit in this chapter, QQ has become a rite of passage for migrating youth leaving home to study in another city or country. Through QQ, as a micro-lens for emerging technocultures and attendant forms of mobility, we can gain insight into new forms of media literacy that reach across classes, geographies, and lifestyles. We argue that QQ has become a glue for cross-generational relations, and thus a lubricant for socioeconomic and geographic mobility, marking a new pathway of lifestyle cultures in China.
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- 1.
While Shanghainese middle class enjoy the luxuries of Internet-enabled computers at home and on the move in addition to mobile devices that often have 3G capacities, for the working class migrants, their mobile phone is THE access to both their new working life in Shanghai and their family and friends back home. For many working class and students, 3G mobile Internet, despite the hype (CNNIC 2009), is not a reality. Rather, through the deployment of various methods including GPRS, WiFi, and PCs, these users are demonstrating new forms of “making do” practices indicative of the growing demographies of “have-less” (Qiu 2008). These making do practices of the have-less are amplified when exploring Shanghai’s undulating and ever-changing technocultures and the attendant forms of mobility.
- 2.
For those of the working class, moving from small towns to large cities for work has become a reality in which mobile technologies feature predominantly as a way to maintain ties with family and friends back home as well as helping with new work-related connections (Wei and Qian 2009). As noted by Jack Qiu (2008), China’s rapidly changing social informationalized processes that have seen technologies such as the Internet migrate from the “elite-monopolized” stage—that is, the preoccupation of the middle class—to the new stage characterized by the deployment and reappropriation of media technology by the working class. In this changing social fabric in which various forms of mobility (geographic, cultural, socioeconomic) can be witnessed, the significance of new media such as QQ in helping ensure kinship ties cannot be underestimated. Far from the new media distancing them from their past and socioeconomic background, it provides a material and symbolic portal between home and away.
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Hjorth, L., Arnold, M. (2012). Home and Away: A Case Study of Students and Social Media in Shanghai. In: Law, Pl. (eds) New Connectivities in China. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3910-9_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3910-9_14
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