The Situational Characteristics of Language on the Internet Chen Yenling examines the spread of “netspeak”, or as it is sometimes known “Martian” (火星文), [online Martian translator here] and the differences between netspeak on the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. While much of it is dismissed as a sort of nonsensical speech for youth, it seems [...]

Virtual Jingpo: A Jingpo/Kachin Techno-community? The Jingpo/Kachin, a trans-national ethnic group, whose traditional homeland has been cut through by international boundaries thus scattering the group on the margins of three nation-states – Burma, China and India – still share many common cultural characteristics. Recently, stark economic differences between China and Burma, as well as different [...]

Chinese written Internet: Diversity and Segregation This essay suggests that the China’s Internet (i.e. Internet filtered by the Great Firewall) is increasingly segregated from the rest of Chinese Internet (i.e. all Internet content written in Chinese). First it begins with a description of the vibrant diversity (regional, linguistic, and political) in Chinese-written Internet. It contextualizes [...]

Information and Expression in Web 2.0: A Study of Internet Users in Shanghai 本 研究是作者研究“Web2.0与中国社会舆论”的基础部分。研究将Web2.0知情与表达行为操作化地定义为网民通过两种典型的Web2.0应用——博客 （blog）和电子论坛（BBS）阅读新闻和发表意见的行为。通过在上海城区进行的CATI电话调查（N=495）发现：网民中Web2.0知情比例约在 80%左右，表达比例在50%左右；在描述基础上，研究对影响Web2.0知情与表达采纳与否和使用频率的因素进行了探讨 Zhou Baohua is a journalism lecturer at Fudan University. He begins by saying that there has been a general phenomenon on the ‘Net of increased sharing and Web 2.0 applications, and it appears to have a relationship with [...]

Uses and development of the Internet in less developed regions Based on a investigation about the internet used in the animal husbandry in Anhui Fuyang, this paper aims to explore two issues: 1)whether the rural users have developed their own object in using Internet ,2)whether the internet itself has developed a network economic entity in [...]

Perceived Credibility of Online Health Information in China: A Survey of College Students in Ganzhou The current research aims to explore why and how Chinese people use online health information and how they perceive the credibility of online health information in terms of information itself and website features by conducting a survey among college students [...]

Don’t Blame the Internet Anymore! – A Revisit to the Internet’s Influence on Traditional Media Use and Sociability Link Peng Tai-Quan and Jonathan Zhu are looking at the effect of the internet on traditional media as well as on sociability, breaking discussion on this topic into Displacing, Complementary, Pessimistic and Optimistic views. One of the [...]

The Chinese Internet Research Conference is part of a larger community of Chinese Internet researchers. BLOGGING: Many people who could not make it physically to the conference look forward to hearing about it from the bloggers at the conference. We will also be posting materials from at least some of the presentations (with permission from [...]