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Does anyone have a sense of how Internet use by Chinese Communist Party members within the party structure is evolving? SLC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] See: http://www.markle.org/news/_news_pressrelease_111303.stm And the full report in PDF pieces: http://www.markle.org From: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,221974,00.html Small Chinese cities go big on the Net Online trends changing nation's political landscape By Chua Chin Hon BEIJING - Internet use in China is spreading far more rapidly than anticipated, especially in smaller cities, with the consequence that it is changing the Chinese political landscape, according to the country's most extensive academic research on the subject to date. About 70 per cent of the 4,100 people interviewed in 12 Chinese cities during a two-year study agreed that Internet use allowed them more opportunities to express their political views. KEY FINDINGS OF ACADEMY'S MAJOR INTERNET STUDY IN THE most extensive study on the use and impact of the Internet in China to date, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) surveyed 12 cities and interviewed 4,100 users and non-users of the Internet. Here are some of the key findings: • Users and non-users differ significantly in their views on the Internet. Users trust the Internet and see it in a positive light. They regard it as a resourceful library, meeting place and post office. Non-users, whose attitudes are less positive, could have been influenced by dark stories about the Internet published in the media. • Most people trust content from the Internet. Only 9.9 per cent of respondents said online content was unreliable. • More people think it is necessary to control the Internet, compared to a smaller-scale study by CAAS two years ago. Nearly nine in 10 say it is necessary, or 'somewhat necessary' to control and manage the Internet. • Pornography (86.7 per cent) is the thing people most want controlled, followed by violence (71.2 per cent) and junk mail (68.5 per cent). Only 12.9 per cent think political content should be controlled. • Of China's 68 million Internet users, 56 per cent are male, 44 per cent female. Almost six in 10 are aged between 17 and 24. • The proportion of Internet users in a city is not entirely determined by its size and stage of development, neither do people in big cities necessarily spend more time online. • Most users go online to browse or read news (57 per cent), followed by e- mailing (51.4 per cent), downloading music (49.1 per cent) and messaging (36 per cent). Online commerce has yet to take off in a big way with only 5.3 per cent shopping online and 2.5 per cent using online banking. • Internet users spend 79 per cent of their time reading content from websites in mainland China and only 14 per cent on Chinese- language content from overseas. Foreign-language content trails far behind at 7 per cent. • About 70 per cent of the 4,100 users and non-users of the Internet agreed that going online allowed them more opportunities to express their political views. Source: Surveying Internet Usage and Impact in Twelve Chinese Cities A similar number of people said Internet use would improve their knowledge of politics and provide officials with a chance to listen to the people's views. And six out of 10 interviewees said the Internet gave them a chance to criticise government policies. 'The Internet is changing the Chinese political landscape. It provides people with a platform to express their opinions and a window to the outside world as never before,' said the study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), led by Professor Guo Liang, a leading Internet expert in China. 'People highly expect the Internet to bring more freedom of speech and more political opportunities.' China's online community has no real political clout or power, though it has lately become an important pressure group, most notably during the Sars crisis. But the Chinese authorities have also shown little hesitation in cracking down on so-called cyber-dissidents, jailing scores of people in recent years for posting their anti-government views online. While research on China's digital revolution has mostly focused on the big cities, the CASS report suggests the most interesting development may be in the small cities where Internet use is rising 'silently and rapidly'. ... -- Steven Clift http://publicus.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** Past Messages, Discussion http://e-democracy.org/do *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To UNSUBSCRIBE instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
