China has lived with the Internet for nearly two decades. Will increased Internet use with new
possibilities to share information and discuss news and politics lead to democracy or will it
to the contrary sustain a nationalist supported authoritarianism that may eventually contest
the global information order? This book takes stock of the ongoing tug of war between state
power and civil society on and off the Internet a phenomenon that is fast becoming the
centerpiece in the Chinese Communist Party's struggle to stay in power indefinitely. It
interrogates the dynamics of this enduring contestation before democracy by following how
Chinese society travels from getting access to the Internet to our time having the world's
largest Internet population. Pursuing the rationale of Internet regulation the rise of the
Chinese blogosphere and citizen journalism Internet irony online propaganda the relation
between state and popular nationalism and finally the role of social media to bring about
China's democratization this book offers a fresh and provocative perspective on the arguable
role of media technologies in the process of democratization by applying social norm theory to
illuminate the competition between the Party-state norm and the youth subaltern norm in Chinese
media and society.
