@mulvenonGoldenShieldsPanopticons2008
Title: [@mulvenonGoldenShieldsPanopticons2008] date: 2023-04-09 type: reference project: Memex 3
tags:: Memex3, control, internet, communication, power, politics, censorship
Reference¶
James Mulvenon. 2008 Golden Shields and Panopticons: Beijing’s Evolving Internet Control Policies. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 9, no. 2. pp. 115-120. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43133785
Summary & Key Take Aways¶
James Mulvenon explores the rapidly changing landscape of the internet in China in 2008. With the coming of the Beijing Summer Olympics, China was tightening its Internet control regime. Mulvenon documents how China was having more and more Internet users, and that it would one day surpass the US' amount. However, with this rapid expansion, the city of Beijing fears the "subversive power" of the internet in changing the technological, economic, social, and political scene of China (Mulvenon, 2008, 115). Mulvenon states that although "China's Internet users have enthusiastically embraced the Web and the blogosphere, only a brave few dare to defy the political status quo" (Mulvenon, 2008, 115). Thus, in China, the internet is highly associated with tactics of political and information control. The author talks about the presence of censorship as an attempt to preserve control over the mass. This is done through manipulating the network and nodes and controlling what can be accessed, and what cannot. Censorship is also implemented by altering products coming from outside China like TV shows or YouTube videos. By isolating China's Internet's users, Beijing has "prevented the Chinese people from enjoying its full benefits, especially the ability to freely communicate and cooperate with an increasingly global community of users" (Mulvenon, 2008, 118). Mulvenon argues that Beijing China is trying to keep the upper hand with the explosive globalization of the web in order to preserve their political and social values.
How does it relate to class?¶
This article relates to the theme of Control and Agency that we have seen in class. The Chinese government created a digital panopticons, spying and monitoring its Internet viewers constantly and letting the users know that they are monitored. The highly political movement involves Politics_of_communication and Politics_of_power. It tries to control the political influence of the foreign web and tries to gain an upper hand on the technology.