ABSTRACT

A 2003 survey of 4000 adults aged 17 to 60 examined differences by community size across 12 Chinese cities. In smaller cities, income, education and demand did not pose the major barriers for people to adopt the Internet because of the key roles played by Internet cafés. But the Internet café itself is not a perfect solution because of problems of teenagers’ addiction to online games and chatting, as well as of imbalances by gender.

Generally speaking, Internet adoption in China’s small cities is still in its preliminary stage and the potential of using the Internet for information seeking is far from being well developed. Thus, it is predictable that, with the popularization of Internet cafés, Internet adoption in China’s smaller cities will continue to grow. This model could expand to the countryside, where most people also cannot afford a personal computer at home, and have even less education -- but maybe have a greater interest in learning about the outside world. The results demonstrate another way in which the Internet has had unique and unanticipated democratizing effects in China.

Guo Liang is Associate Professor in the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Director for Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Wang Ning is a graduate student in Information Management Department, Peking University.

Acknowledgements: The evidence in this paper based on two reports by the author: “Surveying Internet Usage and Impact in Twelve Chinese Cities” and “Approaching the Internet in Chinese Small Cities”, that can be downloaded from: http://www.markle.org or http://www.wipchina.org. A more detailed article about online public opinion can be found at http://yaleglobal.yale.edu. Special thanks to the Markle Foundation for financially supporting the research, and to Stefaan Verhulst, who helped with the research.