These are the slides that accompanied my SXSW 2011 talk. I've provided a pdf download with notes to my entire talk, audio file, and video. Click here: http://www.triciawang.com/updates/2011/3/21/slidesnotes-for-my-sxsw-talk-on-my-research-in-china-some-re.html Citation: Wang, Tricia. 2011. "Sleeping in Internet Cafes: The Next 300 Million Chinese Users." South by South West Interactive. Austin, Texas. March 14. video: http://vimeo.com/21270932 audio: http://triciawang.podomatic.com/entry/2011-03-20T12_46_11-07_00 pdf of slides + notes: http://www.triciawang.com/storage/papers/SLIDES_WITH_TEXT.pdf In China, over 300 million migrants reside in cities; these communities represent some of the most marginalized and poorest groups that are now actively incorporating new communication tools into their lives. These migrants are also the fastest adopters of digital tools and the quickest growing population of digital users. What do these coinciding cultural-technical processes mean for the people undergoing these shifts? Based on my fieldwork in China over the past three years, I focus on three areas that I think will point to the future of social change and innovation in China: gaming, entertainment, and consumption.

1. The Next 300 Million Chinese Users
SXSW | Austin, Texas | March 12, 2011 | triciawang.com #300MM @triciawang

2. ?
who has been to an internet cafe in China?
#300MM
@triciawang

3. #300MM
@triciawang
photo credit: chinasmack.com

4. what are people doing
inside these internet cafes?
playing games
watching porn
sleeping, a lot
#300MM
@triciawang

5. PANIC
police, schools, media, and parents are freaking out!
#300MM
@triciawang

6. “ Use the internet in a civilized way.
Stay away from internet cafe
Stay away from Internet addiction,
start from yourself.
”
policeman is making a speech to kids
about the dangers of internet use
#300MM
@triciawang
photo credit: xinhua

7. the government has created the largest
virtual police force: The Sky Net Team
we monitor
• IM chats
• text messages
• forums
• emails

8. Citizens, like these elderly women, are encouraged to
volunteer their time at internet cafes urging youth to go home.

9. Whatʼs all this panic over
games and porn? #300MM
@triciawang
photo credit: imagine china

10. (thereʼs a lot more going on here than it seems)
#300MM
@triciawang

11. For outsiders, what you see here is
what most middle-class and elite
Chinese citizens also see - a bunch
of poor migrants watching porn and
playing games.
#300MM
@triciawang

12. whatʼs really going on inside:
talk to friends find jobs relax
stay in touch with family
cheap child-care use bathrooms
affordable shelter #300MM
@triciawang

13. contrary to whatʼs been said about internet
cafes, I argue that they are places of
safety stability comfort
#300MM
@triciawang

14. internet cafes are
important sites of social interaction
#300MM
@triciawang

15. new processes!!!!
migrants building new urbanization
using forms of through
technology! community! digital tools!
#300MM
@triciawang

16. but it’s an old story
poor people government
elites panic
come to cities steps in
#300MM
@triciawang

17. this happened in the US around the early
20th century when immigrants came to the
US from Europe
....
millions of them
#300MM
@triciawang

18. 21st century - Chinese rural 20th century - Irish & Italian
to urban migrants immigrants

19. immigrants, just like anyone else, need
places to hang out
#300MM
@triciawang

20. saloons were the leisure hang out spaces for immigrants

21. PANIC
government, middle-class, & elites started freaking out!
#300MM
@triciawang

23. anti-alcohol propoganda posters

24. Anti-Saloon Movement
lead to Prohibition

25. sociologists sent into
saloons to find out why
immigrants spent so much
time in them
they found out that saloons
were important places for
immigrants to relax,
socialize, use the bathroom
#300MM
@triciawang

26. sociologist Ray Oldenburg
argued that saloons were
important third places in cities
third places: important spaces for healthy cities
such as places that are neither home or work,
#300MM
such as pubs, cafes, libraries, and public spaces.
@triciawang

27. just like internet cafes for Chinese migrants
now, saloons were important spaces for
immigrants in the early 20th century
#300MM
@triciawang

28. In China, privately owned spaces of communication
technology access are the new
third places
people are actively reprogramming urban space
(internet cafe)
#300MM
@triciawang

29. building the new
publicly virtual community “street corner”
blurring blurring re-mixing
private/public kinship ties digital/material

30. this is my field work site
Iʼm a sociologist and
ethnographer
•living with migrants
•going to schools
•hanging out in internet cafes
•working in factories #300MM
@triciawang

31. some of the larger questions that I try to
answer in my research are:
#300MM
@triciawang

32. what the future of the
internet will look like?
how will the next 3 billion users
experience everyday digital life? #300MM
@triciawang

33. what can we learn from 300 million
rural-urban migrants?
#300MM
@triciawang

34. Where are potential areas for social change?
#300MM
@triciawang

35. 1
change from the bottom up will take form in
disruptive citizenship
this happens when people on the margins experience the
limits of consumer citizenship
#300MM
@triciawang

36. 2 Leisure activities become even more intense
sites of social interaction because they are
politically benign
#300MM
@triciawang

37. 3
Leisure activities becomes important areas of
cultural control
"Even if dominant institutions are not directly overthrown by new technologies,
fundamental aspects of culture are transformed by them." Mark Poster
#300MM
@triciawang

38. 4
restrictions
+
=
unique set of conditions
free for all for innovation!
+ Restrictions are often seen as
dreamers unique challenges
#300MM
@triciawang

39. China is a humongous living experiment
#300MM
@triciawang

40. disposable urban household income in
China has to keep growing to
maintain economic growth
Text
#300MM
@triciawang

41. In order for China to sustain its urban
growth and its entire population, it has
to bring these millions of migrants
flowing into cities into the middle class
#300MM
@triciawang

42. To accomplish this, China is digitally networking the
consumption desires of millions of people
#300MM
@triciawang

43. This is unfolding through a process I call
Digital Urbanism
#300MM
@triciawang

44. Digital Urbanism
on the margins
millions of rural-urban migrants
are becoming urbanized through
#300MM
low-cost digital tools @triciawang

45. workings of digital urbanism
tech & protocol product practice people
economic (code/networks/
(hardware, (subjectivity,
policy standards)
content) (communication, identity)
(legislation) spatial)
belonging
rural-urban
Hardware:
low-cost tech non co-present
tools communication
digitization of dreams
widespread
information infrastructure
organization
software: workflow desires
social media/
state managed
growth community
blurring
open web private/public
standards and changing
programming kinship ties
re-mix
internet filtering digital/material
regime #300MM
work @triciawang

46. A core part of my research is understanding
people’s dreams, desire, and identity
because these are the things that influence
their everyday lives & their buying, gaming,
and media consuming practices.
#300MM
@triciawang

47. getting insight into 300 million Chinese migrants
is only the beginning, we are adding another 3
billion to our planet in the next 30 years!
#300MM
@triciawang

48. world population: add 3 billion in 30 years
it took 10,000 years
to reach 3 billion
2011: 6.7 billion
more evenly developed
less evenly developed

49. BUT can the planet support the millions of migrants
who have dreams to join the Chinese middle-class?
#300MM
@triciawang
photo credit: edward burtynsky

50. Will cheap digital tools
be the game changer?
#300MM
@triciawang

51. Iʼll have some
observations to report
in 2012!
(if the world doesnʼt end)
#300MM
@triciawang

52. I’m blogging here writings on technology and culture
about my research for
the next year!
.com
weekly posts from my fieldsite in China

53. I would love to
chat with you!
triciawang.com @triciawang
thank you!
to friends who listened, provided links, & gave me advice:
kristen taylor, kevin slavin, kenyatta cheese, jin ge, & morgan
ames.