Digital Bridges to Connect Continents

Bright, glowing digital displays illuminate the millions of eyes across the world everyday. These are the eyes of the next generation – a generation which will see unprecedented ease and immediacy of communication. In this case, they are viewing interconnected networks for communication and social media.

Social networking outlets, such as Facebook, have created a nearly global web for people to communicate. Yet, how is the ability to network socially a reflection of the local societal customs, culture, and laws?

There are many differences between social networking in China and the United States. When discussing differences between these two nations, the elephant in the room is often named censorship. In China, it is generally inappropriate to criticize the government, and other important Chinese officials. Simply becuase this form of criticism is disallowed, it does not mean Chinese people are blocked entirely from internet communication. Social networking is an incredibly powerful tool for more than just criticizing officials. To people worldwide, the internet represents uncharted territory for communication, information, and commerce. To many Americans, the internet represents a haven for free speech and progressive ideas.

This elephant should not be considered as such. In the case of ChinaVine, we develop internet communities, or intermunities, on both Chinese and American social networks. The point of this digital and communal outreach is not to provide a means for negative commentary on obscure daily life. The purpose of ChinaVine’s presence on social media outlets worldwide is to increase awareness of our project. By increasing awareness, positive education and intellectual augmentation occurs improving the harmonious conceptualizations of online relationships between China and the United States.

Sina Weibo Logo

Nan Yang is ChinaVine’s leader in Chinese social networking. Formerly, CV took interest in creating a space on RenRen, the Chinese version of Facebook. However, RenRen is a bit more personal, and the CV page is not public unless one has permission to view it. Now, Yang states, “we are using Sina.com’s service.” Nan elaborates that “Sina.com is a multiple-service provider; we are using their Sina Blog and Sina Microblog (Weibo).” Additionally, Sina Blog is just like WordPress (which is this blog’s back-end), and the Sina Microblog, or Weibo, is equivalent to Twitter where people can follow others and comment on posts.

Even though a few forms of criticisms are disallowed, there are no grounds for disallowing social networking entirely. There are far more benefits to social network both in China and the United States than criticizing government officials. People can learn, educate each other, plan events, keep in touch with friends, form communities, and generally expand the breadth of human knowledge by increasingly powerful communication.

An interesting fact about Chinese social networks is the rapid rate of initial public offerings. An initial public offering, or IPO, is generally known as the first public sale of stock from a company. Today, the most popular social network in the world is Facebook, and it’s still privately owned and funded by under 500 investors. In other words, Facebook has not made an initial public offering. Contrarily, the Wall Street Journal reported  RenRen submitted its application for an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange on April 11, 2011. Still, on the other side of the card, Facebook is now in talks with Baidu and other companies who are friendly with the Chinese government regarding making Facebook accessible in China. If this is the case, Facebook will have to abide by Chinese government regulations. However, even if this is the case, this allows millions of netizens across the globe to communicate and do business with their Chinese friends and colleagues on the most popular social network.

It is time to look past the differences which bias so many people. Even though there are different restrictions on what is and is not appropriate in different countries, there will always be similarities. These commonalities will allow communication and connection between international people, creating an interconnected knowledge base of different cultures. Many benefits will occur in the next generation of social networking – one which will bridge global gaps across countries once thought to be inaccessible to each other. Be sure to find ChinaVine on the social networks linked on this blog.