[LINK] E-monitoring in China

[Tom Worthington]

Professor Christian Goebel from Vienna University, will speak on 
"E-monitoring and regime improvement in China: technical capabilities 
and systemic limitations", at the Australian National University in 
Canberra, 4:00pm 10 September 2013: 
http://ciw.anu.edu.au/events/event_details.php?id=9348

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"Information technologies are often regarded as “liberation 
technologies” (Larry Diamond), because mobile phones and the Internet 
enable citizens to organize and coordinate resistance against autocratic 
rule. However, all political systems – democracies and autocracies alike 
– depend fundamentally on information feedbacks to maintain their 
equilibrium, and digital technologies greatly facilitate the gathering 
and processing of such information. The better the information flows 
between regime and society are, the more political authorities are able 
to fine-tune their policies in line with the stability requirements of 
the system

The “liberation technology” perspective misses that information 
technologies can also serve to stabilize autocratic regimes, for example 
by enhancing surveillance, accountability, indoctrination, and 
participation. It follows that improved information flows can both 
strengthen and undermine autocratic rule, and the puzzle is how 
autocratic regime elites deal with this dilemma. China is a good case to 
study this question, because an increasing number of local governments 
is applying information technologies to strengthen their “social 
management” (shehui guanli) capabilities.

The talk contributes to a better understanding of the capabilities and 
limitations of e-monitoring in China by introducing the results of 
first-hand research an e-monitoring platform in a Chinese province. It 
illuminates how information technologies are used to gather information 
about the preferences and grievances of the local population, how this 
information is processed, and how it motivates government action. On the 
other hand, it sheds light on the systemic limitations that prevent such 
solutions from being implemented more broadly than is presently the case."
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ps: In 2003 I attended a 3-day conference on the Beijing Olympic 2008 
Official Website. I was a guest of the Beijing Organising Committee for 
the Olympic Games (BOCOG). One thing I noticed was how Internet literate 
the Chinese government people and academics were, including those from 
the People's Daily newspaper: http://www.tomw.net.au/2003/bws/research.html


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/