Internet and self-regulation in China: the cultural logic of controlled commodification

Abstract

This article examines the implementation of self-regulation in China’s internet sector through the forging of subtler control relationships between media corporations and the state. It uses three case studies of domestic and global media joint venture operations in the converging areas of online and mobile gaming to show how media commercialization is balanced by control modalities to reaffirm the government as a central agency in the gradual transition to a socialist-market economy. Within these processes of controlled commodification, the government uses trust-building to establish cultural leadership as a way of protecting political and social cohesion while benefiting from global economic integration. The study reveals the cultural logic, or hegemonic norm, that underpins the new bottom-up business model for media management in China. Underscoring these processes, however, is a quasi- Sartrean irony of ‘winner loses’ logic, whereby increased transparency or access to information is limited to entertainment and not a substantially greater say for citizens in the formulation of China’s future.