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<DIV><SPAN class=647144600-22082003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Ulla,
this might be relevant to your query about non-US perspectives also.
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<P><FONT size=2>Randolph Kluver<BR>School of Communication and
Information<BR>Nanyang Technological University<BR>31 Nanyang Link<BR>Singapore,
637718<BR>(65) 6790-5770<BR>Fax (65) 6792-4329<BR><BR></FONT></P>
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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> lokkie@lokman.nu
[mailto:lokkie@lokman.nu] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, August 21, 2003 7:21
PM<BR><B>To:</B> chineseinternetresearch@yahoogroups.com<BR><B>Subject:</B>
[chineseinternetresearch] use of the internet in the chinese rave
scene<BR><BR></FONT></DIV><TT><A
href="http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/newsite/jvs_papers/netfxinchina.htm">http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/newsite/jvs_papers/netfxinchina.htm</A><BR><BR>John
von Seggern and STAFFER3. "Network Effects: Use of the Internet in<BR>the
Chinese Rave Scene." 26 Feb 2002.<BR><<A
href="http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/netfxinchina.htm">http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/netfxinchina.htm</A>>.<BR><BR><BR>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>NETWORK
EFFECTS: USE OF THE INTERNET IN THE CHINESE RAVE SCENE<BR><BR>I have spent the
past two years as a graduate student at the University of<BR>Hong Kong, where
my work has focused on the emerging Internet music scene.<BR>The international
music world has been going through a period of<BR>extraordinary change and
restructuring during this time because of the<BR>accelerating use of the
Internet at every stage in the processes of<BR>musical production,
distribution and reception. In this paper, I will<BR>focus on the developing
electronic dance music scene in China, a<BR>particular area of interest for
me, and examine some of the ways it has<BR>been affected by the advent of the
Net; I also want to look at what some<BR>of the larger social implications of
these phenomena might be. The<BR>significance of Net access for musicians in a
country where the flow of<BR>information is heavily restricted and censored
can hardly be<BR>underestimated, as I hope to show.<BR><BR>My material here is
based in part on my own experiences as a DJ and<BR>musician working in China
during the period 1995-2001. I have prepared<BR>this paper in consultation
with STAFFER3, a pseudonymous American techno<BR>producer who lives and works
in Beijing, and his involvement has been<BR>crucial to the development of the
ideas I am presenting here.<BR><BR>BACKGROUND<BR><BR>Since the first raves
were held in Beijing in 1995, a sizable electronic<BR>dance music scene has
grown up in the People.s Republic of China. Going<BR>clubbing has become a
popular activity among a significant segment of the<BR>country.s growing urban
middle class, and an indigenous ecology of Chinese<BR>DJs, MCs, producers and
promoters has emerged. This is a phenomenon<BR>limited not only to the
country.s largest cities; dance clubs playing<BR>various techno-derived musics
can be found in many smaller cities as well,<BR>at least in China.s wealthier
regions.<BR>I relocated to Hong Kong in 1995 to work in the city.s popular
music<BR>industry and I have witnessed the rapid growth of this new Chinese
club<BR>culture firsthand on my frequent trips into mainland China. I first
became<BR>interested in dance music culture in 1997 as I became aware of the
rapidly<BR>growing club scene in Hong Kong at that time, and events on the
other side<BR>of the Chinese border seemed to be following a similar course.
Large<BR>modern clubs attracting hundreds or even thousands of clubbers
every<BR>weekend appeared to be springing up everywhere I went in China,
perhaps<BR>filling a void for a growing middle class with increasing amounts
of<BR>disposable income but relatively few entertainment options to spend it
on.<BR><BR>During this same period in the late 1990s, Internet usage has also
become<BR>widespread among members of this same middle class, and according to
the<BR>China Internet Network Information Center, the Internet continues
to<BR>experience phenomenal growth in China. A CNNIC survey released in
January<BR>2002 reports that there are now over 33 million Internet users in
China, a<BR>nearly 50% year-on-year increase. Internet use has been increasing
most<BR>rapidly among the group most attracted to the dance club scene,
young<BR>urban dwellers in their 20s and 30s.<BR>I became interested in
possible connections between this increase in<BR>Internet and the rapid growth
of the Chinese club scene as I observed a<BR>number of interesting Net-related
phenomena within the dance music scene.<BR>Hearing Chinese DJs spin a variety
of imported and domestic trance,<BR>techno, and house music at clubs in
Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere, I<BR>wondered where they were learning about
and obtaining all the music they<BR>were using. On a February 2001 visit to
Club Focus, one of the largest<BR>clubs in Guangzhou, I learned that some of
the DJs there were playing MP3s<BR>downloaded from the Web and burned on
recorded CDs in their live sets.<BR>This seemed to explain the uncanny musical
erudition of DJ Andrew and<BR>others whom I met in Guangzhou as well -- how
were they able to keep up so<BR>well with developments in the international
music scene, I wondered? One<BR>of the DJs from Focus later told me that some
of them used the Internet to<BR>search for information about dance music
around the world.<BR><BR>Discussing this topic with more DJs and clubbers in
China, I began to see<BR>a number of distinct effects of the rapid increase in
Net usage on the<BR>nascent Chinese club scene: local DJs and producers were
using the<BR>Internet to obtain new tools for producing and distributing their
own<BR>music; websites were springing up to inform users about new
developments<BR>in the Chinese scene and provide new opportunities for
participants to<BR>communicate with one another; and music makers and clubbers
alike were<BR>using the Net to learn about and obtain new music from both
domestic and<BR>international artists. I will now look at each of these
"network effects"<BR>in more detail.<BR><BR>THE INTERNET AS SONIC ARMS
SMUGGLER<BR><BR>Chinese DJs and dance music producers are now using many of
the same<BR>software tools used by other electronic music producers around the
world,<BR>and they are obtaining them from the same source: the Internet.
Most<BR>Chinese producers depend completely on the Net for information about
new<BR>developments in music software, either downloading new programs
directly<BR>onto their computers or copying them from friends who have already
done<BR>so. The online availability of such powerful software tools, as well
as a<BR>wealth of information about how to use them, now makes it possible
for<BR>musicians in China to keep up with new developments in electronic
music<BR>production and obtain at least some of the latest technologies at the
same<BR>time as their colleagues overseas. This is a very significant change
when<BR>we consider that it has always been very difficult for
independent<BR>musicians in China to get access to the technologies of
contemporary<BR>music; import restrictions and other barriers have meant that
contemporary<BR>music equipment typically costs twice as much in China as it
does in the<BR>United States, when it is available at all. Computer hardware
is<BR>relatively inexpensive now, however, even for some mainland Chinese,
and<BR>there are powerful software tools on the Internet that can be had
cheaply<BR>or for free. Increasing numbers of young Chinese are using
computers to<BR>create their own dance music and upload it to the Internet,
where it can<BR>be shared with a community of other producers and club music
fans.<BR><BR>YESDJ.COM<BR><BR>As an example of how participants in the Chinese
dance scene are<BR>connecting and forming communities on the Internet, I would
like to look<BR>at Yesdj.com; this is one of the more extensive websites used
by Chinese<BR>DJs and producers to exchange information on how to produce
their favorite<BR>styles of music and where to find music software. This
heavily-trafficked<BR>site also provides users with frequently updated lists
of the most popular<BR>dance tracks and CDs in China, with links to
downloadable MP3 samples;<BR>when I last checked, the most popular CD on the
site was by well-known<BR>south China techno-rap group MP4, and tracks from
the CD had been<BR>downloaded over 65,000 times according to the site
statistics. Yesdj.com<BR>also provides forums for clubbers to discuss the
latest developments in<BR>Chinese dance music and for DJs, MCs, producers,
promoters and others<BR>actively involved in the scene to make contact with
their counterparts<BR>across China.<BR><BR>Although it is impossible to gauge
the precise extent to which<BR>Internet-based communications have contributed
to the rapid growth of the<BR>Chinese dance music scene, I believe that
websites such as Yesdj.com and<BR>mailing lists of event schedules such as
those operated by Beijing clubs<BR>Vogue and Orange have played a very
significant role. It is important to<BR>note that besides the Internet, there
are virtually no other forms of mass<BR>communication available to the Chinese
dance community. Access to print<BR>media is strictly controlled in China, and
information on non-government<BR>sponsored cultural activities is extremely
difficult to come by. It is<BR>impossible, for example, for Chinese dance
promoters to simply take out<BR>advertisements for their events in local
magazines. In the recent past,<BR>information about dance events could be
communicated only by word of mouth<BR>or by the distribution of party fliers,
but Chinese clubs are now<BR>increasingly making use of the Internet for this
purpose.<BR><BR>INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE: MP3 FILE SHARING ACROSS THE
GREAT FIREWALL<BR>OF CHINA<BR><BR>In addition to bringing new tools for
producing music to electronic<BR>musicians in China and tremendously
facilitating the circulation of<BR>information within their scene, the
Internet is also having a massive<BR>impact in terms of the vastly increased
access to music from outside China<BR>which it has brought to its users. The
Chinese government strictly<BR>controls all cultural imports, including music,
and most imported dance<BR>music recordings are completely unavailable through
legal channels. As<BR>Internet usage has increased in China over the past few
years, the Net has<BR>started to become the main source of information about
music for more and<BR>more young urban Chinese. DJs and producers, many of
whom have their own<BR>computers with Net access, rely increasingly on the Web
to learn about the<BR>latest trends in dance music styles around the globe.
Virtually all of the<BR>major DJs in Beijing, for example, use the Internet
extensively to keep up<BR>with international music trends, learning about new
styles at the same<BR>time as their counterparts in other countries.<BR><BR>As
I noted earlier, some Chinese DJs even use music downloaded from the<BR>Net in
their live sets, making their own compilations of MP3 files of<BR>music from
China and abroad and recording them on CDRs; I have observed<BR>DJs at some of
the largest clubs in Shanghai and Guangzhou using these<BR>CDRs in the DJ
booth. Among some in the Chinese underground hiphop scene,<BR>only tracks
which have been downloaded are considered truly "underground"<BR>and thus
valuable, while any music which is available for purchase in<BR>physical form
is seen as being tainted by commerciality to some degree.<BR><BR>RECORDING THE
FUTURE<BR><BR>In considering the long-term effects of these developments in
the context<BR>of modern Chinese society, we might recall the oft-quoted ideas
of Jacques<BR>Attali about music as a predictor of social change:<BR><BR>Music
is prophecy. Its styles and economic organization are ahead of the<BR>rest of
society because it explores, much faster than material reality<BR>can, the
entire range of possibilities in a given code. It makes audible<BR>the new
world that will gradually become visible, that will impose itself<BR>and
regulate the order of things; it is not only the image of things, but<BR>the
transcending of the everyday, the herald of the future (Attali,
p.<BR>11).<BR><BR>It is easy to be critical of Attali for his vagueness and
sweeping<BR>generalizations. Yet the ideas he first presented in his book
Noise in<BR>1977 seem to be resonating more strongly than ever at present,
with many<BR>writers on digital music culture both in academia and in the
popular media<BR>citing Attali.s ideas to help explain the phenomena they
observe on the<BR>Internet. If we are willing to grant some degree of truth to
what Attali<BR>is saying, that music may indeed be a "herald of the future" in
some<BR>sense, we can only be led to consider some startling possibilities
about<BR>the future of modern China. The rapidly evolving Internet-based
music<BR>scene on the mainland may have radical implications for a society
based on<BR>the principle of monolithic state control of
information.<BR><BR>The Chinese government has been very active in efforts to
combat the<BR>spread of dissident activity and "harmful opinions" on the
Internet, even<BR>going so far as to construct a security firewall around the
entire country<BR>which ensures that CNN.com (for example) cannot be freely
accessed by<BR>Chinese Web surfers. Nonetheless, the government.s control over
the flow<BR>of information into and out of China has already been seriously
weakened<BR>by the Web. A report prepared in January 2000 by the United States
Embassy<BR>in Beijing explains this situation in more detail and raises
questions for<BR>the future:<BR><BR>The Chinese government filters the flow of
information into China.<BR>Dissident groups mail thousands of electronic
periodicals into China. They<BR>constantly switch originating addresses to
evade filtering. Some foreign<BR>websites are blocked but Chinese surfers
often use proxy servers to evade<BR>the Great Red Firewall. Email from China
cannot reach certain foreign<BR>addresses but using a foreign email account
(such as Hotmail) can solve<BR>that problem. The old Chinese saying "For every
measure taken on high<BR>there is a counter measure down below" is illustrated
by the wide use of<BR>anti-filtering countermeasures (US Embassy report,
2000).<BR><BR>Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas of the Carnegie Endowment
for<BR>International Peace have studied the political impact of the Internet
in<BR>China in greater detail, noting that while many observers continue
to<BR>believe that rising use of the Internet poses an insurmountable threat
to<BR>authoritarian regimes, the reality in China is that the government
has<BR>managed to control the impact of the Net to some degree and in the
short<BR>term via both reactive and proactive strategies (Kalathil and Boas,
2000).<BR>However, other commentators look to the future and question how long
any<BR>kind of effective control can be maintained. Kalathil and Boas
themselves<BR>outline some of the specific mechanisms by which authoritarian
regimes can<BR>be gradually undermined by the Internet:<BR><BR><BR>ONE
Exposure to outside ideas and lifestyles may spur a revolution of<BR>"rising
expectations" as citizens begin to wonder why they are denied<BR>rights and
freedoms enjoyed by the people of other nations. (It is<BR>believed that this
was an important factor in the revolutions in Eastern<BR>Europe which
overthrew the Communist regimes there, although television<BR>rather the
Internet was the crucial media technology there.)<BR><BR>TWO The widespread
use of email, Internet chat rooms and the Web by<BR>ordinary citizens may
contribute to a greater degree of "ideational<BR>pluralism" as more and more
information which contradicts the official<BR>party line becomes available to
users.<BR><BR>THREE Civil organizations may use the Internet for the
dissemination of<BR>information among members and for large-scale
organization. (The most<BR>striking example of this in China thus far has been
the Falun Gong, a<BR>banned religious organization.) Kalathil and Boas note
that these civil<BR>organizations have often played a crucial role in
undermining<BR>authoritarian regimes elsewhere.<BR><BR>FOUR The Internet
creates new opportunities for entrepreneurship and<BR>wealth
creation.<BR><BR>FIVE Finally, Net usage provides increased scope for foreign
influence<BR>within countries hitherto isolated from the world community by
censorship<BR>and control over the free flow of
information.<BR><BR><BR>Looking again at the Chinese dance music scene, we can
clearly observe the<BR>operation of many of the mechanisms identified here.
The Internet has<BR>contributed significantly to the spread of new musical
ideas in China,<BR>encouraging a greater degree of musical pluralism; websites
and mailing<BR>lists are routinely used by participants in the scene to
communicate with<BR>each other and to organize and promote dance events; the
rapidly growing<BR>dance music scene is creating new economic opportunities
for some young<BR>Chinese in the underground economy; and there is an
increasing degree of<BR>foreign musical influence due to the access to music
and information from<BR>overseas provided by the Internet. If Attali is right
and developments in<BR>music do foreshadow changes in other social practices,
then the long-term<BR>success of China.s efforts to control public discourse
on the Internet<BR>must be placed in doubt, with potentially profound
consequences for the<BR>future of the country.s political
system.<BR><BR>Although the dance scene is not overtly political for the most
part, it<BR>should be noted here that there are already signs of a
developing<BR>"ideational pluralism" among its participants which may have
significant<BR>political overtones. An article in Asiaweek magazine in May
2001 noted<BR>early signs of politicization within the Chinese dance scene,
such as the<BR>popularity of a locally-produced dance track called "No
Communist Party."<BR>Taking its melody from a song associated with the
Cultural Revolution, the<BR>lyrics ridicule Communist Party icon Lei Feng, the
selfless PLA soldier<BR>who has been held up as a model of good character to
generations of<BR>Chinese students.<BR><BR>THE DRIVING FORCE OF
CHANGE?<BR><BR>Some observers of the Internet music scene even follow Attali.s
trajectory<BR>one step farther and argue that the drive to distribute music on
the<BR>Internet has itself become a cause of future change in other areas and
not<BR>just a predictor of it. They point especially to software tools
developed<BR>for the purpose of distributing music that may ultimately have a
far<BR>greater impact when applied in other areas. Freenet, a decentralized
and<BR>anonymous music file trading system, provides us with an
interesting<BR>example here. Freenet makes it possible for users to trade any
kinds of<BR>digital data files among themselves completely anonymously,
without fear<BR>of being identified by government authorities or copyright
holders. Ian<BR>Clarke, the founder of Freenet, has reportedly been contacted
by someone<BR>who is already using his software in a totalitarian, Middle
Eastern<BR>country to share information banned by the government (van Buskirk,
2000).<BR>Technologies developed to share music such as Freenet, which enable
users<BR>to communicate on a mass scale with no possibility of
governmental<BR>censorship, may ultimately play a key role in evading the
mechanisms of<BR>online control identified by Kalathil and
Boas.<BR><BR>CONCLUSIONS<BR><BR>As I have tried to show here, increasing
Internet usage among participants<BR>in the Chinese dance scene seems to be
contributing significantly to the<BR>rapid growth of that scene. Participants
are exposed to a wide variety of<BR>new ideas and lifestyles through the
widespread use of email, chat rooms<BR>and the Web, members of the community
are using the Net to organize and<BR>promote their activities, and new
opportunities for entrepreneurship and<BR>wealth creation are emerging within
the scene: these characteristics of<BR>the new dance subculture illustrate
specific ways in which I believe the<BR>Internet is acting to significantly
reduce the Communist government.s<BR>control over the Chinese population as
the government loses control of the<BR>flow of information. Bearing in mind
again Attali.s idea of music as<BR>prophecy, I wonder about what kind of
messages we might read from the<BR>chaotic freedom of the main dancefloor at
Club Rojam in Shanghai, where on<BR>any given weekend more than a thousand
clubbers might typically be found<BR>dancing to a mix of electronic beats from
all over the world...<BR><BR><BR>BIBLIOGRAPHY<BR><BR>Attali, Jacques. Bruits;
essai sur l'economie politique de la musique.<BR>Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1977. Published in English as<BR>Noise: the political economy of
music, tr. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis:<BR>University of Minnesota Press,
1985.<BR><BR>China Internet Network Information Center. January 2002. 17 Feb
2002<BR><<A
href="http://www.cnnic.net.cn/develst/rep200201-e.shtml">http://www.cnnic.net.cn/develst/rep200201-e.shtml</A>>.<BR><BR>DJ
Tadi. Homepage. 18 Feb 2002<BR><<A
href="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/233/tadi.html">http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/233/tadi.html</A>>.<BR><BR>Freenet.
6 Dec 2001 <<A
href="http://freenet.sourceforge.net">http://freenet.sourceforge.net</A>>.<BR><BR>Kalathil,
Shanthi and Taylor C. Boas. "The Internet and State Control
in<BR>Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution."
Carnegie<BR>Endowment for International Peace, Information Revolution and
World<BR>Politics Project, Working Paper #21, July 2000. 18 Feb 2002<BR><<A
href="http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/wp21.asp">http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/wp21.asp</A>>.<BR><BR>Oster,
Shai. "It.s My Party." Asiaweek 18 May 2001. 20 Feb 2002<BR><<A
href="http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,109279,00.html">http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,109279,00.html</A>>.<BR><BR>US
Embassy Beijing. "China.s Internet Information Skirmish." Jan 2000. 5<BR>Dec
2001 <<A
href="http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/webwar.htm">http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/webwar.htm</A>>.<BR><BR>van
Buskirk, Eliot. "How Music Is Changing the Internet." 26 Nov 2000. 5<BR>Dec
2001<BR><<A
href="http://music.cnet.com/music/0-1652424-7-2130087.html?st.mu.2130086.txt.2130087">http://music.cnet.com/music/0-1652424-7-2130087.html?st.mu.2130086.txt.2130087</A>>.<BR><BR><BR><BR></TT><BR><!-- |**|begin egp html banner|**| -->
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