Introduction

Abstract

This section provides a general overview of the book aimed to identify and illustrate the main political, socioeconomic and technical factors that have driven the development of the Internet in China. The book combines three frames: political economy, culture and public opinion studies. The book is divided in three parts. The first part analyzes the most important strategies that compelled the Chinese government to invest in the construction of the Internet infrastructure. The second section examines the relationships between the development of the Internet in China and the emergence of a nascent civil society. The third part of the book analyzes three different Chinese online platforms in three different historical periods.