So the RQ has been doing all the heavy lifting of late, & I’ve been a slacker (shame on me). In any event, there is a great article in the NYT on Google & China with lots of interesting consideration of the new cult of technology in China, details the government’s approach to censorship, highlights some of the cultural differences, etc.
“Given how flexible computer code is, there are plenty of ways to distort the universe — to make its omissions more or less visible.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23google.html
Oh thank gawd. I was starting to think all my feminist ranting had scared you boys off.
Long ass article but very informative. And yay for someone referencing Foucault’s panopticon. The idea that self-censoring is much more efficient than government censorship is kinda the twisted application of Hayek’s ideas on perfect information- how weird that a liberal (in the old school sense) capitalist idea is being used by a communist country for information control, but this may be to much geeky theory speak.
You’re so on target with the self censorship story. In China, the consequences are potentially so harsh that I’m sure a great deal more censorship happens than would occur with a state review process.
I was also interested in the “censorship as a competitive” tool angle (not something that I’d considered before).
Censorship as a competitve tool is not that uncommon- think hollywood blacklisting. Was it Zanuck and some other famous producer – one named names and the other got nailed?