Star Player’s Extramarital Affair yet Another Sign of the Failing Team

By Dr. Zhengxu Wang, Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham Ningbo China. During the last two weeks, China’s social media has been dominated by the sex scandal of a star badminton player. Known as “probably the best badminton player ever”, the two-time Olympic men’s single champion, Lin Dan, was found in an extramarital affair with …

China’s Expanding Mobile Cyberspace – Endless Disruption Opportunities

By Gary Zhenyuan, SCCS Summer School Participant. The daily life of Chinese citizens is significantly more convenient today, thanks to the integration of mobile internet into key activities. In 2011, China had 513 million internet users. Within 5 years, Chinese outbound international bandwidth rose from 1.39M Mbps to 3.78M Mbps – this is an incredible …

China’s Internet, the spread of Information

By Joshua Gardiner, Participant in SCCS Summer school. One of the first things a westerner will notice as they enter China is the increasing number of ‘error’ messages encountered when surfing the web. At first it may seem like an accidental problem with one’s chosen device ­ yet this could not be further from the …

Not Everyone Loves Social Media

By Dr. Shixin Ivy Zhang, Assistant Professor in Journalism Studies, School of International Communications, University of Nottingham Ningbo China. The most popular term in 2013 may be ‘phubbing’, a combination of ‘phone’ and ‘snub’. This term was coined by Macquarie Dictionary team in Australia in 2012. It refers to the annoying habit of snubbing someone …

Reading the writing on the wall – Recent developments in the study of Chinese Social Media

By Christian Shepherd, Studying an MA in Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Chinese social media is both a blessing and a curse for Contemporary Chinese Studies’ research. The potential is obvious: over half of Chinese internet users are micro-bloggers and internet penetration has reached the 40th percentile, but the pitfalls …

A world of shared influence

By Dr. Xiaoling Zhang, Head of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Associate Professor in Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham. Soft power has beguiled governments around the world. Appealingly, it serves national interests, cheaper than the exercise of hard power (money and force), at least in the short term, …

Unintended Nostalgia

By David Symington, Studying a Masters in Chinese Philosophy at Fudan University. Contemporary China is a place where history seems to race. Cityscapes morphing out of all recognition within three years of when you last visited them and new fads that become ancient rituals before they’ve barely seemed to take hold (only this morning I …

China to relax ban on Facebook and Twitter?

By Dr. David O’Brien, Assistant Professor, School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. China may be about to relax its ban on foreign media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the New York Times in order to make ex-pats working in a pilot free-trade zone ‘feel more at home’. …

Chinese Connections: Communication and Complexity

By Shipra Khanna, Studying International Media and Communications Studies with Chinese at the University of Nottingham UK. As a student of International Media at the University of Nottingham UK, I have continually been intrigued by China and it’s censorship upon social media and communication. I have always had the opinion that indeed restriction and censorship …