第四届网络社会年会 | 网民21：超越个人帐户总议程

中文｜English

The Fourth Annual Conference of Network Society:
Netizen 21: Beyond Personal Account

After participatory culture and web2.0, once again individuals meet for various proposes in different assemblage forms like reddit, 4chan and “friendship” on Wechat and Facebook. We are willing to provide all details of our life, pictures, and GPS locations. Our solitude is designed thus it matters a lot whatever form the togetherness is. We all learn how to be a collective “autoicon”, like the skeleton of Jeremy Bentham now still sitting in a cabinet with glass window, attracting tourists who visit University College London. Perhaps, we are much unluckier since the internet is our life; this life and afterlife are all transparent. Human becomes branches of media conversely. Around the world there are near 51 billion people “voluntarily” give out their data to database encrypted with algorithm where only few authorized persons have full access.

In the previous Annual Conference of Network Society, “Forces of Reticulation” (2016), “Another Walk with Lefebvre: Critique of Urbanism and Everyday Life in the Algorithmic Age“(2017), and “Intelligent Urban Fabric“(2018), INS connects worldwide scholars and activists to construct criticism toward current network society and explore a network of practices together. Entitled “Netizen 21: Beyond Personal Account”, The Fourth Annual Conference of Network Society is going to explore the history of network society in China over the past two decades. Here, “21” refers to both the 21 years since the term “Wang Ming (网民)” (Netizen) being coined, and internet users in the 21st century.

In the middle of 1990s, China officially connected to the international internet and internet giants were just fledgling business then. With the first wave of dot-com bubble, netizen become a popular term whose definition seemed quite simple according to the Cambridge Dictionary: a person who use internet. As we always celebrate the promise made by new technologies, people at that time had not yet recognized the political connotation and responsibility in the word “citizen” coined with “net”. In July 1998, China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST) gave “Netizen” its official Chinese translation “Wang Ming (网民)”. (While in Taiwan and Hong Kong, it is usually translated as “Wang Yo (网友)” which means friends on the internet literally.) Around 2000s, Tencent QQ, blog and forum turned the main usage of internet in China from searching into socializing. It raised the curtain of an era of user-generated content. In the following ten years, one significant change is that the mobile internet access outstrips those from personal computers. The pace and intensity of all internet usage dramatically increased. The way users receive information shift form text reading to live streaming and even short video watching (e.g. TikTok and Kwai) that fills up every idle moment. Through this process, the commonality in early network community is gradually replaced by self-performance of individuals. The network that once empowered citizens in cyberspace with passion and proactivity (which could be found in independent media and network activism), now becomes channels uploading data automatically for unicorns to make money. The more instantly information spreads, the more completely time and space are compressed. Our life time shrinks; always-online social media is somewhere without society. Eventually, in accelerating society, netizens end up as personal accounts whose owners are exhausted and distracted.

Since 2008, the number of Chinese netizens has surpassed the American ones. Therefore, it is impossible to neglect China while conducting research about network society. It could even be said that China has become the world’s most fierce battlefield between network technologies and the society. We need more theoretical perspectives to see through Chinese phenomena and further to tell a global story using local language.

Facing the 21-year history, The Fourth Annual Conference of Network Society is constituted of four panels:

Panel 1: Spiritual Life in Network Society

Georg Simmel draws the life in 19th century big city: busy yet lonely people looking for a sense of identity and independence through fashion. Today, it is our turn to capture the symptoms of “society of informational capitalism” which includes “cognitariat” and “precariat”. The former are intellectual labours who lose their soul and the later survive through gig economy. Trapped in the “shrinking of present tense” in an accelerating society, how should we think about ourselves, the culture we belong to, and the relationship between its representation and the world? 

Panelist: Franco “Bifo” Berardi、Wang Kai

Panel 2: Political Economy Criticism of Social Media

“Why Marx was right?” (Title of Terry Eagleton’s 2011 book) Does it sound like a cliché-ridden rebuttal? Marx is always there, yet few take it serious. Every day we diligently share our food, cat and affair, voluntarily doing an unpaid job. Therefore, should we accuse Facebook and claim for our wages? Or, should we learn from Chinese internet celebrities and Kwai live streamers as a model of creative worker in this generation? Does the realization of P2P transaction an antidote to the survival issue and identity crisis of cultural labor? Why are people willing to pay for the internet access but not the content they find on the internet? Why do we easily accept that all contents should be open to everyone but the benefits are taken by a minority? Perhaps, the question should be asked in a more direct way: how do Facebook and WeChat make their money? and how does the labor value be calculated?

Panelist: Lv Xinyu、HAMANO Satoshi、Cleve V. Arguelles、Nishant Shah

Panel 3: Media Archeology

“New media” seems old-aged to contemporary media study. Criticism of social media largely comes from authors outside the academy like some outstanding journalists, old hippies who are close to the Silicon Valley but in a critical distance, or few hackactivists. The production of academic research and theory is left far behind; software study has not yet dominated the stage. From Marshall McLuhan’s performative and manifesto-like confession, to the research approach proposed by Matthew Fuller et al.——evil media, a self-driven media that has nothing to do with the spectator——have we found the possibility to overcome? Is media archeology a way out? Could we understand how Wechat Friends’ Circle and Kwai work as we see Tianya Club or Rongshuxia (Tianya is an internet forum and Rongshuxia is a portal site of internet literature. Both were founded in late 1990s in China.)? Or maybe we should think conversely that only through the analysis of the current we would realize the meaning of the past. As Marx said: “Human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape. The intimations of higher development among the subordinate animal species, however, can be understood only after the higher development is already known.” Then, what did we miss and misunderstand when the internet emerged?

Panelist: Michael Goddard、Shan Xiaoxi、Sakurada Kazuya

Panel 4: Platform Capitalism

Our work, life and even relationship are dominated by mediators that control the technology. The platform is the media, market and corporation. Besides, as a dominator, it watches the now and future life of humans housed in a transparent cage. The platform takes over the reins of community building, buries independent media, Amwayizes blogosphere, and instrumentalizes netizen. In an accelerating society, we have to run faster in order to stand at the same place. Could “precarious rhapsody” become a kind of resonance? Could online community become something like a cooperative? Could social movement surpass the power of fans’ union of World of Warcraft? Is it impossible to cross the social media abyss?

---

Besides the invited keynotes, we call for young scholars and activists worldwide to submit papers on the four panel topics. “Young Scholars’ Forum” welcomes you to present your latest research and practice and interact with international scholars participating the annual conference.

第四届网络社会年会议程 Program

时间	KEYNOTE SPEECH 主题演讲	YOUNG SCHOLARS' FORUM 青年学者论坛
2019/11/22
08:30-09:00		Registration 报到
09:00-09:10		Welcoming Speech 会议发起人开场
09:10-10:50		Panel 1: Spiritual Life in Network Society Moderator: 陈天琪 Chen Tianqi
		王阳：媒介、游戏与现实：以中国大陆的LGBT媒体传播为例探讨媒介与游戏的关系
		张靓驰：我国当前的网络宗教的类型及其精准治理研究
		邓菡彬：超媒介对人类精神生活的挑战和机遇
		叶甫纳：I am the fairest one of all – just check my phone: MY Magic Mirror
		张钟萄：数码资本主义的文化逻辑：从艺术批判到数据生产的“参与”
		张骋：贵阳“白宫”与崛起的网络都市中心性——一个关于互联网集体命名的瞬间
		蒋斐然：⽬光的消失——集体盲症与审美终结
		张璐：爱情与毒药——巴迪欧论爱与理性主义的兴衰
		Chen Xiaoqiong：Digitalization of reproduction - An Ethnographic Inquiry
10:50-11:20		Discussion 综合讨论
11:20-13:00		Lunch Time 午休
		Panel 2: Political Economy Criticism of Social Media 社交媒体政治经济批判 主持人：曹澍 Cao Shu
		毕昕：免费生活：创造力企业家、随经济、后资本主义的睡眠与互联网参与作为未来投资
		方诚：传播政治经济学视角下的“轮博”女工
		Zihui (Katt) Gu&Yuan He：Yesterday is dead, so forget it: The Right to be forgotten in China’s Cyber Governance Regime
		Han (Suji) Yan&Zihui (Katt) Gu：The Continuation of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Movement and Data – The New Form of Labor
		叶凯：从被“污名化”到再度“主流化”的迁变——网络媒介话语对“中国男性”形象的消费指涉及其在电影作品中的复杂呈现
		王丽丽&鲁芳伊：中国草根⽹红背后的流众⼒量
		吴悦：异化与接纳：当代媒介的拟人化与女性化倾向
		潘慧琪：网络世界“他者消失”？
14:20-14:50		Discussion 综合讨论
14:50-15:00		Break 茶歇
15:00-16:20		Panel 3 Media Archeology 媒体考古学 主持人：陈旻 Chen Min
		谢辛：制造“吐火女怪”——基于鲍德里亚《物体系》的网生“物”研究
		杨旖旎：媒介考古学中的时间结构
		龚益锋：男性凝视与反凝视实践：演绎社会语录的“快手”女性
		李洁瑜：乍暖还寒—网络媒体再部落化的世纪延伸
		张杨：早期互联网艺术的媒体考古
		俞睿：电子红包与巫史传统
		毕文灏：在数字环境中“玩政治”：以哔哩哔哩游戏实况《底特律：变人》为例
		未来主人（康康&马汀滢）：The Insatiable: On Chinese Mukbang (吃播)
16:20-17:10		Discussion 综合讨论
2019/11/23	Keynote Speech 主题讲演
09:30-10:00	Registration 报到
10:00-10:10	Welcoming Speech 欢迎致辞 高士明教授 管怀宾教授
10:10-10:30	Conference Origins & Perspectives 发起人报告：黄孙权教授
	Panel 1: Spiritual Life in Network Society Moderator: Prof. Huang SunQuan 当代网络社会的精神生活 主持人：黄孙权教授
10:30-11:00	Franco “Bifo” Berardi ｜PUT AN END TO NAZI-LIBERALISM NOW 现在就结束纳粹-新自由主义吧！
11:00-11:30	汪凯（Wang Kai）｜ A Brief History: Parody Culture in Chinese Internet 中文网络中的戏仿文化：一个简史
11:30-12:00	Q&A
12:00-14:00	Lunch 午餐
	Panel 2: Political Economy Criticism of Social Media Moderator: Prof. Yao Dajun 社交媒体政治经济批判 主持人：姚大钧教授
14:00-14:30	单小曦 Shan Xiaoxi｜A Critical Review on The "Chinese phenomenon" of New Media Literary Production 新媒介文艺生产“中国现象”及其批判性考察
14:30-15:00	Cleve V. Arguelles｜Is youth really wasted on the young? Emerging politics of digital citizenship among young Southeast Asians 青年是否正在虚度青春？东南亚年轻一代数字公民的新兴政治
15:00-15:30	濱野智史 HAMANO Satoshi｜
15:30-15:45	茶歇 Break
15:45-16:15	Nishant Shah｜Not quite human enough: Digital Futures of Being Human 人性未满：人类的数字未来
16:15-16:45	Q&A
2019/11/24
	Panel 3: Media Archeology Moderator: Prof. Wang Xingkun 媒体考古学 主持人：王行坤副教授
9:30-10:00	Michael Goddard｜Immersive Media, Virtual Reality and the Media Archaeology of Audiovision 沉浸式媒体，虚拟现实和视听媒体考古
10:00-10:30	吕新雨 Lv Xinyu｜新媒体时代的未来考古 Future Archeology in New Media Era
10:30-10:45	Break 茶歇
10:45-11:15	櫻田和也 Sakurada Kazuya｜Trans-Asian grassroots beyond the border: a hundred years. 跨越边界的泛亚草根：一百年
11:15 -11:45	Q&A
11:45-14:00	Lunch 午餐
	Panel 4: Platform Capitalism Moderator: Prof. Huang SunQuan 平台资本主义 主持人：黃孫權教授
14:00-14:30	Nathan Schneider｜Startups Need a New Option: Exit to Community 新创企业需要一个新选择：退向社群
14:30-15:00	Olivia Solis｜Exploitation Forensics 剥削取证
15:00-15:30	Q&A
15:30-15:45	Break 茶歇
15:45-16:35		panel 4：Platform Capitalism 平台资本主义 主持人：刘益红 Liu Yihong
		张雨葭：时尚场域：无形的种族主义之手与审美霸权的衰落— 以“高其蓁事件”为例
		陈哲洵：“吐槽” 媒介功能 网络平台
		钟立：监禁平台的双重纳入
		曹雪菲：中国新孤岛：后社会主义网络平台中的独立音乐
		沈洁：Automated Addiction and its possible transformation on Chinese Livestream Platform
16:35-17:05		Discussion 综合讨论
18:00-	Farewell 再会晚宴