In and Out of the Great Firewall of China: Taiwanese Exchange Students’ Practices of Internet Usage

• Main Authors: Hsiao, Yu-Hsuan, 蕭宇軒
• Other Authors: Wang, Su-Mei
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/j8juu9

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 大眾傳播研究所 === 105 === Abstract This thesis explores Taiwanese exchange students’ Internet practices while exchanging in China. Facing the Internet regulation and the peculiar Internet context, Taiwanese exchange students need to change their existing Internet practices in Taiwan. Hence, by conducting field research with in-depth interviews and online date, I try to document Taiwanese exchange students’ strategies, including bypassing the great firewall of China, and its meanings for Taiwanese exchange students. The findings are divided into three sections. First, network capital and economic capital influence how Taiwanese exchange students find the useful and stable way to bypass the great firewall of China. Taiwanese exchange students would use the tactics and wait the impeccable moment to successfully bypass the great firewall of China. Second, Taiwanese exchange students bypass the great firewall of China to find information in accordance with their habitus, cultural capital or communicate with their established interpersonal network in Taiwan. At the meantime, combining online and offline space, bypassing the wall makes students regain their private space as if they were in Taiwan. Third, the experiences and reasons that Taiwanese exchange students use Chinese Internet channels. In conclusion, the great firewall of China should be considered an opportunity for experiments. The value of ‘Now-ness’ is sometimes ignored while the quotidian practice of internet usage. But it becomes visible when Taiwanese exchange students can hardly practice their existing habits in China. The ways Taiwanese exchange students try to break through the internet restrictions reveal the value of internet is to break the spatiotemporal restrictions and satisfy the desires for communication and information.