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Built on the theoretical framework of articulation and assemblage, this article explores programming practices among grassroots programmers in contemporary China. Using data obtained from ethnographic fieldwork in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, it provides an account of the information technology practices in contemporary China at the nexus of the Beijing government, IT corporations, and individual programmers. Through examining how programming is articulated in both China's advocacy for "a creative society" and grassroots programmers' daily practices in the process of China's informatization, this article has mapped myriad articulations such as engagement, communication, discourse, and practice that have made and unmade grassroots programmers' programming assemblage. We argue that technology for Chinese programmers is a mixed blessing. As a means of survival, technology exacerbates the precariousness and marginalisation of grassroots programmers in China, while the capability of technology production also enables the remaking of subjectivity and social change. The findings of this study thus advocate a deeper and dialectical understanding of the interaction between technology, labour, and empowerment. (China Perspect/GIGA)

"From a modern perspective, journalism is highly relevant to modern society, along with the emergence of mass printing system and professionalisation. This book, however, expands the meaning of journalism and views it as a social process. It will not only explore the roots and development of Chinese journalism and communication, but also demonstrate how Chinese journalism and communication interact and struggle with social culture and politics. Arranged in chronological order mainly, this book examines the initial development of Chinese journalism in ancient times in chapter 1, which from then manifested strong political attributes. After the Opium War in 1840, missionaries and businessmen from the West started to set up newspapers and periodicals in China, which brought about the birth of China's modern journalism industry. Then China's private newspapers and political party's press are studied, which are closely linked with political revolutions and have a far-reaching impact on modern Chinese society. What happened to Chinese journalism and communication after the founding of People's Republic of China in 1949? This book reviews the newspaper reforms, and studies the great negative impacts brought by "Cultural Revolution". Noteworthy news phenomena after the reform and opening-up are also covered. This book will appeal to scholars and students in journalism, communication and Chinese studies. Readers interested in Chinese society and modern Chinese history will also be attracted by it"--

Taking facial recognition access control (FRAC) as an example, this article examines the changing and fluctuant infrastructuralization process of facial recognition technology (FRT) in China. Drawing on ethnographic interviews, observations, and qualitative content analysis, we provide empirical accounts of how local governments, commercial entities, and community residents perceive FRT in different logics and how FRAC terminals become a key site for social negotiations unfolding through combinations of relation, power, and capital. The article outlines a new framework "beta-infrastructure" to capture the semi-material and semi-social characters of technology artifacts in nowadays digital society. The concept emphasizes both the material functionalities of FRT and the role of local citizens in negotiating what it means to be a good smart city.

This article offers an empirical study of contemporary public science and technology (S&T) policy research in mainland China by analyzing 1,410 articles published in four core academic journals during the three year period from 2004 to 2006. Based on the data, we found that the main subjects of the research were the national innovation system, S&T policy tools, and S&T industrial policy, and that the predominant research method was qualitative. The S&T research received significant financial support. We also argue that there is an enduring group of scholars devoting themselves to S&T research and they attach much importance to literature review. Although there were various problems with the research, this is a transitional phenomenon which should improve in the future.

This article offers an empirical study of contemporary public science and technology (S&T) policy research in mainland China by analyzing 1,410 articles published in four core academic journals during the three-year period from 2004 to 2006. Based on the data, we found that the main subjects of the research were the national innovation system, S&T policy tools, and S&T industrial policy, and that the predominant research method was qualitative. The S&T research received significant financial support. We also argue that there is an enduring group of scholars devoting themselves to S&T research and they attach much importance to literature review. Although there were various problems with the research, this is a transitional phenomenon which should improve in the future.

This article examines how on-demand service workers on digital platforms make and live their time in the case of China's food delivery industry. Using ethnographic data, the study elucidated multiple facets of couriers' temporality in their struggle to meet the exacting delivery time imposed by platforms while moving through biased urban spaces as marginalized temporal subjects. It is argued that a new temporal order, referred to as temporal arbitrage in this study, has been normalized in the recent platform economy. It shifts the customer's cultural expectation to on-demand service at the expense of an increasingly hectic tempo for the workers. We demonstrate the mundane, and sometimes opportunistic, tactics deployed by workers to reconstruct their temporality. The article connects the workers' temporality to the urban spaces, digital work process, and socioeconomic structures. It fills an important research gap by addressing the under-explored yet essential temporal dimensions in the expanding "just-in-time" labor force.