Jack Linchuan Qiu, Working-Class Network Society

摘要

We all know that the distribution and spread of ICTs, both within and across different countries, is uneven and variably paced. We also tend to think of the attendant social divisions around or through the concept of the digital divide. In this excellent book on communication technologies in a rapidly morphing, urbanizing China, Jack Linchuan Qiu argues against the binary mode of thinking this encourages, and investigates instead the more complicated, less determinate zone between the informational haves and have-nots. It is this zone that is occupied by China's working-class network society. Its class position in the network society is defined by its degree of access to and control of information and information processing.