Ren Media
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Ren Media
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Published on 5th March 2010
具有中国特色的SNS - Social Media with Chinese Characteristics (a political digression)
I was reading an article on Deng Xiao Ping and the idea of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" (Stay with me people.) and I noticed that several ideas were very applicable to the current problems that Foreign internet companies (Google/Twitter/Facebook/etc) are having in China.
This sentence in particular: (from Technological Determinism & Socialism with Chinese Characteristics)
"Deng Xiaoping rejected the Maoist tendency to forswear the technological trappings of the so-called West (including soft technology in the form of Social relationships) and embraced the idea that modernity required copying many of the traits of the Western capitalist nations."
And Old Deng himself said:
"Therefore, the fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces. The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system. As they develop, the people's material and cultural life will constantly improve. One of our shortcomings after the founding of the People's Republic was that we didn't pay enough attention to developing the productive forces."
There you have it. Chinese social media will always beat Western social media in China, because the Chinese understand what the West doesn't. That to defeat an opponent, you must first understand him. (Or something like that.)
Any thoughts?
thomas said:
Yes exactly Yves. Sometimes we forget that it's a whole different culture, and a whole different way of understanding things!
Contribution made 11/03/2010 22:50
Yves Goulnik said:
I wish I had seen this before, might have given my tweet a different spin. It reminds me of a time a 4 years ago as I was on a long train journey between Xi'An and Zhengzhou, spent some time discussing with a young Chinese who was studying Western medieval history. I asked him how this was going to help him find a job. His, then puzzling but enlightening answer was, it does help him understand the Western world, a pre-requisite to dealing with it (and implicitly working in/alongside it)
Contribution made 11/03/2010 19:19