Development and Current Characteristics of Social Media in China

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, printed single-sided, grade: 1,0, University of Hamburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Business English C: Emerging Markets China and India, language: English, abstract: The People s Republic of China is a country of many superlatives. It is not only the most populous state and fastest growing economy, but also home to the largest Internet community in the world. Today, China s population consists of more than 457 million Internet users who work with the World Wide Web in lots of different ways. As in many other countries, Social Media has become a crucial aspect of China s everyday Internet and business life. Still, this use of Social Media cannot be taken for granted considering the strong governmental control over citizens personal lives a couple of decades ago, and in some aspects its characteristics and terms of use differ from the rest of the world.In this essay, I first want to present the development of China s (digital) communication in order to provide a better understanding of former and current aspects of media in general. Then, I will have a closer look at the characteristics of Social Media in China. This chapter will include a rough definition of the term Social Media to avoid misinterpretation. Finally, I will deal with economic aspects by explaining so-called Social Business in China.