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From: lokkie@lokman.nu [mailto:lokkie@lokman.nu]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 7:21 PM
To: chineseinternetresearch@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [chineseinternetresearch] use of the internet in the chinese rave scene
http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/newsite/jvs_papers/netfxinchina.htmFrom: lokkie@lokman.nu [mailto:lokkie@lokman.nu]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 7:21 PM
To: chineseinternetresearch@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [chineseinternetresearch] use of the internet in the chinese rave scene
John von Seggern and STAFFER3. "Network Effects: Use of the Internet in
the Chinese Rave Scene." 26 Feb 2002.
<http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/netfxinchina.htm>.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NETWORK EFFECTS: USE OF THE INTERNET IN THE CHINESE RAVE SCENE
I have spent the past two years as a graduate student at the University of
Hong Kong, where my work has focused on the emerging Internet music scene.
The international music world has been going through a period of
extraordinary change and restructuring during this time because of the
accelerating use of the Internet at every stage in the processes of
musical production, distribution and reception. In this paper, I will
focus on the developing electronic dance music scene in China, a
particular area of interest for me, and examine some of the ways it has
been affected by the advent of the Net; I also want to look at what some
of the larger social implications of these phenomena might be. The
significance of Net access for musicians in a country where the flow of
information is heavily restricted and censored can hardly be
underestimated, as I hope to show.
My material here is based in part on my own experiences as a DJ and
musician working in China during the period 1995-2001. I have prepared
this paper in consultation with STAFFER3, a pseudonymous American techno
producer who lives and works in Beijing, and his involvement has been
crucial to the development of the ideas I am presenting here.
BACKGROUND
Since the first raves were held in Beijing in 1995, a sizable electronic
dance music scene has grown up in the People.s Republic of China. Going
clubbing has become a popular activity among a significant segment of the
country.s growing urban middle class, and an indigenous ecology of Chinese
DJs, MCs, producers and promoters has emerged. This is a phenomenon
limited not only to the country.s largest cities; dance clubs playing
various techno-derived musics can be found in many smaller cities as well,
at least in China.s wealthier regions.
I relocated to Hong Kong in 1995 to work in the city.s popular music
industry and I have witnessed the rapid growth of this new Chinese club
culture firsthand on my frequent trips into mainland China. I first became
interested in dance music culture in 1997 as I became aware of the rapidly
growing club scene in Hong Kong at that time, and events on the other side
of the Chinese border seemed to be following a similar course. Large
modern clubs attracting hundreds or even thousands of clubbers every
weekend appeared to be springing up everywhere I went in China, perhaps
filling a void for a growing middle class with increasing amounts of
disposable income but relatively few entertainment options to spend it on.
During this same period in the late 1990s, Internet usage has also become
widespread among members of this same middle class, and according to the
China Internet Network Information Center, the Internet continues to
experience phenomenal growth in China. A CNNIC survey released in January
2002 reports that there are now over 33 million Internet users in China, a
nearly 50% year-on-year increase. Internet use has been increasing most
rapidly among the group most attracted to the dance club scene, young
urban dwellers in their 20s and 30s.
I became interested in possible connections between this increase in
Internet and the rapid growth of the Chinese club scene as I observed a
number of interesting Net-related phenomena within the dance music scene.
Hearing Chinese DJs spin a variety of imported and domestic trance,
techno, and house music at clubs in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere, I
wondered where they were learning about and obtaining all the music they
were using. On a February 2001 visit to Club Focus, one of the largest
clubs in Guangzhou, I learned that some of the DJs there were playing MP3s
downloaded from the Web and burned on recorded CDs in their live sets.
This seemed to explain the uncanny musical erudition of DJ Andrew and
others whom I met in Guangzhou as well -- how were they able to keep up so
well with developments in the international music scene, I wondered? One
of the DJs from Focus later told me that some of them used the Internet to
search for information about dance music around the world.
Discussing this topic with more DJs and clubbers in China, I began to see
a number of distinct effects of the rapid increase in Net usage on the
nascent Chinese club scene: local DJs and producers were using the
Internet to obtain new tools for producing and distributing their own
music; websites were springing up to inform users about new developments
in the Chinese scene and provide new opportunities for participants to
communicate with one another; and music makers and clubbers alike were
using the Net to learn about and obtain new music from both domestic and
international artists. I will now look at each of these "network effects"
in more detail.
THE INTERNET AS SONIC ARMS SMUGGLER
Chinese DJs and dance music producers are now using many of the same
software tools used by other electronic music producers around the world,
and they are obtaining them from the same source: the Internet. Most
Chinese producers depend completely on the Net for information about new
developments in music software, either downloading new programs directly
onto their computers or copying them from friends who have already done
so. The online availability of such powerful software tools, as well as a
wealth of information about how to use them, now makes it possible for
musicians in China to keep up with new developments in electronic music
production and obtain at least some of the latest technologies at the same
time as their colleagues overseas. This is a very significant change when
we consider that it has always been very difficult for independent
musicians in China to get access to the technologies of contemporary
music; import restrictions and other barriers have meant that contemporary
music equipment typically costs twice as much in China as it does in the
United States, when it is available at all. Computer hardware is
relatively inexpensive now, however, even for some mainland Chinese, and
there are powerful software tools on the Internet that can be had cheaply
or for free. Increasing numbers of young Chinese are using computers to
create their own dance music and upload it to the Internet, where it can
be shared with a community of other producers and club music fans.
YESDJ.COM
As an example of how participants in the Chinese dance scene are
connecting and forming communities on the Internet, I would like to look
at Yesdj.com; this is one of the more extensive websites used by Chinese
DJs and producers to exchange information on how to produce their favorite
styles of music and where to find music software. This heavily-trafficked
site also provides users with frequently updated lists of the most popular
dance tracks and CDs in China, with links to downloadable MP3 samples;
when I last checked, the most popular CD on the site was by well-known
south China techno-rap group MP4, and tracks from the CD had been
downloaded over 65,000 times according to the site statistics. Yesdj.com
also provides forums for clubbers to discuss the latest developments in
Chinese dance music and for DJs, MCs, producers, promoters and others
actively involved in the scene to make contact with their counterparts
across China.
Although it is impossible to gauge the precise extent to which
Internet-based communications have contributed to the rapid growth of the
Chinese dance music scene, I believe that websites such as Yesdj.com and
mailing lists of event schedules such as those operated by Beijing clubs
Vogue and Orange have played a very significant role. It is important to
note that besides the Internet, there are virtually no other forms of mass
communication available to the Chinese dance community. Access to print
media is strictly controlled in China, and information on non-government
sponsored cultural activities is extremely difficult to come by. It is
impossible, for example, for Chinese dance promoters to simply take out
advertisements for their events in local magazines. In the recent past,
information about dance events could be communicated only by word of mouth
or by the distribution of party fliers, but Chinese clubs are now
increasingly making use of the Internet for this purpose.
INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE: MP3 FILE SHARING ACROSS THE GREAT FIREWALL
OF CHINA
In addition to bringing new tools for producing music to electronic
musicians in China and tremendously facilitating the circulation of
information within their scene, the Internet is also having a massive
impact in terms of the vastly increased access to music from outside China
which it has brought to its users. The Chinese government strictly
controls all cultural imports, including music, and most imported dance
music recordings are completely unavailable through legal channels. As
Internet usage has increased in China over the past few years, the Net has
started to become the main source of information about music for more and
more young urban Chinese. DJs and producers, many of whom have their own
computers with Net access, rely increasingly on the Web to learn about the
latest trends in dance music styles around the globe. Virtually all of the
major DJs in Beijing, for example, use the Internet extensively to keep up
with international music trends, learning about new styles at the same
time as their counterparts in other countries.
As I noted earlier, some Chinese DJs even use music downloaded from the
Net in their live sets, making their own compilations of MP3 files of
music from China and abroad and recording them on CDRs; I have observed
DJs at some of the largest clubs in Shanghai and Guangzhou using these
CDRs in the DJ booth. Among some in the Chinese underground hiphop scene,
only tracks which have been downloaded are considered truly "underground"
and thus valuable, while any music which is available for purchase in
physical form is seen as being tainted by commerciality to some degree.
RECORDING THE FUTURE
In considering the long-term effects of these developments in the context
of modern Chinese society, we might recall the oft-quoted ideas of Jacques
Attali about music as a predictor of social change:
Music is prophecy. Its styles and economic organization are ahead of the
rest of society because it explores, much faster than material reality
can, the entire range of possibilities in a given code. It makes audible
the new world that will gradually become visible, that will impose itself
and regulate the order of things; it is not only the image of things, but
the transcending of the everyday, the herald of the future (Attali, p.
11).
It is easy to be critical of Attali for his vagueness and sweeping
generalizations. Yet the ideas he first presented in his book Noise in
1977 seem to be resonating more strongly than ever at present, with many
writers on digital music culture both in academia and in the popular media
citing Attali.s ideas to help explain the phenomena they observe on the
Internet. If we are willing to grant some degree of truth to what Attali
is saying, that music may indeed be a "herald of the future" in some
sense, we can only be led to consider some startling possibilities about
the future of modern China. The rapidly evolving Internet-based music
scene on the mainland may have radical implications for a society based on
the principle of monolithic state control of information.
The Chinese government has been very active in efforts to combat the
spread of dissident activity and "harmful opinions" on the Internet, even
going so far as to construct a security firewall around the entire country
which ensures that CNN.com (for example) cannot be freely accessed by
Chinese Web surfers. Nonetheless, the government.s control over the flow
of information into and out of China has already been seriously weakened
by the Web. A report prepared in January 2000 by the United States Embassy
in Beijing explains this situation in more detail and raises questions for
the future:
The Chinese government filters the flow of information into China.
Dissident groups mail thousands of electronic periodicals into China. They
constantly switch originating addresses to evade filtering. Some foreign
websites are blocked but Chinese surfers often use proxy servers to evade
the Great Red Firewall. Email from China cannot reach certain foreign
addresses but using a foreign email account (such as Hotmail) can solve
that problem. The old Chinese saying "For every measure taken on high
there is a counter measure down below" is illustrated by the wide use of
anti-filtering countermeasures (US Embassy report, 2000).
Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace have studied the political impact of the Internet in
China in greater detail, noting that while many observers continue to
believe that rising use of the Internet poses an insurmountable threat to
authoritarian regimes, the reality in China is that the government has
managed to control the impact of the Net to some degree and in the short
term via both reactive and proactive strategies (Kalathil and Boas, 2000).
However, other commentators look to the future and question how long any
kind of effective control can be maintained. Kalathil and Boas themselves
outline some of the specific mechanisms by which authoritarian regimes can
be gradually undermined by the Internet:
ONE Exposure to outside ideas and lifestyles may spur a revolution of
"rising expectations" as citizens begin to wonder why they are denied
rights and freedoms enjoyed by the people of other nations. (It is
believed that this was an important factor in the revolutions in Eastern
Europe which overthrew the Communist regimes there, although television
rather the Internet was the crucial media technology there.)
TWO The widespread use of email, Internet chat rooms and the Web by
ordinary citizens may contribute to a greater degree of "ideational
pluralism" as more and more information which contradicts the official
party line becomes available to users.
THREE Civil organizations may use the Internet for the dissemination of
information among members and for large-scale organization. (The most
striking example of this in China thus far has been the Falun Gong, a
banned religious organization.) Kalathil and Boas note that these civil
organizations have often played a crucial role in undermining
authoritarian regimes elsewhere.
FOUR The Internet creates new opportunities for entrepreneurship and
wealth creation.
FIVE Finally, Net usage provides increased scope for foreign influence
within countries hitherto isolated from the world community by censorship
and control over the free flow of information.
Looking again at the Chinese dance music scene, we can clearly observe the
operation of many of the mechanisms identified here. The Internet has
contributed significantly to the spread of new musical ideas in China,
encouraging a greater degree of musical pluralism; websites and mailing
lists are routinely used by participants in the scene to communicate with
each other and to organize and promote dance events; the rapidly growing
dance music scene is creating new economic opportunities for some young
Chinese in the underground economy; and there is an increasing degree of
foreign musical influence due to the access to music and information from
overseas provided by the Internet. If Attali is right and developments in
music do foreshadow changes in other social practices, then the long-term
success of China.s efforts to control public discourse on the Internet
must be placed in doubt, with potentially profound consequences for the
future of the country.s political system.
Although the dance scene is not overtly political for the most part, it
should be noted here that there are already signs of a developing
"ideational pluralism" among its participants which may have significant
political overtones. An article in Asiaweek magazine in May 2001 noted
early signs of politicization within the Chinese dance scene, such as the
popularity of a locally-produced dance track called "No Communist Party."
Taking its melody from a song associated with the Cultural Revolution, the
lyrics ridicule Communist Party icon Lei Feng, the selfless PLA soldier
who has been held up as a model of good character to generations of
Chinese students.
THE DRIVING FORCE OF CHANGE?
Some observers of the Internet music scene even follow Attali.s trajectory
one step farther and argue that the drive to distribute music on the
Internet has itself become a cause of future change in other areas and not
just a predictor of it. They point especially to software tools developed
for the purpose of distributing music that may ultimately have a far
greater impact when applied in other areas. Freenet, a decentralized and
anonymous music file trading system, provides us with an interesting
example here. Freenet makes it possible for users to trade any kinds of
digital data files among themselves completely anonymously, without fear
of being identified by government authorities or copyright holders. Ian
Clarke, the founder of Freenet, has reportedly been contacted by someone
who is already using his software in a totalitarian, Middle Eastern
country to share information banned by the government (van Buskirk, 2000).
Technologies developed to share music such as Freenet, which enable users
to communicate on a mass scale with no possibility of governmental
censorship, may ultimately play a key role in evading the mechanisms of
online control identified by Kalathil and Boas.
CONCLUSIONS
As I have tried to show here, increasing Internet usage among participants
in the Chinese dance scene seems to be contributing significantly to the
rapid growth of that scene. Participants are exposed to a wide variety of
new ideas and lifestyles through the widespread use of email, chat rooms
and the Web, members of the community are using the Net to organize and
promote their activities, and new opportunities for entrepreneurship and
wealth creation are emerging within the scene: these characteristics of
the new dance subculture illustrate specific ways in which I believe the
Internet is acting to significantly reduce the Communist government.s
control over the Chinese population as the government loses control of the
flow of information. Bearing in mind again Attali.s idea of music as
prophecy, I wonder about what kind of messages we might read from the
chaotic freedom of the main dancefloor at Club Rojam in Shanghai, where on
any given weekend more than a thousand clubbers might typically be found
dancing to a mix of electronic beats from all over the world...
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Attali, Jacques. Bruits; essai sur l'economie politique de la musique.
Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1977. Published in English as
Noise: the political economy of music, tr. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
China Internet Network Information Center. January 2002. 17 Feb 2002
<http://www.cnnic.net.cn/develst/rep200201-e.shtml>.
DJ Tadi. Homepage. 18 Feb 2002
<http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/233/tadi.html>.
Freenet. 6 Dec 2001 <http://freenet.sourceforge.net>.
Kalathil, Shanthi and Taylor C. Boas. "The Internet and State Control in
Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution." Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, Information Revolution and World
Politics Project, Working Paper #21, July 2000. 18 Feb 2002
<http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/wp21.asp>.
Oster, Shai. "It.s My Party." Asiaweek 18 May 2001. 20 Feb 2002
<http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,109279,00.html>.
US Embassy Beijing. "China.s Internet Information Skirmish." Jan 2000. 5
Dec 2001 <http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/webwar.htm>.
van Buskirk, Eliot. "How Music Is Changing the Internet." 26 Nov 2000. 5
Dec 2001
<http://music.cnet.com/music/0-1652424-7-2130087.html?st.mu.2130086.txt.2130087>.
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