The way of a dictatorship into the Information Society China and the World Summit on the Information Society

This masters thesis investigates the relation between China and the Information Society as it is manifested in the UN conference the World Summit on the Information Society WSIS. The first phase of this two-phase conference took place in Geneva 10-12 December 2003, with two documents, Declaration of principles DP and Plan of action PA, as main results. The information policy is central to an authoritarian rule in its efforts to keep control over the national identity. The thesis investigates the impact that the information revolution and Internet might have on the Chinese national identity through the acceptance of DP and PA in various aspects. With the use of the information science theories by Manuel Castells and Frank Webster, the vision of WSIS was compared with the Chinese information policy. An analytical instrument was developed, consisting of ten socio-political categories. The study consists of two parts: in a preparatory study DP and PA were investigated in order to establish what kind of society they envision. In the second part, China was investigated, after which the result was compared with the result of WSIS. The conclusions are that the vision of WSIS is a kind of post-Fordistic, global, capitalistic welfare-state, and that the impact on China displays a complex picture. In some areas, including civil society and regional identities, the WSIS vision will make regime control harder, but at the same time various e-strategies, surveillance technologies and security policies in conformity with WSIS might as well ease control.Uppsatsnivå: