1. China: Beyond the Matrix.
- Author
-
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N.
- Subjects
- *
INTERNET , *CULTURE , *NATIONALISM , *GLOBALIZATION , *COMPUTER industry - Abstract
The article presents the author's comments on the neo-McLuhanite approach, or a form of McLuhanism with capitalist characteristics. The neo-McLuhanite asserts that when Chinese go onto the web to connect with foreign cultures, they naturally turn to American URL. Typically, neo-McLuhanite commentaries take three things for granted. First, that access to the Internet will make Chinese citizens more like the Americans. Second, that virtual globalization is tantamount to virtual Americanization, so the Internet can do for information what the Big Mac has done for cuisine. And last, that nationalism, at least in virulent forms, is a remnant ideology clung to only by older, less-plugged-in people out of step with the cosmopolitan dot-com generation.
- Published
- 2001