Through the Prism of the Internet Cafe

Abstract

Using the ecology of games perspective, this article analyzes China’s regulation of internet cafes. Based on the analyses of regulatory documents, interviews, and news coverage, we identify three games fundamental to our understanding of the subject: (1) the establishment of national regulatory regime, (2) local policy implementation, and (3) market competition. We situate the discussion of game players, their goals, strategies, and performances in the context of rapidly increasing internet cafe penetration under intensifying government regulation, a manifestation of the inevitable clash between state and market at the local levels of internet development. This culminated in the April 2003 proposal by the Ministry of Culture for a national chain-store model, which led to a “nested game” involving key players from all three essential games including national regulators, local state agencies, cafe operators, user groups (e.g. students and migrant workers), and members of the urban elite (e.g. parents and teachers). We conclude by maintaining that there is a pressing need for more research on internet cafes as localized points of access control; that the processes of internet cafe regulation constitute a prism for the examination of the internet’s socio-political ramifications; and that the ecology of games provides an insightful theoretical framework for this analytical task.