Abstract
In this installment of Comparatively Speaking, we bring to you three papers originally published in Chinese. Like those in the previous installment, these were selected from peer reviewed publications. As a matter of fact, one of us was deeply involved in assisting the review and revision process. We also worked very closely with the authors to render the papers into English.
The three papers were selected from a cluster of research articles published last year as a symposium on communication and urban spaces in Journalism and Communication, a top-rated communication journal in China. The authors of these articles are all members of a research team based in Soochow University in China. Under the general theme of “digital media, urban spaces, and everyday life,” they each selected a concrete space, physical or virtual, in their city of residence, Suzhou, as a site to conduct their research. They were components of a larger project on changing city spaces in the age of ubiquitous digital media.
Located 60 miles northwest of Shanghai, Suzhou is the most prosperous city in Jiangsu Province. For centuries since the 10th-century Song Dynasty, it had been a commercial center of China; this status was only diminished with the economic and population devastation brought by the Taiping Rebellion in the mid 19th century. Thereafter, Shanghai took over as the dominant commercial center in East China.
But in the past three and half decades, Suzhou has undergone rapid revival. With more than 10 million people in its administrative area, half of whom reside in the city proper, Suzhou is now the ninth largest city in China. It is ranked the seventh in gross domestic product (GDP) among all cities in China. With GDP per capita at nearly US$22,000, it is the third richest city in China. Connected by a high-speed rail network, Suzhou is part of the cluster of cities in the Yangtze River delta, which is now China’s most vibrant and dynamic economic zone.
Suzhou is also considered the cradle of the ancient Wu Culture. It is at the heart of the region that was once known as Wu, named after the first vassal state established in the region during the Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BC). Sitting on the east of the Tai Lake, with crisscrossing canals, classical gardens, and distinct cultural traditions embodied in the local dialect, vernacular stage performances, food, hand embroidery, and other handicrafts, Suzhou is also a city rich in cultural traditions.
Thus, in many ways, Suzhou is a worthy site for in-depth historical, cultural, and sociological inquiries into the changing meanings of publicness, communication, and urban spaces. The three papers gathered here represent only three samples out of vast possibilities. Although they differ in their methods of data collection, in the types of data they analyze, and in the use of theoretical resources, they all problematize the notions of public, publicity, and urban space, thus broadening our understanding of them. Above all, their rich empirical investigations into one of the most ancient modern cities in China open up new ground for theorizing the relationship among tradition, modernity, space, and media.
We hope these articles from a distinct locale bring new questions, concerns, and perspectives to our scholarly discourse. Certainly, as we talk about globalization or China, the findings presented in these articles should not be taken for granted. We also hope that the publication of these articles will serve as an invitation to all our colleagues in non-English-speaking regions to send us papers or clusters of papers that are suitable for publication in this Comparatively Speaking section. We especially encourage submissions of theoretically informed empirical inquiries conducted at some specific locales that are originally written and published in a language other than English.