China's approach to the information society: Communication networks, economic reform, and the administration and management of social change

As the economic transformation in China has picked up its speed, an information society becomes a new social ideal for the Chinese people to pursue. The thesis places focus on three areas: the increasing availability of present telecommunication network infrastructure in China; the function of economic rationalization that has been put into China's information systems under the informatization guiding scheme of the Chinese Communist Party; and the relationship between network design and the modalities of information control in such an authoritarian regime. By investigating various phenomena in these areas, the thesis draws conclusions that informatization in China is not an easy solution to balance the economic inequalities and drive the entire social development, as the Chinese people have expected. Meanwhile, China's political and economic state determines that China's leaders will encourage informatization and at the same time tighten the control over information.