A Study On Polycentric Provision Of Public Information Services For International Migrants In Shanghai

Since China’s reform and opening up,more and more international migrants chose to live in Shanghai.As a result of this,elites living in exclusive“international communities” are no longer the majority of the demography of Shanghai’s international migrants.Providing timely and accurate public information services for the long-term international migrants to Shanghai is of vital importance for their quality of life and work.At present,most Chinese researches on public information service focus on multilingual public signs as well as multilingual customer service.Other areas of public information service for international migrants are less covered.Through the research methods of document review,survey,and interview,from a perspective of the theory of public goods,and polycentricity,this research analyzes how Shanghai provides public information services for international migrants.The analyses are conducted from the aspects of how the Shanghai government provides public information services to international migrants via mass media,government-run websites and social media accounts,and on the level of residential compounds;the role of the market and volunteers in Shanghai’s provision of public information services for international migrants;and the rules under which public information services operate.Presently,public information services for international migrants in Shanghai has diverse information providers.But their service language is mainly English.As technology improves,machine translation now plays a big role in the practice of acquiring public information for international migrants.The Shanghai government have been building multilingual official websites,which provides international migrants with official channels to obtain public information.Official recommended multilingual glossaries and corpora published whenever needed give multilingual public information services workers support with their translation and interpretation needs.With the help of multilingual talents among Shanghai citizens,international migrants in Shanghai can get public information help wherever they are.At the moment,public information services provided in Shanghai have the following areas that can be improved-For the government,the public information services that is provided in a foreign language by mainstream media is on the most part limited to English.Also,as the mainstream foreign language media channels need to perform a role of foreign-oriented publicity in addition to public information provision,there is not enough practical information covered.International migrants in Shanghai do not feel they are getting a lot of public information from the government.The public information services provided in residential compounds is also insufficient.For the market and volunteers,presently the translation and interpretation markets have little contribution in the field of public information services.Simultaneously,the potential of volunteers is not fully utilized.In providing guidelines that efficiently support public information services in Shanghai,there is currently a lack of regulations,standards and multilingual glossaries and corpora.In answer to the drawbacks mentioned above,this research makes the following recommendations –To improve the ability of Shanghai government’s public information services for international migrants,the Shanghai government should expand the number of foreign languages used in public information services provision in accordance to the countries of origin of international migrants in Shanghai;design separate mass media broadcasting channels for foreign-oriented publicity and practical everyday information broadcasting;and enhance the government’s ability of providing timely information in foreign languages.To strengthen the ability of the market and volunteers in co-providing public information services for international migrants in Shanghai,the Shanghai government should support the translation and interpretation markets to expand their business further to the field of public information provision,as well as improving on coordinating and utilizing the resources of translation and interpretation volunteers in Shanghai.To better establish a system of guidelines for Shanghai’s public information services providers for international migrants,Shanghai should introduce regional regulations and standards relevant to the field,along with putting together online databases for multilingual glossaries and corpora on public information.