After “BAT,” What? Reimagining the internet for social development in post-crisis China

Bibliographic Data

ID21790255
AuthorsMin Tang (0000-0002-6459-2776, University of Washington Bothell, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume16
Issue4
Pages395-409
Publication date2023-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueChinese Journal of Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1754-4769 • E-ISSN: 1754-4750
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17544750.2023.2272992
OpenAlexW4387908026
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited21

Taking the critical political economy approach, this paper continues Dallas Smythe’s and Yuezhi Zhao’s inquiries into technological development in contemporary China. It examines the trends and struggles of the “BAT” model—named after the three most influential Internet companies in the country, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent—in China’s digital expansion, which has been intimately connected to transnational financial capitalism in the past decade. Reflecting on this expansion’s all-encompassing socio-political consequences, a blind spot in the successful BAT story, the paper examines whether the BAT model is sustainable for China’s social development and, if not, the opportunities and alternatives lie ahead. The paper argues, in view of BAT’s financial and infrastructural turn, that how China’s ICT sector could move beyond a capital-driven mode of growth and reorient technologies for public and social development is a critical epistemological question

Capitalism · China · Digital Revolution · Economic system · Economics · Economy · Financial crisis · Geography · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sustainable development · The Internet · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law

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