Jiang Li wants to shift our focus to what Chinese people are doing with the Internet. In her study, she argued that Chinese diaspora web site is a combination of mass media and interpersonal media. To the best of our knowledge, however, there are very few studies of the use and effects of Chinese diaspora websites; the studies that do fail to look at first-generation immigrants, who are the primary users of the web sites.
Jiang pulls us back to 1995 and Robert Putnam’s displacement theory, that media use actually leads to the decline of social capital. This approach, though, has been challenged for its narrow focus due to a number of reasons – empirical results aren’t consistent; Putnam used a simple measure of Internet use; individual differences were overlooked.
With this in mind, Jiang tells us that the research objectives of the study was to understand the motives that drive the use of Chinese diaspora websites. The study posited that the different motives for using Chinese diaspora websites are associated with different community participations based on (1) attitudes and (2) behaviors.
The study looked at the type of diaspora (e.g. collocated, or distributed? Do users of different types of diaspora have different attitudes and behaviors in Chinese and mainstream communities?) and the host country of diaspora (e.g. Canada v. US? What are the differences or similarities between the web sites in different countries, and between Canadian and American Chinese?).
Jiang points out some consistent patterns based on the results of the research: motives had specific patterns based on positive influence from social interaction and self identity, but negative influence from diversion. Jiang also identified significant country differences: more than 90% of Canadian Chinese use collocated Chinese websites, but only 20% of Americans did.
Jiang also mentions some practical implications of the results. She tells us that by being interactive and unlimited by geography, collocated Chinese diaspora websites can help Chinese communities adjust. From a policy standpoint, the relationship between Internet use and community also depends on the collocation of online and offline Chinese communities to transform social capital formed online to the offline settings. Jiang also mentions design: governments and NGOs should examine how to use Chinese diaspora websites for news dissemination.