Much scholarly work has explored the relationship between China 's economic transformation, political change and the Internet as a democratizing tool. Some have placed their faith in the Internet to put in motion a set of processes that will see the inevitable erosion of authoritarian rule. Others take a more cautionary position as the Chinese government proactively engages with the Internet through subtler control modalities under a political philosophy of new authoritarianism. Such an approach includes a systematic use of controlled commodification to define the commercialization of information industries. However, the debate about what it will take for democratic structures to grow in China 's political environment appears to have been settled, at least for the time being. Irrespective of one's position, the likelihood of any significant political openings occurring in China depend upon one undisputable condition: the emergence of a vibrant and robust civil society.
Prevailing discourse surrounding the importance of a strong civil society can be compressed into several interrelated points. First and foremost is the capacity of civil society to furnish a national stock of social capital that can serve to protect society from the state's inherent authoritarian tendencies (in spite of claims of liberalization and increased transparency). Furthermore, it greases societal collaboration on the behalf of democracy and improves the performance of government institutions. The concept of social capital, as purported by such theorists as Robert Putnam, refers to a culture of trust, tolerance and reciprocity that allows nations to engage in a wide range of collaborative endeavors for the benefit of democracy and social and economic development. The key dimension of this culture is trust, both interpersonal, or trust that individuals place upon each other, and a more generalized form understood to represent a social endowment of trust.
Recent incidents during the SARS health crisis in China suggested that the country's youth had embraced the Internet as a mechanism to build the types of reciprocal trust-building relationships outlined by Putnam in the face of encroaching authoritarian rule. Youth, facing a stark life locked away from society within institutional compounds during the three-month health crisis, appropriated the Internet as a tool to voice their growing concerns and protests over authorities' handling of the issue. In bulletin board services (BBS), youth took the local and institutional authorities to task for their inept and conspiratorial ways whereby lower level administrators were accused of deceiving the public. The discourse of dissent raised hope that the Internet may indeed act as a tool to promote the kind of vibrant and robust civil society hoped for by proponents of the Internet as a democratizing tool. Subsequent responses over by the Chinese government over the past two years to initiate a series of subtle and potentially more effective control modalities over the Internet has tempered the initial euphoria derived from online protests during the SARS crisis.
More recent events, however, raised worrying concerns that perhaps Chinese society was not yet ready for the mantle of responsibility that freedom of speech imbues. Emerging from China's online world was a growing phenomenon of Internet hunting, in which morality lessons were administered by online throngs of web users who came together to investigate others and mete out punishment for offenses real and imagined. While some instances have been positive, including exposing fraud or investigating unsolved crimes, others have been frivolous and self-absorbed pursuits detrimental to building trust within China 's social fabric. These actions included imposing a stern form self-righteous public morality. It all began with an impassioned 5,000-word letter on one of China 's popular Internet BBS from a husband denouncing a college student he had suspected of having an affair with his wife. Within days, thousands of postings appeared, with one proclaiming let's use our keyboards and mouse in our hands as weapons to chop off the heads of these adulterers, to pay for the sacrifice of the husband. As a result, the name of the student was exposed and the family had to barricade themselves inside their home to avoid being hounded by groups of outraged citizens. While Internet wars die out as quickly as they emerge, these cases have raised alarms in Chinese authorities who are used to issuing public morality campaigns not quelling them. At the heart of the concern is the type of crowd behavior that led to violence in the past. Many drew disturbing parallels to the Cultural Revolution, whose 40 th anniversary is this year, when mobs of youths taunted and beat their professors and mass denunciations became the order of the day for a decade until the government reined in the Red Guard.
As the Chinese government struggles to remain relevant to an increasing financially independent middle class, these instances raise the important question: Can China's citizenry be trusted with the mantle of responsibilities associated with new online avenue for freedom of speech?
Ian Weber is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University in the United States . His research focuses on global media, China 's media development, and civil society. Dr Weber received his doctorate and Master of Business (Communication Management) degrees from Queensland University of Technology and an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Southern Queensland . His doctoral thesis was titled Shanghai youth, television and cultural identity: An ethnographic portrait. After graduating, he spent two years teaching at the Brisbane Graduate School of Business before joining Nanyang Technological University in Singapore . Dr Weber then joined Texas A&M University in 2004 as an assistant professor. His current research examines new youth, Internet and civil society, as well as digital television development in China . Dr Weber's latest publications SARS, youth and online civic participation ( Medi@sia, 2006) and Internet and self-regulation in China : The cultural logic of controlled commodification ( Media, Culture and Society , 2007) focus on these aspects. He has published widely in international journals including Journal of Contemporary China ,New Media & Society , and Gazette to name a few.