Internet Studies and Development Discourses: The Cases of China and India

This paper investigates Internet studies in two leading developing countries (i.e. China and India) and finds that the Chinese scholarly community relies on the discourse of liberation from the state as a form of critique, whereas Indian Internet studies question the discourse of modernization to contemplate about the success and failure factors of information and communication technologies in development. The difference generally reflects the academic responses to the development discourses embraced by the two governments. We suggest that Internet studies should not only respond to the realities but also transcend the contextual constraints to direct attention to the often neglected dimensions of development, which are to make actual impacts through allowing the people and the communities to define their own development discourses as well as building research institutions that are oriented to influence policy-making.