Mediated visions: IT entrepreneurs and internet visions in China

In order to understand how visions and narratives about the Internet are articulated, negotiated, and circulated in China, one needs to address and unpack a number of interrelated issues. It is important to map who has the possibility to articulate visions on the Internet in China, who is actually doing it and why, what having a ‘vision’ actually means, and which platforms different individuals and institutions have at their disposal for articulating these visions (including policy documents, news media, academic journals, art etc). Visions can be embedded in technological solutions and products, and also driven and articulated by IT entrepreneurs and companies that create new demands, behaviours and visions. The development of the Internet has to an important degree been driven by IT entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, who have been very good in articulating their visions and through their products also shaped ordinary citizens’ visions of the Internet. Chinese IT entrepreneurs such as Jack Ma of Alibaba have also to varying degrees articulated their visions on different platforms. In this paper I focus on a selected number of Chinese IT entrepreneurs and discuss whether and how their visions differ from their Western counterparts, and how they are articulated and speak to Chinese conditions. I also focus on where these visions have been circulated, whether it is in traditional media or on the Internet itself, and how this has shaped how these visions are articulated and circulated.