Zhang, K. & Xiaoming, H. (1999). The Internet and the Ethnic Press: A Study of  Electronic Chinese Publications. The Information Society, 15, 21-30. Retrieved February 27, 2008, from Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) database. (Document ID: 0197-2243).

Kewen Zhang and Hao Xiaoming are university professors involved in a case study regarding the Chinese ethnic press, with an emphasis on on-line Chinese publications. They discuss the major problems found within the majority Chinese press, review the technological development of new media and its relation to the Chinese press, and the potential cultural impact of such technology on Chinese people living overseas. Moreover, Zhang and Xiaoming argue that although on-line publications are becoming increasingly popular, they often pose the danger of immobility, in the sense that readers will begin to detach themselves from social scenes and solely rely on private Internet use as a means of retrieving news and engaging in ethnic communication.  They also note that while ethnic media outlets may be hugely favored by specific ethnic groups, such outlets are still only supplementary to those of mainstream media.   

By incorporating research from a diverse aggregate of sources, such as the Wuhan University of Technology, the Groiler Multimedia Encyclopedia, and Journalism, Zhang and Xiaoming approach their study of on-line Chinese print publications through a sociological and mass communicational framework. After a brief historical background on overseas Chinese adoption of the internet, the authors demonstrate the growth of on-line readership of Chinese publications. The China News Digest-Global's (CDC) website, for example, received 37,000 hits per day in early 1996, which subsequently grew to 15 million per day by the end of the year. 

The authors then discuss the issues hovering over the on-line Chinese press by first exposing the difficulties and triumphs faced by the general Chinese press. They find that while Chinese newspapers have a large audience both at home and abroad, they are becoming more expensive to publish and thus, harder to finance.  Moreover, such publications are also under heavy scrutiny from the Chinese government, who has been regulating the censorship of the press for many years. However, on-line publications are easier to produce, since they are significantly cheaper and more difficult for the Chinese government to track down, censor, or ban altogether. Such on-line publications are also more practical since they are easily accessible by the 30 million Chinese currently residing outside of China. 

Nevertheless, such practicality is challenged when assimilation of the Chinese into new cultures begins to occur. For instance, since on-line Chinese publications often discuss and glorify the Chinese culture, language, and customs, it is imperative that readership continues even after assimilation has occurred and younger immigrants continue speaking and reading Chinese.  In relation to this factor, Zhang and Xiaoming note that in many cases, the children of immigrants born outside of China learn to speak and read Chinese, and eventually form a younger generation of audiences and writers for such publications.

Zhang and Xiaoming explain that while on-line Chinese publications have become increasingly successful on a global scale, Internet access in China is still difficult to obtain, thus making the readership of such publications a pastime of the Chinese elite rather than a vital activity among the majority of China’s citizens.  In this way, traditional mass media remains more common than on-line publications in China, although the opposite is true for Chinese immigrants scattered across the globe. 

Hence, Internet-based Chinese publications are favored over traditional print media due to financial and political reasons, though they are less accessible to those living in China.  Those who live abroad, however, seem to have made it popular since it is easily accessible as well as a powerful means of helping the Chinese to assimilate into mainstream culture and maintain their traditional and cultural values.. (Reviewed by Sara Alamdar, edited by Ari Apelian, edited by Christina Semaan)