HOW CHINA REGULATES ONLINE CONTENT: A POLICY EVOLUTION FRAMEWORK.

This paper describes the evolution of China's online content control (censorship) policies from the mid- 1990s through 2011. This paper reports the results of an ongoing research project employing content and citation analysis to examine the implementation of Internet censorship policies promulgated by the Chinese government over nearly two decades. We find that content control in China is not an isolated set of policies, but is situated in a context of Internet regulation and history of media censorship in China. Between 1994 and 2011, the regulatory foci shifted from peripheral control of the Internet infrastructure to direct control of information content and then to indirect control of new online services and the market. The policy paradigm adopted by the Chinese government to regulate the Internet is expected to evolve as more stakeholders participate in Internet activities and the market assumes greater importance to the Chinese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]