The Berkeley China Internet Project (BCIP) is a participatory media and research network, with a focus on how the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 affects China's media

News media

The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...

 and politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

. Based at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, the activities of BCIP are centered on the development of a set of participatory media projects, including China Digital Times

China Digital Times

China Digital Times is a bilingual "collaborative news website covering China’s social and political transition and its emerging role in the world," according to the site's About page...

 (CDT) which explore cutting edge Web 2.0

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...

 applications to cover China. Its current director is Xiao Qiang

Xiao Qiang

Xiao Qiang is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of China Digital Times, a bi-lingual China news website, and an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley...

.

Together with an interdisciplinary class and online knowledge base on Participatory Media

Participatory media

Participatory media include community media, blogs, wikis, RSS, tagging and social bookmarking, music-photo-video sharing, mashups, podcasts, participatory video projects and videoblogs...

, research projects on information and communication technology and human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

, BCIP aims to provide both a new lens on the complex and rapidly changing society and a locus of influence on events: enhancements of the effectiveness and civic

Civics

Civics is the study of rights and duties of citizenship. In other words, it is the study of government with attention to the role of citizens ― as opposed to external factors ― in the operation and oversight of government....

 impact of participatory media could accelerate the growth of citizen-engaged civil society

Civil society

Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...

 and a rich and informed public sphere

Public sphere

The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...

. It will also help develop critical knowledge and insight into how the digital communication revolution is interacting with China’s society, media and politics and transforming China’s future.