One of biggest hurdles for an analysis of intellectuals’ influence in China is the relative separation of the inner-Chinese Internet from the rest of the world. This includes technical boundaries with often blocked content, and the independence of providers. While information is googled everywhere else in the world, it is searched via Baidu in China. Thus, the Chinese-speaking areas of the “regular” Internet aren’t representative of the conversation inside the country. As a result, three Baidu services were evaluated for the analysis of the infosphere in China. Read more
