Smart cities, built upon modern ICT infrastructure, aim to improve quality of life as well as the sustainability and efficiency of city operations. Photo: Elnur/TUCHONG

The internet has expanded social space and plays a role in shaping new forms of social aggregation, which can help enhance individual autonomy and creativity in order to expedite the establishment of a social governance community where “everyone has a responsibility, everyone does their duty, and everyone benefits.”

Expanded social space

Traditional social space is built on a material “substrate” with defined spatial boundaries, structures and forms. In the internet age, social space is no longer confined to physical space. People have more options in their life and work as well as easier access to products and services. The conveniences offered by the internet have expanded people’s living space and allowed them to establish connections on a global scale.

Not only can we better understand and experience the knowledge, ideas, emotions, and experiences from different cultures, countries and regions through trans-regional and cross-cultural exchanges, our life, work, and learning are also much less subject to the constraints of time and space.

The deep integration of cyberspace and real space gives birth to new forms of social aggregation. People share ideas based on interest, values, and culture, and create groups and dynamic aggregates through highly active multi-node connections, generating an explosive increase in social capacity and social density.

Sharing, openness, intelligence

Compared with traditional social space, cyberspace characterized by sharing, openness, and intelligence has given rise to new forms of social aggregation, endowing people with stronger motivation and greater ability to engage in public affairs and internet governance.

Information and knowledge sharing can enhance individual autonomy and creativity. In the pre-internet age, individuals had to invest significant time and effort in seeking assistance from experts to obtain information within specific fields. Today the internet provides a convenient platform for information retrieval and sharing. Information is rapidly spread across communities through interconnected data nodes, enabling people to obtain and disseminate all kinds of information more quickly and widely.

Social networking sites, online collaboration tools, open-source software, and artificial intelligence facilitate knowledge sharing and innovation while accelerating knowledge accumulation and development. Knowledge documentation and storage also becomes safer and more convenient. Large volumes of knowledge and information can be stored on the internet and retrieved anytime from anywhere by means of cloud storage, which lowers storage costs and ensures its permanence.

Open data and joint management can improve the quality of public living spaces. Joint management involves jointly managing public resources based on trust, deliberation and coordination. We can build a more just, transparent, and harmonious information ecosystem through channels of direct participation and collective action, such as social media, public television service, and crowdfunding. The emergence of open data and open-source, which are considered tools for intelligent communities and agile governance in cyberspace, constitutes an exemplar of joint management.

Intelligent communities and social aggregates can accelerate the construction of a new social governance community. Cyberspace, marked by diversity, autonomy, and information sharing, facilitates information dissemination and sharing through intelligent communities, breaking through the constraints of traditional social relations while enabling new forms of social aggregation.

People living in different geographical areas efficiently integrate social resources by sharing knowledge and experience, creating more opportunities to promote urban community development and improve the quality of social life.

Collective wisdom and collaborative governance are applied to social resource management, public services, as well as sustainable and healthy living through smart cities, “internet + public services,” and digital ecosystems, allowing for discussion of community and even social affairs across social groups. This is an advantage not found in traditional society.

In brief, with the advances in information technology and the enhancement of people’s capacity for internet governance, cyberspace plays a unique aggregating role that is conducive to the establishment of a new social governance community where “everyone has a responsibility, everyone does their duty, and everyone benefits.”

Wang Fengli is from the Institute of Social Development at the Hebei Academy of Social Sciences.

Edited by WANG YOURAN