2
recognized in the writings of Dutton, Blumer and Kraemer (1988), Castells (1989),
Mitchell (1996; 1999), Graham and Marvin (2001). The telecommunications
infrastructure is construed, not as pure technical configurations, but as a set of
technological arrangements constructed and situated in the Communication Infras-
tructure, defined as “storytelling systems set in the communication action context”
(Ball-Rokeach, Kim, and Matei, 2001a:396), a notion that I will soon illustrate.
During summer 2002, I conducted three months of fieldwork in the Pearl River Delta,
which serves as the empirical underpinning for the following discussion. Multi-level
embedded case study design
2
was employed (please see Figure 1 for the project
design). I used multiple methods including archive research, personal interview,
focus group, survey, secondary data analysis, and participant observation,
3
and
worked with people speaking ten different dialects
4
. Time constraints admitted, this
paper now is not concerned with the complete processing and full presentation of all
the qualitative and quantitative data that I collected, which nonetheless will be a
long-term goal.
5
The pending problems are indeed empirical; but they are, first and
foremost, theoretical and methodological: How to conceptualize the telecommunica-
tions infrastructure – its components, structure, and dynamics – in a transitional
urban ecology? How to analyze and present the case in the most meaningful yet
effective way? These are precisely the questions that I must address in the first
place.
[Insert Figures 1 & 2, and Tables 5 & 6]
2
See Yin (1994:41) and Scholz and Tietje (2002:3-4, 9-75) for introduction to embedded case study
methodology as a mode of inquiry that combines analysis and synthesis with the triangulation of data at
and across different levels of analysis.
3
I collected government and news archives since late 1970s regarding telecommunications, economic and
general social developments that affect the Delta region at the international, national, provincial, regional,
and local levels. This was triangulated with other macro, meso, and micro-level data including: (1)
interviews with local officials and entrepreneurs, (2) secondary data about adult and adolescent Internet
usage patterns, (3) survey of senior citizens’ and migrant workers’ telecom connectedness patterns, and
(4) seven focus groups among local residents and immigrants regarding telecom developments in four
cities. During the fieldwork, I also lived with new immigrants, long-term residents, and used local
telecommunications services on daily basis, which allowed for participant observation and more in-depth
exploration of various issues. See Figure 1 for the general project design and Figure 2 for a more detailed
field map. Also see Tables 5 and 6 for the demographic profile of survey and focus group participants.
4
This is necessary due to the extraordinary linguistic diversity in the region. Although I am fluent in
Mandarin and semi-fluent in Cantonese, my knowledge about local community is limited; so is my
language capacity given the unusual diversity of dialects, especially with the arrival of immigrants from
the rest of China. Native Cantonese-speakers (journalists in a local radio station) were therefore employed
to moderate focus groups involving long-term residents. I also hired dialect-speaking interviewers to
approach immigrants in three cities, to tap into the little-researched lifeworlds of marginal groups, whose
mother tongues are Hakka, Chaozhou, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Henan, in addition to
the more studied Mandarin and Cantonese speaking populations.
5
More adequate data analyses will be conducted and presented by May 2003. These will also constitute
the bulk of my Ph.D. dissertation.
Convention