My KIPP Blog – Week 5-8
As I mentioned in week four, my previous direction was to study income inequality between urban and rural areas in China. However, as I was reading the literature, I noticed the phenomenon of financial exclusion. Financial exclusion is a phenomenon in which some disadvantaged groups in economic activity, such as micro and small enterprises and rural populations, are unable to access normal financial services due to their own shortcomings and factors in the financial system. Financial exclusion is not only a financial problem, but also a social problem. Financial exclusion is often included in social exclusion because those who cannot access financial services often have difficulties in accessing other social services as well. To a certain extent, financial exclusion leads to social polarisation and thus to the Matthew effect (the economic rationale that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer). The existence of financial exclusion has led people to turn their attention to financial inclusion, which was created to address financial exclusion. The United Nations put forward the concept of inclusive finance in 2005, arguing that the financial system should provide affordable and commercially sustainable financial services to all classes and groups with financial needs, and design suitable financial products for them, especially to meet the financial needs of micro and small enterprises, farmers, low-income groups and so on. In recent years, with the rapid development of information technology such as mobile internet, artificial intelligence and big data, digital technology and financial inclusion have continued to integrate, which has resulted in a new financial inclusion system, i. e. digital financial inclusion. Obviously, digital financial inclusion has the advantages of reducing service costs, expanding service boundaries and improving service quality and efficiency, making it widely regarded as an important national strategy to reduce income inequality and enhance financial inclusion and social well-being. However, while digital inclusion helps to alleviate traditional financial exclusion, does it also create new financial exclusion in rural areas? For example, due to the digital divide or the knowledge divide, some rural populations may be passively or actively excluded from digital inclusive financial services. Therefore, a new division in the development of financial inclusion between urban and rural areas may emerge, and the allocation mechanism of financial resources between urban and rural areas is not fundamentally changed by digital financial inclusion, which deviates from the original purpose of digital financial inclusion.
In addition, in the postdigital society course, the topic I discussed was about “Internet celebrity check-in places”, which means physical locations that attract attention on social media platforms and thus attract a large number of users to visit and re-share them on social platforms. It is a new term that appeared on the Chinese Internet, which is not yet clearly defined in the Internet field of other countries. In the postdigital society, where media are extensions of human senses, the boundaries between the virtual online world and the real physical world are disappearing. Instead of a dichotomy, online and offline tend to merge with each other. In this context, social networks provide a new way of interaction between individuals and cities. The interweaving and reorganization of physical space and digital media space constructs a new logic of spatial production and a new pattern of social interaction. The“internet celebrity check-in places” is the product of connecting digital space and real physical space. Therefore, based on the interactive relationship of ” people-media-city”, I discussed the development mode of “Internet Celebrity Check-in Places” through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and case study, and analyzed the deep integration of people, physical space and online virtual space so that I could better understand the post-digital society.
Thank you for sharing your insights on financial exclusion and inclusion. The notion of “Internet celebrity check-in places” indeed sounds quite new and interesting. Is this something you would look to discuss in your final project? I look forward to your further discussions on your project in your blog for the next week:).