Chinese media, advertising, and urban life.

That question is frequently posed to Danwei, and here at last is a clear, well-informed article that explains it: The Connection Has Been Reset by James Fallows in The Atlantic.

This is interesting point about a possible new development:

Xiao Qiang, an expert on Chinese media at the University of California at Berkeley journalism school, told me that the authorities have recently begun applying this kind of filtering in reverse. As Chinese-speaking people outside the country, perhaps academics or exiled dissidents, look for data on Chinese sites—say, public-health figures or news about a local protest—the GFW computers can monitor what they’re asking for and censor what they find.