Saturday 20 June 2009
Beijing learns to use the internet to log into and act on the pulse of a nation
Exactly one year ago, President Hu Jintao engaged in his first online chat with the mainland’s netizens and in a speech the same day urged officials “to pay attention to the internet and find new ways of leading public opinion”.
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Beijing learns to use the internet to log into and act on the pulse of a nation
Ivan Zhai
20 June 2009
Exactly one year ago, President Hu Jintao engaged in his first online chat with the mainland’s netizens and in a speech the same day urged officials “to pay attention to the internet and find new ways of leading public opinion”.
Among propaganda authorities, experts and journalists it was a milestone, and 12 months on, the president’s remarks continue to have a significant impact on how the government is communicating with the people.
Zhan Jiang, a media expert formerly of the China Youth University for Political Science, said Beijing had been trying to adjust to the new media environment and was learning to use the internet to monitor the behaviour of grass-roots officials.
“Personally I believe the top leaders have lost trust in state-owned media. They have limited confidence in metropolitan media such as the [Guangzhou-based] Southern Metropolis News and are placing great emphasis on the internet,” Professor Zhan said.
The professor was speaking the day after the high-profile court case involving Hubei hotel waitress Deng Yujiao .
Last month Ms. Deng killed a Badong county official who demanded sex in a case that prompted a massive public outcry led by netizens. She was found guilty but was released.
Analysts said her case was the latest example of how public opinion boiling over could affect the decisions made by officials.
Although the party’s propaganda department eventually ordered traditional media outlets to stick to officially sanctioned reports, the anger expressed online contributed to the verdict.
Legal experts said without the internet outrage Ms. Deng would have been punished more severely.
Beijing had begun to gather information about grass-roots unrest from the internet since Mr. Hu’s speech, Professor Zhan said.
During the furore over Ms. Deng, censors began to block large-scale discussions on the case. But on the bulletin board on the website of the People’s Daily, headlines of posts criticising Badong officials were kept, though content was deleted.
This was not the first time the forum, one of the mainland’s most powerful, has followed different propaganda instructions. Just a week after Mr. Hu’s webchat and speech, the forum kept all posts’ headlines criticising Guizhou provincial officials and the local Xinhua bureau after a large-scale protest in the city of Wengan.
Almost all other mainland forums and major websites were ordered to remove posts on the protest.
“[The People’s Daily bulletin board] must be one of the online channels that Beijing uses to collect public opinion,” Professor Zhan said. “They know low-level officials only report positive news. The more such stuff they read, the less they trust them and the more they will rely on the internet.”
A continuing survey on the website is asking netizens for opinions on officials communicating with people directly through online channels
A political scientist at Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University, who would only use his surname Guo, said the “online protests” were good examples of netizens’ influence. “The online voice had become perhaps the only force that can balance local authorities’ power,” Professor Guo said.
Some journalists worry that traditional media and netizens could come in for heavier censorship. Targets would include those working at outspoken magazines and newspapers, and online communities that focus on politics.
In the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, tens of thousands of online groups on Douban.com, a popular social networking system, were closed because of political conversations, but the website was not blocked.
On Fanfou.com, a micro-blogging service similar to Twitter, at least two users were blocked early this month for their posts on the crackdown. One of the users was Wuerkaixi, a June 4 student activist living in exile in Taiwan.
As one outspoken commentator, who does not want to be named, said, “To be pinpointed [by authorities] is not good.”
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