http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/chinas-online-crusaders-gain-ground-2194951.html

China’s online crusaders gain ground

By Marianne Barriaux (AFP)

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

BEIJING — Zhong Jizhang became a celebrity in China when he used the Internet to expose safety flaws in the subway of a major city. He is one of a growing number of online crusaders daring to challenge the system.

Nicknamed the “death-defying grandpa” due to the issue’s sensitivity, he has lost his job and received death threats since he revealed problems with a metro extension in the southern city of Guangzhou that had passed inspection tests.

“There were threatening phone calls, and there were warnings that people were getting ready to cripple me,” the 68-year-old engineer told AFP.

“Someone even told me that to exterminate me, they would run me over with a car, then drink alcohol and wait for the police so they would be done for drink driving but would get out of jail via their contacts.”

Zhong, whose quality inspection firm has refused to renew his contract since he blew the whistle this summer, said he had tried various avenues to report the problem, including via government departments, but they failed to respond.

So he resorted to the Internet, creating a blog where he wrote about substandard concrete work. As Guangzhou was then about to host the Asian Games, the news found an audience and spread like wildfire.

China has the most Internet users in the world at 450 million, so the web presents a golden opportunity for people like Zhong who want to expose problems or incidents, especially as traditional media are strictly censored.

Authorities censor websites they deem unacceptable through a system dubbed the “Great Firewall of China”, but users manage to bypass this through proxy servers, and blogs that are shut down quickly spring up again.

Yang Guobin, an associate professor at Columbia University who wrote a book about online activism in China, says the trend is on the rise.

“I covered over 70 major cases in my book which occurred in the span of a decade. Recently, I wrote an afterword… and I counted about 60 notable new cases for the two years of 2009 and 2010,” he told AFP.

In the past few months alone, several cases have gained traction thanks to the Internet.

In October, the 22-year-old son of a senior police officer in the northern province of Hebei sparked online outrage when he hit two students while allegedly drink-driving, one of whom died.

When he was blocked from escaping the scene, the driver, Li Qiming, challenged people to sue him, shouting “my father is Li Gang.”

The incident triggered a huge outcry on the Internet as an example of the brazen high-handedness of top officials and their families, and was picked up by traditional media.

Li was then arrested in an apparent victory for online activism. The English-language Global Times has since reported that he will be tried.

Jiang Huanwen, who runs a whistleblowing website, told AFP he had counted at least 200 such “anti-corruption” sites in China, not including individual bloggers who expose problems.

“Announcing and transmitting information on the Internet puts definite pressure on the government and judicial authorities, forcing them to investigate those who have been exposed,” he said.

In the eastern province of Jiangxi, several officials were removed from their posts in September after three residents set themselves on fire in protest at the forced demolition of their home — one of whom later died.

Mainstream media were initially silent on the news. But when the daughters of one of the victims were stopped as they tried to travel to Beijing to petition authorities over the case, they reached out to Chinese journalists for help.

These reporters posted their story on the Internet and soon a huge online campaign for their cause sprang up. A few days later, authorities announced the suspension of the officials, including a local Communist Party chief.

But experts warn the influence of the Internet is still extremely limited.

Hu Yong, a professor at Peking University and a leading Internet scholar, said this was especially true when authorities barred traditional media outlets from reporting incidents.

“Under these circumstances, it’s not enough to simply rely on the power of netizens — traditional media still plays a huge role,” he said in an interview posted online.

David Bandurski, a researcher at the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong, cautioned that new online features, such as micro-blogs, were always accompanied by more controls.

“If we think that the Internet is going to bring about fundamental change, that’s a naive reading of the current situation in China,” he said.

Zhong has learned the hard way. Guangzhou authorities have acknowledged the subway flaws but say they pose no safety risk.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved

http://blogs.straitstimes.com/2011/1/7/the-power-of-the-gaze

The power of the gaze

January 08, 2011 Saturday, 06:00 AM

Ho Ai Li looks at how social media is changing onlookers in China

Nothing angered Chinese writer Lu Xun as much as seeing a crowd of onlookers gawking at prisoners being executed.

It made him drop medicine to become a writer to cure the minds, rather than the bodies of his compatriots.

Gazing at the onlookers, he saw coldness and indifference. He satirised such behaviour in his short story, Medicine, with a scene in which passers-by stood around and watched as young revolutionaries faced the firing line. ‘Wei guan’, or standing around and looking on, became a byword for apathy.

But for Peking University internet expert Hu Yong, the term has taken on a more positive meaning in the cyber age. As Twitter-like social media spreads, the number of virtual bystanders has grown exponentially.

When two sisters were bullied by officials in Nanchang, their plight was broadcast and seen by close to millions through such social media.

The online onlookers did more than look. They shared the sisters’ story with their networks, enabling the tale to spread so fast that censors could not catch up.

WHAT HAS CHANGED

What had changed, wrote Dr Hu in a column, is that these social media, or micro-blogs as they are known in China, have lowered the risk and cost of participation.

It does not require anything heroic. Virtual onlookers just need to click their mouse and share the story, in the comfort of their homes.

Micro-blogs can add up to something big, Dr Hu believed.

A common Chinese saying goes: ‘What man is doing, heaven is watching.’

Perhaps one can now say: What the powerful in China are doing, the netizens are watching.

While it’s uncertainly unwise to exaggerate the Internet’s impact, it has for sure made many officials watch their backs. Or maybe their wrists.

As Zhou Jiugeng, an ex-property bureau chief, would know, a branded watch glimpsed online may mean an end to one’s career.

Back in 2008, the most popular Internet neologism in China was ‘da jiang you’, which means literally to go buy soy sauce. It was a cheeky rejoinder to mean, ‘I’m just passing by and it’s none of my business’.

A man in Guangzhou had famously offered soy sauce as an excuse when he declined to be interviewed.

Will the Internet make the Chinese less of a nation of ‘soy sauce buyers’? Especially when all that’s asked of them is that they click their mouse?

Well, we’d all have to watch and find out.

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/01/14/government-gets-big-into-microblogging/

January 14, 2011, 3:46 PM HKT

Government Gets Big Into Microblogging

Reform-minded observers of Chinese media have characterized the rise of microblogging in the Middle Kingdom as a boon to dissidents and a challenge to the ruling regime. But, according to a report by the country’s state-run news agency, Chinese authorities aren’t ready to cede the technology to their critics.

Hundreds of public security bureaus in China have launched their own microblogs, Xinhua said this week, as part of an attempt to better connect with the country’s tech-savvy online population while also leveraging social media as means to solving criminal cases.

So far, the effort seems to garnering some success: “Safe Beijing,” the official microblog of the Beijing public security bureau, has attracted more than 330,000 followers since its debut in August 2010.

The number of registered microblog users in China grew to 75 million in 2010, from 8 million in 2009, according to a recent report by market research firm Analysys International, and that figure is expected to 240 million in 2012. Microblogs, known as “weibo” in Mandarin, are fast becoming one of the primary means by which Chinese web users access news and information with services like Sina.com’s Sina Weibo playing an increasingly important role in pushing news coverage of major public affairs.

One of last year’s most noted news stories, the self-immolation of three Chinese citizens in the Jiangxi Province county of Yihuang who were protesting the forced demolition of their home, first broke and spread on microblogs, forcing mainstream media to break a government-imposed silence (in Chinese). In another notable story, blogger and “science cop” Fang Zhouzi, known for exposing academic fraud, launched a public outcry and major police investigation late last August after revealing details of a violent attack against him on Sina Weibo account.

The ability of microblogs to speed the flow of information has proven a headache for China’s censors, leading Internet scholars like Beijing University’s Hu Yong to argue that the technology offers “new possibilities for reshaping China’s authoritarian regime.” One way it appears to be reshaping the regime is by forcing government departments to be more responsive. The Beijing police department, for example, made an announcement (in Chinese) on its official microblog account shortly after arresting suspects in the Fang Zhouzi case.

The first police department to launch an official microblog was the public security bureau in Zhaoqing City in south China’s Guangdong Province, which opened an account on the Sina service in February 2010. Since then, around 500 more microblogs have been opened by local police authorities throughout the country, with some notable success stories.

Police from the coastal city of Xiamen, said that their microblog account helped them catch the murderers of a three-year-old girl after they used it to release details about the murder along with an offer of 5,000 yuan for further information. The message was forwarded more than 10,000 times, according to a report by China Daily, leading to more than 100 pieces of information police used in solving the case six days later.

Other local government agencies have also turned to microblogs as a way to push out policy announcements and other information, as well as hear complaints from the public. According to Sina’s statistics, 139 government departments and 56 transportation departments have opened Sina Weibo accounts, including the provincial government in Yunnan, whose account has racked up more than 48,800 followers since opening in June last year.

“It’s set to be an ongoing trend given that the way people obtain information has changed,” said Zhang Yanan, analyst with Beijing-based venture capital research firm Zero2IPO. The microblog population has reached critical mass in China Zhang added, with users in the critical 30 to 40 age group increasing quickly.

Public response to the government microblog phenomenon has been mixed. Many Chinese citizens applaud the effort by government departments to engage online, saying that the new technology will help change the stubbon image of government officials and better interact with the public. “Government officials not concerned primarily with keeping their jobs but instead interacting with the public and developing a better understanding of the people’s condition–it’s an improvement,” one Sina user from Guangdong wrote in response to a recent article on the trend.

Some, however, argue that the use of microblogs in and of itself does not make for better government.

“In many cases, government departments without microblog accounts think about the interests of the general public, while those with microblogs aren’t necessarily serving the public,” writes blogger Zhang Lechen (in Chinese). “I hope it is not for show.”

– Juliet Ye. Follow her on Twitter @wsj_jul

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/01/13/china-social-media-for-social-change/

China: Social media for social change

Posted 13 January 2011

Discussion about the political power of social media has focussed on its potential to organize mass protests for revolutionary changes. In the January/February 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs, however, Clay Shirky argued that the real power of social media lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere, with impacts that should be measured in years and decades, not weeks or months.

Hu Yong, a media scholar at Peking University, would probably agree with Clay Shirky. In an article published shortly after Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize was announced, Hu claimed that Twitter and all its clones (the various microblogs offered by major portals) have become important tools in China for organizing activism like social resistance and civic investigation. But rather than leading to a ‘Twivolution’, he argued that social media would lead to more subtle social progress in China:

That subtlety reflects the distinction between macro-politics and micro-politics. Macro-politics is structural, whereas micro-politics is daily. Changes in the micro-political system do not necessarily lead to an adjustment in the macro structure, particularly in hyper-controlled political systems like China’s. But if small units are well organized, they can greatly improve the well-being of society as a whole, bit by bit, by working at the micro level. ‘Micro-information’ and ‘micro-exchange’ can push forward real change.

In a recent interview about the Chinese social media landscape with Xiaomi (@xiaomi2020) from the China blog Translators, Hu Yong (@huyong) expanded upon this notion of gradualism. He stated that it would be innocent to think that social media can lead to revolutionary changes in China, as many participants are merely ‘onlookers’ of public events. However, it has a transformative power which should not be underestimated. Below are some of the comments expressed by Hu Yong during the interview (titles added by author of this post for ease of reading).

The meaning of ‘onlooking’

我强调围观是一种最低限度的公共参与，它其实与通过参与达成共识或通过共识再采取决策和行动这些东西都距离非常遥远。所 以，我们如果简单地认为围观就能够改变中国的话，肯定是对中国的现实报以太过于天真的幻想。但是，反过来讲，我们不能够因此低估网络围观的意义，因为它降 低了行动的门槛，导致很多人可以去表达一种立场、一种诉求，这种立场和诉求积少成多、集腋成裘，可以形成一个很大的舆论力量。

I emphasized that onlooking is the minimum level of public participation. In fact, it is very far from the kind of politics in which people participate, reach a consensus, make decisions, and then act. Therefore, it would be too innocent to think that onlooking can change the reality of China. On the other hand, we should not underestimate the meaning of this onlooking in social media. It lowers the threshold of public participation, enabling many people to express their views and desires. These micro-expressions, when combined together, can form formidable public opinion.

另外，我觉得说，这个围观还有一个很重要的东西在于哪里？所谓的围观，就意味着说大家彼此能够互相看见对方，互相看见对方 是非常重要的。因为，我经常讲到的一个观点说，在当下的中国社会，人的原罪不是无知，而是视而不见，视而不见比无知是一种更大的危害。也正是由于如此，在 当下的中国社会，单纯的看见这样一种渴望，就会引起很多人的恐慌，引起某些机构的恐慌，原因在于看见本身就是一种力量，因为它代表着公民对很多事情的一种 见证，这样的见证如果又是互相能够守望的一种见证，至少它所产生的心理的和社会的动能是不可低估的。

Apart from this, I think that this kind of onlooking represents something important. The so-called onlooking means that people can see each other. This is very important. As I always emphasize, the original sin of people in contemporary China is not ignorance, but apathy, which is more harmful than ignorance. The fact that some parts of the government panic when faced with public demands in the social media shows that onlooking is a force of its own. It represents a kind of witness and caring about each other on the part of the citizenry. The psychological and social momentum generated by it should not be underestimated.

Social media and political consumerism

一方面，我们当然要肯定围观政治的积极作用，但是围观政治的确有它的一些比较明显的弊端，比如说短暂性。短暂性是一个比较 明显的特点，在中国，尤其是互联网的舆论，总是呈现一种波浪形的，它是一波一波的。换句话讲，一个事件形成以后，它的热点非常集中，形成大家铺天盖地的舆 论，但是它的维持舆论的势头其实是有问题的。如果一个新的热点出现，原来的就会很快淡出视野，甚至会被人们遗忘。实际上说，这种围观政治的短暂性，包括民 众对于议题的注意力的易碎程度，其实不是特别有利于改变中国的制度结构。

We should acknowledge the positive force of the ‘onlooking politics’. But it has its limitations, of which transience is a major one. In China, public opinion come and go like waves. When an incident first breaks, coverage concentrates on it, with massive amounts of reports and comments. But this attention is not sustainable. If another hotspot emerges, the original event will fade away or even be forgotten. This short attention span of the Chinese public is not helpful in effecting structural political changes in China.

这是一个注意力的螺旋定律，就是说为了要获得注意力就要采取一些极端的做法，但是，下一次要获得更大的注意力就只能采取更 极端的做法。也有人把这种东西叫做审丑疲劳，就是大家比丑，一个事情比一个事情更丑恶，丑恶到最后，大家对这些东西都比较麻木不仁。所以，我一直觉得，我 们一方面要非常肯定这些新的工具带来的民众的参与性，但是，我们要意识到，这其实是一个最基础的工作，我们永远要把这种政治参与度或者是对社会事务的关注 度的提升作为一个很大的好事来鼓吹，因为它提供了将来结构改变的一种最为核心的基础，如果不打这个基础的话，我觉得任何改变都是纸上谈兵。但是，也不要把 打基础的工作夸大为好像就是在建造某个新的结构，或者是说在建造某个新的大厦，打基础和建大厦的区别还是非常明显的。我觉得，微博政治或者围观政治到目前 为止，其实还是为我们的民主的微观政治提供了很多改良的机会和手段，它为我们以后更大的社会变迁在打基础，但是它不能代替很多很多的制度化的变革。

This is the spiral rule of attracting attention. You can attract the spotlight through some extreme methods. But to do the same next time, you have to resort to even more extreme means. Sometimes this is called scandal fatigue, in which people compete with each other on being uglier. In the end, people become insensitive. Therefore, I sense that while we should affirm the positive role of social media in encouraging public participation, we should also realize that it is very primitive. Our goal should always be raising this political participation and care about public affairs to a new level, which would provide the foundation of structural changes in China. If we don’t construct this foundation, all else will be empty talks. However, we should not equate this foundation building with creating a new structure. After all, the difference between foundation building and constructing a high-rise is apparent. I think that microblogging or onlooking provides a lot of opportunities and tools for us to improve our politics in a micro sense. They lay the foundation for something bigger, but they cannot replace the many structural reforms required.

The role of micro-power

今天的中国的变革并不需要一种强有力的革命性的力量，它需要的是一种微动力。这个微动力为什么是重要的？因为，在过去，少 数人跟大多数民众之间，中间的联系是断裂的，总会有一些少数的动力特别充足的人，他们会推动某个事情的前进，但是他们永远搞不清楚的是，“为什么大众总是 不关心我们所做的事情，甚至在我们给他们争取利益的时候，大众也不关心”。而大众通常会觉得这些少数动力十足的人，他们太政治化了，可能有他们自己的目的 或想法。我觉得，由于微动力的出现，会导致在这两者的断裂间架设起很多的桥梁，这就是微动力的作用。

Today’s China does not need a strong, revolutionary force. What it needs is micro-power. Why is micro-power important? This is because, in the past, there was a disconnect between the minority and the majority. The politically active minority always pushes forward real change, but what they find it difficult to understand is, ‘why is the mass always unconcerned about what we are doing, even when we are fighting for their benefits?’ On the other hand, the majority thinks of this active minority as too politicized, perhaps with their own agenda. I think that the presence of micro-power creates many bridges between the two disconnected groups. This is the role of micro-power.

Revolutionary vs. transformative

当下的中国，如果我们有一些公民的行动，或者用更大的词，我们有一些社会运动，那我觉得，它的功能或者效果不是 revolutionary，就是它不是革命性的，但是，它可能是transformative[渐变的]。等于说，它会推动中国社会缓慢地沿着一个长线 的道路前进，比如让所有的中国人享有更多的尊严，能够在一个更加公平的社会环境下生活。我觉得，它会推动社会向这个方面有一个很缓慢的转变。所以，可能很 多人期待的是，我们有没有可能有一个一夜之间的变化。鲁迅很早就说得很清楚，在中国搬一张桌子都是要流血的。其实，中国的任何事情都不会有很快的变化，都 是一个缓慢的变化。那么，在这个意义上来讲，这种微博政治或者围观政治还有一个很大的好处，就是它会锻炼我们的精神。我那时候经常引用朱学勤的话，他说 “纵使十年不将军，却无一日不拱卒”，就是不要期待很容易就将军了，但是要日复一日的拱卒，这种精神恰好是很多中国人比较欠缺的东西。大家习惯于速成，习 惯于走捷径。西方有一个谚语说，捷径其实是最远的道路。那就是说，我们特别欠缺就是耐心对峙、长期渐进的一种韧性的战斗。而我觉得，凡是期待迅速变化的人 会失望，但是，这一次一次的过程，其实在告诉我们，在中国人当中培养这样一种精神，这种精神最终能够改变现在很多不良的政治和社会。

I think that the effect of citizen actions or even social movements in today’s China is not revolutionary, but transformative. It will propel China through a long path of improvements, like more dignity for individuals or a fairer society. It will go along this path slowly. Perhaps many people expect changes overnight. But as Lu Xun pointed out long ago, change in China does not come easily – this was a place where even moving a table will almost always end in bloodshed. From this point of view, microblogging or onlooking has an immense benefit – it refines our spirit. I used to quote Zhu Xueqin, ‘we may not be delivering checkmate in ten years, but we waste not a single day advancing our troops.’ Don’t expect an easy checkmate, but advancing step by step. This spirit is what most Chinese are lacking. We are used to shortcuts and accelerations. There is a good saying, ‘a shortcut is the longest distance between two points.’ In other words, we lack patience and a progressive, tough fighting spirit. Those who expect sudden changes will be disappointed. But, one incident after another, this process will develop our spirit, and this spirit will correct the defects of our politics and society.

Written by Andy Yee
Posted 13 January 2011

http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/01/04/9399/

Content » Media Dictionary

The Surrounding Gaze 围观

The “surrounding gaze” is the notion, rooted in modern Chinese literature and culture, of crowds of people gathering around some kind of public spectacle. Related to Lu Xun’s notion of kanke wenhua (看客文化), a term the writer used to describe the cultural phenomenon of Chinese who would look on blankly, with cold indifference, as their fellows were dragged off for execution or subjected to other injustices, the “surrounding gaze” has taken on a new and different meaning in the Internet age. The term can now point to the social and political possibilities of new communications technologies, such as the Internet and the microblog, which might, say some, promote change by gathering public opinion around certain issues and events.

The term wei guan can refer to the larger phenomenon of the “surrounding gaze,” including its pejorative sense, but also often refers to its positive or potential dimension as concentrated public opinion. The term “online surrounding gaze,” or wangluo wei guan (网络围观), is also commonly used today.

In an interview with CMP fellow and Peking University professor Hu Yong (胡泳) posted in January 2011, blogger Xiao Mi (小米) addressed the issue of “the surrounding gaze,” and its historical roots and importance. Here is a translated portion of Hu Yong’s response:

Xiao Mi: So exactly where does the idea of “the surrounding gaze,” or wei guan (围观), come from?

Hu Yong: Lu Xun once expressed extreme concern over the coldness and indifference of Chinese, and “the culture of the gaze”, or kanke wenhua (看客文化), which he chose as an expression for this coldness and indifference. [NOTE: In his short story Medicine (药), Lu Xun wrote about the "culture of the gaze," referring to the crowds of ordinary Chinese who craned their necks to dumbly watch the spectacle of the beheading of revolutionaries who had fought for the freedom of these same people]. When, though, did this idea (of the surrounding gaze) take on such a strongly positive meaning? The change in [the import of] this expression stems from this technology age in which we now find ourselves. It stems in large part from the age of the Internet. Put another way, there has been some evolution of the surrounding gaze in the era of Internet. In the process of this evolution what might be called “the politics of the surrounding gaze” has emerged.

Xiao Mi: Has the surrounding gaze brought change to the distribution of so-called discourse power in China?

Hu Yong: I want to stress the point that the surrounding gaze is a kind of minimal (or “bottom-line”) form of public participation (公共参与). In fact, it is very far from the process of reaching consensus through participation, or reaching the stage of policy-making and action through consensus. So, if we hold the simplistic view that by means of the surrounding gaze we can change China, this is most definitely based on a naive reading of the Chinese situation. On the other hand, we cannot for these same reasons make the mistake of underestimating the importance of the surrounding gaze online (网络围观). This is because it has lowered the threshold for action, making it possible for many people to express their positions and their demands, and these positions and demands, though small, add up to a great deal (积少成多). Taken together, they can make for a formidable show of public opinion. And there is another important aspect of the surrounding gaze. And that is that the so-called surrounding gaze enables us to see those standing across from us, and this mutual seeing is also very important.

Organized strength without organization rests on the micro-forces (微动力) arising from the voluntary engagement of masses of people (是大量人群自愿形成的微动力). Change in China today does not require a powerful revolutionary force of some kind — what it requires are this kind of micro-forces. Why are these micro-forces important? Because in the past the relationship between the many to the few was fractured. There were always small numbers of people vested with an abundance of force who advanced certain matters or causes [NOTE: such as the revolutionaries in Lu Xun's Medicine]. But what these [energetic minorities] could never figure out was why the vast majority of people cared so little about what they were doing, even when they were fighting on behalf of this majority. And the majority would often believe that these energetic minorities were too political in their outlook, and suspect that they had their own agendas. In my view, the emergence of micro-forces will serve to build bridges across this fracture between the two sides, and this is one function micro-forces have.