Microblog vs Macroblock
Posted on December 1, 2011 | posted by:
In the late last year, 37 year old Chinese novelist- Murong Xuecun, pen name of Hao Qun, attended a ceremony for collecting his first literary prize in China; he carried a sheet of paper with some of the most incendiary words he had ever written. “Chinese writing exhibits symptoms of a mental disorder,” he planned to say. “This is castrated writing.
I am a proactive eunuch, I castrate myself even before the surgeon raises his scalpel.” The ceremony’s organizers forbade him to deliver the speech. On stage, Mr. Murong made a zipping motion across his mouth and left without a word. He then did with the speech the same thing he had done with three of his best-selling novels, all of which had gone through a harsh censorship process: He posted the “unexpurgated text” on the Internet. Fans flocked to it. (New York Times, published: Nov 6, 2011, by Edward Wong) By looking at this, people from democratic countries, for example, Americans, might think that it is like happening in a comedy scene, or might not even understand how a person can forbid someone to deliver a speech? The freedom of speech is like a treasure to Chinese people, they try very hard to find a place for this and protect it. So do you know what they do if they are not lucky enough to be born with the freedom of speech??
Pushing China’s Limits on Web, if Not on Paper
Media is a very important public medium that should have justice and principle to deliver information honestly and transparently, which is totally relates to the civilization of the country. However, Chinese people mistrust their mainstream medias, including TV and publications that distribute information about inequality, corruption, protesting, failure of policy and system happened in the country are listed as sensitive issues, which might either be hidden or shown partially. This means that Chinese people cannot interpret the truth of the country from mainstream medias as we do in America. Chinese government concerns on the flow and variety of information in a way that they do not want any opposition from the citizens, and some people have been jailed for spreading words that badmouth the government. Perhaps the Chinese government is still under the shadow of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest (the demonstration generated 100,000 students participants from all over the country; at the end, the government stopped them with military action causing massive deaths). Despite the fact that there are obstacles for Chinese people to know the real world from mainstream medias, Internet social media provides a freer platform for people to communicate.
The Chinese version of Twitter- Weibo (Microblog, by Sina.com) has 140 million users, and they are mostly young people. The size of this market is an obvious reason American Internet companies like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube want to get into China, but they are not allowed. From the speech “The generation that’s remaking China” of Yang Lan (journalist) in Ted.com, she reveals that reasons for blogging of youngsters are emotional self expression, recording of life, share information and ideas, and relaxation. These kinds of general behaviors are already common on Microblog. But in Microblog, there are also emerging behaviors growing, due to the over- censorship in medias in China.
Microbloggers use social networks for social justice and government accountability, for example, in the cases of forced evictions and demolition of housing. Microblog allow people to express freely what mainstream medias cannot achieve. Also, it has transparency for people to see anyone’s post without the permission from the poster. It seems to be created the opposite value to the real society of China. The number of bloggers keeps growing dramatically and currently plays an important role for revealing truths of the critical issues, such as, the hidden problems in 2008 Sichuan earthquake and 2011 train crash in Wenzhou. These consequences reflect the power of the netizens (Internet citizens) discussing on blog, and the speed of the internet allows users to spread issues before they set censored and deleted, subsequently, it is powerful enough to force the government to confront the problems and respond to the citizens.
Despite the fact that China has spy censors on Internet deleting sensitive words and topics, netizens are smart enough to evolve the language they use to avoid getting caught. In the Chinese language, some words share similar sounds, which can imply different meanings and metaphors. For example, the “Central Committee of Communist party of China”, the Chinese pronunciation is Dang Zhong Yang, rather netizen would write, “Covering the middle part”, which pronounce the same. This becomes a grey zone for sensitive criticisms. Apart from rhetorical criticisms, netizens functionalize the Internet community to be a criminal investigation search engine that is called “Human flesh search engine” in Chinese. It has helped reunite a missing child with his family and rescue dogs from food processing.
Microblogs, originated as a social network to facilitate self expression, friends meeting, life recording and idea sharing platform, now it has become a bottom up political power in China; new forms of behavior will keep developing and evolving into different areas. As businesses have begun to investigate into their behaviors and needs. American companies have not given up to enter China. Groupon, the online coupon giant, recently formed alliance with Tencent, China’s biggest Internet company. And last December, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, visited Beijing and toured the offices of Sina and Baidu, China’s huge online search engine. Facebook has dismissed rumors that it plans to enter China by teaming up with Baidu. Company executives have said only that they are exploring a way to enter China. Therefore, accepting foreign Internet social network company will become the signal of liberty of media in China.