Chinese Internet Events

Wang luo shi jian 网络事件

Working Paper Submitted July 2010 to

The Internet in China: Online business, information, distribution, and social connectivity

Berkshire Publishing Group (coming in 2011)

| Please Do Not Cite Without Permission from Author |

| Comments Are Welcome |

Min Jiang (Ph.D. Purdue)

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies

Colvard North 5011, UNC-Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223

E-mail: Min.Jiang@uncc.edu

Telephone: 1-704-687-2826
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Abstract

Internet events refer to public events where large numbers of netizens participate in often

unorganized, autonomous online efforts to express their sentiments and opinions, address

collective needs, or influence public opinion and policy. In an authoritarian country of

420 million Internet users and 200 million bloggers, Internet events occur often and have

the potential to rally public opinion, pressure government, and reshape China’s public life.

The article outlines the major actors (who), issues (what), causes (why), places (where),

and mobilization (how) of Chinese Internet events.

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Chinese Internet Events

Wang luo shi jian 网络事件

Internet events refer to public events where large numbers of netizens participate in often

unorganized, autonomous online efforts to express their sentiments and opinions, address

collective needs, or influence public opinion and policy. The popularity of Internet events,

otherwise known as new media events, online public incidents, or online collective

incidents in China (Qiu & Chen 2009), has grown considerably over the last decade that

parallels the rise of online public opinion and the surge of Internet population in China.

In an authoritarian country of 420 million Internet users and 200 million bloggers

(CNNIC, 2010; SCIO 2010), Internet events occur often as netizens seek alternative

information, channels of expression, and means of mobilization. The legendary case of

Sun Zhigang in 2003 symbolizes for many the power of Chinese public opinion as

hundreds of thousands of netizens reacted to the death of the 27-year-old in police

custody detained for failing to carry proper identification papers. Online fury and

sympathy eventually resulted in the abolition of the “Custody and Repatriation” system.

Although few Internet events produced victorious institutional changes as did the

Sun Zhigang case, they have left indelible marks on public consciousness and remained

part of public memory. In fact, Internet events are such an indispensible part of Chinese

Internet that the government and web companies have been polling netizens on the most

influential events in the past few years to gauge public opinion. The latest poll, conducted

jointly by 15 influential Chinese mainstream Internet companies, attracted more than 90

million netizen votes, carrying Eluding the Cat to the top (People’s Daily 2010a). This
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article outlines the major actors (who), issues (what), causes (why), places (where), and

mobilization (how) of Chinese Internet events.

Who: Netizens as New Broadcasters and Agenda Setters

Historically media events are conceived as live broadcasting of momentous events by

mass media organizations that have a profound impact on audience experiences and

knowledge (Dayan & Katz 1992). With the ever expanding use of the Internet and digital

devices, however, the means of reporting are increasingly in the hands of common people

to produce new media events (Qiu & Chen 2009) and reshape public life.

Chinese netizens actively participate in the consumption, sharing, and production

of Internet events as state-dominated mainstream media often fail to cover certain events

for fear of triggering public anger and social unrest. In particular, a small number of

citizen journalists have taken upon the task of collecting and distributing news of public

interest. Zola (nickname of prominent Chinese citizen journalist Zhou Shuguang), for

instance, became known for his online coverage of the “coolest nail house” story that

exposed the plight of two Sichuan home owners in defiance of wealthy developers.

Besides the growth of citizen journalism that uncovers and amplifies public voices, many

Chinese journalists who work for state media now blog, under real or pseudo names, and

manage to publish stories otherwise censored by official news outlets (MacKinnon 2008).

Joining these watchdogs and muckrakers are hundreds of millions of Chinese

netizens who actively seek information and post comments. It is reported 66 percent of

Chinese netizens frequently post comments via various news websites, BBS forums, and

real-time online chats (SCIO 2010), making Chinese Internet a space of rising cacophony

(Hu 2008) where controversial issues can rise to the top and become prominent Internet
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events. The State Online Public Opinion Monitor Office (People’s Daily 2009b) reported

in 2009, 23 out of 77 influential social issues emerged from online to set public agenda.

What: Issue Types of Internet Events

Chinese Internet events cover a wide range of issues. Yang (2009) divides such events

into seven major categories: 1) popular nationalism, 2) rights defense, 3) corruption and

power abuse, 4) environment, 5) cultural contention, 6) muckraking, and 7) online charity.

Further, rights defense issues often involve vulnerable persons, homeowners, and forced

relocation. Qiu & Chen (2009), in a similar manner, identified four major types of issues:

nationalism, rights defense, morals and privacy, and abuse of power. A greater deal of

overlapping exists between different types. For instance, rights defense cases are often

intertwined with power abuse, such as the Sun Zhigang case.

Although many Internet events are contentious (Yang 2009), others do not have

any apparent reference to conflict or power struggle. For example, “Jia Junpeng, your

mother wants you to go home to eat” is a post left at Baidu Post Bar in the World of

Warcraft online game section around 11AM on July 16, 2009. It became an instant hit,

attracting almost 400,000 views and 17,000 comments within six hours. Anonymous and

nonsensical, the post channeled gamers’ frustration at web portal Netease’s delay in

resuming its gaming service as well as a sense of belonging and play. Many other Internet

events, centered on such issues as pornography, extramarital affairs, and plagiarism,

convey netizens’ yearnings for morals and values in a fast changing Chinese society.

Overall, Internet events reflect an overwhelming public concern over rights

defense and power abuse (Wang & Fang 2009). For instance, among the ten most popular

Internet events in 2009 (People’s Daily 2010b), eight directly question authority and
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evoke sympathy for the underprivileged. Rights defense has also moved from a focus on

the individual to the collective. Online public opinion, for example, vehemently defended

Deng Yujiao, a young waitress who stabbed and injured local officials approaching her

for sexual favors. Public pressure not only kept Deng from prison terms, but also helped

diffuse the state’s plan in 2009 to install Green Dam Youth Escort software on all

computers sold in China intended to collect user data and filter content beyond the

proclaimed pornographic websites harmful to minors (BBC 2009).

Why: The Causes of Internet Events

Despite the variety of issue types, the causes of Internet events, most believe, can be

located in offline public sentiments, concerns, and demands. As an amplifier, not a mere

reflection, of the hopes and fears in our society, the Internet mediates the real and the

virtual, reinforcing existing relationships and institutions (Agre 2002). If the previous

analysis of issue types such as rights defense and clashing moral values is indicative of

the specific kinds of reasons that trigger various Internet events, one may uncover deeper

societal roots of these events when viewing them collectively.

Chinese Internet events differ from those in other societies, partially because the

social forces that bring them about are distinctive. Yu (2009) observes that contemporary

Chinese society is characterized by social fracture and a deep resentment of the rich and

powerful as it transitions from a socialist economy to one dominated by crony capitalism

(Huang 2008). This social chasm and rancor are intricately related to societal-wide

structural problems such as widening income gap, unequal distribution of resources,

rampant corruption as well as changing morals, values and ethics. Specific social issues

like land seizure, forced relocation, pollution, legal injustice, and restructuring of state-
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owned enterprises, when handled inappropriately, may trigger social confrontations that

sometimes take more destructive forms like social venting and riots (Yu 2009).

Previously private domains such as family, sexuality, and marriage also start to take on a

carnivalesque quality when making their way online.

Public participation in environmental protection, for example, is seen as pivotal in

halting the construction of a controversial petrochemical project worth $1.6 billion near

Xiamen, Fujian Province in 2007. Informed by both traditional and online media,

particularly SMS, over 10,000 residents marched peacefully through the city, or “took a

stroll” as locals prefer to call it, to protest the project hazardous to public health and

environment. On the other hand, public curiosity and voyeurism made Sexy Photo Gate

Scandal, involving the online leakage and spread of nude photos of HK pop star Edison

Chen and his girlfriends, the biggest Internet specter in 2008 (Song 2008).

Where: The Virtual and Real of Internet Events

Although most agree Internet events are driven by what happens offline, there is little

agreement on how to differentiate the deeply intertwined real and virtual aspects of such

events in order to determine the role played by the Web. Three types of Internet events

can be discerned based on how the real and virtual interact: 1) those events that take place

online only, 2) offline events amplified by the Internet, and 3) a hybrid of the first two.

Some events (e.g. Jia Junpeng case) remain solely in the virtual space. Others are

amplified by the Internet. The sudden collapse of a shoddy condo building in Shanghai in

2009 attracted the public gaze. As dramatic pictures of the debris made rounds on various

sites, netizens rigorously debated hot button issues of housing markets, building quality,

and public safety. The hybrid type, however, may be less common as an incident must be
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instantly amplified through the Internet as it unfolds. But the arrival of mobile blogging

made it more likely. While speaking at a public lecture at Peking University in June 2010,

Li Baozhu, a propaganda official proudly announced “with a wave of my hand, tens of

millions of posts about the Deng Yujiao incident were all deleted” (China Digital Times

2010). The comment, accompanied by live pictures, was quickly circulated via

microblogging before being taken down by commercial portals soon afterward. With

deeper integration of the mobile web into everyday life, Chinese netizens are more likely

to document and magnify anything they find provocative, scandalous, and intriguing.

How: Mobilization of Internet Events

Regardless of where an event occurs first, online or offline, an Internet event gains

momentum through various means of mobilization including resources, discourses, and

emotions. Besides financial backing, organizational structure, institutional norms,

resources utilized in social activism increasingly include cheaper and more ubiquitous

information and communication technologies (ICTs). It is well recognized that ICTs such

as mobile phones and social networks could help lower the barrier to participation,

facilitate group formation, identity construction, and increase the speed of collective

action (Shirky 2008). It is also observed by the less optimistic (e.g. Goldsmith & Wu

2006; Morozov 2009) that the more resourceful government and business institutions,

which have been strengthened by the same technologies, could produce more bane than

boon. Many authoritarian states including China have marshaled technological, legal, and

social resources to control, filter, and suppress, if necessary, Internet events or activities

deemed harmful to their rule (Deibert et al. 2010). The well-known Great Firewall of

China (GFW) is the epitome of state resource mobilization.

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It would be inaccurate, however, to cast the mobilization of Internet events in

direct opposition to the authoritarian state. An examination of Internet events discourse

will quickly reveal that some events (e.g. Anti-CNN movement in response to Western

media’s biased coverage of Tibet unrest and Beijing Olympics in 2008) support the state

out of popular nationalism. Many others are directed at specific individuals and local

governments instead of the state. Increasingly the government is taking an active role to

guide, shape, and forge online public opinion to increase its legitimacy in a process

dubbed “authoritarian deliberation” (Jiang 2010). Thus frame analysis, the definition and

construction of a public issue or controversy, is key in revealing how the parties involved

in an Internet event mobilize through “contentious conversations” to define and frame the

issues in question. The Deng Yujiao case acutely demonstrates, for instance, how Deng is

viewed by the public, not as a murderer, but rather as a symbol of the powerless before

corrupt and immoral officials wielding wealth and influence.

Such framing, however, would be ineffective if not for the emotional mobilization

of netizens through joy, anger, sadness, sympathy, parody, and humor (Yang 2009). Nor

would it be possible without a growing netizen culture of participation often mobilized by

the ebbs and flows of these emotions. Traditional means of mobilization through rational

discussion and persuasion may sometimes have limited utility in online events whereas

the employment of human emotions can be more engaging and compelling. Moreover,

emotions can be gained and spent monetarily. Emotions matter not only to netizens but

also to commercial websites which profit from online traffic and attention. Emotions, as a

part of fundamental human expressions, thus should not be dismissed as purely irrational,

biased, or even dangerous that need to be monitored, managed, and contained.

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Chinese Internet Events: Summary

The popularity of Internet events in China is attributable, at least partially, to the

unprecedented growth of Internet use in China that affords netizens with the tools and

spaces to engage in information exchange, online discourse, and collective actions.

Netizens participate in agenda setting on a wide range of issues to reshape public life via

online and offline channels. The Internet, while amplifying public voices in an age of

radical sociopolitical transformation in China, has also strengthened the state’s

monitoring, filtering, and regulatory capabilities. The complexity of Internet events

however cannot be reduced to a simple zero-sum game between the state and the

individual or between the state and an emergent civil society. The mosaic composition of

Chinese society simply defies linear answers.

Instead, it should be noted, for those interested in Chinese Internet or China’s

sociopolitical future, that the impact of such events on individuals and the Chinese

society at large is far from clear or straightforward. Of the various topics swarming

through Chinese Internet, very few could rise to visibility, create powerful social impact,

let alone instigate institutional change (Wang & Fang 2009). Online discussions on a

given public issue can rarely sustain over time, partially because they hardly produce

immediate, palpable change in public institutions or decision making. Regular exposure

to increasingly dramatic Internet events in the public space may even create emotional

fatigue on the part of spectators and participants.

Despite being sporadic, often inconsequential, Internet events may be exerting an

incremental yet profound influence on the individual psyche and social mentality over

time. For instance, how do Chinese netizens react to Internet events, particularly the ones
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demanding social and institutional change? How do their attitudes evolve? Do they

choose to participate in public affairs? In what ways? On the other hand, how do Chinese

cyber activists and their communities evolve? How do they mobilize their resources,

sustain their activities, negotiate with government institutions, and engage the average

netizens? The consequences of Internet events and cyber activism in China should be

studied in greater depth and at greater length in the future.

In addition, government’s response to the regular occurrence of Internet events

should command some attention. Viewed by Chinese authorities as something more than

conduits of public sentiments, demands, and opinions, Internet events are increasingly

seen by the authority as unstable, dangerous, rupture-prone, and thus need to be

monitored, contained, and diffused (Zhu 2009). The past few years have witnessed not

only the mobilization of government resources to rein in Internet events, but also a

growing bureaucratic consensus that favors tighter Internet control (SCIO, 2010). It will

be of interest to see if the central government will take the initiative to build more

effective channels for public participation in local and national public affairs and address

the underlying structural issues of governance in a rapidly changing Chinese society.

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