Changing public opinion—a study of the impact of Sina Weibo on the formation of public opinion in Mainland China Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1. Background Public opinion, as a key notion of Habermas (1989)’ Public Sphere Theory, refers to a collective consensus view about social issues. As the generation of public opinion entails acquiring information about the society, the new channels of communication brought by computer-mediated technological innovations today have to a large extent transformed the way the public gain information, discuss common issues and hence the way public opinion is formed. Among these new channels, social media have attracted numerous scholars to examine their impacts on the democratisation of society. While the use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube become increasingly prevalent in most part of the world, Mainland China is a typical exception where the access to western social media is blocked since 2009 (Sullivan, 2012). Instead, media corporations in China developed their own social media, which claim to follow the rule of the Chinese information regulation. Launched in 2009, Sina Weibo has become the most popular micro-blogging site in Mainland China, with its number of users exceeding 500 million by the end of 2012 (ChinaDaily, 2013). It has been increasingly utilised by the Chinese netizens as a tool to spread information and discuss social issues. 1.2. Research Questions and Hypothesis This dissertation attempts to explore what influences Sina Weibo has brought to the formation of public opinion in Mainland China. It aims to test the hypothesis that although Sina Weibo functions in restrictive economic and political background in Mainland China, freedom of choosing the style of... ... middle of paper ... ...ere and Beyond. In Chadwick, A. and Howard, P. (Eds.) Handbook of Internet Politics (pp. 230-145). London: Routledge. Qiang, X. (2011). The Rise of Online Public Opinion and Its Political Impact. In Shirk, S. L. (Ed.) Changing Media, Changing China. (pp. 202-224). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schroder, K. C. (2002). Mediated Fiction. In Jensen, K. B. (Ed.) A Handbook of Media and Communication Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies (pp. 98-116). London and New York: Routledge. Sullivan, J. (2012). A Tale of Two Microblogs in China. In Media, Culture & Society. 34 (6), 773-783. DOI: 10.1177/0163443712448951. Sullivan, J. (2013). China’s Weibo: Is Faster Different?. In Media, Culture & Society. 16 (1), 24-37. DOI: 10.1177/1461444812472966. Yu, L., Asur, S. & Huberman, B. A. (2011). What Trends in Chinese Social Media. DOI:10.2139/ssrn.1888779.
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The internet is a place where people can freely express their political or other views for people to see. A recent study, Freedom of Net, by the activist group Freedom House shows both the immense censorship of information around the world and the declining freedom of information around the world, “Two-thirds of all internet users, 67 per cent, live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family are subject to censorship” (APF & Bell). The report by Freedom House digs into the censorship of government criticism, military criticism, and negative views on the ruling family in two thirds of countries studied in the report with governments around the world are silencing the voices of people and their publications. By censoring the people's voices, the governments are able to control the population and their views on not only their own government, but also countries around the world. Governments around the world are stepping up their censorship of public information posted on social media by taking actions to suppress the publications before they even begin. The report by Freedom House shares how police around the world are arresting and punishing those who have taken to social media to complain about a topic that makes the country look bad. The report states: “Social media users face unprecedented penalties, as authorities in 38 countries made
In the current time, it seems like one cannot go a day without using at least one social media website. This might be especially true among groups of teenagers and young adults. Social media became a vital part of daily life that feeds people with several types of information constantly. Political news is a type of information that can reach the people through the means of social media. Since presidents are constantly seeking new strategies to increase their communication with the public in order to spread their political message, they utilize the different social media websites. Hence, social media became a platform to spread political message. It is not surprising that now the majority of political officials and candidates have social media accounts more than ever before, such as a Twitter account.
Evgeny Morozov’s article “Think again: The Internet” describes the expectations people had about the Internet when it first emerged. People expected the Internet to bring a new era of world peace and to shatter the world’s borders. In the author’s eyes, the actual transformation the Internet brought to the world was the simplification of communication, which is available to almost everyone and the emergence of online shopping. His opinion of the Internet is generally negative; he thinks that it is promoting national borders (his example is the access to free books in Norway, which is only available to people residing in Norway, because it is sponsored by the government), which he calls “Splinternet” (Morozov, E. 2010), and that is is killing foreign news due to cutbacks on foreign correspondents.
Howard, P. N., & Hussain, M. M. (2011). The role of digital media. Journal of Democracy, 22(3), 35-
The Beijing Olympics was a glorious display of Chinese culture. Since The Communist Party of China is the singular ruling party in China, the media is controlled by the state. Therefore, the influx of international media to the Chinese platform throughout the Beijing Olympics was expected to highlight the social injustices that exist in the totalitarian state. Throughout history, international media, and the political protection that it possesses, has allowed a stifled society a voice to protest against the controlling state. But surprisingly, the Chinese people didn’t use the media as an outlet to remonstrate,
Presently, two hundred million users send upward of 140 million messages per day, 140-character musings studded with misspellings, slang, and abbreviations. Moreover, it includes harsh truths, memes and also lies. But it has become the most important public sphere for a global, inclusive audience. Therefore, social media sphere like twitter that has often been discredited or not valued as real public engagement has actually transformed itself into the most global, inclusive public sphere where the public is able to engage — whether truthfully or not — and to become more aware and reflective. The public informs the state and especially in a situation where the public is as polarized as in the case of the 2016 American elections, social media especially twitter can be a tool by which the public can still engage with each other to be better
Throughout history, the use of information censorship, usually by control of the press, has been common. Though not common in the new digital age, this form of censorship still occurs. Countries, such as China,Russia, and North Korea, use this prolifically in order to keep its people ignorant of the ruling party’s short falls(Chang 30 ). China, for example, has become politically famous for its iron grip on any type of journalistic media. To enact this type of political blackout, the government had to create a specific government department aptly named, the department of publicity. This department, at first, only censored articles that it believed would incite riots or insurgents against the government. Over time, specifically during the 1990s and into the 2000s, this agency began to censor any type of political backlash. This increased grip on the media has been directly proportionate to Jiang Zemin being enacted into the office of general secretary of the communist party (Chang 30). Zemin, with the help of department of publicity director Ding Guangen, ...
[18] Websites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation and wikis are among the different types of social media. Social media is interactive in nature. In last ten to fifteen years, the growing number of social media has made its impact felt to all over the world. Issues of corruption, social injustice, human rights, political dissatisfaction, economic issues, inequality, partiality, biases etc. are global issues being raised and discussed on social media. Arab revolution is latest and big win of social media impact. Protests in Iraq, Syria, Asia, America, China, Romania and so on are examples of online activism on social media. The Arab Spring demonstrates the use of social media to effectively inform the public in the country or outside the country and to organize in times when most of the media are under control or censorship (Allagui & Kuebler,2011). [19] Research on the use of ICT for activism and protests online on social media situates itself at the intersection between social context, political purpose and technological possibility (Gillian et al., 2008). [20] Social movement and activism is a social process in which mass or masses display their interests, say loudly their grievances and criticism and ask for solution or suggest. Then
Besides the global and local trend of using social media, it is also worth noting that the increase in social media use comes from the unique characteristic of Vietnam’s traditional media publications.
The provocative messages in his feed support his campaign for a free and civilized Chinese society. In China, Weiwei has spent time in jail, and was not allowed by the government to leave Beijing for a year. He now cannot travel without official permission; however, Weiwei is able to use the Internet to a certain degree to circumvent authorities. As a result, he has become a symbol of the struggle for human rights in China. He uses any medium – sculpture, ready-mades, photography, performance, architecture, blogs, and especially tweets – to deliver his message. He utilizes the Internet to open up the doors to his audiences. Weiwei tweets messages in regards to the brutal treatment enforced by Chinese officers. His tweets prompt his following activists to engage in this revolutionary dialogue. These followers pledge their allegiance to the cultural movement via Twitter. Such massive feedback turned into a social media flood, causing the controversy over Chinese law officials to become viral. In this context, entertainment can serve as a unifying force to pull together social media users around a particular issue or ideal. Moreover, the identity work involved in social media activity can incentivize associations with positive political causes.
The new media, namely Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, with online blogs and mobile telecommunications, played a significant role as the politics of connectivity, which connect, coordinate and communicate the protestors. Labeled as “Twitter Revolution” or “Facebook Revolution”, the new media to some extent engaged in the Arab Spring uprisings.
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Safranek, Rita. 2012. The Emerging Role of Social Media in Political and Regime Change. s.l. : Proquest, 2012.
Social media can impact a life of an individual at many levels. On social media, each individual has the power to be influential and important. There is a freedom of expression on soci...