THE LESS EXPECTED: AN EXPLORATION OF THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES ON THE INTERNET IN CHINA

(draft)

Boxu YANG, Yuan LE, and Shanshan AN New Media Research Laboratory, Centre for Creative Industries Studies, Peking University

byang@pku.edu.cn, leyuansummer@gmail.com, anshanshan@gmail.com

Abstract A considerable amount of attention has been paid to the “Great Fire Wall” and other issues related to the Internet censorship in China. While studies and essays as such are significant, they are more or less underestimating the capacity of e-agents in light of the technological nature of the Internet and the power of the market. Our mapping indicates that the Chinese Internet users are able to not only make friends national and international wide through the Chinese versions of Facebook but also openly discuss and debate some extremely sensitive issues in the groups or communities they voluntarily constructed online by means of the internet platforms such as QQ groups (a group chat software) and BBS forums. By “extremely sensitive issues”, we mean social and political matters that have been monopolized and controlled by the power elite.

Keywords Chinese Internet, blog, podcast, SNS, BBS, QQ group

1 INTRODUCTION China has been experiencing a remarkable diffusion rate of Internet uses for the past decade. According to CNNIC Statistics [1], by the end of December 2008, the number of Chinese internet users had reached 298 million and surpassed US leaping to the first place in the world. Compared with that in December 2007, the number of Chinese Internet users has grown 41.9%, and the Internet penetration rate had reached 22.6%, which is slightly higher than the global average rate 21.9%. In the discussion of such rapid development, a considerable amount of attention has been paid to the “Great Fire Wall” and other issues related to the Internet censorship in China. While studies and essays as such are significant, they are more or less underestimating the capacity of e-agents in light of the technological nature of the Internet and the power of market.

In this paper, we try to roughly sketch a picture of social and political activities on the Internet, and argue that the Chinese Internet users are able to not only make friends national and international wide through the Chinese versions of Facebook but also openly discuss and debate some extremely sensitive issues in the groups or communities they voluntarily constructed online by means of the Internet platforms such as blog, podcast, BBS forums and QQ groups (a group chat software). By “extremely sensitive issues”, we mean social and political matters that have been monopolized and controlled by the power elite.

The purpose of our discussion is to give a more balanced picture on the use of the Internet in China. In doing so, we emphasize the power of Internet users and demonstrate their ingenuities in terms of voicing their opinions on various issues and networking beyond their blood and kinship related ties as e-agents. The empowerment of Internet platforms is illustrated and its implications are briefly explored.

2 BLOG: THE RISE OF PERSONAL EXPRESSION Despite the censorship concerned, the Internet, as a medium of communication, has flourished in China. It has become more and more platforms of enabling users to share information and generate creative content on the web especially since the Web 2.0 technology was adopted. Blogs are one of the major platforms. It is a platform that allows everyone who is able to access the Internet and create contents with minimum restrictions. The contents are self-expressive and public in nature by and large so that they may be shared by other users. While it may not be unusual for an ordinary person to speak in public in some other societies, it is entirely a new venture and exciting experience for the Chinese. Blog websites or channels provide such public spaces for Chinese

bloggers. The Chinese users seized the opportunities and started their blogs or spaces in a remarkable speed. While the government enjoys the ability to censor and tries to make a limited public space, the users are able to conceal their real name or personal identities to a large degree when they do blog. The table below shows the comparative use rate of blogs in recent two years.

End of 2007 End of 2008 Change

Use rate Size Use rate Size Increment Growth rate

Owning blog - - 54.3% 162,000,000 - -

Updating blog 23.5% 49,000,000 35.2% 105,000,000 56,000,000 114.3%

Source: CNNIC http://www.cnnic.net.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/1/13/92458.pdf 01-11-2009

Table 1: Use rate of online community

According to the CNNIC statistics [2], by the end of 2008, the number of Chinese blog users had reached 162 million, which means 54.3% of Chinese Internet users possess at least one blog or personal space, and the number of active bloggers has reached 105 million. The rapid growth of blog users seem reflecting the fact that the business sector has great expectations on the significance of economic value of blog and tried to attract as many users as possible. This includes allowing the users to turn the platform into a space where they establish their virtual identities by expressing and sharing what they really enjoy, concerned or appreciated with individuality and creativity. This is possible also because self expressing is of an inherent nature of blogging. According to the analysis of Report on Chinese Blog Survey in 2007 released by CNNIC [3], there are about 47% of bloggers posting their innermost emotions and instant feelings, and over 41% of bloggers share their personal life with other users through the platform. That is, near half of the bloggers opens up to the others. This is very significant to a society as traditional as the Chinese one for the social properties such as trust and loyalty are rarely delegated to none blood and kinship ties.

Blogging in China indicates not only the rise of personal expression, but also the increase of civic engagement on the Internet. Furthermore, according to statistics [4], there are 10% of Chinese bloggers writing comments on social and political events or issues. While it is hard to say that it is already a blogosphere in China, it is safe to argue that some of those political and social events or issues connect the blogs as a community. Its social meaning is related to grassroots democracy and public opinion [5]. As Michael Keren argues in his book Blogosphere: The New Political Arena, the nature of “blogosphere” is the virtual public arena which alters the traditional world of media and politics [6]. Thus, although there are many voices criticizing Chinese online censorship, the question of how do individual bloggers participate in social and political discussion in everyday life seems to deserve more attention. The following are some of the examples on self expression and social participation in blogosphere.

Blog Channel in Portals: blog.sina.com.cn

According to iResearch ranking [7], blog.sina.com.cn which belongs to the portal websites sina.com.cn, provide one of the largest blog platforms in China, and is also considered to be the most influential online blogosphere for its high click rate of many celebrities’ blogs. The figure below is the screenshot of blog.sina.com.cn on January 17, 2009.

Time: 16:16, January 17, 2009

Figure1: Homepage of blog.sina.com.cn

We can see from the figure above, the headline of blog channel on January 17, 2009 is the article titled “How long will Ren Zhiqiang’s monologue continue” (Original text in Chinese) by a blogger named Niu Dao. Ren Zhiqiang is the CEO of the state-owned Huayuan Group which belongs to the State Property Management Committee of Xicheng District in Beijing. As a big real estate developer, as well as a governmental official, Ren is always criticized for his controversial claiming of providing housing for rich people only. In the face of sharp decline of real estate market this year, Ren’s insistence on high-price real estate is regarded as politically driven and sharply criticized. Related writings by bloggers on the Homepage include:

Ren Zhiqiang who supports high-price estate claimed that the rich means the more civilized people;

How civilized are the real estate developers?

Any catcall in the spot? Ren Zhiqiang only concerns the rich rather than the poor

Ren Zhiqiang’s respond: China’s current condition cannot afford the wish of “everyone has his or her own real estate.

(Original text in Chinese)

Mr. Ren becomes a target on the blogosphere for his “class consciousness” as a real estate developer and government official. Of course, the homepage of January also features blog comments or writings on various topics from “American Big Star Kobe registered a blog in SINA” to “Who represents Middle Class?” (Original text in Chinese), but homepages are subjected to agenda setting. Some of the more sensitive blog writings may be excluded from the homepage because of the government’s regulations in spite of the number of their readers. Nevertheless, agenda setting is much less relevant for interacting rather than broadcasting, which is much more prevalent in an age of Internet communication. Blogger Han Han is of a typical example.

Headline of Blog

Related discussions

Agenda of individual blog entries

Blogger: Han Han

As a young writer and racing car driver, Han Han is well known in both virtual and real world in China. He enjoys writing blogs and commenting on serious social and political issues (http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1191258123). Han Han was born in 1982 and became famous for the publication of his novel Three Gates when he was only 17 years old. Rebellious in character, Han is often portrayed by mass media as the representative of post-80s generation. As the influential Southern Metropolis Daily (Nanfang Dushi Bao) comments, Han Han and the post-80s generation he represents, have become the leading actors for change in our society. While they differ from the previous generations in many ways, their willingness to express their opinions and values make them particularly unique in China [8]. It seems so natural for them to embrace the Internet and empowered by it. According to the daily SINA statistics in the homepage of blog channel, the total click rate of Han’s blog has had reached 231,990,000 by February 5th 2009, which ranks top 1 in the uncategorized ranking broad of SINA blogs.

Han’s blog writing is consistent. That is, he always targets the government in a sharp and sarcastic style. In December 2008, China and France was in a serious dispute over the Tibet issue. Han made his opinion on the issue well known by putting his article, [We] Must Boycott French products [Bixu Dizhi Faguo Huo], on his blog on December 10, 2008 for example [9], He deliberately presented seven laughable reasons to justify the actions of boycotting French imports. It is not hard to tell that the seven reasons he gave not only make the linkage between the “patriotism” and boycotting look ridiculers but also reveal the deep political motives of Chinese government in this particular incident. One paragraph of the blog text reads as the following:

This is very important. The present government is selected by our father and grandfather's generation and therefore represents us. When our government is correct, it means we are correct, if it has face, it means we have face. If we win in this political and economic struggle, the government wins. However, if we lose, it is our mistake. The ignorant mass has been incited by a small fraction of people and triggered a wave of narrow minded nationalism. We have caused damage for our country's diplomatic relation. This provides staircase for our government to exist the stage. (Original text in Chinese)

What he was really saying is that the purpose of the boycott is to “protect our government”. The posting have been read by hundreds-thousands if not millions.

The Chinese bloggers show their photos and share their feelings with the others they may or may not know personally. Self-identities that are rarely exposed in the real world are realized in the virtual spaces. They think more or less independently and post their own opinions about past and current issues nationally and internationally with certain degree of social and political sophistication. If the posting is interesting or/and enlightening, it may be shared by millions through the inter-connective ability of the Internet. In this way, their virtual social identities are established. That is, Chinese blog users are able to function as agents in terms of social and political participation at least in the virtual space. They grow as individuals as well as a virtual community during the process.

3 PODCAST: NOT ONLY ENTERTAINMENT

Internet communications are mainly text oriented in China. While text based communication may be powerful in terms of exchanging more complicated thoughts and ideas, visual or video communication has the advantage of stimulating the senses. Thus, it becomes understandable that Chinese video-sharing websites mainly feature entertainment content and enjoy fast development particularly after the successful story of youtube. A survey conducted by Universal McCann from 2006 to 2008 indicates that there are 74% of Chinese active Internet users have at least downloaded the podcast one time comparing with 29.5% and 30% in the US and Japan respectively[10]. As Weng, the principal investigator of the survey, points out, although the diffusion of podcasting in China is lagged than that of the western countries at start, its speed of development is surprisingly high. In 2006, there were only 24% of active Internet users who did downloading at least once from video sharing website. One and half year later, this rate was increased twice [11]. The access to the podcasting for entertaining purpose is particularly impressive. According to CNNIC statistics of online entertainment, the Internet users who access to the video clips had increased over 40 million compared with that in 2007, and reached 202 million by the end of 2008 [12].

The data from iResearch survey of China online video operator1 show that the top 3 preferences of online video consumption are respectively movies (79%), TV plays (65.6%) and other entertainment programs (59.9%). However, this does not mean that the uses of the podcasting merely for entertaining purpose. Indeed, the platform is also employed for sharing user generated content (UGC) which often deals with serious social and political issues. Still according to the iResearch survey, there are 54.3% of online video users willing to share their self-made video clips in websites. And there are also 48.0% of online video users giving preference to events and news reported and/or commented by themselves. Currently, the most influential video-sharing websites are youku.com, tudou.com and ku6.com. They are all dedicated to build their platforms for UGC video clips sharing. Precisely because podcasting are based on user generated videos, they are much more pervasive and influential when political or social events and the event related discussions occur. The following illustration of youku.com may give us a glimpse of the social and political activities of podcasting in China.

Time: 22:10 January 16, 2009

Figure 2: Homepage of youku.com

Above is the homepage of youku.com of January 16, 2009. The largest image or headline refers to a video clips titled “Confession of a Huangniu (underground train ticket-dealer)” (Original text in Chinese). When China celebrates its New Year (Spring Festival) each year, the vast majority of migrant workers and students flow back to their villages or towns for the New Year by train. However, the railway has been run by the state and gradually become a source of corruption for the tickets are always scarce. One way for the industry to profit from the situation is to secretly sell a significant proportion of the railway tickets to the underground dealers and share the profit with them in a complicated process. As the homepage of a blog website discussed earlier, the homepage of podcasting is also subjected to agenda setting. But the story of the headline here is ironic in many dimensions. The video clip is about how grateful a handicapped young underground dealer is to the police who patrol the area where the dealer conducts his illegal business. The dealer described how he went to the police’s home and was trying to bribe the police one day in the video. What the dealer asked the police for is a green light for his ticket business expansion in the black-market. The police neither took his bribery nor gave the green light to his business expansion but promised to continue to look after him because he was disabled [13].

1 Sample description: N=4677; the results are required from 58 websites through iUseSurvey.

Headline of the website

Search

Agenda of video clips

When a handicapped person tries to make a living by conducting illegal business, there is something wrong with the society. When a handicapped person knows that he has to bribe the police for expanding his black-market business, it is imaginable how the normal ones conduct their black-market business in today’s Chinese society. More importantly, the government has full control of both the police and railway systems. When we piece the picture together, it becomes disturbing for the relationships among the system, dealer, and black-market are clear. There are 230 responses to the video. Some of them singled out the police and trusted that he did the right thing as an individual, not as a representative of the system. The point is that video headline as such breaks the reporting traditions of Chinese television news that always give a positive picture about the system and blame lower ranking officials or criminals for their misconducts.

But it is true that video clips on the home pages are more likely to be censored because one of the major functions of homepage is agenda setting. Thus, this cannot prevent the users from submitting “sensitive” video clips to the website or viewing the clips and giving responses to the clips. The following example is about a diseased woman who had mental illness. We believe that stories on the handicapped are particularly important because their significant implications on human rights. While the concept of human rights is significant, it is not discussed this paper. Rather, we try to demonstrate how the video-sharing websites and users understand the concept in their daily operation and life.

On December 30, 2008, A TV Station in Shandong Province, China broadcasted a recorded video from the Closed-Circuit TV in a local hospital for mental illness. The video showed that a old woman who had mental illness was beaten to death by a nurse in the hospital. The video clip was submitted to youku.com, sina.com’s and other influential video-sharing websites or channels right after the broadcasting. The whole process of beating is despicable. But the matter is not the incident per se. After all, abusive scandals happen to other societies too. It is the reactions of authority and Internet users that are really relevant here in this particular incident. Figure 3 is the screenshot of the video clip reported in News channel of sina.com.

Time: 22:00 January 20, 2009

Figure 3: Abuse scandal in Shandong Province

Now the clip has been played over one million times with over 10 thousands angry responses left so far on youku alone [14]. According to our close observation of the event unfolding, the clip was immediately attracted a large amount of responses after its appearance. Then it was removed for about two days by the websites probably due to the directive of the authority. It resurfaced later on maybe because of the video clip was so appalling that it might evolve into a major disturbance if it was deemed to be a cover up. After all, no one knew how many users had downloaded the video clip and stored in their own personal computers. The authority has good reasons to be sensitive the incident. It has been suspected that many petitioners who think that they are mistreated by local authorities have been sent to hospital as mentioned above.

A nurse is beating the old woman by a mop

But the unfolding of the incident on the Chinese Internet proves to be a big surprise. Only the users of video sharing websites or channels kept view the video and continued to post their furious comments. For the influential BBS forums, it is hardly responded. Only the BBS forum (dzh.mop.com) for the users who were born in the 1980s and after was able to generate a significant amount of responses to the text of the video. The Mop users kept posting their comments until January 15, 2009 with 1256 responses recorded [15]. Thus, the incident never becomes a whole Internet phenomenon.

The point is that the incident is about gross violation of the most basic human rights no matter how one interprets the story. Human rights, as one of the most sensitive issues today, are very easy to evoke political debates. But what we saw from the video clip and the responses to the clip indicates the insensitivities to the very basic side of humanity by not only the authority but also the internet users who are over 30 years old by and large. This phenomenon seems beyond the question of censorship. What we are trying to say is that agents or actors can only function based up their agencies even on the platform of the Internet. They may be sensitive to some issues while ignore the others because of their political and social ideologies. The Internet users who are born in the 1980s and after do show different approaches when it comes to human rights or animal rights in spite of the social reproduction.2 They are able to do that, in our view, partly because of their ability to use the Internet as not only a political platform but also a social space that beyond the traditional Chinese social structures.

4 SNS WEBSITES: A SIGN OF BREAKING TRADITIONAL SOCIAL NETWORK BY MAKING FRIENDS ON CHINESE VERSIONS OF FACEBOOK

Chinese Internet users are not only actively presenting themselves on the blog and podcast more or less as they enjoy but also able to reaching out and constructing their personal networks based upon shared interest, needs, values, etc. national and even international wide. SNS (Social Network Services) websites have been booming since 2005. This is highly significant because the traditional Chinese social structure is centred round family or blood and kinship ties. Such structure is believed to be partially responsible for the long lasing rule of autocratic monarchy and in Chinese history [16]. The problem with the structure is that it discourages sincere social interactions with none blood and kinship members and encourage seeking personal or family gains through petticoat influence by means of bribery or other unlawful practice [17]. Yang gives a pervasive analysis of the role of gifts, favours, and banquets on the construction of Chinese social relationships and hopes that the sense of responsibility, trust and loyalty one gives his or her family members is able to delegate to the others in terms of building a civil society [18]. The SNS websites may provide a platform to learn how to interact with strangers and construct social relationships beyond the traditional social boundaries. The Chinese users seem eager to meet new friends as soon as they discovered the SNS websites. Currently, there are many active Chinese SNS websites. Among them, xiaonei.com, myspace.cn, douban.com and kaixin001.com together take the lion’s share of the market. The following graph3 illustrates the trend of rapid growth in the year of 2008.

2 Indeed, it was no surprise that the “human flesh search” was originally initiated by the users who were mainly born in the 1980s and after on the website, mop.com. One of the users found a despicable case of cat abuse and put the picture on moppers’s BBS. Then the users were mobilized and started to hunt the abuser in a collective manner and posted her private information on the web. This is the invention of “human flesh search”. 3 The data are from Alexa daily monitoring system, and the statistics are measured based on the global Internet users they monitored.

Source: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/kaixin001.com., 22:15. January 8, 2009

Figure 4: Comparative traffic history of four Chinese SNS websites

Figure 4 indicates that the number of Chinese SNS websites users has been growing in a rapid speed as a whole since July, 2008. Among the four websites illustrated, xiaonei.com enjoys the high growth rate. first China-based SNS website, is keeping a stable high growth rate in the whole year. According to iResearch Statistics, xiaonei.com already had 27 million of users on July 21, 2008. While Myspace.cn in China seemed laggard behind, it was also able to claim possessing of over 10 million of users [19]. The success of Facebook has had great impact on the SNS website development in China. By now there are over 40 SNS websites are considered to be the Chinese version of Facebook [20]. For example, kaixin001.com is the one considered to be the most undisguised plagiarizer. We can find many similar applications of Facebook in kaixin001.com, such as “Photos”, “Gifts”, “Parking War”, “Friends for sale” etc.. The figure below compares the homepages design of the four SNS websites.

When they look similar to each other, they differ in terms of their approaches to the community desired. While kaixin.001.com encourages its users inviting and interacting with their acquaintance, myspace.cn facilitates the users to make friends with strangers. The others influential SNS websites such as douban.com enjoy using book-reading or music appreciation as a medium to attract and integrate its users. No matter how different their approaches are in terms of attracting users, they seem that they all respect the fact that the users are networking because they want to share their needs with the others.

When we say that SNS websites are social oriented, it does not mean that the Chinese users reach out only for emotional or affective purposes. In fact, some of the SNS websites have integrated many different Internet platforms, such as blog, BBS, instant charting, music appreciation or book reading or special topic based group, into one space which allows their users to easily discover and meet the others who have the same interests through instant or unsynchronized communication. Our point is, when social networking is related to political and cultural activities on the SNS websites, the significance of making friends beyond blood or relative related ties becomes apparent. The social networking is no longer merely for family oriented personal gains as it is so prevalent even in today’s Chinese society in the real world. It is based upon beliefs, values, and needs in the virtual world of SNS. In this way, we have some reason to hope that the sense of responsibility, trust and loyalty one gives his or her family members is able to delegate to the others in terms of building a civil society. We do not have the data to describe the process of SNS based communicative actions and networking. What we know is that the geographic distribution of the users seems much diversified. Take myspace.cn as an example, although majority users of myspace.cn registered domestically, there are still 10.8% of users outside mainland China, and 2.9% of the users come from US which makes it the largest foreign users group [21]. This is encouraging as far as breaking the social foundation of the harsh censorship is concerned.

5 BBS: THE FORUMS FOR THE USERS WHO ENJOY DISCUSSIONS IN PUBLIC SPACES

BBS forums have been very popular among Chinese Internet users since the platform became available in China more than 10 years ago (ranking first in the world) [22]. Their development is considered as a breaking through in the Chinese Internet history [23]. Although BBS is an old Internet technology, it has particular importance to Chinese users. China did not have the public space that some other counties might take for granted partly because of its long tradition until the coming of the Internet. The tradition means that “the winner takes all”, including all the spaces. Accordingly, public discussions or debates were scarce, if they existed at all. But the Internet in general, BBS in particular, has changed the space ecology at least to some degree. Indeed, the Chinese Internet users who are concerned with public affairs seize the opportunity and make their voices heard through BBSs. They enjoy discussing various topics with those who share the same interests. The social, political, economic, and cultural discourses and ideologies have been constructed and jealously guarded by the Chinese elites. For the very first time, those elites could be challenged by the common people on the BBSs. And it seems that the BBS users are never shy to do just that. In doing so, some influential social and political virtual communities are gradually formed.

According to daqi.com, a well-known ranking Chinese website, the BBS forums are classified into categories such as Society, Literature, IT, Games, Media, Sports, City, Real Estates and so on. The categorization is neither academic nor consistent to the reality of BBS world in China. For instance, politics is not found in those major categories although the number 1 ranked BBS forum, as the following table shows, maoyankanren, is mainly features political debates. Daqi.com’s vague or clumsy approach in its classification may reflect today’s political environment in China. Nevertheless, it is able to tell us that the Chinese BBS users enjoy using the platform to discuss political and social issues by ranking the specific platforms. The table below shows the top 10 BBSs in the Social Kaleidoscope sub-category from daqi.com on January 19, 2009. Among them, the BBS forums mainly feature political debates take number one (maoyankanren), number eight (qiangguo), and number ten (fazhan) positions respectively. The first one owned and hosted by a private firm while the other two are owned and operated by the governments’ mass media organizations. Moreover, the number three BBS forum, tianyazatan, is mainly devoted to social issues that emphasizes freedom and democracy.

Place Status BBS forum Website

1 - Maoyankanren4 cat898.com

2 ↓ Kantushuoshi5 club.sohu.com

3 - Tianyazatan6 tianya.cn

4 ↑ Jingtoukanshijie7 club.sohu.com

5 ↑ Shehuizatan8 mop.com

6 ↑ Chengshi9 xinhuanet.com

7 ↑ Youchengzongheng10 klmybbs.com

8 ↑ qiangguo11 bbs.people.com

4 Maoyankanren means observe human beings through the eyes of cats’ which may get a clear look of something. 5 Kantushuoshi means having discussion according to pictures. 6 Tianyazatan means all kinds of social topics can be discussed in this forum of Tianya Website. 7 Jingtoukanshijie means seeing the world through camera shots. 8 Shehuizatan means all kinds of social topics can be discussed in this forum of Mop Website. 9 Chengshi means cities. 10 Youchengzongheng means discussions in all aspects of Karamy City in Xinjiang. 11 Qiangguo means building a powerful nation .

9 ↑ songjiangbaishitong12 bbs.sj.net.cn

10 ↑ fazhan13 xinhuanet.com

Source: http://www.daqi.com/01/01/paihang.html on 2009-1-19 20:08

Table 2: Top 10 BBS forums in Social Kaleidoscope sub-category

If we classify the BBS forums in the above table by ownership, there are basically two types. One is hosted by the state-owned media such as People’s Daily or Xinhua News Agency, including Qiangguo, Fazhan and Chengshi. The other type, including Maoyankanre, Tianyazatan and Shehuizatan, is owned by commercial enterprises. This is also the dividing line for political and social ideologies. Tianyazatan is one of the most influential BBS forums for its discussions and debates are often based upon personal experiences and/or issues that are closely related to daily lives. Figure 6 is the first page of the postings list in Tianyazatan forum on 20:00, June, 15, 2008. .

Time: 2008-6-15 20:00.

Figure 6: Top portion of the first page of Tianyazatan forum.

The first posting is on a county official’s sex scandal in China. The second is about a Chinese railway disaster. On April 24, 2008, the train T195 and 5034 collided with each other head to head in a high speed in Shangdong province, China. It led to 71 death and more than 400 injured [24]. The author of the posting was looking for the survivors and asked them to reveal the scene of the collision with photos. The users were responded. For less than two month, over 100 thousands of them clicked the posting and more than 13 hundreds gave their feedbacks to the posting. The motive for the responses is that they do not accept the official version of the government report on the collision. They kept searching the truth by themselves until the true story was emerged. The third story deals with how an academic researcher is “selling” his credential or soul to the estate developers by saying that he would jump from the roof of a high rise if the price of real estate became declined. The rest postings mainly deal with marriages, gender relations, and Chinese social traditions.

Perhaps the most profound posting and discussion appeared in this particular BBS forum so far is the one on

12 Songjiangbaishitong means discussions about Shanghai city. 13 Fazhan means developments.

parents-children relationships. The Chinese filial piety is not only the heart of the relationship but also a deep myth. It has been advocated by the Chinese mainstream elites and never seriously questioned for more than 2000 years. The latent function of the filial piety was to socialize the Chinese into obedient subjects to the emperor in the past. Such socialization starts from the family. Historically speaking, Children were required to obey their parents in absolute terms. On January 17, 2007, a pointing titled “Number one lie among all the lies: there are no parents who do not love their children” [25]. Thus far, the posting has attracted more than 486 thousands clicks with over 13 thousands responses, and the number is growing. The posting indicates that it is the biggest lie because it is not only logically problematic but also wicked in practice. That is, it has become a source of pernicious behaviors. More lies around the Chinese family are revealed and seriously discussed in their lasting discussion. The point is that, the traditional Chinese construction of family ideology has been the cornerstone of the political structure. When those ideologies are questioned, it may have serious impact on today’s Chinese society.

While the BBS forums such as tianyazatan challenge the traditional social and/or cultural ideologies, the BBS forums that feature political discussions often attack the Chinese authorities in direct terms. It is true that the state owned BBS forums such as qiangguo forum are rarely question the legitimacy of the regime. But they are also able to sharply criticize the various policies of the government as well as the corrupted officials. However, the practice of state owned BBS forums can hardly compare to what has happened in the BBS forums owned and operated by commercial enterprises. For instance, many postings of the BBS forum called maoyankanren, are sometimes able to openly question the legitimacy of the leadership of Chinese Communist Party and appeal to take radical measures in order to realize democracy and freedom [26]. Of course, postings as such often short lived because of the regulations of the government. The fact is that it appeared and continues to appear on the BBS forums. No one gets arrested or punished for this particular posting. Our point is that it has become acceptable if a posting openly advocate democracy and freedom as long as it does not directly refer to overthrow the government or point fingers to high officials in a specific way.

The main reason that BBSs are much appreciated by the Chinese users may be because the ordinary Chinese have little, if at all, influence on the mass media. Thus, BBS forums function as an alternative public space they can participate in China [27]. They seem empowered and participating in a way their ancestors could never imagine [28].

6. ONLINE IM GROUPS: SENSITIVE AND FLUID

With the diffusion of instant messaging software, various types of chatting groups gradually formed in China. The most popular platforms are MSN group and QQ group in current China. As far as online chatting is concerned, QQ and MSN have monopolized the Chinese market with QQ takes the lions share [29]. According to the latest report by Analysis International Inc., the number of active QQ accounts has reached to 3.665 billion [30]. While MSN is landed enterprise from the United States, QQ is a product of Local commercial Internet firm called Tencent. The group chatting platform they provide enables a group of users to discuss not only daily issues they all concern but also topics not allowed in other Internet platforms because of its instant nature. Figure7 is the homepage of QQ group search, which shows the main categories of all QQ groups.

Figure 7: Homepage of QQ Group Search

The main categories cover 22 subjects: shopping, pop fans, video and music, games, house-purchasing, car-driving, constellations, comics, examinations and training, sports, careers, technologies, colleges, country fellows, travels, cities, books, recreations, commercial finance, originally created space, school-mates and others. One can hardly tell if there is anything unusual from the categories. The key is the category, “others”. It is in this category we may find some groups that discuss real sensitive issues. There are two QQ groups under the “others” category may be served as examples. We observed the two groups for two-weeks and found that one user called Xinzuoyoupaibianlunqunzhu14 created the two QQ groups named “Debates between Leftists and Rightists” and “Communism vs. Capitalism” respectively. The creator, a leftist, told us online that the purpose of creating the groups was for people with different political opinions to exchange their thoughts and discuss current affairs. As the organizer of these two groups, he is active in terms of raising questions and making arguments with the other members on some real sensitive issues. In order to protect his members, he changes the names of the groups very often. Figure 8 shows a snapshot of the fast- paced discussion on the incident of Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989.

Time: 21:50 January 29, 2009

Figure 8: a QQ group named Pumping Posts for The Disadvantaged

In this snapshot, three members’ statements are taken. We may call the three members A, B, and C. The transcript reads:

A: If a large scale social disturbance occurs in a city, the mass will be ok. If it happens in a remote small town, the armed police will be there right way and pronounces that it is a tiny portion of underground people who are making trouble.

B: They will be put down even in large cities.

B: The 1989 [incident] is a good example.

C: It depends how the officials deal with it, the ability to deal with it.

14 Xinzuoyoupaibianlunqunzhu (ID no.405766418) means the new owner of theDebate between Leftists and Rightists group (in Chinese).

C: These sorts of things differ from the 1989 [incident] in nature.

B: They will conceal all the information, all the media belong to the Communist Party.

B: [It is] clear [they] killed so many people [during the 1989 incident], [but they are] still able to deny all of that.

When groups as such are very fluid, it also means that they are difficult to be found by other users. What the group organizers often do is to go to influential BBS forums and advertize their groups either by posing or response to other postings in order to recruit desired people. The Chinese authority has realized the danger of grouping as such. But what they could do is setting a membership limit for each group. The number of members are allowed for is 500 member for each QQ group and 600 for a MSN group..

5 CONCLUDING REMARKS

When the Internet came to China, there were a lot of excitements and expectations. However, many people are disappointed one way or another during the course of its rapid diffusion and use. The Chinese elites, particularly the power elite, have been uncertain about how much they will be damaged by the Internet. Hence, some strict policies are imposed on the Internet industry in China. Many scholars and observers have resourcefully noticed the “great firewall” and written extensively on the issue. While all the concerns are legitimate and justifiable, our exploration of the internet communication contributes to a more balanced view about the platforms the internet firms provided and the ingenuity the Chinese internet users demonstrated on the platforms. Indeed, the users are empowered and mobilized at least to some degree in respect to social and political participations. Following the developed countries, China’s Internet industry is experiencing great changes. Some influential SNS websites are trying to integrate Blog/Space, BBS, Chatting, Podcast, Games, and many other platforms into one space. The power of the Internet depends upon its ability to connect. We believe that a connected web is particularly significant to a developing country like China.

6 REFERENCES [1] CNNIC (2009), The 23th Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in China, From

http://www.cnnic.net.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/1/13/92458.pdf. Accessed on January 11, 2009 (Original text is in Chinese).

[2] CNNIC (2009), The 23th Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in China, From http://www.cnnic.net.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/1/13/92458.pdf . Accessed on January 11, 2009 (Original text is in Chinese).

[3] CNNIC (2007), Report on Chinese Blog Survey in 2007, From http://www.cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2007/12/26/4948.htm. Accessed on January 11, 2009 (Original text is in Chinese).

[4] CNNIC (2007), Report on Chinese Blog Survey in 2007, From http://www.cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2007/12/26/4948.htm. Accessed on January 11, 2009 (Original text is in Chinese).

[5] The term was coined on September 10, 1999 by Brad L. Graham, and was re-coined in 2002 by William Quick. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogspace. Accessed on January 5, 2009.

[6] Keren Michael (2006) Blogosphere: The New Political Arena, Lexington Books, October 28, 2006

[7] The source come from iResearch daily Ranking, based on iwebchoice ranking system. Originally accessed on January 11, 2009 from http://www.iwebchoice.com/html/Chart_1606.shtml.

[8] Southern Metropolis Daily (2006), “Han Han: the Post-80s voice in the first time”, Southern Metropolis Daily, December 27, 2006.

[9] “[We] Must Boycott French Products” posted in December 10, 2008 in Han Han’s blog. From http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0100bidz.html. Accessed on January 11, 2009(Original text is in Chinese).

[10] Universal McCann (2008), “Chinese blogs and podcasts have become the mainstream of global social networking media”, China Advertising, vol. 8, 2008 (Original text is in Chinese).

[11] Universal McCann (2008), “Chinese blogs and podcasts have become the mainstream of global social networking media”, China Advertising, vol. 8, 2008 (Original text is in Chinese).

[12] CNNIC (2009), The 23th Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in China, From http://www.cnnic.net.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/1/13/92458.pdf. Accessed on January 11, 2009(Original text is in Chinese).

[13] See http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjYyNjM5NDg=.html for details. Originally accessed on January 16, 2009 and re-accessed on February 27, 2009.

[14] See http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjMwNzU5Mjg=.html. Accessed on February 28, 2009.

[15] See http://dzh.mop.com/dwdzh/topic/readSub_1_9152575_0_0.html. Accessed on February 28, 2009.

[16] Schwartz, B. (1985). The World Thought in Ancient China, Cambirdge: Belknap Press.

[17] Hall, D. and Ames, R. (1987). Thinking Through Confucius, Sate University of New York Press.

[18] Yang, M. (1994). Gifts, Favours, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China, Ithaca: Connell University Press.

[19] iResearch (2007), China Making-Friends Online Research Report. From http://down.iresearch.cn/Reports/Charge/1127.html. Accessed on January 11, 2008(Original text is in Chinese).

[20] China New Telecommunications (2008), SNS Websites: Clonesome Facebooks Flourish in China, vol. 14, pp54-55. From http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-TXWL200814028.htm. Accessed on January 16, 2009 (Original text is in Chinese).

[21] The data are sourcing from Alexa daily monitoring system. From http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/myspace.cn. Accessed on January 16, 2009.

[22] Ru X., Lu X.S. and Li P.L.(2008) The Analysis and Outlook of Chinese Society(Social Blue Book), Beijing: Social Sciences and Literature Press.

[23] Zhang Y.(2007) “ The Prosperity of China BBS in TenYears’ Time”, Internet Weekly2007(6). From http://www.dahe.cn/vcom/lth/mtsy/t20070626_1015873.htm. Accessed on February 21,2009 (Original text is in Chinese).

[24] See http://www.railcn.net/railway-weekly/gmanagement/8433.html. This is Chinese railway’s official website in Chinese on the news. Accessed on January 12, 2009(Original text is in Chinese).

[25] “Number one lie among all the lies: there are no parents who do not love their children” posted on January 18,2007 by ID Wuzhihong. From http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/854388.shtml. Accessed on January 21, 2009 and re-accessed on February 27, 2009(Original text is in Chinese).

[26] “The Realization of freedom and democracy depends upon what?” posted on February 11, 2009 by ID Guanquanzhuyi6. From :http://club2.cat898.com/newbbs/dispbbs.asp?boardid=1&id=2670783. Accessed on February 12,2009 ( Original text is in Chinese).

[27] Chen J.(1999) “BBS: The Dawn of China Public Sphere”, China Youth Study，05(1999):52-54 (Original text is in Chinese).

[28] Yang B.(2007) “Social Space and New Media:Some Reflections on the Modernization Process in China”, in Selected Papers of Beijing Forum(2007), Beijing:Peking University Press (2008).

[29] iResearch (2007) “In the first quarter of 2007, QQ expanded its leading position while Wangwang almost took the same position as MSN”, Originally accessed on January 24, 2009from: http://news.iresearch.cn/viewpoints/65222.shtml(Original text is in Chinese).

[30] Chu Yunchao(2008) “In the third quarter of 2008, Chinese active IM account has amounted to 463 million which means that IM market grows into a stable stage”. From http://www.analysys.com.cn/web2007/ygfx_index.php/id_5983.html. Accessed on February 10,2009 (Original text is in Chinese).