Political expression in the Chinese blogosphere: Below the radar

Asian Survey

Volumn 48, Issue 5, 2008, Pages 752-772

  Esarey, Ashley ^a   Qiang, Xiao ^b  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Blogging; China; Media; Propaganda; Satire

Indexed keywords

MEDIA ROLE; POLITICAL IDEOLOGY;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST;

EID: 56349146180     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: 1533838X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/AS.2008.48.5.752     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. James C. Scott discusses the concepts of "public" and "hidden transcripts" in Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (new Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 2-16.
2. Elizabeth Perry, "Studying Chinese Politics: Farewell to Revolution?" China Journal 57 (January 2007), p. 10.
3. For analysis of how state-owned mass media have commercialized while remaining under tight party control, see Ashley Esarey, "Cornering the market: State Strategies for Controlling China's Commercial media," Asian Perspective 29:4 (Winter 2005).
4. For an account of the emergence of blogs in China, see xiao Qiang, "The Blog Revolution Sweeps across China," New Scientist, november 24, 2004 at .
5. Zhongguo hulianwangluo xinxi zhongxin [China Internet network Information Center] (CNNIC), "2006 Zhongguo buoke diaocha baogao" [2006 China blog research report], September 2006, pp. 2-5, at , accessed october 6, 2006. According to the Japanese ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan had 4.73 million bloggers in September 2005. Sawaji osamu, "A Personal matter? blogging in Japan," Japan Journal April 2006, p. 6.
6. According to a July 19, 2006, study by Pew Internet and American life Project, there were an estimated 12 million bloggers in the United States. See Amanda lenhart and Susannah Fox, "Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers," , accessed July 3, 2007.
7. CNNIC, "2006 Zhongguo buoke diaocha baogao," pp. 2-5.
8. Ibid., "2007 nian Zhongguo Buoke shichang baogao" [2007 China blog market report], p. 10.
9. For a typology of censored words, see Xiao Qiang, "The Words you never See in Chinese Cyberspace," China Digital Times, August 30, 2004, at , accessed July 3, 2007. Recently discovered lists of censored words include a wide variety of references to the CCP; the names of prominent Chinese political figures, such as mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Wen Jiabao, and Hu Jintao; as well as those of controversial academics, such as Jiao Guobiao, an outspoken critic of the party's Central Propaganda Department; and possible political opponents, such as the Dalai Lama or the Falungong religious sect. Names of regions with histories of ethnic strife are monitored, such as Xinjiang and Tibet. In addition, combinations of numbers that could symbolize politically sensitive days such as 64 or 6.4 (after June 4, 1989, the date of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square) are likely to receive close scrutiny.
10. One blog shut down that received considerable media attention was the closure on December 30, 2005, by Windows Live Spaces (also known by users as MSN Spaces) of a blog by Zhao Jing, who wrote under the pseudonym of Michael Anti. Zhao's blog disappeared soon after he wrote about the firing of three editors at Xinjingbao [Beijing News] and called upon subscribers to the paper to cancel subscriptions. See Roland Soong on EastSouthWestNorth, at , accessed December 22, 2006.
11. OpenNet Initiative, "Internet Filtering in China in 2004-2005: A Country Study," at .
12. A public sphere, according to political theorist Jean Cohen, refers to a "juridicially private space where individuals without official status seek to persuade one another through rational argumentation and criticism about matters of general concern.... [T]he public sphere is universally accessible, inclusive, and freed from deformations due to economic or political power, and social status." Jean L. Cohen, "The Public Sphere, the media, and Civil Society," in András Sajó, ed., Rights of Access to the Media (The Hague: Springer, 1995), p. 31. As of yet in China a public sphere does not yet fully exist because criticism of the state or other matters in blogs or elsewhere is not protected by law; nor is debate free from "deformations" caused by the fear of repression.
13. How long blogs will remain China's freest media remains to be seen. Recent reports by the Chinese official government mouthpiece, xinhua news, indicate the government may favor regulations requiring bloggers to use their real names when registering for blogging services. See, for example, Liu Jing and Zou Dapeng, "Hulianwang xiehui: Shangwei chutai 'buoke shiming' zhi guanli guiding" [Chinese Internet association: The unreleased 'blogger name use' management regulation], Xinhuawang, October 23, 2006.
14. Interestingly, state monitors of online content are said to use the same tactic to track dissent.
15. For example, blogger Pu Zhiqiang, a well-known lawyer, had three blogs shut down after he posted writings about freedom of speech and the press. The only explanation he received was a message from a website administrator that the closure "was ordered by authorities from above." Pu Zhiqiang subsequently started new blogs. Vivian Wu, "Internet Police Keep TightGgrip on Blogs," South China Morning Post, March 8, 2007.
16. Han Woo Park and Mike Thelwall, "Hyperlink Analyses of the World Wide Web: A Review," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 8:4 (July 2003), at .
17. The hyperlink counts should be treated as estimates. Search engines tracking hyperlinks between websites operated by companies such as google and Alta Vista are unable to index the entire Web. For related analysis, see Mike Thelwall, "Web Log File Analysis: Backlinks and Queries," Aslib Proceedings 53:6 (June 2001).
18. In general, sites with higher numbers of incoming hyperlinks have more visitors or "traffic." Park and Thelwall, "Hyperlink Analyses of the World Wide Web," p. 14.
19. CNNIC, "2006 nian Zhongguo buoke diaocha baogao," p. 11.
20. Ibid.
21. For quantitative analysis of political discourse in a larger sample of Chinese blogs, see Ashley Esarey, "Bloggers vs. the Propaganda State: Political Discourse in Official Media and Web Logs in China" (working paper).
22. This plays upon the famous quotation by Mao Zedong, "A single spark can start a prairie fire." In his column, Kristof wrote about how he started two blogs in China to test the limits of discourse by making controversial statements about such topics as the imprisonment of New York Times researcher Zhao Yan, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, religious freedom, and the Falun Gong. His blogs were subsequently removed. Nicholas D. Kristof, "In China It's ******* vs. Netizens," New York Times, June 20, 2006, p. 17.
23. Rebecca MacKinnon, "Flatter World and Thicker Walls? blogs, Censorship, and Civic Discourse in China," Public Choice 134:1-2 (January 2008), pp. 31-46, at .
24. Consider the fate of long-time CBS Evening news anchor Dan Rather, who resigned after conservative bloggers spread the word that his report that President George W. bush had received preferential treatment in the national guard was based on false information. Katharine Q. Seelye, "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters," New York Times, February 14, 2005, p. 1.
25. According to a May 29, 2007, report in Nanfang Dushibao [Southern Metro Post], one widely distributed text message likened the construction of the chemical factory to dropping an "atomic bomb" on the city of Xiamen. For analysis of the emergence of the text message, see Hua Shicheng, "Cong 'duanxin fan wuran' kan quanli de renxing" [From 'text message opposition to pollution' see the responsibility of the empowered], Nanshi Shixun [Southern Metro News], May 30, 2007, at , accessed July 8, 2007.
26. See also Mitchell Landsberg, "Chinese Activists Turn to Cell Phones," Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2007.
27. See also, Edward Cody, "Text Messages Giving Voice to Chinese: Opponents of Chemical Factory Found Way around Censors," Washington Post, June 28, 2007.
28. In an excellent study comparing the introduction of the telegraph in China in the 1860s to the rise of Internet use in the late 1990s, Zhou Yongming makes a similar point. Zhou yongming, Historicizing Online Politics: Telegraphy, the Internet, and Political Participation in China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 5-10.
29. Shang Wei, Rulin Waishi and Cultural Transformation in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
30. Paul S. Ropp, Dissent in Early Modern China: Ju-lin wai-shih and Ch'ing Social Criticism (Ann Arbor: University of michigan Press, 1981), pp. 101-19.
31. Wu Wo-yao, Vignettes from the Late Ch'ing: Bizarre Happenings Eyewitnessed over Two Decades [Ershinian muji zhi guai xian zhuang] (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1975).
32. In the 1940s, dazibao were sometimes referred to as bibao (wall newspapers). For an account of the emergence of and use of dazibao in political campaigns, see Göran Leijonhufvud, Going against the Tide: On Dissent and Big-character Posters in China (London: Curzon, 1990).
33. Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 147. The poster referred to a perceived parallel between Liu Shaoqi and the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, whose 1956 "de-Stalinization" speech at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet Union shocked the Chinese establishment. Some Chinese saw the speech as an abandonment of the highly transformational goals of socialism and as a metaphor for friction between Liu and Mao Zedong, a (posthumous) ardent supporter of Stalin.
34. For more of Huang Laoxie's commentary on the NPC and the CPPCC, including translation and links to the original in Chinese, see , accessed December 22, 2006.
35. "Ping Pong diplomacy" refers to a series of exchange matches by ping pong players that was seen as the beginning of a warming of relations between China and the U.S. during the Nixon presidency.
36. This barb refers to a statement made by Foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan on Phoenix Television in which he claimed, "China's human rights are the best in the world, human rights in the United States are not comparable." Tang's comment was criticized by Chinese bloggers and ridiculed in Chinese BBS forums.
37. He Zuoxiu, a physicist, is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with a reputation for making highly nationalistic comments.
38. For the original posting in Chinese, see , accessed December 22, 2006.
39. Additional commentary by China Digital Times is at , accessed December 22, 2006.
40. Lian yue's blog home page has moved to , accessed December 22, 2006.
41. See article, accessed December 22, 2006. The short film clip called Pan Dongzi cansai ji [Story of Pan Dongzi's participation in the contest] was produced by a Chinese netizen named in the xinhua article as Hu Daoge. To make matters worse from the perspective of the PlA, the short film was shown at an officially sanctioned press conference promoting a China Central Television singing contest.
42. See , accessed August 30, 2006.
43. See , accessed December 22, 2006.
44. Associated Press, "Chinese City to Fine Web Satirists," october 16, 2006.
45. See , accessed September 18, 2006.
46. Wang's pseudonym is a play on words of the Jiang Zemin slogan sange daibiao or "three represents," stating that the CCP must represent "the development trend of China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people," xinhua news Agency, "China to Put 'Three Represents' into Constitution," December 22, 2003.
47. Wang Xiaofeng, "Yijianku fendou wei rongzhi - shijie diyi quzhengfu," May 15, 2006. The previous post is currently unavailable on Wang's new website at .
48. For more translation of this blog entry, see , accessed December 22, 2006.
49. For an explanation of the origin and function of propaganda circulars, see Ashley Esarey, "Speak no Evil: Mass media Control in Contemporary China," pp. 4-5, Freedom House Special Report, at , accessed December 22, 2006.
50. Luo Yonghao's list also contained items less critical than the ones selected here, which pertain more directly to Chinese politics. Translation by China Digital Times. Additional sections of this entry available at , accessed December 22, 2006.
51. Luo Yonghao maintains a blog accessible to members only (chengyuan), who must log in to read his entries, as well as the following publicly accessible blog: , accessed December 22, 2006.
52. See Li Weiguang's Blog, March 17, 2006, at , accessed December 22, 2006.
53. Li has recently more essays at the following website: , accessed September 4, 2007.
54. Ashley Esarey, "Liberalization without Freedom? An Empirical Analysis of China's Newspapers, 1980-2003," in Susan Shirk, ed., Changing Media, Changing China (forthcoming).
55. Ashley Esarey, "Cornering the market: State Strategies for Controlling China's Commercial Media," pp. 57-59.
56. The concept of a "propaganda state" was developed to describe party guidance of the media in the former Soviet Union. Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization 1917-1929 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
57. For an excellent study outlining the roles of institutions in charge of propaganda in China, see David Shambaugh, "China's Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy," China Journal, no. 57 (January 2007), pp. 25-58.
58. Doggie's sentiment was expressed in the context of commentary on food and politics at . The link is no longer active.
59. Jean Pyun, interview with Wang xiaofeng, January 2007, beijing. Interview transcript available upon request.