The power of Chinese citizen journalists in influencing traditional news media outlets in China

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The power of Chinese citizen journalists

in influencing traditional news media

outlets in China

By

Thomas Hardiman

(10848282)

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of

MASTER OF ARTS IN

NEW MEDIA AND DIGITAL CULTURE

at the

University van Amsterdam

2015

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Acknowledgements:

I hereby acknowledge the help I received from Dr. P.L.M.

Vasterman in shaping my research question into what it is, as well as

guiding me through my research over the last few months.

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Abstract:

In recent years, the world has witnessed a steady rise in social media activity with an ever growing awareness and interests in events of citizens that are unfolding around them. The Chinese population is no different in that regard, with an exponential growing number of observant citizens reporting about events and publicizing their own opinions on social media platforms, this is also known as citizen journalism. With this citizen awareness on the rise the Chinese government is trying constantly to stay one step ahead of the people by closely monitoring the online activates of its population. Therefore, the focus of this thesis is the interaction that citizen journalists have with the traditional media outlets within China. The study is based on three different case studies, the first one relating to the Wenzhou train crash (2011), the second to certain corruption cases and the final one relating to the Shanghai stampede (2015). Each of the cases is analyzed by examining and comparing the textual content as well as the visual content published by the citizen journalists and the news media. The study highlights specific examples from each of the cases in which citizen journalists have been found to have influenced the news media.

KEYWORDS: Citizen Journalism, China, Censorship, Social media, Power of the People, Wenzhou train crash, Corruption, Shanghai stampede

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Content Page

Content

Page

1.

Introduction ... 5

2.

Literature review... 8

2.1. Traditional and Citizen Journalism ... 8

2.2. Censorship in China ... 13

2.3. Citizen Journalism in China... 15

3.

Methodology ... 19

4.

Case studies ... 23

4.1. Wenzhou train crash ... 23

4.1.1. Case description ... 23 4.1.2. Textual findings ... 24 4.1.3 Visual findings ... 31 4.1.4. Satisfaction Poll ... 34 4.2. Corruption ... 36 4.2.1. Case description ... 36 4.2.2. Textual findings ... 37 4.2.3. Visual findings: ... 44 4.3. Shanghai stampede ... 48 4.3.1. Case description ... 48 4.3.2. Textual findings ... 49 4.3.3. Visual findings ... 53

5.

Discussion ... 55

6.

Conclusion ... 56

7.

Bibliography ... 58

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1. Introduction

The People’s Republic of China has entered the era of 21st

century blogging. With rapid growth in technology development China is experiencing a massive increase in microblogging sites that produce millions of posts each hour. These microblogging sites function as a substitute for the western social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, removed by the state from the internet circulation in 2009 (Griffin). With the removal of these western platforms, the Chinese social media platforms grew in power and became an outlet for free speech amongst the Chinese population.

The chatter on the platforms usually increases dramatically when important or shocking events are unfolding within the country. Individuals take to the Internet to report on what they personally have witnessed, or to question the official statements about the events. This information then usually spreads to vast number of people in a very short time, due to the fact that each comment can be reposted by a different user. The former President of both Microsoft China and Google China, Lee Kai-fu, once described this speedy re-posting function as a “virus contagion” (Tong and Lei 157). Due to this, an individual gains the ability to reach a very large group of people at a very low cost of production. Effectively, the individuals are taking back the power from the government-run news media agencies and giving the “little man a voice”. The individual now has the ability to assert himself within the community and figure out if there are other people out there with similar thoughts. With this power a lot of netizens have gained the status of being a self-appointed citizen journalist, who is reporting on different perspectives that may have been neglected/denied in the government reporting style. The citizens of China are no longer caught up in the mono-focal view of the country and are in fact enlightened with the new knowledge that is produced.

The problem with this new found virtual citizen journalism is that it has resulted in a tightening of the “Great Chinese Firewall”. Now, the government is at a constant standoff with its citizens who want to have the right to report on what they want. They refuse to be tied down by the strict Communist Party guidelines that are meant to determine the online experience of the user. Yet, it

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is often argued that the social media chatter has in fact impact on the government and may actual effect its policy.

In a speech to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Chen Wang (2010) warned that “as long as our Internet is open to the public, there will be channels and means for netizens to express all sorts of speech on the Internet”. While stressing the value of the Internet as an essential propaganda tool for guiding public opinion, “unifying thinking”, and defying “the hegemony of Western media” (Shen).

Inside the Communist Party there are worries about citizens gaining more power through the expansion of the Internet. It is that fear of the internet that would suggest that the netizens may in fact be a bigger threat to the country’s ideals than what the government had anticipated. The people have now become the one that is monitoring the government rather than the other way around. This brings us to the research question that this thesis will aim to answer; what is the overall impact that Chinese netizens have on the Chinese government, and more specifically:

1) What importance do the netizens have in uncovering information during crisis situations? 2) To what extent does the questioning of official news reports by netizens in China

influence the content/news reports, subsequently published by the government, and is there any visible interaction between the two parties?

3) How are the visuals used by citizen journalists complimenting the corresponding topics and is there a variation to the ones used in the news media.

In order to tackle these questions at hand the thesis will begin with a literature review that is arranged thematically. The literature review will start with a general examination of citizen journalist as a whole and then start to focus on specific aspects relating to China including a brief overview of the censorship status in China. Following the literature review will be the methodology that will outline the steps taken in the data capture as well as giving a working definition for citizen journalism. The next section will be the most extensive part; it will present the findings as well as the interpretation of them. It will be split into three sections using as illustrations three incidents: the findings of the Wenzhou train collision (2011), followed by the five corruption incidents in the country, and will end with the Shanghai stampede (2015). Each of the cases will also include the tables that have the visual findings in them as well as a brief introduction to each of the cases. This is followed by a short discussion that will examine the

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different methods that could be adopted in the future to achieve better results if this study would be expanded and carried out again reviewing other news incidents. Finally, there will be a conclusion in which the research questions will be reiterated and followed by suggested answers to each of the three questions. The thesis will then end with a concluding paragraph that sums up the entire work.

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2. Literature review

The era of Citizen Journalism has begun! Everyday more and more individuals take up the challenge to report on events and news that have been neglected by traditional news outlets. Since Citizen Journalism is an offspring from traditional journalism it is important to understand how it developed and what purpose it serves to the public. This theoretical framework begins with a general insight into what Citizen Journalism is and what it entails. Followed by an analysis of press freedom policy in China and finally it will examine the specific aspect of Citizen Journalism in China, discussing the meaning and power behind the phenomena that is driving the movement.

2.1. Traditional and Citizen Journalism

Traditional journalism is still organized as a professional occupation in which only trained individuals operate. Traditional journalists work according to the same professional standards, usually monitored and controlled by the organizations that they work for. The have their professional autonomy but within the organization they have to report up a pyramid of hierarchy in which the journalistic content is adjusted to fit the agenda of the news organization. On the other hand in the Encyclopedia of Journalism, Citizen Journalism is defined as amateur style of Journalistic reporting that involves various levels of journalistic training, ranging from none at all over to local training courses (Sterling et al 298). So if one were to go with the idea that Citizen Journalist can vary in their education of journalistic practices then it also raises the question of quality with regards to the content that is produced. They do not belong to a professional community that sanctions the professional standards so there is no way of ensuring that the content produced is factual and accurate. “Citizen Journalism generally blurs the traditional distinction between fact and opinion” (Sterling et al 298). Often individuals that have certain political or economic affiliations will tend to focus on certain aspects that they perceive to be of great importance while neglecting others. This is not to say that every Citizen Journalist will follow down the line of bias reporting, however, the chances of bias cannot be ignored. Occasionally it occurs that citizen Journalist receive payment for the content that they produce (Sterling et al 298), either from traditional news outlets purchasing the content or from private organizations. The private organizations may include a company that is asking to post advertisements on the citizen journalist webpage. When a case like this arises the idea of staying

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impartial becomes ever more difficult, the journalist is no longer a private individual who can publish what he/she wants. He/she now has to ensure that the content that he/she produces falls in line with the agenda that the advertising company has or else risking losing this source of income. The development of new mobile technology has made it a lot simpler for an individual to become a citizen journalist. “The prevalence of mobile devices that can record pictures, video and have constant internet connections, combined with the growing popularity of social networking sites has actually made it possible for people to produce and share news themselves” (DeMers). Effectively this means that the traditional entry boundaries that existed in the journalistic world have been removed and become accessible for every individual. This is coupled with the fact that the social networks have created a platform that allows the rapid movement of information, which means that citizen journalists can reach the same if not more people in the same amount of time than traditional journalists.

Even though the exact history of when citizen journalism started is unclear (Allan and Thorsen 17), it has definitely been on the rise since the public introduction of the internet. Social media made it possible for anyone to publish and produce content at a low cost from the comfort of their home or on the move with new handheld smart technology. Citizens of a country can capture and upload real time updates from the scene of the action elevating themselves to the status of citizen journalists by the click of a button (Liu 478); the amount of content that can be produced in the public sphere is essentially endless. This is the reason that in 2006 CNN launched iReport (www.ireport.com) (479), which enabled users to submit content that they had produced and have it backed by a large news cooperation. This concept has managed to attract over 100,000 postings and more than half a million tags (479). These corporate news organizations are starting to accept the fact that the citizens who witness events and blog about them could in fact be producing a certain quality of reporting that can be considered journalistic in nature. This acceptance of the citizen journalism is even larger in the public sphere with millions of users reading journalistic style blogs from around the world. One of the reasons why the popularity of these amateur “news blogs” has become more predominant is because of the direct uncensored ‘raw’ content that is produced by people who experienced the events first hand or were in contact with people who did before professional journalist could get an interview (Measures N.p). This is especially relevant in places that have limited or no access for professional journalists due to the sensitivity of the incident in the context of the given country. Therefore, citizen journalism could be in an essence

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a method of taking the power away from large governing bodies and redistributing it amongst the population (Measures N.p). So in a sense political power has become something that an individual can control and is no longer something that is dictated down from a figure of authority. This can be taken a step further and the material that is produced by the citizen journalist can be used to compliment the traditional news outlets such as CNN’s iReport. However, if citizen journalists become aware of the fact that their content can in fact produce a revenue they may change and adapt the reporting style to ensure that their content gets selected for the news reports. In cases such as this one, the power has again been removed from the public and given back to the larger governing bodies that have their own political driven agenda. These governing bodies can be in the form of a news corporation or even as a government department, it would depend on the level of press freedom in the country.

Though citizen journalism within a small community can achieve elevated status quite quickly, it becomes ever harder for citizen journalists to reach this status on a larger or even global scale. Often in conflict regions citizen journalists want to move beyond the local community and reach the outside world. When examining the idea of a global audience in terms of citizen journalism it is important to work with specific examples in order to relate the theory to reality; one of these examples is the Israeli - Palestinian conflict. In the case of this conflict, citizen journalists (usually in the role of bloggers) in Palestine try to show the outside world how the population is suffering due to the conflict. This message of suffering is not aimed at the population from within, it is targeted at the outside world to gain sympathy towards the problem. “The reporting embodies a “simple hope,” namely that by raising awareness of their suffering, pressure will be brought to bear on politicians around the world to help end it” (Allan and Thorsen 9). The aspiration to reach politicians from around the world has resulted in many of the citizen journalists within Palestine choosing to write in English rather than in Arabic (9). In a sense this type of citizen journalism can be seen more as a persuasive piece of writing rather than a factual piece of evidence since it is fueled by a certain agenda, however, it is still considered journalistic since they are in fact reporting on the events within the country as they are unfolding. Therefore, citizen journalism shows a wide variety of roles, and of news and opinions, with a variety in quality and independence.

“In a digital world with a whole host of different ways to communicate a factual message it is increasingly hard to judge the value of amateur eyewitness film shot on a mobile phone and

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posted on the internet against a considered, observational documentary broadcast on a traditional television channel” (Bulkley). The idea that bias flows within the citizen journalist community is also closely tied to the idea of “first person reporting”, in which private individuals adopted the role of a journalist spontaneously due to their proximity to the event (Allan 2013). Once an individual gives a first person account of a traumatic or stressful event, the integrity of the report starts to come into question. What they may have seen is perhaps what they wanted to see or only what they could process at the time. “Under duress memories can be faulty, lines of vision obscured, the significance of events misinterpreted”(Allan 2013). To add to the misinterpretation that could be experienced in “first person reporting” is the additional factor of the unknown background of the individual. One can never be sure if the person is purposely trying to lead the story down a certain path or not. When in traditional journalism the journalist has his doubts about the factuality of a statement he can simple put the statement in quotation marks and lists it as a direct quote. A journalist is considered to follow standards and to check facts and sources, on the other hand what a netizen does is not checked. However, if this information is directly posted on a blog of the individual who made the statement, it is no longer in quotation marks, it simple stands on its own.

Ignoring the aspect of potential bias in the reporting style, citizen journalism also has strengths that it can bring to the table. One of these strengths includes the ability to pick up news stories that have been deemed to be too small or not suited for the traditional news outlets (Sterling et al 301). By having the ability to select local (small) stories they carry the power to create a sense of community within the journalist’s site. This would be a place where they manage to achieve a well-established local readership. A famous example of this is the “Baristanet” which decided to narrow its niche market size down to a specific zip code in New Jersey nevertheless it manages to attract around 7,000 visitors a day (301). The reason for this large influx of readers is because of its sense of community. By only reporting on activities in the local neighborhood it narrows its audience down to such a small area that everyone within that locality gets the sensation that they “have to” follow the site in order to be part of that community.

Allan and Thorsen also argue that citizen journalism is an integral part in improving a countries democratic system (10). Citizen journalism can be seen as a counter balance to the state controlled media within a country that has press restrictions. While in a country that enjoys a well-balanced press freedom, citizen journalism can be used as a tool that enables individuals to

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express their personal concerns on a certain topic. With citizen journalism on the forefront of online reporting, more and more citizens are getting a voice within the country they live in. This voice is being used to spark debates in which the state can be called into question and its integrity undermined. Though the individual may finally get a voice when producing journalist content, his/her content can start to spread at a rate at which the content loses its producer. This is the point when it goes ‘viral’ on the internet and is no longer associated with its original creator, moreover, it becomes part of the public’s domain (24). In these situations the individual is reduced to a number in the flow of amateur journalistic data, losing all connection to the personal account of the original report. An example of such mass flow of journalistic data occurred in 2005 after the London bombings when the BBC was bombarded with over 50 images within an hour of the events taking place as well as plenty of video footage (29). The footage had the ability to capture the direct aftermath of the events before the outside world had truly registered what had happened.

Though the power distribution of citizen journalism can be influenced through finances it is the sheer number of publications of web content in which the real knowledge and power lies; in total the internet features over 11.5 billion publications in 75 languages (Corrêa and Madureira N.p).

“We are living in the middle of the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race. More people can communicate more things to more people than has ever been possible in the past, and the size and speed of this increase, from under one million participants to over one billion is a generation, makes the change unprecedented, even considered against the background of previous revolutions in communications tools” (Shirky 106)

The revolutionary development on the front of communication successfully manages to turn an entire country (or even the world) into a village built around the idea of communication and online interaction. Blogs have become the equivalent to the local market square in the center of the village that acts as an intermediate between the author and the reader. However, it is not to forget that this is more the case in countries with liberal press freedom. Alone in 2006, 8% of American internet users published blogs, which is the equivalent to 12 million people (Corrêa and Madureira). As time moves on and internet technology becomes more predominant and readily available this number increases. At current state the world has over three billion internet users;

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the country that features the highest number of internet users is China with a current total of over 600 million users (Internetlivestats.com). Within this large online presence there is also a substantial quantity of bloggers and micro-bloggers that actively engage and challenge traditional media outlets that are controlled by the state. With this constant challenging of the state comes in a new level of censorship that needs to be established by the government to ensure the “correct handling” of potential risky online presence as perceived by the Communist Party.

2.2. Censorship in China

As of 2014, China is 175th out of 180 in terms of press freedom (En.rsf.org). China has developed one of the most extensive and sophisticated data surveillance and censorship network in the world, yet are currently at capacity with their capabilities. With an online population of half a billion it is becoming increasingly hard for the government to control the virtual world and enforce it’s Maoist Regime on the countries netizens. The countries online blog censorship functions with complex algorithms that search for keywords that could be linked to potential political uproar amongst the population. An example of one of these keywords/ phrases that has been flagged as a political risk is the word occupy followed by a Chinese city [“Occupy Beijing” (占领北京)] (En.rsf.org). The reason behind this is the “occupation” of central areas of Hong Kong by protesters in 2014 protesting about civil liberties. For that reason the government fears that this could spread to the mainland and result in a civil uprising. In certain cases the government has targeted individual netizens resulting in them being imprisoned for up to 10 years (En.rsf.org). These actions of course bred further mistrust amongst the online community creating an ever growing hostile environment. This is the reason why China is such an adequate case study to investigate the power of citizen journalism. The struggle that the government is facing with the rise of mobile technology and the control of the individuals “reporting power” has given rise to a number of interesting events that individuals are now reporting on.

To understand the complicated censorship that is conducted within the country one has to step back into the past to unearth the building blocks on which the current censorship model was built. China and censorship date back at least as far as to the Qin dynasty (1644). Over time, the laws and policies have adapted and changed with each subsequent dynasty. Some of the censorship models of the past were however more seen as a type of regulatory laws rather than a straight out restriction of speech (Caso 56). Then in 1949 under the unification of the People’s Republic of

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China, Mao Zedong and his government introduced the three main censorship goals that had to be kept: “To retain power, to maintain community standards and to protect dogma” (56). These are the three fundamental aspect that are still in place today in the country and are also the bylaws by which the censorship bureau operates. However, the idea of protecting the Maoist dogma has become more relaxed. After the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao in 1976 the country experienced one of its most infamous censorship wars with the people during the protests that took place on Tiananmen Square in 1989 (67). This was one of the closest times that the government had come to being overthrown, this meant that news of this event was not allowed to spread with the consequence that large numbers of domestic news publications were forced to ignore the events that unfolded during the protests. Since the protests that took place on Tiananmen Square the Chinese economy has experienced large and rapid growth with huge influences from the west entering the country. Protests now still exist in the country with the largest one being the 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests, however due to the current strict censorship legislations they are usually contained before they can result in a repeat of the events that took place in 1989.

Currently, China has two official news agencies, the China News Service and the Xinhua news agency (Caso 70). These two news agencies control all the content that is allowed to be distributed and published in China’s mass media. In 2006, the two news agencies declared that they can also control what foreign newspapers/magazines are allowed to distribute within the country effectively implementing total control over the nation (70). Following theses strict publication laws the government introduced another set of laws that would counter act online publications by private individuals in the country, it stated: Anyone that “harm[s] national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity, or damage[s] national honor or interests, disturb[s] the social order or damage[s] social stability, or advocate[s] cults” (71) will be held accountable and will receive punishment for his/her actions. Subsequently after these laws had been published the Chinese government acted fast and started arresting people that had broken any of these laws. Within a short time period, Amnesty international had reported that a total of 33 people had been detained for crimes such as publish pro-democracy material (72).

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After Facebook, Twitter and YouTube became restricted sites in China as part of this censorship move, local blog and video sites started to gain popularity and filled the void. The difference between these sites however, is that they comply with the local censorship, by handing over user information, if that user was found to be spreading fictitious rumors (En.rsf.org). In addition, China now requires users to use their really names if they want to part take in the use of microblogs, in order to keep better track of who is starting which rumors. To counter act this distribution of rumors the Chinese government has developed the concept of the 50-cent party/army. They consist of individuals that have been recruited by the government to post positive government comments on micro blogs to increase the credibility of the government amongst the people (Tang and Iyengar 84). The concept is simple, every time one of the members posts a pro-China comment they are rewarded with RMB 0.50 (“fifty cents” equivalent to about 5p), the exact number of the 50-cent party is uncertain but it is estimated that it lies somewhere between 280,000 and 300,000 (84). These numbers may seem large and potentially effective, yet a study has shown that it does not seem to be completely effective. Amongst the population there is growing distrust of the sociopolitical system (92), which is making netizens dubious about suspicious postings that appear to be very pro-government. Of course it would be wrong to state that it has not had an impact on the blogging community at all since there is a definite presence of them online and they could perhaps create a following based on the sheer number of them involved.

2.3. Citizen Journalism in China

In a study conducted by Ying Jiang about the Chinese blogs he found that the Chinese bloggers can be viewed as “self-managing consumers rather than free citizens” (Ying 21). To classify the Chinese blog consumer he obtained five key characteristics:

“1) Individualist and consumerist ideologies can be distinguished in the majority of Chinese bloggers’ writing

2) Although political blogs do exist in China’s blogosphere, they are mainly part of the nationalistic narrative.

3) Blogs expressing political dissent exist in China’s blogosphere, but the readership is rather small.

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4) Political-satire blogs criticizing the government have a relatively large numbers of readers, but their interest-value is entertainment

5) Censorship is mainly self-implemented, that is, enforcing mechanisms are rarely needed.” (Ying 21)

These five key characteristics of the Chinese blogger paint an interesting picture of the type of person that would be involved in citizen journalism within China. Within the blogging community people will distinguish themselves as individualist or consumerist in terms of their ideological belief. This, as stated above, will be visible in the writing style of the blogger. Jiang goes on to argue that the individualist will publish information about themselves while the consumerists will playfully deconstruct mainstream culture to make a statement about it (22). The next three characteristics all relate to the political sphere, most of the blogs about politics are a relatively small and can mainly be found on Sina Weibo blogs (32). The nationalist direction that the majority of the political blogs take could be a direct result of the 50-cent party and their strong line nationalist reporting on situations. Jiang gives the example of blogs containing the words “Tibetan separatists”, which can only be found in a pro-government forum and had a total of 135,075 readers (37). The blog is written in a way that directly attacks Tibetan separatists who had an altercation with the Olympic Torch holder: “Finally we found the stupid idiot who attack the Olympic Torch holder “Jin Jing”, we should remember this stupid idiot, condemn him together, let him die with no burial place” (37).

On the other hand the blogs that discussed had the political satire in them used creative world transformations to ensure that the keyword censorship program would not catch them. An example that is given is “river crab” which is a decoy word used when referring to the Chinese internet censorship (38). When someone talks about the “river crab” on a Chinese micro blog, they refer to something being censored, or as the government refers to it “harmonized” However a posting about these topics seem to be more of a casual nature and does not get into deep philosophical debates about the situation, in essence reinforcing the idea that a number of Chinese netizens conduct self-censorship due to the fear of perhaps getting caught.

Many of the citizen journalists that we see in China today operate on their own without much support of others, they only gain support over time (119). Any bystander that witnesses an

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incident is quite quick to react and posts the information that he/she observed on a social blog site (Lagerkvist 119). There are of course also citizen journalists in China that do not only by chance bear witness to an incident, but purposely go out to find information about events in the country. A famous example of one of these people was Li Xinde, who used to be a professional journalist and then decided to start up his own blog (yulunjiandu.com) (120). One of the biggest stories that he reported on was a piece on corruption within the government in which US$ 400,000 had been embezzled by an individual. Due to the fact that his blog was contained to one web address it did not take the government to long to close it down (120).

Regularly the government closed down web blogs that were infringing on the key elements of censorship morals, however with the introduction of micro-blogs such as Weibo it became ever harder for them to contain the published information, since it was split over a number of different pages and hidden amongst the large general volume of data. This meant that Weibo offered a number of new opportunities to its users. A key player in this citizen journalism on micro-blogs was a person who called himself Zola. He reported on the poor living conditions in the Chinese countryside and how the peasants are being neglected by the government. He had amassed over 20,000 readers per day (120). Whenever he went on travels around the country he used to only be armed with, “a USB stick, a digital camera, a mobile phone and an email address” (120). Not only did he document news stories, he also went out to inspire people to conduct the same type of investigative journalism and share it in the public domain (121). A lot of the citizen journalists that developed out of such movements did so because they did not believe in journalistic work of the state media (121). As time goes on and China experiences more and more western influence, the questioning of the state media will increase and result in even more citizen journalists being born in the country.

When the government chooses to shut down a website or a blog they refer to it as being “harmonized” (127). This of course leads to even more outrage amongst the people resulting in new blogs appearing that again choose to criticize the government. Most blogs that are written in a style that is aimed against the government do not result in civil unrest, yet the few bloggers that have developed a large core readership do in fact hold the power to control the masses (128).

18 | P a g e Citizen journalism working definition

Stuart Allan believes that a traditional “Journalists have been formally trained to be dispassionately impartial when they document what they see and hear” (Allan 1). On the other hand an individual that is referred to as a citizen journalist is an untrained person that is at the scene of an event while it is unfold and manages to document (visually or written) what he or she is observing. Often a citizen journalist can also acquire the information from firsthand accounts of people that were present during the incident, or from undisclosed documents

Therefore when analyzing the top reposts on social networks for citizen journalist content, the posts should fall into one or all of the categories:

1) The post is written based on firsthand account of a person present during the incident. 2) The post includes visuals from the incident that has been captured by a private individual

and not a traditional news agency, or images that have been turned into memes

3) The post reveals new facts that have not been shown in the traditional media, or questions published facts about the event.

4) The post is critical of government released statements.

Well were does this leave us? So far the literature review laid out the foundation of what the phrase “citizen journalism” is by developing and commenting on academics that have coined and discussed the term in the past. With the brief overview of the history and the current state of censorship within China the groundwork had been laid to establish what it means to be a citizen journalist in the Peoples Republic of China. On hand of previous studies conducted by other academics it became possible to extract the key concepts that drive the censorship in the country as well as determine why certain citizen journalists were targeted and why others were not. While in the West the right to publish blogs is taken for granted, it is still an uphill battle in China between the bloggers and the censorship bureau which is desperately trying to maintain control within a country that is seeking change. For this study it is important to see how the ongoing struggle between netizens and state censorship develops.

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3. Methodology

The research methodology for this study is divided into different sections. First will be a working definition for citizen journalism that will be used to filter relevant from non-relevant blog posts. Following this will be a justification for why certain case studies were chosen to conduct this research, with a clarification of which aspects of the cases will be examined.

The justification of the selection of events

Each of these three case studies was selected for specific reasons, to determine if there is in fact a visible impact created by the Chinese netizens on the government’s policy or statements. Since the research question has three main aspects to it, it is important to examine the government’s response over a variety of different crisis situations. This will bring forward the different forms of interaction between the official and the social media workings. Therefore these three case studies were selected since each embodies a different crisis situation (a large scale accident, corruption and a citizen caused disaster) and a crisis brings the clash between censorship and the citizen journalists to the fore ground.

Case study I: Wenzhou train collision

This case study revolves around the Wenzhou train crash that occurred on 23rd July 2011 (BBC News, 2011). Since the incident happened on China’s newly developed high speed rail system there was a lot of pressure on the government to find out what went wrong and who was to blame for the casualties. Due to this there was constant online activity on Weibo following the event, driven by witnesses and survivors of the crash, who were questioning the information produced by the government and the state media. This event became one of the most reposted events on both Weibo and other Chinese blogs at the time and involved a lot of government censorship. This will be examined as a case study that occurred as a manmade disaster. The analysis will focus on the 10 day time period that followed the event, since this was the most active time on the social media blogs.

20 | P a g e Case Study II: Corruption incidents in the country

China and its elite face constant scrutiny by the public on the topic of corruption. Throughout the last few years the media attention towards such corruption cases has risen as a result of among others the Chongqing gang trials. The “Chongqing gang trials” was a case that revolved around a string of corruption trials involving Chinese government officials. Each week new individuals were accused of corruption in the country and the government responded with a number of arrests of people that had been accused of the crimes. This in turn caused widespread debate on the Chinese social media platforms in which netizens were questioning official reports that were released during the trials. It also leads to a number of keywords being blocked during the ongoing trials. The suspicion that corruption is occurring within the government was sustained and has often made it to the forefront of incidents that followed the Chongqing gang trials. Therefore the case study on corruption will serve the purpose of presenting the government and social media interaction on a governmentally created phenomenon, in contrast to a manmade disaster. For the analysis 5 different incidents, that received high levels of social media attention were selected.

Case Study III: Shanghai stampede

The Shanghai stampede is a relatively recent event that unfolded on the 31st of December 2014 in which 36 people were killed and 49 injured (South China Morning Post). The event took place during a New Year celebration in Shanghai and was widely documented by people present at the time. Since the event involved 300,000 people the online presence of this event was enormous and well documented by a number of citizen journalists present at the time. Public debates were sparked about who to blame, since the newspaper coverage was scarce at the time of the event. While the other two events occurred a few years back and served as a display of governmental handling of online social media, this one will be used as a comparative case to analyze if there has been any noticeable change over the years in the way that the government handles the online activities of certain netizens. This part of the analysis examines three different days that followed the events. Each of these days was selected based on the high level of online activity.

China Smack as a reference

To source the information needed to investigate this topic the website China Smack was used (http://www.chinasmack.com/about). The webpage monitors online social media activity in

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China and reports on the current trending events in those platforms. The reports include the original as well as the translated top trending posts of certain events linked to the date they were published. Additionally the webpage also makes use of trending visual materials that were trending, parallel to the trending posts.

China Smack sources its information not only from Weibo but also from other sites such as NetEase and Youku (Video hosting site in China). By gathering data from various sites will help create a better balanced argument when commenting and analyzing the findings of the topic. Most of the online trending activities are related to government statements that have been issued and shared on social media platforms.

The China Daily (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/)

The China Daily is an English language newspaper that is based out of Beijing. It is a heavily state influenced newspaper that only reports what is approved by the ruling communist party. In addition to having a traditional printed newspaper it also features over an online version that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. The online version has a chronological archiving system that dates back over 20 years as well as featuring an advanced search function that lets you produce qualitative search queries.

Specific aspects that will be examined in the three case studies

First and foremost there will be an introduction to each of the events with the specific details of the different cases. A timeline will be established for each of the case studies outlining the major events that took place during the incident, as well as in the aftermath. This timeline will be based on news reports that were released by The China Daily. At the same time the top social media activity will be monitored and compared to the timeline that has been established. This information will then be collected and added to a set of tables. The tables will have two main parts; the one on the left side will feature a summary of the China Daily news article of that day and the other side will have a summary of the online social media activity of that day. Furthermore the side with social media activity will also have an example of a top reposted comment as well as the statistics of how many times the page relating to that comment was seen, commented on and reposted.

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With the help of the timeline the response speed of the government will be determined, in order to see if the online social media activity has an effect on official government responses. With this it will be easy to determine whether the questioning of the news reports will lead to a “revised” publication in the subsequent days. It will also make it possible to determine if there is an interaction in the form of a direct response, or if certain topics are ignored by the governmental publications. The exception to the timeline layout will be the case study on corruption since it does not follow a day to day development of a single event. In this case there will be two different dates - one from the publication of China Daily article and the other from social media activities. This will also contribute to the interaction between the two parties, as well as bring forth the importance of netizens uncovering information during the different corruption cases. In the sense that it will show how the uncovered information by the netizens has complemented official news reports.

Finally will be an examination of the visuals produced relating to the events. For this part of the study the most predominant news media images will be extracted and cross-compared to the ones that are present in the online sphere. This will help to determine the different reporting styles used by the citizen journalists and news media in China, to establish if one relies more on visuals or on text to convey the message that they are reporting. It will also help to determine if there is a noticeable difference between the types of images that are posted, for example if one of the mediums is more inclined to use graphic material to convey the message. Therefore if trending topics on the social media platforms are inclined to use certain images versus the ones used in the news media it will be possible to interpret the different semiotic meaning behind the images.

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4. Case studies

4.1. Wenzhou train crash 4.1.1. Case description

On Saturday 23rd July 2011 at about 20:30 hrs in Wenzhou, China two high speed trains collided resulting in a total of 39 people killed at the site of the incident and one later in hospital, as well as 200 people injured (BBC 2011). The collision occurred when one of the trains slowed down on the track and was rear-ended by the other train approaching from behind. The slowing down of the first train was initially blamed on the loss of power due to a lightning strike; this was then followed by a number of different scenarios that could have caused the crash. In August the crash was then determined to have been caused due to flaws in the design of the signaling along the track (BBC August 2011). The event quick spread across the country making national news on the days to come. However, in the days following the crash, onsite reporting was strictly limited to by approved news agencies to avoid the spreading of rumors across the country. A few images were yet leaked to the internet which apparently showed the officials at the crash site trying to bury the train wreck in an attempt to hide the evidence of the events that took place. The government’s response to these allegations was that they had to dig a temporary ditch so that they could bring in larger cranes to lift the train wreck off the track.

More and more rumors started to spread across the country, accusing the government of not being completely honest with the investigation of the incident. The Chinese government was quick to react and found the people that they believed to be responsible and decided to remove them from their position of power (including the Rail Ministry spokesman). Moreover, they also started to discuss the potential value of compensation that the family members of the victims should be entitled to and laid out public plans, on how they will ensure the safety of the train network in the future.

The incident occurred during the height of China’s planned expansion of their rail network. As a result of the accident the Chinese government put the construction of the new high speed rail network on hold for three weeks to determine the exact cause of the accident. As a repercussion of this the government lost large sections of public support and trust. With the distrust in the new train network also came the distrust in the government’s handling of the incident, which was

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especially present in the online social media platforms (BBC 2011). The government produced a final report on the incident in November 2011, however it was not released to the public straight away until it received the approval by the leaders of the country (BBC November 2011). After the publication of the official findings all reporting on the event in print media was banned in an effort to shift the public’s attention elsewhere.

4.1.2. Textual findings

Table 1 (Wenzhou train collision)

Date China Daily content Social media content 24.07.11 16 people killed and 100 injured. One of

the trains lost power due to a lightning strike

Random chatter on the social networks, no definitive trending issues 25.07.11 35 people killed and 192 injured.

Transportation Authority launches a safety overhaul. Li Shenglin (Transportation minister) stated that officials at all levels should be held responsible. Later that day three railway officials fired. Short witness accounts of the accident

Top discussion point: A trending

video which shows train hanging from the side of the bridge as well as an interview with the first person who arrived at the scene of the disaster and his account of personally rescuing eight people from the crash.

Source: Youku, 2.37 million views

and 16,688 likes and shared over 2 million times

26.07.11 39 people killed and over 190 injured. The rail ministry said they will offer “fair and reasonable compensation” to the families (death or severe injury = $26,683). A memorial service was held by Wenzhou residents

Top discussion point: Leaked information about the CCTV press guidelines which stated:

1. Only use casualty numbers issued by the government

2. Do not report frequently

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people donating blood, taxi drivers not taking fares, etc.

4. Do not investigate the cause of the incident, only use given information 5. Do not reflect or comment on the events

Note: Only a brief mention of the compensation

Example trending post: If the

railways, trains, highways, the things that are funded by the country are all like this, how are we expected to continue trusting this government?

Source: Liba, site has been taken

down (404 Not Found) 27.07.11 Railway ministry said they will pay $77,500

compensation to the family members. Premier Wen Jiabao offers his condolences to the victims’ families.

Top discussion point: A husband who

lost his pregnant wife demands explanations and mobilizes 200 friends. Outrage over the poor rescue effort made by the government. People fear the husband being silenced.

Example trending post: “The media

must protect him, prevent him from being disappeared for no reason, from dying of natural causes or of unnatural causes” (China Smack)

Source: NetEase 7732 comments,

220192 people involved 28.07.11 The government stated that it will take

"resolute steps to comprehensively

Top discussion point: low level of

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strengthen safety". The accident is officially blamed on signal malfunctioning due to a lightning strike. The names of 28 victims were released. Bodies were being cremated in the local town, with the permission of the family members

$77,500 compensation. As well as asking why this procedure is being rushed, implying that there is a potential cover-up.

Example trending post: “Life is

cheap like this, dying of dubious causes and then rushing people to first take the money. Is it because they’re planning to close the case once the money is taken?” (皮特竹 China Smack)

Source: NetEase 5046 comments,

134,618 people involved 29.07.11 The compensation for the families rises to

$143,000. Death toll rises to 40 after a

passenger dies in hospital. Official explanations to the crash create doubt in the public.

Top discussion point: Passengers that

witnessed the crash first hand released video footage from inside the train. Social media users picked up on this and deduced that with that many people in the train there would have to be more casualties then what the media stated.

Example trending post: “If real, then there [definitely] wasn’t only 39 people who died” (神炎 China Smack)

Source: Youku 3.95 million views,

4,230 likes and shared 1.5 million times on social networks.

30.07.11 10 families accept the compensation. The railway minister rebutted claims that the derailed trains were being buried to hide evidence.

No large change in relevant trending topics. People are still discussing the legitimacy of the video footage from inside the train

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31.07.11 Ultimatum has been given to the families of the victims to accepted the compensation offers

No large change in relevant trending topics

01.08.11 19 families have accepted the compensation. Again reiterating that the train wreck was not buried, it was only placed in a ditch to make space for cranes

Online interest started dying out

02.08.11 Cosmetic reconstruction was done on victims of the accident based on photos from the family to let them “leave with dignity”.

N/A

The table above presents the findings in regard to the social media trending topic and the official news releases in the country during the aftermath of the Wenzhou train crash. The data covers the ten day period after the incident. On the 24.07.11 the news media reported that there had been a train accident that injured 100 and killed 16, however on the social media networks there were no definitive trending topics. The next day on the 25.07.11 the incident started to trend in form of a video that showed the train wreck as well as an interview with a person who was onsite during the event. Of the 2.37 million that viewed the video 2 million decided to share the video on other social networks. 26.07.11; the news release stated offering compensation, while on the social media the trending topic was in regards to the press guidelines issued by the government. The web address hosting this information was taken and is no longer accessible, therefore making it impossible to gather numeric statistics on the trending topic of that day. 27.07.11 the news reports that the compensation has doubled from the previous day, as a reaction to social media. On the other hand the social media platform NetEase is trending about the husband who is out raged with the government’s handling of the accident, with a total of 220,000 people involved. On the 28.07.11 the trending topic of the compensation is present again on the social media platform, which is in turn picked up by the government the following day in the form of an increase in the quantity of the compensation ($143,000). During the last five days of the data collection the online trending activities in regard to the accident start to decrease and the news reports start to gestures that the case is being closed, by stating that the families have started

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accepting the compensation that was offered. Overall there is a visible pattern of government reports and trending topics the next day.

The Wenzhou train crash quite quickly reached the forefront of discussions on social networks in China and accumulated hundreds of thousands of followers. Interestingly when trying to examine the leaked press guidelines for reporting on this event the page no longer existed. Now even though the page may no longer exist, the question still remains did it make a lasting impact on the days to come. However when examining the next day’s official news reports one does not see any information that suggest that the government reacted to social media publications of the previous day. It is no secret that the Chinese censorship bureau goes into hyper drive when sensitive issues such as this one occur in the country, resulting in the closing of sites and prosecution of people involved. An example of a Chinese Netizen that was arrested for posting during the Wenzhou train crash is Qin Zhihui, he stands accused of defamation of government officials and disrupting the public order (Chen). This leads one to believe that perhaps the page suffered a similar fate as the Weibo blog from Mr. Qin. Johan Lagerkvist argues that that the reason why the Chinese citizen journalism sphere is on the rise, is because the government media is not covering events in a manner that satisfies the people (Lagerkvist 83).

An interesting aspect to comment on is the rise in the compensation quantity that is offered to the families of the victims. The first mention of the compensation in the news media was on the 26.07.11 and the last was on the 29.07.11. On the social media sites it is evident that on the 28th July the compensation of the families started to become a trending topic, with people questioning how the government can justify such low levels of compensation. The following day the government published a new compensation number that was suddenly raised from $77,000 to $143,000. The early increase in compensation offered was when there was only minimal online netizens’ interest, but the rapid increase was witnessed when it became a trending topic. The peculiar aspect about this sudden change in compensation is that it was triggered by a relatively small number of views (134,618 people), which would perhaps suggest that the increase in compensation was an issue that the government wanted to deal with as soon as possible before it gathers to much attention. This means that the government could be monitoring the social media activity and selectively choosing which trend they will react to; thus effectively giving netizens the impression, that they are being acknowledged by their government in the form of an indirect online interaction. This would suggest that the netizens had a certain amount of influence on the

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subsequent publications released by the government effectively forming a quasi-visible dialogue between the trending topic and the official reports on the rise in compensation.

Another aspect of the findings that stands out is the social media post about the husband who lost his pregnant wife in the crash. This was one of the trends with the highest view count relating to the train crash, it managed to reach over 220,000 people with almost 8,000 comments. The aspect that makes this different to the news reports is that it is presenting a critique of the rescue efforts by means of using a “personal example” of one of the family members of the victim. The citizen journalist quite strategically selected a case that people could relate to as well as feel outraged about due to the loss of the baby in addition to the mother. The next morning the official news report did not directly comment on the trending activity however they came forward with the statement that “resolute steps to comprehensively strengthen safety" will be conducted (China Daily 2011). So even though the government did not directly admit they have done anything wrong they still showed the public that they are in fact on the public’s side and will take steps to improve safety standards even more. To top it off, the newspaper also reiterated that the disaster was caused by a lightning strike to the signaling and there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it, to ensure that the citizens understand it was not the governments fault

In the book Restless China (2013) it is stated that the reason why the train accident received so much social media attention is because of the demographics of the people within the train (Link et al 16) Also it has to be noted that the high speed train is one of the most prestige projects that the Chinese government is conducting. The authors stated that just a few days before “Flammable chemicals stored in the sleeper buses luggage compartment exploded […] causing massive conflagration that killed forty-one people” (16). Even though this event killed one person more than the train crash it did not seem to cause any changes in the way that the government operates its bus services in the area. In the text they argue that this was because the citizens inside the bus were peasants from the rural countryside with potentially more limited internet access versus the higher income “elite” travelling on the high speed rail network. Yet almost half of the country (46%) (Internetlivestats.com) has internet connection which would have made it possible for this bus incident to become a trending topic. This would suggest that perhaps the status of an incident is equally important to trigger visible interaction between the netizens and the government. Since on the other hand during the train event there were constant status updates as well as

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implementation of newer safety precautions, which leads one to believe that the social media activity may in fact have a certain degree of influence.

Towards the last few days of the data recording of the incident the social media chatter does not produce any new activities and it becomes evident that the government is trying to end the publicity that surrounds this event by stating that the compensation has already been accepted by 19 families and that an ultimatum has been given to the other families to accept the money. On 1st August 2011 the China Daily publishes an article entitled “Micro blogs find their time is now”, even though this article cannot be found in the findings since it was not the lead article of the day it is still important to comment on it. The article talks about how social media has become an important means of transmitting information. The China Daily paints an overall positive aspect of the micro-bloggers in China during the train incident by stating:

“In the aftermath of the crash in East China's Zhejiang province, China's more than 20 million micro-bloggers demonstrated unfamiliar power: They broke the news, joined the rescue work, helped survivors and families of victims, and monitored the authorities who were investigating the accident.” (Ran)

This statement would suggest that the Chinese government does accept the fact that they have been influenced by the micro-bloggers and that they think this is a positive aspect. The way that they claim that micro-bloggers/citizen journalists “monitored the authorities” would suggest that there is a power struggle going on and that in this incident the citizens were the ones commanding the government. However one year later this friendly tone of the government changed and they implemented a complete ban on the reporting of the event and anything related to it (Edwards and Santos 253).

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Table 2 (Wenzhou train collision)

Dates China Daily visual content Social Media visual

24.07.11 Content only started trending the next day

25.07.11 N/A

Video Clip 26.07.11

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When examining the visual findings it becomes evident on first glance that there is a much higher presence of visual material on the social networks as compared to the news media. Additionally it 28.07.11

29.07.11

30.07.11 N/A 31.07.11 N/A

I'd rather believe this than the official explanation for the train crash

01.08.11 N/A

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is noticeable that some of the news media pictures were picked up by the social media two days later and became a trending image in regards to the crash. During the ten day period a total of two videos became a trending item, the one interview with a witness and the other was the 30 second clip from inside the train just moments before impact. While the print media focused more and published photos of the wreck as well as the rescue works, the social media was more inclined to photos that gave a sense of the emotional damage that was caused by the disaster. Towards the end of the ten day period on the 31.07.11 one can see the emergence of memes and the mocking of the government’s decision rather than a factual reporting of events.

The lack of visuals between the two is quite clear, while the news media were the first ones to publish visuals they seem to try to avoid them in the long run and only publish visuals of just the wreck and the rescue effort. Nöth argues that “a daily newspaper which publishes a photo in its news section asserts the reality of the scene in question” (Nöth 143). If this statement is applied to this scenario it could be argued that since the official news media only publishes pictures of the wreck, they are only comfortably showing that specific “reality of the scene” that does not include the victims and the families. Whilst the social media citizen journalists feel that this is in fact a multi-scene scenario and other aspects have to be examined. In the broader sense it is almost as if the pictures are mirroring the conflict between the state and the citizens. Starting on the 26th of July the government publishes a picture of the train wreck, in what appears to be a color enhanced image, semantically suggesting that things will start to get brighter from here on. The following day the social media trends the image of the outraged husband, in a sense suggesting that the story is far from over. Moving on to the next day the government publishes a photo of the workers cleaning up the wreckage which is countered by an edited image of the railway logo suggesting a strong dislike of the government’s actions. Again followed by a positive image of the “competent” rescue workers helping the wounded, now ignoring the video publications, the next visual seen on the social networks is the creation of memes (satirical images). This is the point at which the government has in a way won the “visual conflicted” and the final image is the government’s photo of the official funeral. Once the public decided to go ahead and start using satirical images the battle was lost, in the eyes of the public they must have felt as if their voices are not being heard and as a last stand tried to result the satirical approach. This was of course not acknowledged by the government since their publication the next day was the one of the funeral which quite literally put the last nail in the coffin.

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Finally, there are the two videos, both of which managed to achieve views in the millions. The first video made by citizens however did not seem to have any direct effect on the news media the next day. While on the other hand the video of the train moments before the crash seemed to generate a slight reaction the next day in the media. Though there were no visuals published by the official media the next day, there was the statement by the railway minister who rebutted the claims that there had been an attempted cover up. This was of course linked to the top comments under the video that stated that if there were really that many people on the train (as the video showed) then there would have been a lot more casualties and thus the government tried to bury the evidence. Yet this could still be just a rumor that was started on the social media platforms since the casualty count did not increase in the coming weeks and that the government was just clarifying that aspect.

4.1.4. Satisfaction Poll

Table 3 (Wenzhou train collision)

Above one can see the results of an opinion poll that was circulated at the time of the event. Out of the 109,135 people that took the poll 98% were either not satisfied or very dissatisfied with the government’s handling of the train accident. In contrary to that, only 518 people being very satisfied with the governmental handling of the situation.