Sizing up China: Internet posing a sensational and credible challenge
11/05/2007
BY HIROSHI MATSUBARA, STAFF WRITER
This is a part of a series on the various aspects of Chinese society and its influence on the international community.
***
BEIJING--Standing alone atop a mound of earth in an excavated building site, the modest two-story house in the southwestern city of Chongqing cut a forlorn figure.
But in a country where ordinary people are routinely shoved aside to make way for redevelopment, the house became a symbol to millions of "little guys" standing up for his rights. People called it "the nail house," because it refused to be hammered down.
The owners were a couple who had lived at the house and ran a restaurant there for years. The house, along with the rest of the decaying district, was targeted for demolition to make way for a shopping center three years ago.
Unlike their neighbors, the couple refused to give up the building, demanding that the developers guarantee they could continue to operate a restaurant at the same site after the re-development.
The story began to get coverage in the local news media, but it wasn't until the image of the little house perched precariously on a 10-meter mound over a crater first appeared on the Internet that it started to generate nationwide attention.
The utility lines to the house had been cut, yet the husband staged a sit-in while his wife delivered supplies and gave vent to their indignation in the media.
The standoff was first reported by so-called citizen reporters, mostly amateur journalists who report local news, write commentaries and translate articles by the foreign media on their Web logs and Internet bulletin boards.
Pictures and video footage soon were appearing everywhere on the Internet, whipping up a frenzy of coverage in the mainstream news. Even the state-controlled media sent reporters to get the story.
"The news was not just a landmark case for property rights but also epoch-making for the role of the Internet in Chinese society, as it kicked off extensive media coverage and public discussion," said Li Datong, a former chief editor of a weekly supplement of China Youth Daily.
The house was eventually demolished in early April, but not before the couple had made a deal with the developers. They were given an apartment about the same size as their old house in downtown Chongqing.
While commentators treated the incident as a landmark case that underscored growing public awareness of property rights, others focused on how it had evolved as a news story.
One of China's most respected news magazines, Southern Weekend, gave an account of the case, arguing that the couple played the media in order to generate publicity and squeeze a favorable deal out of the developers.
The story ends with a comment from one of the developers: "I feel that the Internet and the media are calling (the wife) a representative figure in the implementation of the property rights law and lifting her so sky-high that she cannot come down," the executive was quoted as saying.
Qi Jingying, a lecturer at Aoyama Gakuin University and J.F. Oberlin University, agrees that the "nail house" saga exposed the dark side of Internet culture.
"The reason why the media zeroed in on the house, out of numerous similar cases in which residents may be more desperate, was the shocking picture of the house and the couple's unique character," she said.
Qi has written two books analyzing nationalist and xenophobic Chinese Internet bulletin boards, and the power of the Internet to stir up young malcontents.
on one hand, the Internet is becoming an essential part of the media in China, but on the other hand, it has often become a platform for sensational or even fanatical arguments."
The Internet, for instance, played a large role in the violent anti-Japanese demonstrations across China in 2005, providing a platform for radical discussion and helping organizers mobilize en masse, Qi said.
A recent example of the power of the Internet to mobilize people occurred in May, she said.
After a local government announced the planned construction of a chemical factory in Amoi, Fujian province, text messages and Internet postings summoned people to a public protest.
The messages argued that the factory, which would use toxic chemicals, should not be built near an urban area. Two days before the planned protest on June 1, the city government announced the project's suspension.
Still, thousands of people gathered in front of the city hall carrying banners and placards and wearing yellow ribbons, as instructed by the messages.
"Despite its sensational aspect, the Internet is a good catalyst to trigger fruitful argument involving the conventional media, government reformists as well as the public," Qi said.
According to a survey by China Internet Network Information Center, the number of Internet users in China reached 162 million in June, a jump of 39 million people from a year earlier.
Chinese prize the Internet because it is a relatively free forum to express their opinions. According to a 2005 survey by the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences, 60.8 percent of Chinese respondents said that people have more opportunities to criticize the government on the Internet. The number was much greater than 24.2 percent in Japan, 20 percent in the United States and 10.1 percent in Sweden.
"People's enthusiasm for the Internet is the flip side of the government's tight control of the conventional media," said a reporter of one of China's state-run news agencies, who declined to be named.
She said that she often writes news and opinions on her three anonymous Web blogs that she cannot write in the company's wire reports.
"The irony here is that the Internet is viewed as a credible media, because of its anonymity," the reporter said.(IHT/Asahi: November 5,2007)
11/05/2007
BY HIROSHI MATSUBARA, STAFF WRITER
This is a part of a series on the various aspects of Chinese society and its influence on the international community.
***
BEIJING--Standing alone atop a mound of earth in an excavated building site, the modest two-story house in the southwestern city of Chongqing cut a forlorn figure.
But in a country where ordinary people are routinely shoved aside to make way for redevelopment, the house became a symbol to millions of "little guys" standing up for his rights. People called it "the nail house," because it refused to be hammered down.
The owners were a couple who had lived at the house and ran a restaurant there for years. The house, along with the rest of the decaying district, was targeted for demolition to make way for a shopping center three years ago.
Unlike their neighbors, the couple refused to give up the building, demanding that the developers guarantee they could continue to operate a restaurant at the same site after the re-development.
The story began to get coverage in the local news media, but it wasn't until the image of the little house perched precariously on a 10-meter mound over a crater first appeared on the Internet that it started to generate nationwide attention.
The utility lines to the house had been cut, yet the husband staged a sit-in while his wife delivered supplies and gave vent to their indignation in the media.
The standoff was first reported by so-called citizen reporters, mostly amateur journalists who report local news, write commentaries and translate articles by the foreign media on their Web logs and Internet bulletin boards.
Pictures and video footage soon were appearing everywhere on the Internet, whipping up a frenzy of coverage in the mainstream news. Even the state-controlled media sent reporters to get the story.
"The news was not just a landmark case for property rights but also epoch-making for the role of the Internet in Chinese society, as it kicked off extensive media coverage and public discussion," said Li Datong, a former chief editor of a weekly supplement of China Youth Daily.
The house was eventually demolished in early April, but not before the couple had made a deal with the developers. They were given an apartment about the same size as their old house in downtown Chongqing.
While commentators treated the incident as a landmark case that underscored growing public awareness of property rights, others focused on how it had evolved as a news story.
One of China's most respected news magazines, Southern Weekend, gave an account of the case, arguing that the couple played the media in order to generate publicity and squeeze a favorable deal out of the developers.
The story ends with a comment from one of the developers: "I feel that the Internet and the media are calling (the wife) a representative figure in the implementation of the property rights law and lifting her so sky-high that she cannot come down," the executive was quoted as saying.
Qi Jingying, a lecturer at Aoyama Gakuin University and J.F. Oberlin University, agrees that the "nail house" saga exposed the dark side of Internet culture.
"The reason why the media zeroed in on the house, out of numerous similar cases in which residents may be more desperate, was the shocking picture of the house and the couple's unique character," she said.
Qi has written two books analyzing nationalist and xenophobic Chinese Internet bulletin boards, and the power of the Internet to stir up young malcontents.
on one hand, the Internet is becoming an essential part of the media in China, but on the other hand, it has often become a platform for sensational or even fanatical arguments."
The Internet, for instance, played a large role in the violent anti-Japanese demonstrations across China in 2005, providing a platform for radical discussion and helping organizers mobilize en masse, Qi said.
A recent example of the power of the Internet to mobilize people occurred in May, she said.
After a local government announced the planned construction of a chemical factory in Amoi, Fujian province, text messages and Internet postings summoned people to a public protest.
The messages argued that the factory, which would use toxic chemicals, should not be built near an urban area. Two days before the planned protest on June 1, the city government announced the project's suspension.
Still, thousands of people gathered in front of the city hall carrying banners and placards and wearing yellow ribbons, as instructed by the messages.
"Despite its sensational aspect, the Internet is a good catalyst to trigger fruitful argument involving the conventional media, government reformists as well as the public," Qi said.
According to a survey by China Internet Network Information Center, the number of Internet users in China reached 162 million in June, a jump of 39 million people from a year earlier.
Chinese prize the Internet because it is a relatively free forum to express their opinions. According to a 2005 survey by the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences, 60.8 percent of Chinese respondents said that people have more opportunities to criticize the government on the Internet. The number was much greater than 24.2 percent in Japan, 20 percent in the United States and 10.1 percent in Sweden.
"People's enthusiasm for the Internet is the flip side of the government's tight control of the conventional media," said a reporter of one of China's state-run news agencies, who declined to be named.
She said that she often writes news and opinions on her three anonymous Web blogs that she cannot write in the company's wire reports.
"The irony here is that the Internet is viewed as a credible media, because of its anonymity," the reporter said.(IHT/Asahi: November 5,2007)