Page 111 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 5. The Sun Zhigang incident

Sina.com – China’s largest news portal – and other popular websites reprinted this re-

port, ensuring the Sun case spread nationwide. After the story was posted on Sina.com,
it attracted over 4,000 comments in two hours (Xiao, 2003). Subsequently, although the
Party authorities in Guangdong banned the local media from publishing further reports
on the case, the national media (People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China Youth
Daily and China Newsweekly) and other powerful local media (Beijing Youth Daily,

Yangcheng Evening News and Southern Weekly) quickly picked up the story and gave
full coverage to the case, which soon became a fixture in daily headlines. These print
media outlets spontaneously collaborated with online media, such as Sina, Sohu, the

People’s Daily Online and Xinhua. They began to publish large-scale follow-up reports,
and the case captured the attention of Chinese society as a whole.
The name Sun Zhigang also hit chat rooms, BBS and email groups on 25 April (Yu,
2006). The case would have been closed without the public noticing, if it were not for
Sun’s father’s determination to pursue it, the willingness of Southern Metropolis News

to publicise the case and, most importantly, Chinese netizens’ joint efforts to push the
case both online and offline. Online chatrooms and forums were full of discussion of
the Sun case, and most of the netizens focused on civil rights in China. Chinese BBS

such as the Strengthening Nation Forum, the Development Forum, the China Youth
Forum and the Tianya Forum were flooded with comments and appeals (Yu, 2006). The
outcry of BBS participants continued to fill cyberspace and created such a strong public
opinion that the mainstream media finally adjusted its agendas to satisfy the people’s
‘right to know’. Sun’s case was regarded as a direct denial and infringement of citizens’

constitutional rights and freedom by the system (Xiao, 2003). Online discussions of the
case revealed a wave of anger over Sun’s death and demands for justice and punish-
ment. Comments also included a wide range of complaints about the C&R system and

the pervasive phenomenon of abuses of power by law enforcement officials. A large
number of well-known intellectuals and scholars, such as Mao Yushi (a famous econo-
mist), Qin Hui (a historian) and He Weifang (a famous legal scholar), openly expressed
views under their real names, offering useful suggestions to improve related C&R reg-
ulations (Yu, 2006). Sun’s fellow university graduates and thousands of netizens, legal

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