Page 135 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 5. The Sun Zhigang incident

good. Politics is a common interest among the public; people like to discuss political

and social issues and are eager for justice and the improvement of the public’s liveli-
hood. At the time of the Sun Zhigang incident, people had the sense of justice which
drove them to take part in sensitive public events. They would try their best to spread
information to get more people involved in the social campaign. Nowadays, because
of the easily accessible technology, most of the netizens have the knowledge to partici-

pate in social events. Although some of them actually may not have a higher education
background or a stable job, I still hold the opinion that the ‘public’ should have some
particular conditions or restrictions, such as the education background, legal awareness,

and reasonable expression skill, to perform a rational public participation and conse-
quently form the online public sphere in China.

5.3.2.2 Public opinion in the Sun Zhigang case

A majority of netizens who viewed the reports of the Sun Zhigang case at the

time, joined the online discussion focusing on why Sun was detained, what the C&R
system was, whether it was suitable in the modern society and how to evaluate the
legislation process through the Sun Zhigang incident. These questions led to extensive
debate on the Sun Zhigang case.

In the early phase of the Sun Zhigang case, netizens were extremely angry after
learning the whole story. For example, one netizen named ‘Professor’ published an
article on a forum with the title ‘Today, I am angry and embarrassed by this horrible
murder case in Guang Zhou! (Li, 2008, p.22)’ In addition, a commentary published on

the Sina web portal strongly upheld the justice for Sun and appealed to the police de-
partment to investigate the case and demanded to punish the criminals severely.
A large number of netizens felt sympathy and were sadly immersed in the inci-
dent. The public opinion at this phase turned to offer the help to the victim’s family. For

example, there was a comment:
‘A young graduate deceased miserably and shockingly. We feel sorry and lament-
ing. It totally disappointed the public’. While another commented as ‘Another
tragedy happened, I know this would not be the last one. If the C&R regulation

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