Page 144 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

focus to a higher level – civil rights in China. BBS such as Qiangguo Forum, Devel-

opment Forum, China Youth Forum and Tianya BBS were flooded with comments and
appeals (Yu, 2006). The outcry of BBS participants continued to reverberate in cyber-
space and resulted in the formation of such a strong public opinion that mainstream
media finally adjusted their agenda to satisfy people’s ‘right to know’. With all the
emotions expressed by the public, be it anger, criticism, sympathy or passion, public

opinion eventually led to a tipping point – finding the root of the problem and this was
followed by the submission of the petitions. At least four major central papers report-
ed on the petition at great length, and the information was disseminated nationwide

through the internet. The prevalence of the internet has evidently expanded the realm
of public communication by breaking the boundaries of the traditional physical public
sphere. The mass space constructed on the internet forms a virtual public sphere (Du
and Cao, 2013). Some scholars have also claimed that the medium of the internet gen-
erates an exceptional advantage for the emergence of the public sphere online (Chen,

2006).
The function of an online public sphere resembles the three key elements in the
traditional public sphere: at first, views that are presented in online extensive debates

and free access to open discussion lead to citizen communities having critical aware-
ness; secondly, the internet includes the characteristics of equality, directness, inter-
action and effectiveness, which enables the existence of an open medium; and thirdly,
citizens congregate on online platforms and discuss conveniently, providing a good
possibility for fostering rational critical public opinion.

In the Sun Zhigang case, according to the survey results (Figure 18), 38% of re-
spondents held the opinion that public space on the internet was not sufficient at the
time. Although many people engaged in the case, some comments were censored and

deleted. Still, 49.6% agreed that there was enough public space on the internet and a
great number of people engaged in discussion. This shows that the public has the pas-
sion to take part in an online discussion or engage in online public participation. More
importantly, it implies the internet users’ eagerness for the formation of an online pub-
lic sphere.

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