Page 145 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 5. The Sun Zhigang incident

Figure 18. The formation of the online public sphere and the public participation during the case.
Xiong (2012) analogised individuals as ‘nodes’ and internet media space as the
‘surface’ in the online public sphere and made the following categorisations:
• The ‘node-to-surface’ mode refers to the independent media spaces assigned

for individual users, but open access is granted to the public. These include
social networking sites, blogs, QQ-zone, Weibo and Renren in China.
• The ‘surface-to-surface’ mode refers to the communication space that is built
on the basis of common interests, such as online forums and community sites.
• The ‘formal and official’ mode refers to websites hosted by formal media

companies or governmental departments with the purpose of attracting public
engagement and collecting public opinion, such as the commercial news web
portals Sina and NetEase and the state-owned media outlet Xinhua Net.

Since SNS had not been fully developed in 2003, the latter two models of the
online public sphere are reflected in the Sun case. The BBS/forums were the main plat-
form that enabled an information flow among internet users. Formal websites acted as
an information source and portal that invited the public to get involved in the case and
they sometimes functioned to guide the direction of public opinion.

129
129