Page 146 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

5.3.3 The government’s performance during the information regime III

The growing wealth of Chinese citizens and the availability of advanced ICTs
have precipitated Information Regime III, in which the media industry has stepped

into the digital age. A growing proportion of Chinese citizens gained the technological
capability to express their views via digital networks around the country and, indeed,
around the globe. The result has been a freer expression of public opinion, although
free speech could be transitory due to computerised censorship and the repression of

dissidents.

Figure 19. The treating methods toward participation on the internet.
Thus, the dominant properties of political information in Information Regime
III are proliferation of information and communication technology (cell phones and

personal computers), the media linked to the web and e-government. The government
developed a computerised censorship system to filter and block sensitive online infor-
mation which led to government regulation restricting internet use. According to my
survey, 47.62% of the respondents have been censored or forbidden to speak while par-

ticipating in social events on the internet, or their comments on such public events have
been shielded (Figure 19). One point mentioned by Interviewee 6 is that ‘in the early
age of social networking sites in China, it indeed awakened the collective wisdom. But
soon the government began to realise as well and quickly took over the control of the
22
internet, then made the new rules and restrictions’ . It seems to be more difficult for
other public cases to reproduce the successful model of the Sun Zhigang case in to-
22 Translation provided by the author.

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