Page 151 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 5. The Sun Zhigang incident

was formed and it fostered the launch of online activism and online public participation

at the time.
In the Sun Zhigang case, spontaneous netizen involvement triggered the unblock-
ing of information moving from the public to the government. Though the local gov-
ernment attempted to control the local media, thousands of internet users spontaneously
gathered to help the dissemination of the story via the internet. They were numerous

scattered nodes in cyberspace, but they came together and participated in the same
event and formed an incidental grassroots activism. Offline activism was led by public
figures and professionals in the law and other academic domains. Activities involved

physical meetings to debate the case, petitions filed to the central government and
commentaries published under the writers’ real names, which provoked a fermentation
effect on the internet and acted as a guidance for public opinion.
The spontaneous participation, especially the collective efforts made by the gen-
eral netizens on the internet and the offline activities of the practitioners, was the vital

force that led to the success of the social campaign. Unlike other tools, the privilege
of the internet offered effective guarantees and protection for those netizens who were
engaged in the campaign. It changed the authoritarian hierarchy relationship to a ne-

gotiable form. The extensive online activism and public participation demonstrated the
establishment of an online public sphere and a quasi-civil society in China. Three main
factors in the definition of public sphere – public, public opinion, and public medium –
were discussed. Manifested in BBS/forums posts and debates, online chatroom discus-
sions, and comments on the major media portals, it testified to the existence of online

public sphere in China’s cyberspace.
The success of the Sun Zhigang campaign was not an accidental event. It was
the result of several important conditions being in place; socio-political, technological

and commercial conditions. The reform and opening-up policy changed the previous
situation of public participation, in which central propaganda policy played a domi-
nant role. The public used to just have only limited space to voice for themselves and
achieve public participation. However, the introduction of the internet broke the long-
term information monopoly. The public are exposed to diverse information, which has

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