Page 153 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 6. The Xiamen PX plant event

Chapter 6. The Xiamen PX plant event

6.1 Introduction

In this chapter, I use the Xiamen PX plant case as an example to explore the inter-

relationship between the government and the media companies since 2005, the begin-
ning of the blog age, particularly on the government’s different regulations towards the
media: whether it has become stricter, the extent to which the media has sufficient inde-
pendence of content generation and dissemination, and how the two parties (government

and media company) respond to each other’s development.
In the first part, I analyse the Xiamen PX plant incident as a successful coopera-
tion between the media and the government in both online and offline public participa-
tion. The second part explores the incident based on the primary data collected from the

questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, attempting to explain the changing rela-
tionship between the government and the media in the context of public participation.

6.2 Background

In 2007, preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games entered their final
phase with a surge of public issues. As a country full of vigour, China resolved to use
the upcoming games as a chance to display a positive image to the world. Meanwhile,
the flourishing of the new media platforms nurtured a large number of writers and com-
mentators on the internet. In the new Web 2.0 era, there emerged the ‘citizen voicing’

phenomenon, particularly on the topic of public affairs. The 2007 Xiamen PX plant
case happened in an atmosphere of highly motivated public participation when new
media companies were exploring ways of connecting, interacting and dealing with the

government.
The ICT boom and continuous growth of new media services provides a variety
of online platforms that resemble an offline public assembly. However, the new tech-

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