Page 154 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

nology also puts the media market and the government in a tricky situation in which

the new media companies are trying their best to find a secure way to make profits and
the government is continue altering its monitoring approach and regulating function.
Therefore, the interaction between the government and the media market is seen as a
dynamic relationship between the regulator and regulated.

6.3 A successful collaboration between the government and
media in both online and offline public participation

In my framework, the primary aim of media companies is to make profits by
providing ICT services. In China, there are no media companies that can challenge the

government’s control. A series of regulations prohibit: content related to pornography,
gambling and drugs; information that contains sensitive words or topics; and opinions
that question the legitimacy of the CCP and its governing capacity. Media companies
are treated as a type of business by the government, though a special one because they

provide the public with a powerful tool of communication that has been and will be
tightly controlled. In the same time, the government in the framework plays multiple
roles. At the primary level, the government represents the policy-making power in
China’s cyberspace. It also monitors and assures law enforcement in the online or qua-

si-public sphere and regulates all media companies in the Chinese market. However, as
the government cannot directly control its citizens, it only responds to the ICT-mediat-
ed public participation and receives the feedback via online platforms.

6.3.1 The role of the traditional media in the event

Building a new chemical plant in a dense urban area was strongly opposed by
Xiamen residents, and this reflected the power of the new media in 2007, when tech-

nology not only served as a massive platform for the dissemination and discussion of
such news stories, but when they were censored, it provided a way to circumvent the
government’s information control.

Xiamen, which is known as the ‘Egret Island’, has long been famous for its beau-
tiful harbour and the national scenic landscape of Gulangyu Island. Called the ‘Best

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