Page 160 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

local government’s direct control. Whereas for the new media has greater autonomy, a

secure environment and more effective information flow, which makes it suitable for
the dissemination of sensitive social events. It can also stimulate grassroots participa-
tion.

6.3.3 Online platforms triggered offline mass participation

Discussion of the Xiamen PX project continued throughout April and May 2007
as a handful of reports from newspapers such as Southern Metropolis Daily and Infor-

mation Daily were published in cyberspace, augmented by comments in online chat
rooms or on blogs. The proliferation of the anti-PX messages via emails and mobile in-
stant messages reached a high level, leading to people’s intolerance of the government
ignoring their voices and demands to relocate the plant. Notably, one particular SMS

text message was sent around 28 May spread to about 1.5 million mobile phone users
in Xiamen:
‘Chen Yuhao in Taiwan Province and the Xianglu Group have begun construction
on a PX chemical project in Haicang. Once this highly toxic chemical goes into

production, it will mean that an atomic time bomb has been released on Xiamen
Island. Xiamen people will have to live their lives with leukaemia and with chil-
dren born with congenital defects. We want life, we want good health! Interna-
tional organisations have determined that this sort of special project should only

be developed 100 kilometres or more outside a city, but Xiamen is only 16 kilo-
metres from the project at farthest. For the sake of our future generations, please
act!’ (Liu and Zhao, 2010, p.329).

Figure 23. Screenshot of the message.

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