Page 206 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

‘[Emergency! Call for help!] At 7 a.m. today, the two daughters of victims in the Zhong
Family were trapped in the airport. They intended to redress the injustice for their family
by appealing in Beijing. However, they are now caught and controlled by local government
officials. The sisters’ family member tried to call the police for help, but nothing worked.
They are still trapped in airport under the detainment of local government now. They are
crying desperately for help now! [Changbei airport police station, Jiangxi Airport Police
Bureau, Tel: (0791)7112285]’ 46
Figure 38. Translation of Liu’s microblog.

Figure 39. Screenshot of Liu’s microblog.
Followed the post, Liu contacted Deng Fei, who was a journalist at Phoenix Tel-

evision and tried to call for more journalists to follow the event. As an opinion leader,
Deng Fei began a live broadcast about the situation of the Zhong sisters on Weibo under
the name The Battle in the Ladies Room (Bi, 2014). The sisters kept updating through
the phone link with Liu Chang to describe their condition. Meanwhile, Liu typed their

words into his computer and sent it to Deng through QQ. Within one hour, Deng posted
nine microblogs about the Zhong sisters.
At 8:57 a.m., Deng posted the first message and received 105 comments and 300
reposts.

‘[Changbei Airport live broadcast 1] Being trapped by 40-ish government officials led by
the County Party Secretary, family members of the victims are unable to escape. They
missed the flight. Zhong Rujiu was too exhausted and passed out. Fortunately, she was
47
not seriously hurt after the doctors’ emergent treatment on the spot’ .
Figure 40. Translation of Deng’s first live broadcast on Weibo.

46 Translation provided by the author.
47 Translation provided by the author.

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