Page 211 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 7. The Yihuang incident

question mark!’, which tried to shape public opinion to maintain the credibility of Yi-

huang government officials and let audiences focus on the event result. The Economic
Information Daily published an article under the title ‘There is one kind of demolition
accountability, in which the essence is to cope in accordance with public opinion’.
It stated that ‘dismissal is no longer the administrative punishment, but a normal job
transfer within the government organisation’ (Gao, 2012, p.33), which suggests that

the government’s response was not fair. The continuous follow-up reports and in-depth
analysis by traditional media brought its superiority into full play, which consolidated
its position in guiding public opinion.

On 20 September, the People’s Daily published an article in response to Yihuang
official Hui Chang’s speech of no demolitions, no new China, and indicated that local
government should avoid causing conflict during demolition. The article stressed that:
‘[i]n the pursuit of economic develop, local government merely focused on the
profits without consideration for the people. It ignored the interests and will of the

people, and even used the excuse of ‘supporting the development’ to tread down
the public’s civil rights, social justice and media monitoring system. It is a devel-
opmental alienation’ (Liu, 2011, p.45) .
50
According to Wang Cailiang, lawyer for the Zhong family, the Yihuang government
and the Zhong family reached a settlement after negotiation. Details of the agreement
were publicised online on 27 September 2010: the government agreed to stop demol-
ishing Zhong’s house and paid the Zhong family ¥300,000 ($47,044) as compensation
for Zhong’s death, and covered the medical costs for Zhong’s wife and daughter for

their injuries (Wang, 2011). By May 2012, their medical costs had reached four million
yuan ($627,256) (Wang, 2012).

7.4 Data analysis

In this chapter, apart from secondary data that are collected from previous re-
searches, online materials and media reports, two additional sources of data are ana-
lysed: one set from the questionnaire survey and one set from semi-structured inter-

50 Translation provided by the author.

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