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Chapter 7. The Yihuang incident

and signature activities about the incident (9%)’ and ‘I reflected the comments and

suggestions to civil right organisations (5%)’. Only 1% of the respondents considered
reflecting opinion and suggestions to the government department through mail, email
or hotline would be useful.
The figures demonstrate that, in a centralism country like China, most people tend
to choose online or offline public participation which have to ensure their anonymity. It

can also be understood as they do not want to get trouble with the government because
their behaviour on the internet.

7.4.4 Problems of online participation via Weibo

The occurrence of a social events like the Yihuang incident, which provokes con-
flict between citizens and government agencies, significantly reduces the credibility of

government. There is a possibility that government officials could directly interact with
the citizens. Ultimately, the government usually collects public opinion from We Media
platforms, such as Weibo.
Weibo has delivered many benefits and advantages for online public participation

and for the government to collect public opinion. Yet, there are still some problems that
worth attention, including irrational emotion among the public, intentional shifts of
public opinion by celebrity influence, and the credibility of information on Weibo.
As demonstrated in the motivations for participating a social event (Figure 49),

resistance emotion towards the government is one of the respondents’ reasons. The in-
ternet has become a channel for people to vent the resistance and hatred towards the of-
ficials and the rich, which can lead to irrational civic engagement. In the Yihuang event,
the influence of irrational public participation cannot be ignored. Figure 55 illustrates

people’s perceptions of the influence of irrational emotion in the Yihuang event.

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