Page 254 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

tantly, it aggregates a wide range of public opinions within a short period time. On the

other hand, the ICT-mediated public participation has fundamentally changed the com-
munication mode between the public and the government in China. The nature of the
internet eases people’s concern regarding the negative consequence of getting involved
in a mass event (i.e., punishment imposed by the government), which guarantees the
involvement of the ‘public’ perspective in online public sphere. For the Chinese central

government, they are more willing to collect the public opinion by ‘moderate’ forms of
online public participation, instead of the real-world protests. Overall, my book found
that ICT-mediated public participation is a very effective and feasible way to promote a

more democratic society and to improve the social environment in China.
This section presents the conclusions to the issues raised in the research questions.

8.2.1 Social media’s contribution to public participation in China

My findings indicated that the ICT-mediated social media service has substan-
tially contributed to public participation in public affairs. From BBS/forums to Weibo,
the number of internet users has increased dramatically. With the features of We Media

penetrating into people’s daily lives, public participation has become much easier and
more convenient. If there was no internet – BBS/forums, blog, or Weibo, the gap be-
tween government and the public would have remained distant and social events would
rarely be noticed by the authorities. It was easy for local governments to conceal and

suppress a social event in the past, but online public participation now makes a social
event highly visible, which exerts pressure to all levels of authority and forces the prob-
lem to be addressed. It is a development that represents progress in fairness and justice
in a centralism state.

8.2.1.1 The era of web portals and BBS/forums

During this period, both web portals and BBS/forums carried more coverage of
sensitive public events than traditional media platforms. They attracted the attention of

a large number of internet users to public events and enabled them to comment. How-
ever, in 2003, online media platforms did not play a dominant role in China’s online

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