Page 261 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 8. Conclusion

attitudes are clear from these actions. Some netizens may just forward the relevant web

links or comments, which would achieve the dissemination effect and thereby increase
influence.
Senior level: Apart from the forms of participation in the intermediate level, the
public are actively involved in the debate of social events. More importantly, they are

publishing posts closely related to the facts of the events, such as Lian Yue in the Xia-
men case and Deng Fei in the Yihuang case. They are seen as the activists of public par-
ticipation, and real name accounts are usually used. What makes these forms of public

participation significant is that people make pragmatic proposals regarding the events
and switch from online public participation to offline social campaigning. For example,
in the Sun Zhigang case, three legal scholars submitted a formal review petition to the
Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress; in the Xiamen case, thousands

of the local citizens participated in the offline demonstration called the ‘leisure walk’.
The senior forms represent the most courageous, the most direct, the most effective but
at the same time the riskiest means of public participation because it is embedded with
great social or legal risk in a centralism country like China.

8.2.3 Public events that draw long-term attention in China’s cyberspace

All kinds of dramatic news, atypical, or appalling social events have an eye-catch-
ing effect on the internet. From stimulating people’s curiosity, these events could arouse
a sense of empathy among the majority of internet users and a particular group is intro-
duced into the events because of shared interests. During the development of such pub-

lic events, the power between the government and victims is not equal, and under most
conditions the citizens have the inferior position, and so, such public events usually
trigger a sharp contradiction.

For example, the Sun Zhigang case exposed the rights issues of migrant worker in
China with the cost of the death of a college graduate. It was very atypical and revealed
the unequal confrontation situation between the ordinary college citizens and the police,
and the case gained long-term attention both in China’s cyberspace and in the physical

society. The environmental issues in the Xiamen PX plant case concerned the funda-

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