Page 263 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 8. Conclusion

because of the continuously evolving attitudes of the government, there is always un-

certainty embedded in China’s cyberspace. Under most circumstances, such uncertainty
is a result of unpredictable censorship and risks for the non-government actors involved
in both online and offline public participation. Yet, the case studies showed that there
are promising flexibilities and opportunities for activists.
How government departments react to public participation depends on two con-

ditions. First of all, public participation, no matter if it is in the form of online or of-
fline activities, will be suppressed once it has crossed the CCP’s and the government’s
bottom lines. Netizens who cross the boundary may be forbidden to post, or their web

account may be blocked. The responsible person may even be interrogated if found to
have broken the government’s regulations and policy, punishments such as fines and
detention will be implemented. As for offline public participation, activities that cross
the boundary will be suppressed by the official department. Sometimes the organisers
and the participants are arrested; for example, the owner of online chat group in QQ

in the Xiamen case, who organised the protest and the public assembly, was detained
by the local police for 15 days. Therefore, when the ICT-mediated public participation
crosses the CCP’s and government’s bottom lines, the response will always be suppres-

sion.
The second condition refers to public participation that does not cross these bot-
tom lines. If a certain degree of social concern has already been aggregated in the virtu-
al space, the central government has to respond to the events directly. In order to main-
tain social stability, the government might sacrifice the interests of local government to

respond to public opinion and the demands of the online participants in a proactive and
prompt manner. The Sun Zhigang case led the central government to abolish the obso-
lete laws and regulations which were found to be a violation of the legitimate rights,

and it also censured the local government officials, which made the local court bring the
case to trial quickly. Hence a solution could be achieved in order to comfort the public,
as well as the victim family. The Xiamen PX plant case caused a demonstration which
compelled the central government to censure the Xiamen local government. It eventual-
ly resulted in the relocation of the PX plant, and the investors’ losses being paid by the

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