Page 49 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 2. Literature review

changed the pre-defined roles of audience and news producer by blurring the borders

between these two roles. The microblog, as a typical example of the new media, is
an aggregation of all forms of communication. It is rooted in the openness of ICT, to
which is attached the numerous possibilities of the internet, and some of the applica-
tions may even be beyond the designer’s expectations.

As illustrated by Gillmor (2004), the application of the We Media has assisted
media communication, which substantially refers to grassroots’ conversations. Hence, a
major characteristic of the developing We Media should be its grassroots characteristic,

i.e., the ‘We’.
In this book, I argue that the communication forms of the new media remain as
one-to-many and one-to-one, but there is a change in the body of communication. Pre-
viously, ‘one’ referred to an organisation; a news agency or the individual who has to

rely on a news agency. The blog is a newer generation of media output that grew out of
the new media, which makes the body of communication to independent individuals.
Because these individuals are in possession of the publishing rights for news, the nu-

merous ‘one’ became ‘many’, and ‘many’ evolved to ‘We’. This is the link and differ-
ence between the We Media and traditional media.
Compared with general internet media, We Media has more space for public
participation and autonomy. As relatively independent individuals, participants in We

Media are less likely to be influenced by the organisational structure as they are in both
traditional and new media, and are less likely to be influenced by external issues such
as economic factors. The equivalent of We Media in Chinese is ‘ 自媒体 ’ [zi mei ti],

in which ‘ 自 ’ [zi] refers to ‘self’ but with the connotation of freedom. It implies that,
compared with new media discussed in this book, We Media shows an evident im-
provement in the degree of autonomy (Zhang, 2008).

2.5.2 The public: the interplay of public participation in China’s physi-
cal and online worlds

Oldenburg (1997) coined the term ‘the third place’ to refer to the physical area

where citizens can participate in and discuss social, political and public affairs. It is a

33
33