Page 60 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

and intellectual magazines to cyberspace with few access restrictions. The intellectual

websites showed ‘an unprecedented degree of openness, frankness, and tolerance’ (ibid,
p.177). Debates led by intellectuals covered a range of topics and critical commentary,
including national current affairs and international affairs, between the New Leftists
and the liberals (ibid). Thus, the interaction between the government and the public en-
gages a special group – the intellectuals. For the government, because the internet has

revealed a new domain in which intellectuals can promote a public e-sphere, this area
must stay under the control of the authoritarian power and not develop as a threat to the
government (ibid). As Zheng (2008, p.94) has recognised, ‘there are always potential

challengers inside China even with tight political control by the communist regime’,
and although the government actively takes measures to control or eliminate the social
influence of such challengers, the public (both average citizens and intellectual groups)
have developed innovative ways to bypass this control.
Zhang and Stening (2010) identified the positive influence of the internet on pub-

lic participation, as the free flow of information and mobilisation of public opinion en-
abled by the internet helps to break the long-existing ‘Chinese walls’ which defined the
boundaries between social groups, communities, organisations and individuals. It also

reduces the cost of the organisation and mobilisation of potential supporters. Tai (2006)
summarised the approaches that Chinese internet users have adopted to avoid the gov-
ernment’s surveillance, such as anti-blocking software, mirror sites, proxy servers,
remailers and anonymous e-mail services, which are actually reflections of the ‘vulner-
ability of the state regulatory mechanism’ (ibid, p.116). Zheng (2008) also pointed out

the difficulties that the government is facing: first, it is challenging for the state to find
who the organisers are for social campaigns; secondly, that the internet spread informa-
tion among the potential activists and challengers more efficiently than the convention-

al forms of communication; and thirdly, that the internet help neutralise and rationalise
those public who are more sympathetic to challengers.

44
44