Page 78 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

of BBS, for example, in the early stages, when it was used for airing grievances (ibid).

Therefore, BBS posts bore the weights of historical meanings, and the concerns in the
present society. A BBS is:
‘A virtual community for online public discussions and debates on a broad spec-
trum of topics that cover miscellaneous aspects of society and life. The infor-
mation on BBS keeps pace with current events and news in real society. Offline

events and major discussions on BBS are picked up at roughly the same time’
(Giese, 2004, p.28).
‘The many-to-many information sharing and exchange among users on BBS is

highly dynamic and interactive. The hierarchical structure of a BBS is: site ad-
ministrators, board moderators and common users. Board moderators are usually
elected by users and they can also be dismissed, which guarantees the proper exe-
cution of rights by board moderators’ (Jin, 2008, p.31).
For discussion of politically sensitive topics on the Chinese internet, online fo-

rums, chatrooms or BBS are the preferred spheres for public discourse (MacKinnon,
2008, p.248). Chinese BBS forums have been popular since the late 1990s, well before
blogs emerged, and quickly formed cohesive virtual communities (Yang, 2003). It is

well documented that Chinese government officials pay attention to BBS comments on
certain issues and have taken netizen sentiment into account when formulating respons-
es to crises such as the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the 2001
US ‘spy plane’ crisis (Xu, 2007). The ‘flatness’ of BBS is one of the reasons contrib-
uting to the popularity of the medium, meaning that the conversation threads on BBS

platforms are made by hundreds and thousands of people; whereas blogs only represent
the individual voice of one person or a small group of authors (MacKinnon, 2008).
Such characteristics enable a high degree of anonymity for BBS users, which eases

Chinese netizens’ concerns regarding political risk. This is of particular importance
considering China has the largest number of incarcerated internet writers in the world
(ibid).

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