The political issues of weblogs in China and its impacts

Nowadays, many people have their own blogs and their blogs are in very different forms, features, themes, topics, focus, etc. The most famous websites for people to use weblogs including the bloggers, msn spaces, xanga and also the yahoo blogs. These are all free to use. Now, weblogs are extremely famous and popular in our society, and in fact weblogs is a quite new invention. According to Rebecca Blood, websites that can be classified as weblogs appeared largely in 1998, and it started to be a worldwide trend for people to communicate, express themselves and also to publish their own work, especially when the first freely used build-your-own weblogs tools started for people to use.(1) In Wikipedia, we now find out that weblogs is defined as a website which chronological ordered posts are written in it and the latest posts are always on top.(2) It is very much like our own private diary but it allows other people to see and to add his or her comment on your posts.

Weblogs need to be posted online, and it has a tight connection with the internet. In the past, people write their own diary. It was private and people were not allowed to see others’ diary without permission. When the internet became popular, people writing diary make use of the internet to create a new form of writing diary, a public and open one, knowing as the weblogs. The spread out of weblogs was like the rapid growth of internet, which was as a really great influence and very fast.

China is seen as a country with older cultures, that new concepts and innovations were not easily accepted by Chinese. When weblogs became a world trend, it was not as first be popular in China. However, after a longer time that other modern country, weblogs have also grown popular in China. In some findings and saying of scholars, we know that the harsh restriction on political of China government is one of the reasons why weblogs became popular slowly in China and why the content of blogs is always restricted. Despite its restriction, weblogs have still growth very well in China, but at a slower rate. Chinese are not all moldy, in fact, much Chinese want to live freely, like people in other countries. They also want to post diary online freely but it is very hard under the government censorship. Many Chinese ask or request for this freedom, and the power of the masses really has some influence.

In China, many messages and news are controlled by the government, typically only good news are released and those bad news are under the shadow of their power. In this sense, it is easy to understand that people in China cannot express themselves freely and their weblogs are always deleted without any notifications. Can you imagine after writing your blog, you will later find out that the posts would disappear suddenly? I think it would definitely be very shocked for any people writing blog if they face this situation. Just like a Beijing lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, he realized that three posts of his blog in sohu.com were removed by someone suddenly. The reason he known was that this was the order of the Chinese authorities on top. This was not the only case, the weblogs in China were under strict restrictions by Chinese government. Poses can be removed under any reason, which is whenever the authorities like, they can deleted any posts online. Chinese government especially focuses on topic related to political, so if the posts are about this, it will be easier to be removed. However, others posts can also be removed. From the article of Vivian Wu on “internet police keep tight grip on blogs”, we know that the gong chan dang, the party of Chinese government, has great restriction on words online. There is some people working day to day just to browse through people’s weblogs, they are known as the internet police officers. When people upload a piece of article or weblogs, it needs to pass the filtering engine of each website, at this stage, many posts having “sensitive key words” are blocked automatically by the engine. But the word “sensitive” is not stated clearly. Even when it passes the filtering engine, it needs to be checked by the editors of the website, that is some words can’t be checked by the machine is double check by people. After that, the government even carries out the third check. Some officers from the government, including those from the Central Publicity Department, the State Council Information Office, the Ministry of Information Technology and local communications administrations involves in the checking. Many department of China can take park in the job of censorship, which means many people can have this right and it is hard to check exactly who deleted the post. Even when the post is innocent or deleted without reason, it cannot recover or to check the problem.(3)

It seems a little bit nonsense, but that is the situation in China. For example, when SARS break out first in China, government block this news and thus SARS turn out to be a killing disease in 2003 over the Asia and also so cases in places over the world. If the Chinese government can open the news at once, SARS can surely be controlled easier. This was just one of the cases. Chinese government always wants to protect its image. Many people think that China is full of corruption, crime, and think China is dirty, people are rude and uneducated (although some are real). People always look down on China, so the government wants to change this situation. They just post some good news and only shows the better side of China. However, this cannot cover all the bad things. If the Chinese government keeps on like this, the bad origin of China would definitely still exist. The thing China should do is to change the real situation in the country, but not to block all the bad news. Others’ discriminate on China can only changed when China turns to be a cleaner, nicer country, but not just to oppress the opposite voice.

Under the strict censorship, people are not easy to express their opinion or to reveal the bad incidents in China. The bad news can only be known on the website or news by foreign reporters. However, the power of the masses in China is not insignificant, it does has a great impact on the unfair oppression from the government or wealthy people to the poor. From the article of Jeremy Goldkorn and Maya Alexandri on “Virtual voices”, many cases of masses’ power are shown. One impressing example is that some children were forced to work in some illegal brick kilns in Shaanxi When their father tried to ask for the help from the Shaanxi government to save their children, no one concern about it. After that, they formed a community called ”400 fathers” and posted a letter on a forum site. After that, many people started to notice about the situation and the Chinese government started taking action at that time. The Chinese government found out that over one thousand workers, including the children were working in these kilns. Then, the children can return to their home. The action of the “400 fathers” was a great success.(4) There are many many cases like this, and these show us how powerful are the internet and weblogs. We know that many posts are block or deleted by the government, but this has a little bit different for cases like “400 fathers”. In many places in China, the city or village is just governed by the place’s official and any situation in the place is hardly to be known by the central government. That means, even when there is some unfair things happen in a place, the government may not know and could not take any action. In this sense, this kind of masses’ voices is very important.

In the past, when people faced some unfair things or oppression, corruption of the government, they could do anything with it and just confront it. They did not have any method to deal with or to oppose the situation. Nowadays, the internet helps them a lot and is a good way to express their opinions. Every step of the masses are controlled and supervised by the government, people are not allowed to gather together to march or to do some open activities to raise others’ attention. So, people can’t take real action, they can just take action online and tried to let as more people as they can to notice or to support their action. It is very lucky that the government does not block this kind of voices from the people. Now, it has becomes a popular way for people to oppose about bad treat and to express themselves. China was known as very dark, but if people can show their unfair situation and the Chinese government can do much, this situation may have a great change. If this trend can keep on, people who are corrupting are easier to be checked by the government, so they need to stop it. People who take advantages from others may also face this problem and less people are dare to do so. If this is the case, the bad situation may change. However, it needs the hard work of the government and the people who treat others unfairly need to correct.


Why can such voices of masses be posted when the Chinese government has strict censorship on the posts online? Also, the Chinese government always tried to cover all the bad things happen in this country, why this kind of bad news can be posted to the public? Initially, there were many foreign websites reporting the bad things happened in China, so that the darker side was shown. Those websites are like the “China Rises” (http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/china/), or the “China Expat Blog” (http://www.chinaexpat.com/blog/josh). These websites were not based in China and the Chinese government could not control over it. After that, some Chinese tried to make such kind of websites. Many people followed it and it turned to growth quickly. It is some much and so rapid that even the Chinese government finds it hard to block all these websites. Also, sometimes these websites or weblogs posts are also the way how the Chinese government gets more information about the bad things happen on the people and it help the government to take efficient actions.

We can see that the rapid growth of internet over the world really has a great impact on China, also for the posts on weblogs. In the beginning, maybe there were too much restriction and people were not brave enough to take actions against the bad treat, because they had been used to the oppression of the power. However, when it growths over time, people are more familiar with it and use it as a good tool to help them ease. Nowadays, many Chinese have their own blogs and their blogs help them to communicate with others, even people in other countries. Also, they can exchange more information and get more knowledge when looking at others’ blogs. People write weblogs for many different reasons, now, some celebrities’ weblogs are very popular, one of them is the weblogs of xujinglei, a famous mainland actress and director. ( http://blog.sina.com.cn/xujinglei) Her weblogs is seen by many people and is the most popular weblogs in China. These kinds of weblogs also lead to the trend of masses writing blogs. Some people think that weblogs are not very serious and should not be treated as a great work, but it do has some great impacts and changes over China.


(1) Rebecca Blood "Weblogs: A History and Perspective", Rebecca's Pocket. 07 September2000, 25 October 2006 http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogs
(3) Vivian Wu, Internet police keep tight grip on blogs, March 8, 2007, SCMP
(4) Jeremy Goldkorn and Maya Alexandri, “Virtual voices:, 01 September 2007, SCMP

Quotes

Many bloggers, particularly those engaged in participatory journanism, differentiate themselves from the mainstream media, while others are members of that media working through a different channel. Some institutions see blogging as a means of "getting around the filter" and pushing messages directly to the public. Some critics worry that bloggers respect neither copyright nor the role of the mass media in presenting society with credible news. Bloggers and other contributors to user generated content are behind Time magazine naming
their 2006 person of the year as "you".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogs


a weblog is part of communities. No weblog stands alone, they are relative to each other and to the world. The Link and Think project, as an example, is part of the weblog community and part of the World AIDS Day community. My weblog, Scripting News, is part of the weblog community and part of the community of independent developers, particularly those using scripting environments. The same can be said of most weblogs that gain audiences, they connect people together using the Web through common interests.
http://oldweblogscomblog.scripting.com/personalWebPublishingCommunities
What are weblogs?,11/16/01, Dave Winer


Research approaches range from personal reflections, to critical analyses of segments of blogs, to corpus studies of blogs, to quantitative studies of blogging activity. Building on each other by offering both in-depth descriptions and broader pictures, these articles provide a wide-ranging look at the rhetorical implications of blogging.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/introduction.html
Introduction: Weblogs, Rhetoric, Community, and Culture,Laura Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman, University of Minnesota



Blogs can add a human voice to the library's web presence.
Blogs can encourage interaction between a library and the people it serves.
This interaction can transform the typical flow of information into a shared exchange between people with like minded goals.
http://www.walkingpaper.org/presentation/
Weblogs and Community:The Right Questions to Ask, September 2005, Aaron Schmidt


A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in choronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogs

Links

http://www.iturls.com/TechHotspot/TH_weblog.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogs

http://www.walkingpaper.org/presentation/

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/introduction.html

http://oldweblogscomblog.scripting.com/personalWebPublishingCommunities

Bibliography

Laura Gurak, Similjana Antonijevis, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman,
"Introduction" Weblogs, Rhetoric, Community, and Culture" in Into The Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs, Ed. Laura J. Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman. June 2004. June 2007
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/introduction.html
included many information about weblogs, many useful information



Standard,(8-10-07), Mumbai babe's brazen blog takes puritanical India by storm
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/071007/318/2h1mu.html
A news about an Indian girl writing a really explicit blog, but in India, it's very weird.



SCMP,(1-9-07), Virtual voices, Jeremy Goldkorn and Maya Alexandri
The noise of public on the web has destroyed the restrictions on websites in China.
Know more about situation in China



SCMP,(8-3-07), Interent police keep fight grip on blogs, Vivian Wu
Related to the previous news. It showed how the officers of Chinese government contorl the posts for weblogs. Another side to look at this problem of China.



Standard,(24-9-07), Portal operators eager to share the spoils of blog-generated ads
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/070923/318/2g75e.html
Mentioned different website that allowed people to open a weblog in China.
Clearer about the situation.



Standard,(7-9-07), Vietnam goes blog crazy, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/070906/318/2f5ka.html
About situation in Vietnam, the first time I know about situation in it, quite surprising about the great spreaded out in it.



Standard,(10-7-07), Rival defiant over fake photo link to murder, ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/070709/318/2b3y4.html
A case in Malaysia that posting political wrong post lead to the death of a preson. Very short story

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/google/google-blogs-alert-launches.asp

Mainly talks about google, many links, can find many different topics

Blogs Will Change Your Business , May,2005,Stephen Baker and Heather Green

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b3931001_mz001.htm

About business, how many people gain money from blog,seems reliable

http://onward.justia.com/cat-blogs.html

An example of which weblogs related to the business. It's a kind of promotion of this firm. Hard sell.

http://www.thehammer.ca/content/view.php?news=2006-01-10-blogs-humans-earth

An extrodinate example

weblogs: a history and perspective, September,2000, rebecca blood

http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Quite long, worth seeing

useful visual materials

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbxSAUPp8TI
a video talking about the relationship between weblogs and business
BYU eBusiness Center Lecture, Feb2003
it helps to see this issue in a different perspective

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J726T53peEc
an inerview of a developer of a weblogs company, we can know more about the situation of weblogs and the problems faces where launching a weblog
Shiny Media interview Jason Calacanis of Mahalo & Weblogs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyMP-xLihFk
talk about the features of weblogs and its develpoment, how it functioned, what's the benefit,etc. but really long
User Classification For Informal Online Politcal Discourse by Robert Malufo,January,2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9F2X2Sw6Y0
talked about the important of weblogs and its relationship with technology,different between weblogs and other media
John Blossom - What is a blog?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StTLXmElYUA
a clip talking mainly about technology and communication. Also about the founding of weblogs, and the impact on our lives

Questions on weblogs and community

1. Do bloggers have some typical characters? (maybe people using blog have some common)

2. Is it a kind of breaking through others' lives when we lookat teir blogs?

3. Why people like to write on blog?

4. Is using blog a trend? People using blog really want to do so or just because it has become a trend?

5. Do people tell lies on blog? Is it necassray to tell all the truth in the blog?

6. Does weblogs benefit out lives? Is there any bad impacts?

7. Do people show the different side of them in blog? (because other people may not know who are thay when they write on blogs or leave comments)

Why I choose this topic?

Nowadays, internet has many relationships with our everyday lives. Many people share their lives, feelings, experience, information, etc. on the internet.


Using weblogs is a way to share our lives with others. We may have the experiences of writing diary in the past, but it was very different from writing on weblogs. When we wrote diary in the past, we were actually writing on some papers and using a pen. We always added a lock to the diary and won't let people to see it without our permission. Sometimes we didn't allow anyone to see it. But for weblogs, we are typing something on the computer and post it on the web. In this case, many people can see our diary, no matter we know the person or not. We can't always block others from surfing our weblogs.


I have my own blog on xanga and I always talk about things around me. I think diary is very different from weblogs because we write it privately. I am interested about the different between writing diary and weblogs. Many people have a weblog (or even more than one), I think some of them may have many different reasons for writing a weblogs. Also, some people using weblogs are still writing a diary, the things mentioned in them may be very different. I think it is a very interesting issue.


Many people think that weblogs are in an unreal world, the bloggers always write about something unreal or by their imagination. I think this mustn't be true. In the blog, we can share our lives with people around us. We can also express our feeling in the blogs. It can be a way to build up a closer relationship with others. When seeing others' weblogs, we can know about the bloggers. It happens also when people see our blogs. It involves interaction and maybe we can meet more friends by this.


Using weblogs has been a great trend and it is still growing. It is worth examined. There would be many interesting finding inside.