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Voting by SMS for Super Girl on regional Chinese television raised a few eyebrows in China. Steven Clift http://dowire.org Check out: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050829_1.htm The televised event Super Girls from Hunan Satellite Television is finally over after many weeks. The final show garnered a rating of better than 10%, which is astonishing for a regional television channel. The tremendous interest is this event is no doubt related to the fact that the selection process was conducted by citizens voting through SMS messages. Inevitably, the discussion has moved to the implications for democracy in China. This post collects a number of these political discussions. ... China Daily) Secret behind idol-making Super Girl contest. By Raymond Zhou. August 27, 2005. The second season of Super Girls, a TV pop star contest, came to a close on Friday night, but, after generating massive ratings and similarly huge earnings, organizers could be forgiven for not paying too much attention to who actually won. The Hunan Satellite Television show's ratings have reportedly overtaken the benchmark CCTV Spring Festival Eve gala performance the first time a local channel has achieved such a feat. By Friday afternoon, so many people were babbling about the phenomenon that, on Sina.com alone, they left a trail of 2.4 million postings. ... (South China Morning Post) More to democracy than a reality show. August 28, 2005. ... There is another dimension to China's embracing of such programmes, though: audience participation. The winner of Super Girl was chosen by viewers casting ballots via text messages from their mobile phones. Never have mainlanders been so freely given the right to make such a choice. ... (Times Online) TV talent contest 'too democratic' for China's censors. By Jane MacCartney. August 29, 2005. Sources said that censors were concerned that the democratic methods used to select the winner from 120,000 entrants could stir trouble. For weeks fans have been crowding shopping centres across the country, carrying posters of their favorite contestants in an attempt to rally votes for them. On Friday the streets of Changsha, the capital of Hunan, were swamped with thousands of fans who celebrated until dawn. Security guards were called in last week at two shopping centres after Super Girl fans became unruly. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (Anti) August 26, 2005. [in translation] I wanted to write an opinion column about how the Super Girls has lifted the democratic tendency, but right now I feel that a netfriend's sentence is truest to my heart: "CTMD, I don't think that I will ever get to vote a president in this lifetime, so I'll choose a girl that I like." Super Girls is obviously not the same as democracy, but it is the fantasy for the 1.3 billion Chinese people who do not have democracy. When I think about this, I feel sad for China. ... and so on ... http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050829_1.htm ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - - - W: http://publicus.net Minneapolis - - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - MSN/Y!/AIM: netclift UK Office Hours - 1pm - 11pm - - T: 0870.340.1266 Join my Democracies Online Newswire: http://dowire.org *** Past Messages, to Subscribe: http://dowire.org *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To UNSUBSCRIBE instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** New RSS XML Feed Available: *** http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire@lists.umn.edu/maillist.xml
