Di RRT, dan juga di Indonesia dan dimana saja ada internet, pemerintah nggak
bisa terus menerus mendustai penduduk negerinya.
Dan Wikileaks juga sudah menunjukkan bahwa pemerinth Amerika juga tidak bisa
terus-terus menipu dunia..
-
British Broadcasting CorporationBBCHome
2 November 2010 Last updated at 10:06 GMT
The march of the netizens
By Duncan Hewitt Newsweek, Shanghai
Young Chinese woman using a lap top in a restaurant The internet has rapidly
developed into one of the major channels of communication for Chinese citizens
When Zhong Jizhang, an engineer in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou,
discovered that a company building an extension to one of the city's
underground lines had cut corners and breached safety standards - and had then
produced a fake report claiming the problem had been resolved - he knew just
what to do.
He published the information on his blog.
Within days it had been picked up by the local media and the city government
launched an investigation into the case which bore out his findings.
In the northern province of Hebei, meanwhile, a 22 year-old driver knocked down
two female students on a university campus, apparently while travelling at many
times the speed limit. One of the women died from her injuries.
When students and security guards tried to stop him leaving the scene, the man
yelled at them not to meddle with him, since his father was a local police
chief. It was the typical response of the privileged and powerful in China's
system.
Yet the young man's belief that this would protect him turned out to be badly
misplaced: news of the incident was posted online and the story picked up by
mainstream media. Angry internet users launched an online search to track down
the man's identity.
Continue reading the main story
"Start Quote
In China information was always controlled by a hierarchical system - now
we have an alternative structure."
End Quote Isaac Mao One of China's first bloggers
Within a few days the case was being widely debated in media and websites
around the country - with many commentators holding it up as a prime example of
the arrogance and abuse of power practised by some influential people in
today's China.
These two cases are typical of the growing use of the internet in China to
expose misdemeanours and abuses.
Internet users fight back
In a country where the media, despite increasing commercialisation, remains
under the ultimate control of the ruling Communist Party, and where other types
of civic space are limited, the internet has rapidly developed into one of the
major channels for Chinese citizens to exchange information and express their
views.
The transformation has been startling: at the turn of the 21st century, China
had around nine million internet users. Today it has more than 420 million
people online, and over 200 million bloggers.
The country now has the world's largest networking tool, Tencent's QQ, and has
seen the rapid growth of web forums connecting people with shared interests -
pregnant mothers, animal rights supporters, car enthusiasts - and of chatrooms
and bulletin boards where ordinary people frequently post views on social
issues, including cases of corruption - at least at the local level.
Continue reading the main story
Today in China branding
Listen to the Today programme's reports on the future of China, broadcast from
Beijing on Radio 4 between 4-6 November
* The Today programme
It all adds up to something of a social revolution in a country where few
people even had a telephone until the 1990s.
As Isaac Mao, one of China's first bloggers, and a former fellow at the Berkman
Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, puts it: "In China
information was always controlled by a hierarchical system - now we have an
alternative structure, where people can go beyond geographical boundaries and
connect based on common interests. It's like a new social fabric."
Not for nothing did Professor Xu Rongsheng, a scientist who set up China's
first web connection in 1993, describe the rise of the internet in China at a
recent conference as a "nuclear bomb" which produced an unprecedented
"information explosion."
The rise of the internet has also had a significant impact on China's
conventional media, which was traditionally heavily controlled and seen as
little more than a propaganda tool of the ruling Communist Party.
Alternative journalism
The advent of websites gave journalists on state media more space to publish
stories which would not normally be approved for publication in their
newspapers.
Continue reading the main story
China's internet revolution
* First web connection set up in 1993
* 2000: 1m online users
* 2010: 420m people online
* 2010: More than 200m bloggers
* Host of the world's largest networking tool, Tencent's QQ
* Rapid growth of web forums, chatrooms and bulletin boards
"Don't read the paper, look at the website," was how one journalist from the
party mouthpiece the People's Daily put it in the late 90s.
Soon, even official websites were reporting news much faster than conventional
media, particularly in the case of accidents, disasters, even bomb and arson
attacks in far-flung parts of the country.
And the web also eroded the power of local officials to keep a lid on bad news.
Previously they had only to issue a directive to the local media not to report
on a mining accident in their area, for example. Now local journalists could
send the story to a website or a newspaper in another part of the country and
the internet would allow it to be seen around the nation - including by the
central authorities in Beijing.
It has all contributed to radical changes in China's media culture.
The government eventually changed its directives on the reporting of accidents
and disasters, allowing for much more open coverage.
Newspapers also began to emulate the more lively style and look of China's
popular websites.
And the internet has arguably also given newspapers an excuse to write about
subjects they would not previously have been allowed to cover: if there is a
lively debate online about a case of local corruption, for example, official
media can use this as a justification for reporting it
Indeed newspapers like the Guangzhou Daily now have whole pages devoted solely
to stories from blogs and websites.
Computer users in an internet cafe The rise of the internet has also had a
significant impact on China's conventional media
According to David Bandurski of the China Media Project at Hong Kong
University, the relationship between media and the internet has created
something of a virtuous circle
"There's a growing interchange between professional and web media," he says.
"People break stories on the web, which are picked up by newspapers, and their
stories are then put up on the web, generating more public opinion."
Many journalists have also taken advantage of the greater space available on
the internet to publish more information about stories than they can report in
their newspapers.
One reporter, for example, published regular blog updates about how police in
the southern city of Kunming were putting pressure on a family they had wrongly
accused of forcing its teenage daughters into prostitution.
Journalists have also used blogs to publish stories which have been rejected by
their editors as too sensitive - and indeed to reveal the restrictions which
censors have imposed on their reporting.
The birth of micro-bloggers
The growing use of micro-blogs has given this phenomenon a new boost over the
past year.
Qian Gang, former editor of the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend, one of
China's bolder newspapers, now has an estimated 1.5 million people following
his views on news and current events.
Continue reading the main story
"Start Quote
The authorities are seeking a control strategy for this unstoppable social
change, but they can't roll it back completely." "
End Quote David Bandurski China Media Project
Micro-blogging by ordinary citizens is also having an impact: in a recent case
in Jiangxi province, attempts by local officials to cover up news of a clash
which left one man dead when he tried to resist the forced demolition of his
home were foiled after they began sending out micro-blog messages via mobile
phone.
The local party secretary and several of his colleagues ended up losing their
jobs.
Greater access to information has also spurred some net users to do more than
just write about social issues. Some bloggers have begun to intervene directly
in news stories and events.
In one famous case last year, Wu Gan, a blogger from southern China, travelled
to central Hubei province after reading about the case of a young woman
arrested for murdering a local official.
Suspicious of the details provided, he managed to make contact with the woman
and film her telling her version of events, which was that she had been
defending herself against attempted rape.
His film, which he posted online, aroused much anger among internet users, and
led to widespread media coverage. The woman, Deng Yujiao, was eventually freed
by the courts.
Cyber police
The Chinese government has of course responded with a string of measures aimed
at controlling the flow of information on the internet.
Continue reading the main story
Chinese government's tools for monitoring the net
* A number of major western media websites blocked for many years
* Access to various Web 2.0 sites blocked, including YouTube, Flickr,
Facebook and Twitter
* Software used to filter out references to sensitive topics
* Domestic web portals are supposed to carry news from official state media
sources
* People using internet cafes must register with their ID cards
* Bloggers must register their real names
* "Cyber police" patrol the net
Domestic web portals, for example, are only supposed to carry news from
official state media sources.
A number of major Western media websites, including the BBC's, were blocked for
many years, though most - not including the Chinese language part of the BBC's
site - were unblocked in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
People using internet cafes must register with their ID cards, while bloggers
must in theory also register their real names with websites.
"Cyber police" patrol the net looking for subversive content. The government
has also employed people to respond anonymously to critical comments in
chatrooms, and online forums are themselves supposed to monitor postings and
delete anything too political.
A new internet liability law introduced earlier this year also increased
pressure on websites by making them legally responsible for the information
they published.
And software is also used to filter out any reference to certain sensitive
topics, including, recently, the name of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu
Xiaobo and the movement which he founded, Charter 08.
A number of other activists who have used the Internet, such as Tan Zuoren, who
sought to collect and publicise the names of children who died in school
buildings which collapsed during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 (as a protest
against alleged shoddy construction), have also been jailed.
And over the past few years, the authorities have blocked access to various Web
2.0 sites, including YouTube and Flickr, and more recently Facebook and Twitter.
By-passing the law
Yet despite all of this, social networking and micro-blogging continues on
China's many domestic equivalents - while a small but growing number of
web-savvy Chinese citizens are using proxies and VPN networks to evade
restrictions on access to foreign websites.
And China's domestic web forums have tended to remain sources of often
controversial information about social issues and problems.
People queue for the launch of the iPhone More than 420m Chinese use the
internet
And the growing confidence and influence of China's internet users, many of
them young people who have grown up seeing the internet as their personal
space, was highlighted last year when the government announced that it would
require all new computers sold in the country to be fitted with software known
as the Green Dam.
This was said to filter out pornographic and violent content. A highly critical
backlash against the idea, both online and in the media, eventually led to the
cancellation of the scheme.
And as David Bandurski of the China Media Project puts it, the authorities are
often in a position of playing catch-up with changes on the internet. Their
draconian measures are a response to "pushing by journalists and web users".
"They are seeking a control strategy for this unstoppable social change," he
says, "but they can't roll it back completely."
Indeed China's leaders have in the past few years shown signs that they realise
this.
They seek to appease anger over internet controls by assuring people that they
are listening to online public opinion: a white paper issued in September
stressed that the internet was now an important channel "for the Chinese
government to get to know public opinion and amass the people's wisdom," and
insisted that freedom of speech on the net was now protected by law.
While this may not always be implemented, many local governments in China have
now begun soliciting and responding to comments made by internet users, and
have in some cases set up dedicated departments to address their complaints and
queries.
At the same time, government officials are increasingly being given training in
how to use social networking and other web tools to interact with the public.
It is, says David Bandurski, an attempt to create a type of "online democracy"
- one which the government may hope will allow people to let off steam, and
thus alleviate pressure for other types of democracy within China's system.
The authorities may also have realised, of course, that the internet can also
be a useful tool for promoting their own message - and, when required, for
spreading patriotic or nationalistic sentiment.
Continue reading the main story
"Start Quote
It's getting harder for the censors to really stop the spread of
information"
End Quote Isaac Mao Blogger
In 2008 a campaign against Western media coverage of riots in Tibet and
disruption of the Olympic torch relay by supporters of Tibetan independence led
to the foundation of a website known as anti-CNN.com, which detailed alleged
anti-China bias in Western media coverage, and rallied millions of young people
to the government's cause.
Yet the fact that the internet has effectively replaced other channels of
communication in China means that it is also open to distortion and rumour.
The phenomenon of the so-called "human search engine", in which large number of
internet users pool resources to uncover the identities and backgrounds of
people accused of misdemeanours, has led to the exposure of a number of cases
of corruption.
But in some cases it also led to persecution of ordinary people over, for
example, their private lives - sometimes based on incorrect information.
In this sense, the internet has sometimes become the nearest thing China has to
a tabloid press.
People power
Still, many believe that the internet has, overall, had a positive impact on
Chinese society.
There can certainly be little doubt that its influence on society in China is
arguably greater than in almost any other country - not least because of the
lack of alternative sources of information.
And while official efforts to manage the internet are undoubtedly becoming
increasingly sophisticated, few believe that the clock can be completely turned
back.
Blogger Isaac Mao, whose micro-blogs have tens of thousands of followers in
China, says that the sharing of what he calls "collective knowledge" has now
become an important part of China's reality, making people less willing to
blindly accept what they are told by the authorities.
"People want more information now," he says, "and they are using social
networks to relay it from one group to another. It's getting harder for the
censors to really stop the spread of information - personally I don't believe
that censorship can go much further."
Duncan Hewitt is a former BBC China correspondent.
------------------------------------
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe : [email protected]
Unsubscribe : [email protected]
List owner : [email protected]
Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
