Abstract
Chapter 5 illustrates the features and models of information flow in networked public communication from the micro-perspective. Information flow in networked public communication is always under certain control of different levels; and the result is not only decided by the subject—the networked user—but also the interaction and its result of various social forces. Through discussion on six cases, this chapter discovers some rules and features of information flow in networked public communication, and then concludes its models.
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- 1.
Though there were no official documents that clearly forbid WI-FI functions in mobile phones, a mobile phone with WI-FI functions were not allowed, in practice, to pass network access permission test or enter the market on Chinese mainland till 2010. The first generation of iphone introduced by China Unicom had no WI-FI functions. The policy has been relaxed since June 2009. Motorola A3100 was the first mobile phones with embedded WI-FI functions sold on the mainland market, which was followed by Nokia N97 mini, E52, 5530, Motorola ME600, Meizu M8, Lenovo LePhone. However, mobile phones with WIFI functions on the mainland market have to apply WAPI standards developed by China.
- 2.
Lawrence Lessig rejoined Harvard faculty in 2009 as a professor of Harvard Law School and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
- 3.
With reference to “Southern Weekly”: Storm in Jinan, black 3 h, July 26, 2007; “Southern Metropolis Daily”: “netizen in Jinan was detained for a reply post,” July 25, 2007; “Southern Metropolis Daily”: “Red Diamond was caught only for words,” July 27, 2007.
- 4.
With reference to xinhuanet.com: “Some representatives of the People’s Congress condemned the Party officials who interfered the Pengs hui Poem Case and disgraced judicial justice.” (2007-03-04) [2009-03-15], http://news.xinhuanet.com/misc/2007-03/04/content_5798053.htm; “Southern Weekly”: “A whole story about the civil servant in Chongqing who was arrested for compiling short messages criticizing current social affairs.” (2006-10-19) [2009-03-15], http://news.sina.com.cn/c/l/2006-10-19/161511281385.shtml; “Nanfang People Weekly”: “Zhongfei Qin—fears after rehabilitation”. (2006-11-11) [2009-03-15], http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/rwzk/20061111/mj/200611290030.asp.
- 5.
With reference to “China Youth Daily”: “all for a post—a youth was hunted across provinces and jailed in prison for 8 days on grounds of exposing local illegal land acquisition.” (2009-04-08) [2010-06-20], http://news.sina.com.cn/c/sd/2009-04-08/053817565370.shtml. Xinhua News Agency: “The whole story about Shuai Wang’s posting online (I).” (2009-05-14 2010-06-20). http://news.xinhuanet.com/video/2009-05/14/content_11374338.htm, “The whole story about Shuai Wang’s posting online (II).” (2009-05-15) [2010-06-20], http://news.xinhuanet.com/video/2009-05/15/content_11380599.htm; “Shanghai Government Legislative Information Website”: “Shuai Wang Case at Lingbao, Henan province causes attention of netizens.” [2010-06-20], http://www.shanghailaw.gov.cn/fzbChinese/page/media/media6753.html.
- 6.
With reference to “xinhuanet.com”: “Judgment of defaming officials should be based on facts.” (2009-07-20) [2010-06-20], http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-07/20/content_11740202.htm. “Yangcheng Evening News”: “Post case at Caoxian should not end up with apologies.” (2009-07-27) [2010-06-20], http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/30178/9729081.html; “xinhuanet.com”: “Post case at Caoxian: the youth obtained state compensation.” (2009-08-31) [2010-06-20], http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2009-08/31/content_11972565.htm; Report and video on CCTV.com: the young hero in “Caoxian Post Case” obtained state compensation. (2009-09-01) [2010-06-20], http://news.cctv.com/society/20090901/100094.shtml.
- 7.
“news.163.com”: “Disclaimer is popular online to decline interprovincial hunting”. (2009-05-06) [2010-06-20]. http://news.163.com/09/0506/06/58K455JL00011229.html.
- 8.
“China Fortune”: “A whirlpool of land requisition behind Baoquan Wu, a reproduction of ‘Shuai Wang Case’ in Inner Mongolia”. (2009-04-28) [2010-06-20]. http://finance.people.com.cn/GB/71364/9209512.html. “ifeng.com”: Baoquan Wu Case: Years in jail for two posts. (2009-05-04) [2010-06-20]. http://phtv.ifeng.com/program/wtpa/200905/0504_1632_1138760.shtml; “Legal Daily”: “Baoquan Wu is released from prison.” (2009-10-23) [2010-06-20]. http://www.snzg.com.cn/ReadNews.asp?NewsID=3120.
- 9.
Jianrong Yu: New trend of guilt for online speech and behavior. “Southern Daily”, 2009年11月17日. See Jianrong Yu’s blog. [2010-06-20]. http://blog.legaldaily.com.cn/blog/html/08/2443308-4126.html.
- 10.
Yong Wang: What does a verdict of defamation and false accusation truly mean? New Century Weekly, Issue 16, 2010. [2010-06-20].
- 11.
Yong Hu: “In view of frequent defamation cases, rule of law should be reaffirmed”. “Southern Metropolis Daily.” August 5, 2009. [2010-06-20]. http://gcontent.nddaily.com/8/3f/83fa5a432ae55c25/Blog/6d6/65f6fe.html.
- 12.
According to “System,” Giant Interactive Group Inc. that operates Zhengtu successfully carried out an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange at the end of 2007. Its operating income reached 405.2 million yuan in the third-quarter the same year and net profit of 290.2 million yuan, up 164 and 152 %, respectively, compared with the same period the year before. The company carried book cash of 6.8 billion yuan.
- 13.
See a post in the blog of Jun Guan, a reporter with “Sports Illustrated”: Wisdom plus courage is soooooo beautiful. (2007-12-21) [2008-12-30]. http://www.sichina.com/blog/User0/254/Show.asp?/_articleid/2340.html.
- 14.
See profile of Junwu Cao, winner of the Knight International Journalism Award in 2009, on the official website of International Center for Journalists). [2010-06-25].
- 15.
The article stayed on nfdaily.com.cn for at least 1 hour, at the address: http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/zm/20071220/xw/200712200012.asp.
- 16.
Proof of the judgment lies in a post and a screenshot published on December 21, 2007, on http://www.17173.com, a well-known online game forum in China: http://blog.17173.com/content/2007-12-21/20071221133036363.shtml; please also refer to another post written by the same author that was published on blog.suho.com: http://zichong521.blog.sohu.com/74160340.html. (both of the two websites were visited on December 30, 2008).
- 17.
Netease was the only exception among the major portal sites that reposted the whole article of “System” on its news channel, news.163.com, on December 24, 2007, titled “Online game ‘Zhengtu’: a road built with money that leads to being slaved.” Available at: http://news.163.com/07/1224/15/40G42JOC00011SM9.html. Some of the 800 reviews that followed the repost argued that online games operated by Netease were competing with Zhengtu, therefore, the company published the article to fight its competitor. However, Sina, Sohu, or other companies that also depended on operating their own online games as a major source of profit did not publish the article. Games.qq.com, own by Tencent, reposted the whole article of “System” half year later on June 5, 2008, with a title “a journey of a player with money”. Available at: http://games.qq.com/a/20080605/000401.htm (the site was visited on December 30, 2008). The repost examined power of capital from a perspective of political economy of communication and discussed the direct and indirect impact of capital in the whole event, which was very insightful.
- 18.
As this book defined in the Chap. 1, “Internet media,” according to Peng (2005, pp. 3–4), refers to certified institutions that are engaged in news and information communication mediated by network, that is, websites with a traditional media background and commercial websites certified to publishing news. Network media and traditional media both belong to mass communication institutions in terms of organization operation mechanism and information production and releasing features.
- 19.
“National Geographic Azeroth” is one of the best known forums themed with World of Warcraft, an online game popular in the world. The forum often has more than ten thousands of netizens online simultaneously. Zerpha, a user of the forum, published, at 14:42, December 12, 2007, a post titled “forward [December 20] [Southern Weekly] [Special report]: System”. Available at: http://bbs.ngacn.cc/read.php?tid=1404939. However, the user only reposted the first part of “System” with about 2,000 words. The post declared that though the article was none of the business of World of Warcraft, it was really well written and had in-depth discussion on some common problems in the online game industry. It is for this reason that zerpha forwarded the post and indicated its original source, the official website of Nanfang Daily, i.e.: http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/zm/20071220/xw/200712200012.asp.
- 20.
Please refer to the article “Southern Weekly: ‘System’” published on the IT express Page of SM Community. (2007-12-23 10:43:36) [2008-12-29], http://www.newsmth.net/bbscon.php?bid=26&id=370082.
- 21.
Ohmymedia is an individual blog themed with studies on media and communication. Please refer to “Ohmymedia”: “Such is what I learn: Southern Weekly: ‘System.’” (2007-12-23) [2008-12-29]. http://ohmymedia.com/2007/12/23/736/.
- 22.
“Ohmymedia”: “the ‘System’ of Southern Weekly and the system of media in China.” (2007-12-23) [2008-12-29], http://ohmymedia.com/2007/12/23/735/.
- 23.
Not all backlinks could be shown on Google, so as to prevent others to crack its ranking mechanism through reverse engineering.
- 24.
The reason why I selected the four words is that they all appeared in the first paragraphs of “System,” the most frequently searched part of the article. “System” and “Zhengtu” were the objects described by the article. “Lü Yang” was the heroine in the article and “Pinochet” was a political figure in real life. If a web page included all of the four words, it would be highly relative to the article of “System.” Putting a half-angle quotation mark on each word is a rule recognized by search engines for exact search.
- 25.
These web pages were enquired on December 31, 2008 and were checked on March 29, 2009. All figures presented above are from the result of the check enquiry.
- 26.
The 100 blogs are inclusive of ohymymedia.com, as the source of all blogs. In case that one user owned several blogs at the same time, such as hecaitou that had simultaneously published the same article on three websites including hecaitou.net, hecaitou.com and caobian.info, this study accounted them as one blog. Meanwhile, in case that one blog had several web pages, for example, a website reposted a post and another commentary article also had the link of the same post, this study considered it as one blog. The study considered different blogs coming out from one same blog service provider as different blogs. Though the list of the 100 blogs may not be exhaustive of all blogs that had repost or provided links of the whole article of “System” given limited time and efforts, there may be few websites missed. Some blogs reposted the article on news.netease.com months after the event, which had little effect and influence on the development of the whole event. Therefore, this study ignored these blogs, considering these blogs had no direct relationship with the networked public communication of the issue.
- 27.
Input all websites into the software of Freemind and worked out a mind map, and then I substituted all specific addresses of the web pages with the addresses of blog sites and exported it in a picture format as shown above.
- 28.
“hecaitou” was one of the most popular blog writers in the Chinese blogosphere, who created blogs on three different independent domain names: hecaitou.net, hecaitou.com, and caobian.info. Hecaitou often discussed online hot topics and attracted a large number of readers for his intelligent, sharp style with smooth expression.
- 29.
Danwei (danwei.org) is an English language blog founded by Jeremy Goldkorn, a South African blogger and editor. The blog, engaged in publishing content pertaining to media, advertising and city life in China, translates and edits Chinese language media articles or content from the Internet. The China-focused blog is committed to “giving a range of sources, news and opinions on China that no mainstream news organization can match” and is one of the most influential English language blogs of the sort all around the world. It also attracts many foreign journalists working on China.
- 30.
cnBeta (cnbeta.com) is a real-time news site and a platform for netizens to exchange ideas, themed with IT and technology news. It also takes into account Internet culture and hot topics. Editors of the blog release scores of or a hundred pieces of news in a form of blogs every day. Most of the content is sourcing from contributions of netizens or repost.
- 31.
Izaobao (izaobao.com) releases news every day in a form of blogs after its voluntary editing team aggregates and integrates news from other sources. It focuses on current affairs, livelihood of common people, culture and entertainment, while maintaining original features of Internet news. Therefore, its vivid, fresh news is very popular.
- 32.
At the end of 2007, about 60,000 users subscribed blogs of Hecaitou through zhuaxia.com and more than 360,000 netizens through feedburner.com. Though subscribers of the two channels may overlap and there may be more subscribes from other sources, subscribers of hecaitou would be no less than 360,000.
- 33.
The address of the official website of Nanfang Media Group has changed from nanfangdaily.com.cn to nfmedia.com as of the publication of this book.
- 34.
All traffic data as well as Fig. 5.4a–c are form alexa.com, an authoritative web information provider. All results were required on March 30, 2009. Though limited by statistical methods and tools, data from alexa.com was not one hundred per cent accurate and alexa.com had long been plagued with websites’ cheating behavior, alexa.com was still one of the reliable data sources that were widely recognized by the Internet sector and researchers.
- 35.
What was referred to here is the commentary article published on ohmymedia.com.
- 36.
See Hecaitou: “Important repost”: ‘System.’ [2009-03-30]. http://www.hecaitou.net/?p=2336. Ganbu, pinyin in Chinese, generally refers to government officials. It is black humor wide circulated on the Chinese Internet, which critiques some government officials who have privileges and abuse their power.
- 37.
Hecaitou.ent: “Byte sea blog on December 21, the best Christmas gift.” [2009-03-30]. http://www.hecaitou.net/?p=233.
- 38.
izaobao.com: “Zhengtu: a shameless system.” [2009-03-30]. http://www.izaobao.com/506.html.
- 39.
“8 Weekly”: “[Editor’s view] Litter Brother.” [2009-03-30]. http://www.8log.com.cn/archives/9.html.
- 40.
Keso: “A ramble: system vs You.” [2009-03-30]. http://blog.donews.com/keso/archive/2007/12/30/1241838.aspx.
- 41.
“Ganbu” is a Chinese word which means party and government officials in China.
- 42.
It is only a comparison with common people who chose BSP blogs. It is of course another story if it comes to “celebrities” like Jinglei Xu or Han Han who chose BSP blogs. Generally speaking, page views of independent blogs are much less than those of BSP blogs, for lack of popularity brought about by portal sites on which BSP blogs are established.
- 43.
Figure 4.3a, b sourced from ohmymedia.com and data from Google Analytics, an authoritative web statistics provider.
- 44.
For instance, a post that reposted the whole article of “System” on the Economy Forum of tianya.ocm was visited 35,000 times and had about 330 replies from its publication on December 27, 2007 till December 31, 2008 when the researcher enquired the web page. [2008-12-31]. Available at: http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/develop/1/139505.shtml.
- 45.
“xinhuanet.com”: [2009-03-30]. http://news.xinhuanet.com/internet/2008-01/01/content_7337165.htm and http://news.xinhuanet.com/newmedia/2007-12/29/content_7336451.htm; “gmw.cn”: [2009-03-30]. http://www.gmw.cn/content/2007-12/29/content_717190.htm.
- 46.
“people.com.cn”: [2009-03-30]. http://game.people.com.cn/GB/48644/48662/6711129.html.
- 47.
“Business Watch Magazine”: “Wei Liu, CEO of Giant Interactive Group Inc.: Matured after ups and downs.” Repost on www.cnfol.com with the same title. (2009-03-23)[2009-03-30]. Available at: http://news.cnfol.com/090323/101,1596,5628826,00.shtml.
- 48.
“people.com.cn”: [2009-03-30]. http://game.people.com.cn/GB/48644/48662/8991373.html.
- 49.
“Ohmymedia”: “Summary of the 2009 WIP Report.” (2008-12-14) [2009-03-30]. http://ohmymedia.com/2008/12/14/1032/.
- 50.
“Ohmymedia”: “Research, communication, bridging and sharing”. (2008-12-16) [2009-03-30]. http://ohmymedia.com/2008/12/16/1034/.
- 51.
In May 2005, the General Office of CPC Central Committee issued “Suggestions on Further Strengthening and Improving the Supervision Work by Public Opinions” and the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee issued “The Implementation Measures for Strengthening and Improving Supervision Work by Public Opinion.” The two regulations demanded that no criticized report on “land acquisition and demolition” shall be covered. It also clearly stipulated that “local media and metropolis media are not allowed to conduct across-regional supervision coverage and media specialized in a certain industry should not cover news in other fields.” On May 10, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television issued “Notice on the Requirements of Strengthening and Improving the Public Opinion Supervision Work by Radio and Television,” which clearly stated that “across-regional public opinion supervision coverage shall be strictly controlled. Local radio and television stations shall not be allowed to conduct interregional public opinion supervision coverage.”
- 52.
“The Tallest Building” post on Tianya Community was reported by Southern Weekly and The Wall Street Journal. [2009-04-03]. Available at: http://www.infzm.com/content/23064;http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20080218/chw181044.asp.
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He, W. (2017). The Flow of Information: Features and Models of Networked Public Communication. In: Networked Public. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47779-3_5
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