Masaryk university
Research Context: Internet and Weibo Use in China
Download 0.54 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Weibo use in China
- Weibo as a New Information Channel
Research Context: Internet and Weibo Use in China
According to the China Internet Network Information Center report (CNNIC 2012), by the end of 2011, China’s Internet users had reached a 513 million, an increase of four percent compared to the previous year. The Internet penetration rate has now reached 38.3 percent. Although China already has the largest netizen population in the world, the internet penetration rate is still relatively low compared to 78.6 percent in North America and 61.3 percent in Europe. In other words, even though the Chinese online population is already larger than the total population of the United States, there is still much room to grow. There are three characteristics of China’s netizens: 1. Male dominant. Almost 56 percent of Chinese netizens are male; about 44.1 percent are female. According to CNNIC (2012), this gender gap has remained relatively consistent since 2010. This male-dominant internet population might be mainly caused by the unequal gender distribution in China. According to census results published in 2010, about 51.27 percent of Chinese people are male and 48.73 percent are female (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2011). 2. Young. More than half (56.5 percent) of the Internet population are between 10 to 29 years old, while 25.7 percent of the population are from 30-39 years old. The average age of Chinese netizens is about 28 years, which is much younger than average age of U.S. netizens at 40-years-old (Netpop Research 2011). 3. Better-educated. Internet users have a higher education level than the overall population. About 10.5 percent of netizens possess an education level at the technical college-level, and almost 12 percent of netizens hold a bachelor’s degree or above. However, the netizen population among people with higher education levels has almost reached saturation. 3. Students made up the largest cohort of netizens, which is about 30.2 percent of the total population. The second largest group is freelancer/self-employed, which makes up 16 percent. The third largest is made up of company employees, at about 10 percent of total netizen population.
Hot pot is one of the most popular stew cuisines that can be found almost everywhere in China. Just like its name, it involves a simmering metal pot placed at a central dining table, where fresh ingredients are placed into the pot and cooked. Generally, people sit around the table to eat hot pot together. Everyone can order whichever ingredients they would like to eat and put them into the hot pot. After the food is cooked, one can dip pieces of food into various sauces. The Chinese microblog, Weibo, is just like a huge hot pot for Chinese netizens: First of all, it is very hot!---hot as in popular. According to the semiannual CNNIC report(CNNIC 2012) for the second half of 2011, Weibo has already become the eighth most popular Internet application among Chinese netizens after only five years’ of development. The biggest increase of user rates among all applications in 2011 is in Weibo, which grew by over 296 percent. The user population increased exponentially from 63.11 million to 186.77 million, representing an annual growth of 123.66 million. Now, almost half of the total netizens in China are Weibo users (48.7 percent). Figure 1 Weibo user rate from 2010/12-2011/12 Source: CNNIC (2012) Weibo has also become a new information source for its users. It is so popular that it has begun encroaching upon the market of online news, the fourth most popular online application among Chinese netizens. To further illustrate this phenomenon, the online news user rate shrunk from 77.2 percent to 71.5 percent in 2011, even though the total amount of users still increased by 3.9 percent from 2010 to 2011(CNNIC 2012). The Weibo growth rate peaked in the first half of 2011 and slowed down to 28.2% during the second half of 2011. Although the number of Weibo users is still increasing, the CNNIC report has forecasted that the increasing speed would slow down further in 2012. Even as Weibo’s development remains up in the air due to capricious government regulations and censorship, there is no evidence that its growth momentum will stop. In fact, the biggest Weibo website Sina Weibo just announced that they would soon open English version for Weibo (Lu 2011). Should twitter be intimidated? Second, it’s mixed. When eating hot pot, people can order anything they like, put their own ingredients into the hot pot and mixed them with others’. After it is cooked, everyone can take whatever they want from the pot. Like hot pot, Weibo is also a mixture of a little bit of everything. Anyone can share whatever they saw or heard on Weibo. Some posts were even combined with first hand photos or video clips. The forward function makes it very convenient to mix up others’ posts with the users’ original comment, forming new avenues of expression. Both the original message and the users’ comment would be seen if it is forwarded into the user’s profile. Currently, the biggest social network site in China, Sina Weibo, generates billions of posts every day, so it is not a surprise that anyone can find something they like on there. However, it might take a while to find what you are looking for, since all the information is mixed together and spread out chronologically, without any order or category under specific theme. Be patient, and you will find the pieces you like, just like when you are digging in the soup of hot pot. Undoubtedly, Weibo has become the biggest carnival for Chinese netizens where even the smallest voice can generate the loudest echoes. Third, it’s fresh, short, and fast. Hot pot always uses fresh ingredients that are washed and cut in small pieces. Every kind of food comes in a small portion so diners can enjoy different kinds of food together from the pot. Just put the food into the pot for a few minutes and it is ready to serve, fast and delicious. Weibo is undoubtedly the fastest information platform so far. Anything that is shared online can be spread throughout the web instantaneously. Also, there is a 140-character limit for every post on Weibo, which forces the users to use the most concise and succinct words to describe the story. The freshest news items of today first emerged from Weibo. Fourthly, it’s very spicy. Although there are many regional variations of hot pot, the most original version is the spiciest. Weibo is also a platform that brews contentious debates, collective action, and sometimes even ferocious attacks. To make it spicier, Sina Weibo even has a live ranking of the most popular discussion on Weibo. On the post window, there would be a hint about what others were talking about now so as to attract users to join in the discussion with their own “brick” (metaphor for post). It could be not so spicy as well, as many people use Weibo only for fun and entertainment. The most popular Weibo user in Sina Weibo, who is not a real-life celebrity and with millions of followers, is the “Cold joke collection.”1 With so many spicy and hot ingredients all mixed up together, people who are not used to it might truly suffer from indigestion. What happens on Weibo doesn’t always stay on Weibo; it is an online public sphere that is deeply intertwined with the real world (Sullivan 2011). The quick and broad reach of Weibo creates an amplification effect that even a thoughtless comment can generate catastrophic consequence for the poster. Mr. Wang now wears a mask in public to avoid confrontations after he was attacked by two young women while he was dinning in a restaurant. It is all because he had commented on his Weibo that a photo of wanted criminal bore some resemblance to a famous singer Shang. Shang replied angrily and forwarded this message (which appeared together with Wang’s original post) on her Weibo. The next day, Mr. Wang received more than 20,000 harsh postings on his Weibo from Shang’s protective fans. His personal photographs and mobile phone number were even broadcasted all over the Internet. Calls would come at midnight with life-threatening messages. This is hardly the first case of a “human flesh search,” or a cyber-manhunt, which “ferrets out a person’s most intimate details and broadcasts them” (Yan and Yin 2012). The ex-head of Bureau of Health in a southern city called Liyang, lost his job for his bungled use of Weibo. Confused by the Weibo instant message software, he used Weibo to arrange meeting with his mistress in a local hotel. They even discussed details about using government funds to cover the cost. Soon he was “cyber-manhunted” by other internet users. He lost his job and received heavy penalties from the higher authorities (China.org.cn 2011).
Weibo has a substantial impact on netizens’ media usage as a new information channel. With such rapid increase in user population, Weibo is already a powerful tool, allowing activists to motivate, organize, and mobilize collective action. There are three characteristics that might contribute to Weibo’s mobilization power: 1. Faster and wider reach Like Twitter, there is a word limit on Weibo of 140-characters. Short messages forces users to give the most concise description of the story. It generates a faster flow of information, creating an amplification effect that will attract attention instantaneously. There are two consequences of this feature: 1) events break out on Weibo much faster than before, and make it more difficult for the state to control the information flow; 2) Weibo breaks the boundary between digital community divide, allowing information to reach wider audiences between different online communities. However, limitation of words also makes it difficult to add any in-depth and detailed analysis to the event. Most of the content offers only raw information with little refinement and in-depth analysis. Although image file of long contention is popular in Weibo, it nevertheless doesn’t reflect the general trend. 2. Less restriction While the traditional media and websites are all subject to state censorship, Weibo resembles to “citizen journalism” (Freelon 2011) which allows everyone to write their own journal without consideration for the pressure of censorship. However, the paradox of this online freedom of speech is that, although anyone can write whatever they want, the state can also censor anything unfavorable for them. But the volume and speed of information transmission still makes it impossible to censor everything before it is already spread out to some extent. Meanwhile, Weibo users always come up with new and creative ways to avoid censor detectors. In this way, Weibo is still a relatively freer place than any other media. 3. Interactive platform Weibo has developed various interactive features that resemble a BBS (Bulletin Board System). Weibo users can comment and forward to their own profile, which will be public whoever is following them. Using the function @username, every Weibo posts can add a related person so as to raise his/her attention and broadcast the news into wider audience. This characteristic makes Weibo an online arena where various thoughts and opinions to collide. Contentious discussion, open debate, and online collective action happen daily on Weibo. In summary, Weibo is a new information channel that substantially reduces the transaction costs for activists to raise awareness of the public about ongoing events. Its unique characteristics of faster information flow, wider reach, interactive platform and less restriction from the state have transformed the online sphere and collective action participation dynamics.
|