Online and offline political participation, participation, and volunteering

4.6 Online and offline political participation, participation, and volunteering

Table 48. Report problems or make suggestion to government online

No participant reported that they had reported problems or made any suggestion to government through the Internet, although the Chinese government started the Government Online Project on 22 January 1999 and provides channels like the mayor online mailbox and the prime minister (online). P03 reported that he knew about the mayor online mailbox and had a vague idea about the prime minister (online), he ‘has never used them’ because he ‘thinks that Chongqing is good’. It indicates that one possible reason for P03’s non-participation is his content with his current life.

P06 reported one online political activity: Sina Weibo’s online petition. Sina Weibo provides a microblogging petition service through which its users can sign up for petitions on various topics and the petitions occur very frequently. The singing ‘red’ songs campaign, or so-called ‘mass sing-alongs of communist anthems’, reported by P06, is one of the two famous issues that gained Bo Xilai nationwide prominence. It is a controversial musical campaign to mark the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party's birth in Chongqing launched by Bo Xilai in 2008. The campaign was criticised by the Western media as Chinese city's new cultural revolution (Branigan, 2011; FlorCruz, 2011). The other one is an anti-mafia crusade (Morillo, 2012).

The researcher asked the in-depth interview participants if they have joined any organisation or participated in any activity through the Internet when they have not brought the topic into their conversation. The researcher deliberately avoided using the word ‘political’ to modify activities and organisation for fear of misleading the participants and missing important information that the participants did not consider as political. To the question, P02, P03, and P04 all gave a negative answer. P02 tried to explain and legitimise his non-participation. From his explanation, it is clear that he had hardly paid any attention to such organisations or activities.
Table 50. Participation in the local people’s congress election (supposed)

Ref	Participation in the local people’s congress election (supposed)
P05	The possibility is low: lack of reliable information “There is a certain degree of possibility, but it is low. At first, to elect a representative at the people’s congress, I know nothing about the candidates. Nothing. Unless I happened to know them well.” “If I know them by person. Because information online is complex. Some is real, some is false, some is bad, and some is good. If you need to know somebody to tell if he/she can be a representative, I cannot trust online information that much. Of course, there are some I can trust, but not that much. Unless I really know what he/she did, the possibility will be higher. For example, we participated in the people’s congress election in our university. But we knew nothing about them. There are just posters to say who he/she is. But I had to vote. We were not willing to do so.”
P06	Will do only when there is enough information about the candidates: “If I am going to elect representatives, I need to know their political philosophies, their appeals, and their plans when in power. In China I will not vote, (because) I do not know who is who, what their political ideas are, what their measures are, or what their proposals are. I think that such an election is a shame to democracy. I will if this information is publicised. If they hold conferences to express their political ideas and someone’s political orientation and ideas are in line with my demands, I will. I will not, if suddenly one day someone tells me to take my ID to vote for our representative. And I indeed did not vote.”

Article 2 in Chapter I General Principles of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China says that ‘all power in the People’s Republic of China belongs to the people. The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are the organs through which the people exercise state power’ (Constitution, 2004). Article 57 of Section 1 of The National People's Congress, in Chapter III The Structure of the State says ‘the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China is the highest organ of state power’. How are the National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses constituted? Article III says ‘the State organs of the People’s Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism. The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are constituted through democratic elections’. The principle of democratic centralism⁰ means that the representatives at a higher level are not directly elected by the people, but by the representative at a lower level.

Democratic elections of local people’s congress members do exist in China as P05 and P06 reported and as the researcher experienced. In most cases, people have to choose from a list of names when they have not a single idea of who they are. According to their accounts, they were both clear how important reliable information was to make the people’s congress election democratic and meaningful. Their realisation of the importance of reliable information came from their experience of the people’s congress election in their university. To make the situation worse, voters like P05, P06 and the researcher do not know if their votes count due to the lack of transparency. It is evident that P05 and P06 thought that the current people’s congress election was not democratic due to the lack of reliable information about the candidates. Only when reliable information was available were they willing to participate in such elections.
Table 51. Online participation

Ref	Channel	Activity	Organisation	Motivation	Frequency
P01	QQ group	Bicycling together		To have companions to go bicycling together	Several times per semester
P04		Negative: “I have not participated in any activities online. Nor do I trust any activities online.”			Never
P05	Heard of it	Gele Mountain climbing	A group		Never
P06	QQ, online forums	Travel, short distance trips, hanging out together, going to concerts together, receiving stars at the airport together	Fan groups		Frequently

Only P01 and P06 reported having participated in organisations and activities through the Internet.

Table 52. Online volunteering

4.7 Online travelling and movies

4.7.1 Online travelling

The usage rate of online flight, hotel, train, or travel booking services increased from 19.8% to 29.3% from 2012 to 2013with approximately 181 million users (CNNIC, 2013). In 2013, 35.3% of Internet users use PCs to search for trip or travel information, while 31.7% use mobile phones. To meet the growing need, several leading search engine companies like Baidu developed travel channels. The increasing GDP per capita is one of the major reasons contributing to the growing need for travelling.
Figure 5. Usages of mobile intelligent terminals for trip


Source: CNNIC

It is evident that a noticeable percentage of both offline and online trip booking users utilise the Internet for trip information searching, experience sharing, and trip service evaluation. Travel was one of the favourite topics for the Chinese blogosphere (Pang, 2009; Leibold, 2011), online forums (Yang, 2003b), and social media (Zeng, et al., 2013).

Despite the growing popularity of using the Internet for travel, its social or political implications have hardly been studied. Several studies surveyed or compared Internet use for travel information in China (e.g. Harwit & Clark, 2001; Guo, 2005; 2007). Zeng, et al. (2013) suggested one way that travel information on social network websites might influence governments’ decision-making. Their study indicates that user generated content of private concern may be utilised to help the government improve their service for its people. Naduvath (2009) suggested that international travel as one of the cross-cultural linkages led to ‘exchange of ideas’ and enhanced ‘access to and appreciation of alternate viewpoints’ (p.122). Qiu, Lin and Leung (2012) found that Chinese exchange students in Singapore share two types of information with their friends in China on Renren: status updates and useful information. They considered that travel information was useful information and sharing it with friends was behaviour to benefit others. Although they did not elaborate on how it benefits others. The researcher argues that consumption of travel information also exposes Internet users to alternate cultures and thus appreciation of alternate viewpoints.

Table 54. Online travelling

Ref	Channel	Message	Activity	Motivation	Frequency
P05	Baidu	To search first with Budai which leads me to Douban	Mutually beneficial (volunteering work for free travelling): “There are usually several options if you do such voluntary work. First cleaner,…cook, receptionist, usually three.” “In exchange, they provide free meals and accommodation, also arrange some time for you to look around, and tell you how to save money.” Youth Hotel Association has more foreign guests.	To travel and practice English with limited budget.
	Douban	Douban groups like Lijiang volunteering, Lijiang angel. Information about recruiting volunteers.			Occasionally
	Tianya	Blogs of their volunteering experience. “For example, some volunteers post their blogs of their volunteering. To have a rough idea of which one is better, what activities they have.”			Started to use recently
P06	58 City Community	Call for tour pals to travel together or hang out together	Trip to Golden Buddha Mountain and Tibet, dining or KTV together		Long distance travelling twice; hanging out (more in the last year and the year before).
	Couchsurfing friends: Known from Travelling website, Baidu Tieba; further known by QQ		First meeting at Carey’s concert, travelling to ShenZhen, Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Tieling, and couchsurfing friends at Shenzheng and Beijing visited him in Chongqing.	To travel in an economical way: “Because it costs less to travel this way. I like to travel around.”
	QQ group of Liwen fans in Chongqing		Trips within Chongqing

The Internet has been utilised by P05 and P06 in various ways for economical travelling. Three Internet services have been employed for online travelling: online forums and communities like Douban, Tianya, 58 City Community, and Baidu Tieba; search engines like Baidu; and QQ. Search engines are used at the first stage to search relevant information when P05 only had a rough idea of what she was going to do. Online forums and communities are for detailed information usually from Internet users who have relevant experience and for organising activities, for example to ‘call for tour pals to travel together or hang out together’. QQ is employed for development of further relationships.

It has been found that there were three types of travelling activities available online for Internet users like them. One is offered by some hotels who call for volunteers to help with service work like cleaning, cooking, or receiving guests and provide free meals and accommodation, some time for looking around, and tips to save money in exchange. The second is tour pal calling. Internet users call for tour pals to travel or hang out together through online forums and communities or QQ groups. The third is couchsurfing friends. There are specialised online forums and communities where Internet users can find people who are willing to host each other while travelling to each other’s hometowns. The three ways of online travelling all provide opportunities to travel with limited budget, which motivates P05 and P06 to travel or plan for travelling in such ways.

4.7.2 Online movies

By the end of 2013, the number of Internet users who watch videos online has reached approximately 428 million and the usage rate is 69.3% with 15.2% increase since 2012 (CNNIC, 2013). Guo’s two surveys (2005; 2007) also confirm that downloading and watching movies is heavily used. However, the political implications of movie watching have hardly been studied. The Chinese government has fully recognised the potential of online movies to challenge the existing values and the system while the scholars largely ignore this aspect. Zittrain and Edelman (2003) found that the movie Deep Impact together with other music, MTV and entertainment sites was blocked in China.

In McCormick, Su and Xiao’s (1992) study of the 1989 Democracy Movement, availability of foreign television series and movies was considered as a factor that contributed to challenging the Party’s traditional views and emergence of new ways of thinking. Movies are also considered as one of the sources from which the images that we use to fabricate pseudo-reality come (Joe, 2002). Pseudo-reality is an important concept Lippmann proposed to explain the influence of the media on how people define the world. The pseudo-reality the media and other people produce is important for all people to define the world since people experience most aspects of reality second-handedly from media and other people (Joe, 2002).

Young Chinese Internet users favour ‘high-quality’ entertainment/educational products produced by international media companies like Disney and Viacom. Their products are not considered as political or ideologically ‘harmful’ by the Chinese government because the companies intentionally meet government regulations on culturally sensitive content in order to secure their market share in China (Ian & Lu, 2007).

Table 55. Online movies：channel, content and frequency

Ref	Channel	Content	Frequency
P02			About every two days
P04	PPS, Sohu, Iqiyi, Tudou, and Youku	Variety shows: entertaining programmes like Happy Camp and Kangxicome; TV series: modern Chinese TV series about young couples’ family life, Cantonese TV series and American TV series like Prison Break, Gossip Girls, The Vampire Diaries, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, and The Big Bang Theory.	Frequently
P05	University intranet	“English TV or movies when I want to practice English listening like Desperate House Wives and a movie about an investigation of nuclear weapons in Iraq by the FBI; sometimes some entertaining Chinese TV or movies; the latest and hottest if interesting; the classic and the latest; The Sent Down Girl, a movie in the context of the Culture Revolution blocked in China; I like detective films, especially spy films.”	Sometimes one movie per two or three days, sometimes per week, sometimes several in one day
P06	Download online from domestic websites	The Hollywood blockbusters
P07			Mentioned watching videos online
P08	University intranet (bitdownload)
P09	Blocked websites	Blocked movies
P11		Movies, sit-coms, TV programmes	Frequently
P12			Mentioned watching movies online

Table 56. Online movies: habit and effect

Ref	Habit	Effect
P02	“I like movies recommended by others. For example if I receive several movies at a time, I will file them and have a watch every two days.”
P04	Likes TV series and variety shows; Usually the latest series; Likes TV about modern life, not ancient times. “I don’t like ancient clothes, nor fights in the court in ancient times. I don’t think it is interesting.” “I like handsome men and beautiful women, a feast for eyes.”
P05	Purposeful watching: “Usually I watch films and movies purposefully. When I want to practice my oral and listening English, I watch American films. Of course, sometimes it is an excuse. When I just want to entertain myself, I watch Chinese ones, entertaining ones. Sometimes when there are new series or movies, I will have a look if I am interested in them.”	The effect on values: American films’ potential impact: “I want to say that the impact is potential. I cannot tell, but I think that there is an impact on values.” Child education: She gave an example of how an American mother reacted to her crying baby. “I will pay attention to that when I educate my baby in the future. Impact like this. It is just an example.” Longing for a better life: “There is certainly a longing for their living environment. …that is to say, when I watch their life, I probably may think that I could live such a life in the future. But I would not think that my current situation is not good compared with theirs.” “Just learn a few things here and there. But I cannot catch the main values (because of cultural differences).” Better knowledge and understanding of historical and current political affairs: Iraq war: “I learned something. …to some extent, the movie reveals the nature of Iraq War. It could be said that the movie helps to expand my knowledge.” Blocked Chinese movie: “The Sent Down Girl, a blocked movie. It is about the Cultural Revolution…it has an impact on one’s mind.”
P11		For her study

P05’s accounts throw light on three important effects of online movie watching that have rarely been studied. They are the effect on values, longing for a better life, and better knowledge and understanding of historical and current political affairs.

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