Attitude toward government corruption

6.2.4 Political socialisation and irrelevance

The study finds six themes explaining participants’ relative silence on political or social content (see Table 62-65) among which,a lack of motivation is prominent (see Table 63). Lack of motivation also contributes to explaining why P05 did not search for any volunteering opportunities online and thus did not participate in any (see Table 52). Not so explicitly, lack of motivation also affects participants’ online political information consumption. Every participant studied did not have any technical difficulty in climbing over the Great Wall; all participants equally scored 3 in reports of their online skills (see Table 7). So what stopped them from climbing over the Great Wall? The answer is a lack of motivation. Why did the participants lack motivation for freer political information consumption, political deliberation, or political participation? This section begins to explore the question by examining first what motivated participants’ online information consumption of things like news and online communication.

Relevance is found to be a very important criterion that the participants used to select what they read and communicated about online. For example, when P01 described what he read on the university intranet (see Table 44), he said that he read the information relevant to his course, the university, or the university students and he did not read what was irrelevant to him. The information he considered relevant to him included the information he needed for his daily life like the second-hand market and rent information; information that affected his daily life, for example, what schoolmates complained about the university and what happened on campus like unqualified food in a certain university canteen, or an article about the Mayor’s opinion about high Internet fees in universities; and information he needed for his study, consequently his career development, such as information about certificate examination registration, or information about telecommunication networks, what his university was strong at, and so on.

When P02 talked about his news reading habits (see Table 14), he used the word ‘eye-catching’ to describe what types of news he would read. When he was asked to specify what types of news would catch his eye, the first category he identified was news relevant to him, for example about university students. He said, “(I will) read the title. Most news (I choose) is relevant to me or to my identity.” Self-development is the motivation identified when P02 explained why he read the news he chose. P02 stated, “news reading helps me to know the current social situation. For example, the most practical one is how to get a job after graduation. What kind of people does the society need? How should I think about what I will be in the future? What kind of people does the society cultivate? What kind of thoughts do you need to have? Most importantly, (to know) the political direction and tendency of the state, (you should) choose the direction that the state needs most.” To put it straightforwardly, he read the news to find a good job in the future, and to adapt to the society and to the needs of the state.

P02 saw BBS on his university’s intranet as a platform to know about the university before registration (see Table 44). He explained, “complaints on BBS truthfully reflect the bad sides of the university.” He used the university BBS before registration and when he was a fresh student, and stopped using it afterwards. His choice of time to use university BBS shows one of the motivations that a participant has when making decisions about information consumption. A participant is motivated to seek information about things that will affect his or her daily life.

P03 expressed the same concern (see Table 44) and his motivation to seek information and read news can be best described as environment surveillance. He described the motivation to read about “what was happening in the university” as “to be aware of what is going on around” him. He also read information about part-time jobs, house renting, and selling. He visited campus BBS frequently when he was a fresh student and knew little about the new environment he lived in. Seldom did he use campus BBS when he knew the university well, just several times a semester in total. Likewise, P03 stated that his motivation to read news was to “know what happened in the outside world while in the university”.

The participants also reported that they tended to communicate with each other online what was relevant to them. For example, when P02 described what they discussed in QQ groups (see Table 25), most topics, except for funny conversation, can be classified into two groups: information of immediate relevance to their daily life or study and news relevant to university students. The first category includes arranging gatherings, information released by their tutor or representatives, information about study, complaints of bad teachers or courses, sharing of learning experience. Moreover, according to his report, the online news that he had conversations with his roommates about is the news relevant to them. When P03 talked about what was discussed in his QQ groups, three major categories can be identified (see Table 25), and issues of group interests is one.

The study also finds that social utility is a major motivation for the participants’ news consumption and surveillance ranks second (see Table 17). P04 gave three reasons for her news reading which were staying normal, curiosity and course relevance. The first reason she gave for her news reading is “you should have a rough idea of these things. It is abnormal if you do not know when others talk about them.” Therefore, she did not think much about the news, nor did she care about what other people thought about the news. According to her report, she just scanned the headlines on the news website when she logged on to QQ to have a rough idea of what the news was that day and it took her about ten minutes.

The reason P04 gave for being concerned about the issue about Xiao Yueyue was curiosity. She explained, “it was famous and attracted lots of attention. I had already known the Xiaoyueyue Accident. It had already been out there for one or two days. But I had not watched the video and did not know the process. Later I found it on Weibo, just to know what happened and why everybody was talking about it.”

The third reason is course relevance. This is a common understanding and explanation for special interest in certain categories of information. For example, P04 explained her interest in financial and economic news like the stock market with the phrase “probably because I study it”. When she explained why she subscribed to China Daily, a mobile phone English-and-Chinese newspaper, P05 stated three reasons: to broaden her scope of knowledge, to increase her English vocabulary, and to help her with her translation. Two reasons were course-related. P06 also claimed that he read news about Western countries because he was studying English and it helped his study to know more about other aspects of Western culture. Among the twelve participants, P09 was the person who read most about political and social issues. His BA was in media studies and he was doing his MA in law. When P10 explained why they (his classmates and him) only talked about political topics on a very few occasions, the reason was course relevance. He said, “because we, science students, usually talk about other topics. Social science students talk more about those topics.”

To enrich oneself or to broaden one’s knowledge is another important reason reported by the participants. Both Participant 05 and 06 explicitly stated it as one of the reasons for their news reading. P06 explained his long interest in Western news since he was a kid. He said, “they (Western countries) can influence other countries with their ideology. It is an ability which is worthy of our learning and studying.” To learn from them and consequently to improve himself is his motivation.

When they did talk about social issues online, the participants did not seem motivated to contribute to solving the problem. Instead of being concerned with it, the problem serves more as a trigger for them to start a conversation with their classmates or friends. For example, when she talked about her online conversation with her classmates on Weibo about the Wang Lijun Incident and the Xiao Yueyue Ancident, P04 described the incidents as “just topics for chatting” (see Table 68). They just said a few words like “this must be film-making.” “How could it be possible? There have been so many people passing by without helping.” She responded, “I think so. They haven't helped when they obviously saw her.” She said that there was nothing more afterward. The purpose is to network rather than any other reason.

The findings demonstrate that participants were motivated to read or discuss news, ideas or other information when they viewed it as socially useful, affecting their life, study or future development, or a way to watch their environment. The study finds that participants did not see the social or political issues or problems exposed online as affecting their life, work, self-development, interests, or material gains (see Table 87). Instead, the reason or motivation for them to read or talk about social or political issues is moral gain or spiritual satisfaction (see Table 88). For example, P08 summarised one of the Internet’s effects as to raise social conscience. The idea of pursuing virtue or becoming a virtuous person is deeply rooted in the Chinese political culture (see Chapter 2, 2.3.1).

To sum up, each online activity of reading, communicating or participating meets a specific need of the user, to stay normal and consequently be accepted by society, to gain better opportunities in the future by increasing knowledge, to better their performance in their course study, to network, or to satisfy their curiosity. Among the needs, the need to be morally lofty is not of immediate interest to them, therefore, they do not give it serious concern and they do not assign enough time and effort to it. The participants do not think that the social and political issues that emerged in the period of transition have an effect on their life, thus, they do not think that concerning themselves and making efforts for those issues will bring them any tangible benefits.

The Party strategically includes potentially dissidenting leaders and thinkers into the political system so that they benefit too much from it to want to challenge it (see Chapter 2, 2.3.1). Participants of this study are the elites of China (see Chapter 3, 3.5). They are or will most likely be the beneficiaries of the current system. Analysis of socioeconomic features of Internet users in China also supports the conclusion that participants of the study belong to a group of people who have benefited more than any other segment of the Chinese population from the current system (see Chapter 1, 1.3). Social problems like government corruption and social inequality are more likely to benefit them economically than to cause them economic loss. This may partly explain why they did not consider the social and political issues exposed online relevant to them and were not motivated enough to learn more or discuss them or to take some action to change them.

The concept of relevance and its relation to Internet use is a very important one in this project. Zuckerman (2014) remarks in his book Digital Cosmopolitans,

‘We’ve built information tools that embody our biases toward events that affect those near and dear to us. Our newspapers and broadcasters pay more attention to local and global matters than to international ones’ (p.28).

Transportation and information tools make connection to the whole world possible and our lives are affected and sometimes dramatically changed by things and happenings around the world. Individualised information tools bring us what we want to know instead of what we need to know. If what we want to know is so closely tied to what we think is relevant to us, it is important to explore how a society constructs and interprets the relevance of things and happenings to us, because that constrains what we see, and thus what we know and how we react.

6.2.5 Belief in a shock therapy and low political efficacy

There are two types of theories concerning transition from a socialism model with Chinese characteristics to democracy: a shock therapy and incremental transformation (Goldstein, 1995). The former holds that successful transition requires comprehensive and rapid economic reform and ‘an equally comprehensive dismantling of the institutions of Communist Party rule’ due to ‘the inter-related nature of the economic system’ (pp.1106-1107), while the latter advocates a ‘gradual and incremental transformation of economic and political systems by leaders who use and build upon the existing structures of society’ (p.1105). Participants of this study tended to believe the former. They believed that a ‘comprehensive dismantling of the institutions of Communist Party rule’ was either impossible or would lead to unpredictable results, therefore they did not believe that democratisation was possible in China. The researcher argues that their disbelief in shock therapy results in low external political efficacy, thus online political disengagement.

Most participants except P04 and P12 expressed their belief in the positive influence of the Internet on social issues (see Table 69). However, when speaking of more systematic change like the political system, the culture, the people and their ways of thinking, most participants, except for P09, expressed their disbelief in the Internet’s potential to make such changes (see Table 76). Only P09 believed that the Internet was a power to push political and cultural changes and to promote democracy. At the same time, he expressed a strong concern about the uncertainty of changing speed and outcomes the Internet brought because of its uncontrollable nature. P06 expressed what it meant to change the political system. It was meant “to so-called overthrow and to transfer to Western democracy” (see Table 79). He explicitly expressed and explained his argument that the Internet could only make small and non-substantial changes rather than systematic changes (see Table 76) and small changes would not accumulate into a revolutionary change. P07, P08, P10, P11 and P12 expressed the same belief that there was an extremely small influence of the Internet or no influence at all on the political system (see Tables 76 & 77).

Why did they believe a comprehensive change was impossible? They believed that the Party and state was so powerful and thus a ‘comprehensive dismantling of the institutions of Communist Party rule’ was impossible. P07 believed that the government was unwilling to change and had the power and resources to shape the influence (see Table 77). P08 said, “in China there is no medium which is as powerful as Aljazeera that could expose the dark side of the government and find out the truth. In China, no entity or individual is powerful enough to counterbalance the government.” (see Table 77). They did not believe that the current system was changeable, consequently, they did not believe in their power to change it (see Table 81). Only P01 and P06 expressed their belief in their power to make a difference through the Internet, but they also claimed that their influence was extremely insignificant, equalling to 1 out of 100. Others, except for P09, either did not think about how to make a difference through the Internet, or did not think they could have an influence at all.

Studies have proved that a person’s political efficacy is positively correlated to his/her political participation (see Chapter 2, 2.2.7). Most participants neither believed that the current political system was amendable, nor did they believe that they were able to change it. Why should they participate in politics if they believe that their participation does not help?

6.2.6 Lack of civic organisations and activities

There was little, if any, political participation, or any participation at all among the participants (see Tables 48 to 53). And they believed that there was even a lack of volunteering opportunities (see Table 53). Four participants displayed interest or willingness to participate in volunteering activities. Both P01 and P06 made attempts to register with volunteering organisations online or offline. P03 reported that he had read about some public welfare activities online. P05 said, “to be frank, we, university students, all want to do some volunteering work. It is an exercise for us and also helps others”, however, none of them actually participated.

They attribute their non-participation partly to lack of opportunities. P02 blamed a lack of accessible and doable activities for his lack of participation, as he explained, “there are very few activities organised online, or I know a few, because, on the one hand, if there are many, they are held in places far from here. There are relatively few because of Chongqing’s location. There are relatively few activities that we are capable of doing”. P03 reported that he had read about some public benefit activities online, but he could not make it because they were far away. In P05’s opinion, there were not many opportunities, and they were confined to certain groups of people, while they, common students, did not know about them. She tried one volunteering job organised by her college and the experience was not pleasant. She said, “until now there was one that I had a direct experience of. It was volunteering work in a nursing home organised by our college. Volunteers were chosen. I was not chosen. They did not choose me to do it.” Neither P01 nor P06 was approached or assigned any work by the volunteering organisations they registered with.

According to participants’ experience and understanding, there was a lack of such organisations that took an active role in approaching university students and offering them manageable and accessible opportunities. Is their belief a reflection of the reality or an excuse for their disengagement? The author searched online to answer this question and the findings confirmed the participants’ belief. Key word search with ‘volunteer’ and ‘volunteering organisation’ on Baidu, Baidu job search found 1023 vacancies in total among which 30 were located in Chongqing whose resident population was 28,590,000 in 2009⁰. There was no opportunity available in Chongqing area in the year of 2012 on the website of China Youth Volunteers, the major volunteer website in China. Civil society has been emerging in China as a result of the economic reform (see Chapter 2, 2.4.1), but is still in its infancy (Brook & Frolic, 1997; Yang, 2003a; Tai, 2006). The findings demonstrate that there is a general lack of civic culture outside the Party online due to the party-state’s tight control of associational activities and collective actions (King, Pan & Roberts, 2013) (see Chapter 6, 6.2.3). It is also evident that the party-state’s strategy to control associational activities and collective actions online is successful to discourage political participation.

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