CNBloggerCon 2008 in review: Transforming China’s civil society from the inside out

Social media, and the blogosphere, are playing a historic role in the transformation of China. Because mainstream media in China continues to be regulated and controlled, social media will step in to play the role that free press has played in the positive (and mostly stable) development of Western liberal democracies.  China’s ruling party did not choose social media, but China’s people did.  And now, social media promises to play a big part in the progressive development of the country.

I read John Kennedy’s excellent reflections on this year’s CNBloggerCon and tried to summarize for myself what the main takeaways from the conference was for me.

1.  Before our very eyes, the development of civil society is happening online.

Michael Anti 安替 spoke of the tremendous media liberalization in China since 2000.  With all of these advances, there are still problems with mainstream media in China, which is state-controlled and censored.  From the birth of the internet in China in 1998 to today, blogging in China plays a bigger role than in Western countries that already have a free, independent and professional media.  The question he asks is: can professional journalism arise from the blogosphere? Can bloggers support pluralism and sensible discussion?  He suggests that Chinese grassroots media is at a turning point: and should select the best aspects of journalistic tradition from the world. Ethan Zuckerman has a 2007 interview of Michael Anti that I like.

Ping Ke 平客 aka buchimifan observed the strong tendencies of argumentativeness and divisiveness in online forums and the blogosphere.  He spoke of the need for rational debate, both offline and online.  He hints at some aspects of Chinese society and culture that make it more difficult for people to disagree and debate in a calm way.  If you look online at Chinese forums and blogs, the “civil society” we are discussing is often not very civil.  Are these signs of the inherent centrifugal (“center-fleeing”) forces in Chinese society that cause leaders to emphasize harmony?  The blogosphere needs to play a role to support pluralism and rational online debate.

Hecaitou 和菜头 warned that the risks of misinformation can come from online mob rule as much as it can from a government seeking to maintain control, or private businesses seeking commercial gain.  Online sources can be extremely unreliable.  He gave an example where the blogosphere (and BBS) rallied behind a student who was killed by police officers.  But people jumped to conclusions, and it turns out the student wasn’t a student at all and had a prior record of attacking the police first.  The blogosphere is not “inherently truthful” any more than business or government is “inherently truthful” and Chinese civil society will need to determine what is true infomation in the Web.  Fortunately, I think they are pretty equipped to be skeptical of all sources of information.

2.  The scale of blogosphere and social media in China makes it impossible to control

The Sydney Morning Herald and Stuff.co.nz wrote up a nice article about Isaac Mao that I think captures the power of social media in China:

But while Western attention focuses on how much international content China still blocks, Mr Mao is excited by what has recently happened. His verdict: blogging has given Chinese people nerve. (all emphases mine)

“Two years ago nobody would have believed this was true,” Mr Mao says. But “as more and more social problems have emerged in China, people have had the chance to connect and share things that could not be seen before. Once there are enough bloggers nothing can be hidden.”

The number of bloggers in China doubled to 107 million in the six months to last June, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre. Total users rose 56 per cent from the previous year, to 253 million, giving China the largest online population in the world.

Mr Mao says he can see a tipping point coming. He believes that as a result of blogging, young Chinese brainwashed by their education system are now trying to think for themselves, work together and find smarter solutions.

Roland Soong of EastSouthNorthWest also has an exceptional speech that he couldn’t give in person because of family matters.  In the past, coverage of Chinese domestic injustices by the Western media was the only way to get redress.  But today, domestic social media has assumed the role that the Western media used to play.  Furthermore, the Internet has changed in four important ways:

Firstly, the Internet has grown so big that it is beyond normal control.  How do you monitor what 253 million netizens are doing (statistics from Wikipedia)?  How do you monitor the contents on 11 million Chinese websites?  The mythical 30,000 Internet police are helpless against those numbers…The dam is leaking all over the place….

Secondly, there is the emergence of an extremist right and an extremist left on the Internet in terms of public opinion…

Thirdly, a more interesting development has been the artful insertion of rumors into public debates.  On the seemingly straightforward case of The Police Beat A Harbin University Student To Death, there was a wave of misinformation about the deceased (that is, he had family ties to important government figures; he was a drug abuser; etc) that undermines public sympathy.  This gets to the point where one has to tread extremely carefully in every case to tell information from misinformation.  That may be frustrating, but it is actually very useful training…

Fourthly, and most importantly, you will note the role of western media has been eliminated from the process model…If once upon a time western media coverage, which affects the opinion of western politicians and citizens, mattered to the Chinese people, this is no longer the case.

I find Roland’s assessment very exciting.  The dam is leaking all over the place.  Social media, in an odd partnership with the Chinese government, has created a robust, networked system that is impossible to control, but can be both helpful and detrimental to the development of Chinese society.  It has been so successful, that domestic social media has supplanted the role of Western media and Western public opinion in influencing Chinese government policy and action.  As it should be.  Some more comments on Roland’s speech can be found at China Herald.

3.  But expect Web 2.0 will inspire Cop 2.0: adaptive efforts to control and influence social media

Crane Wang has an interesting post entitled Web 2.0 & Cop 2.0 that shares a bit about government involvement in this year’s event.  I covertly took pictures of the undercover police “protecting” the event from reactionary forces by trying to look “grassroots”:

Zhou Shugang (Zola, Zuola, Alouz, Twitter:Zuola, Zuolazi) – But the government is not without its ability to harrass.  Rebecca MacKinnon shared that blogger Zhou Shugang, aka Zola, was prevented from leaving the country:

Zola has stirred up controversy by turning himself into a commercial brand while at the same time committing citizen journalism. He has been called many things by many people: The “nailhouse blogger.” “Enfant terrible of the Chinese blogosphere.” A Chinese journalist-blogger friend of mine calls him “post-modern.”

Now Chinese authorities say he is “a potential threat to state security.” For that reason, they barred his exit from China to Hong Kong on Sunday. He was on his way to Germany to serve as a judge for Deutsche Welle’s Best of the Blogs awards.

Its clear that Zola doesn’t fear attention, as he was the only one with T-shirts sold at the conference with his picture on it.  I bought a few.

These are traditional harrassment methods.  And much of the burden of Internet censorship is essentially privatized and decentralized to the licensed content providers in China. The important thing is to know that Web 2.0 will eventually inspire a Cop 2.0 response. We don’t know what that will be yet, or if it will be more of the same.

4.  Social Media has been transformative in the fields of education, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and business.

Education – Social media is creating more ways in which teachers and students relate to each other, and also ways in which students relate to one another.  This is likely to stimulate more creativity and independence on the part of students, and faster, sustained continuous improvement on the part of teachers.

Non-Governmental Organizations – The Sichuan Earthquake disaster relief was a great example of how relief organizers were able to use social media to communicate with each other.  The blogosphere was critical in disseminating information to their trusted networks rapidly.

Panel on Online Word of Mouth Marketing – There are mixed feelings about business’ use of social media.  Chaozuo (抄炒做) is about manufacturing buzz in China — and is controversial if used incorrectly, just as it is in the Western world.  A classic case of the power of the blogosphere is the 2006 case of “Processor Gate” or “Dell Hell” which was chronicled by Sam Flemming of CIC and also BusinessWeek.

5.  Social media offers opportunity for personal growth:  self-knowledge, wisdom, and discovery

Jean Chow (Goldred) shared some heartfelt personal reflections about blogging:

• “life is something like making a good meal, we need time to let it mature to make it taste really good”
• There are no “eternal fans” or “fans forever”
• Sesame and pies — What’s more important — sesame or pies? Both, in fact, as just as important; but there’s a time and place for everything.  The way we need to learn must change.
• There’s too much on the “outside”.  We’ve forgotten the “inside”
• Quote from Zhuangzi (莊子). We must find ourselves. Only then will others follow us.

Lian Yue: Pessimism is Immoral - And finally, Crane Wang blogs about a meet up on November 16 after the official conference had concluded. Lian Yue, a liberal opinion leader, exhorted bloggers to persevere in the face of persecution:

In the very early stage of social change, when the Internet first came into being, when you first began blogging, people might very easily get frustrated and believe those efforts are just meaningless, stupid and vain. If you press hard on those efforts and say there’s no point, such negative attitude might kill civil society in its infancy.

That is why I believe pessimism is immoral at this time in China.

Please remember social transformation is by no means a quick task.

In a democracy like America, very person has one and only one vote. B. Obama has one vote, G. W. Bush one; and a rich man one vote, a poor guy also one vote. If you have a blog and keep writing on it, express your opinion, that is your social responsibility and civic duty being done. Even if there are only 2 readers, your are making quite a move. A civil society would come into being by such gradual influence. Please be optimistic.

So that’s it.  An exhausting event that I believe is part of a historic movement!

和而不同，多志兴邦!  Embracing Our Diversity, We Build Our Future Together!

Other Links:

WSJ China Journal “Do Chinese Web Users have more fun”

John Kennedy’s reflections

Micah Sittig’s quick impressions

John Biesnecker’s parting shots

David Feng’s summary

Shel Israel’s post with some CNBloggerCon reflections

Web2Asia’s China 2.0 Tour Guangzhou Day 2 post

Web2Asia’s China 2.0 Tour Guangzhou Day 1 post

Online broadcasts (zh) by Netease here:  http://tech.163.com/special/000932A4/cnbloggercon2008.html

SlideShare group organized by Oliver Ding:  http://www.slideshare.net/group/cnbloggercon/2

Video from WSJ China Journal:

Via Roland Soong, a list of 17 Chinese bloggers (many already mentioned above) who are on the vanguard of a new open media that will make China a stronger, more resilient country through a new tradition of open journalism and greater civic participation:

安替 (Michael Anti)
长平 (Chang Ping)
连岳 (Lian Yue)
时昭 (Shi Zhao)
胡咏 (Hu Yong)
冯三七 (John Kennedy)
左拉 (Zhou Shuguang)
杨恒均 (Yang Hengjun)
邓志新 (Deng Zhixin)
艾未未 (Ai Weiwei)
老虎庙 (张世和，Zhang Shihe)
温云超 (Wen Yunchao)
许志永 (Xu Zhiyong)
刘晓原 (Liu Xiaoyuan)
翟明磊 (Zai Minglei)
宋以朗 (Roland Soong)
毛向辉 (Issac Mao)