week 2

Journalists vs bloggers

Is blogging journalism? In light of Rettberg , “blogs and other participatory media are changing the ways journalism works… and blogs can give first-hand reports from ongoing events, whether wars, natural disaster, or crimes…” (p86) As a matter of fact, bloggers, in many situations, possess more superiority in telling or reporting ongoing events in detail than journalists for the reason that they themselves are the participants of the events. I ‘d like to share a fun experience I had last summer, which I think is a good example to support the point that how powerful bloggers could be in some situation/events than journalists and mainstream media. Here is the story: I went back home to China every summer vacation. Last summer, I did the same and during the trip, I was seated five rows behind the first H1N1 carrier in China for 14 hours in the airplane from Atlanta to Beijing. He was diagnosed after we landed in Beijing and then all the passengers in this airplane were quarantined in Beijing by Chinese government. Since this H1N1carrier (a Chinese student studying in the U.S. ) is the first case in China, the whole country took it extremely serious. We were quarantined in a hotel close to the airport. During the quarantine, we saw many journalists and cameras trying to catch the ongoing situation in the hotel, but since the government set up the cordon and policemen around the hotel, the media outside could do nothing but take some pictures in the distance or interview related officials. Here are some reports from the leading website, TV station and Newspaper in China:
1) Video report from CCTV (China Central Television), the most influential national TV station:

http://v.ku6.com/show/YenEvldln9G9KaLZ.html


2) Report from Sina:

http://bj.house.sina.com.cn/biz/news/2009-05-14/09393598.html


At the same time, many quarantined people posted much information about the inside situation on their blogs, which are more detailed and which, most importantly, could not be obtained from journalists outside. See the following blogs (each of them recorded the quarantined days with pictures):
1) http://blog.hsw.cn/114218/viewspace-417676.html

2) http://blog.scol.com.cn/zuoguantianxia/archives/209747.html

3) http://greedisgood88.blog.hexun.com/33001028_d.html

4) http://blog.huanqiu.com/?uid-31297-action-viewspace-itemid-149657


The above comparison between the reports from leading media and bloggers support Rettberg’s contention that blogs not only "fulfill much the same function as journalists do (p86)” , but also "provide valuable first-hand reports that journalists and mainstream media hardly have access to reach". They can describe a event from the perspective of participants, dig deeper and more detailed where mainstream media failed or “had little time and energy to trace. ” However, in most cases, bloggers are not journalists in that “they are subjective and independent, and come with no guarantee of truth, and do not necessarily have the same rights as traditional media (p92). ” According to Rettberg, “ blogs and mainstream media are in many ways symbiotic …(p99)”


Blog in China

In Blogging, “China” has been mentioned several times as the example of “less democratic country (p160) ” and “Chinese government attempts to quash free speech and a dangerous potential for increased surveillance and control …(p160) ” . As a Chinese, I feel like I could not just read it without any emotional sensitivity. The censorship in China is usually associated with “the freedom of speech”, “human rights”, “Tian an men Event”, etc. , which I usually see being cited by western countries to criticize Chinese government. As a matter of fact, the fight for “democracy” and the “the freedom of speech” has never been stopped in China: “Wuxu Reform movement ” in 1896 , “ New Chinese Cultural movement” in 1919 , “Tian An Men Event” in 1964, and today’s Chinese Internet users gathering at Google’s offices in Beijing and Shanghai with flowers in an emotional show of support for the company. These movements objectively promoted the democratic progress in China, who bears thousands of years of feudalistic autocracy. Today, the freedom of speech in China has already received monumental improvement, though Chinese government still emphasizes the function of national media as the mouthpiece of CCP. The appearance of Internet provides more channels for people to express share or give voice. And it seems that in China the censorship working on Internet is not so effective as it is on other media, or perhaps Internet itself is so powerful in disseminating information that once they are sent onto net, it is usually too late to take them back. Take “Yanzhaomen Event”as an example.
In 2008, a scandal has overtaken the Chinese entertainment industry: famous movie actor and singer Edison Chen's personal naked pictures and sex videos he filmed of famous women were leak onto the net when he had his laptop repaired. Later, Chinese government tried hard to prevent the circulation of these pictures and videos, and deleted all the pictures and videos sent onto the net, but it turned out it is something unprohibitable. So Chen had to make a public apology and drop his acting and singing career. Here is Chen’s apology press conference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGHZhtGb6Js

China is a huge country with 1.3 billion population, 56 minority groups and 7 different dialect systems. If China had not implemented unified Characters, language, moral system and cultural/political ideology, it would be pretty difficult to see today’s unified China. A strict censorship to Chinese government, is an important way that guarantees the unification and steady progress of the whole nation. The measure, however, is not easy to hold, just as what Aristotle says: truth and virtue lies somewhere between two extremes.