Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives » China

Chapter 18: Citizen Journalism in the Global News Arena: China’s New Media Critics

Einar Thorsen — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:07:48 +0000

Reese and Dai, in Chapter 18, explore the role of citizen journalists acting as media critics-both against domestic and international media- arguing that the Chinese blogosphere is increasingly featuring posts and comments that in their view are a form of public deliberation. Nationalism, they argue, suits the interests of the Chinese government, which has given citizens free range in criticizing the Western media-attacking CNN for discrepancies in its coverage of the Tibet riots and negative framing of the Olympic Torch relay, for instance. Conversely, they demonstrate how citizen reporters also critique domestic professional journalistic principles, forcing action on issues that would otherwise have been ignored. In the context of globalization, they contend, these developments point to new ways of understanding social change.

Authors: Stephen D. Reese and Jia Dai

Chapter 7: Citizen Journalism in China: The Case of the Wenchuan Earthquake

Einar Thorsen — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:57:44 +0000

In Chapter 7, Nip assesses citizen journalism’s response to the Wenchuan earthquake in southwestern China in May 2008. She reveals how citizen journalists were the first to report the earthquake both to a Chinese and international audience, providing eyewitness reports and expressions of personal emotion – grief, anger, and sympathy. Moreover, in a rare moment of openness under the Communist government, citizen journalists were also able to investigate and critique officials’ handling of the disaster. Such reporting did not completely evade
state censorship, however, and Nip further discusses new government tactics such as infiltration of citizen-generated content – that is, paying for people to post content supporting the government as a strategy to subvert opposition and manage this new form of public discourse.

Author: Joyce Nip