Successes and Failures of Citizen Journalism in China

Cardiff.
The second session on the second day here at Future of Journalism 2009 is the one I'm in as well - but we start with Xin Xin, whose focus is on grassroots journalism in China in the context of the country's social and technological changes. This ties into the long-standing debate on the relationship between journalism and democracy, framed traditionally mainly around established democracies - so what's the story in a rapidly transforming society like China?

Xin suggests that the progressive role of Web 2.0 technologies and citizen journalism in the authoritarian society of China should not be overstated; rather, there is the need for a realistic assessment of citizen journalism in the wider journalistic context of the country. Current issues facing China are a growing gap between rich and poor, and attendant social injustices and conflicts; these divides are opening up in the context of technological changes which have led to China now fielding the largest - and on average, youngest - online population in the world (which remains somewhat disconnected from outside sources and critical voices due to the 'great firewall of China', though), and of a tightly controlled news media environment which is also increasingly marketised.

The role of citizen journalism in this environment can be examined through a number of case studies. One of these deals with property violations in China, and became known as the 'nail house' case: it was a drawn-out conflict in 2004-2007 between property developers and home owners, who were forced out of their home by a court decision; here, citizen journalism disseminated the story and eventually led to the mainstream take-up of the story (so citizen journalism played a watchdog role in this case).

A second case was that of the 2008 Loufan landslide, which centred around a supposedly weather-related landslide in a mine and dealt with labour rights and human rights violations. A journalist-blogger for a local news magazine drove this story to public attention; here, blogs were used as an alternative news distribution channel for stories by a mainstream journalist (showing the blurring of boundaries between mainstream and citizen journalism).

A third case was the 2008 milk scandal, which centred on the contamination of dairy products for babies with the substance melamine - this was a case of unethical business behaviour combined with administrative failure, and points to a failure of both citizen and mainstream journalism at the time (mainly due to their interest in portraying a positive image of China during the Olympics). Citizen journalism here did not fulfil its watchdog role.

A final case is that of angry youths in 2008, promoting online patriotism and nationalism in response to the Tibetan riots and similar issues, and showed the 'ugly' face of citizen journalism; here, some bloggers exposed the personal details of the proponents of opposing positions, and those promoting pro-China views were styled as heroes.

Overall, then, there is a complex relationship between citizen and mainstream journalism in China, and citizen journalism plays a variety of roles in the overall Chinese mediascape. There are competing factors (political, economic, and other) determining its position, and in the short term it remains constrained; in the long term, there are great uncertainties about its role in China. Most importantly, the question of the relationship between nationalism and democracy still needs to be better understood - citizen journalism can be a vehicle for nationalism as much as for democratic participation.

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