Citizen Media in China, Singapore, and the U.K.

Brisbane.
The post-lunch session at AMIC 2008 starts with Zheng Jiawen from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, whose focus is on citizen journalism in China - and particular, on Zola Zhou, popularly recognised as China's first citizen journalist. Broadly, citizen journalism is a public response to the inadequate performance of the mainstream journalism industry (and rose to prominence especially after the events of 11 September 2001). Its rise also contributed to a new debate on the nature of journalism itself, and many initial views argued that news blogging was not journalism due to the narrow subjects explored by most blogs, the reliance on second-hand information, the limited sources and experience of news blogging, and its limited credibility.

In China, citizen journalism emerged with the 2003 SARS crisis, when citizens reported about the effects of the crisis; there are now some 28 million active blogs and 47 million blog writers in China (as of 2007), and citizen journalism provides an important source of uncensored news. Zola Zhou, then an Internet manager, began blogging in 2004, and rose to prominence through investigative reports about a couple who refused to have their house moved to make way for a new development project. By late 2007, the blog carried some 814 articles, 112 were filed in a category called "social news" (and Zola Zhou currently works as a vegetable vendor).

Views expressed in this blog where contradicting mainstream media and government statements, and were also reported through audiovisual materials; the focus of content is often on personal activity and often includes vox-pops with passers-by. Additionally, blog readers are harnessed as active participants in the production of news - they are canvassed in relation to what topics to cover and where to go to cover them, for example. Zola Zhou's posts often also highlight a lack of information from official sources on certain topics - and he focusses especially on socially marginalised people and sensitive issues.

Zola Zhou prefers to call himself a Weblog author rather than citizen reporter; he sees his work as a good chance to develop a name for himself, and distinguishes this work from what he sees as citizen journalism proper. In particular, he suggests that except for authenticity and timelessness, other journalistic values do not apply to him - his writing is highly personalised and remains a private activity. In this he is also supported by financial and technology donations from his readers.

Whether this is viable in the long term remains questionable, especially also in the face of government crackdowns on sensitive publishing (which have repeatedly made his blog invisible to Chinese users without the use of anonymiser proxy servers). At the same time, Zola Zhou's blog has also served as an alternative source of news for mainstream journalists; in the process, it has helped the Chinese mass media in bargaining with the authorities for greater freedom from censorship.

The next speaker is Eva Tang Hsiang-Yi from National ChengChi University in Taiwan, but she's presenting work on the pseudonymous Singaporean blogger and podcaster Mr Brown (whose real name is also well-known, however). Media in Singapore are state-controlled and strongly supportive of government policies; there is a considerable amount of media censorship (if officially operated through self-censorship and a "light-touch approach" to regulation), and the Internet has become an important source of alternative information. Key sources of alternative views are presented as satirical humour through sites such as Talking Cock and the Mr. Brown Show.

The Mr. Brown podcasts started with a series of recorded conversations between friends, and evolved into talkshows with invited guests; they are positioned as "persistently non-political podcasts" in spite of their use of news and current affairs as topical content. One means of doing this is to use role-play, and there are frequent word-plays and puns, also using fictitious names which echo the names of real politicians - all of this assumes the understanding of listeners familiar with the real events. The show therefore serves as a valve for listeners oppressed by the government - this is a form of soft power and enables a creeping democratisation of the media.

Next up is Cherian George, also from Nanyang. He also describes the role of citizen journalism in Singapore, and begins with the reportage of citizen journalists from opposition rallies - a photo of a large crowd at one such rally, published on the wonderfully named blog Yawning Bread, became a very celebrated example, and went against standard reporting in the Singaporean mainstream media, which usually shuns the use of wide-angle photographs showing large crowds (perhaps because opposition rallies typically draw much larger crowds than those of the ruling party).

This points to the way that citizen journalism is beginning to undermine the long-established conventions of reporting in the government-operated mainstream media in the country. Media licencing, legal restrictions, and unwritten conventions on what is considered to be out of bounds for reporting, all apply strongly to the mainstream media, but cannot be applied effectively to citizen journalism sources.

Notably, the government hasn't attempted to try to enforce them for citizen journalism sites even where the legal instruments to do so do exist. Indeed, the government's restraint in exercising control is probably a smart move, as it avoids a significant backlash from the populace and thereby slows any loss of legitimacy (Eva's 'creeping democracy') which may result over time from the work of citizen journalists.

The final speaker in this session is Jenny Gordon from the University of Bedfordshire, who switches our focus to developments in the U.K. - her interest is especially in the public use of the electromagnetic spectrum for citizen media. Jenny runs us quickly through the history of telegraph, telephone, and radio transmissions, and points especially to the nationalisation and subsequent control of electromagnetic spectrum by national governments and international treaties from around 1927 onwards (the leading international organisation here is the International Telecommunication Union, ITU).

Gradually, community radio also began to be introduced (whether legally or illegally) - the active participation of local communities in the process of creation news, information, entertainment, and culturally relevant material. Its programming is designed to improve social conditions and the quality of cultural life - providing a voice for the voiceless (Jenny highlights current examples produced for the countries of Georgia and Zimbabwe in this context - produced from outside of these countries for political reasons -, as well as community radio for indigenous Australian communities).

Against this, we've also seen the rise of mobile phones being used in a variety of often unforeseen contexts; there are now some 3.25 billion subscribers to mobile phones world-wide. (On average, we now each send one text message per day per person, for example.) Mobiles (and texting) became prominent especially as a form of citizen-to-citizen media during the Chinese SARS outbreak in 2003, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and the 2005 London bombings.

Such community radio and mobile telephony uses, then, re-establish public rights of usage over the electromagnetic spectrum; they encourage political activism, discussion, and social engagement; and they return a sense of belonging and action to communities. These technologies are already improving daily life (also by providing new business opportunities), avoid inconveniences, and ameliorate critical and life-threatening situations and tyrannical behaviour.

Technorati : AMIC 2008, China, Mr. Brown, Singapore, Zola Zhou, citizen journalism, community broadcasting, mobile telephony
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