The management of China's blogosphere boke (blog)

Abstract

Blogs or weblogs are online journals that are regularly updated, and cover thousands of topics. In a way blogs represent the free speech philosophy of the early days of the Internet in that they allow users to distribute opinion on an enormous variety of topics, and in some countries relatively uncensored opinion, though potentially they can be monitored everywhere. The blogosphere creates a new space in which public discourse can be expanded and viewed. Indeed, my research for this paper relied heavily on an excellent blog called EastSouthNorthWest, where a variety of articles from China's media are translated and posted, with some comment and analysis. During the Burma protests in September 2007 blogs were one of the few sources of information about the unrest not directly controlled by the Junta. Reporters without Borders claim on their website that ‘Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure’ (‘Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents’). However, in the People's Republic of China (PRC) the emergence of blogs and the development of the Internet in general have been used to reinforce the central authority of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).