Censorship Of Information Research Articles

News Information Censorship and Changing Gatekeeping Roles

Journalists have faced increasing challenges as the result of police forces in different regions switching to digital radio communications. Drawing on gatekeeping theory and the journalistic practices literature, interviews with non-routine news journalists and a content analysis of news stories in newspapers were conducted to illustrate non-routine news coverage and understand how reporters’ routines have changed. The results suggest that police forces’ ability to control information technologically reduces the amount of non-routine news coverage and changes the ways in which news sources are used. Journalists have had to alter their reporting routines to retain journalistic independence.

Forensic Accounting in Market Expansion: Google and the Chinese Market

The current reflection is about a new roadmap that the American giant, Google, Inc must follow to reenter successfully the Chinese market by using tools like forensic accounting, audit techniques and other relevant initiatives related to better transparency of business transactions. In order to achieve this, the piece develops the history between Google Inc, and China, what went wrong, and other issues related to the breakdown. On January 25, 2006, the American company Google, Inc. announced that it would provide access to the Internet in China through a new portal named Google.cn. At the same time, Google executives agreed to censor all search results which included content considered objectionable by the Chinese government. With a population of 1.3 billion and a growing economy, China represents an enormously important market for the future of U.S. companies. The number of Internet users in the country has grown substantially over the past few years, and is currently estimated to have reached 111 million regular users. China, in fact, is now ranked as the second largest Internet market in the world. China's economy has grown consistently over the last 30 years at unprecedented rates, which has made it one of the most sought-after venues for investment by multinational corporations. With this, more Chinese have the means to purchase Internet access and devices. At the same time, Google has grown into one of the largest multinational companies in the world, and entered China in the early part of 21st century seeking to continue its growth. Rather than finding success, Google faced an array of problems. In fact, the Chinese government, however, offers all Internet search providers a difficult choice: either censor results or do not do business in China. With the introduction of Google.cn, Chinese Internet users could access the same search engine with a speed similar to that of Google.com in the United States. Instead of the Chinese government filtering search results, Google now routes the inquiry through their own servers and removes any officially banned content. Search results are typically returned within only a fraction of a second. Although Chinese users would have previously received the same limited results, Google had no role in the actual censorship of information until the debut of Google.cn.

Analysis of a heterogeneous model for riot dynamics: the effect of censorship of information

This paper is concerned with modelling the dynamics of social outbursts of activity, such as protests or riots. In this sequel to our work in Berestycki et al. (Networks and Heterogeneous Media, vol. 10, no. 3, 1–34), written in collaboration with J-P. Nadal, we model the effect of restriction of information and explore its impact on the existence of upheaval waves. The system involves the coupling of an explicit variable representing the intensity of rioting activity and an underlying (implicit) field of social tension. We prove the existence of global solutions to the Cauchy problem in ${\mathbb R}^d$ as well as the existence of traveling wave solutions in certain parameter regimes. We furthermore explore the effects of heterogeneities in the environment with the help of numerical simulations, which lead to pulsating waves in certain cases. We analyse the effects of periodic domains as well as the barrier problem with the help of numerical simulations. The barrier problem refers to the potential blockage of a wavefront due to a spatial heterogeneity in the system which leads to an area of low excitability (referred to as the barrier). We conclude with a variety of open problems.

The Aesthetics of Chinese Microblogging: State and Market Control of Weibo

Microblogs, epitomized by Twitter in the West and Weibo in China, have attracted considerable attention over the past few years. There have been a number of optimistic accounts about their potential to stimulate political activism and social change, juxtaposed with suggestions that their networks are too weak and that they are too easily censored for such change to occur. Yet, in this debate, little attention has been paid to the medium itself; microblogs have too often been treated as mere conduits for information, and the practical and aesthetic experience of microblogging has been marginalized.This article addresses this imbalance in two ways. First, it argues that the microblog is a distinctive medium with special potential for political communication. It applies Rancière’s ‘politics of aesthetics’ and Baudrillard’s ‘private telematics’ to microblogs, suggesting that the particularly immersive quality of microblogs provides new and distinct opportunities for the promotion of opinions and social movements. Second, it argues that by allowing, re-modelling, monitoring and censoring the Weibo service, the Chinese party-state, acting collaboratively with the key microblog companies and the market as a whole, is consciously manipulating the medium of the microblog to reduce the risk of activism, controversial use, and network formation. Thus, the medium of Weibo differs from other microblogs – of which Twitter is the key example – in several important ways, each of which, the article argues, are intended to maximize the cacophonous spectacle of entertainment and to minimize reasoned discussion and debate. Furthermore, while pure censorship of information can be evaded in many ways, it is more difficult for dissenters to evade state control when it is applied to the medium itself.

Internet censorship in South Africa: a brief exposé of negative and positive trends

This article investigates internet censorship in South Africa using a set of negative and positive internet censorship trends adapted from Bitso, Fourie and Bothma (2012) to raise awareness in light of increasing global internet censorship and South Africa’s involvement in a proposal for inter-governmental policy on the internet. Both positive and negative internet censorship trends are noted. The investigation reveals that South Africa has the highest level of media freedom in Africa. However, there are three concerns highlighted that might have a bearing on internet censorship in South Africa. Firstly, there is the formulation of legislation that might impact on the use of information, in particular the Protection of State Information Bill (2010). As such, various campaigns and cyber actions were made against this Bill because it is deemed to entrench information censorship. Secondly, there is the hacking of South African government websites, including that of the police on more than one occasion. This warrants internet censorship in order to combat crime as well as to ensure safety and security. Thirdly, there is the increasing challenge of spam and malware that calls for filtering to protect systems such as servers.

Overt censorship

Censorship of information often has the opposite effect by drawing attention to the censored material.

Ethics, strategy and user relevance: The case of Google.cn (Response to: Google vs. China's “Great Firewall”: Ethical Implications for Free Speech and Sovereignty)

This article echoes the discussion of ethical issue regarding the withdrawal of Google.cn from Mainland China in early 2010 which was initially raised by the article “Google vs. China's ‘Great Firewall”. Based on our observations and analyses, we argue that neither Google.cn's entry of China market in 2006 nor its departure in 2010 was out of ethical consideration as proclaimed. Particularly, we conclude that Google was primarily politicizing its departure of China by accusing the information censorship rules of China as the main culprit.

Structuration of Information Control in China

This article analyses information censorship in China. It adopts a theoretical approach which perceives rules and resources as the rudimentary elements that constitute social action and comprise social systems. The rules concerning market formation, technological progress and social stability of the most resourceful state elite dominate the information subsystem. Market rules and technology rules result in information growth, but this is controlled to a degree acceptable to the elite through stability rules. Foreign and domestic media corporations adhere to stability rules, which is not conducive to information dissemination. Media workers tend to follow stability rules and contribute to information restriction. Although they increasingly draw on rules regarding professionalism, many seek to balance these with stability rules in order not to lose access to information. Those who disregard stability rules truly promote information freedom.

Dilemmas of Access to Healthcare in China

Introduction China's compliance with international standards pertaining to human rights in health warrants particular attention, not only because of the global implications of China's handling of health issues such as SARS, HIV and avian flu, but also because of the effects on the well-being of the Chinese people. China has committed itself to compliance with international human rights standards on the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental (1) Yet China's performance conflicted with factors largely unrelated to the normative consensus underlying human rights to health. Instead, questions of Institutional Capacity loom large in assessments of the potential for successful reforms in public access to healthcare. China's public health system has long been presented as a model for developing economies. While the barefoot doctor model of the Maoist period was heavily mythologised, the PRC did succeed in bringing basic levels of healthcare to an unprecedented number of people. However, the modernisation policies of the 1980s and the attendant social and political consequences of income disparities, declining public budgets and official corruption eroded significantly the standards of public healthcare. (2) Obstacles to public access to healthcare continue, born of market policies and accompanying costs of medicines, equipment and treatment. (3) The HIV and SARS crises revealed in stark detail the extent to which policies and practices on public health remain subject to imperatives of political expediency and suggest that the fundamental human right to health remains compromised. (4) Government efforts in the areas of health education and the prevention, reporting and treatment of disease involve individual members of society not merely as passive recipients of the exercise of government authority but as active stewards of their own physical well-being. Yet such involvement--as well as collaboration between public and private sectors--has been obstructed by abuses such as government censorship of information on public health conditions, (5) corruption (6) and popular stigmatisation of disease. (7) These dilemmas reflect the depth of operational challenges facing China's current effort to reform its healthcare delivery systems. China's capacity to remedy these problems will dictate to a significant extent the success of recent health policy reforms. China's New Health Care Reform Plan China's State Council passed a landmark Health Care Reform Plan in January 2009. This was the culmination of a policy process begun in 2006 that included extensive interagency consultation as well as public discussion. (8) The Plan builds on efforts to expand the system of rural cooperative medical service units begun in 2002 and expanded in 2003 following the SARS outbreak. Following a report by the State Council Development Research Centre in 2005 that criticised health sector reforms and noted the increase of patient contributions to medical fees from 20 per cent in 1978 to 52 per cent in 2005, the State Council established a joint working committee to draft a new health reform plan. Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that personal spending on medical services doubled from 21.2 per cent in 1980 to 45.2 per cent in 2007, while government funding dropped to 20.3 per cent from 36.2 per cent in 1980. (9) The healthcare plan is aimed in part at providing state subsidies for personal medical expenses. Comprehensive medical insurance was enacted for urban residents in 2007, and the rural cooperative system was expanded continuously between 2006 and 2008. In the fall of 2008, the draft Health Care Reform Plan was released for public debate. The plan was endorsed by the State Council in January 2009 (10) and taken up in Premier Wen Jiabao's Government Work Report to the Second Session of the 11th NPC in March. (11) The Plan was published for implementation in April. …

Understanding cultures, and IFLA's Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) core activity

PurposeAims to explore an alternative approach to library and information service in multicultural communities, based on the principles of IFLA's Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) Committee.Design/methodology/approachLiterature‐based analysis of current approaches to multicultural services and the basis for a different approach.FindingsThe need in information and library services for multicultural communities is often described as if it is solely for members of minority communities to be able to obtain materials in their own languages and cultural traditions. A more considered view stresses the need for access to richly informative resources so that all members of a multicultural society can move towards a deeper understanding of each other. IFLA's FAIFE initiative implies more than just a campaign against the suppression and censorship of information and communication. It implies creating conditions for information access unhindered by prejudices, misconceptions and inadequate competences. FAIFE's role in facilitating removal of restrictions, combating suppression of information, fostering rights of access and supporting the development of information competences in all communities and in the information professionals who serve them, is potentially a major contributor to the enhancement of fair and harmonious relations in multicultural communities.Research limitations/implicationsThere is no new research in the paper: it builds on sources already published.Practical implicationsA modified approach to multicultural library and information services based on FAIFE principles.Originality/valueAddresses providers of multicultural services in libraries.

The Discourse of Official Violence: Anti-Japanese North American Discourse and the American Internment Camps

Mainstream discourse about Japanese North Americans has been less thoroughly analysed than discourse towards more populous North American minorities. The racist nature of this discourse became obvious during the Second World War and the discourse about their incarceration, despite their being citizens, in internment camps. There are three types of data for this political discourse: (a) the official orders by the US President, the Secretary of War and the US regional Defense Commands; (b) the Congressional hearings to confirm the government decision on the need for internment through testimony by state officials and anti-Asian lobbies; and (c) the report on censorship of internment camp conditions which attempts to justify the censorship of information about Japanese North Americans. This paper shows how this discourse was primarily performative: what began as anti-Japanese North American rhetoric was soon codified as a national policy to remove Japanese North Americans from their homes and businesses and to silence more direct information from Japanese North Americans themselves. The discourse shows two main features: (1) the pragmatics of collusion, in which privately made government decisions are `confirmed' through public discussion or hearings; and (2) the discourse of justification, in which overtly anti-democratic actions are both legalized and justified in the same discourse.