Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-06-27
China's state media outlets have taken control of public discourse in the country by carving out a dominating presence on popular Chinese microblogs.
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| Microblogs have become a powerful tool for state media to direct public discourse in China. (Photo/Xinhua) |
China's state media outlets have taken control of public discourse in the country by carving out a dominating presence on popular Chinese microblogs.
According
to the 2013 Report on Development of New Media in China produced by the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, national-level state media such as the Communist
Party mouthpiece People's Daily, China's official Xinhua news agency and
national broadcaster CCTV have all embraced the Twitter-like microblogs such as
Sina Weibo, which has more than 500 million registered users as at the end of
last year.
Netizens
have, in return, also embraced the opportunity to engage in discussions on
these microblogs. The People's Daily official microblog, for example,
registered 15.56 billion visits in the second half of 2012 alone, with total
page views reaching nearly 74 billion and the total amount of time spent on the
site exceeding 1.5 billion hours.
While
microblogs are still behind search engines, internet videos, online shopping
and traditional blogs in terms of generating traffic, their power to drive
public discourse has far exceeded that of community forums, social media and
mainstream media websites.
According
to the report, as at the end of 2012 there were more than 110,000 media-related
microblog accounts on Sina Weibo, with major media outlets such as the People's
Daily, Xinhua, CCTV and China National Radio each possessing several microblog
pages focusing on different topics ranging from breaking news to society and
charity. The CCTV News microblog alone has more than six million fans.
Analysts
say the increased use of microblogs by Chinese state media can significantly
boost its power to guide public discourse while also greatly minimizing its
former weaknesses, namely slow reaction time and incorrect statements.
On the
other hand, microblogs have also become the main channel for online rumors in
China. There were 617 reported rumors in China in 2012, one third of which were
spread primarily through microblogs, the report said.
The
statistics show that political rumors accounted for 16.1% of all tabulated
rumors, followed by rumors about people's livelihoods (11.3%) and financial
rumors (11%).
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