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The online public space and popular ethos in China

Shubo Li
Media Culture Society 2010 32: 63
DOI: 10.1177/0163443709350098

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The online public space and popular
ethos in China
Shubo Li
UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Online public space refers to the emerging online venues where people could
either discuss in groups or be the audience of public discussions. Online
forums, which used to be called Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), is a major
type of online public space in China. There are 321 million Chinese-speaking
people on the internet (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2008) and the topics of
online public discussion are diverse, many public forums are dominated by
trivial discussions. For example, gossip about freaks personalities, or celebrity
scandals, or conjectures on legal cases, would make sensational topics on
the web. Is this because the Chinese people especially enjoy gossip rather
than serious discussion on public matters? Can these online forums filled
with gossip be called an online public sphere? How to make sense of the
discrepancies between the idea of e-public sphere and the reality of online
public space? This research aims to figure out answers to these questions.
The republican ideal of public sees the ‘public’ realm in terms of political
community and citizenship, analytically distinct from both the market and the
administrative state (Weintraub, 1997: 7). As Aristotle in Politics (350 BC)
argues; a city-state is a body of citizens who are entitled to participate in the
deliberative or judicial administration of the community (Aristotle, 2006: 29),
the republican model of publicness tries to understand the political within the
world of discussion, deliberation and collective action. Habermas’s idea of ‘a
normative, autonomous public space independent of the market and the state’
(Habermas, 2000 [1973]: 288) is central to any debate on publicness in the
context of modern societies.
Is online publicness a different matter? On the internet, a public is not
embodied by physical forms of people but by signs and representations, the

Media, Culture & Society © 2010 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New
Delhi and Singapore), Vol. 32(1): 63–83
[ISSN: 0163-4437 DOI: 10.1177/0163443709350098]

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64 Media, Culture & Society 32(1)

electronic traces left by people. People attend online discussions mostly

from their home, likely in their pyjamas, rather than showing up in a crowd.
The new visibility of representations of an e-public in the form of digital
bytes, and the invisibility of the public in its molecular forms that seem to
be more susceptible to censorship and containment, appear to usher in
novel possibilities of an e-public sphere. Furthermore, the e-public venue is
individualized. The means of communication enable individuals to form
dialogue with others at their own convenient time and space. Groups
marginalized by mainstream society have created their own discussion
spaces on the internet, such as queer groups (Nip, 2004), new immigrants
groups (Matei and Ball-Rokeach, 2003; Mitra, 2005) or women’s interest
groups (Baym, 1998, 2000). They reclaimed their place in the public realm,
through what de Certeau describes as the ‘procedures of everyday
creativity’, that is, ‘the mechanism[s] that have sapped the strength of
…institutions and surreptitious[ly] reorganized the functioning of power’.
The weak, in this way, create for themselves a sphere of autonomous action
and self-determination within the constraints that are imposed on them (de
Certeau, 1984: xi–xxiv). Baym (2000: 5) argues that online network and
texts are transformed into socially meaningful fields through interactions that
are ongoing and patterned in subtle yet community-constituting ways.
Casual talk and gossip play an important role in building up trust and a
shared common sense within online communities.
Ethos by definition refers to ‘the distinguishing character, sentiment,
moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution’ according
to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Popular beliefs are often expressed in
grassroots art forms and disseminated through gossip, which is central
process in folk social life and entertainment. One example is the medieval
carnivals serving as a meaning system that existed alongside and in
opposition to the ‘authoritarian world’ of dominant orthodoxy (Bakhtin,
1941: 195–244). Online popular discourses reflect norms and beliefs held by
the folk. The rise in the internet penetration rate and subsequent changes in
the demography of the online population in recent years have caused a
shifting of the culture-scape of the Chinese web. The average Chinese
internet user in 2007 is younger, less educated and has less income than ten
years ago (CNNIC, 1997, 2007). People earning less than 2000 RMB
(equivalent to US $250) per month comprise 68.2 percent of the Chinese
online population (CNNIC, 2007). Apparently the web provides cheap
entertainment and social venues for the lower middle class and students.
Furthermore, the folk society no longer rely on the intelligentsia to represent
them, but sought to make their own voice heard, sometimes by gossiping as
a crowd. For instance, the recent clamour of popular nationalism on the
Chinese web, independent of the state’s propaganda scheme, is deemed by
scholars as a genuine expression of the peoples (Kluver, 2001; Liu, 2006).

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Li, The online public space and popular ethos in China 65

I combine the methods of discourse analysis and in-depth interviews in the

research. First I examined traffic on several major forums to develop an initial
understanding of popular online discourses. Creativity, sustainability and
collective mobility are the criteria used to select the forums. That is, I chose
forums that (1) constantly produce large quantity of original material, rather
than circulating stuff copied from other sources; (2) have facilitated a durable
attachment between the members; (3) have been capable of mobilizing
collective actions. Materials used in the study were from four websites:

(1) CFidoNet (www.cfido.net, 1991–7). The website holds archives and

internal journals of the first Chinese telnet-based BBS network, CFido,
which has ceased functioning since 1998.
(2) SINA forum (http://bbs.sina.com.cn, 1996–present). Formally, srsnet.com,
is one of the first and one of the most popular public internet-based BBSs
in China.
(3) XICI ALLEYS (www.xici.net, 1998–present). One of the earliest
Chinese online forums. It features a user-developed discussion board
which facilitated covert small group communication.
(4) TIANYA VIRTUAL COMMUNITY (Tianya BBS) (www.tianya.cn, 1999–
present). Arguably China’s most popular public forum. With approximately
270,000 visitors per day (Alexa, 2007), Tianya has generated the most
controversial and influential online debates and, in turn, has attracted
massive media exposure and public responses.

Information from 17 face-to-face interviews in Beijing and Haikou and one

interview via MSN helped me to interpret what I learned from the online con-
tents. The interviewees are the proprietor, former and present administrators,
moderators and veteran members of Tianya BBS.1

Internet as a state property

State ownership determines the culture-scape of the Chinese web. The Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) state is the biggest proponent and developer of the
internet in China. Open Net Initiatives (ONI) reports that:

Physical access to the Internet is controlled by the Ministry of Information Industry

(MII), the main regulatory organ of the telecommunications sector, and is provided
by seven state-licensed Internet access providers (IAPs).… IAPs peer at three
Internet exchange points (IXPs) run by the state. IAPs grant regional Internet serv-
ice providers (ISPs) access to backbone connections. (ONI, 2008)

Table 1 shows that the seven IAPs are either state-owned or state holding
companies, under direct supervision of major government ministries, which

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66 Media, Culture & Society 32(1)

TABLE 1
Ownership of the seven Chinese IAPs
IAPs Ownership/biggest shareholders Capacity
(band-width)
CHINANET China Telecom Corporation 135321M
(a state-owned company).
China Netcom China Netcom (a state holding company 89665M
(CNC) which is quoted on the New York and
Hong Kong stock markets); its four biggest
shareholders are: (1) China Academy of Science
(CAS); (2) the State Administration of Radio
Film and Television (SARF), an executive
branch of the State Council that administers
and supervises state-owned enterprises
engaged in the television, radio and film
industries; (3) the Ministry of Railways; and
(4) the Shanghai municipal government.
China Science Non-profit network, under the administration of 17510M
Net (CSTNET) the Science Computer and Network Center
of CAS.
CERNET A state-owned network under the administration 4796M
of the Ministry of Education.
China Mobile Chinamobile Corporation (a state holding 5750M
Net (CMNET) company based on the business of Guandong
Mobile Communication Bureau and Zhejiang
Mobile Communication Bureau of the former
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications),
which has been quoted on the New York and
Hong Kong stock exchange since 1997.
UNINET China Unicom (a state holding public company, 3652M
traded on the Shanghai, Hong Kong and
New York markets)
CIETNET China International Electronic Commerce 2M
Center, affiliated to the Ministry of Foreign
Trade and Commerce.
Total capacity of band-width 256696M
Source: CNNIC (2007a) and the companies’ websites.

defines the internet in China as a national project monopolized by the party-

state. The centralized hardware infrastructure made it feasible to implement
top-down control mechanisms (Xiao, 2005). China observers agree that
China has the most sophisticated filtering scheme in the world (ONI, 2008;
Reporters Without Borders, 2006; Zittrain and Edelman, 2003).

The formation and division of online public discussion space

The formation of the online public discussion space can be seen as going
through three stages: the era of telnet-based BBS from 1997 to 1998; the era

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Li, The online public space and popular ethos in China 67

of web-based liberal BBS from 1998 to 2000; and the era of public forums
from 2000 to the present.
CFidoNet, a branch of the international amateur telnet-based BBS network
CFido, was the first and largest BBS network in China, accommodating over
10,000 users at its peak in 1997. Sixty-three percent of its nodes (BBS
stations) were set up in south-eastern China where the market economy was
booming and political climate was liberal. CFido BBS operators and users
had more wealth and technical savvy than their compatriots. They wanted to
build an indigenous ‘civil information and electronic culture’ (Luo, 1997).
Although CFido went into decline with the advent of the internet, its idealistic
mission was carried on by the early web-based BBSs and forums, most of
which were also set up in the south-east, where the vibrant folk computer
community had prepared the market for the internet service.
Many of the early BBS operators and users were from the social elite –
well-educated, well-paid and well-read. They were ambitious to create a new
public culture, explicitly aiming for civic virtue, which ‘enshrines free
institutions outside the state’ (Prochaska, 2002: 7). The slogan of Kstar, a major
forum, was ‘Sincerity, Reason, and Openness’. Moderators, mostly young
intellectuals invited to do the job unpaid, on a voluntary basis, were usually
open-minded and adopted a democratic approach in dealing with opponents and
confrontations. A moderator of SZBBS, the earliest BBS in China, once said:
‘the BBS is a precious place where people can think and speak freely … there
should not be many rules to prevent people from doing so’ (Xue, 1997). Online
venues focusing on leisure activities achieved huge popularity. Srsnet, Xici
Alleys, Netsh.com and Netease were the major popular BBSs of that time. Srsnet
was famous for its sub-forums featuring sports, wuxia novel and photography
discussions. Xici and Netsh enabled users to set up their own discussion boards,
facilitating small and covert group communication. The political, academic and
religious discussion groups of Xici survived a little longer than such groups did
at other public online venues. Xici had groups such as the Democracy Forum
(min zhu lun tan) focusing on China’s political reform, the Liberalism Forum (zi
you lun tan) on political philosophy, the Plane of Thinking (Si xiang de jing jie)
on Western political theories, and St Paul’s Cathedral (sheng bao luo jiao tang)
on Christianity; it was unusual to find such groups on the Chinese web.
Another type of popular liberal BBS at that time was campus BBS set up by
students utilizing university resources. It staged discussions on youth hobbies,
academic interests and public affairs, which attracted not only students but also
people from the general public.2
Public forums emerged from the year 2000 with a rapid increase of the online
population. Large audiences gathered in online venues such as Tianya BBS and
Sina Forum. In the meantime, Chinese intellectuals were keen to establish their
online platform of free expression. In 2000, a literary magazine Tianya launched
its own online forum, Tianya Scope, attached to Tianya BBS, to improve its
interaction with readers, and to provide a venue for debate for intellectuals
(Interview 12, see Appendix; Zhang, 2001). In less than a year, Tianya Scope

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68 Media, Culture & Society 32(1)

was deemed the best online forum of 2001 in terms of generating cutting-edge
discussions (Lei, 2003). Tianya BBS benefited from Tianya Scope’s reputation
and grew into one of the largest public forums. The migration, flowing from
Tianya Scope and other liberal BB to Tianya BBS between 2001 and 2002 after
the government's banning those websites, produced in Tianya BBS a combined
membership which was half intellectual and half plebeian. The narrating
process in the BBS hence began to develop popular qualities. Its current affairs
sub-forum, Heaven’s Matter Teahouse, was then ‘a square of public carnival, in
which everyone is both performer and spectator. The time of folk festival
arrived’ (Chen, 2002).
Democracy was a major appeal of public forums between 2000 and 2003.
First, with the enlargement of the scale of forum’s public, members were
demanding fairness and justice in the forum administration. The election of
moderators was launched in Tianya BBS (Interview 1, see Appendix; Wang
and Jiang, 2004). Protests were organized to criticize moderators’
inappropriate approaches in both Tianya BBS and Sina Forum, leading to a
more democratic mechanism being implemented in the forums. Second,
offline collective actions, such as regional gatherings and public seminars,
were frequently organized in major cities throughout the year 2003, linking
academia and the public (Interview 2, see Appendix; Zhao, 2003). Third,
open-letter signing and online petitions were frequently organized and
spread all over the Chinese web. In the aftermath of 11 September 2001,
1015 people signed an ‘Open Letter to President Bush and the People of
America’, drafted by Ren-bu-mei from Heaven’s Matter Teahouse, expressing
their condolences to America people and condemning the terrorism. The first
online petition was launched July 2002 from Heaven’s Matter Teahouse, to
protest against the newly issued ‘Provisional Regulation on the Administration
of Internet’ (General Administration of Press and Publications [GAPP] and
MII, 2002), with around 200 people signing their real names (Interview 1,
see Appendix). The largest petition was launched December 2002, calling
for the release of Liu Di, a member of Xici’s Democracy Forum arrested
during that year. Nearly 4000 people from all over the Chinese web signed
the petition (Wang, 2003; Yang, 2005).
The online and offline public space began to converge from 2003. There
was an emergent online quasi-public sphere in which major forums and
influential online writers formed the centrepiece. Liberal offline media
adapted to the situation by inviting the best online writers to contribute to
offline publications (Interview 1, see Appendix). Chinese intellectuals and
public figures began joining the chorus on the web, participating in online
political activities. Although they were not a fixture in online discussions,
they regarded major online forums as a platform to publicize radical
writing that could not be published in traditional media. Some even initiated
petitions themselves.3 Online and offline media began cooperating to extend
the influence of this newly formed public space, for example in the case of
Sun Zhi-gang (see Xiao, 2004, Beach, 2005, Tai, 2006: 259-264). Having

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Li, The online public space and popular ethos in China 69

witnessed the auspicious development of online public space, traditional

media began referring to online news and opinions on regular basis. For
example, the national broadsheet Southern Weekly set up a rating board of
‘The hottest brick-posts’ to catch up on what was going on online.
However, the formation of an online public sphere was seriously jeopardized
by the state and the market. By the year 1999, political control and the flooding
in of venture capital, brought to an end the era of liberal BBS. The idealist
spirit and civic virtue characteristic of the early BBS sphere had been frequently
disrupted by government interference. Here are but a few illustrations. SZBBS
was suspended in 1997 after Deng Xiao-ping’s death, as a precaution by local
government to prevent anything inappropriate being said online (Gua, 2002).
Xici.net was forced to shut down its service for a whole month before 4 June
2001, because the authorities feared there would be an online memorial event
for the Tiananmen Square Democratic Movement of 4 June 1989. The leading
liberal forum Tianya Scope was shut down in July 2001 by the provincial
government, as it staged a debate on a letter from CCP cadres attacking the
Jiang Ze-min government’s policies and criticizing the ongoing marketization
and social stratification (Interview 8, see Appendix). Tianya BBS’s moderator
Wang Yi was removed from the position by the order of Hainan Provincial
Propaganda Department because Wang implemented the democratic election
of moderator in the sub-forum he was hosting.
The curbing and surveillance of the online public venue effectively
fragmented the online public discussion space. After a BBS was shut down,
its members usually either shifted to other forums or started new and more
private forums to continue their online gathering. Furthermore, as antagonistic
public discussions were nipped in the bud and forums focusing on hobbies
and leisure were growing steadily, serious debate on civic matters was
gradually driven out of the online sphere.
Commercialization is another force behind the division of the online public
sphere. Once venture capitalists from Silicon Valley began to invest in a handful
of Chinese dotcoms in the mid 1990s, founders of liberal BBSs were keen
to adapt to the capitalist game. Srsnet BBS has been the most successful in
attracting investments and has upgraded to become the internet portal
Sina.com.cn. Members who felt uncomfortable with the change of environment
left the site, which meant a decrease in the membership of the major forums.

Gendered online discourses

The Chinese web is a gendered place. The content found in Cfido’s e-zine
Dragon Voice are mostly on computers, the stock market and football games,
reflecting the distinctly male interests of the early BBS users. The same can
be said of Srsnet BBS. In its most popular sub-forum, Sports Salon, the
language style preferred was brassy, assertive and tough. Popular posts were
those displaying masculine strength, dotted with shouting, swearing, sarcasm

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70 Media, Culture & Society 32(1)

and symbolic violence. Posts of this style are called brick-posts (ban zhuan),
which aim to attack using well-structured criticism. Bricks are commonplace
weapon used in Beijing’s young rascals’ street fighting. The term’s online
popularity dates back to 1997, when a member launched a ‘Free-Speaking
Movement of Proletarians’, justifying the use of ‘bricks’, ‘brick-hurling’ and
other street talk in forum communication (Wei-yi-xiao, 2002). Brick-posts
often targeted celebrities and sometimes well-known members of the forum.
Writing brick-posts was more of an entertaining pastime than a purposeful
action. The stress of daily life might be the driving force of ‘brick-fighting’.
A member of Srsnet forum confessed that:
Would you dare to shout at your boss in the office or your wife at home or the
police in the street? But you can insult anyone on the football field and in the
forum, and you would be admired if you did it – cool! (Cong-liang-fei-bing, 2005)

By participating in intelligent word play and insulting people in the virtual

life, people released emotional tensions from their offline life.
Brick-posts are a fundamental part of the Chinese online culture. The power
of brick-posts, a mixture of facts and rumours, conspiracy theories and logical
inferences, comes from their rhetorical technique and argumentation structure
(Cong-liang-fei-bing, 2005). As a popular narrative style on the web, brick-
posts are used in both forum flaming and social criticism. Talented brick-post
writers are often capable of public agitation. Wang-xiao-shan, a prolific brick-
post writer, teamed up with three other online writers and formed Black
Humour News Agency (BHNA), a virtual news agency active between 1999
and 2001 that spread false news mimicking official news media, so as to be the
voice of minority groups (Wang, 2001).
On the other hand, the aggressive communication style of brick-posts made
female internet users, who were 38.7 percent of Chinese online population in
2001 (CNNIC, 2001), uncomfortable with participating in public discussions.
Women reported that they had never registered on a forum until they found a
female-friendly venue.4 Major forums had never been hostile to women
though, and women were chased after and regarded as objects of desire. The
hegemony of male discourse expelled women from the major forums. A few
women exploited the situation and exercised their charm over male members
(Interview 3, see Appendix). There were women, on the other hand, who
established their own online venues, which focus on female literature, or
photo galleries, or evolve around other female interests, creating a female
discursive space on the internet.

The defining factor: the state’s control

The convergence of online and offline public space leads to the convergence
of online and offline censorship. Since the implementation of the ‘Regulations
of the People’s Republic of China for Safety Protection of Computer

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Li, The online public space and popular ethos in China 71

Information Systems (State Council of PRC, 1994), at least 51 guidelines and

regulations have been issued to establish order in cyberspace up to 2007. The
regulations encompass computer information security (Ministry of Public
Security of PRC, 1997; State Council of PRC, 1994, 1997; State Secrecy
Bureau, 2000), the registration of domain names (CNNIC, 2002b, 2006; MII,
2003, 2004; State Council Information Office [SCIO] of PRC, 1997), the
licensing of ISPs (MII, 1998), the licensing of internet content providers
(ICPs) (GAPP and MII, 2002; MII, 2000, 2001, 2005a; State Council, 2000),
online journalism (SCIO and MII, 2000, 2005), BBS and online forums,
(MII, 2000, 2001), online medical and pharmacy services (Ministry of Public
Health, 2001; State Pharmaceutical Administration, 2001), internet cafes
(General Office of the State Council, 2001; MII et al., 2001; State Council,
2002), online cultural products (Ministry of Culture [MOC], 2003), activities
of internet users (MII, 2005b), copyright protection (State Copyright Bureau
and MII, 2005; State Council, 2006). Interestingly, none of them are legal
enactments granted by legislative process, but rather administrative decisions
made at the State Council or ministerial meetings.
Since 2003, the Hu Jin-tao administration has successfully dismantled the
online political discussion space, while at the same time maintaining the
stability of the online public mood. The central government put constraints on
the publishing industry and news media to separate the online and offline
public discussion space. In 2004 the Central Propaganda Department issued
a guideline ‘Ten Must-Nots’, warning that media should not follow ‘sources
from unauthorized origins’, and central news organizations should not co-work
with commercial websites in any manner other than routine official business
cooperation, forcing the official media to cut its connections with the online
sphere (Observechina.Net, 2004).
The government also enforced a series of directives making online content
production, ISPs and internet users subjects of the state’s power. The 2003
‘Provisional Regulation on Cultural Products on the Internet’ defines all cultural
products made, disseminated and circulated on the internet as ‘internet cultural
products’, including audio-video products; game products; performances;
works of art; and cartoons, animation and other cultural products. All activities
involved in providing internet cultural products and services in the territory of
China, commercial or non-commercial, must first be authorized by the local
cultural administrative office, or they will be deemed ‘unsanctioned activity’ and
penalized (MOC, 2003). The MII’s 2005 ‘Guidance on the Administration and
Registration of Non-commercial Internet Information Services’ (MII, 2005a),
based on the 2000 ‘Regulation on Managing the Internet Electronic Bulletin
Board System Service’ (MII, 2000), makes website owners responsible for the
content appearing on their websites. Those who ‘provide online contents
publicly and free of charge to the internet user’ must register with the local
telecommunication administrative office to acquire an electronic identity and
registration number before they can legally resume the online services. The
information of their registration must be available to the public on the national

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72 Media, Culture & Society 32(1)

registration online database run by the MII (MII, 2005a; State Council, 2000).
Another MII directive issued 2005 defines the IP address of each computer
connecting to the internet as a subject of regulation (MII, 2005b).
These administrative guidelines are compulsory and enforced by local
governments, even though internet users who have paid for their usage of
internet services are by no means a natural subject of the administrative power
of the government. Acquiring and monitoring internet users’ information in
order to discipline them, without the consent of the People’s Congress, which
represents the people’s rights, is arguably an abuse of the state’s power.
The guidelines delegate the responsibility for censoring online activities to
ISPs and ICPs, by threatening them with penalties and suspension of the
services. In this way, the state blackmailed the ISPs and ICPs into self-
censorship. Major public forums have to develop a system which requires the
moderator to internalize the principle of security into the everyday monitoring
of the forum, and to act as gatekeeper for all online activities there. Tianya
BBS employed a dozen full-time sub-editors to pre-censor the posts, in
addition to its hundreds of part-time moderators in the numerous sub-forums.
The Internet Monitor Office of local police bureau gave updates through direct
telephone calls to the BBS administrator and at times to sub-editors (Interview
with Wu You, 2004). Moderators in Tianya BBS began to rationalize the
situation. For example, a moderator contended that moderators should respect
the delegated power and fully follow the censorship system by carefully
checking every post before allowing it to be publicized, claiming that ‘the rule
in chaotic times should be tough’ (Chen-yu, 2003). Moderators who resisted
the self-censorship system left their positions. Public forums began to
implement more strict editorial interference, which gradually narrowed the
fundamental distinction between BBSs and traditional media, as online and
offline media assimilated each other’s style and tended towards convergence
(Wang and Jiang, 2004). Consequently, those who once enjoyed the freedom
were disappointed, and steered toward smaller but freer forums, which
significantly harmed the influence of major public forums as a public venue.
The persecution of dissidents and polemic websites has become harsher since
2003. The number of people arrested for online activities surged from three in
2001 to 62 in 2005 (Reporters Without Borders, 2005a, 2005b). In 2005, 11
influential online forums were permanently closed.5 The constraints imposed
upon the Chinese universities and research institutions’ network (CERNET) were
also tightened. As CERNET is not under the direct rule of local governments, it
used to provide a more liberal online discussion milieu, which attracted a huge
public. However, it has been deprived of this privilege since 2005 when the
Ministry of Education ordered that external IPs should be banned from university
BBSs (Bao, 2005; Hu-hua, 2005). Hence university forums were reduced from
a public place to an internal place for students’ social use.
Another approach to reducing the influence of the online public sphere by the
state is to initiate media hype. Reports on ‘online pornography’ (Chengdu

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Li, The online public space and popular ethos in China 73

Commercial Daily, 2005; South Metropolitan Daily, 2005), ‘Internet Addiction’

(Nanjing Morning Post, 2005; Yan Zhao Metropolitan Daily, 2005) and ‘Internet
Crime’ (Xinhua News Agency, 2005) suggest that online content is vicious,
addictive. However, China’s blocking rate for pornography and web pages
containing sexual content was 1–7 percent, the lowest of all categories of
blocked online contents (ONI, 2005). A logical explanation is that the ostensible
claim of ‘resisting online pornography and creating a clean online environment’
was meant to appeal to mass morality and to legitimize control over the internet.

Popular discourses: nationalism, class hatred and freak shows

Due to the increasing risk and inconvenience of publicizing confrontational

opinions, the capacity of online discussion space was handicapped and its role
in forming public opinion considerably changed. The online sphere was
transformed from a site encouraging civic virtue to a market place encouraging
sensational performance and voyeuristic peeping.
Without an auspicious environment that can foster meaningful public
discussion, the rapid growth of the online population led to the prevalence of
popular taste on the web, with a tendency to sensationalism nurtured by
plebeian curiosity and parochial imaginations. The news arousing public
responses is often associated with national pride (interview 12, 16 Appendix). The
China–USA relationship, anti-Korean debate, anti-Japanese debate and the
Taiwan problem, along with other issues associated with the international
image or the ‘face’ of China, are perennial topics in online forums. Those who
refuse to take the side of the pro-nationalism crowd were labelled ‘traitors to
China’ (han jian) or ‘Net-Agents’ (wang te) hired by the USA, Japan, Korea
and other Western countries.6 Another type of popular topic is social elite’s
scandals. Such popular narratives arguably manifest the online folk’s hatred
toward privileged social groups. It is also observed that the wrongdoings of
students and professors from top universities are also favourite topics of the
online folk. For instance, a Tsinghua University student splashing a bottle of
sulphuric acid onto a bear at the Beijing Zoo provoked heated discussion all
over the web (Southern Weekly, 2003). A new genre of online narratives that
have gained a central position in the online public space since 2004, is the
discussion about freak shows. With the openness and anonymity of online
communication, and without the constraints one has to come to term with as in
the reality, it is not uncommon that there are people who would exhibit a high
degree of peculiarity in the forums. However, the way the online public reacts
to these performances of the odd self reveals certain psychological
characteristics of the public. The Chinese online folk, as observed in the major
forums, would devote extraordinary attention to any deviances. Their attention,
in the forms of viewing the post and adding replies, would send the peculiar
personalities rising to stardom with a stunning speed in a couple of days. To

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74 Media, Culture & Society 32(1)

illustrate, a “Qianglang’s Fans Association” formed by members of Tianya BBS

in 2005, ostensibly worshiped a fellow member Qianglan who boldly boasted
of her ‘middle-class life’, but really to ridicule and bully her. Another example
is of a duel that became a public spectacle on Tianya BBS in 2005. The duel,
which attracted 223,000 page views within three days, was between two
members accusing each other of pretending to be a member of upper-class
society. They competed in using a register of upper-class upbringings, such as
“hobbies”, “racing horse,” “private plane”, “private school”, “personal tutor ”
“charity”. There are signs that the spectators were aware of that the brandished
knowledge of upper-class life style is drawn from Paul Fussell’s Class, a
bestseller in China in the late 1990s. Nevertheless, the online spectacle is not so
much about the authenticity of the identity of the two contending persons.
Rather, it offered to the crowd an online street theatre, in which the villain, a
female persona who had thrown comments made out of cattiness and venom
toward lower-class people, was humiliated by the nobel male persona who
successfully presented frankness and integrity.
In 2005, a Sister Lotus, who displayed her photos and narcissistic
statements on major online forums, attract a huge amount of attention in
China (Cody, 2005). The spectacle of ‘Sister Lotus dominating the public
arena’ promoted the belief that just acquiring a stage is already a huge
success, which encourage more weirdos to show up and, in turn, produce
more material for plebeian curiosity and gossip. The public was
preoccupied with the crave for crazier entertainment and livelier mimicries.
The public ethos of playfulness as shown in the spectatorship precludes
scrutiny and dissolves. Having said this, I must note that the conduciveness
still can be observed in smaller forums either of the interest groups or of the
online non-governmental organizations that are burgeoning in China. In
retrospect, these groups were either driven out of the larger public venues,
or chose to get rid of the cacophony and to locate itself in a quieter online
milieu. If we compare the public ethos favoring playful vandalism as
currently manifested by popular discourses found in the major forums, to
the online public ethos favoring truth-seeking discussion in the early days
of the Chinese web, one could argue that a fundamental transition has
happened. The transition of the Chinese online public space is characteristic
of highly organized centralization and a vibrant proliferation of popular
discourses and folk narratives, as well as a narrowing space for rational
deliberation.

Conclusion and discussion

It can be postulated that the all of the four major agencies in the field of
Chinese Internet, the state, the market consisting of the ISP, ICP, the social

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Li, The online public space and popular ethos in China 75

elite, and the folk society, are deeply engaged in a process of creating a
national cyberspace. The Party-state, who exercises the strongest influence
over the shaping of the Chinese web and the public ethos, seeks to control
the dissemination of political disputes, and to maintain a unified, stabilized
nation. Rather than to have a monopoly of information in China, the
regime’s ambition seems lesser but more decisive: the containment of the
vibrant civil society. It encourages, from time to time, the development of
the Internet in China. The market, or the proprietors of websites and dotcoms
and owners of IT companies, once were committed to establishing a E-civil
culture of the Chinese people, but later have to come to terms with the
governmental constraints so as to stay in business. The social elites, once
were overtly promoting e-democracy in China, now either withdraw to
smaller and safer online venues, or collaborate with the market to create dose
that could gratify the populace’s need for entertainment. The folk society, the
central figure of the Chinese web, once demonstrated the aspiration for civic
virtue as well as the capacity to organize democratic practices and to
generate deliberative discussions, now is preoccupied with a crave for mind-
paralyzing fun time. Alongside the prevalence of trivial gossips, a popular
nationalism seems to be the predominant bond that connects the individual
to the public and the national.
All of these mechanisms seem to be working in producing and reproducing
a strong national identity. However, before we become forgetful about the
early years of the Chinese Internet, one could remain skeptical toward the
genuineness of the national identity.
Evidences show that there had been an inclusive electronic public space
that accommodated pertinent, vigorous deliberative debates on public
matters. It was then effectively sabotaged by the state, by repeatedly
suspending, dividing and harming online public venues, until the folk
discourse is no longer able to carry deliberative discussions on public matters
apart from unreflective nationalism and popular prejudices. Alongside the
well-known Great Fire Wall blocks and filters, a less obvious but very central
part of political control is to curb the nascent public ethos. It becomes an
irony that a party-state has aspired to strength for so long a time, sees
weakening its people’s ethos as an unavoidable strategy. Even though
people’s efforts to restore the impaired online public ethos have never ceased,
the future of an open public speaking corner is still bleak.

Acknowledgement

This article is based on part of my PhD project funded by the Communication and
Research Institute at the University of Westminster. I am forever grateful to
CAMRI for sponsoring my research and providing an exciting environment for
learning.

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 APPENDIX
76

List of interviews
Position in relation to
Interviewee Tianya Forum Gender Time Location Manner
1 CYM Former moderator M 20 Nov. 2004 Beijing Face-to-face
1 pm–5 pm
2 ZDJ Member M 20 Nov. 2004 Beijing Face to face
6 pm–8 pm
3 TJ Member, former M 19 Jul. 2004 Guangzhou MSN
moderator 9 pm–11 pm
4 FWDX Member, former F 22 Nov. 2004 Beijing Face-to-face
moderator 11 am–2 pm
5 LGS Member F 23 Nov. 2004 Beijing Face-to-face
11 am–13 pm group
6 LDD Member F 23 Nov. 2004 Beijing Face-to-face
11 am–13 pm group
7 FWDX Member and former F 23 Nov. 2004 Beijing Face-to-face
moderator 11 am–13 pm group
8 LT Former administrator M 29 Nov. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
9.30 am–12 am
9 ZLG Moderator, former M 29 Nov. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
administrator 2 pm–4 pm

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10 DXFS Moderator, M 30 Nov. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
administrator 11 am–1 pm
11 LP Editor, administrator M 30 Nov. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
2 pm–4 pm
12 LSJ Chief Editor of M 30 Nov. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
Tianya magazine 5 pm–6 pm
12 WY Director of content, M 1 Dec. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
chief administrator 9 am–11.30 am
Media, Culture & Society 32(1)

(Continued)
 APPENDIX
(Continued)
Position in relation to
Interviewee Tianya Forum Gender Time Location Manner
13 TM Tianya.com M 1 Dec. 2004 Haikou Face-face
2 pm–4 pm
14 XM Owner of M 1 Dec. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
Tianya.com 9 pm–12 pm
15 XL Moderator M 2 Dec. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
12 am–1 pm group
16 WY Director of content, chief M 2 Dec. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
administrator 12 am–1 pm group
17 ZLG Moderator, former M 2 Dec. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
administrator 5.30 pm–8 pm
18 DXFS Moderator, administrator M 3 Dec. 2004 Haikou Face-to-face
6 pm–7 pm
Li, The online public space and popular ethos in China

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77
78 Media, Culture & Society 32(1)

Notes

1. Details of the interviewees are listed in the Appendix.

2. Famous campus BBSs include the SMTH BBS of Tsinghua University (http://
bbs.tsinghua.edu.cn); the YTHT BBS of Beijing University (http://proxy2.ytht.net);
the Lily BBS of Nanjing University(http://bbs.nju.edu.cn); the BMY BBS of Xi’an
Transportation University (http://bbs.xanet.edu.cn); the NK BBS of Nan Kai University
(http://bbs.nankai.edu.cn); the SJTU BBS of Shanghai Jiaotong University (http://
bbs.sjtu.edu.cn); the RYGH BBS of Fudan University (http://bbs.fudan.sh.cn); the BUPT
BBS of Beijing Posts and Telecommunications University (http://bbs.crspd.bupt.edu.cn);
the LJSS BBS of Wuhan University (http://bbs.rjgc.whu.edu.cn).
3. In the case of the 2003 murder of Sun Zhi-gang, three Doctors of Law, Xu Zhi-
yong, Yu Jiang and Teng Biao, wrote an open letter to the National People’s Congress,
demanding a thorough investigation into the 1982 vagrancy law and the Custody and
Repatriation (C&R) system that were possibly violating the Constitution. (Xu et al.,
2003); Professor Ai Xiaoming of Zhongshan Univeristy also initiated an online
petition over the case of Huang Jing (see Fang, 2006).
4. This information comes from my interviews from 2004–6 with members of wxsj.net,
an online forum operated and frequented by women, as well as from self-reporting
posts from the forum.
5. The list includes Beijing University’s YTHT BBS, Yan Nan Community,
Century’s China (www.cc.org.cn) and its forum (www.ccforum.org.cn), Plane of
Thinking (www.sixiang.com), Learning and Thinking forum, Constitutional Politics
Forum, Civil Rights Net, and Opinion forum.
6. See the thread Tianya.cn (2008) ‘Identify those Net-Secret Agents in Tianya –
We Must Open Our Eyes!’, Tianya Gossip, URL (consulted June 2008): http://cache.
tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/1209681.shtml
7. See the thread Tianya.cn (2004), ‘The Long Story of Qianglan’s Stardom’, on Tianya
Gossip Forum (online discussion) at Tianya’s History Forum, 2004, URL (consulted
March 2007): http://www5.tianyaclub.com/techforum/Content/174/435759.shtml
8. See the thread Tianya.cn (2005) ‘Is Yi-ye-qing a Goddess?’ (online discussion) at
Tianya Gossip Forum, URL (consulted June 2006): http://www.tianyaclub.com/new/
Publicforum/Content.asp?idWriter=0&Key=0&strItem=free&idArticle=248034&flag=1

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sina.com.cn/y/n/2005–08–09/1653120990.shtml
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http://www.chinaeweekly.com/viewarticle_gb.aspx?vid=848
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Zhao, D.G. (2003) ‘Political Participation in Folk Society and Forum Members’
Gathering’, Boxun.com (originally published in New Observer Forum) 3 September,
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Shubo Li is currently a lecturer with the Department of Media and

Communication at the University of Oslo. Her research interests are in new
media usages, political culture and Chinese cyberspace. She was awarded a
PhD in communication by the University of Westminster in 2007. Address:
Boks 1093 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway. [email: cathylsb@hotmail.com]

Downloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on July 15, 2014