Bloggers value shock over substance
- Source: Global Times
- [21:47 July 21 2009]
- Comments
By Kathleen Calderwood
On a Tuesday evening in Nanjing recently, a drunk 43-year-old man left for home, fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into a lamp post and watermelon stand, then ran into six parked cars, killing five people and injuring four. Graphic images and videos were splashed all over the Internet accompanied by claims that the government had been irresponsible by allowing him to have a license. He had 80 previous driving violations.
In Iran currently, the Internet is being used as a tool to publish images and information about the civil unrest. Twitter and blogs are the most popular, while user generated content is being contributed to more well known news sites. This is a situation mirrored somewhat in Chinese new media. As most traditional media is linked to the government, Chinese citizens utilize the net as their own form of accountability. The downfall of this is that there are no mechanisms to ensure accuracy and all the things fundamentally valued in quality journalism. Nothing is being done to guarantee the claims being made are based on fact and not conspiracy or speculation.
The Nanjing car accident highlighted a number of issues. For the most part, the major outcry was concerning the disrespect shown by the police towards the deceased victims. Videos show bodies being taken awaywith no attempt to preserve their dignity by placing them in body bags. However, the images flashed all over the internet, including one of a deceased pregnant woman with her foetus lying beside her, did nothing to stop any further disrespect to the victims.
Upon first arrival in China, I was surprised to find to find Youtube blocked. A journalism academic explained to me that it was to stop people being exposed to graphic and vulgar videos. However, if you can access such disturbing images because they are disguised as journalism, why bother blocking Youtube? And what does this indicate about citizen journalism in China?
In Australia currently there is a black list of sites the government intends to censor. Many are pornographic, while others are more innocuous. The controversy surrounding this was colossal. Similarly, the rise of user contributions in the form of comments added to genuine news pieces has raised questioning over what power editors have to censor discriminatory opinions. Both these instances are debated so highly because of their infringement of democratic values. Censorship and the suppression of independent opinion is immediately accused of being undemocratic, often regardless of the content, which may or may not be disturbing, ignorant, profound or even inciting violence.
In China public harmony is more highly valued than in Australia. However, when this involves suppression of information, it seems those on the net come out in force to restore the balance. Unfortunately, this is at times done in shocking and inappropriate ways. Returning to the Nanjing accident, if the mainstream media steers away from detailing the claims of police negligence, is it justified to bring attention to it on the Internet via horrific and tactless photos, which are sure to garner a vast number of hits? But even then can we assume these hits are from citizens genuinely interested and outraged by this tragedy rather than kids simply searching for gore? And is it really worth it in the end, if the result is further Internet censorship?
If nothing else this issue provokes discussion about government, technology and the global trend towards soft news and away from the pertinent and immediate issues affecting society. Since the death of Michael Jackson, the media worldwide and across all platforms have privileged this story over the Iranian unrest, the upcoming Indonesian election and the Uygur riots. The most popular story on brisbanetimes.com today was “Rhianna's nipple slip.” It appears that bloggers rebelling against the structure of their individual media systems can’t compete with the resources of the larger media organisations without utilising shock and gore.
It is clear the Internet is undoubtedly important in modern China, but it is vital to acknowledge the complexity of its role and that it's most definitely not black and white. However, when up against monopolistic media organisations and internet suppression citizen journalists' and bloggers' actions can be ill-informed, causing further harm to victims and distracting us from the truth.