3 Central-Level E-Governance: Ideology and Policies
3.3 Case Study: Chinese E-Government – Central Policies
3.3.6 The Occupy Microblogs Movement
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departments). It also asks citizens to contact higher-level authorities with their
petitions. This connotes that citizens should directly engage higher-level authorities to overcome potential obstruction by lower-level governments. Furthermore, Article 57 stipulates that citizens whom “discover any environmental pollution or ecological damage caused by any entity or individual shall have the right to report to
environmental protection administrative departments or other departments with environmental protection supervision and administration functions” (p.10) This further expands the scope of permissible oversight and activism to include the actions of private actors i.e. firms. The oversight of such entities should be realized through bottom-up information flows from the grassroots to the state. Finally, Article 57 strengthens the public’s right to participate and oversee by protecting whistleblowers.
It states that “authorities receiving such reports shall keep confidential the relevant information on whistleblowers and protect the lawful rights and interests of
whistleblowers” (p.10)
In sum, the 2014 EPL elucidates the inextricable relationship between open
government (via information disclosure) and participation (via mass oversight). These concomitant goals can be observed in the regime's pursuit of a digital Mass Line as reflected by the Center’s e-government policies. In doing so, Chinese e-governance strengthens the right to know, be heard, participate and oversee.
3.3.6 The Occupy Microblogs Movement
State-run microblogs reveal a unique dimension of Chinese e-government. It shows the state’s capacity and eagerness to incorporate Web 2.0 platforms like Weibo as digital Mass Line institutions.
A microblog is a social media platform where users typically make short and frequent posts. Posts are characterized by their shareability, “(hash)tags,” and the ability of users to follow other users. Posts occur in a variety of media formats consisting of a mix of video, text, hyperlinks, and images. In China, the top microblogging platform is Sina Weibo, Weibo for short, developed in 2009 by the Sina Corporation.
Weibo has became ubiquitous amongst Chinese netizens. In 2011, only two years after its inception, Weibo had accumulated over 100 million users. In 2019, Weibo reported an astounding 516 million active monthly users (CIW, 2020). This rapid user
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growth considerably enhances the capacity of Chinese netizens to quickly communicate, disseminate mass media, and generate imagined communities (Schneider, 2018). Until the occupy microblogs movement, these social, communicative processes were relatively free of state involvement.
The “occupy microblogs” movement refers to Beijing’s push to establish a dominant, nationwide state presence within the domestic “blogosphere.” The regime finds the autonomous generation of social networks through communication platforms like Weibo threatening since it can cause similarly aggrieved netizens to communicate and subsequently organize (King et al, 2013; Lorentzen, 2014). Such online collective action could produce a tangible political opposition capable of threatening the CCP’s political hegemony. Recognizing the threat, the regime initiated what Schlæger &
Jiang (2014) identify as the “occupy microblogs” movement.
The top-down policy signal initiating the Movement is a 2011 speech by Wang Cheng, deputy director of the Central Propaganda Department (CIIC, 2012). In the speech, Cheng advises officials to “occupy microblogs.” The initial policy signal is characteristically nondescript, however scholarship into the Movement identifies a primary goal is to build-up state-society direct engagement by establishing a massive state presence within the domestic blogosphere (Noesselt, 2014; Schlæger & Jiang, 2014; Zhang & Chan, 2013)6. Five motives for engagement can be identified in the literature. While the motivations are varied, each aligns with the regime’s ambition to establish a digital mass line.
Motive #1 - Gauging public opinion for improved decision making. The first motive aims to increase the state’s input capacity and realizes the right to be heard. Citizens frequently use Weibo to submit petitions. This is done by publicly posting their requests to state-run Weibo accounts (Noesselt, 2014; Schlæger & Jiang, 2014). The state also uses microblogs to solicit public commentary on upcoming policy decisions.
Additionally, the regime uses data mining and machine learning technologies to scrape then analyze millions of posts. These analyses identify concentrations of netizen concerns (Denyer, 2013; Wertime, 2013). These various forms of public
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inputs are then incorporated into the regime’s policy-making process (Zhang & Chan, 2013).
Motive #2 - Providing services to improve local governance. The second motive aims to improve the state’s output capacity. Official microblogs are used to promote public services and disseminate official information (Noesselt, 2014; Schlæger & Jiang, 2014; Zhang & Chan, 2013). Motive #1 feeds into Motive #2 by providing a bottom-up flow of social demands required for responsive governance. Motives #3 and #4 that follow are examples of the state services that microblogs enable.
Motive #3 - Engaging the public by providing authoritative information. As mentioned, the provision of authoritative information satisfies the public’s right to know and enables their right to oversee. State microblogs are used to publicize policy information and social statistics, make public service announcements, as well as provide more mundane information such as weather and traffic reports (Noesselt, 2014; Schlæger & Jiang, 2014; Zhang & Chan, 2013). In other words, state
microblogs are used to quickly disperse any information deemed necessary to keep the public adequately informed.
Motive #4 - Answering user questions. The state uses microblogs to receive and respond to citizen inquiries thus strengthening the state’s input-output function (Noesselt, 2014; Schlæger & Jiang, 2014). The receiving and acknowledging of questions realize the right to participate. The answering of netizen questions satisfies their rights to know and is an indicator of responsiveness. The state also emphasizes response speed. The state’s microblog administrators find it imperative to respond to inquiries within one hour (Schlæger & Jiang, 2014). The fast replies further
strengthen netizens’ perceptions of regime responsiveness.
Motive #5 - Increasing interaction with netizens. This directive concerns utilizing microblogs to enhance two-way direct engagement (Noesselt, 2014; Schlæger &
Jiang, 2014). The more broadly defined goal—to increase interactions—aims to shorten the cognitive distance between state and society thus strengthening the Mass Line’s direct link. That strengthening builds the online social structure required to support a digital mass line.
The occupy microblogs movement demonstrates the regime’s eagerness to incorporate new ICTs into a Mass Line social structure. Taken together, the five
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motives (gauging public opinion, improved service provision, providing information, answering questions and increasing interactions) shows the regime's intentions behind the occupy microblogs movement—to enhance the state’s input function by
mobilizing political participation via direct engagement; and to enhance its output function via responsiveness in the form of top-down communicative processes.