Media Events in Web 2.0 China by Jian Xu

Author:Jian Xu [Xu, Jian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies, Technology & Engineering, Social Aspects
ISBN: 9781782848288
Google: sE-zDAEACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 29956534
Publisher: Sussex Academic Press
Published: 2016-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ai Weiwei’s citizen investigation project

Like Ai Xiaoming, Ai Weiwei investigated the school construction scandal following the Sichuan earthquake, but recorded his findings using a different new media technology—the weblog. Ai Weiwei, born in May 1957, is a contemporary Chinese artist and intellectual activist with an international reputation. He is the son of one of China’s most famous poet, Ai Qing and contributed to the design of the Birds’ Nest Olympic Stadium. He has been highly and openly critical of China’s record on human rights and democracy. After the earthquake, Ai Weiwei was unsatisfied with the government’s refusal to release the student death toll from the earthquake, and so resolved to compile a list of children killed in the school buildings by means of independent investigation.

In an interview, Ai Weiwei criticized the government’s deliberate silence concerning the student victims and the school construction scandal. He argued that “all citizens should have the right to supervise the government, as well as the responsibility to investigate the truth when the government keeps silent”. The main purpose of his project was to “show respect to every individual victim’s life and refuse to forget the tragedy” (Wu 2009).

On December 15, 2008, Ai Weiwei’s Citizen Investigation Group (CIG) was founded in his studio in Beijing.2 The CIG started collecting profiles of student casualties through limited online information, such as memorial websites and reports from NGOs. In order to obtain complete information, CIG sent four volunteers to Sichuan to collect students’ profiles on January 17, 2009. They visited twenty-one villages and towns, interviewed the parents of the student victims, and shot scenes of the rubble. They emailed the fruits of their labor to the head office in Beijing. Based on this information, Ai Weiwei produced his first investigative report, which was released via his personal blogs on Sina and Sohu on March 15. Tianya Forum soon reposted the report, which gave rise to heated online discussion. Thus, the suppressed schoolhouse construction scandal re-entered the public discursive sphere through alternative online communication. Ai Weiwei’s blogs soon became a source of reliable information for those who wanted to know the truth of the issue.

Having attracted significant attention, Ai Weiwei began to use blogs to mobilize the public to participate in his project. On March 20, he posted an advertisement to recruit volunteers. The ad received considerable feedback from the audience, and from March 25 to April 21, three batches of volunteers (eighteen, nine and eleven people, respectively) were recruited and sent to Sichuan. Ai Weiwei kept blogging the first-hand information sent from the front-line. From March 21 to May 29, Ai Weiwei posted 202 blog entries that named student victims and 115 entries that documented the volunteers’ investigation. His blogs accumulated over ten million viewings. In addition, his blog entries were widely circulated and reposted on BBS, blogs and instant messaging platforms, such as QQ and MSN, making his investigation a hot Internet event.

In light of the political sensitivities within China, Ai Weiwei enlisted overseas media outlets to publicize the results of his investigation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.