More Thoughts On The Photos of the Longnan Mass Incident
(11/22/2008) (Reuters 路透社) The Internet drives China to loosen its grip on the media. November 20, 2008.
... "The Chinese government has started to loosen its control on the negative information," said one of the people, an academic close to the propaganda authorities who declined to be identified. "They are trying to control the news by publicizing the news."
A Communist Party official confirmed that the policy on dissemination of news had gradually changed this year. "It's almost impossible to block anything nowadays, when information can spread very quickly on the Internet," said the official, who was not identified because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. "We also noticed that it will benefit us if we report the news first."
The propaganda authorities have issued an order authorizing news organizations to report on unrest, rather than allowing rumors to take hold among Chinese worried about the effects of the global financial crisis on the mainland's economy.
(China Media Project 中國傳媒研究計畫) Taxi strikes in China highlight changing press controls. By David Bandurski. November 12, 2008.
When the taxi strike occurred in 重庆Chongqing last week, news coverage unfolded as a virtual textbook case in Hu Jintao’s new, more active approach to “guidance of public opinion,” what one top Chinese editor aptly called on a recent visit to Hong Kong, “Control 2.0.”
...
One of the key characteristics of Control 2.0 is the active setting of the agenda through rapid but selective news coverage by critical state media such as Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television and People’s Daily.
This is what Hu Jintao meant when he said in June that the media needs to “actively set the agenda” (主动设置议题), an echo of April remarks (post-Tibet) in which he said state media needed to keep a firm grasp on initiative in reporting (报道的主动权):
We must perfect our system of news release, and improve our system for news reports on sudden-breaking public events, releasing authoritative information at the earliest moment, raising timeliness, increasing transparency, and firmly grasping the initiative in news propaganda work.
“Initiative” on the part of core state media is complemented by traditional control tactics, notably propaganda department directives that instruct media to stay within the bounds of coverage by Xinhua, People’s Daily and company.
Follow-up: The Longnan riots and the CCP’s global spin campaign. By David Bandurski. China Media Project. November 20, 2008.
So what is the anti-dote to Control 2.0? Here is the opening paragraph from an old 2006 post:
Let me summarize Naomi Klein's major thesis about how consumers can beat back the big brands: The bigger the brand, the harder they fall. If you want to read more from Naomi Klein, here is the first part from her book No Logo. The relevant part here is Chapter 15: The Brand Boomerang.
It can take 100 years to build up a good brand and 30 days to knock it down - David D'Alessandro, president of John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance, January 6, 1999.
Branding, as we have seen, is a balloon economy: it inflates with astonishing rapidity but it is full of hot air. It shouldn't be surprising that this formula has bred armies of pin-wielding critics, eager to pop the corporate balloon and watch the shreds fall to the ground. The more ambitious a company has been in branding the cultural landscape, and the more careless it has been in abandoning workers, the more likely it is to have generated a silent battalion of critics waiting to pounce. Moreover, the branding formula leaves corporations wide open to the most obvious tactic in the activist arsenal: bringing a brand's production secrets crashing into its marketing image.
If the Chinese government wants to come out as being open and transparent on information, you hold them to this promise. If the Chinese state media seem to jump out immediately with reports about the Longnan mass incident, then you applaud them even if they say that the masses were misled by a very small group of people with ulterior motives. You praise them for this newfound openness and transparency. Then you produce The Longnan Mass Incident In Pictures. Then you ask, Are you prepared to publish these photos? If not, why not? And what do you have to say about these photos anyway? Their comments will tell you more about their true position than anything else can. If they revert to the good old censorship thing about those photos, their script goes out the window.
Here is a reasonable trial question: Is it normal for police officers to be throwing rocks at citizens? Is this because while they were explicitly ordered not to use their arms, they did not think that throwing rocks back was okay? And do you think this is okay?
here are a few more photos:
Local Communist Party secretary Wang Yi at the scene
The Photos Of The Longnan Mass Incident (11/22/2008)
Here are some thoughts on the set of remarkable photos shown in The Longnan Mass Incident In Pictures.
On November 19, I had linked to some photos and videos at The Longnan Mass Incident. But those were of poor quality taken by spectators from afar using mobile phone cameras. For example:
This new set of photos is remarkable because they were taken by a professional photographer using high-end equipment. More importantly, this photographer was allowed close access to the scene. For example, consider this photo taken right next to the feet of police officers standing over arrestees, some of whom were injured:
So I speculate (and everything else that follows are my speculations) that this photographer works for Xinhua or some other state news organization. When the photographer went back to look at the photos, he must realize that there was no chance for publication. What should he do, if he believes that his professional duty is to report the truth?
I speculate that this photographer went ahead and opened a blog at 51.com (or else he gave the photos to someone who opened the blog). That blog has the introduction: "Hi, everybody! I am sx8799691. o(∩_∩)o. Ha ha! Welcome to my 51.com blog!" There are no blog entries. There is a photo album, where the photos are present under "my photos" without the context being described. It does not say that these photos come from Longnan city, Gansu province. But if you compare these photos against the previously published ones taken by citizens, the place is most likely to be Longnan.
These photos have now been cross-posted at many forums. Some forums have clipped off the sx8799691.com at the bottom of the original photos and inserted their own logos. In any case, the photos are all over the place now.
What did the photographer act this way? This is a matter of self-protection. If he had provided a written textual description of what happened, he may be charged with rumor mongering to disturb public order. But here, he is just publishing photographs without any textual explanation. The photographs do not appear to be doctored or staged because many people in them are identifiable. Here is an example:
Since photos do not lie, the blogger was only publishing the truth. This is not a crime. Any attempt to charge him with a crime (such as leaking state secrets) will lead to a massive public reaction, much worse than the previous cases (such as the Pengshui SMS message, etc).
As for the other people who use these photos to score their own political points, that is a different story altogether. A blogger cannot be held accountable for the activities of other unknown parties.
P.S. Reuters has a story titiled The Internet drives China to loosen its grip on the media. "Official news organizations often lag behind reports posted on the Internet by bloggers and investigative reporters, and usually play down any elements that might raise distrust of the Communist Party, which values stability." The Reuters story used the four old Internet photos to illustrate. A blogger has just turned the dial up further with these new photos.
(11/22/2008) (Reuters 路透社) The Internet drives China to loosen its grip on the media. November 20, 2008.
... "The Chinese government has started to loosen its control on the negative information," said one of the people, an academic close to the propaganda authorities who declined to be identified. "They are trying to control the news by publicizing the news."
A Communist Party official confirmed that the policy on dissemination of news had gradually changed this year. "It's almost impossible to block anything nowadays, when information can spread very quickly on the Internet," said the official, who was not identified because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. "We also noticed that it will benefit us if we report the news first."
The propaganda authorities have issued an order authorizing news organizations to report on unrest, rather than allowing rumors to take hold among Chinese worried about the effects of the global financial crisis on the mainland's economy.
(China Media Project 中國傳媒研究計畫) Taxi strikes in China highlight changing press controls. By David Bandurski. November 12, 2008.
When the taxi strike occurred in 重庆Chongqing last week, news coverage unfolded as a virtual textbook case in Hu Jintao’s new, more active approach to “guidance of public opinion,” what one top Chinese editor aptly called on a recent visit to Hong Kong, “Control 2.0.”
...
One of the key characteristics of Control 2.0 is the active setting of the agenda through rapid but selective news coverage by critical state media such as Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television and People’s Daily.
This is what Hu Jintao meant when he said in June that the media needs to “actively set the agenda” (主动设置议题), an echo of April remarks (post-Tibet) in which he said state media needed to keep a firm grasp on initiative in reporting (报道的主动权):
We must perfect our system of news release, and improve our system for news reports on sudden-breaking public events, releasing authoritative information at the earliest moment, raising timeliness, increasing transparency, and firmly grasping the initiative in news propaganda work.
“Initiative” on the part of core state media is complemented by traditional control tactics, notably propaganda department directives that instruct media to stay within the bounds of coverage by Xinhua, People’s Daily and company.
Follow-up: The Longnan riots and the CCP’s global spin campaign. By David Bandurski. China Media Project. November 20, 2008.
So what is the anti-dote to Control 2.0? Here is the opening paragraph from an old 2006 post:
Let me summarize Naomi Klein's major thesis about how consumers can beat back the big brands: The bigger the brand, the harder they fall. If you want to read more from Naomi Klein, here is the first part from her book No Logo. The relevant part here is Chapter 15: The Brand Boomerang.
It can take 100 years to build up a good brand and 30 days to knock it down - David D'Alessandro, president of John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance, January 6, 1999.
Branding, as we have seen, is a balloon economy: it inflates with astonishing rapidity but it is full of hot air. It shouldn't be surprising that this formula has bred armies of pin-wielding critics, eager to pop the corporate balloon and watch the shreds fall to the ground. The more ambitious a company has been in branding the cultural landscape, and the more careless it has been in abandoning workers, the more likely it is to have generated a silent battalion of critics waiting to pounce. Moreover, the branding formula leaves corporations wide open to the most obvious tactic in the activist arsenal: bringing a brand's production secrets crashing into its marketing image.
If the Chinese government wants to come out as being open and transparent on information, you hold them to this promise. If the Chinese state media seem to jump out immediately with reports about the Longnan mass incident, then you applaud them even if they say that the masses were misled by a very small group of people with ulterior motives. You praise them for this newfound openness and transparency. Then you produce The Longnan Mass Incident In Pictures. Then you ask, Are you prepared to publish these photos? If not, why not? And what do you have to say about these photos anyway? Their comments will tell you more about their true position than anything else can. If they revert to the good old censorship thing about those photos, their script goes out the window.
Here is a reasonable trial question: Is it normal for police officers to be throwing rocks at citizens? Is this because while they were explicitly ordered not to use their arms, they did not think that throwing rocks back was okay? And do you think this is okay?
here are a few more photos:
Local Communist Party secretary Wang Yi at the scene
The Photos Of The Longnan Mass Incident (11/22/2008)
Here are some thoughts on the set of remarkable photos shown in The Longnan Mass Incident In Pictures.
On November 19, I had linked to some photos and videos at The Longnan Mass Incident. But those were of poor quality taken by spectators from afar using mobile phone cameras. For example:
This new set of photos is remarkable because they were taken by a professional photographer using high-end equipment. More importantly, this photographer was allowed close access to the scene. For example, consider this photo taken right next to the feet of police officers standing over arrestees, some of whom were injured:
So I speculate (and everything else that follows are my speculations) that this photographer works for Xinhua or some other state news organization. When the photographer went back to look at the photos, he must realize that there was no chance for publication. What should he do, if he believes that his professional duty is to report the truth?
I speculate that this photographer went ahead and opened a blog at 51.com (or else he gave the photos to someone who opened the blog). That blog has the introduction: "Hi, everybody! I am sx8799691. o(∩_∩)o. Ha ha! Welcome to my 51.com blog!" There are no blog entries. There is a photo album, where the photos are present under "my photos" without the context being described. It does not say that these photos come from Longnan city, Gansu province. But if you compare these photos against the previously published ones taken by citizens, the place is most likely to be Longnan.
These photos have now been cross-posted at many forums. Some forums have clipped off the sx8799691.com at the bottom of the original photos and inserted their own logos. In any case, the photos are all over the place now.
What did the photographer act this way? This is a matter of self-protection. If he had provided a written textual description of what happened, he may be charged with rumor mongering to disturb public order. But here, he is just publishing photographs without any textual explanation. The photographs do not appear to be doctored or staged because many people in them are identifiable. Here is an example:
Since photos do not lie, the blogger was only publishing the truth. This is not a crime. Any attempt to charge him with a crime (such as leaking state secrets) will lead to a massive public reaction, much worse than the previous cases (such as the Pengshui SMS message, etc).
As for the other people who use these photos to score their own political points, that is a different story altogether. A blogger cannot be held accountable for the activities of other unknown parties.
P.S. Reuters has a story titiled The Internet drives China to loosen its grip on the media. "Official news organizations often lag behind reports posted on the Internet by bloggers and investigative reporters, and usually play down any elements that might raise distrust of the Communist Party, which values stability." The Reuters story used the four old Internet photos to illustrate. A blogger has just turned the dial up further with these new photos.
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