Know Techn Pol (2009) 22:95–107
DOI 10.1007/s12130-009-9072-1
ORIGINAL PAPER
News Blogging in Cross-Cultural Contexts: A Report
on the Struggle for Voice
James E. Katz & Chih-Hui Lai
Received: 20 December 2008 / Accepted: 14 February 2009 / Published online: 2 April 2009
# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract To assess some of the ways that blogs
appear to be affecting news reporting and consumption
as well as some giving a sense as to their implications
for social stability, this paper presents a preliminary
analysis of views and comments by bloggers in Asian
countries. Data on this topic was gathered by e-mail
interviews of Asian bloggers as well as by collecting
writings and data from relevant websites. Analysis
suggests that, in many societies in Asia and elsewhere,
bloggers have become an important source of news
outside of but also alongside of traditional mainstream
media. A trend is observed that information and
communication technologies are reconfiguring the
traditional balance between the creators and consumers
of news and the journalistic reporting profession.
Internet blogs and mobile phones, among other
technologies, have made new information and perspec-
tives available concerning local events; they have also
added important and often oppositional interpretations
of the significance and meaning of those events. Thus,
on both professional and economic grounds, the New
Note: This paper is a revision of a talk prepared for the Hong
Kong Polytechnic University international conference on The
Role of New Technologies in Global Societies, July 30–31,
2008.
J. E. Katz (*) : C.-H. Lai
Department of Communication, Rutgers University,
New Brunswick, NJ, USA
e-mail: j.k@rutgers.edu
Media are reducing the relative prominence of tradi-
tional news outlets as well as stature of professional
journalists.
Keywords Cross-cultural views . Blogging .
Citizen journalism . Self-organizing community .
Social policy
Introduction
Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain,
represents the views of many enthusiastic and highly
optimistic “new thinkers” who see vast changes
possible as a result of the Internet. As the leader of
one of the world’s most powerful countries, his words
count for a great deal. As such, it is worth pondering
what he presented in a spring 2008 address to a
Google-sponsored conference held in London. Brown
foresaw “an international policy that is increasingly
shaped by people who can come together across
borders... [who] would change the whole nature of the
response of the international community to events.”
He said that “you cannot ignore problems that exist in
countries where information is coming out of these
countries already, and you can see people being able
to report information across frontiers in a way that can
change the behavior of governments.”
Commenting about the situation in Myanmar
(Burma), where bloggers and others have reported
96 J.E. Katz, C-H. Lai

on human rights situation in the aftermath of the bloggers themselves. The focus is on Southeast Asia
cyclone, Brown asserted, and China, though a few comparison points are made
to the USA and a few other countries.
Think of the monks in Burma. 20 years ago,
Although there are many views about the role of
10 years ago, even 5 years ago they would have
the press in society, shortness of space leads us to
had sentries standing over fax machines to stop
mention just one, namely, that of Siebert et al. (1956),
information getting into a country and now,
who proposed a fourfold theory of the role of press in
even with a repressive regime like Burma,
society. The first and most pervasive both historically
information cannot be repressed forever, infor-
and geographically is known as the authoritarian
mation cannot be suppressed and it comes out of
system. Under this theory, the purpose of the press
a country... but now a regime like Burma cannot
is to advance the interests and policies of the
hide from the world what used to be hidden
government so that the government can achieve its
when there was a cyclone, or when there was an
goals (the model pioneered by Julius Caesar). The
earthquake, or when there was a famine, the
polar opposite is the libertarian theory, wherein the
world never got any information at all (Brown
goal of the press is to provide individual citizens with
2008).
the information needed to make rational choices. The
He went on to say: government must not intervene. The third theory,
the social responsibility model, was an outgrowth of
So the world is changing and direct people
the libertarian theory, and emphasized the responsibil-
power is going to be a powerful force not just in
ity of the press. The fourth theory, based on Marxist
domestic policy, but in foreign policy in the
ideology as practiced in the Soviet Union and
years to come... perhaps an international cam-
elsewhere, emphasized that the press must serve the
paign on Darfur is possible in the next period, or
party. Other theories have been introduced which
Zimbabwe, or Burma. And I do believe that
complement this paradigm and include development
people coming together to express their anger,
journalism, revolutionary media, and democratic-
or their outrage, or their concern about particu-
participant media (Yin 2008).
lar events will force international institutions to
After this brief historical background of the role of
have to change and force politicians around the
professional journalism, we may turn our attention to
world in different countries to have to come
the possibilities of citizen journalists in posing a
together to change their decisions (Brown
challenge to mainstream media. In this regard, we
2008).
may define citizen journalists as follows:
Brown’s vision is an exciting one, but as it is
Individuals and groups who seek to report to
offered from a truly transnational perspective, it
audiences about current events and conditions (a
misses many of the gritty and often disheartening
process described by Bowman and Willis (2003)
details of the struggle for local and global transpa-
as participatory journalism);
rency of information concerning abuse of power,
Having an independent voice from mainstream
human rights violations, and political activism.
traditional media (Allan 2006);
Individuals acting both as users and producers of
content, namely, gatewatchers (Bruns 2005),
Theoretical Background and Definitions
meaning that citizen journalism encompasses
not only the active information gathering prac-
The purpose of our paper here is to report in an
ticed by users but also a form of collective
impressionistic style what we have learned about the
filtering through which the sea of information
situation. Our focus is primarily on Asia, but
floating online will be debated and critiqued for
incorporates the situation in many other countries.
specific purposes or communities (Bruns 2007).
This of course is not a systematic or scientific
analysis; rather, it is an attempt to report on the It is worth noting that citizen journalists cover a
situation in the tradition of an extended newspaper wide gamut of activities including reporting on local
report, relying on expert opinions and comments of culture, cuisine, natural history, music, and entertain-
News blogging in cross-cultural contexts: a report on the struggle for voice
ment. To a large extent, they are most often visible to
the general public (and controversial) when dealing
with politics, and implicit in the analyses of citizen
journalists and bloggers is the triumphalist narrative.
A good example, and not necessarily wrong, is a
comment by essayist Andrew Sullivan who said that
blogs are “the first journalistic model that actually
harnesses rather than merely exploits the true demo-
cratic nature of the web” (cited in Siemens 2002).
Internet Usage and Blogging Activities on a Global
Scale
Before taking a look at the used picture, it is
important to explain the salience of blogging as a
type of citizen journalism. Bloggers are of course able
to play multiples roles (a publisher, creator, distributor
of content; Bowman and Willis 2003). Compared
with other citizen-based media (e.g., chain emails,
Usenet discussion groups, message boards), blogging
has the following characteristics which appear to
contribute to its growing popularity: the ease of use,
low barriers to creation and maintenance, easy
interactivity, and potential for wide distribution
(Reese et al. 2007). Moreover, it is argued with some
justification that the creation of a dynamic exchange
of information and ideas between bloggers and users
is conducive to the practice of democracy (Allan
2006).
Usage reports of many sorts (e.g., Universal
McCann) show that Asia is a true powerhouse in
blog production. Surveys indicate that Indonesia has
one of the highest numbers of bloggers in the world,
followed by Malaysia. The Philippines alone has 2.3
million bloggers (Universal McCann 2008). More
than half of Thai Internet users responded to a 2007
survey saying that they read blogs, and of these, 45%
say that they also write their own blogs (Universal
McCann 2007).
An important claim on behalf of citizen journal-
ism is that it is more open to diverse viewpoints
and provides new sources of information (Flew
2007; Nguyen 2006). This may be the case in a
situation in which there is censorship and other forms
of political control over media content. One of the key
advantages proposed for citizen journalism is its
openness to new sources, that is, allowing new voices
to be heard in the public sphere of debate and
97
discussion. From this viewpoint, however, it was
surprising that a late 2007 systematic study by the
Pew and Knight Foundation found that citizen
journalism sites were not more open to new sources
than traditional media (Project for Excellence in
Journalism 2008).1
In many countries (e.g., Southeast Asia), it is
difficult to measure consumption of political news
via blogs or even the web more generally, and it is
even more difficult to discern what the effects of
such consumption might be (e.g., Albrecht et al.
2007; Dameron 2007, with cases focusing on the
areas of political campaigns and post-disaster mobi-
lization). However, in terms of asking people about
their consumption of web-based information, there
have been a good number of surveys conducted in
the US. A recent example is a 2008 Harris
Interactive survey of more than 2,300 US online
adults that looked at the use of political blogs. The
survey found that:
Despite the attention given to political blogs,
only one in five Americans read them regularly
(This includes both politically active, such as
those who vote, and others who may not be
politically active as is traditionally measured,
i.e., writing letters to officials. Some people read
about politics without necessarily participating
in the political process. Here political blogs
refer to those blogs with a clear purpose of
facilitating political discussions, unlike the
generic websites (e.g., YouTube) allowing dif-
ferent types of discussion and political issues are
one of them).
56% of Americans say they never read blogs that
discuss politics, and just under a quarter say they
read them several times a year.
Perhaps surprisingly, given the emphasis on the
youthful nature of Internet surfing, those who
read blogs are less likely to be young adults.
1
Conclusions were drawn from a two-phase study titled
“Tracking and Analyzing Community News Models.” In this
study, 64 citizen journalism websites in 15 metropolitan areas
of US were investigated, and it was found that blogs are less
open in terms of allowing posts by visitors. Details about the
study are available at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/
2008/CitizenMedia.pdf
98
Nineteen percent of adults aged 18 to 31 read
political blogs regularly (defined as several times
a month or more); rate was 23% for people aged
42 to 62.
Among older adults, more than a quarter aged 63
and older read political blogs regularly, along
with 23% of adults aged 44 to 62.
Among Republicans (conservative party) and
Democrats (liberal party), just 22% and 20%,
respectively, regularly read political blogs. Inde-
pendents are slightly more likely to read them,
with just over a quarter saying they do so
regularly (Gonsalves 2008).
It is unknown, of course, just how extensible these
findings are to the rest of the world. Nonetheless, the
fact should be noted that Republicans are in a
substantial minority among the traditional mainstream
media in the United States, compared to Democrats.
As a result, it may be the fact that Republicans find
the alternative voices available on the Internet as more
useful to them, and supportive of their own view-
points, and therefore more attractive to them. This
may account for the slightly elevated readership of
political blogs among Republicans found in this
study. Certainly, it has been argued that one of the
strengths of the Internet has been to help develop
communication and communities among those whose
views depart from that of the ambient community and
who are physically isolated from one another (Katz
and Rice 2002).
The Impulse to Control Information: Censorship
and Self-Censorship
It is a common impulse to try to limit the spread of
information one deems hostile or insulting. Like-
wise, those in power also seek to restrict information
that threatens their grip on the levers of control in
society. Those who are charged, or see themselves as
charged, with protecting society want to restrict or
eliminate statements that are seen as insulting,
disrespectful, criminal, treasonous, or threatening.
Of course, the exposure of wrongdoing or abuse is
certainly seen as a problem for those who are corrupt
or abusive. In some cases, though anyone who
simply expresses a skeptical view about a long-
dead religious figure, or meditates encouraging one
J.E. Katz, C-H. Lai
to hold certain religious views can be grounds for
those in power to seek to repress or even physically
eliminate. The full force of state power can, for
instance, be unleashed those against who make
statements online about purely metaphysical issues.2
Hence, for legitimate and illegitimate reasons, the
impulse to censor is constant.
This impulse, and its consequences, may be
illuminated by the case of Thailand. Internet censor-
ship began in Thailand in April 2002. Since then,
blogs or online discussion boards have been blocked
due to the critical comments directed to the govern-
ment. In fact, the following situation seems to
obtain:
Authors of any blasphemous comments, insults,
or threats alluding to the monarchy get prison
terms of up to 15 years (Reuters 2007).
Most pornography and violent websites in
Thailand are blocked, but so too are many
websites containing critical content and those
that are insulting to the monarchy.
Supervision of the censorship can become a thorny
issue, when in 2007, Thailand imposed a 5-month
blockage of YouTube. The Thai government asked
YouTube to remove a video clip portraying the king
with clown features on his face and female feet above
his head. YouTube refused—government responded
with blocking YouTube. After negotiations YouTube
was returned, albeit with some blocking (Mydans
2007).
Angered by the widespread censorship of the Thai
government, an organization was formed in 2006
called Freedom Against Censorship in Thailand
(FACT), a partner in the Global Internet Liberty
Campaign (GILC). Its goal was to create a Thailand
free of Internet censorship. Blogger CJ Hinke, the
founder and coordinator of FACT, commented that
media censorship in Thailand takes a form of
pervasive and insidious unconscious control:
It is cultural self-censorship which impacts all
facets of Thai intellectual life….all Thais know
2
In 2005, a blogger was tried in Tehran for “insulting the
prophets” in his postings. The penalty if convicted could have
been execution, but the blogger was acquitted (Reporters
Without Borders 2008).
News blogging in cross-cultural contexts: a report on the struggle for voice
what can be expressed and what cannot.
Therefore almost no news about human rights
and freedom of expression issues are ever used
by the Thai press.
Self-censorship is an important issue, and the
internalization of the external rules has been a
favorite theme from Auguste Comte to Michel
Foucault. It is an important operating principle in
many societies and organizations. This is for a
good reason as illuminated by a case involving a
native of Singapore who although is now a US
citizen is suffering due to what he wrote on blogs
after having returned to Singapore to cover a trial
dealing with a defamation suit by a government
official against an activist (a common practice in
Singapore to stifle dissent). The citizen in ques-
tion is Gopalan Nair, who used his blog to
criticize Judge Belinda Ang of “prostituting
herself” during the defamation trial of another
opposition activist. Although he claimed he was
merely expressing the free speech allowed under
the city-state’s constitution, the authorities in
Singapore did not see it that way. The charges
they have levied against him—“insulting a public
servant in a judicial proceeding”—could result in
a prison term and stiff fine. Human rights
advocate, Margaret John of Amnesty International,
said, “free expression in Singapore is very tightly
restricted, and anyone who steps out of line, be
they American, Singaporese, or anyone else, is
likely to suffer because of it” (May 2008).
According to John, Singapore’s government has
often counter-attacked its critics by driving them
into bankruptcy via defamation suits. Local media,
she claims, is either government-controlled or
practices self-censorship because of the intimida-
tion. The attack upon Nair, John says, shows the
government has begun attacking bloggers. “Dissi-
dents are increasingly turning to Internet newsletters
as an alternative to news they see in the
government-controlled media,” John said, “So the
Internet is now seen as a threat to the government”
(May 2008).
This case reveals how a government, even one
that seemingly offers adequate constitutional protec-
tions to its citizenry, can directly pursue legal attacks
against offending citizen journalists and bloggers.
The chilling effect must be quite strong on those
99
who would be tempted to venture into the practices
of citizen journalism.
Competition, Co-optation, and Conflict
On the side of the equation, there is much excitement
and interest generated by citizen journalism in general
and blogging in particular. As a result, mainstream
media has sought to adopt many of the hallmarks of
blogging and citizen journalism. This seems to be
widely the case throughout much of the world.
According to one report on Indonesia:
many newspapers have attempted to attract
readers by adopting the interactive features,
such as setting up a reader online community
or launching reader debate through SMS. By
estimate, there are 25 million Internet users in
Indonesia, compared to 11 million newspapers
readers in the nine big cities (Kurniawan 2007).
A case drawn from Singapore aptly demonstrates
not only the dialectical process occurring among
bloggers, traditional media, and the government. It
also shows the increasing prominence of the bloggers
in national debates. Widely read blogger Lee Kin
Mun had been given a column at the state-owned
newspaper Today with the aim of trying to attract
younger readership. Thus, a mainstream outlet made a
gesture to try to incorporate the excitement of a
blogger into its offerings. However, the drama and
freedom of the online world does not often fit well
with the controlled environment of an official gov-
ernment organ. This occurred when, using his nom de
plume of mrbrown, he published in June 30, 2006 a
column entitled “S’poreans are fed, up with prog-
ress!” In it, he attacked in a slightly humorous vein
recently proposed governmental measures that would
have multiple harmful effects including raising the
cost of living in Singapore. The initial consequence of
writing this article was that a few days later the
Ministry of Information, Communications and the
Arts responded to it with its own critical article
published on Today, in which mrbrown was rebuked
for abusing political resources to convey his political
ideas. Shortly thereafter, mrbrown lost his job at the
newspaper. But the story does not end there. For in a
world where there is an ample feedback loop, actions
can be examined, kept alive, and magnified. Singapore’s
100
online community did not accept this decision quietly.
Using blogs and SMS texting, a small-scale protest was
organized,3 along with international condemnation.4
Eventually, even the Prime Minister mentioned
mrbrown in a speech (Lee 2006).
CJ Hinke, the blogger from Thailand cited earlier,
articulated the revolutionary role that bloggers are
playing in social movements in Thailand:
Bloggers and citizen journalists keep raising the
bar as to what information the public can see.
This process actually started by mobile phone
during the democracy demos of 1992 when all
other media was heavily censored. You see,
Thailand is in a unique position. Govt talks
democracy–we aren’t China–but doesn’t want
citizens to be too free (personal communication).
Certainly the power of bloggers is increasingly
recognized by national leaders, and they, like
traditional mainstream media, are seeking to incor-
porate the movement into their own plans and
activities. The case of Indonesia is illustrative in
this regard in that blogging is generously supported
by the government as part of promotion efforts of
national image and tourism. 5 As noted above,
Indonesia is a leading nation in terms of blogging,
but it should be noted that it is not only leading in
terms of sheer numbers but also in terms of impact.
This fact has not been lost on politicians, and they
have been actively promoting and involved in
3
A group of netizens notified each other through SMS to
organize a protest called “Flash Mob” at the City Hall subway
station to support Lee Kin Mun. See http://akikonomu.blogspot.
com/2006/07/flash-mob-for-mr-brown.html. Meanwhile, after
the government issued the response letter, a great number of
people swarmed to Lee’s blog to voice their support of him. See
http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/letter_from_mic.html
4
Reporters Without Border criticized the reactions from the
Singapore government by all means repressed the freedom
speech supposedly afforded to the bloggers and journalists. See
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=18208
5
As part of the activity of Pesta Blogger 2008, a national-scale
blogger gathering event in Indonesia, the Department of
Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia invited
foreign bloggers (from United States, China/Hong Kong,
Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia) to Yogyakarta and Bali,
Indonesia. The purpose of arranging these trips is for these
invited bloggers to share about their experiences and impres-
sions of these areas with a wider scope of audiences. See http://
pestablogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/pb-release-eng.
pdf
J.E. Katz, C-H. Lai
blogging. In fact, October 27, 2007 was declared to
be Indonesia’s national bloggers day. The Minister
for Communications and Information Mohammad
Nuh utilized the event to acknowledge the signifi-
cance of bloggers in Indonesia.6
Self-Organizing Communities
Repressive societies are not nearly as appreciative of
bloggers and citizen journalists because of the threat
they pose. This may be seen in Myanmar which
appears to be experiencing a growing number of
blogger communities despite the hardships they face
from the government. Myanmar blogger April V (not
real name) sees blogging as becoming more important
as can be demonstrated by the rapid growth of local
blogs and the establishment of the Myanmar Blogger
Society. She also says that young people are increa-
singly becoming interested in blogging as well as
becoming news sources/collectors/distributers, which
in turn strengthens the blogger community (personal
communication).
The groups in Myanmar use what may be
considered in a relative sense very low-cost informa-
tion dissemination techniques made possible by the
Internet and mobile phones and rely on viral
propagation methods to attract attention to their work.
These processes are often based on the wiki or the
blog model. A successful example is Myanmar’s 2007
protest initiated by monks, in which mobile phones
joined the Internet as tools for citizen reporters to
convey facts about the local situation to the outside
world. In particular, they relied heavily on exile-
community media organizations (Fowler 2007;
Ramey 2007), and bloggers (Drash 2007). Ko Htike,
a blogger, who was from Myanmar but now lives in
London, reported that he received several pictures
from citizens when the protest just broke out. In
response to this movement, the OpenNet Initiative
(2007) conducted a more in-depth analysis, which
shows that these citizen reporters were mostly
university students and youth. They developed trusted
networks of contacts to transmit to expatriate bloggers
6
See http://nilatanzil.blogspot.com/2007/10/27th-october-is-
national-blogers-day.html and http://pestablogger.com/(blogger
party 2007).
News blogging in cross-cultural contexts: a report on the struggle for voice
photographs and videos taken with mobile phones
and digital cameras.
While citizen journalists can take a heroic stance in
favor of freedom of speech and communication, as
well as cast critical eyes on governmental action,
where there are fewer restrictions on freedom of
expression, the relationship between governmental
elites and bloggers/citizen journalists can often com-
mingle with surprising results. In addition to the co-
optation discussed above, leaders and would-be
leaders can often be one of the same as bloggers.
Thus, in the Philippines, where bloggers are still
treated as “second-class news generators or reporters,”
(as claimed by blogger Mong Palatino in an interview
with us) politicians are increasingly harnessing the
potential of various participatory media. This includes
both current politicians and those with political
ambitions. As to the latter, an instance we can point
to includes rebel soldier Antonio Trillanes who was
elected as a senator in the 2007 midterm election
despite being in jail. In fact Trillanes set up his own
Friendster account and a promotion blog (http://
friendsoftrillanes.blogspot.com). Blogger Mong Pala-
tino was convinced that the Internet, bloggers, and the
media together contributed to Trillanes’ victory. This
is a further example of the expert use of mixed blogs
and traditional media by politicians, whether they are
on the ruling or the oppositional side.
National Levels of Analysis and the Impact
of Blogging
To put this master trend in context, we may see at one
end of the spectrum Myanmar (Burma) and Vietnam.
In these countries, the situation appears that blogging
and citizen journalism can certainly serve as an
important alternative to the heavily regulated official
media. At the same time, the lack of transparent
regulatory environments leads to self-censorship
practiced among all levels of organizations and
individuals (Capricious or irregular enforcement of
rules can also lead to this result). In Myanmar, there
apparently is an absence of laws and regulations
concerning Internet content, neither is there a clear
stipulation of the penalties that might result from
violations. Nonetheless, the government has gone to
lengths to monitor Internet communication and block
most websites containing the topics it deems suspi-
101
cious (e.g., Burma, human rights, military govern-
ment). Under this regime, users are usually unaware
of the legal consequences of their online activities.7
Dr. XYZ (not real name), a blogger and freelance
journalist from Myanmar, commented on the con-
strained condition of bloggers:
In my country, Myanmar there is a lot of
restrictions and constraints ruled by Junta. No
freedom of expression. No free media and one
cannot even write his own feeling in his own
diary. If junta see some documents they cannot
agree, he or she will be troubled. Role of
bloggers in Myanmar are in bad position. You
can hear about Blogger, Nay Phome Latt who
detained and jailed on 29 January 08 by junta. It
is for the fact that Nay Phome Latt published
some photos of Saffron Revolution Sept.08. Now
he is in Insein Jail (personal communication).
Publications must be submitted to the Board of
Inspection and Registration for All Publications (part
of the Ministry of Information), including blogs, says
an expatriate blogger from Burma. Blog content in
Myanmar, like all publications in the country, are
severely censored. There is careful governmental and
self-monitoring, and certain words cannot be used.
For instance, the word “Su” must not be used because
it suggests the name of regime opponent Aung San
“Su” Kyi. One blogger reports, “we cannot use the
number 88 because the strike for democracy appeared
at 1988” [sic] (personal communication).
Some countries have a more ambiguous and
selective regulatory position toward Internet control.
In China, for instance, the large number of non-
political blogs has been officially acknowledged (for a
general perspective on China’s information and
communication technology (ICT) use, see Law and
Chu 2008 and Chu 2008). According to the China
Internet Network Information Center’s 2007 annual
report, China has 180 million Internet users and 47
million bloggers. Included in their report was a survey
they conducted,8 which found that the main motiva-
7
See US Department of State, Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices, available at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/
hrrpt/2007/100515.htm.
8
This phone survey, conducted from November 20 through 30,
2007, was based on a random sample of 1,862 respondents. The
study was conducted in two steps; first a survey and then in-
depth interviews with 486 bloggers.
102
tion for reading blogs is entertainment. This was the
case for 43% of respondents. On the other hand,
despite other indications that bloggers are an impor-
tant information source, the majority of respondents
(63%) gave higher credibility ratings to online news
over blogged news.9
Yet, when it comes to politics, the impact of blogs
appears not to be very great. Chinese blogger
Germinal (not real name) holds that:
It is still rare for bloggers to have the nerve to
discuss the negative side of the news about
China because these political-oriented bloggers
have been faced with the obstacle to incur any
foreseeable impact (personal communication).
Moreover, unlike Myanmar, the Chinese govern-
ment employs sophisticated technological means to
control Internet content. According to the New York
Times:
China’s censors operate in secret. Their orders
are issued verbally to senior editors at thousands
of newspapers, Web sites and television outlets
so that there is no written record of their
mandates, editors say. The Propaganda Depart-
ment does not have a public address or phone
number and does not answer queries about its
operations.
A handful of publications consistently skirt the
edges of censorship on delicate topics, like land
disputes, environmental problems and corrup-
tion. But editors who regularly defy the letter or
the spirit of propaganda guidance are punished,
replaced or sometimes prosecuted.
Coverage of major accidents, epidemic diseases
and natural disasters has long been a source of
contention. Editors and some officials have
argued publicly that overly restrictive propagan-
da controls can result in deaths if people remain
uninformed about risks.
Even so, efforts have been made in recent years
to restrict the leeway the news media have to
9 10
The survey asked respondents to indicate whether they had
“more,” “less,” or “the same” trust in blog posts as compared to
online news. The report is available in Chinese at http//www.
cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2007/12/26/4948.htm.
J.E. Katz, C-H. Lai
report on major events viewed as having the
potential to “disrupt social order,” reporters and
editors say (French 2008).
In short, as described by Herold (2008), the media
landscape in China is under rigorous and sophisti-
cated control realized through various formal and
informal mechanisms (e.g., policies, economic incen-
tives, self-censorship of ISPs and individuals), cou-
pled with the lack of transparency in the guidelines
governing the implementation of the regulations.10
Yet, as also noted by Herold (2008), there is a web-
based blacklist which the government uses to modu-
late access to information. “This flexible tool of
Internet control allows the state to adapt to changing
real-world situations with great speed, but also
demonstrates that online debates that do happen in
China exist with the government's passive approval”
(Herold 2008, p. 10).
More direct attempts to control rumors and
circulation of information have been undertaken by
the government. These have been associated with the
tragic 2008 earthquake as well as preparations for the
Beijing Olympic Games. A press report in the United
States commented on the efforts of the government to
control the spread of rumors and other information
after the 2008 earthquake. According to the Los
Angeles Times:
Almost as soon as the initial aftershocks stopped
reverberating last week, the rumors began.
Some say that frogs, insects and other animals
fled shortly before the earth shook. Others insist
that water mysteriously drained from ponds, or
that Beijing knew the massive earthquake would
strike but chose not to publicize it with the
Olympics around the corner.
Patently false, perhaps, but enough to alarm the
Chinese leadership. “Stop rumors to avoid
social panic and stabilize order,” said an
earthquake report issued Wednesday by the
government of hard-hit Mianyang. On the same
day, Beijing announced that it had punished four
See OpenNet Institute’s report at http://opennet.net/research/
profiles/china and US Department of State, Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices 2007, available at http://www.state.
gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100518.htm.
News blogging in cross-cultural contexts: a report on the struggle for voice
people in northern China for spreading rumors
on the Internet about the quake, without
explaining what the punishment was.
Rumors are an integral part of Chinese folk
history, songs and poetry. Last year, authorities
drained a reservoir in central Sichuan province
to dispel rumors that a growling water beast
lived there. In 2006 a rumor spread in Anhui
province that the virus that causes AIDS was
being injected into watermelons, devastating
sales.
Chinese emperors long sought to halt the spread
across their far-flung empire, with the first
recorded anti-hearsay campaign launched by
King Li nearly 3,000 years ago, despite a
proverb: “Trying to stop people’s mouths is like
trying to stop a flood (Los Angeles Times
2008).
On the one hand, rumors are endemic to human
communities. On the other hand, when sources of
information are controlled in obvious ways, rumors
take on special importance, and their credibility is
higher. This would surely seem to be the case in
China, and thus one could expect to find bloggers to
be particularly influential. Evidence in support of this
assertion can be seen in the insightful analysis of what
has been termed “Internet vigilantism” in China, in
some cases requiring state intervention (Herold 2008).
In Vietnam, there are various laws or regulations in
place to preempt Internet users’ violations. Positioned
as an expatriate in the Vietnam blogosphere, Georgia
(not real name) noticed the tight control over media
by the Vietnamese government; hence, self-
censorship becomes internalized as a rule,
I do, however, stay away from the most
controversial topics out of self-preservation.
Self-censorship becomes a way of life. My story
ideas and quotes come from my every day
interactions in Hanoi and my travels.
Yet, Georgia also observed the emerging influence
of blogs in Vietnam,
As far as I know, blogging has more of an
influence in the government sanctioned areas,
such as culture and music. Rock music is a
big example, and I’m preparing to write an
article on it in my blog and for SE Globe
103
magazine. Rock has been a mostly under-
ground movement because of negative con-
notations in the minds of the older generation,
and I assume the government. Advertising
rock music and concerts is largely done on
internet forums and through Yahoo360
weblogs, which have replaced word of mouth
(personal communication).
It may also be the case that impact is low in those
environments where there is little or no content
control. That is where there is a free marketplace of
ideas. Taiwan may be used to represent a case from
this end of the spectrum, i.e., where high freedom of
expression is correlated with relatively low impact of
blogs. In Taiwan, where there is relatively high
freedom of speech, blogs serve as semi-public forums
for social matters and have less to do with the
motivations of causing societal change. Taiwanese
blogger I-Fan Lin noted:
I do not think most Taiwanese bloggers care
about providing information about Taiwan to
the world or to the Taiwanese public (Some
English bloggers do.) Most blogs are places to
share thoughts with friends, not to broadcast,
although some of the blogs do attract a lot of
visitors. As a result, blogs act more like
spreading ideas person by person. Authors are
often familiar with visitors, at least familiar with
their ips (personal communication).
On the other hand, citizen journalists and bloggers
may have the greatest impact where there is moderate
control or where the society has recently transited from
a rigidly controlled environment to one where there are
fewer controls. The Philippines and Malaysia can help
elucidate the “mid-case” range of trend. In the
Philippines, despite relatively low Internet penetration
and defamation accusations that still haunt the tradi-
tional media,11 the Internet essentially played a crucial
role in helping political candidates buttress their
chances of winning. As noted earlier, in the case of
Antonio Trillanes, the Internet has become an impor-
tant forum for political candidates, but he was by no
means the only one. In the 2007 mid-term election,
most candidates had set up their own personal
11
Reporters Without Borders’s 2007 annual report, available at
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=20795.
104
websites, blogs, and Friendster accounts. Further, the
emerging use of various social media, such as
YouTube, was effectively used by the party list
groups, who represented the marginalized and under-
represented sectors of Philippine society.
Now shifting the focus to Malaysia, it has been the
case since 1996 that, as part of the effort to promote
its multi-billion dollar Multimedia Super Corridor
(MSC) project,12 the government has adopted no-
censorship policy on regulating Internet speech in
order to attract economic investment and facilitate
development. In contrast to its tight control on
traditional media, the Malaysian government tends
not to directly censor Internet content sources,
including blogs and Internet news websites.
A panoply of blogs, along with other communica-
tion technologies, including e-mails, YouTube, and
SMS, has played an important role in political
campaigns, especially in the 2008 General Election
(Sharma 2008; Theophilus 2008). Particularly, You-
Tube, as a venue for video blogging, was used to
deliver the flirting scenes involving the officials,
which was deemed as a destructive force contributing
to the defeat of the ruling coalition (United Malay
National Organization) in this election. In this
election, the ruling coalition lost two thirds of its
seats in the Parliament. Moreover, Malaysia experi-
enced the first time that bloggers ran for public office,
including some internationally known bloggers Jeff
Ooi, Elizabeth Wong, and Badrul Hisham Shahrin. In
fact, Jeff Ooi did win election to the congress. The
point here is not that the blogs and citizen journalists
have no impact, for clearly they do. Rather, it is that
they have taken their place alongside mainstream
media—and thus supplement and elaborate rather
than occupy a special status above—other more
traditional media.
However, there remain definite limits to what
bloggers are generally able to say even in those
countries that proclaim “no online censorship,” as is
the case in Malaysia. In fact, in May 2008, a well-
known Malaysian blogger, Raja Petra Raja Kamar-
uddin, was jailed on sedition charges. The charge
arose because he had posted on April 25 on his
popular Web site, Malaysia Today, a piece that
implied top officials were involved in the murder of
12
See http://www.gov.my/MyGov/BI/Directory/Business/
BusinessByIndustry/ICT/MSC/.
J.E. Katz, C-H. Lai
Shaariibuugiin Altantuyaa, a 27-year-old Mongolian
woman who was working as a translator. Dozens of
bloggers and opposition members met at the court-
house to protest the charge, which one of them said
was “an attempt to clamp down on all sorts of
freedom” (Associated Press 2008).
From another perspective, citizen journalists can
goad governmental decision-makers. Chinese citizen
journalist Lion’s Gate (not real name) asserted that
bloggers essentially
act as the leaders of questioning. They are not
idea leaders or thought leaders; they only raise
questions without paying attention to the
origins of news, which sometimes they cannot
figure out either. Hence, they represent what
the free media should look like (personal
communication).
Thai blogger CJ Hinke observed that the bloggers
as citizen journalists are less constrained by the rules
and taboos of regular reporters. For example, there is
sensitivity about news on human rights in Thailand.
He tells us that:
Bloggers are more unrestrained in expressing
their views and unfettered by “objectivity”. This
means that more culturally sensitive issues are
reaching both Thais and foreigners (personal
communication).
Bloggers can also form chains or even groups that
can work together to distribute information. This is
analogous to the news networks of mainstream media,
such as the Associated Press or Reuters. This process
can be seen in China’s Xiamen PX, which is an
environmental action against the construction of a
chemical factory in the Xiamen Province, reported by
Cody (2007). The factory, if not properly built and
operated, could be a severe hazard. Despite the lack
of coverage by local media, blogger Liang Yue (a
resident of Xiamen) used his blog to persistently raise
questions and raise awareness among the Xiamen
public and called attention to public protests. A series
of local online commentaries attracted the attention of
national media, whose reports of a critical nature in
turn led to the central government’s intervention. As a
result, the project was suspended. Despite the warning
from the Xiamen government, bloggers on the scene
used text messaging to send reports to bloggers in
other provinces who were then able to write an
News blogging in cross-cultural contexts: a report on the struggle for voice
updated entry on their blogs about the action and
deliver the news to the world (Cody 2007). In fact,
one of the citizen journalists who provided us with
information—Germinal—was one of the bloggers
who witnessed the protests. Germinal in considering
the role of bloggers in similar events taking place
recently in China said:
People find it convenient to use blogs for the sake
of recording and expression. In the 2007 incidents
like “Chongqing nail house” and “Xiamen PX”,
comments and propagation of news reports by
bloggers were invariably rendered influential. But
the official news media kept refusing to cite the
voices from bloggers, with few blog reports being
seen in the mainstream media coverage (personal
communication).
In contrast to China, in countries where there is
greater freedom of expression, bloggers tend to act
more as critics of the accuracy and coverage of the
media rather than as an alternative source, though
this is clearly a matter of degree rather than any
absolute rule. In support of this point, Indonesian
blogger Enda Nasution, one of the first bloggers in
Indonesia and the Chief of Committee Pesta Blogger
2007, asserts:
For Indonesia cases only, there are several cases
where blog becomes source of information when
it came to scams or hoax and where in other
countries blog has become a place for dis-
senting opinions, in Indonesia, since currently
we have a quite free and liberal media, blogs
are taking position as media watchdog instead,
correcting and pointing out the inaccuracy in
media (personal communication).
Taiwan represents another case slightly different
from Indonesia in this regard. In Taiwan, where the
media environment is relatively unrestricted albeit
chaotic to some extent, blogs become an important
source of information for a large proportion of
Internet users. This is reflected in a 2007 study of
Taiwan which showed that 74% of Internet users have
read blogs, and 24% read blogs on a regular basis.
Among these blog users, 48.2% use blogs only to
browse information, and 41.9% will provide com-
ments [The nationwide survey was conducted by
computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) in
August and September, 2007. The response base was
105
15,007; Research, Development and Evaluation Com-
mission 2007]. Nonetheless, it is important to note
that blogging thus far is observed to exert most of the
influence on matters in the private domain. Blogger
Portnoy mentioned the situation in Taiwan that people
act more like consumers because they tend to
associate the content of the media, traditional media,
and blogs alike, with entertainment. Accordingly, it
can be described that blogging in Taiwan serves more
as an important source for the public on soft topics
(e.g., entertainment, marketing, consumer guides)
than on political and public issues.
Conclusion: The transcendental Dream—Defend
Local, Think Global
Analysis (on email interviews with Asian bloggers as
well as from writings and data collected from relevant
websites) shows that, in many societies in Asia and
elsewhere, bloggers have become an important source
of news outside of but also alongside of traditional
mainstream media. Varying degrees of symbiotic
relationships are observed between the traditional
media and blogs, the new media. One thing clear is
that unless mainstream media are able to successfully
incorporate the more localized concerns—concerns
that have been overshadowed to some degree up by
the development of mass media in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries—they are likely to lose their
audience. Indicative of the increasingly factionalized
audience, and one that is attentive to local subculture,
the comments of a Taiwanese blogger are instructive.
Blogger I-Fan Lin has kept track of the blogger
community devoted to supporting the aboriginal
community, which has been often marginalized or
presented in an unflattering light in mainstream news
coverage. She described the challenge posed to the
authoritative power of traditional media by the emerg-
ing media. She said that the impact of bloggers is:
not big enough to really influence the economy
or politics, but big enough to let people care
about what is happening... I believe for young
people, blogs and social bookmarks and You-
Tube start to replace traditional media (personal
communication).
The presence of alternative voices act as a check
on traditional media. Should the traditional media
106
ignore them, they may find themselves laboring at a
temple which ever fewer people come to worship.
As to the transcendental dream of Prime Minister
Gordon Brown, certainly the scattered evidence we
were able to collect shows that he may not be far off
the mark. While not without problems and weak-
nesses, it nonetheless appears to be the case that the
Internet can indeed provide new voices to the public
enriching dialogue and spreading democracy.
References
Albrecht S, Lubcke M, Hartig-Perschke R (2007) Weblog
campaigning in the German Bundestag election 2005.
Social Science Computer Review 25(4): 504–520.
Allan S (2006) Online news: Journalism and the Internet. Open
University Press: New York.
Associated Press (2008) Malaysian blogger charged with
sedition. International Herald Tribune. Accessed 7 July
2008 http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/06/asia/malay.php
Bowman S, Willis C (2003) We media: How audiences are
shaping the future of news and information. The Media
Center at the American Press Institute: Reston, VA.
Brown G (2008) Speech to Google Zeitgeist Conference.
Accessed 1 July 2008 http://www.number10.gov.uk/
output/Page15587.asp
Bruns A (2005) Gatewatching: Collaborative online news
production. Peter Lang: New York.
Bruns A (2007) Produsage: Towards a broader framework for
user-led content creation. In: Proceedings Creativity &
Cognition 6, Washington, DC.
Chu WcR (2008) The dynamics of cyber China: the character-
istics of Chinese ICT use. Knowledge Technology and
Policy 21(1): 29–35.
Cody E (2007) Text messages giving voice to Chinese.
Washington Post: p. A01. Accessed 12 April 2008 http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/
06/27/AR2007062702962.html
Dameron K (2007) Self-Organizing social behavior occasioned
by low-cost communication technology: The Indian Ocean
Tsunami of 2004 (Master Thesis, Colorado State Univer-
sity, 2007). Accessed 2 March 2008 http://ssrn.com/
abstract=1004415
Drash W (2007) Internet cut in Myanmar, blogger presses on.
CNN. Accessed 21 February 2008 http://www.cnn.com/
2007/WORLD/asiapcf/09/28/myanmar.dissidents/
Flew T (2007) A citizen journalism primer. In: Proceedings
Communications Policy Research Forum 2007, University
of Technology Sydney, pp.7–21.
Fowler GA (2007) Citizen journalists evade blackout on
Myanmar news. Wall Street Journal Online. Accessed 28
February 2008 http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/
SB119090803430841433.html
French H (2008) Earthquake opens gap in controls on media.
New York Times. Accessed 18 May 2008 http://www.
nytimes.com/2008/05/18/world/asia/18press.html?_
r=1&oref=slogin
J.E. Katz, C-H. Lai
Gonsalves A (2008) Most Americans never read political blogs,
Harris Poll finds. Information Week. Accessed 17 May
2008 http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/
ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206902828
Herold DK (2008) Development of a civic society online?
Internet vigilantism and state control in Chinese cyber-
space. Asian Journal of global studies 2(1): 26–37.
Katz JE, Rice RE (2002) Social consequences of Internet use:
Access, involvement and expression. MIT Press: Cam-
bridge, MA.
Kurniawan MN (2007) Blogs have newspapers in Indonesia
on the run. Jakarta Post: Opinion-Editorial. Accessed 16
June 2008 http://jakartaku.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/
blogs-have-newspapers-in-indonesia-on-the-run/.
Law P1, Chu WcR (2008) ICTs and China: An introduction.
Knowledge Technology and Policy 21(1): 3–7.
Lee L (2006) Singapore: Govt had to deal with mrbrown’s
criticisms, says PM. Straits Times. Accessed 28 February
2008 http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?
parentid=51246
Los Angeles Times (2008) China cracks down on earthquake
rumors. Accessed 18 May 2008 http://www.latimes.com/
news/nationworld/world/la-fg-rumors18–2008may18,
0,2350269.story
May P (2008) Fremont blogger held in Singapore: He criticized
judge in activist’s case. Mercury News. Accessed 1 July
2008 http://origin.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_9681300
Mydans S (2007) Agreeing to block some videos, YouTube
returns to Thailand. The New York Times. Accessed 5
April 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/world/
asia/01thai.html
Nguyen A (2006) Journalism in the wake of participatory
publishing. Journalism Review 28(1): 47–59.
OpenNet Initiative (2007) Pulling the plug: A technical
review of the Internet shutdown in Burma. Accessed 28
February 2008 http://opennet.net/sites/opennet.net/files/
ONI_Bulletin_Burma_2007.pdf
Project for Excellence in Journalism (2008) State of the news
media 2008. Accessed 11 May 2008 http://www.
stateofthenewsmedia.org/2008/
Ramey C (2007) Protests in Myanmar and mobile phones.
Accessed 28 February 2008 http://mobileactive.org/
mobiles-myanmar
Reese SD, Rutigliano L, Hyun K, Jeong J (2007) Mapping the
blogosphere: Professional and citizen-based media in the
global news arena. Journalism 8(3): 235–261.
Reporters Without Borders (2008) Alarm over bill that would
extend death penalty to online crimes. Accessed 18 July
2008 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27759
Research Development and Evaluation Commission, Executive
Yuan (2007) 2007 Digital divide report (Information
translated from Chinese) Accessed 19 July 2008 http://
www.rdec.gov.tw/public/Attachment/81714551671.pdf
Reuters (2007) FACTBOX-Thailand’s lese-majeste law.
Accessed 5 April 2008 http://www.reuters.com/article/
inDepthNews/idUSBKK17934820070813
Sharma R (2008) The widening web of politics. Hindustan
Times. Accessed 4 April 2008 http://www.hindustantimes.
com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=47a649c1-e85b-49f7-
a5ac-1e23fee7e204&&Headline=4+ethnic+Indians+
in+new+Malaysian+cabinet
News blogging in cross-cultural contexts: a report on the struggle for voice
Siebert F, Peterson T, Schramm W (1956) Four theories of the
press. University of Illinois: Urbana, IL.
Siemens G (2002) The art of blogging - Part 1. Accessed 13
July 2008 www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_
part_1.htm.
Theophilus C (2008) Malaysia poll battle goes online. Al
Jazeera Net. Accessed 4 April 2008 http://english.
aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AC42E367-FE15–4422–9AD6-
ADAEB7F316A0.htm
107
Universal McCann (2007) The power to the people tracking
survey. Accessed 20 August 2007 http://advertising.
microsoft.com/asia/social%20media
Universal McCann (2008) Power to the people social media
tracker. Accessed 28 May 2008 http://universalmccann.
com/Assets/wave_3_20080403093750.pdf
Yin J (2008) Beyond the four theories of the press: a new
model for the Asian & world press. Journalism &
Communication Monographs 10(1): 1–62.