links for 2007-12-05

• China Media Project » Blog Archive » State Council vice-minister reiterates control as top priority of Internet development in China
  Cai's speech "invoked Hu’s policy of media strengthening, or zuoqiang zuoda (做强做大), which calls for the creation of integrated media groups that are at once commercially powerful and mindful of party propaganda discipline."
  (tags: internet media business china chineseinternetresearch)
• …My heart’s in Accra » Cute Cat Theory: The China Corollary
  "Block access to the Web2.0 tools hosted outside of China and you frustrate activists, who would like to use those tools, but you don’t antagonize the average user, who is probably better served by tools written in Chinese for a Chinese audience."
  (tags: china chineseinternetresearch internet web2.0 censorship freespeech humanrights cyber-activism)
• Why China cracked down on my nonprofit | csmonitor.com
  “...President Hu Jintao has promised to create a "harmonious society." This will not be helped by security officials harassing a growing NGO community that embraces many of the country's most thoughtful, able, and caring citizens.“
  (tags: china censorship freespeech humanrights media journalism NGOs development)
• The dictatorship of talent - International Herald Tribune
  “The Communist Party is basically a gigantic Skull and Bones. It is one of the social networks its members use to build wealth together.“
  (tags: china politics elites CCP socialnetworking)
• Hong Kong election victory cheers democrats - International Herald Tribune
  "The result of the weekend election is a fillip to the democratic cause after democratic parties suffered one of their worst defeats at the hands of pro-Beijing parties in local council elections two weeks ago."
  (tags: hongkong politics elections legco)
• WSJ.com - Bloggers In China Start Testing Limits of 'Mental Firewall'
  "Inside China...some of the smartest thinkers about the Internet believe the biggest hurdle to free speech in China isn't technical, it's social."
  (tags: china internet chineseinternetresearch censorship freespeech humanrights)

Comments

[Charles Liu]

"integrated media groups that are at once commercially powerful and mindful of party propaganda"?

Nothing new. That's essentially what our "military industrial media complex" is all about.

How else can we pull a 400-3 pro war media coverage pre-Iraq invasion?

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now talked about a survey of major news media outlets
during the weeks surrounding Powell's big lie to UN. There were 400 pro war news reports vs 3 anti war.

She then made the comment "If major media outlet in US were state-sponsored, how whould they report the Iraq any differently?"

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

Yup, the Murdoch Model works very well for both governments.

[mahathir_fan]

"The result of the weekend election is a fillip to the democratic cause after democratic parties suffered one of their worst defeats at the hands of pro-Beijing"

Nearly every western journalist reports the political situation in Hong Kong as "pro-Beijing" vs. "pro-Democracy".

this labeling is a complete violation of the ethics of journalism. It implies that the "pro-Beijing" camp is "anti democracy". Yet my theoretical understanding of Communism is that it is also a pro-democracy ideology. So these journalists who use such labelling are hiding the fact that both sides are pro-democracy by utilizing such labellings.

It also implies that those "pro-democracy" camp are "anti-beijing".

To me, this is all very confusing, because Beijing is Communism, so Beijing is also pro-democracy; why are 2 pro-democracy camps fighting each other.

Did the "pro-beijing" camp say tha tthey are anti-democracy? Did the "pro-democracy" camp say that they are "anti-beijing"?

The labelling is completely inappropriate and already shows biasness in their reporting from the start by implying through the labels that those who are in beijing are anti-democracy - in a way implying that Communism is anti-democracy. This is not true according to Communism doctrine, only anti-Communists would make claim that Communism is not democratic. it is therefore not fairness in reporting to label the political sides in HK as pro-democracy and pro-beijing.

[mahathir_fan]

"The result of the weekend election is a fillip to the democratic cause after democratic parties suffered one of their worst defeats at the hands of pro-Beijing"

Nearly every western journalist reports the political situation in Hong Kong as "pro-Beijing" vs. "pro-Democracy".

this labeling is a complete violation of the ethics of journalism. It implies that the "pro-Beijing" camp is "anti democracy". Yet my theoretical understanding of Communism is that it is also a pro-democracy ideology. So these journalists who use such labelling are hiding the fact that both sides are pro-democracy by utilizing such labellings.

It also implies that those "pro-democracy" camp are "anti-beijing".

To me, this is all very confusing, because Beijing is Communism, so Beijing is also pro-democracy; why are 2 pro-democracy camps fighting each other.

Did the "pro-beijing" camp say tha tthey are anti-democracy? Did the "pro-democracy" camp say that they are "anti-beijing"?

The labelling is completely inappropriate and already shows biasness in their reporting from the start by implying through the labels that those who are in beijing are anti-democracy - in a way implying that Communism is anti-democracy. This is not true according to Communism doctrine, only anti-Communists would make claim that Communism is not democratic. it is therefore not fairness in reporting to label the political sides in HK as pro-democracy and pro-beijing.