[Air-L] Media Ecology -- PRESS ON (WSJournal)

[Han-Teng Liao (OII)]

If you have MSN friends from China, you might be able to see some of 
them "wearing" a rainbow pin on the title of their MSN profile.

It is said (not confirmed) that MSN at Hong Kong will donate 0.1 RMB 
when an MSN user wears a rainbow pin....

Flag pins for Obama, and rainbow pins for Chinese

jcu wrote:
>
>  Beijing Uses Media to Shape Nation's Mourning
>  Entertainment Put
>  On Hold Amid Grief;
>  Bloggers Fall in Line
>  By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and LORETTA CHAO
>  May 20, 2008; Page A8
>
>  BEIJING -- At 2:28 Monday afternoon, a country that seems to be in 
> constant motion came to a standstill. For three minutes, traffic 
> froze, construction workers halted their drilling and workers stood 
> silently outside their offices in white shirts that read "Press On."
>
>  The moment of silence, part of a three-day period of national 
> mourning to mark the 34,073 confirmed dead from the roughly 8.0 
> magnitude earthquake that shook Sichuan province exactly one week 
> before, came on a day of more grim news: The official Xinhua news 
> agency reported that a series of mudslides had killed 200 rescue workers.
>
>  The mourning reflects both a tremendous sense of loss and the 
> government's desire to ensure that emotions are channeled properly. 
> Even as concerned citizens around the country cried in honor of the 
> dead pictured on television, some survivors in Sichuan found their 
> grief turning into anger.
>
>  During the official mourning period, the government has taken the 
> unusual step of effectively shutting down entertainment in China -- 
> silencing karaoke parlors, forcing entertainment programming off Web 
> sites and TV stations, shutting down online games and suspending TV 
> and online ads. The last time China undertook such a long national 
> period of grieving was when Mao Zedong died in 1976. Historians say it 
> is the first time such an event has been held in honor of regular 
> citizens, rather than government leaders, according to Xinhua.
>
>  The mourning period helps the grief-stricken nation "have some sense 
> of psychological closure," said Dali Yang, the director of the East 
> Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. "It's all the 
> more important because there's no national religion and the Chinese 
> Communist Party cannot bring in a priest to help the healing process."
>
>  The government is using its control of old and new media to shape the 
> conversation. Party-run coverage from broadcaster China Central 
> Television, including repeated footage of flags being lowered to 
> half-staff, replaced normal programming on many broadcasters. Foreign 
> broadcasts of HBO and other entertainment channels were replaced with 
> a message that said they had been cut off "in order to express our 
> heartfelt condolences for the victims of the disastrous earthquake."
>
>  Chinese newspapers, some of which provided their own aggressive 
> coverage last week, relied more on stories from Xinhua. Newspapers 
> across the country used only black ink on their front pages.
>
>  And on the Internet, the largest portal and video-sharing sites shut 
> down some of their entertainment offerings in accordance with a 
> government order. An order sent to some Web sites, as reported by a 
> blog known as the Shanghaist, required them to "immediately report and 
> give priority to reports on the national mourning days."
>
>  Chinese bloggers, sometimes critical of government efforts to 
> regulate speech, largely expressed solidarity with the idea of a 
> mourning period; technology commentator Hong Bo, known as Keso, posted 
> on his blog an ancient Chinese poem about crying.
>
>  "It's pretty amazing that the government can do this," said Bill 
> Bishop, a Beijing-based Internet entrepreneur. "I think it just shows 
> some people may have gotten a little complacent about how the media 
> work in China; it shows where the power really does still lie."
>
>  The quake relief effort has received 10.8 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) 
> in monetary and in-kind donations. The government hasn't yet said how 
> much of that came from Chinese nationals. Office buildings, shops and 
> restaurants all over the country held their own fund-raising efforts 
> Monday. A Sunday-night telethon on China Central Television raised 1.5 
> billion yuan.
>
>  The quake has cost companies 67 billion yuan in direct losses so far, 
> according to the government.
>
>  A retired soldier who joined mourners in the moment of observance 
> along Beijing's Wangfujing area said he had been trying unsuccessfully 
> to get a team of volunteers together to go to Sichuan. "I want to say 
> to the people of the affected areas, 'Don't be afraid. The party, the 
> country and the whole nation's people are all helping you,'" he said, 
> as his eyes filled with tears. "I hope they can rebuild their homeland 
> as soon as possible. I feel very proud to be Chinese."
>
>  In Beijing's Tiananmen Square, hundreds rallied after the moment, 
> carrying Chinese flags and shouting "Go, China," a phrase usually used 
> at sporting events.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>
>
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-- 
*Liao <http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%E5%BB%96>,Han 
<http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%E6%BC%A2>-Teng 
<http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%E9%A8%B0>*
DPhil student at the OII <http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/hanteng/about/>(web)
needs you <http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/hanteng/>(blog)