Spreading the News

Around the world, social networking has transformed the way people communicate and share information. This has been particularly important in China, where the media landscape is vast, but the space for critical opinion has been traditionally narrow. China’s microblogs have added a number of innovations to the basic functions of platforms like Twitter – particularly Sina Weibo, a microblog (‘weibo’) set up by the company SINA in 2009. Like Twitter, it is often the first place for news to break, and it hosts discussions about breaking news. Sina Weibo allows users to comment on any microblog entry, as they would on a normal blog post. This change was key to the exponential growth of microblogging in China, as it fit with Chinese habits of ‘piling in’ on a discussion: it’s been exciting and empowering for Chinese microbloggers to see their posts attract hundreds or thousands of comments, giving them the feeling that what they have written is being passed on, is influencing the community and may actually change things. Those posting comments are able to trade insults or cheer for their favourite microbloggers. And so a space for discussion has emerged.