The Booming Blogs and Science Journalism in China

Hujun Li

Caijing Magazine, China

http://english.caijing.com.cn

http://www.scipark.org

the Booming “Netizens” of China By the end of 2008, the amount of Internet users in China

reached 298 million.

the Choice of Caijing Magazine

Shuli Hu: “the most dangerous woman in China” --Time Asia

Caijing (Business and Finance Review) Founded in 1998 Circulation: 225,000 Staff: 160 ~170 people Environment and science desk: 6 people

Caijing.com.cn 30 ~ 40 news articles per day Multimedia: audio and video

the Size of Chinese Bloggers

By the end of 2008, the number of blog users in China reached 162 million.

The number of bloggers in China (million)

End of 2007 End of 2008

Bloggers --- 162

active bloggers (who updated within half a year)

49 105

the No. 1 Blogger in China

Xu Jinglei: a famous actress and director

page view of her blog blog.sina.com.cn/xujinglei

244,955,213 (21:25 of June 28, 2009)

She also publishes online magazines:

http://www.kaila.com.cn

Chinese Citizen Journalists

the 4th Chinese Blogger Annual Conference Nov 15-16th, 2008,Guangzhou city

About 100 bloggers attended the conference http://www.cnbloggercon.org/2008

Zhai and his “1 Bao”

1 Bao (One Person’s Newspaper, 壹报 )

http://1bao.org

Zhai quited his work at Southern Weekly and became a citizen journalist

Interviewed by Danwei.org about developments on the Chinese Internet.

http://www.danwei.org/blogs/bloggercon_interviews_zhai_min.php

Lian’s Story

http://lianyue.net

Since March 2007, Lian Yue wrote a series articles on his blog to criticize a planned P-Xylene (PX, a harmful chemical) project in his city--- Xiamen city of Fujian province

As a result of Lian and many people’s effort, the PX plant didn’t build in Xiamen.

Citizen Journalists Were Awarded

Lian Yue’s blog article won the “best environment story” of SEE•TNC Eco Award in April 2009.

The SEE•TNC Eco Award, jointly organized by ALXA SEE Ecological Association, China and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Also recognize twenty “best Chinese environment stories” during past 5 years.

Four of them were written by citizen journalists like Lian Yue.

The Booming Science Bloggers

ScienceNet.cn, the leading Chinese science website http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog

launched in Jan 2007, by Science Times Media Group bloggers: 7,400 active bloggers: 3,300 blog articles: 200~300 per day page view: 150,000 per day

Star Bloggers at ScienceNet.cn

Prof. Wang Hongfei, a CAS chemist Prof. Yu-Chi Ho, Harvard Univ.(in English)

Prof. Yi Rao Prof. Annian Huang, historian

Dean of Bio. School Beijing Normal Univ.

Peking Univ.

Women Scientists at ScienceNet.cn

“You Say You Want a Revolution”

SCIENCE IN CHINA: You Say You Want a Revolution http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/322/5902/664

“Many researchers discuss such issues openly on ScienceNet.cn… These bloggers call for systemic reforms … to make the funding system more transparent and fair … These cries for reform offer a glimpse of what could happen in the future… ”

Other Science Bloggers

A Health Official Liao Xin-Bo (Brother Bo), the deputy director of Departmen

t of Public Health, Guangdong Province blog.sina.com.cn/liaoxinbo, liaoxinbo.blog.sohu.com

Other Science Bloggers

Prof. Yuhong Fan nutrition advice to general public

http://snowheart19.blog.sohu.com

Dr. Xiuyi Zhi, tabacco control

http://zhixiuyi.blog.sohu.com

Science Blog: Useful Source for Journalists

Science blogger can be your insider or information source.

Case: An apartment building under construction in Shanghai collapsed

on June 27, 2009. One worker was killed. Chen Longzhu, prof. of civil engineering from Shanghai, gave personal

opinions next morning on his ScienceNet.cn blog.

Science Blog: Big Challenge for Journalists

Scientists can write science stories themselves!

Other science bloggers or citizen journalists can also write science stories!

Some scientists like blogs, because they can impress themselves freely, and avoid the risk of being distorted by journalists.

Science Blog: Big Challenge for Journalists

Case: Scientific misconduct at the Institute of Neurology (ION), the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The editor of Journal of Neural Science told ION that one of its PIs should retract his papers. ION did the investigation soon, and closed the PI’s lab as a result.

Prof Rao Yi of Peking University reported the whole procedure on ScienceNet.cn.

His post was visited by tens of thousands

people and reprinted by many websites.

Do we still need science journalists?

Aggregation of Blogs and Science Journalism

Good news: We still need science journalists! Bad news ： We need less science journalists!

Information of blog might be inaccurate and/or inadequate

Solution: Citizen journalists + science journalists

Take the advantage of science blogs, find story ideas and useful information

Write your own blog to interact with scientific community and general public

Science Blog As Watchdog

Blog is a very important tool for social justice and democracy in China. It’s impossible to monitor 300 million internet users and 100 million active bloggers.

When a bad thing happened somewhere in China, local government might suppress all information, and local media would keep silence.

Fortunately, the Internet forums/blogs would rush to report and discuss the issue. In some case, (traditional) media would follow the issue.

Even (traditional) media didn’t cover the issue, high officials might notice it and take corrective actions.

Dr. Fang: “Science Police”

New Threads (http://www.xys.org)

Fighting with scientific misconduct

Since 2000, New Threads has exposed more than 300 cases of plagiarism and other deceptions.

“Science Police” and Media

This spring, three professors at Zhejiang Univ., including one of China’s top experts in traditional medicine, lost their jobs because of plagiarism scandal.

Dr. Fang exposed the scandal

Media coverage nationwide

Without comprehensive media

coverage, three professors

probably would not lose jobs.

Journalist’s Blog Exposed Landslide Cover-up

On August 1 2008, a landslide occurred at a local iron mine in Loufan County, Shanxi province. The local government claimed it was a natural disaster and 11 people died.

Journalist’s Blog Exposed Landslide Cover-up

Chunlong Sun, a journalist of Oriental Outlook Weekly, investigated the accident with a colleague. They published a story at the end of August 2008,said that the landslide was actually resulting from human cause and more than 40 people died.

On September 14, Sun posted "A letter to the Governor of Shanxi” on his blog, pointed out again the problem. The letter was republished by many internet forums/bloggers and noticed by Premier Wen Jiabao. Then Another investigative team was sent to Lonfan county.

Science Blog As Watchdog

“Why should we write blogs? We believe that we can change this society. Everyone is a seed in society. Perhaps a year later, each person can influence forty other people, and another year later, each person can influence ten thousand people. Society will change when this happens. ”

----Lian Yue, a blogger

at the 4th Chinese Blogger Annual Conference

Science Blog as New Media

Produce your own media

No censorship

No commercial control. Nobody can kill your story for advertisement.

A Sichuan Jounalist’s Experience Qing Dang used to be a deputy editor of a local

daily newspaper, moved to magazine business recently

Dang visited almost all disaster zones of Sichuan Earthquake and wrote many posts. When an official committed suicide this April, he first reported the news on his blog.

The funeral coverage’s page view: half million (http://qzone.qq.com/blog/6956208-1240393390)

Total page view of his blog at qq.com:

more than 40 million

Science Blog as New Media

Multimedia?

Make science stories more fancy

Most Chinese science bloggers haven’t use multimedia, but a few bloggers at ScienceNet.cn began to upload videos

Science Blog as New Media

It’s also a new business!

The Scientific Squirrels http://songshuhui.net

Already has more than 100 science bloggers Page view: about 50,000 per day The Scientific Squirrels might be profitable