New Media Empowerment Perspectives in State and

Social Relations

Zengzhi Shi

Executive Summary: The public communication era initiated a new chapter in state and social relations. Technological empowerment exists between organizational empowerment and social empowerment. The relationships between communications and power, and between communications and society under the new media environment is the basis for researching state and social changes, proposing concepts of public communication, exploring their operating mechanisms, pointing out the possibility of imagined micro communities arising in the country and society under new media empowerment, analysing the expression and movement of public spaces where state and social powers operate in both directions, further propose the concept of empowerment tools, analyse how, as new media empowerment moves towards decentralisation and disorganisation, it also empowers while surpassing the knowledge created and spread through time and space, explain how organisational empowerment and social empowerment under technological empowerment deconstructs and reconstructs social structures and social empowerment, and propose that the implementation of social empowerment originates from a citizen’s self-redemption.

Key words: public communication imagined micro communitiescitizenship new media empowerment empowerment tools redemption

After the Wenchuan earthquake in May 2008, the internet was the first to break the news about the earthquake. CCTV then began connecting to local television stations to broadcast live the onsite earthquake relief work for the first time. New and old media interacted to bring about connections and communication between multiple subjects, even to the extent of actively cooperating in the earthquake relief work. This deeply affected China’s social relationships, social systems and even social structures. In a certain sense, this became the beginning of China’s public communication era which had significant change implications for the transformation of China’s state and social relationships.

The awakening of civic awareness and display of citizen participation during the earthquake relief were some initial clues of social autonomy. While there was an emphasis on the exertion of government functions, more and more volunteers, NGOs and media took part in the work, and more importantly, individuals and organisations who were influential in the development of the welfare industry were all emphasising social

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participation, social autonomy as well as cooperation and integration with the relevant government authorities. China Red Cross Foundation was the first foundation to fund grassroots NGOs’ projects in China. Shortly after the Wenchuan earthquake, the China Red Cross Foundation decided to provide RMB 20 million to NGOs for their post-disaster reconstruction projects with conditions, one of which required these NGOs to work together with the relevant departments of the local government in completing the project. Yongguang Xu, “with his long history of participation in, organisation, observations of and other actions in NGO activities, pointed out during Beijing New Sunshine Charity Innovation Forum held at Peking University on 15 January 2009 that in the 30 years since China’s economic reforms, China’s NGOs’ development had always been directed by the government, which pursued one of three paths: top-down (i.e. by the government to the people), bottom-up (i.e. grassroots activism) and cooperation. Cooperation should be the main theme in the development of China’s civic society.”1

Since 2008, the other significant reason for changes in state and social relations have been the thriving development of Weibo, WeChat and other new media technology applications. Sina Weibo was formally launched on 28 August 2009 and currently has over 500 million users. Launched on 21 January 2011, WeChat currently has close to 500 million users. On 19 August 2013, a company jointly set up by China Telecom and Netease launched the mobile application, “Yixin”. Three days later, the Yixin team announced in its application that its userbase had reached 5 million. These statistics indicate that as the speed of social media orientation and media socialisation increases, the boundaries between public and private spaces have begun to break down, the social relations systematically moulded within the original social structure have gradually inclined towards social networks and social community relationships. The basis for identity recognition has also changed from top-down organisational power recognition to community identity, value identity and emotional affirmation. In light of this background, this paper attempts to provide answers to the relationship between communication and power and between communications and society in the new media environment, organise and analyse the concepts and operating mechanisms of public communication, apply the concepts of new media empowerment and empowerment tools, analyse how organisational empowerment and social empowerment under technological empowerment deconstructed and reconstructed social structures and social systems, and dissect changes in state and social relations from the perspective of new media empowerment.

Public Communication: Concept Proposal

National and social relations are important theories and implementation issues in China’s social transformation. Many scholars used social relations theories from Western countries as the basis for explaining China’s social development, and many had

1 Zhengzhi Shi, “Development of Chinese Civil Society and the Role of Media from a Public Communication Perspective – Case Study of Wenchuan Earthquake’s Post-Disaster Relief and Reconstruction”, editor-in-chief: Man Cheng, Peking University Journalism and Communication Review, Issue 4, Beijing: Peking University Press, January 2009

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concluded that there was no civil society in China and social autonomy was just a utopian fantasy. Here, we need to consider two questions: firstly, can China’s social transformation be explained with the relevant Western theories, and secondly, if the relevant Western theories do not provide a satisfactory explanation, has China’s social development provided a basis to innovate the ethics of state and social relations?

New media is an indispensable angle and dimension in understanding the transformation of China’s state and social relations. Social media orientation and media socialisation further indicates the importance of public communication in deconstructing and reconstructing power. Here, we pose the first question: What is public communication?

Public communication is a concept first proposed by the Chicago School of Sociology. It is, however, a research product of in-depth communications studies into all levels of society with an emphasis on the society at that time, especially the lives of the underclass in society. Its most significant contributions are the discovery of the dynamism of the underclass and drawing attention to the possibilities of bottom-up power. In 2008, when the author took part in the Wenchuan earthquake disaster relief work, she observed from the perspective of moral practice that, “During Wenchuan’s relief and reconstruction, the media aroused civil awareness in the public space, increased enthusiasm in civilian participation and public works, diversified the channels for civilian participation and furthered citizenship identification, which caused civic awareness to gradually seep into people’s daily lives to become perfect but still insufficient. Thus social life or organisational models will also change.”1

On this basis, the author proposed a public communication concept in 2009, where public communication “referred to a pattern of thinking and behaviour that should be used by any organisation when dealing with and resolving crisis. This pattern emphasizes the train of thought and starting point of an organisation when facing actual and potential citizens and achieving optimised organisational interests in course of the public interest game. In the course of this game, it is necessary to reconstruct the mechanism by which organisations can be rationalized, and the price for this reconstructed mechanism is to change the organisation’s previous operating methods. This is also the reason why it’s necessary to research public communication in the current social changes. On one hand, public communication emphasizes an outside-in thought pattern in a global language environment, while on the other hand focusing an organisation to more and less change in the social structure. The features of these types of changes are that they are completed during the process. The timeless nature and delocalisation of public communication leads to the reconstruction of social relations, so that public communication, to a certain extent, disconnects from established fields. This is a centralised manifestation of social change. However, as an analytical tool, public communication’ social values of public interest and life at its core constitute the reasonable core of its existence and more so the foundation of social change in public

1 Zhengzhi Shi, “Development of Chinese Civil Society and the Role of Media from a Public Communication Perspective – Case Study of Wenchuan Earthquake’s Post-Disaster Relief and Reconstruction”, editor-in-chief: Man Cheng, Peking University Journalism and Communication Review, Issue 4, Beijing: Peking University Press, January 2009

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communication.”2 In this concept, it should be noted that civilian awareness has already seeped into daily life, but still the importance of organisational rationalisation for public communication is emphasized. Yet there has been no in-depth analysis into the relationship between organisation, technology and society.

New media deeply changed people’s daily lives. Communication and power relationships are gradually turning towards daily lives and have become a proposition for this era. They emphasize extensive political and cultural involvement motivated by “people’s needs”. This is a reflection of people’s daily lives. Decentralisation and disorganisation have become a normal state of social development. In this way, public communication not only highlights the importance of organisational rationalisation, but also centres on people. People empowered by technology enter with a positive attitude and place emphasis on the functions of people’s introspection, reflection, self-determination, undertaking, actions and autonomy in social development. They pay close attention to the course of the power game between multiple subjects and to the deconstruction and reconstruction of legitimacy in daily lives. Civilian participation in public subjects is not only heavily dependent on criticism in the sense of Simmels “sterile Aufgeregtheit”, but more on the constructiveness of state and social negotiations and dialogue.

This means that public communication is a process, which centres on an issue, emphasizes participation by multiple subjects in public works, and where dialogue and communications will need to exceed the standpoints and interests of all subjects, a compromise is reached which revolves around public interests, and an effective cooperation mechanism can be built up, etc. In light of this, public communication rooted in daily life provides a foundation for the moral practice of theoretical innovation of state and social interests.

Public Communication: Between Theory and Practice

Through the ages, “society” has always been understood to mean different things. Aristotle, in his political science, pointed to civil society. Kant’s “rule of law society” was an ideal state of society where, provided that no one’s similar rights were harmed, anyone could pursue what he or she thinks was the perfect life according to his or her wishes. There were others who referred to this type of social order and social state as “community”, its core being “liberal order”. In today’s new media empowerment, information space has made empowerment of the people possible, highlighting the significance of people and the construction of a liberal order in public communication. This also became the foundation for public communication being both a theoretical as well as a pactical concept.

When the German philosopher, Schelling, explored human freedom, existence, time and other issues, he pointed out that, “The original behaviour where one becomes truly himself precedes all other human behaviour. However just after it is released into

2 Zhengzhi Shi, “Development of Civil Society and the Role of Media from a Public Communication Perspective - – Case Study of Wenchuan Earthquake’s Post-Disaster Relief and Reconstruction”, editor-in-chief: Man Cheng, Peking University Journalism and Communication Review, Issue 4, Beijing: Peking University Press, January 2009

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active freedom, this behaviour sinks into the unconscious night. This is not behaviour that happens once and stops, but it is an eternal behaviour, a behaviour that never ends. In the end, it can never be brought back before consciousness. For those who understand this behaviour, consciousness itself has no choice but return to nothingness, return into borderless freedom and stop becoming consciousness. Once this behaviour appears, it immediately sinks into immeasurable depths, which means freedom is naturally derived. Similarly, when it’s initially set, the consciousness that flows out as a result must immediately sink into unconsciousness. Only according to this method can the opening – an opening that never stopped being an opening and a truly eternal opening of openings – be possible. Because what is certain is that an opening does not know itself. Once that behaviour occurs, it will occur eternally. A decision about to be truly commenced by a certain method does not need to be brought back to consciousness. It does not need to be recalled because this will amount to being taken back. If a person, when making a decision, insisted on re-examining the rights for his or her decision, he or she has definitely not started.”1 This gives us a form of guidance for our research into the epistemology of public communication. Research that moves from theory to theory is dangerous, and theories and reason must be tested in practice, as theories may be impossible, human consciousness can be expressed in an unconscious and unrestricted way and people should be closely questioned about universality and uniformity.

Theory and practice, experience and standards, reason and moral practice are not in opposition with each other and are neither affirmative nor negative. There is an insurmountable chasm between the souls and flesh, and between theorists and rational people. Kant said, “If I do not simultaneously cancel the insights from speculative reason towards exaggeration, it will be impossible for me to assume God, freedom and the immortal soul for the sake of practising my reason out of necessity. This is because speculative reason must use some such principles to achieve these insights. As these principles in reality only apply to possible objects of experience, even if they are used on things that cannot become objects of experience, they actually always change these things into phenomenon, hence declaring that expanding all practice of pure reason is impossible. Therefore I cannot help but suspend knowledge so as to give way to religion, and metaphysical dogmatism, that is, prejudice borne out of metaphysics with no pure rational judgment, is the true origin of all moral-obstructing impiety. Such impiety is extremely dogmatic at any time.”2 “Kant clearly knew that the conditions for impossibility of our moral activities were simultaneously conditions for possibility: the extent of human limitation, that is, the conditions obstructing their attaining these moral purposes are simultaneously the active conditions of these moral activities.”3 In light of this, public communication’ “theoretical impossibility is precisely the condition of possibility for practice, in other words, theory is an impossible possibility”. What are the morals mentioned here? “In Kant’s philosophy, morals are the ability for rational practice……The

1 (German) Schelling , Die Weltalter，quoted from (Slovenia) Slavoj Zizek’s Abyss of Freedom, translated by Jun Wang , Shanghai Translation Publishing House 2013 edition, pages 182-183.2 (German) Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Xiaomang Deng, People’s Publishing House 2004 edition, page 22.3 (Slovenia) Slavoj Zizek, Abyss of Freedom, translated by Jun Wang, Shanghai Translation Publishing House 2013 edition, pages 107-108.

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insufficiencies of reason in cognition precisely leaves room for its practice.”1 Public communication is put forward where it is difficult for theory, standards, experience, etc. to explain new issues arising from the course of transformation. Practice and theory are emphasized at the same time, especially the feeling of common interest in a common world, the sense of practice and behavioural motivation and where the mechanism of change in state and social relations are explored through actions.

Public communication has unlocked a new era and proposed new questions for this new era. In essence, the question it intends to answer has always been how human free will and free choice could be achieved in space and time. Arendt liked most what Augustine said, “Man was created, a beginning was made”. People have always put their hopes on new beginnings. However, beginnings themselves were obscure and when freedom appeared, it proved to be just uncontrolled uncertainty. In Hinduism, the genesis of the Battle of Gods and Demons is that Amritaalsoamreeta can only be obtained through conflict. It seems even God understands that, “God created His own history, but He did not create it solely based on His own enjoyment. He didn’t create it in the environment He chose but He created it in an environment that was directly encountered, given, transferred and originated from the past.”2 The beginning of public communication still must return to the first beginning of change. The future that is set in the beginning still cannot shake off the transcendence of historical and realistic care.

Faced with an obscure world, it’s likely that the uncertainty of desire awakening instincts churned the milk ocean. An emphasis on freedom alone would lead to what Zizek refers to as the “Abyss of Freedom”. Schelling, Zizek and others value the reconciliation of freedom and the abyss and not just freedom or abyss. Reason’s conditions of impossibility could be sensibility’s conditions of possibility. This reconciliation must first ask this question: Who is the subject of reconciliation? An individual is still the root subject, but the era of public communication emphasizes intersubjectivity, not just the subject itself. Social media orientation and media socialisation greatly strengthen human relationships. It has become very difficult for subjects to exist independently of society. The common world made up of individual thought and consciousness and the unlimited nature of perspectives are, however, intersubjective. This enables differentiation and diversity while the expression and understanding of opinions wanders between dialogue and negotiation, and between reason and sensibility. It is bound to require promises to be made between subjects and to convey into action the ideas in the promises.

State and Society: Imagined Micro Community

The extensive use of Weibo, WeChat and other new media technology built a symbolic society of the spectacle. The dissemination of information knowledge on Weibo and WeChat, in some sense, reflects the predicament of human spirits and the urgency by which individual lives seek liberation, causing the connotations of national sovereignty,

1 (Slovenia) Slavoj Zizek, Abyss of Freedom, translated by Jun Wang, Shanghai Translation Publishing House 2013 edition, Translator’s Preface page 11.2 (Slovenia) Slavoj Zizek, Abyss of Freedom, translated by Jun Wang, Shanghai Translation Publishing House 2013 edition, pages 107-108.

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civilian identity and other aspects in public communication to change. In 2011, the author proposed an “imagined micro community”, which stemmed from observations that the “world of Weibo displayed the direct experiences, expressions and even actions of social transformation among individuals and groups. This has become a relatively open and shared public media space in which the feelings and moods of all echelons of Chinese society abound and social issues of interest to the general public are reflected. In these spaces, people conduct dialogues and negotiations in all ways, some watch from the sidelines while others speak to themselves, but nevertheless the micro world constructed by Weibo has gradually begun to move towards imagined micro communities that affect people’s thinking patterns and thoughts. Civil society’s reason, tolerance, unity, trust and other related public spirit germinated here and boundaries around various public interest industries were destroyed and surpassed. We need to explain and respond to this.”1

The term “imagined micro community” was introduced in a book by an American scholar, Benedict Anderson, entitled Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. Nationalism very often emphasizes sovereign rights and domains and a nation becomes a tool of the race. But according to Anderson, a nationalistic country also is a community and all communities are imagined, the only difference being the method by which a nation is imagined. Anderson discusses the reasons for the rise of imagined communities with national characteristics from the perspective of nationalistic feelings and cultural roots with an emphasis on the important function of language, especially words, in the process of building a national community. The American anthropologist, Clifford Geltz’s work Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali also describes how a country is imagined. Its core view is that the “nation”, through ceremony, is performed and displayed between imagination and reality which strengthens the “audience’s” image of nationalism and affirms the existence of the nation. The two authors mentioned above had different nationalistic imagination methods, but they agree that the subject constructing an imagined community has a central social status and power.

Constructing an imagined micro community is much more complicated and diverse. “Weibo is a type of non-organised media whose communication sensitivity and communication scope transcends time and space. Weibo users are both producers and consumers of Weibo content, and most importantly, their enormous imagination and innovation were aroused by Weibo. Derek holds the view that the human race is entering a third media era, namely a cyber culture era. The internet’s intelligence environment has ushered in Mind Ages to a new public space and domain. An imagined micro community is primarily a public mind constructed of numerous minds, while the public mind has a significant effect on private minds which in turn have a revolutionary effect on current social institutions and systems”2 The social relations constructed by Weibo and WeChat are related to the netizens’ own knowledge, personal relationships, characters, emotions, abilities and other aspects which in turn form micro worlds where netizens are the subjects and the centre.

1 Zengzhi Shi, The Human Soul in Weibo: The Purpose of Dialogue and Communications in New Media Public Spaces, extracted from 2011 China Charity Blue Book, Social Sciences Academic Press, April 20112 Zengzhi Shi, The Human Soul in Weibo: The Purpose of Dialogue and Communications in New Media Public Spaces, extracted from 2011 China Charity Blue Book, Social Sciences Academic Press, April 2011

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The micro community constructed by Weibo users “gives everyone or every organisation a grimmer question, that is, how do we control ourselves and our organisations when we are facing the microworld. It’s very difficult for industry, identity and other tags to become our protective umbrella, and this may very well be the reason why we must fulfil our obligations.”1 Imagined micro community information is “communication that transcended time and space, where different social subjects interact, and due to the diverse dominant forces, forces from everywhere swarm in to play in the game of micro worlds’ public opinions in imagined micro communities. This game originally melted the boundaries of every level of society, developed across boundaries and won by surpassing, because public interest should always be the precondition, regardless if it is about the protection of civil rights or the legality of government, enterprise and society.”2

How do we understand the citizenship of Weibo users in imagined micro communities? Should they be placed in the state system arrangement or moral practice? This is a much debated question in academic circles. In 1949, an English sociologist, T.H. Marshall, commemorated an economist with the same name, Alfred Marshall, in a speech at Cambridge University. In the following year, the contents of this speech were published with the title Citizenship and Social Class. Marshall classified citizenship as a combination of membership and rights, where citizenship includes civil rights, political rights and social rights. The key elements of a citizen are made up of necessary rights, including personal liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and religion, the right to own property and effectively establish covenants as well as civil justice. From a political point of view, a citizen is a member or voter of a political entity and has the right to take part in exercising political power. From a social point of view, a series of rights is referred to, from enjoying a certain degree of economic benefits and safety to fully enjoying social heritage and a series of rights of civilised life according the usual social standards, etc.

According to Marshall, these three types of rights correspond with different development periods and safeguard organisations, even though they overlap. Citizenship rights primarily developed during the 18th century and the direct corresponding organisations were the legal courts. Political rights primarily developed during the 19th century and the corresponding organisations were the Parliament and local councils. Social rights primarily developed during the 20th century and the corresponding organisations were educational institutions and the social public service systems.

Rights safeguard organisations in relation to civic rights undoubtedly cleared up the relationship between citizenship and state. However, there is a huge chasm in practice between organisations, institutions and people. Where national organisations are solely responsible for providing and completing safeguards to rights, they coincidentally become venues where conflicts arise in a transformed society. The question raised here is that we need to re-examine citizenship in state and in society. Professor Engin Isin of The Open University, UK, defined citizenship as follows: “As a matter of fact citizenship

1 Zengzhi Shi, The Human Soul in Weibo: The Purpose of Dialogue and Communications in New Media Public Spaces, extracted from 2011 China Charity Blue Book, Social Sciences Academic Press, April 20112 Zengzhi Shi, The Human Soul in Weibo: The Purpose of Dialogue and Communications in New Media Public Spaces, extracted from 2011 China Charity Blue Book, Social Sciences Academic Press, April 2011

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does not refer to membership, even though it has been construed as political or state membership. At the same time, it is also not a combination of rights….” From Isin’s point of view, “The substance of citizenship exists in relationships and elsewhere. It is a mode of struggle and must be further defined from this angle.”1 In Isin’s citizenship concept, citizenship is constantly changing, the boundaries of identity recognition are also constantly changing and it could change according to the physical spaces where people are situated, or changes in emotions, values, religions, thoughts, etc. The liquidity of identity recognition has triggered the blurring of power boundaries and has extended the time and space of rights, but it also brought about a change in people’s psychology, feelings of insecurity and questions of “Who am I?” and it raised the demand for self-identification. This leads to the existence of a uncontrollable relationship between institutional arrangements and citizens’ moral practices tethering between control and anti-control. While tense relationships arise between rights and obligations, differentiation and equality, exclusion and inclusion, theory and practice, space and time, etc, there is an intriguing tension between determining and not determining intersubjectivity. This intriguing tension and the source of power in China’s state and social relations are related to the inter-powers game.

Foundation Stone of Public Communication: New Media Empowerment

Since the rise of Weibo, WeChat and other technology, the expression and action space created by Weibo “means that as a burgeoning method for communicating information, especially with the strong support of mobile network infrastructure, Weibo rapidly enters people’s daily lives, changes and remoulds social relations and social order and has a significant impact on society’s transformation.”2 However, the mentioned article does not clarify the internal core and driving force behind the changes and remoulding of social relations and social order.

In 2011, the author was with others analysing village e-commerce when she discovered the impact of technology empowerment on our rural regions and analysed the relationship between citizens and social structures from the perspective of new media empowerment.3 Isin’s citizenship philosophy provides evidence for understanding new media empowerment. Isin hit the nail on the head when he pointed out, “Citizenship is a type of system for allocation and empowerment”, while “citizenship refers to the special authority to maintain this type of allocation and empowerment system. Citizenship “requires different social groups to fight for rights and allocations, which when compared with other social groups, those groups who accumulate more resources and capital are better able to inject economic and moral meaning into citizenship”4. In this sense, new media empowerment can be understood in two ways: firstly as social media orientation

1 Zhonghua Guo (editor), Citizenship in a Changing Society: Dialogue with Giddens, Keane and others, Guangdong People Press, 2011 edition, page 82.2 Zengzhi Shi, The Human Soul in Weibo: The Purpose of Dialogue and Communications in New Media Public Spaces, extracted from 2011 China Charity Blue Book, Social Sciences Academic Press, April 20113 Refer to Zengzhi Shi, Congping Pan, Ye Shen, “New Media Empowerment: Social Research into the Feasibility of a type of Village E-commerce – Case study of Shaji internet business, edited by Manli Cheng, Peking University News and Communications Review , Issue 6, Beijing: Peking University Press, May 20114 Zhonghua Guo (editor), Citizenship in a Changing Society: Dialogue with Giddens, Keane and others, Guangdong People Press, 2011 edition.

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which dissects current social structure and social relations. Most importantly, it is currently in the process of changing the power structure of society. The second way is media socialisation which is in the process of reconstructing social relations and social structures. The most important characteristic of new media technology applications are the continued innovation and integration of interactive functions. In some sense, it is a type of extension of time, which can always exceed our daily imagination and create miracles in daily lives in a new time and space.

New media empowerment needs to ask these questions: Whose power is this? To whom does this power apply? Where does new media empowerment derive its power from? Foucault once said, “Power is actually within the social structure and social relations, and happening between people and between people and organisations.” Power, as a type of contradiction and struggle, arises from conflicts and struggles in social relations. This is also why new media has such a big impact on Chinese society. Empowerment has therefore given people power and this power includes all kinds of resources, authority, capabilities, etc. The early concept of empowerment was primarily used in education and psychology, relating to disadvantaged groups.

China is currently transforming from a totalitarian society into a democratic society as well as from a planned economy to a market economy. Which group is not disadvantaged? The Chinese Academy of Sciences once conducted a study and the results of this study indicate that what was considered to be mainstream groups in the past has already been included in the disadvantaged group. This indicates that in today’s new media empowerment, power relationships in social relations and social structure have changed, and it has become possible for groups and people who previously were not in a dominant position to receive power, authority, opportunities and resources.

The production and communication of knowledge has become more closely related to power. Its integration with politics and capital leads to knowledge and communication becoming increasingly dependent on power, and modern knowledge has become an issue of power governance and allocation. As knowledge production and reproduction become increasingly embedded in communications, communication has become not only the delivery of information, but also an indispensable part of information reproduction. Lyotard once said that the production and communication of knowledge have become more of a governance and allocation issue, the construction of a symbolic landscape requires a producer, a consumer, the product itself and product services, as well as the involvement of more communication subjects. It is also necessary to consider the interaction, checks and balances of relationships between various landscapes and to value the involvement and participation of space and time content. The diversity of involved subjects and the emergence and re-emergence of multiple perspectives and images form a diverse landscape of social issues. This type of diverse landscape contains the governance and allocation of real power. This landscape is different from that described by Guy Debord that it is difficult for a small group of people to govern the landscape. This is because public communication releases knowledge of the previously hidden social structure and institution. This hidden knowledge can be divided into two categories, the first being slavery knowledge and the second being submissive knowledge where people unknowingly identify with the institution and system. Most

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people are aware of the former but the latter relates to people’s true liberation and yet very few have noticed it. New media empowerment has released more submissive knowledge which has had the effect of enticing negative power and energy against social structures and systems.

There are three categories of new media empowerment, namely self empowerment, community empowerment and organisational empowerment. Overall speaking, new media empowerment, with regards to individuals and organisations, is the extent to which an individual or organisation can increase or decrease its autonomy and independence. Self empowerment is a process from less power to increased power. Self empowerment is not a voluntary and natural empowerment, but an awareness and improvement of self-consciousness and self-ability. It requires people to be able to continue learning, perceiving and experiencing and to resist the submissive knowledge conscious of his own loneliness and fear. In the concept of self empowerment, apart from empowerment by behaviour, attitudes and actions, there is also mental and ability “empowerment” which is a type of mental resilience as well as a type of social relay. Civilian media is just such a new type of media eco-system under the new media empowerment, which has made civilian-created media possible. Community empowerment is constructed in a virtual internet space, comparatively distant from society’s original power structure and the foundation produced from society’s relay and integration and social capital. Much spatial imagination and redemption has been launched through community empowerment. In addition, the foundation for organisational empowerment has also been formed. Organisational empowerment includes e-government, e-commerce and e-philanthropy, all of which are primarily produced from society’s existing organisational structures and power, but the boundaries of these organisations are also blurry hence becoming a field of struggle for organisational empowerment.

New media empowerment has been primarily reflected in information, expression and actions. Firstly, it gives us the authority to obtain information. Relative symmetry of information becomes a possibility, empowering people to make their own judgments about things. Secondly, while discussions and debates are formed while heterogeneous information is obtained. Expression has become a possibility, and the right and struggle to express oneself in symbolic landscapes will empower actors with the abilities and possibility of achieving goals. Thirdly, expression itself is an action. The actions emphasized here are actions combining the expression of actions and actual actions, the integration of power and abilities and changes in actions. Power, according to Martin Luther King, is the ability to achieve goals. Ordinary people are able to obtain power through one ability, the ability to discover and resolve issues. The ability to objectively resolve issues is required of modern people.

New media empowerment provides space for everyone, where there is an air of roaming freely, continued freedom of thought, constant vigilance and a vision of guarding societ . This is the capability of thoughts roaming freely and of questioning and reflecting on power and ideology. Weibo and WeChat emphasize our experiences, which precisely reminds us that we still have the ability to think, rethink and reflect and that examination and questioning precisely awakens the self-awareness process. New media empowerment is not simply a political concept but it is also a concept of economics,

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consumption and culture. The original social movement manifested itself more through mass incidents in relation to the revolution of political power and primarily emphasized legal interests. The diverse and plural new social movement will revolve more and more around theories, value systems, religion, interests and other causes, such as environmental protection, gender equality, food safety, etc. In new media empowerment, the mutual interlocking of subjects requires power to be exercised in broad daylight, in transparency, with openness, responsibility and credibility. Only in this way can the support of members of society be obtained and, in turn, the promise of increased power through empowerment be fulfilled.

The other space provided by new media empowerment has made social actions possible and formed a new social mobilization and governance method. Public internet spaces have remoulded people’s perspectives and awareness as the centralised and organised connection methods of human relationships changed to emotional, value-based and other ways of identification, while economic capital, social capital and cultural capital is being reallocated in the background, hence achieving a return for mankind. Fission between subjects exists, according to Weber’s Science as a Vocation. The actor has no misgivings about accepting the fragmented world of the transforming Chinese people where positions, perspectives, values and other aspects are blurry and about using language, even personal morals, to change this world. Examples are “Free Lunch”, “Critical Illness Insurance Program”, “Let Birds Fly” and other programs initiated by Fei Deng and many other media people.

New media movement action has a number of layers. Firstly, it provides a platform for advocating and mobilising society to pay attention to charity. Secondly, it is a theoretical and operational tool. Thirdly, monitoring, identifying and supporting public opinions provide actors with legality and legitimacy. Fourthly, it drives laws and public policies. The fifth layer is that it can excite social capital to a great extent, redeploy all social resources, and create momentum for public communication which assists the implementation of actions. There exists an active and passive relationship in new media empowerment. Technological empowerment gives members of society, individuals and communities and organisations seeking changes a space where they can take the initiative, thereby creating the situation where those communities who do not wish to change having no alternative but to change. From the perspective of social structure, new media empowerment is primarily a union of top-down and bottom-up characteristics, achieving social empowerment through technological empowerment and affecting and revolutionising organisational empowerment through social empowerment.

Empowerment Tools: Between Organisational Empowerment and Social Empowerment

New media empowerment in the era of public communication not only points to the deconstruction and reconstruction of power itself but also emphasizes the extension of constructed theories, perspectives and achievements in time and space. We will use the concepts of empowerment tools to explain how public communication is formed in the new space and time as well as how empowerment is achieved in the communications

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space and time. Empowerment tools were proposed on the basis of energising tools. The concept of energising tools was proposed by the artist Luping Yue. At that time we were exploring the impact of new media empowerment on the media eco-system which inspired Luping Yue to propose the concept of “energising tools” to further explain new media empowerment. Energising tools is a unisex concept but in the backdrop of China’s state and social relations transformation, empowerment tools are more apt in expressing the temperament of an era of society’s extensive participation in political and cultural life.

Empowerment tools are power. They contain an unequal and imbalanced static energy as well as the elastic potential energy of the society’s organic unity. New media empowerment emphasizes the flattening of power. Empowerment tools emphasize the possibilities of structures, movements, relationship and other things in public communication to transcend space and time to construct power, highlighting the perception and application of people’s emotions, mentality, awareness, actions, abilities and other aspects towards new media on the internet, emphasizing the ability to turn an intriguing tension into power that proliferates in the uncertain, uncontrollable state between knowledge communication and communicating knowledge.

Empowerment tools are structured, they form a web of complex relationships between producers, production organisations, communication media, content production and communication mechanisms built from an extension of space and time. Communicators, like media and other organisations, while valuing the production of communication content, must also recognise the importance of communication channels. While emphasizing the audience’s loyalty to communication organisations, it is necessary to also emphasize their loyalty and folksonomy to content producing individuals and channels. This is closely related to people’s capability to speak and to achieve things, and related to the products of communication, interaction between users and products, communication methods, etc. Communication methods are not just about communicating content but more importantly, it is the production and communication of content which involves diverse subjects using different communication methods. Communicators are not only the deliverers of product content, but they can also be producers of communicated content. Audiences are not only the receivers of product content but they can also be producers or communicators. Content production and communication has gradually become a new mechanism for production, communication and reproduction, and re-communication.

Empowered tools are also moving, production and reproduction mechanisms are the result and the beginning of this motion. They need to recognise and understand through motion. Motion is a continuous empowering process with the process of excitement and actualisation of potential being the key. Potential and actualisation are concepts proposed by Heidegger. They exist in a dialectical relationship, and contain production activities and their results. “In an elevated sense, potential inevitably leads to lack.” Acknowledging the lack of reality is also an acknowledgement that a lack in production will result in an opposite perfection. Public and private spaces are full of emotions, expectations, inspiration, meaning and other things. These can be experiences, as well as morals, and also aesthetic appreciation. It is also a process, where experiences, relationships and actions resulting from the function of correlation form a lively,

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continuously renewing, reproducing, maintaining and repairing space. Where does motion originate from? Aristotle “understood the concept which motion draws support from is ‘sexuality’, that is, directing the existence of motion towards its goal while putting desire to rest in the process.”1 Sexuality is a basic instinct. Knowledge, symbols and other things are transformed into images to excite man’s desires. They are the original driving force behind the thrust of empowerment tools. The era of public communication and public charity are sources of energy for communications.

Empowerment tools are relational, providing imagination for the development of society and mankind. Firstly, relationships between people are relational through words, sounds and images. Secondly, there is an active and passive relationship between people and words, sounds, images, etc, and this relationship is even more complicated and diverse in the mobile internet era, creating a clash between different thoughts and ideas. Thirdly, different novel thoughts and ideas will become a type of resources, creating power efficiencies. Information is accepted through individual experiences and these experiences and ideas and opinions arising from these experiences will normally cause these acceptors to become opinion leaders. Their experiences will then affect other people’s knowledge and production of symbols. Media, being relational, also emphasizes the intimate relationships between information production, reproduction and economy, but it also hinges on the relationships formed by the acceptor between active and passive acceptance. Public communication under new media empowerment places more emphasis on the method and process of communication.

The internet discourse is always in a state of change. In the complicated contradictions of identification in the form of struggles, objections and others, discourse highlights precisely the substance of these conflicts and changes and the existence of this substance is perceived and understood through motions. These motions and struggles of discourse are expressions of intersubjectivity. People take part or get involved in these discourses because they pay attention to, or have deep concerns for practicing their own life. In light of the above understanding, the dialogue within empowerment tools is based on a faulty construction and not a corresponding construction.

Lyotard pointed out that, “It seemed impossible, even not cautious, for Habermas to take the issue of constructing legalisation towards the pursuit of universal consensus”, and “consensus is only a state of discussion and not the aim of a discussion. More specifically, the aim of discussion should be a faulty construction”2, therefore “consensus has become an obsolete and suspicious value, but justice is not like this, hence we should pursue a type of just perspective and just practice not constrained by consensus.”3 This is because “this type of consensus betrays the heterogeneity of the discourse game. Inventions have always been produced through disagreements. Post-modern knowledge is not just a tool for political power. It can increase our sensitivity to

1 (Canada) Andrew Feenberg, Heidegger and Marcuse, translated by Cheng Wen, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2010 edition, pages 29-30.2 (France) Jean- François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, translated by Jin Che, SDX Joint Publishing Company，1997 edition, page 83.3 (France) Jean- François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, translated by Jin Che, SDX Joint Publishing Company，1997 edition, page 126.

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differences and strengthen our incommensurable tolerance. Its basis does not reside in the isomorphism of experts, but within the faulty constructions of inventor.”1 The foundation of faulty constructions originated from dialogues and debates on many different types of knowledge based on different perspectives and experiences. Wrong constructions became the primary route towards achieving legality.

On the surface, an empowerment tool refers to a channel, technology, tool, tactic, medium, knowledge, etc. but in fact, it is a combination of knowledge and channels that can transcend space and time. Knowledge is the knowledge in communication. The instant generation of knowledge, short-term validity, heterogeneity and other characteristics of knowledge have become standard in the communication of knowledge. In Lyotard’s words, “What it produces is not already known but not yet known.”2 The key characteristics of an empowerment tool are: firstly, diverse communication channels, where there are communication channels for every means of communication; secondly, infinite propagation force; thirdly, the iterative effects of communication feedback mechanisms on content production and reproduction; fourthly, user experience and the direct addition of knowledge into production and reproduction mechanisms; fifthly, user experience and user relationship maintenance which are the drivers and engines of propagation force; sixthly, the proliferation of imagination movements in discourses has become an important constituent of user experience.

An empowerment tool also has a very core element which is speed. Speed determines the space and energy of imagined spaces. In this era, the issue we are pursuing is not merely what truth is. As we consider efficiency, capability, potency, returns and other issues, the iteration and proliferation of speed has also become an important constituent of an empowerment tool. Speed has become the primary driver of communicating knowledge. Speed has provided communicators and communicating content with unlimited possibilities for extending spaces. Feedback is not only targeted at communicators but, more importantly, the driving force for communication. Re-communication is injected as multiple subjects continuously amend the content of communication products. Therefore, to a certain degree, it has rid itself of the limitations of both fields, obtaining a tension and freedom which transcends practical fields in an uncontrolled state and achieving empowerment precisely in this process. At the same time, in the opposite direction, it also explains how empowerment goes to empowerment tools and back to empowerment itself.

The practice of empowerment tool theories emphasizes the equal importance of both exercising influence and doing the deed. People have a very clear idea of doing the deed, but whether the deed can be completed and completed well requires an understanding of the importance of exercising influence. In essence, an empowerment tool requires people to be between exercising influence and doing the deed. An influencer is usually highly sensitive, has a stable psychological foundation and calmly creates a kind of rapport from chaos, thus leading people to cooperate with one another in chaos. An influencer values direction and trends, and has a very strong cohesive force

1 (France) Jean- François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, translated by Jin Che, SDX Joint Publishing Company，1997 edition, Preface, page 4.2 (France) Jean- François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, translated by Jin Che, SDX Joint Publishing Company，1997 edition.

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and consolidation power. These people usually believe in themselves and are objective as well as perceptive. They know people’s hearts and understand the importance of using new media to create impetus. They don’t value the present, and if they have to choose between the past and the future, they are more likely to choose the future.

Since time immemorial, the diversity of communication methods changed the manner by which human civilisation developed. The arrival of the internet society gave greater room for influencers to develop. An important characteristic of the decentralised and disorganised internet society has precisely arisen on this foundation. The originally constructed organisations and bodies based on power are challenged by bottom-up power and are constantly held accountable by public opinion, so these organisations and bodies are required to have a very strong capacity to shoulder responsibilities. The integration of the fields of public and private rights and their fluent boundaries have led to a diversification of top-down empowerment methods. Some people are motivated by people’s desires, some are motivated by public interests and some are motivated by commercial interests. Their motivations differ but they are all fundamentally implementing the reproduction and reallocation of power.

An empowerment tool emphasizes the existence of a relatively closed chain of power. The effects and actions stress the ability to practice and change theory. There are differences in the assertions, focus, paths, origins and other aspects of action subjects, but they all achieve empowerment. A wise businessman sees the human soul and desires in mobile internet networks, which imply huge communications profits. Without crossing ethical lines, the commercial operation of an empowerment tool emphasizes getting profits from the product itself while turning consumers into a part of the producers. Consumers and producers enter into a social group relationship, forming a social group relationship chain around personal interest and values. Business profits are just one link in this relationship chain. Some groups and people have yet to recognise the importance of empowerment tools. They are usually motivated by a narrow angle of transforming the political system, still use an industrial system and mechanical construction method of thinking and emphasize the dual opposition thought pattern. Netizens possess self-empowerment tools. Many netizens are motivated by public interest, while some are motivated by social issues to form a community empowerment tool in public discussions and debates and make changes in public policies a possibility, which in turn impacts organisational empowerment.

Self-Redemption: Achieving Social Empowerment

In today’s new media empowerment, research into state and social relationships indicates that experience is still extremely important for practice, but individual experiences and feelings of community in a communal world are even more important to understanding the transformation from organisational empowerment to social empowerment. The public reason of public discussions and public debate between subjects still emphasizes the conflict and struggles process of citizenship, but there is no lack of personal space and self-empowerment. Individual aesthetic experiences and requirements differ and might internalise into self-redemption and actions. Individual

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experiences determine a person’s thoughts and moral practices. Kant said that aesthetic appreciation experience is a subjective mood that cannot be replicated, the experience of aesthetic values for each person is unique, differentiated and cannot be generalised. Weibo and WeChat experiences are not only instinctive, enjoyable, rash and materialistic, but they also contain a type of conscious and subconscious spiritual redemption. Experiences are the perceptions and realisations about one’s psychology and emotions. This is the only way to understand empathy in this transient world, to feel deep compassion for the limitations of people’s lives, to truly accept, even compromise and forgive, and to achieve self-redemption. Self-redemption, in a certain sense, is also the foundation for constructing a perfect society.

Faced with a changing society, especially in today’s new media empowerment which has made it possible for people to liberate themselves, the question for everyone is, “What should we do?” “Nothing will be achieved by solely relying on praying and waiting. We should take different actions. We should do our jobs and properly treat the ‘immediate demands’ whether it is how we should treat others or our vocations. If every person found the guardian angel holding the strings to his or her life and obeyed it, this would actually be plain and simple.”1 An individual life is but a moment in time. A life’s future does not exist in waiting and pursuing goals. Hannah Arendt once said, “Power is not like a weapon which can be stored for emergencies. It only exists when it is exercised. Where power is not exercised, it does not exist.” Redemption is achieved through our actions, which emphasizes our individual beliefs and aesthetic appreciation.

Since the end of 2012, public accounts on WeChat have mushroomed, causing another wave in social media, transforming the production and communication mechanisms of traditional media content and stirring up communications’ development eco-system. The first half of 2013 was an important moment in the variation of China’s media as television ratings and advertising revenue fell sharply and we-media grew and developed in large volumes. Faced with this media transformation, media people began setting up their own we-media in practical fields.

The establishment of we-media is the best reflection of media people’s self-redemption awareness and abilities. Currently, media people who have set up we-media primarily fall into three categories, one being those who are adept at using empowerment tools, such as Ming Chen of Lvjingfeilin, Luping Yue of 1001zen , Baoyin Cao of CAOTV and Zhibiao Song of Jiuwenpinglun, who all are exceptional media people. Artists are the most sensitive to media methods, and in a certain sense, Luping Yue, whose background is in traditional Chinese painting, is a true media person. Luping Yue was able to propose the concept of empowerment tools, while to date, many media people’s understanding of the concept of empowerment tools is only a limited one. This group of media people have a natural passion for we-media, and it seems like we-media switched on their lives’ instinctive inertia. Once they started, they never stopped. Their approaches were different, but the efforts they committed to communicating content and form were similar. The second category of people is generally exceptional media journalists. In the depths of their hearts, they still value the production of content. They sacrifice much,

1 (German) Max Weber, Roscher and Knies, translated by Keli Feng, SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1998 edition, page 49.

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work slowly to produce the best work, have intense objectivity and feelings about news professionalism, are highly confident when writing news stories and slightly stubborn in their objectivity. They meticulously investigate and carefully polish their work as if every piece would become a celebrated essay in their industry. They appear to be lonely even in an environment of lively public opinions. Among them, there are those who are already aware that the transformation of the media industry cannot be reversed, but they are hiding their inner stubbornness and lack of openness by adopting a hero mentality in their resistance. The third category is media people who are on the way. They identify in their hearts with the development trends of we-media and have begun operating we-media, but they are in a speaking-to-themselves state and there is still much room to improve in terms of their channels and constructing their own empowerment tools.

There are many reasons why self-redemption achieved social empowerment. The key should be to emphasize people’s experiences, people’s emotional quotient, people’s compassions, people’s gratefulness and people’s moral practice abilities. People are adept with using empowerment tools and familiar with the various media forms and applications, which led to the simultaneous communication of communicated content through different media. This has also constructed new complex social relationships between sender and receiver, sender and sender, and others. Empowerment tools have very strong transmissibility, and the motivation and thoughts for communication have been placed in a bigger space for testing. The reason for both success and failure could be attributed to empowerment tools.

There is a relationship between media people’s abilities of ethical practice and areas of reality. The examination of the visible and invisible in empowerment tools is still going on even though the entry barriers to new technology applications are low, there is still a technological chasm. However, media people themselves can get close to power structures, and their technological empowerment and social empowerment rely heavily on media people’s self-redemption while also being the fundamentals of their liberation. This type of phenomenon is displayed in all three categories of media people mentioned above. The first category can basically achieve the move from media empowerment to technological empowerment to social empowerment. The second category is basically still struggling in the conflicts of media empowerment. The third category of en-route media people have already transcended media empowerment and now stand between technological empowerment and social empowerment.

In the past, media people still wanted to achieve their ideals and ambitions through media, and now they abandoned traditional media and turned towards internet organisations and other media. Now that there’s Weibo, WeChat and other new media technology applications, technological empowerment and social empowerment have become possible and it is no longer important whether one abandons media organisations or not. What has become important is whether or not media people are capable of using empowerment tools and whether or not they understand the meaning of empowerment tools in achieving news ideals. If these issues are also not important, the profitability requirements of internet organisations will empower exceptional media people and they will actively fulfil the role of an empowerment incubator to help media people achieve self-redemption.

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In conclusion, new media empowerment is not empowerment for the sake of empowerment but it is meant to provide each person with the possibilities of self-selection and returning to one’s original true self. Each person can maintain a state of absence and distance from society, maintain one’s independence of thought, autonomy and criticism. An analysis from the perspective of Lukacs’ “total” historical dialectics tells us that it is very difficult to separate people’s authenticity from society. According to Marcuse, “Authenticity includes one’s antagonisms between the era he or she is in and its possibilities. Personality and critical awareness and a rebellious spirit cannot be separated. Therefore, an individual and society, and the present and the future are all interrelated.” The awareness of authenticity as Marcuse has conceived “reflects these unavoidable relationships which are hidden in the normal process of daily life. If these relationships can be brought to the fore and acted out accordingly, a higher level of thought independence will be achieved. This independence is what modern society requires.” What speaks volumes is that “the modern society knows precisely how to delete the kind of personality which” this type of independence “seems to encourage”. 1 It is impossible to separate individual destiny from that of the state and society, but technological empowerment has made it possible for individual and organisational empowerment to reach social empowerment. The crucial question of how an individual can achieve self-redemption and empowerment still remains.

Summary

The public communication era opened a new chapter in state and social relationships. Technological empowerment between organisational empowerment and social empowerment means a new, chaotic beginning. Under new media empowerment, it is very difficult to use experiences, values, morals, interest and other things to easily distinguish the merits and demerits of fluid boundaries of public and private spaces. Slavery knowledge and submissive knowledge change as state and society’s dualistic structures change. Knowledge itself undergoes revolutionary changes during communication. From producing the known to producing the unknown, from following grand narratives and determinism to the shift to minor narratives, uncertainty and the change of control, people have entered with a positive attitude. These have provided us with the space for imagination. State and social relationships changed from organised, centralised and standardised power institutional arrangements to disorganised and decentralised expressions and actions between subjects focusing on people’s needs. From empowerment to empowerment tools and back to empowerment, what has been actually happening is organisational structure empowerment achieving social empowerment through technological empowerment. The achievement of social empowerment exacerbated people’s doubts and suspicions about consensus. Knowledge communication and power still concern the liberation of people. Mankind’s continued evolution and development through organisations and institutions freed and

1 (Canada) Andrew Feenberg, Heidegger and Marcuse, translated by Cheng Wen, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2010 edition, page 133.

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liberated people’s subjectivity. But the result in modern times is that people became a means and are no longer the purpose. Faced with the ferocious development of mobile internet, empowerment and empowerment tools gave individuals and groups the power of liberal judgement on issues like psychology, skills, knowledge and survival of individuals and groups. As a matter of fact, self-organisation requires higher self-management and self-survival abilities, and sudden change and evolution are actually still the true achievement of people’s subjectivity. Individual others experience fear, loneliness and other emotions and the unity of subject and individual others, self-redemption and empowerment can only be completed through objective moral practice abilities. This is the basis for society’s continuous survival.

Key Bibliography:1.[France] Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle， translated by Shaofeng Wang, Nanjing, Nanjing University Press, 2006 edition.2. [France] Jean- François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, translated by Jin Che, SDX Joint Publishing Company，2011 edition.3.[USA] Benedict Anderson, translated by Ruiren Wu, Imagined Communities, Shanghai Publishing Group, 2005.4.[USA] Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali, translated by Bingxiang Zhao, proofread by Mingming Wang, Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1999.5. [Canada] Andrew Fernberg, Heidegger and Marcuse, translated by Cheng Wen, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2010 edition.6. Zhengzhi Shi, “Development of Chinese Civic Society and the Role of Media from a Public Communication Perspective – Case Study of Wenchuan Earthquake’s Post-Disaster Relief and Reconstruction”, editor-in-chief: Man Cheng, Peking University Journalism and Communication Review, Issue 4, Beijing: Peking University Press, January 20097. Zengzhi Shi, “Communication and Dialogue: Civil Society and Media Public Spaces – Theoretical Foundation of Internet Mass Incidents Forming Mechanisms”, Journal of International Communication, Issue 12, 2009.8. Zengzhi Shi, “The Human Spirit in Weibo: The Meaning of Dialogue and Communications in New Media Public Spaces”, recorded in China Charity Blue Book (2011), Social Sciences Academic Press, April 2011.9. Zengzhi Shi, Congping Pan, Ye Shen, “New Media Empowerment: Social Research into the Feasibility of a type of Village E-commerce – Case study of Shaji internet business, edited by Manli Cheng, Peking University News and Communications Review , Issue 6, Beijing: Peking University Press, May 201110. Zengzhi Shi, “How is Charity Communications Possible in the New Media Environment – Between Expression and Action”, edited by Manli Cheng, Peking University News and Communications Review, Issue 7, Beijing: Peking University Press, May 2012.11. Zengzhi Shi, Shuaishuai Wang, “Returning to the Homeland of Individual Life’s Rich Ecological Discourse: Destined Community and Public Autonomy of the Micro-Charity

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Era, China Charity Blue Book (2012), Social Sciences Academic Press, 2013.

Appendix of Sources of Articles

1. Zengzhi Shi, “Internet, Debate and the Structure of Our State Citizenship”, edited by Manli Cheng, Peking University News and Communications Review, May 2006, p.249-263.

2. Zengzhi Shi, “Internet media incidents and the Structure of China’s Citizenship: The Meaning of Internet”, 3rd Series, December 2007.

3. Zengzhi Shi, “Embodiment and Meaning of Citizenship in Recent State Internet Media Incidents”, edited by Bingzhong Gao and Ruijun Yuan, Blue Book on Civil Society Development in China, Peking University Press, December 2008.

4. Zengzhi Shi, “The Moulding of State Image under the Beijing Olympics Public Media Space”, International Communications, Issue 9, 2008

5. Zhengzhi Shi, “Development of Chinese Civic Society and the Role of Media from a Public Communication Perspective – Case Study of Wenchuan Earthquake’s Post-Disaster Relief and Reconstruction”, editor-in-chief: Man Cheng, Peking University Journalism and Communication Review, Issue 4, Beijing: Peking University Press, January 2009

6. Zengzhi Shi, “Communication and Dialogue: Civil Society and Media Public Spaces – Theoretical Foundation of Internet Mass Incidents Forming Mechanisms”, Journal of International Communication, Issue 12, 2009.

7. Zengzhi Shi, “Healthy Development of the Call of ‘Charity Shows’ to China’s Civil Society”, Bolan Qunshu, Issue 1, 2010

8. Zengzhi Shi, “Internet Media Incidents and Their Current State and Characteristics of Research from Recent Years”, published in Research Report on the Politics of Contemporary China, Issue 8, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2010.

9. Zengzhi Shi, Juan Xu, Congping Pan, “The Development of ‘Socialised Media’ and Charitable Communication in this Background”, included in China Charity Blue Book (2010), Social Sciences Academic Press, September 2010.

10. Zengzhi Shi, “The Human Spirit in Weibo: The Meaning of Dialogue and Communication in New Media Public Spaces”, recorded in China Charity Blue Book (2011), Social Sciences Academic Press, April 2011.

11. Zengzhi Shi, Congping Pan, Ye Shen, “New Media Empowerment: Social Research into the Feasibility of a type of Village E-commerce – Case study of Shaji internet business, edited by Manli Cheng, Peking University News and Communications Review , Issue 6, Beijing: Peking University Press, May 2011

12. Zengzhi Shi, “How is Charity Communications Possible in the New Media Environment – Between Expression and Action”, edited by Manli Cheng, Peking University News and Communications Review, Issue 7, Beijing: Peking University Press, May 2012.

13. Zengzhi Shi, Shuaishuai Wang, “Returning to the Homeland of Individual Life’s Rich

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Ecological Discourse: Destined Community and Public Autonomy of the Micro-Charity Era, China Charity Blue Book (2012), Social Sciences Academic Press, 2013.

14. Zengzhi Shi, “State and Social Relationships from the Perspective of New Media Empowerment”, included in New Media Empowerment: State and Society’s Synergised Evolution, Social Sciences Academic Press, September 2013.

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