in a clear day

Since the beginning of my college life, I've been knowing that there is strict censorship here in my country. For more than three years, I believed the effects of setting this Great Fire Wall is to block the dissenting voices. What I did not notice is the incredible upswing of the growth of domestic social networks. The popularity of Tudou, Youku, Renren and Sina Weibo is believed to a great extent the result of the blockade of their equivalents Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.

According to the statistics from Royal Pindom (cited in Quinn, 2010) by early 2010, China has approximately 384 million online population. Some children now start to use computer in a quite early age, and for many young people who used to be farmers but sold their farmlands with a considerable amount of money, spending much time on the Internet chatting, playing poker games with online friends, and watching pirated movies and televion series becomes one of the most popular and convenient way to kill time.

Social networks such as Renren and Sina Weibo changed people’s everyday life. People start to look for former school mates who have been lost in contact for years. People share their favorite video clips, articles, amusing pictures, travelling pictures and put their private life to the public. Renren, Kaixin and Sina Weibo has become a indispensalbe part of a great number of people’s everyday life as many of them are college students and office workers who have the opportunity to spend hours online. Even they do not have a laptop at hand, they upload their status and ideas that flash by their mind  through mobile phones.

Due to the huge population base, social networks becomes a new and effective platform for celebrities and many organizations including commercial and non-commercial ones as strategies of public relations and advertising. It is unavoidable to follow this overwhelming wave in order to keep self in fashion. For ordinary people, social networks technically enable direct communication between any two people, including celebrities. For celebrities, sharing their everyday life can also raise their popularity. However, always being cautious about the wording is a very important tip for all celebrities. Social networks can bring one thousands of fans but can also tear one’s image into pieces in an hour. Advertising on social networks is another phenomenon being popular recently.  A great number of advertisements are sent through micro blogs to encourage people to consume their products. Others like publishing journals on Renren about recommending online stores on Taobao is an alternative way of promoting products online like public relations.

Reference

Quinn, S., (2010), ‘Asia’s mobile phone innovations’ in Asia’s Media Innovators , volume 2. Singapore: Konrad Adenauer Foundation, p 17.