Well, for this week, I still want to talk about the phenomenon that social media make mediocre individuals more powerful than before. And this time, I want to give some examples which happened in China.
As you know, there is very strict gatekeeping for the dissemination of information in China, especially for the traditional media such as broadcasting, TV program, newspaper, magazine, and so on. And for the social media, there are also kinds of prohibitions. Facebook, Twitter, Google and some other social medias are forbidden in China and we have our own version facebook, twitter and google. Thanks to these Chinese version social media, we individuals have more voice than before and have more power to make decisions for our society.
About four monthes ago, there was a colleage student named Yao Jiaxin who was famous for his criual murder after knocking down a woman by car. At the very beginning, the court tried to free him from death because of his family background. But individuals who use Chinese twitter and facebook sponsored an activity to let the government know most of Chinese netizens think he should die for his intentional murder. And at the end, Yao was announced to death by the court under the pressure from social media. That's a kind of victory of mediocre individuals by using social media.
There are lots of other examples that happen in China which show the big power that social media bring to the public. And it seems that the public has been more and more poewerful by social media. Thanks to social media. Thanks to the meida revolution.
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