China is known for using internet "spin doctors", specially trained internet users who comment on blogs, public forums or wikis, to shift the debate in favor of the Communist Party and influence public opinion.[35] They are sometime called the "50-cent party" - named so because they are allegedly paid 50 Chinese cents for each comment supporting the CCP they make.[37]
An internal government document released by the BBC outlines the requirements for those employed as spin-doctors, which include having "relatively good political and professional qualities, and have a pioneering and enterprising spirit", being able to react quickly, etc.[37]
It is believed that such government-sponsored Internet commentators have now become widespread and their numbers could be in the tens of thousands;[37] Bandurski suggests the number may be up to 280,000[35] while The Guardian puts the estimate as 300,000.[38] According to The Guardian, the growth in popularity of such astroturfing owes to the ease with which web 2.0 technologies such as Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube can be employed to sway public opinion. The BBC reports that special centres have been set up to train China's 'army of internet spin doctors'.[37]
2 comments:
The Chinese term for propaganda, xuanchuan (宣传) first appeared in the historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms, written in the 3rd century. While in the Western world the term 'propaganda' bears negative connotations, the Chinese term 宣传, which is liberally translated as "propaganda", actually means "to broadcast" or "to propagate (information)", without negative connotations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7783640.stm
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