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HKU-USC-IPPA Conference on Public Policy

Paper Abstract

Abstract Number: T04P10-01

Panel

T04P10 - Local Government Entrepreneurship in China: Promises and Perils

Author

Dr. Weiping Zhan, HR, China Radio International, China

Co-Author

Professor Yongda Yu, Professor, Tsinghua University, China

Title

Adaptive Innovation of Social Media Practice in Chinese Government

Abstract

Since the electronic government concept was raised in last century, governments all

over the world always chasing the pace of internet technologies.

In China, social media experienced exponential development with the in the past 5

years. By 2014, mobile internet users reached to 500 millions, exceeded computer

internet users for the first time, and the public has turned to Weibo and Wechat (which

are now China’s top 2 popular social media) to share or get opinions. How did they

tailor or innovate these new tools to make it fit for local governance in China?

According to “Comprehensive Influence Report about China’s New Media

Governance”, released by Xinhua Net by the end of June 2015, Weibo Accounts signed

and operated by government agencies reached to 284000, posting 11.48 million

messages. And there are 35,434 government Wechat official accounts, pushing pages

more than 20 millions and the click rate reached to 1.43 billion. With the strong

government and weak media political framework, media usually works as policy

agenda propaganda. However, governance social media’s responsibility not only lies in

information releasing, but focus on interacting, so it can provide services to users

directly, and at the same time collect public opinions. How do they coordinate the needs

both from up and down?

2

Local government are the main body of the new media accounts. According to Xinhua

Net, 39% governmental Wechat official account are registered by City-level agencies,

and 51% of them are registered by district and county level agencies. These accounts

can effectively connect the local government and their service object if operated

properly. Chengdu, Nanjing, and Hangzhou ranked top 3 of big city’s hottest

government new media.

Local governments are much nearer to the populace, and they can have precise position

about the audiences, so they have more incentives to make innovation on social media

practices. Chinese local governments have made the following innovations in recent

years:

1. Outsourcing

By cooperating with traditional media or business company, local government such as

Wuxi is responsible for providing resources and information, and professional

broadcasting organizations provide better services and experiences to the public.

However, for safety consideration, almost all cooperatIve units are so called “within

system”. For example, Wuxi government information office’s Weibo “Wuxi Fabu” as

outsourcing to local media, and has almost 1 million followers ( Wuxi has about 6

million citizens by 2015) Several professional companies can also provide public

opinion monitoring related services.

2. Cooperating

Compared with outsourcing facing media companies within systems, cooperating with

opinion leaders is more flexible and can help to earn trust of the social media users.

Through various programs or initiatives, local government can earn extra point from

the popular people or organizations on the internet. Cooperating works especially in the

media crisis events. After Qingdao city image’s crisis on cheating customers

(unreasonable high price of Shimps) in the summer of 2015, the omission act of

Qingdao’s tourist administrations was fiercely criticized by the social media users.

Finally, the endorsement of famous actor and other opinion leaders in Weibo help to

defuse the crisis.

3. Integration

With the growing number of government social media accounts, people may get

confused about or tired of the homogeneous information. More and more cities and

counties are building Information publishing platform system, and integrate Weibo,

Wechat and applications, to set one comprehensive site for multi-needs users. For

example, Beijing Release System in Weibo had integrated all spokesman from related

government agencies, with followers more than 500 million (Beijing’s population is

200 million or so by the end of 2015).

4. Data-mining

3

Through the search engine, mining and analysis technology of big data from local

government’s social media accounts, a network of public opinion monitoring

mechanism was set to predict group events or other incidents. Till now most cities in

China have settled rules about collection, submission, analysis, guidance and feedback

of social media messages. Many companies such as TRS, Founder group, can now

public opinion service, including information monitoring, public opinion trend

analysis, public opinion environment, network crisis management process and related

links of information service products production, and can provide direct service to

important government agencies and large enterprises.

Almost all innovations are adaptive ones, and most of them are learned from peers (big

city’s practice) or advanced experiences of international practicers. However disruptive

innovation can hardly be seen. If in the future the open data can be acquired from social

media, the local government can have more influenced innovation to make it mudding

through.

Reference

Zhou Hongshuang, Social Media 3.0 for Governance, Tencent News, 2015-02-07,

http://news.qq.com/a/20150207/016127.htm.

Bellone Carl, Public Entrepreneurship: New Role Expectations for Local

Government. Urban Analysis, 9 (1), 1998.

Saich, Anthony. "China's Domestic Governing Capacity: Prospects and Challenges."

Assessing China's Power. Ed. Jae Ho, Chung. Palgrave Macmillan, October 2015, 41-

61.

Keyword

Social media, Local government, Innovation