Online Political Participation And The Role Of Chinese Government

The technological revolution associated with the Internet is attracting the attention in the state ofcivic engagement. In the past decades, with the development and the widespread of the networktechnology, the online political participation comes into being and has become one of the mostpopular platforms for political engagement. The new media inspires netizens’ passion and enthusiasmto take part in the political participation and promotes the civic consciousness. The characteristics ofthe Internet such as interactivity, virtuality, entertainment and convenience, which makes it excel anyother media and become one of the most popular media, which has attracted and accumulated a largenumber of fans.As to China, the huge number of netizens is not only challenges but also opportunities for theChinese government, which is undergoing a reform in the new era. Therefore, the research on thegovernment role in the background of online political participation seems to be an unavoidable trend.The combination of the Internet and politics forms a new branch of disciplines and research subjectcalled cyber politics. The foreign scholars had explored these issues from multiple angles, includingits potential effects on the public sphere, social capital, electronic democracy, E-governance and sociallife, and discussed and predicted the future development trends of the cyber politics as well.Comparatively speaking, the development and application of the Internet in China is later thanthe western countries. However, the Chinese scholars had acquired some outstanding fundamentalresearch results based on the relative foreign theories combined with the domestic practical situation.The idea of this research is discussing the means and characteristics of online political participation,the opportunities and challenges it may bring to Chinese government, and the main problems existedin the process of dealing with the online political participation based on a overlook of the previousforeign theories and the domestic practical situation.In China, the means of online political participation can be summarized as followed: makingproposals online, anti-corruption online, group incidents online and political apathy. Thecharacteristics of online political participation can be illustrated as the combination of somecontradictory features: virtuality and reality, decentralization and sociality, diversity andhomogenization, directness and interactivity. The positive significance for Chinese society brings byInternet is notable and obvious, for instance, it encourages civic participation, enriches the democraticchannels for participation, promotes the reform of the government, eases the participant crisis and strengthens public supervision, etc.However, a series of negatives sides of online political participation can not be ignored. Forinstance, the paradox between the freedom of speech and the control of the content, the conflicts ofvirtual identity and privacy protection, the aspire to equal rights and the asymmetry of the cyberpower, the disputes of the public interests and private interests, what should be paid attention.In the process of responding to the online political participation, there are several problems andshortcomings needed to be solved: the low information transparency and the lack of public trust, thepoor government website construction and feedbacks, the absence of relative legislations, thegovernment failure in the course of regulating the network, and the poor awareness of the importanceof online political participation, makes it different for the government to work efficiently and providegood service to the public.The existence of these problems requires the government to change its role to cope with thechallenges. As to China, firstly, the government should be a listener of the network public opinion andtry to collect, comply with, guide the public opinion. Secondly, the government should also be aparticipant of the online political participation and adjust its modes of regulation, reshape its image,speed up the construction of e-government, and improve the accountability system. Thirdly, thegovernment should also be a guide during the period of online political participation and emphasizesthe construction of the legislation and ethics to maintain a harmonious and orderly politicalparticipation environment.