Визуальный Интернет-юмор, как фактор

Another piece of important information that can be learnt from the statistical data presented in the Report is the structure of users. Gender distribution of the Internet users has been stable through years 2009-2013, and amounts to 54-55% males and 45-46% females, which roughly correlates with the gender structure of the overall Chinese population [11]. From the point of view of distribution of Internet among urban and rural population (Fig. 1), it can be noticed that with the slight decrease in the percentage of rural population, the scope of Internet penetration in rural areas, although increasing twice, remains relatively low, while by 2013 the percentage of Internet users among urban population already exceeded 60%. As for the age structure (Fig. 2), it can be seen from the graph that the most of the Internet-using population is aged 10 to 39, with maximum users being 20-29 years old. In addition, it is noticeable from the Fig. 3 that the majority of Internet users have relatively low level of education – not higher than junior or senior high school, and this trend has been constant through the last five years.

Graph 1. Internet penetration among urban and rural population of China, 2008-2013.

Source: Statistical Reports on Internet Development in China 2008-2014, http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/

As for social networking spread among the Internet users, the Report states that in 2013 (the year of our interest) 70.7% of users had their personal blogs, 45.5% used Microblog service (微搏weibo, including Sina, Tencent, Baidu, Sohu and Netease), and 45% used social networking services. Overall through the years 2012-2013 there had been a slight slowdown on the development of social networking and microblogging, with less new users joining the networks where the real-name registration is required. In addition, there had been a decline in the activity of already registered users, with 22.8% microblog users reducing their activity in 2013, and 23.5% of users reducing the reducing their activity on the social networking websites. The report suggests the following explanations for the drop: the loss of freshness for the users among microbolog services and the rapid development of mobile applications with social networking features. The report also indicates 48.2% and 42%, utilization ratios for mobile phone applications with microblog and social networking functions respectively in 2012, and therefore it cannot be stated that social networks are losing their popularity, the users are just shifting to another platform following the growth of mobile Internet traffic. The top content for mobile Internet search in 2013, as in the previous years, is news (71% of browsed websites).

Graph 2. Age structure of Internet users in China, 2009-2013 Source: Statistical Reports on Internet Development in China 2008-2014, http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/

Graph 3. Educational structure of Internet users in China, 2009-2013 Source: Statistical Reports on Internet Development in China 2008-2014, http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/

It should be noted that the Report suggests a clear correlation between the income and level of education and the utilization of social networking services among them. In particular, the higher the income of a user and the higher level of his/her education, the more it was probable for them to reduce their activity in the social networks in 2013. Taking into account that students prevail among other types of occupation typical for Internet users in China (amounting to 25.1% and 25.5% of all Internet users) and the fact5 that many of the surveyed explained the main reason of reducing their activity by describing such services as ‘a waste of time’, the tendency to reduction of the network activity can be explained by the change in the status and social group of graduating students.

The statistical data gives us an approximate portrait of an average Internet user in China – they are with slightly higher probability a man aged 20-29, living in an urban area and having an education of junior high school level; he has a computer and a mobile phone with the function of Internet access, through which he searches latest updates about the current events and uses microblogging and social networking services. The growth in the number of Internet users and relatively stable structure peculiarities allow making an assumption that it is this group of population that is considered a target audience for the majority of the products introduced to the Internet, be it websites or mobile applications.

Leaving the behavior of users aside, the Report also provides some information about the popular type of multimedia content in the web pages, namely, images, music, video and text files. It is stated in the Report that the majority of multimedia content provided on the web pages of Chinese-domain websites is constituted of the files with .jpg and .gif extensions, which stands for the image (42.3% in 2013, 57% in 2012) and animated images (6.5% in 2013 and 37.6% in 2012) files. This proves that the images are still the leading multimedia content of websites.

Freedom of Speech Controversy

The Chinese Internet regulations have long been scrutinized by the Western human rights organizations, activists and journalists. In addition to the existence of the Golden Shield Project (全国公安工作信息化工程 Quánguó gōng'ān gōngzuò xìnxī huà gōngchéng) better know to the international public as Chinese Firewall, which blocks the use of foreign websites with certain types of content, such as Facebook.com, Twitter.com, etc.³, China implements inner censorship on the content published by the residents of China on the websites of Chinese domains. The main governmental organ in charge for the implementation and control over the newly introduced and existing regulations is Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and its provincial and local departments, and the CNNIC mentioned above is responsible for the research, development and security technologies provision to the Ministry. The decisions on the changes of Internet regulations are made by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.

The main point of concern among the human rights activists have been the tightness of Internet censorship which has been imposed by the means of deletion of feeds and commentaries falling under the description of restricted topics which pose danger to the ‘harmonious’ development of the Chinese society and Internet community. For the purposes of familiarization with the existing censorship regulations in China, it is quite useful to take a look at a white paper published on the website of the Central People’s Government of the PRC.

The white paper titled The Internet in China giving an overview of the existing Internet regulations was published in June 2010. The introduction of the document states that the aim of the Chinese government is ‘to create a healthy and harmonious Internet environment, and build an Internet that is more reliable, useful and conducive to economic and social development’ [10]. The paper stresses the role of Internet in the technological and economic development of China, as well as in the ‘enhancing the capability of governance.’

According to this document, by the beginning of 2010 the number of users of the Internet in China was estimated as 384 million people, with 346 million using broadband and 233 million using mobile traffic [10]. It is mentioned that the access to the Internet sources was not uniformly spread over the territory of the country, with twice as much people in eastern China enjoying access to the Internet as in the west (40% of the population against 21.5%), and almost three times as many people using the Internet in urban areas than in rural (72,2% against 27,8%).

The main idea of the white paper was, of course, not to present statistical data, but to make clear the information administration and security regulations introduced by the government, and to a great extent it refers to the freedom of speech and information (data) security controversy brought up by Google.cn in January 2010. After a massive cyber-attack on Google accounts, the company has stopped following the censorship regulations of the Chinese government. As it was written in the official blog of Google, there was ‘evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists⁴‘, which motivated the US-based executives of the company to reconsider the problem of censoring. As a result, the Chinese white paper stated that ‘Chinese citizens fully enjoy freedom of speech on the Internet. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China confers on Chinese citizens the right to free speech. With their right to freedom of speech on the Internet protected by the law, they can voice their opinions in various ways on the Internet. <…> The Chinese government is determined to unswervingly safeguard the freedom of speech on the Internet enjoyed by Chinese citizens in accordance with the law’ [10]. The paper proceeds with the clarification of the legal aspects of Internet activity, and states that ‘no organization or individual may utilize telecommunication networks to engage in activities that jeopardize state security, the public interest or the legitimate rights and interests of other people. <…>  The Decision of the National People's Congress Standing Committee <…> clearly prohibit the spread of information that contains contents subverting state power, undermining national unity, infringing upon national honor and interests, inciting ethnic hatred and secession, advocating heresy, pornography, violence, terror and other information that infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of others’ [10]. It is obvious that according to the Chinese law, any activity of Chinese human rights activists is regarded as illegal, as any production, duplication and dissemination of certain types of content is prohibited. The list of types of such activities was also introduced in the white paper:

‘being against the cardinal principles set forth in the Constitution; endangering state security, divulging state secrets, subverting state power and jeopardizing national unification; damaging state honor and interests; instigating ethnic hatred or discrimination and jeopardizing ethnic unity; jeopardizing state religious policy, propagating heretical or superstitious ideas; spreading rumors, disrupting social order and stability; disseminating obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, brutality and terror or abetting crime; humiliating or slandering others, trespassing on the lawful rights and interests of others; and other contents forbidden by laws and administrative regulations’ [10].

The legitimacy of these regulations are national security reasons that indeed are present in every country, however, the main point is the scope of freedom of speech that becomes very much limited due to the Chinese law. As Min Jiang points out contrasting the attitude towards information security in the US and China, ‘The U.S. approach is individual-based, rights-centered, and market-driven. The Chinese approach, on the other hand, is state-centered. It emphasizes individual responsibilities over individual rights, maximum economic benefits, and minimal political risk for the one-party state’ [40].

The text of the white paper follows the main Internet law - NPC Standing Committee’s Decision on Safeguarding Internet Security (published December 28, 2000). The document lists the same requirements for the published content which should be met by the Internet providers. Article 16 of the Decision states that the monitoring of the content published by users should be prevented from further dissemination by the Internet providers, and that the recording of such incidents should also be kept by the providers to be further provided to the corresponding governmental department.

A closer look on the later published National People’s Congress Standing Committee Decision concerning Strengthening Network Information Protection gives more information on the ways of ensuring the ‘harmonious environment’. For example, Article 6 imposes an obligation on the users to provide real personal information to the providers at the registration stage.

Sina Weibo as the Main Platform for Internet Discussion Sina Weibo (or sometimes referred to as just Weibo) corporation (新浪微博, xīnlàng wēi bó) is, according to the introductory information posted on its website webio.com, is ‘a leading social media platform for people to create, distribute and discover Chinese-language content’ [43]. The microblogging project was launched on August 14, 2009 by media company SINA, the creator of a digital network SINA.com. Sina.com has several region specific websites in mainland China (www.sina.com.cn), Taiwan (www.sina.com.tw), Hong Kong (www.sina.com.hk), and North America (www.sina.com). Every of the mentioned portals provide the choice of several entertainment and news channels. Weibo.com is a hybrid platform having features of both microblogs (the messages posted through Weibo should not exceed 140 characters) and social networks (with the options of adding personal information, information about preferences, participation of different interest groups, uploading images, music files and video), with the possibility of asymmetric user relations: it is possible for the users to follow the activity of others without being followed by that user. Being called on its introductory web page ‘a microcosm of Chinese society’ [43], Weibo, according to its statistical data, by the end of 2013 had 129.1 million of monthly active users and 61.4 million daily active users. 2.8 billion feeds were shared on Weibo in December 2013 with 2.2 billion feeds containing images [43]. The range of products provided by the platform allows registration of not only individuals, but also organizations; organizations, as well as famous people, need to go through identification process after which they are given a special sign of verification on their pages and are considered officially registered users. Due to this option Weibo has become a popular tool for the rise of accountability among local and provincial governments.

The users of social networking and microblogging services of Weibo.com are also obliged to comply with the regulations imposed by the Ministry, as well as Weibo service is responsible for stopping the inappropriate content. The list of such content is put in the Weibo Community Management Regulations, Article 4 (see Appendix). However, the Internet community has found a clever way of combining self-expression with the obligatory self-censorship in the usage of user-edited images. As Jiang points out, ‘many Chinese Internet users have become more keenly aware of their rights as netizens and grown more adept at using euphemism, parody, and humor to criticize local and national government policies’ [40; 75].

Some preliminary conclusions for the Chapter 2 are presented below: \

1) If Internet community in China is considered a public sphere, then it should also be taken into account that the structure of this public sphere is more or less homogenous, as it was shown through statistics;

2) strict Internet information protection policy does not allow free circulation of all types of information, but leaves space for non-direct ways of sharing it and expressing opinion even on the sensitive topics, such as visual representation.
Chapter 3. Analysis of User-edited Humorous Images
This chapter presents the results of the visual analysis of the Internet memes circulating in the space of Weibo microblogging service that were censored soon after their publication, and explores their connection with the possibility of interpretation of Weibo-sphere as a separate public sphere of the Chinese society.

For the sampling of the uncensored pictures images of humorous content taken from the accounts of Weibo and published by China Digital Times from January 2013 to May 2014 were taken, 60 images total. There was a single criterion to it – the images had to have a logo of Weibo to make sure they were published there. The censored pictures samples were taken from two sources: the online tool WeiboScope, by daily monitoring the Censored Pictures section from May 28 to June 2 and picking up the images that had humorous realization of the main idea; and from the website of ProPublica ‘independent non-profit’ [12] project by picking up the images of humorous content. In total, 29 censored images from WeiboScope and 31 images from ProPublica were picked and analyzed according to the following methodology of visual analysis suggested by Piotr Sztompka: semiotic, structural and discursive analysis, and afterwards divided into groups according to the topic each image concentrates on.

Sztompka’s methodology implies the fourth stage of visual analysis – hermeneutic analysis, which plays the key role in defining the features of the creator. As the personality of the users of Weibo can only be identified by the Internet Service Providers, we cannot carry out this type of visual analysis, as we do not know any information about the user-author except for the nickname. Therefore this type of analysis was omitted in the current research.

For semiotic analysis it is crucial to decipher the signs present in the image. For the interpretation, according to the methodology suggested by Sztompka, it is convenient to use the classification introduced by Charles Pierce, who differentiated three types of signs: icons, indices and symbols. For the semiotic analysis the first step was to define what kind of signs were present in the image, what denotations and connotations they had. The connotations have to be interpreted from the perspective of the Chinese cultural norms, as the images are supposed to circulate in the Chinese Internet cyberspace and are to be perceived by the Chinese. Sztompka also suggests paying attention on the special elements in the image that are the first to gab the audience’s attention – any kind of detail which moves all the rest of the picture to the background and bears the key element of meaning. This detail is called a punctum according to the terms of the scholar who introduced it – Bart, and is characterized by him as a ‘condensed, synthetic way of transmitting the meaning, which is presented to the audience directly without any preliminary analysis’ [28; 88].

Structural analysis is focused on the interpretation of the indicators of social structure expressed through the details of the depicted objects in the image. Discursive analysis is focused on the context which defines the ways in which an image can be interpreted by the audience, which includes the current sociopolitical situation in the society. The audience is free to find new connotations in the image that would correlate with the real situation even if the image was created long before the time of the image perception, and therefore can add or modify the initial meanings presupposed by the author of the image. This process is exceptionally noticeable in the cyberspace, where an anonymous viewer can easily edit an image according to his/her perception of the depicted situation and thus shift the punctum of the image.
Results

During the analysis 60 popular images from Weibo, 29 images from WeiboScope and 32 images from ProPublica were divided into groups according to the main topics to which the attention of the netizens was supposed to be attracted. The groups defined for the uncensored images include: Leaders, Political system, Inner territorial conflicts, Censorship, Foreign affairs, History, Society, Critique of Officials, Environment, Media, International Organizations. One of the images taken from ProPublica was rendered as Unrelated, because the author failed to find any connection of the image to the Chinese context. The results of the analysis are presented in the form of a table in Appendix 4, the more detailed analysis is made on separate examples of the most large categories, and is presented below.

Critique of Officials

The group of images is focused on the critique of the Chinese officials, mainly, corruption problem. The most representative examples of the first sampling are Fig. 1, 2 and 3, the detailed analysis of which will be done further in the text.

Fig. 1. Example of Critique of Officials category	Fig. 2. Example of Critique of Officials category	Fig. 3. Example of Critique of Officials category

Fig. 1 shows a man fishing while sitting in an armchair placed on the top of an island which resembles China by its shape. There are many more people on the island, but the man is placed above all them, moreover, his figure is bigger, which indicates his higher social status and importance. All of the people are fishing with fishing rods, however, the man with the higher social status not only has as many fishing rods as there are people on the island, but is also fishing no fairly – having his rods thrown not in the sea, but in the buckets with the catch of other fishermen. The image has an inscription – a phrase ‘劳动致富’, which means ‘work hard and get rich’, a motto associated with Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms [33]. Fishing with a rod is a very underproductive type of labor. The fact that everybody shown in the picture is practically in the same position fishing with the rod symbolizes the equality of the people in their mass on the way to better life. The man is dressed like all others, and even wearing a Mao-style cap, which was popular in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years among the leaders of the CCP as part of their costume that was supposed to show how close to the people their leaders are. Despite being formally close to the people and doing the same thing as they do, this man, however, has another way of earning his living: by taking parts of their catch from everybody. The whole environment is playing for his favor: the whole scene is taking place at night, when the fishermen can see neither what to do to make the process more efficient, nor the fact that they are actually being robbed. Another important detail is the way the people are portrayed: a viewer can hardly see facial expressions of the people, but the face of the official is drawn in detail, and it is obvious by his smiley expression that he is quite satisfied with his comfortable way of living. This fact stresses the unimportance of every single person in the mass, and how well-known those who steal from the ‘buckets’ of these people are. The image was published on Weibo in 2013 in the very beginning of January, and the previous year’s case of Bo Xilai (薄熙来), a party chief in Chongqing who was accused of organized crimes and large-scale corruption activities, had served as a background. Overall, the image emphasizes the unfair ways officials use thanks to their privileged position, while the people are left ‘in the dark’ working hard to get richer.

Fig. 2 depicts a non-trivial Statue of Liberty, which a viewer can recognize by the posture, the crown and the platform. The statue does not have its conventional denotation of freedom and democracy due to the replacement of virtually all the details with the elements of the Chinese reality. The statue itself is not a woman but a man, moreover, we can clearly see his profession – he is an official – by the costume. What he is wearing is often called a ‘Mao suit’ – a type of jacket which became popular thanks to Sun Yat-Sen and had been almost a uniform for officials before the 90’s. He is quite plump, has a double chin which gives us a hint that his income is high enough to afford overeating. This outfit symbolizing how close the officials should be with the people and how they should not copy blindly the Western trends, is comically combined with the Hermès belt. The choice of the brand in the picture is not random - Hermès is claimed to be one of the favorite choices of luxury gifts and accessories for and among the Chinese officials [44].

Another noticeable feature of the statue is the watches. The first one of the officials who was noticed to like luxury brand watches was the head of Shaanxi province Yang Dacai (杨达才), who, for his love to this accessory, was from August 2012 referred to as 表哥, a ‘Brother Wristwatch’. Since that time and since the introduction of large-scale anti-corruption campaign, the watches have become an inseparable attribute of corrupted officials, and then itself transformed in the sphere of social networks into a symbol of corruption. The number of the watches – three – is a witty way to capture a popular wordplay in the visual form. The phrase 带三个表 (‘ wearing three watches’) is an anagram of 三个代表 – ‘Three Represents’ – the name of an ideology introduced by Jiang Zemin at the 16th CPC Congress in 2002 [45]. The theory presents the new attitude to what role the Party plays in the Chinese society, with the stress on economic production, cultural development and representation of the majority of the people. The last one was considered to be a step to democratization; however, as it can be seen from the image, it failed in this and turned out to be representing the interests of the businessmen and officials.

The figure stands on the platform made up of packs of newspapers. The platform represents the support from the ideologically non-independent media; the additional tools for the guarding of the official’s standpoint is the law in one hand and the axe in the other. The viewer can see the axe already risen and ready to attack anyone who would dare to attempt on the official’s position. All in all, the image is a representation of the power, wealth and self-protection of the bureaucracy.

Fig. No.3 is an illustration to the news about the number of participants of the national civil service examinations [42]. According to the statistics published in the article, the popularity of the examination as a pathway to the brighter future is so popular, that at times only 1 out of 7192 people who had taken the exam would pass and actually get a job in the national civil service. The image referring to that article depicts a mass of university graduates trying to fit into one bowl: a ‘golden bowl’, 金饭碗, historical background of which dates back to the imperial times, when only Emperors could afford the dishes made of gold. Later the phrase金饭碗 gained another connotation of a very well-paid job, which now refers to the officials’ position. The ‘golden’ bowl has a star on the bottom – this is not only a symbol of socialism, this is a reference to the appearance of the official stamps – a red star in the center. The viewer can see that there are obviously too many people who want to fit into the space under the bowl, and some of them are not even bothered by the fact that during the struggle they have even lost their caps, which is quite close to the loss of dignity.

As for the censored pictures, this category is not represented by numerous examples. They portray Bo Xilai, and a foreigner wearing a Red Guard cap. Approve of Bo Xilai has been a taboo topic since the time of the trial over him; as for the second image, it is accompanied by the highly aggressive text, which could have been the main reason for the post deletion, as there are no particularly obvious violations of the censorship law in the image.

Overall, the pictures presented in this group are all underline the weaknesses and the undeserved power and wealth of the bureaucracy, the expressive techniques that are used the most are the use of symbolic images and details and the visual representation of wordplays.