In the past, politics seemed to be a very serious topic in many countries, especially in China. Almost all the politicians in China are admired and respected by the public. People have a sense of fear towards the politicians. However, the situation has changed a lot with the changing of society. Especially when the produsage era comes, an increasing number of people has the access to the internet—a rather free and personal platform to get involved into the outside world, thus, the politicians have to take the internet into consideration and cannot ignore the power of internet anymore. Not only some western countries like Australia or America, but also the typical eastern country, China, has seen a serious of change in the way Chinese politicians using social media. In my opinion, Chinese politicians are using the social media in a more wise and correct way.
In the past, Chinese politicians always gave people a mysterious impression. People read about them from the newspaper, and saw them through the TV news. The common people in China had few opportunities to have some face to face communication with the politicians. That is partly because the traditional social media in China, like newspaper and television, cannot offer the platform for the public to have close contact with the politicians. However, the appearance of internet in China gives Chinese politicians the possibility to have more contact and interaction with the Chinese citizens. Take the main Chinese politicians as an example, in 2008, Chinese chairman Hu Jintao had a video chat with Chinese netizen and in 2009, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao had another video chat with Chinese netizen. A report on BBC website (Chinese version) said that, “this kind of close-communication between state leaders and the civilians is very rare even in the western countries, and there is no other country in the world can be comparable to China in having such communications in less than one year.”
（Chinese chairman Hu Jintao is having the video chat with the Chinese netizens)
I have to say that social media now plays a very important role in China, especially the internet. The internet is not only a useful channel for the yong people in China to learn about the politics, but also a good tool for Chinese people to “supervise” Chinese politicians.
On the one hand, the Chinese young people learn a lot about the politics through the internet. Almost all of my classmates in China have read the Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address or seen the related video online. Since the internet is very popular among Chinese young adults, more and more Chinese young adults use the internet to learn about current affairs both at home and aboard. This is good for both the Chinese politicians and the young adults. The Chinese politicians can use the internet to reach a wider audience, especially listen to the young citizens, and the young people in China can know what their government is doing and build up their sense of being the master of the country by being involved into the politics. For example, Zhou Jiugeng, one of the main politicians in Nan Jing, was found of receiving bribes by Chinese netizens and then was justly punished for his crimes.
On the other hand, since most people in China has the access to the internet whenever and wherever they are, the information can be spread very quickly online. As long as someone posts a message about some deeds of the government on the internet, the whole nation has the possibility to see it. Therefore, the politicians have to be very careful about what they have said and done. The internet, to some degree, can be used as a powerful tool to censor the government.
As long as I see, the relationship between politics and social media is hard to express. The social media can be used as a tool to censorship the citizen and can also be used as a channel for the citizen to learn about the whole world and in this way urge the politicians to keep the transparency of their work and make more effort in doing their work well. In this way, the social media is been used in a positive way to urge the politicians to behave well and make contributions to the nation.
(Social Networking Is Revolutionizing Politics--ABC news)
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