Journalism and mnemonic practices in Chinese social media: Remembering catastrophic events on Weibo

Collective memory and cultural authority of journalism in the digital age

Collective memory is mainly conceptualized through the past–present relationship and its multiple social purposes. Collective memory is a product of interaction between a society’s intellectual-cultural traditions, memory producers, and consumers (Kansteiner, 2002). By actively constructing the past through collaboration of individual social members (Halbwachs, 1992) or selection of existing past resources (Schwartz, 1982), collective memory serves the needs and purposes of the present. It is a partial representation of the past in an ever-changing formation over time and space (Zelizer, 1995). The practices of remembering in society involve the acquisition of identity through memory, the contention between dominant memory and its alternatives, and the malleability of memory as a product of the present (Olick and Robbins, 1998: 12).

In the digital age, with the “instantaneous or near-instantaneous accessibility of individual and public archives” (Hoskins, 2009: 41), updating and archiving can occur simultaneously. Abundant volumes of contents are immediately available through the connectivity facilitated by digital technologies, making memory in contemporary culture an “ongoing trajectory of connections” (Hoskins, 2009: 278). With the simultaneous unfolding and archiving of an event, the boundaries between past and present and between memory producers and consumers become increasingly blurred.

The news media establish cultural authority by contributing to defining the meaning of the past. Media become important cultural vehicles through which public knowledge about the past is handed down (Schudson, 1992). The media are both an arena wherein competing socio-cultural forces seek to define collective memory and a participant in that competition as one of the cultural authorities narrating the past (Neiger et al., 2011). Our memory of an event usually includes how media covered the event (Olick, 2014). Through shared interpretations of key public events, journalists form a coherent group identity and authority, creating a “repertoire of past events” which is used as a standard to judge contemporary events and actions (Zelizer, 1993: 223–234). Journalists and media also position themselves as public historians who define the national memory through celebrating their own anniversaries (Kitch, 2002). News stories can create a cultural narrative that incorporates the deaths of prominent and ordinary people (past and present) into a “single, ongoing story about meaning of loss, mourning and sacrifice” (Kitch and Hume, 2008: xiv). Journalism also enables the invocation of past events to mobilize public opinion and engender public engagement (Zelizer, 2010). With the rise of citizen witnesses (Allan, 2013), traditional media seem to fall behind the information relay during an event. As this research will show, however, the presence of journalists and their institutions on social media still grant them a central, authoritative position in memory making. Additionally, journalism not only creates a connection between past and present but also looks toward the future. It helps set public agendas and reminds the public to remember what needs to be done during an ongoing event in order to solve the crisis, a unique contribution of journalism’s role in building collective memory (Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2013).

News narrative contains multiple temporal layers that serve different purposes in news production: updating, reporting, contextualization, commemoration, anticipation, and projection (Neiger and Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2016: 18–19). This study identifies three kinds of mnemonic practices corresponding to the temporal layers in the news production process: online commemoration, memory accumulation, and writing the first draft of history. Online commemoration is an act of instantaneously remembering in the present, when social media users are motivated by the nonstop updates regarding loss of life to pay tribute to victims in the moment. Memory accumulation draws on the past and contextualizes the present. Past events with similar elements are recalled as the story develops, positioning the ongoing event in a larger social and historical context. Writing the first draft of history is future-oriented. Journalists position themselves as witnesses of history for the future, mobilizing other social media users to capture and store ongoing events for future remembering in a shrinking space of expression.

In the Chinese context, the significance of journalism in making collective memory has been highly underestimated in scholarly inquiries. In the twentieth century, Chinese journalists identified themselves as intellectuals with the mission to inform and enlighten the people. They were nourished by various competing intellectual traditions and political ideologies during different eras across that century such as Confucianism, liberal-pluralism, and communism (Lee, 2005). During the reform era in particular, the younger generation of Chinese journalists highly regarded professionalism as a strategy to push for social change and justice among the entangled interests of state and market (Polumbaum, 2008). The identification with intellectuals spurs Chinese journalists to look toward past experiences and cultural resources for inspiration (De Burgh, 2003).

On a social media platform like Weibo, various technological features and operational strategies sustain a hierarchy of information flows that favor journalism. China is the only state that licenses journalists, who must complete certain training programs and pass exams to renew their press cards which are issued by centralized agencies (Zhao, 2008). Achieving these credentials becomes a source of their legitimacy; Chinese journalists also place high regard on professional standards and, in defense of those standards, maintain a distinction between professional journalism and the “amateur” (citizen) news reporting which has been rising in the digital age (Tong, 2015). On Weibo, the legitimacy of journalism is established by the speaker (usually a journalist or media organization user with verifiable identity), in a legitimate situation (at the site of a developing news event where uncertainty and anxiety abound), addressed to legitimate recipients (the public in need of credible, up-to-date information) (Bourdieu, 1991). The only exception is when a journalist must transgress professional boundaries (Bourdieu, 1991) and report firsthand updates on his or her personal behalf in order to circumvent censorship. Sometimes journalists would register two accounts, one verified with their institutional affiliation and the other for personal use; in cases of emergency, they would use their personal accounts to post live updates. He or she can then be seen as speaking in the public interest and thus with more authority than the media or state authorities.

The Chinese Internet is largely a language-based practice deeply rooted in China’s history of social contention and creativity (Yang, 2009). Despite the existing hierarchy, the Chinese Internet is also a space for heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981; Yang, 2009), often expressed in the form of playfully mocking official authorities (Yang, 2009). Weibo is situated within this larger trend toward diminished deference to official authority in Internet-based communication. Journalists and media have a special position in this process. Marginalized groups need to connect to more privileged users to get their voices out (Svensson, 2014), users which include journalists and the media. While they enjoy privileges on platforms like Weibo, they are always mediators of the contention between the “common people” and official authority, and sometimes directly confront the state power.

Research methods

This research examines the emerging discourses on Weibo about the “7.23” high-speed train accident, a critical moment for the Weibo platform. This study focused mainly on the first 8 days after the accident took place (23–31 July 2011). The topic pages (and hashtag topics) created by Weibo administrators enabled the identification of relevant users involved in discussion of the event. To a large extent, Weibo users enjoyed freedom in discussing the event, despite an official “guideline” on 24 July by the Central Publicity ¹ Department of the Communist Party. ² An official ban was not issued until 29 July, which became a turning point for online discourses. I continued the observation for 2 days after the ban mainly to capture public responses, especially those from journalists. I categorized users who were involved in these events, representing different social groups and levels of affiliation with media institutions. The categories include witnesses, local officials (and police), local and provincial journalists and media institutions, dispatched (non-local, national media) journalists, other media-affiliated individuals and organizations, scholars, celebrities, and Weibo staff. I also closely followed emerging events after 31 July 2011 during which the discussion of “7.23” recurred over time.

During the first 8-day period of the extensive discussion surrounding “7.23,” I observed Weibo interactions and collected Weibo posts three times a day in the morning, late afternoon, and evening (Beijing Time, GMT + 8), with varying in and out times each day. Across these interactions and collected posts, I looked for patterns of mnemonic practices among the author; the self-identified or verified identity (affiliation); the number of reposts and replies, sources, and key words with explicit and implicit references to “remembering,” “memory,” and past time periods and events; and responses to the posts.

I also located Weibo users who were actively engaged in “7.23” and other public events. I posted a public call for participants on Weibo and sent private messages to invite relevant users, from which I obtained 18 in-depth interviews. ³ These 18 participants are active Weibo users including journalists, columnists and commentators, media scholars and researchers, ordinary citizens, and Weibo staff in charge of the platform’s operation. They have constantly posted contents such as live updates, blog posts, and personal opinions. I asked them about their views on Weibo based on their own experiences, particularly their experiences on Weibo during “7.23” and other events in which they were involved. Each participant was assigned a pseudonym for analysis.

Online commemoration

Commemoration could potentially mobilize public emotions toward structural change in a society (Doss, 2012: 60). Online commemorative activities include live updates of mourning after breaking news of a disaster with casualties, and voluntary commemorations on anniversaries and other specific occasions. Beyond reporting the loss of life, journalism also acts out commemorations, giving the deaths of people national significance (Kitch and Hume, 2008). Online commemoration provides opportunities for an immediate grief process and for contesting forced forgetting implemented by state authorities through web administrators. However, this instant commemoration gradually loses political meaning as it becomes more formulaic.

Spontaneous mourning took place while the story of “7.23” unfolded on Weibo. Condolences, candle emoji, lists of victims, pictures, and user-generated videos were circulated as the names and personal information of victims were gradually released. The spontaneous mourning paid tribute to victims with a mixture of news stories, mourning, and pleading. Stories appearing in traditional media that featured individual victims were transported to Weibo and went viral. For example, China Youth Daily published a feature titled A Train that Never Arrives, presenting stories of two college students who died in the accident on their way home. ⁴ The image of the newspaper page and story excerpts were posted to Weibo and widely circulated, with a single Weibo post by a media professional receiving over 40,000 total reposts. ⁵ Another example is a story of the last rescued passenger, a 1-year-old girl later known as “Little Yi-Yi” (Xiao Yi-Yi), who lost her parents. A magazine website account posted an excerpt from its story, which served as a plea to continue probing for the causes of the accident: “Yi-Yi, for you, who are still in the hospital, and the lives buried underneath forever, the truth should not be buried anymore …” ⁶ A picture of Yi-Yi sitting in her seat on the train, posted by her father on 15 July during their departure trip not knowing that their return trip would never bring him home, was reposted more than 220,000 times after his death and also appeared at the anniversary a year later. ⁷ Traditional media provided these individual victims’ stories and, as they circulated among Weibo users, produced emotional attachments for the mourning public to express grief for the suffering of strangers—especially the young victims.

Journalists and media organizations also initiated online commemorations to contest the state’s ban on media coverage. Several orders were issued immediately after the accident, but did not take full effect until the final order on 29 July. From then on, no media outlets, including the Internet, were allowed to probe further into the accident, especially to present negative portrayals of state and local officials and the high-speed railway system and technology. The investigation into the cause of the accident was also suspended. ⁸ By that time, however, the incident had attracted attention from national and global media, and journalists and media organizations did not stop promoting commemoration on Weibo. Online commemoration became a means of voicing discontent and anger toward the officials’ attempt to force forgetting and the inappropriate treatment of victims in the aftermath. The day the ban was issued (29 July) coincided with the traditional Chinese “Seventh-Day Memorial,” which takes place on the seventh day after one’s death. The “Seventh-Day Memorial” funeral tradition became an opportunity to push railway officials to respond to the public’s questions and anger, and to take further action to investigate and prevent such catastrophes from recurring. Weibo accounts of media organizations and some local channels of Sina’s portal website joined in promoting a hashtag topic “Seventh-Day Memorial of 7.23,” stating “we will keep probing for the truth,” “we need to remember, and we also want the truth,” and “truth is the best way to remember.” ⁹ Given that further investigation was forbidden and the media were silenced, online commemorations on Weibo served as a reminder that the public had not forgotten and further mobilized people to push for the truth and to hold relevant officials and institutions accountable.

In 2012, on the 1-year anniversary of the “7.23” accident, the topic was still forbidden for the news media, with no official follow-up or response given. An investigative journalist commented,

The gag order (jinling) is still there. As traditional media, we can’t do anything. A friend of mine just came back from Wenzhou for the anniversary coverage. They planned eight pages. But later they had to cancel all … Only on Weibo can we say something. We work for the media, and we are very sensitive to dates and anniversaries. We had plans for special reports. But this anniversary … oh, it’s just so disgusting. No commemoration was allowed. ¹⁰

This comment illustrates the dilemma faced by media and journalists. Their sensitivity to time and dates and proximity to relevant sources would have made it convenient to publish something special on the anniversary. However, they were not allowed to do so because of their media affiliations. Weibo provided a space with relative (although still quite limited) freedom to commemorate the event. For example, on 23 July 2012, a daily newspaper’s investigative department ¹¹ posted links to five stories published the year before. A financial columnist posted,

… On the night of July 23, last year, trains D3115 and D301 crashed and derailed near Wenzhou. Forty people died and 200 were injured. The State Council stated that it was a severe accident due to negligence, but why haven’t we seen the officials in the Ministry of Railways being charged of their crime? ¹²

A former columnist took a team to Wenzhou for an anniversary tribute and posted an excerpt of his blog to Weibo on 24 July 2012:

That open area where the Premier ¹³ stood and made promise to people has now been cemented. That muddy pond with lotus flowers, which used to hold the locomotive engine, is now filled with rubble … Silently, everything was buried underneath. In this strong nation, we have no memorials, only a shining pen deleting memories. ¹⁴

Since no public response from the railway officials was made after a year, these anniversary posts again highlighted problems with Chinese high-speed railway projects (including safety issues and the corruption of railway officials) and stories about individual victims. They lamented the forced forgetting and expressed discontent with the lack of follow-up by relevant officials and institutions. They called for remembering and carrying on the investigation to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future.

This pattern of online commemoration can be found in subsequent events with the death of ordinary citizens in disasters and accidents. “7.23” is regarded as a landmark event by the Weibo operation team. ¹⁵ The circulation of candle emoji and names of victims, and the hashtag “Seventh-Day Memorial” became routine practices in later events. Journalists and the media initiated real-time mourning and anniversaries with emotional expressions, supported by Sina. Commemoration serves as a reminder to the public to press for information transparency and accountability of officials.

However, in later events where the official media have become increasingly active on Weibo, the meaning of commemoration has also changed. For example, the Weibo account People’s Daily (@renminribao) was launched publicly in the midst of a deadly thunderstorm and flood in Beijing (21 July 2012), right before the “7.23” anniversary. Operated by media professionals well versed in social media language, this account has successfully gained legitimacy by siding with the suffering victims and calling for information transparency. Such criticism, however, is often light in tone. A sharp critique would usually be accompanied by a more positive message, as illustrated by its comments on the “7.23” anniversary commemoration:

In memory of the high-speed train accident, for the painful moment on that day, the government, in particular, needs to conduct a thorough self-reflection. Prematurely abandoning rescue work for the sake of traffic resumption, burying the wreckage before the public eye, the spokesperson fooling the public and the media—all these indicated how arrogant the state power is, and its negligence of the dignity and life of its people … ¹⁶

Yet this critical post was followed by a much lighter toned post focused on celebrating the power of “the Chinese people” and Weibo:

One year ago, on July 23, a high-speed train accident happened, and people realized the power of Weibo. This year, on July 21, Weibo played a more significant part in the public response to the thunderstorm in Beijing. Small as Weibo is, it has witnessed the Chinese people’s willingness of helping each other, as well as the progress being made in information transparency and social governance. ¹⁷

While the first post is sharply critical, the second sounds hopeful and celebratory. The leading Party newspaper’s Weibo account maintains a balanced position, and Weibo has granted it more flexibility to perform complicated roles in building public memory.

Memory accumulation

Journalists can quickly make sense of what is happening through routines formed during past stories they covered, a process called “typification” (Tuchman, 1978). They also draw on familiar elements of the past to create a broader meaning for the present (Kitch and Hume, 2008). Recalling past events situates the present in a broader context, giving it greater social significance. With the condensed display of past and present events on Weibo, an event happening now can be quickly linked to a similar event which happened “then.”

The “7.23” accident has become a node that connects numerous past incidents, and a significant past to be recounted later. Various aspects of the accident have been connected to similarities found in multiple past events such as the large number of casualties, the official negligence and inhumanity, and young child victims. These connections led the public to target Chinese railway officials for pushing the technological advance of high-speed railways at the expense of safety and for their mercilessness toward ordinary citizens.

Upon witnessing the burying of the train wreckage without additional effort toward investigation and rescue, some journalists recalled similar conduct in past, less well-known train accidents:

Smashing the train cars, burying them immediately, and resuming the traffic as soon as possible…Reminded by [@Weibo ID of another journalist], I found the story of a derailing accident of train K859 by Life Week last year [link to the story]. “The train cars that were severely mangled were buried right there — they were smashed by several giant excavators and buried…just for resuming the traffic in no time.” ¹⁸

Similarly, a former investigative journalist and writer posted an image of the front page of People’s Daily on 7 March 1988 which featured stories of railway and aviation officials being dismissed from their positions following a train accident and an airplane crash. ¹⁹ Given his experiences of covering major catastrophes during his years as a journalist in the 1980s, these precedents were within his personal repository to which he could immediately relate. Excavating past stories helped establish a past–present connection less obvious to the present public and suggested that—unlike their precedents—today’s railway officials did not receive the punishment they deserved.

A devastating accident involving numerous deaths, “7.23” not only revealed the problems in overall quality of the high-speed railway system but also the issue of passenger safety, especially the most vulnerable group—the children. Later the “7.23” accident became an immediate reference, attracting more public attention to multiple new accidents of a similar nature. Similar but small-scale accidents also invited further questioning of the past (“7.23”). At the end of 2011, two school bus accidents within 2 weeks took place in rural areas wherein schoolchildren in overloaded vehicles were killed. These accidents were immediately connected to previous ones, with “7.23” still fresh in people’s minds. A weekly news magazine posted a summary of major events with child victims in 2011 for a year-end special edition titled “Chinese children”: “When the wound of Little Yi-Yi has not been healed yet, the school buses hurt us again. This year, we have seen so many sufferings of our children, and we don’t know how to explain to them …” ²⁰ The two school bus accidents invited sharp critique of officials’ negligence of child safety, as “Little Yi-Yi” of “7.23” was connected to the schoolchildren who died in these accidents.

Together with summaries of the year’s accidents in traditional media, past accidents involving child victims were also cited, such as those who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake due to the poor quality of school buildings and the thousands of babies who were suffering from poisoned milk powder and baby formula. ²¹ For example, @Caijingwang, Weibo account of the website of a financial magazine, posted excerpts from its investigative report questioning the investigation of the cause of “7.23.” ²² A documentary director who made a film about a 1996 auditorium fire in Karamay, Xinjiang, ²³ responded, “It’s been seventeen years since the Karamay fire. Yet the truth is still unknown.” ²⁴ These past incidents with child victims were cited to criticize the official authority’s negligence and disrespect for individual lives, especially those of vulnerable children.

The present is situated in context of a chain of past events featuring similarly unresolved issues. Past events become more powerful when they are linked to the present, which reinforces the news value of the present story and enables more powerful criticisms of visible flaws in the current political system. This pattern recurred later, for example, when a thunderstorm and flood hit Beijing and killed 77 people on 21 July 2012. Live updates about the flood and instant mourning for the victims were interwoven with the “7.23” anniversary commemorations, and the juxtaposition of the two reinforced the consequence of government negligence and lack of post-disaster information transparency. This connection powerfully mobilized another round of public mourning expressing grief for both disasters and the questioning of official accountability—although the latter thread disappeared quickly. ²⁵

In 2014, when two aircrafts crashed in mid- and late July (an MH17 shot down by a missile in Ukraine, and a GE222 which crashed in Taiwan), “7.23” was also referenced as the dates of the former two catastrophes were very close to its third anniversary. For example, Beijing Times posted on Weibo,

On July 23, 2011, a high-speed train accident happened in Wenzhou. On July 23, 2014, an aircraft crashed in Taiwan … Nobody knows when disasters would fall on us. Please remember D301, D3115, MH370, MH17, and GE222. ²⁶ We must remember everyone. ²⁷

However, unlike the frequent mentions in the past, this was one of only a few instances when “7.23” received mention on Weibo, represented by the train numbers of the two crashed trains. Posts like these connected similar catastrophes with large numbers of casualties. Fresh fatal disasters brought “7.23” back into the public mind, but by this time it had become completely stripped of its original political meaning.

Writing the first draft of history

With their self-identification as intellectuals and ideas of professionalism, Chinese journalists have a strong sense of historical responsibility for the future generation. ²⁸ The mission of writing down history is always bundled with Chinese journalists’ aspirations toward professional fame (Pan and Lu, 2003). On Weibo, writing the first draft of history is a response to the dual challenges of Chinese journalism: racing to keep pace with the fast speed of information and technological updates, and increasingly sophisticated state control.

Journalists use Weibo to address their fear of failing to record history in the face of a shrinking space for expression. They express grievances against the censorship machine for preventing them from keeping their original records for the future. After the gag order issued to all media outlets on 29 July 2011, journalists expressed their vulnerability and hopelessness on Weibo. A photojournalist of The Beijing Times posted,

… Seven days’ sorrow does not bring hope to the eighth day. From burying the truth on site to suffocating the truth in the press, they (the official authorities) revealed their true face. ²⁹

My colleague in the frontline said to me, “I want to send a flower [to the victims] on your behalf, but I could not even reach [the site].” I said to my friend, “Dear brother, you’re risking your life to find the truth, but I cannot have your story published. I didn’t help you to fulfill your promise to the victims’ families. I’m so sorry!” ³⁰

These emotion-filled posts indicated the journalist’s disappointment and despair at failing to record history and pass on the memory. “Everyone has its grievance, but in an unstable society like China, because of strict control, this (Weibo) is the only channel where we [journalists] can speak up.” ³¹ “Because so many restrictions are placed on the traditional media, we are unable to record history. Now we can do nothing (via traditional media).” ³²

The feelings of hopelessness among the mainstream media led to the expansion of journalists’ sense of responsibility and activity to preserve memories through Weibo. They mobilized their followers to store and repost contents containing censorable evidence of developing stories that might later be deleted, including on-site photos and videos, firsthand witness accounts, or links to related blogs. After the 29 July ban was issued, the Weibo account of an online journalists’ forum posted three videos, all of which were aired by the national television (CCTV) with the plea, “Please save the three videos aired on CCTV before they are deleted.” ³³ Because the hosts and journalists featured in these videos publicly expressed discontent with how officials handled the crisis, these videos were perceived to be vulnerable and likely to be suspended on TV and deleted on Weibo soon, which motivated their further circulation. A TV producer and journalist posted a link to her program about the accident, expressing strong determination to protect its media record:

The video uploaded to todou.com ³⁴ has already been deleted. Luckily the [name of the TV station] website is still streaming it. It doesn’t matter. We have patience. We will upload it again. One more view is better than nothing. ³⁵

As the traditional media were largely silenced, the pages of history were blanked. Weibo is regarded as the only platform upon which journalists and the public can rely to allow events to be recorded—at least in part—under such circumstances. Therefore, when journalists use Weibo, they have a sense of preserving the present for the future, making the best of the platform to leave traces of history.

In attempting to record the first draft of history, journalists can cross professional lines and have personal voices, but even this limited freedom has its price. “I am a journalist. It is hard to claim that my posts do not represent the institution I serve. Posting [personal] opinions, I think, would be much better than merely posting news, in order to avoid trouble,” one investigative journalist commented on his struggle. ³⁶ It is also quite usual for journalists to have their accounts suspended, even accounts registered for personal use. ³⁷ More often, Weibo has become a platform where journalists and media professionals who are punished for “crossing the line” during the coverage of public events like “7.23” could receive moral support. For example, a Shanghai-based newspaper vice chief editor was fired for leaving a blank section on a page where censored contents were supposed to appear. ³⁸ A Chinese national television (CCTV) producer was fired for continuing the investigation of “7.23” in his program. When the word got out about their punishments, large numbers of media professionals showed support for those individuals on Weibo: “It was the first time that I saw a media professional, a producer, being fired simply because he told the truth…”; ³⁹ “In recent years, it’s very hard for people in this industry to tell the truth.” ⁴⁰ The producer himself also posted to Weibo in response, affirming his commitment to speaking the truth—which he described as the “bottom-line of a society.” ⁴¹ In light of the ever-present threat of censorship, although journalists and media professionals do not always succeed to protect the raw materials of memory, they are portrayed as champions fighting on the frontline to preserve history. Thus, the performance of journalists and media organizations has become an important component in the memory of an event.

Journalists and media organizations also consolidate event materials through cross-media archiving. During “7.23,” the weekly newspaper 21st Century Business Herald collected major daily newspapers in China on the seventh day after the accident—the Seventh-Day Memorial—and put them into a single image file posted on Weibo with the following message, “now, we’re witnessing history. Life cannot be neglected. History will remember everything.” ⁴² Those newspapers were printed in diverse geographical locations across China. Since it is virtually impossible for an individual to read all the newspaper front pages in China on a given day, this collection significantly broadened the scope of one’s memory of the “7.23” accident in the media. Similarly, realizing that media coverage of “7.23” could be forced to stop at any time, an online portal also collected newspaper front pages with the post, “the final remembrance by media professionals.” ⁴³ Archiving media materials can be characterized as witnessing history, a major contribution that journalists and media organizations can make to collective remembering as a result of their proximity to these resources. Consequently, they are highly praised for this activity by their peers and other social groups. For example, a former investigative journalist posted, “Thank you, 21 Century Business Herald. Looking at the media, I found that my colleagues are all holding firm to professionalism. We have all recognized praiseworthy media.” ⁴⁴

The public need for information transparency has put pressure on journalists and media organizations to struggle against the sophisticated state control of media and information flow. Within a shrinking space of expression, witnessing history and preserving memories for the future become more challenging. Journalists call on the public to consolidate and preserve information about an event, and lament that state intervention contravenes their mission of writing the first draft of history. Traditional media synthesizes materials to highlight the news on Weibo, conveying key information through 140-character messages to attract a larger readership with the hope of preserving the materials as witnesses of history. Weibo has always sought to shift its marketing strategy away from a news platform at the heart of social contentions, which puts its survival at high risk. ⁴⁵ As a result, it may no longer be able to sustain journalists’ struggle for the right to record history. Meanwhile, journalists are migrating to Weixin (WeChat) and establishing personalized channels there. Weixin’s technological structures make connections between strangers more difficult than on Weibo, and therefore, it is more difficult to mobilize a large number of participants to collaboratively show support of journalists, to witness and preserve history.

Conclusion

This study contributes to the understanding of how digital media have transformed the formation of collective memory and what can be remembered. Scholars have been calling for the recognition of journalism in the work of memory and memory studies (Kitch, 2008; Olick, 2014; Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2013; Zelizer, 2008). This study highlights journalism’s role in the formation of collective memory and its social implications in the digital age.

The extensive coverage, nonstop updates, and blurred lines between reporting and archiving fill social media with firsthand accounts and fragmented narratives. As past and present news and memory become more closely connected and their boundaries less distinguishable in social media, the news narrative is becoming more temporally complicated. Within the first few days after the “7.23” accident, multiple events were brought to Weibo which had varied temporal distances to the immediate “now,” accompanied by the developing stories being updated instantly. All these were built into and complicated the temporal layers in the narrative of the “7.23” accident, which has in turn set a memory pattern for later events being reported and discussed on Weibo.

Collective memory is formed at multiple stages of news development, and is essentially built into the entire process of news making. On-site witnesses and dispatches bring in instant updates with latest developments, which facilitate instantaneous commemorative activities such as mourning and circulating information about the victims. Journalists and media usually take the lead to cover anniversaries of public events, which brings about new rounds of commemoration at the anniversary dates. In-depth investigation and analysis usually need to draw connections with similar past events, so the meaning of the ongoing event can be situated in a larger context of social issues. The suspension of media coverage and cancellation of printing and airing of the story could also prompt waves of protecting the evidence as the first draft of history, in the name of professionalism and journalists’ historical responsibility. Traditional media contents (images of front pages, videos clips, etc.) are highly valued materials that get widely circulated in social media, especially when they are deemed “vulnerable contents” targeted for censorship.

This study complicates the Western foundation upon which conceptualizations of collective memory are largely based, and recognizes the centrality of journalism in the work of collective memory in the Chinese context. Weibo is a product of uncertainty and anxiety of a transitional society in need of transparent information and respect for its citizen’s rights. Weibo privileges the use of language that serves the purpose of news making, from which journalists and media-affiliated groups and institutions benefit most to voice public grievances in the shrinking space of expression. This study of collective memory in relation to the contemporary transitional moment of Chinese society can shed light on studies of relationships between journalism, collective memory, and social media in other societies with less established democracies according to Western models, a hybrid media ownership, and a burgeoning Internet and digital culture coming hand-in-hand with the fast-changing modernization process (Chu and Cheng, 2011).