Society

Micro blogs popular among officials

By Yan Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-25 08:04

BEIJING - At least 2,428 Chinese governmental agencies and officials have been posting short messages online using domestic micro-blogging services that are similar to Twitter, according to a research report published by the Fudan University on Friday.

By March 20, government and Party departments had opened 1,708 mico-blog accounts and officials had opened 720 accounts under their own names, according to a report titled The Research Report on Micro-blogs for Chinese Political Affairs.

The research tracked and analyzed official micro-blog accounts held with prominent Internet services such as Sina, Tencent and People.com.cn, a subsidiary of People's Daily.

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Official micro blogs posted on regional Internet portals such as the Shanghai-based Eastday.com and Xinmin.cn were also noted in the research, part of which considered the status of official micro blogs in Shanghai.

"Of all the official micro blog accounts, police authorities write the biggest portion and their micro blogs are the most helpful," said Zhang Zhi'an, the report's main author.

Chinese police authorities have opened 1,228 micro-blog accounts, which constitute about half the total number of official micro blogs in China. And 139 police officers have written micro blogs online, said the report.

For the police, micro-blogging has become a convenient means of publishing information and a way to ask Internet users to help them in investigations, said Zhang.

The report also concluded that authorities in southern China spent the most time writing micro blogs. Among Chinese provinces, East China's Jiangsu province contained the largest number of official micro-bloggers. By March 20, 279 government agencies in the province had set up micro-blog accounts.

East China's Fujian and Zhejiang provinces and South China's Guangdong province were also the places of origin for more than 100 official micro-blog accounts.

By taking into account the number of messages posted on the micro blogs and the number of followers each drew, the report listed the 10 most influential blogs maintained by authorities and by officials.

Among the top 10 were the public security bureaus of Guangdong and Hebei provinces and Beijing municipality. And Wu Hao, a senior publicity official in Southwest China's Yunnan province, and Zhang Chunxian, Party secretary of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, were among the officials who wrote the most influential micro blogs.

The report also found that 19 officials at the provincial level, such as provincial governors, wrote micro blogs online.

The report called on officials to try to improve their writing. "(The blogs) should unite an individual's style with authority and authenticity," Zhang said.