The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently released the 2009 Blue Book of China's Society. In the Blue Book, the 2008 Analysis of Public Sentiment on China's Internet points out that, to date, the Internet is the main source of news for 206 million Chinese which accounts for 68.6% of the total Internet users in China. The Internet has become an important source of public opinion.
According to researchers from the public sentiment monitoring division of the People's Daily Online who were responsible for the report, 2008 has been a year in which the Internet in China has continued its rapid development, popularization and application. By June 30, 2008, Chinese netizens totaled 253 million, ranking first in the world. During the initial development stages of the Internet, Chinese netizens mainly used the Internet as a source of entertainment and social networking, but a new change took place in 2008. Now a huge number of netizens use the Internet as a news source. In the first half of this year, readers of online news increased from 51.64 million to 206 million.
Chinese netizens have been closely following current affairs, which has created an atmosphere of rich online public opinion. The Internet, a sea of information, has become a major generative source of public opinion. A survey shows that Chinese netizens are mainly comprised of young people aged 30 and below and this group accounts for 68.6% of total Internet users. They are more accustomed to getting news and information and expressing their opinions via the Internet.
By People's Daily Online
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