China Starts Research on Online JournalismThe first Internet laboratory in China is under construction at Qinghua University in Beijing, one of the country's most prestigious universities.The lab is designed for the study of Internet content to provide information and offer advice to China's electronic media. A book on the on-line journalism compiled by Qinghua University will be published later this year, the first of its kind in China. "We should never miss an opportunity which may occur only once in a thousand years," said Zhao Qizheng, director of the Information Office of the State Council, at a seminar on media communication via the Internet held at Qinghua on Wednesday in Beijing. Zhao said that China has been left behind in some areas since the first industrial revolution, and this is a a rare chance for China to begin even with the developed countries in developing and applying Internet technology. Chinese people began to have access to the Internet in 1994, and the number of Chinese citizens who use the Internet skyrocketed to nearly 10 million only five years later. "A decade ago, the Internet was used by scientists for data and discussions," according to Zhou Guangzhao, former president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). "Today, it has become a necessary tool for journalists, who report on deadline," he said. Wang Yan, general manager of Sina, the largest news website in China, compared the Internet with the steam engine, saying that when the Internet is combined with the traditional media it can play a much more efficient role in mass communication. Sina, along with the Legend Group, the largest computer manufacturer in China, will cooperate with Qinghua University in developing electronic media and Internet content and training editors and reporters for the electronic media. More than 80 scholars and experts from China and abroad attended Wednesday's seminar. |
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