It's well worth your time to go and read the two articles that David Bandurski has written for the indispensible China Media Project on Yunnan deputy propaganda chief Wu Hao. In the first post, Bandurski gets under the hood of Wu's "citizens' investigation" into the now notorious "hide the cat" incident in which an inmate in a Yunnan prison met an unfortunate end, ostensibly in the midst of a tag-like prison-yard game. The case became an Internet sensation, and Wu very publicly invited a number of bloggers to take part into the "investigation" of the case:

We were told last Friday that the actions of the Yunnan government were historic: “This is the first time in the history of Internet broadcasting in China that the government has taken such a lofty position, inviting Web users to participate in an investigation,” reported the Yunnan Information Times in coverage re-played across the country. Replace “an investigation” with “policy planning” and it’s déjà vu 2003.

State media are playing this story as a case of popular empowerment. Chinese “netizens” are, we are told, taking the initiative and making real Hu Jintao’s 2007 promise that the party would “guarantee the people’s right to know, participate, express and supervise” (保障人民的知情权、参与权、表达权、监督权).

Admittedly, it’s a great story. The only trouble is, it’s absolute fiction.

The real story here, folks, is very, very simple. It’s not about social and political change. It’s not about the CCP’s pledge to bring greater transparency to government affairs. It’s not (really) about the power of the Internet in China.

Bandurski gets into Wu's history and his real viewpoint into the role of the Internet in the management of public opinion in China. (The comments are worth reading as well.) In a second post, Bandurski delves further into Wu's philosophy of information management, digging into his speeches and written works. Both posts present an interesting picture of a representative of a young generation of cadres who combine a relatively high level of net-savvy with fairly traditional perspectives on the management of information and "guidance" of public opinion. (A third post, up earlier this weekend, includes a translation of a Southern Weekend editorial on the problem of the blurring line between "web friends" and public officials.)

As a PR person, it's been interesting watching this case unfold. Any glimpse into the mechanism of the management of online public opinion, especially by the Chinese government, is fascinating. The government has a fairly comprehensive set of tools at its disposal, from monitoring, to astroturfing (the legendary x-thousand Internet police and 50-cent tribe who post pro-government messages on forums and blogs), to explicit powers to shut down entire topics. While reasonably effective, all of these tools are also fairly unsubtle. Listen. Bombard. Switch off. We're not really talking surgical PR here.

When I first read about Wu Hao's inclusion of bloggers into his investigation, I thought he was engaging in a somewhat more subtle technique: Coopting representatives of a potentially troublesome stakeholder group to defuse them. An analog in corporate PR is engaging a potentially adversarial NGO in some kind of dialogue (something that happens with varying degrees of sincerity, depending upon the parties involved). In this case, engaging a bunch of uppity netizens promotes the appearance of transparency, makes people think their concerns are being addressed and, possibly, swells the heads of a few well-selected potential advocates by giving them enough access to feel important (a very common technique in all kinds of PR, but especially political PR).

However, it's become clear in further coverage that something else might have been at work: Another variation on old-fashioned astroturfing. From the New York Times:

Although the reaction to Mr. Wu’s effort was initially favorable, it soured as the limits of the inquiry became apparent. When they arrived at the jail last Friday, the committee members were given access to the crime scene but were not allowed to view surveillance tapes, examine the autopsy report or question the guards on duty at the time.

They were also not permitted to interview the prime suspect, Pu Huayong, an inmate who the police said had been unhappy with the outcome of the “elude the cat” game. The official police report said he kicked and punched Mr. Li, sending him headlong into a doorframe. Mr. Li died four days later.

But if the authorities thought they could quell public cynicism with newfound openness, they were disappointed. Soon after disclosing the identities of the “volunteers,” Web users investigated their backgrounds, revealing that nearly all the “randomly selected” investigators were current or former employees of the state-run media. The team leader, Zhai Li, had previously worked as an “Internet commentator,” a euphemism for those who seek to shape public debate with pro-government postings.

Over the past week, more than 70,000 postings accumulated on QQ.com, one of China’s most popular bulletin boards, and many of the comments were less than sympathetic. “This kind of hide-and-seek investigation looks like an indignity to justice,” read one typical posting.

So not such a daring bit of grass-roots engagement after all. In fact, it looks like the bloggers selected were all of a type likely to be relatively supportive of the government's viewpoint. So much for involving the grass-roots.

In fairness, everyone cherry picks media, bloggers and other influencers to engage with when possible, selecting people who are influential, supportive or, ideally, both. But if you're going to position something as an unprecedented step toward openness, you'd better make sure it isn't arranged in a way that will bite you on the ass. One of the things a few tens-of-thousands of Internet users can be really good at is ferreting out the real story behind something. As an old and famous cartoon goes, "On the Internet, nobody knows that you're a dog." Perhaps, but they can pretty quickly compare notes and see if you have a history of barking and chasing cats.

This is not to completely denigrate Wu's efforts. What he tried to do was interesting, and more creative than usual carpet-bombing approach to online opinion guidance that we've come to expect from the Chinese government. I'm willing to bet that he's the kind of guy who will learn from his mistakes. Keep an eye on Yunnan.

See also:

Yet more from China Media Project: China hails "online democracy" as Wen goes live on the Web

Dog cartoon 

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a cadre.