From Bulletin Boards to Big Data

Abstract

Why do Chinese governments at various levels set up public complaint websites where citizen petitions and government responses can be reviewed by the general public? We argue that it is the result of two factors: strong signals sent by the central government to improve governance, and the availability of new technologies to promote policy innovation. To impress their superiors, local officials adopted newly available commercial technology to innovate existing citizen feedback systems, which presented a developmental trajectory from “openness,” “integration,” to “big data-driven prediction.” Drawing on policy documents and interviews with local politicians and administrators, we provide a chronological perspective of how technical development, central government’s signals and local decision-making have interacted in the past two decades to bring forth today’s public complaint websites. The contingent and non-teleological nature of this development can also be applied to other policies such as the social credit system.

Examining information needs of public data service users: a study based on the ‘Message Board for Leaders of People’s Daily in China’

“…By the end of 2022, there have been 3 million messages replied to since 2012 (Xinhua, 2022). Many researchers who investigate China's government and citizen interaction also chose Message Board for Leaders of People's Daily as their main data source (Chang and Meng, 2023;Göbel and Li, 2021;Hu et al, 2023;Li et al, 2019;Su and Meng, 2016).…”