MCLC: public opinion analyst

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Long Cheng <Long.Cheng at rnw.org>
Subject: public opinion analyst
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Source: pao-pao.net (8/19/14):
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/1/1/1/dci.download.akamai.com/35985/159415/1/p/
?u=article/153

Public Opinion analyst – a new career rising in Chinese censorship system

Ming is a journalist from a local newspaper. Recently he is thinking about
changing a new job. The salary of the new job is 2-5 times what he has
now. Even so attractive, he is still hesitating. Because the job has a
hilarious nickname: 50 cents.

“50 cents” is in fact an internet commentator, who posts information that
favours the government of China mainland. Every such post is paid with 50
cents, and that’s where the nickname comes from.

Ming doesn’t want to give up the “glorious title” of “journalist” and
become a “50 cents”. While Ming is still hesitating, a public servant
Qiang has already signed up for a training, without a second thought.
Qiang works in city D, as secretary of publicity department. He doesn’t
care about the name “50 cents” at all. “I’m already one”, says he. His
main task is searching for information about government online.

“A public opinion (PO) analyst monitors and reports the public opinions to
the government, banks and other large scale entrepreneurs.  He or she
deals with urgent public events and offers consultative suggestions.” You
can find such a job description on the career website of Xinhua News
Agency, an official publisher of the Chinese government.

This is how a PO analyst spends his day: he browses thousands of webpages,
to keep every public event and hot topics in mind. He catches the new hot
topics the first time, then analyses them and calculates how the events
are going to develop and then resolves the crisis.

PO analyst is not exactly the same with “50 cents”, according to Feng, an
internet observer. PO analysts collect public opinions from the internet,
but “50 cents”, on the other hands, spread official opinions through the
internet. They aim in different directions. Furthermore, PO analysts seem
“more intelligent”. They don’t simply delete negative information or
follow posts, then also reacts on them, try to guide the public opinions
in order to resolve the crisis.

Therefore, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) offered
to issue certificates to this “intelligent” job at the end of 2013. Since
the job “PO analyst” first appeared in 2008, in all these five years, it
has always been reported in the periodicals as an emerging profession. It
hadn’t caught much attention until February, 2014, when everything started
to change.

On 27 Feb. 2014, the international Internet security and Informatization
leading group was officially founded. This commission is headed by the
president of People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, with Li Keqiang (also
Premier) and Liu Yunshan as deputies. This was breaking news in the
officialdom, because in China there are now only four commissions under
direct leadership of Xi Jinping: China’s leading group for overall reform,
National Security Commission, a leading group for deepening reform on
national defense and the armed forces, and this Informatization leading
group. Surprisingly, network and information security already becomes as
important as other national strategies.

Network security protects hardware, software and data etc. of the network
system. The Chinese style network security also includes “public opinion
monitoring”. In other words, public speech, information and attitude are
monitored with the help of technology, in order to keep the society in
order.

Currently, PO online monitoring in China is mainly part of the task of
secretaries of publicity department, like Qiang. There is not yet a
special position for public opinions analysts or managers in the
administrative system. All of a sudden, PO analyst training becomes the
most urgent and prompt mission for governmental officers.

PO monitoring office from people.com and National Public Skill Test
project managing center (NPST) from Electronic Technology Information
Research institute (ETIRI), are two official main forces in the PO analyst
training market. NPST training is especially popular, because it offers an
“official certificate” after the final test.

The talent system in NPST consists of five levels: PO analysis assistant,
PO analyst, senior PO analyst, PO manager and senior PO manager.

Lots of people like Qiang have signed up for senior PO analyst. Their
training fees can be refunded by their working places. Even some
governmental departments send groups of public servants to the training.
The lecturer then will adjust the study material according to the daily
task of that department.

Other people like Ming, not unlucky enough, need to pay for the training
fee themselves. Ming has invested 10 thousands RMB for the training,
transportation and accommodation, with hope of seeking a better chance for
his career. Ten thousand RMB is a big amount for him, but the official
salary for a PO analyst – 9 to 25 thousand RMB –sounds more attractive,
comparing with what he earns now. His current monthly salary is only five
thousand RMB.

According to Qianqian, another government staff, she signed up for the
training mainly for the certificate from MIIT. “If there are public
opinion related job positions later, my certificate will be a priority.”
She believed that the early bird catches the worm.

In fact, these “early birds” consider PO monitoring more as a guiding
principle.

Currently, China responses towards the public events always afterwards.
There is not enough warning in advance. Although central authorities
emphasizes on “guiding the public opinions”, still, once negative
information causes mass incidents, related PO staffs and local government
officers will be culled. The punishing mechanism in Chinese officialdom
results in that PO staffs choose to delete the information before it
spreads widely. There will not be any guidance until the information is
already widely spread. The PO talent system is still new, the training
courses are still not suitable enough, and there is still a large gap in
job positions. Under all these conditions, the main focus of China’s PO
talent training is still to keep the society in order.

That is also why most trainees in Hangzhou NPST training were from local
government. Besides, there were also journalists and principals of large
scale entrepreneurs. Interestingly, these entrepreneurs and media all have
governmental backgrounds.

Dong and Hua were publicists in a county in Zhejiang province. They signed
up together. They were already acquainted with the PO monitoring system.
This time was for a systematic leaning of “official knowledge”.
The so-called “official knowledge” was of course also given by the
officials.

The trainers were network PO specialists, such as NPST specialist from
MIIT, senior officers from Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Bureau
(ZPPSB), experienced PO analysts, and professors from Zhejiang University.

Interestingly, their training material were also really official. A senior
officer from ZPPSB shared his experience of how to deal with people who
require him to delete negative information. Also, experienced PO analysts
shared their tips of “how to satisfy your supervisors with your PO
reports”.

In the last several years, Professor Shen has given more than 200 lectures
about government affairs and PO trainings. I was curious about what he was
going to share with us, but instead, he kept talking about how he made
friends with the officers during his trainings. PO training sounded more
like another kind of social events for the officers.

Dong was pretty used to this kind of official trainings.

I was impressed by his CV. He finished his master’s degree in the famous
Zhejiang University and had worked in a world top 500 company. He was
familiar with a lot of open foreign thinking pattern in his former job,
but eventually he decided to come back to his small hometown and work as a
publicist with such a low salary. This made me confused.

“Contemptible, aren’t I?”, when I was about to ask for the reason, he
interrupted. He said that he has been asked thousands of times. “I don’t
like the life in big cities. I can’t follow their speed. I’d rather have a
relax job in my hometown. So I come back, and become a public servant.”

Dong is just above his thirties. His monthly salary, three thousand RMB,
is even not high in his small hometown. Still, people in his hometown are
proud of him. He has easily walked into marriage, just because he works
for the government, which offers him good social welfare.

China is a single-party state, so most people think that the government
will be nice to its own officers. Public servant is a stable job. Basic
public servants like Dong, hope that they can get promotion and better
welfare by gaining more skills, PO analyst training for example.

As to whether he likes his future job as PO analyst, Dong asked in reply:
“Like or dislike, does it matter? I am fine with who I am now.”

(For protecting the interviewee’s privacy, all names are alias.)
Contact the writer at info at pao-pao.net