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CubicleGeek · 03-27-2008, 09:31 PM

On the topic of press censorship, I did an experiment a few years ago concerning the "tankman" picture. It is the picture of the man standing in front of a column of tanks during the infamous Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. I had heard somewhere that a majority of the people in China would have no reference whatsoever of what that picture means and when it was taken. In the non-censored world, it is probably one of the strongest symbols of the fight for freedom of speech we've seen in recent history. Here is the picture, if you don't know what I am talking about: http://www.hemmy.net/images/interesting/tankman.jpg.

I brought a copy of the picture with me on a laptop when I went to work in China a few years ago and after making friends with some of my coworkers, I took opportune times to show them the picture to get their reaction. Of the 4 different coworkers I showed, no one had seen this picture before, the typical reaction I got was "Wah, that's cool!", "Is it from a movie?". These are all people with Master's and Ph.D. level education and good family backgrounds that have had access to things like internet and are among the scholarly elite in China. As a matter of fact, the entire incident has been painted in their minds as a bunch of rebellious students rioting in Beijing with the military being the good guys.

03-27-2008, 09:31 PM	#170
CubicleGeek Scoring Winger Join Date: Oct 2006 Exp:	On the topic of press censorship, I did an experiment a few years ago concerning the "tankman" picture. It is the picture of the man standing in front of a column of tanks during the infamous Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. I had heard somewhere that a majority of the people in China would have no reference whatsoever of what that picture means and when it was taken. In the non-censored world, it is probably one of the strongest symbols of the fight for freedom of speech we've seen in recent history. Here is the picture, if you don't know what I am talking about: http://www.hemmy.net/images/interesting/tankman.jpg. I brought a copy of the picture with me on a laptop when I went to work in China a few years ago and after making friends with some of my coworkers, I took opportune times to show them the picture to get their reaction. Of the 4 different coworkers I showed, no one had seen this picture before, the typical reaction I got was "Wah, that's cool!", "Is it from a movie?". These are all people with Master's and Ph.D. level education and good family backgrounds that have had access to things like internet and are among the scholarly elite in China. As a matter of fact, the entire incident has been painted in their minds as a bunch of rebellious students rioting in Beijing with the military being the good guys.