Digital Culture in the Twenty-first Century - Digital Culture - page 197

to conveying their messages to a large audience with real little
expectation of reciprocity. This is equally true of similar phenomena
in other media, such as television, where 'reality TV' shows such as
Big Brother , for which audience participation is through websites,
official or otherwise, via message texting and phoning in votes,
accompanied in this case by commentary on radio stations such as
those described above and in the tabloid press. But this complex set
of interactions between radio, television, newspapers, computer
networks and telecommunications reveals a great deal not just about
the vertical integrations of mass media and communications
systems in our culture, but about how media are starting to be used
and thought about, and about new possibilities for reciprocity.
An example of this is The Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Supergirl
Concert , a Chinese talent show similar to Pop Idol , which took place
in 2004, and which has revealed an extraordinary transformation
regarding how people think about, engage with and use media. It
was watched by 400 million Chinese viewers, more than the popu-
lation of Western Europe, and inevitably perhaps, comprised the
largest domestic television audience ever. There are, however, a
number of aspects of the show that are far more interesting than are
viewing figures. One is that it did not emanate from the central state
Chinese broadcasting company, but from a provincial company in
rural Hunan with a satellite connection. In a society that is still both
highly centralized and controlled, that such a show should become
a China-wide phenomenon is in itself fairly amazing. Part of its
considerable appeal was that women of any age could participate.
Many of the contestants, as well as the winner, Li Yuchun, were very
different from the kind of glamorous women normally seen on
Chinese television. Many rather optimistic or idealistic claims have
been made for the supposedly empowering, feminist values of the
Supergirl Concert . Much more to the point and far more radical, and
possibly the real reason for its success, was that the audience were
allowed to vote, or rather, given the sensitivities around both the