TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY, 18(4), 327–350 Copyright © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1057-2252 print / 1542-7625 online DOI: 10.10.1080/10572250903149548

Rhetorics of Alternative Media in an Emerging Epidemic: SARS, Censorship, and Extra-Institutional Risk Communication Huiling Ding Department of English, Clemson University

This article examines how professionals and the public employed alternative media to participate in unofficial risk communication during the 2002 SARS outbreak in China. Whereas whistle-blowers used alternative media such as independent overseas Chinese Web sites and contesting Western media, anonymous professionals and the larger communities relied more on guerrilla media such as text messages and word of mouth to disseminate risk messages during official silence and denial.

HOW DOES RISK COMMUNICATION OPERATE AMID THE ABSOLUTE UNCERTAINTY AND SILENCE THAT CAN OCCUR DURING EMERGING MYSTERIOUS EPIDEMICS? To help address this question, this article reports the results of a rhetorical study that examined risk communication about SARS in China during a period of utter confusion and official silence. The initial stage of the SARS outbreak, which occurred between November 2002 and March 2003 in the Guangdong Province, was characterized by little official media coverage. However, my research demonstrates that alternative media were anything but silent about SARS during that stage of the epidemic. As early as January 2003, speculations, rumors, official clarifications, and confusion pervaded SARS reports from alternative media such as independent Web sites and word-of-mouth communication. As a response to these messages from alternative media sources, waves of mass panic

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TABLE 1 This table shows the patterns of media coverage of the SARS outbreak in the official national newspaper, People’s Daily, and in local Guangdong newspapers. The patterns suggest a sharp increase in local newspapers’ coverage in mid February 2003, corresponding with a wave of panic buying that occurred in the province at that same time.

Medium People’s Daily Guangdong media

Jan

Feb

Feb 1–10

Feb 11–20

Feb 21–28

March

April 1–20

0 4

2 665

0 4

2 605

0 61

18 4

146 40

buying1 took place on February 8, 2003, and February 10, 2003, in numerous cities in Guangdong. These two waves of mass panic buying were followed by the first and only official press conference that the Guangdong Municipal Government offered on February 11, 2003; in this press conference, government officials claimed that the local epidemic was under control. The panic buying also produced an anomaly in the silence about the SARS outbreak that existed in Chinese print media prior to the government’s first official response on April 20, 20032: An unusual, closely clustered wave of intensive reports (altogether 605) took place in Guangdong regional newspapers from February 11, 2003, to February 20, 2003 (see Table 1). In contrast, People’s Daily, the official tongue of the Communist Party of China, remained silent about the outbreak from January 2003 to March 2003. This anomaly in the news reporting pattern was preceded and followed by media underreporting and, most of the time, official silence. How can rhetoric function to communicate the risks of an emerging health crisis to the public when the dominant power structure imposes censorship? What role did rhetoric play in the production of the two rounds of mass panic buying, and how did risk communication operate in Guangdong amid official silence? Many rhetorical and critical studies have been conducted to analyze how public health crises were constructed in public discourses (Barnes, 1995; Brookey, 2002; 1Panic buying refers to the act of a large number of people rushing to purchase large amounts of limited and often special types of products because of the fear of health, environmental, or manufacturing crises; a possible huge price increase; or potential shortage of those goods. For instance, panic buying of vinegar, antiviral drugs, rice, cooking oil, and water took place in Guangdong and Beijing when people learned about the atypical pneumonia amid official silence. 2China was forced to collaborate with the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve its disease surveillance and reporting mechanism after the WHO issued a travel alert on April 2, 2003, recommending postponing nonessential travel to the Guangdong Province. An increasing number of reports about SARS appeared in Chinese media in early April 2003. On April 20, 2003, the Chinese government offered an official apology about the undercalculation of SARS cases and fired both the minister of health and the mayor of Beijing because of their incompetence in dealing with the SARS outbreak in Beijing.