Zhao Yuanyuan and Ye Benqian: Firmly Guarding the Primary Position of Online Ideology
By Zhao Yuanyuan and Ye Benqian
Ideological work is the task of establishing the heart of the state and the soul of the nation. With the rapid development of internet technology and the continuous expansion of network applications, cyberspace has increasingly become an important platform for information dissemination, economic development, and social interaction. It has become a distribution center for diverse social trends [1], the main battlefield of ideological struggle, the primary position, and the absolute forefront; it is the main direction of attack and the top priority in doing ideological work well in the New Era. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "without cybersecurity, there is no national security," that "to master the dominance of online ideology is to safeguard national sovereignty and political power," and that "online public opinion work must be grasped as the top priority of propaganda and ideological work." These numerous important expositions have deepened our understanding of the patterns of online ideological work, constitute an essential component of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important thoughts on strengthening the country through cyber development, and provide the fundamental compliance and action guide for us to navigate the complex cyberspace and engage in the Great Struggle [2] in the ideological field.
To firmly hold the main battlefield of online ideology, we must stabilize the "mainstay" (zhǔxīngǔ).
Doing China’s affairs well depends on the Party. In July 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping issued important instructions on cybersecurity and informatization, explicitly putting forward the "Ten Persists" [3] as important principles for doing cyber and information work on the new journey in the New Era. The first among these is "persisting in the Party’s management of the internet." As an extension of ideology into the cyberspace domain, online ideology is not a simple reflection of ideology in the physical realm; rather, it is a conceptual superstructure that comprehensively uses network media to implement filtering, processing, and presentation. It possesses prominent characteristics such as virtuality, spontaneity, boundlessness, technicality, anonymity, and difficulty of control. It exhibits new trends such as fragmentation, concealment, and "pan-entertainment" [4]. It especially requires a strong and powerful leadership core to steer the ship, ensuring that the Party always remains the most reliable mainstay in the Great Struggle to respond to various risks and tests in online ideology.
On the new journey in the New Era, persisting in the Party’s management of online ideological work requires effectively exerting the Party’s core role in overseeing the overall situation and coordinating all parties. The Party must implement comprehensive coordination, formulate the top-level design of online ideology, determine the direction of work, and gather the strength for struggle. Furthermore, under the Party’s unified leadership, we must mobilize multiple subjects—including government management, corporate responsibility, social supervision, and netizen self-discipline—to participate together, enhancing the comprehensive governance capacity of the modern network and increasing the multi-party synergy for online ideological work. We must promote the institutionalization of the network, establish and improve accountability mechanisms for online ideological work, resolutely break the capital-controlled manipulation of network technological innovation, and consciously resist all reactionary thoughts, speeches, and behaviors that endanger the Party’s leadership. We must resolutely uphold the "Two Establishments" and always achieve the "Two Upholds," winning the leadership, management, and discourse power over online ideology.
To firmly hold the main battlefield of online ideology, we must identify the "main problems."
Problems are the voice of the times and the guide for work. In recent years, through the joint efforts of all sectors of society, online ideological work has integrated problem rectification throughout the entire process—approaching problems directly and correcting them specifically. A series of special actions represented by the "Qinglang" (Clear and Bright) [5] and "Jingwang" (Clean the Web) [6] series have been extensively carried out, and the chaotic state of online public opinion has been effectively governed, with the biological ecosystem of the network continuing to improve.
At the same time, however, we must clearly see that in the face of rapidly developing and complex cyberspace, our country’s ideological struggle has not yet achieved a decisive victory. We still face a series of internal and external risks and challenges, which define our direction of effort for firmly holding the main battlefield of online ideology in the future. On one hand, we must maintain strategic resolve, rationally identifying and effectively responding to the intersection and collision of diverse ideas, cultures, and values in cyberspace. We must be especially vigilant against some Western capitalist countries using the internet as a new technological tool for infiltration and sabotage in our country’s ideological field, and we must stand firm in consolidating and expanding mainstream ideology and public opinion to occupy the high ground of online ideology. On the other hand, we must grasp the characteristics of risks and improve our ability to prevent and defuse risks in the field of online ideology. The rapid development of the internet makes public opinion spread quickly and influence a wide range, easily forming "information cocoons" [7] and opinion storms that occur frequently, posing a threat to social stability. This requires us to deeply study and judge new signs, trends, developments, and characteristics in the field of online ideology, accurately grasp the generation and evolution mechanisms of online public opinion, strengthen online guidance and risk prevention, and fight a prepared battle for strategic initiative in online ideology, turning the "greatest variable" of the internet into the "greatest increment" for the development of our cause.
To firmly hold the main battlefield of online ideology, we must sing the "main melody" (zhǔxuánlǜ) well.
The Communist Party of China is a proletarian political party armed with the scientific theory of Marxism. Marxism is our fundamental guiding ideology for establishing the Party and the country, as well as the banner and soul of socialist ideology. This fundamentally determines that we must unswervingly adhere to Marxism at all times and implement the fundamental system of Marxism’s guiding position in the ideological field throughout every aspect and the entire process of building a cyber powerhouse, making the adherence to and development of Marxism always the main melody and strongest note of online ideology.
On one hand, to strengthen the main melody, we must enhance online content construction. We must persist in taking Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era—this contemporary Chinese Marxism and 21st-century Marxism—as the command. Combined with the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New Era, we should focus on relying on mainstream media platforms such as Party newspapers, journals, television, and websites. We must not only comprehensively and systematically explain the basic viewpoints, rich connotations, ideological system, and theoretical character of this important thought, but also guide the vast number of netizens to persist in analyzing online ideological events from the worldview and methodology contained in this thought, as well as from the level of the basic Marxist standpoint, viewpoints, and methods. This will continuously enhance the explanatory and persuasive power of Marxism and consolidate the online discourse power of Marxist ideology. On the other hand, strengthening the main melody also requires innovating forms and methods. We must fully utilize new media, new technologies, and other media tools to promote the high degree of integration between Marxist theoretical propaganda and education and information technology. We should promote the transformation of Marxist academic discourse into popular, easy-to-understand, and "well-liked" [8] mass discourse, making Marxism "come alive," effectively enhancing its attraction, affinity, and sense of identity, and driving theory to truly enter the mind, heart, and action.
To firmly hold the main battlefield of online ideology, we must cultivate a "mainstream culture."
Culture is closely related to ideology; it is the spiritual lifeblood of a country and a nation. Since entering the internet age, the efforts to build a cultural powerhouse and a cyber powerhouse must be planned together, proceed in tandem, and support each other. Cultivating an active, healthy, and upwardly mobile online culture and strengthening the online ideological and cultural battlefield is both an important part of socialist cultural construction and an intrinsic requirement for managing complex situations in the field of online ideology and mastering the initiative in ideological struggle.
First, we must persist in making the past serve the present and uphold the fundamentals and break new ground. We should deeply excavate the contemporary value of excellent traditional Chinese culture from poems, classical allusions, cultural relics, intangible cultural heritage, and legends. Let new media empower excellent Chinese culture, stimulating its vitality and vigor and solidifying the cultural foundation of online ideological work. Second, through the careful creation of creative and "grounded" (jiēdìqì) [9] multimedia products such as diagrams, animations, and micro-videos, we should promptly discover and publicize advanced models, revolutionary deeds, and heroic figures who inherit revolutionary traditions. This will further pass on the "red gene," promote revolutionary culture, take a clear-cut stand against historical nihilism [10], and occupy the online ideological battlefield. Third, we must closely follow the spiritual and cultural needs of the people and the requirements of the times, following the principles that "positive energy is the general requirement, being able to manage it is the hard truth, and using it well is the real skill." We must persist in using advanced socialist culture, mainstream values, and positive voices to lead online ideological construction, continuously increasing the supply of high-quality content, innovating methods of online dissemination, and extensively carrying out online selection activities for advanced models such as "Models of the Times," "Most Beautiful Figures," and the China Positive Energy "Five Hundreds" [11] online boutique works. We must strive to build an online ideology with strong cohesion and leadership, firmly constructing a spiritual home for hundreds of millions of netizens and a common ideological basis for united struggle.
To firmly hold the main battlefield of online ideology, we must carry forward "mainstream values."
Mainstream values are the common conceptual identity of a society. Whatever mainstream values exist will determine the nature of the country, society, and citizens, as well as their orientations, paths, and actions. While the internet brings convenience to social exchange, it also impacts and shocks social values. To continuously promote and practice mainstream values in a large online environment where diverse netizen groups coexist and diverse cultural values intersect, we must give full play to the leading role of the socialist core values. This is because socialist core values are the beneficial results of the CPC’s inheritance and development of excellent traditional Chinese culture under the guidance of Marxism. They cover the value aspirations of the country, society, and individuals, embodying the contemporary Chinese spirit while manifesting the core content of contemporary Chinese mainstream values. They have become an inherent part of responding to the complex situation where socialist ideology and diverse cultural values fluctuate together, strengthening the leadership of mainstream values in cyberspace, and promoting the construction of online civilization. Persisting in using socialist core values to lead online ideological construction involves implementing its basic requirements in all aspects and the entire process of cyberspace—including online propaganda, culture, services, and governance—and promoting the internalization of its concepts into the heart and their externalization into action. This will continuously increase the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional identification with mainstream online values, truly making socialist core values the online mainstream.
To firmly hold the main battlefield of online ideology, we must strengthen "mainstream public opinion."
Things develop through the movement of contradictions, and truth remains evergreen in the struggle against fallacy. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "The internet is a double-edged sword; a picture or a video can achieve explosive spread through omni-media in just a few hours, causing a great impact on the public opinion field." In the era of rapid internet development, everyone has a "microphone," and various viewpoints and positions clash online, providing fertile soil for the occurrence of online public opinion and bringing many risks and challenges to the ecological environment of online public opinion.
As a completely new form of public opinion, the internet is diverse and changes rapidly, requiring us to scientifically understand the laws of online public opinion, actively adapt to the requirements of informatization, strengthen internet thinking, and improve our level of using and governing the net. On one hand, we should understand online public opinion dialectically and face its inherent positive value. We must accurately recognize that online public opinion, as a high level of attention and expression of viewpoints by the masses of netizens on social issues, directly reflects social sentiments and, to a certain extent, represents people’s livelihoods, public will, and public wisdom, providing an important reference for government decision-making and social governance. On the other hand, we must strengthen correct guidance and cultivate mainstream public opinion. We must adhere to the correct orientation of public opinion and actively promote the construction of new media for government affairs, exerting its important guiding role in promoting government openness, optimizing government services, pooling social consensus, and innovating social governance. We must promptly release authoritative information on online public opinion involving public interests and matters, and provide authoritative answers to the concerns and doubts of the masses in a timely manner. This will use accurate and authoritative information to squeeze the space for the growth of false information and online rumors. We should strengthen real-time monitoring, analysis, evaluation, positive guidance, and follow-up tracking of online public opinion, guiding it toward a healthy and orderly direction. This further enhances the communication, guidance, influence, and credibility of mainstream public opinion, letting the Party’s voice spread further, wider, and deeper.
To firmly hold the main battlefield of online ideology, we must build the "main platforms."
The contest of ideology is also a contest of platforms; we must strengthen the construction of the main battlefield and main platforms. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "Core technology for the internet is our greatest 'Achilles' heel' (mìngmén), and being dependent on others for core technology is our greatest hidden danger." From the perspective of the bearing and operation mechanism, online ideology ultimately relies on network information technology to operate. To a certain extent, it can be said that whoever holds advanced network information technology holds the dominance of online ideology. To build and strengthen the main platforms for online ideology, we must implement a strategy to tackle core technical equipment in the field of network information. We must firmly grasp the "ox's nose" (niúbízǐ) [12] of independent innovation in core technology, strive to break through frontier technologies and key core technologies with international competitiveness, and actively promote the R&D and application of high-performance computing, mobile communications, quantum communications, core chips, and operating systems. By holding network core technology firmly in our own hands, we will provide a solid security barrier and strong technical guarantee for building a cyber powerhouse and doing online ideological work well.
"If we cannot pass the test of the internet, we cannot pass the test of long-term governance." Standing at the new historical starting point of building a cyber powerhouse, doing online ideological work is a "war without smoke" [13]; the task is arduous, the responsibility is heavy, and the impact is far-reaching. We must deeply study and implement Xi Jinping’s thoughts on culture and his important thoughts on strengthening the country through cyber development. We must unremittingly use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to "congeal the soul" (níngxīn zhùhún). By grasping the Party’s strong leadership over online ideological work, consolidating Marxism's guiding position, and further strengthening mainstream values, public opinion, and culture amidst the integration of various cultures, we can focus on solving prominent problems in the field of online ideology and actively construct a technologically leading security barrier. Then, we will surely be able to hold and guard the main battlefield of online ideology, marching forward on the road to becoming a cyber powerhouse and providing a strong ideological guarantee, powerful spiritual impetus, influential public opinion support, and favorable cultural conditions for the realization of a strong country and national rejuvenation.