Truly creative and talented users often stand out. One such example was two college boys who gained fame for their lip sync videos to songs by the Backstreet Boys and other pop stars. The Back Dorm Boys, as they call themselves, captured themselves doing exaggerated lip syncs on a low-quality Web cam in their college dorm room. They completed their first video in March 2005 after much trial, and uploaded the finished video to the local network at their college. Other students liked the video so much that they began to spread the word about it.

While still at school, the Back Dorm Boys were signed as spokespeople for Motorola cell phones in China. They also signed a contract with Sina.com, one of the largest Chinese Internet portals. In 2006, they received The Best Podcaster Award from the portal.

A few months before they graduated from Guangzhou Arts Institute in February 2006, the Back Dorm Boys signed a five-year contract with Taihe Rye, a talent management company in Beijing, to continue making lip sync videos. They also began studying singing, dancing, and stage arts with Taihe Rye.

The Back Dorm Boys also gained mainstream media attention in the United States thanks to The Ellen DeGeneres Show, helping to spawn countless parodies and imitators.

When asked to explain why in a sea of amateur videos they stood out, the two said, "The secret is: enjoy yourself and do what you like."

Grassroots reporters

"Your voice matters. Now, if you have something to say, you can be heard. You can make your own news. We all can." These words are from the book We the Media-Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People by American author Dan Gillmor. Grassroots journalism, or citizen journalism, has begun to catch on in China as technology has improved, and especially thanks to fast and convenient Internet multimedia, including online photo and video sharing platforms.

Grassroots journalism first made an appearance in the so-called "greatest nail house" case in Chongqing, in March 2007. Nail house is a Chinese phrase that means households or persons who refuse to vacate their homes to make way for real estate development. The case rose rapidly to national fame as pictures of the house were spread around the Internet.

Netizens on two notable Chinese websites, Tianya and MOP, began following the case, using everything available to report from the scene.

AMATEUR JOURNALISM: Zhou Shuguang, who claims to be China's first citizen reporter, demonstrates his "weapons" near a construction site in Chongqing where a property dispute attracted media attention in 2007 (JING XIAOLEI)

Among the enthusiastic grassroots reporters was a young man called Zhou Shuguang, who later called himself China's first citizen journalist. Zhou wrote blog entries and posted video and still images on the Web. He achieved almost overnight fame and was acclaimed by fellow bloggers and interviewed by Chinese reporters and foreign journalists from Time magazine and Reuters.

Zhou reported on another influential news event in June 2007 when Xiamen citizens held a peaceful demonstration to oppose a chemical plant project, for fear of the pollution it would cause. Zhou was at the demonstration and sent regular live updates from his mobile phone to his Twitter webpage.

"Advanced technology and especially the Internet have greatly reduced the cost of news production and communication," Zhou told Beijing Review. Though he confessed that grassroots reporters are often poor in terms of their writing ability, he said they could often tell a story from a different and more intimate angle.

"I even draw my own conclusions in my reporting, which contradicts standard news reportage rules, but I think is allowed in personal coverage," Zhou said.

Zhou also went to the earthquake disaster zone as a volunteer for half a month during which he kept his blog rolling with updates consisting of words, photos and videos.

"They have the right to independently publish their reports, but the quality of their work cannot be guaranteed," said Zhao Zhili, a journalism researcher in Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences. "Grassroots journalism can be a supplement to the traditional media, though it is fractional, unverified and lacks depth," he added.