Does blogs' blooming mean schools of thought can contend?

Where do mainlanders get their news, on any given day? Increasingly, they're turning to microblogs - Twitter-like forums that allow messages in short bursts of up to 140 characters - not only to read what's happening, but also get word out.

On Friday morning for instance, no sooner had winter's first flakes of snow fallen on the capital than Beijing residents were uploading videos and photos of the event onto their feeds. If they logged on to Beijing Capital International Airport's microblog they had updates on flight delays and cancellations.

Across town, Yan Lianke, Renmin University literature professor, was using his feed to generate public support for his petition to state leaders to stop the forced acquisition of his home and those of 30 neighbours in the suburbs.

Elsewhere in the country, Shanghainese investor Zhu Jun was using his microblogs to promote his soccer club, and Wuhan police were busy responding to news about a blast at a bank the previous day - an incident first reported by local microbloggers.

Faster than anyone would have thought, microblogs have become part of the fabric of urban life in a country where media has been highly centralised. So much so that some newspapers and online portals have even started publishing updates on 'hot microblogs' throughout the day.

Whether the country has entered an age of mass journalism is still up for debate but, as Xinhua said in an analysis piece, it has become a country where 'everyone has a microphone and can spread news'.