Episode 2

Shanghai-based journalist Duncan Hewitt concludes his look at the burgeoning microblogging trend in China and the profound effect it is having on society and culture.

This week his interviewees include the blogger and new media expert, Isaac Mao; the world's most popular blogger, Han Han; and a man who wrote a novel on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter.

Duncan also looks at the way in which microblogging was used to break the news that Wang Lijun, a police chief in Chongqing, had visited a US consulate in Chengdu. The censors soon tried to stop any online discussion of the matter, but the microbloggers adopted ingenious ways to dodge the censors.

(Image: Chinese blogger Isaac Mao in 2007. Credit: AFP / Getty Images)