The top ten popular words of 2002 based on 15 Chinese newspapers of biggest circulation were announced on January 6.
The list was toped by the "16th Party Congress", followed by "World Cup", "short message", "interests cut", "Three Represents", "anti-terrorism", "digital imaging", "Yao Ming", "auto market" and "CDMA".
Popular words refer to those widely and quickly spread in a certain period, area or group, which, from a certain point of view, express people's values, ideas and state of mind and reflect honestly social phenomenon. To track these popular words is to follow the development track and direction of Chinese society.
The "16th Party Congress" was most frequently clicked during online election, showing that the CPC congress became a focus of public attention in the year 2002. The word "auto market" appeared quite early, but only became hot last year with China's WTO accession, the development of China's auto industry and the lift up of people's living standard.
The word election was jointly sponsored by Beijing Language and Culture University, China Association of Press Technicians and China Society of Chinese Information Processing.
Newspapers participated in the activity include People's Daily, Guangming Daily, Economic Daily, China Youth Daily, Legal Daily, Beijing Daily, Beijing Evening, Beijing Youth Daily, Nanfang Weekend, Global Times and others.