Word of mouth
When student activists wanted to organize a demonstration all they needed to do was, "put several posters at the Triangle, write down the time and location of the gathering, the purposes of the demonstration, and the slogans to be used" and on the day of the demonstration, students would be mobilized and ready to go. Students regularly gathered at the Triangle to begin their marches to Tiananmen Square. Since the media was under state control students depended on big-character posters, student-controlled broadcasting stations, and word of mouth for information. Word of mouth information became a way for rumors about government divisions and brutality to spread, leading to the misinterpretation of information, and wrong ideas being spread. Government documents explain that after the Xinhua Gate incident "Posters reading boycott and Protest the violence of police beatings of students appeared in the Triangle area on campus and that the students were presenting "distorted reports of these events."