A History Of The Press And Public Opinion In China

The first in-depth, authoritative discussion of the role of the press in China and the way the Chinese government uses the media to shape public opinion China's 1.3 billion population may make the country the world's largest, but the vast majority of Chinese share remarkably similar views on these and a wide array of other issues, thanks to the unified message they get from tightly controlled state-run media. Official views are formed at the top in organizations like the Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television and allowed to trickle down to regional and local media, giving the appearance of many voices with a single message that is reinforced at every level. As a result, the Chinese are remarkably like-minded on a wide range of issues both domestic and foreign. Takes readers beyond China's economic miracle to show how the nation's massive state-run media complex not only influences public opinion but creates it Explores an array of issues, from Tibet and Taiwan to the environment and US trade relations, as seen through the lens of the Xinhua News Agency Tells the story of the official Xinhua News Agency along with its history and reporting over the years, as the foundation for telling the story

From a modern perspective, journalism is highly relevant to modern society, along with the emergence of mass printing system and professionalisation. This book, however, expands the meaning of journalism and views it as a social process. It will not only explore the roots and development of Chinese journalism and communication, but also demonstrate how Chinese journalism and communication interact and struggle with social culture and politics. Arranged in chronological order mainly, this book examines the initial development of Chinese journalism in ancient times in chapter 1, which from then manifested strong political attributes. After the Opium War in 1840, missionaries and businessmen from the West started to set up newspapers and periodicals in China, which brought about the birth of China’s modern journalism industry. Then China’s private newspapers and political party’s press are studied, which are closely linked with political revolutions and have a far-reaching impact on modern Chinese society. What happened to Chinese journalism and communication after the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949? This book reviews the newspaper reforms, and studies the great negative impacts brought by "Cultural Revolution". Noteworthy news phenomena after the reform and opening-up are also covered. This book will appeal to scholars and students in journalism, communication and Chinese studies. Readers interested in Chinese society and modern Chinese history will also be attracted by it.

This book describes through case studies how various factors, such as the single-party political system, traditional culture, market reform, and industrialization, shape public opinion and mass political behavior in urban China. Case studies focus on the process of conducting public opinion polls in China’s political environment, regime legitimacy and reform support, media control and censorship, interpersonal trust and democratization, mass political participation, labor relations and trade unions, and the role of intellectuals in political change. The book draws most of its empirical evidence from twelve Chinese public opinion surveys conducted between the late 1980s and the late 1990s. The same questions repeated in many of these surveys provide a rare opportunity to examine the changing pattern of the Chinese public mind during this period. The book ends with the provocative conclusion that China’s authoritarian political system proved to be less effective than traditional culture, marketization, and industrialization in shaping public opinion and mass political behavior. Liberal ideas and bottom-up political participation can emerge even in the absence of direct elections.

The relationship between China and the United States has been marked by a lack of mutual comprehension that stretches from America's missionary paternalism in the early twentieth century to the fears and fascinations of the present. Throughout the twentieth century China has attracted the attention of American journalists, from the first China hands who covered an ancient country lurching into the modern world, to the chroniclers of World War II and the Chinese civil war, to the reporters who today explore the contradictions of China's economy. Covering China looks at the questions, concerns, and conceptions of all the generations of American reporters against the backdrop of Chinese history and China's own media.Covering China is divided into three sections. "Histories" takes up the events, anniversaries, and processes that have shaped Chinese and American media coverage over the century. Included here are chapters focusing on the civil war and analyzing American reporting in the 1930s and 1940s in their many viewpoints, as well as in the decades when China was closed to American journalists. Other chapters consider the influence on journalism of various political movements from the anti-Western May 4th movement of 1918 to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. "Communicating" explores the challenges of explaining China to Americans and America to the Chinese. Among the topics covered here are the Chinese media reaction to the Clinton scandal, the status of Hong Kong as a window between China and the West, Communist efforts to control public opinion in the media, and the pioneering role of Pearl S. Buck in interpreting China for American readers. The concluding section, "Issues," examines important stories now emerging in China that will matter to both journalists and China watchers, including the changing roles of Chinese women, little-covered instances of ethnic unrest, and the complexities of economic and environmental stories.The variety of points of view expressed in Covering China is a testament to the vigor of contemporary writing on China. As one contributor notes, American media coverage of China needs to challenge existing assumptions and be ready for the unexpected. By doing so, journalists can minimize the sense of shock that erupts in America at each swing of Chinese history. Covering China will be of interest to China area specialists, journalists, and cultural historians.Robert W. Snyder is managing editor of the Media Studies Journal, a historian, and author of Transit Talk: New York's Bus and Subway Workers Tell Their Stories. He has taught at Princeton University and New York University.

This book sheds new light on the study of journalism and communication, considering why and how journalism is studied in the 21st century. It notably offers both an international and interdisciplinary comparison of journalism and communication, examining the history of Chinese and Western journalism and addressing the similarities and differences between them. Focusing on the education and training of future journalists, it also provides a comprehensive study of news coverage systems in China and in Western countries, including the processing of news sources, attitudes towards news communication and comparative communication scholarship. Researchers of media and journalism will find this a key read, as well as practicing journalists and students of journalism.

This series provides a comprehensive history of journalism in China. It chronicles two millennia of journalistic history from the 2nd century BC to the 1990s, and includes coverage of newspapers, periodicals, news agencies, broadcast television, photography, documentary film, journal cartoons, journal education, as well as information about reporters, journalists, and other aspects of journalism. Volume 1 tracks the development of journalism in ancient China, from the Pre-Qin period to the late Qing Dynasty. It also draws a full picture of the early publishing activities of both foreigners and the Chinese in nineteenth century China.

Thirty years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made a fateful decision: to allow newspapers, magazines, television, and radio stations to compete in the marketplace instead of being financed exclusively by the government. The political and social implications of that decision are still unfolding as the Chinese government, media, and public adapt to the new information environment. Edited by Susan Shirk, one of America's leading experts on contemporary China, this collection of essays brings together a who's who of experts--Chinese and American--writing about all aspects of the changing media landscape in China. In detailed case studies, the authors describe how the media is reshaping itself from a propaganda mouthpiece into an agent of watchdog journalism, how politicians are reacting to increased scrutiny from the media, and how television, newspapers, magazines, and Web-based news sites navigate the cross-currents between the open marketplace and the CCP censors. China has over 360 million Internet users, more than any other country, and an astounding 162 million bloggers. The growth of Internet access has dramatically increased the information available, the variety and timeliness of the news, and its national and international reach. But China is still far from having a free press. As of 2008, the international NGO Freedom House ranked China 181 worst out of 195 countries in terms of press restrictions, and Chinese journalists have been aptly described as "dancing in shackles." The recent controversy over China's censorship of Google highlights the CCP's deep ambivalence toward information freedom. Covering everything from the rise of business media and online public opinion polling to environmental journalism and the effect of media on foreign policy, Changing Media, Changing China reveals how the most populous nation on the planet is reacting to demands for real news.