Changing Media Changing 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.

The Internet and social media are pervasive and transformative forces in contemporary China. The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China explores the changing relationship between China's Internet and social media and its society, politics, legal system, and foreign relations.

This book examines the role played by the media in China’s cultural transformation in the early years of the 21st century. In contrast to the traditional view that sees the Chinese media as nothing more than a tool of communist propaganda, it demonstrates that the media is integral to China’s changing culture in the age of globalization, whilst also being part and parcel of the State and its project of re-imagining national identity that is essential to the post-socialist reform agenda. It describes how the Party-state can effectively use media events to pull social, cultural and political resources and forces together in the name of national rejuvenation. However, it also illustrates how non-state actors can also use reporting of media events to dispute official narratives and advance their own interests and perspectives. It discusses the implications of this interplay between state and non-state actors in the Chinese media for conceptions of identity, citizenship and ethics, identifying the areas of mutual accommodation and appropriation, as well as those of conflict and contestation. It explores these themes with detailed analysis of four important ‘media spectacles’: the media events surrounding the new millennium celebrations; the news reporting of SARS; the media stories about AIDS and SARS; and the media campaign war between the Chinese state and the Falun Gong movement.

This book provides a critical account of the transformations, both structural and in terms of journalism practice, undergone by Xinhua, the top Party organ of the Communist regime in China, since the start of the reform age in the late 1970s. It sets out to answer a number of key questions: 1.How far has the most influential news organization in China been marketized? 2.How far has the marketization process changed the way in which Xinhua practices journalism? 3.What has the impact of marketization been on Xinhua's relationship with central, local and global actors? 4.What does the case of Xinhua tell us about the transformation of Chinese media more generally? The book draws on a wealth of empirical data derived from a combination of documentary research at Xinhua and Reuters together with more than100 semi-structured interviews with news executives, journalists, officials and academics in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Macau, Hong Kong and London. This book also offers: 1.A critical review of theories of globalization, as they relate to media and communication studies, as well as Chinese studies; 2.A discussion of the historical roots of Party journalism in China; 3.An authoritative guide to China's contemporary media and political environment. The book will be an invaluable reference for students and academics in communication and media studies, Chinese studies, Asian studies, international studies and development studies.

China in the Era of Social Media discusses how social media is changing the world in an unprecedented way through speed, scope, and depth. In the last decade or so, social media in China has witnessed the most explosive growth in the world. Being the most populous nation in the world, it has the most social media users in the world as well. This book examines the current situation and unique characteristics of Chinese social media, the significance of social media in the country’s social transformation, and particularly its influences on political change in the nation. The main goal of this book is to explore how social media has been affecting and thus changing China’s political system, the ruling communist ideology, and the state-run media, as well as its public discourse and public opinions. Scholars of Asian studies, political science, and communications will find this book particularly interesting.

Stockmann argues that the consequences of introducing market forces to the media depend on the institutional design of the state.

The Internet and social media are pervasive and transformative forces in contemporary China. Nearly half of China's 1.3 billion citizens use the Internet, and tens of millions use Sina Weibo, a platform similar to Twitter or Facebook. Recently, Weixin/Wechat has become another major form of social media. While these services have allowed regular people to share information and opinions as never before, they also have changed the ways in which the Chinese authorities communicate with the people they rule. China's party-state now invests heavily in speaking to Chinese citizens through the Internet and social media, as well as controlling the speech that occurs in that space. At the same time, those authorities are wary of the Internet's ability to undermine the ruling party's power, organize dissent, or foment disorder. Nevertheless, policy debates and public discourse in China now regularly occur online, to an extent unimaginable a decade or two ago, profoundly altering the fabric of China's civil society, legal affairs, internal politics, and foreign relations. The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China explores the changing relationship between China's cyberspace and its society, politics, legal system, and foreign relations. The chapters focus on three major policy areas—civil society, the roles of law, and the nationalist turn in Chinese foreign policy—and cover topics such as the Internet and authoritarianism, "uncivil society" online, empowerment through new media, civic engagement and digital activism, regulating speech in the age of the Internet, how the Internet affects public opinion, legal cases, and foreign policy, and how new media affects the relationship between Beijing and Chinese people abroad. Contributors: Anne S. Y. Cheung, Rogier Creemers, Jacques deLisle, Avery Goldstein, Peter Gries, Min Jiang, Dalei Jie, Ya-Wen Lei, James Reilly, Zengzhi Shi, Derek Steiger, Marina Svensson, Wang Tao, Guobin Yang, Chuanjie Zhang, Daniel Xiaodan Zhou.

In the last decade, the Chinese media have imposed themselves in the global arena and have started to become a reference point, in business and cultural terms, for other national media systems. This book explores how the global media landscape was changed by this revolutionary trend, and why and how China is now playing a key role in guiding it. It is, on the one hand, a book on how the Chinese media system continues to take inspiration and to be shaped (or remapped) by American, European and Asian media companies, and, on the other, a volume on the ways in which recent Chinese media’s “going out” strategy is remapping the global media landscape. Organised into two sections, this book has eight chapters written by American, Chinese and European scholars. Focusing on different markets (such as the movie industry, the press, broadcasting, and the Internet), different regions and different actors (from Donald Trump to the Tanzania-Zambia Railway to journalists), this book provides a fresh interpretation on the main changes China has brought to the global media landscape.