From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Within the People's Republic of China there is heavy government involvement in the media, with many of the largest media organizations (namely CCTV, the People's Daily, and Xinhua) being agencies of the Chinese government. There are certain taboos and red lines within the Chinese media, such as a taboo against questioning the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China. Yet within those restrictions, there is an vibrance and diversity of the media and fairly open discussion of social issues and policy options within the parameters set by the Party.
Much of the surprising diversity in the Chinese media is attributable to the fact that most state media outlets no longer receive large government subsidies and are expected to largely pay for themselves through commercial advertising. As a result, they can no longer serve as solely mouthpieces for the government but must also produce programming that people find attractive and interested so that money can be generated through advertising revenue. In addition, while the government does issue directives defining what can and cannot be published, it does not prevent, and in fact actively encourages state media outlets to compete with each other for viewers and commercial advertising.
Government control of information can also be ineffective in other ways. Despite government restrictions, much information is gathered either at the local level or from foreign sources and passed on through personal conversations and short text messaging. The withdrawal of government media subsidies has caused many newspapers (including some owned by the Communist Party) in tabloid to take bold editorial stands critical of the government, as the necessity to attract readers and avoid bankruptcy has been a more pressing fear than government repression.
In addition, the traditional means of media control have proven extremely ineffective against newer forms of communication, most notably short text messaging.
Although the government can and does used laws against state secrets to censor press reports about social and political conditions, these laws have not prevented the press from all discussion of Chinese social issues. Chinese newspapers have been particularly affected by the loss of government subsidies, and have been especially active at gaining readership though must engaging in hard hitting investigative reporting and muckraking. As a result even papers which are nominally owned by the Communist Party are sometimes very bold at reporting social issues, as the fear of bankruptcy is more pressing than the fear of government censorship. However both commercial pressures and government restrictions have tended to cause newspapers to focus on lurid scandals often involving local officials who have relatively little political cover, and Chinese news papers tend to lack in depth analysis of political events as this tends to be more political sensitive.
Among social issues first reported in the Chinese press include the AIDS epidemic in Henan province, the unsafe state of Chinese mines. In addition, the SARS coverup was first blown by a fax to CCTV which was forwarded to Western news media.
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3.1 Diversified content
3.2 Talk radio: The freest and liveliest media 3.3 Magazines and journals 3.4 Greater prosperity and literacy 3.5 Ideological and political trends 3.6 Weakening of ideological shackles 3.7 Skepticism toward authority 3.8 Contact with the west 3.9 market Competition 3.10 Improvements in personnel 3.11 New technologies |
Figure 1 China: Number of Television Receivers
Television broadcasting is controlled by Chinese Central Television (CCTV), the country's only national network. CCTV, which employs about 2,400 people, falls under the dual supervision of the Propaganda Department, responsible ultimately for media content, and the Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television, which oversees operations. A Vice Minister in the latter ministry serves as chairman of CCTV. The network's principal directors and other officers are appointed by the State. So are the top officials at local conventional television stations in China--nearly all of which are restricted to broadcasting within their own province or municipality--that receive CCTV broadcasts.
CCTV produces its own news broadcasts three times a day and is the country's most powerful and prolific television program producer. It also has a monopoly on purchases of programming from overseas. All local stations are required to carry CCTV's 7 p.m. main news broadcast; an internal CCTV survey indicates that nearly 500 million people countrywide regularly watch this program.
Figure 2 China: Circulation of Daily Newspapers
These figures, moreover, underreport actual circulation, because many publishers use their own distribution networks rather than official dissemination channels and also deliberately understate figures to avoid taxes. (3) In addition, some 25,000 printing houses and hundreds of individual bookstores produce and sell nonofficial material--mostly romance literature and pornography but also political and intellectual journals. Greater Autonomy
A prime example has been the party's flagship newspaper, People's Daily, which had been rigidly controlled under Mao, used against his enemies, and copied verbatim by every other newspaper in the country during the Cultural Revolution. This leading daily was reformed and enlivened in the late 1970s and early-to-middle 1980s by then editor-in-chief Hu Jiwei. Hu expanded the paper's size and coverage, encouraged public criticism through letters to the editor, called for promulgation of a press law to spell out journalists' rights, and introduced a sprightlier writing style.
Chinese journalists in Hong Kong on occasion have written politically controversial articles for mainland intellectual journals without encountering problems. Such opportunities have abounded because of the range of publications on the mainland and because party officials there are too busy with weightier matters to review such journals systematically.(8)
Since the return of Hong Kong to China's control in July 1997, however, apprehensions have grown among Hong Kong journalists that Beijing will curtail their freedom to write articles not to its liking. (See inset on the Hong Kong media on page 5.) What Lies Behind the Growing Autonomy and Diversity?
Figure 3 China: Per Capita GDP
Figure 4 China: Adult Literacy Results
Other practices that are emerging in China, such as decisionmaking based on verifiable data and stronger quality controls on information, also have helped dilute the impact of ideology. In a change driven by the dual need for scientists to have reliable data with which to work and for the business sector to use in making investment and commercial decisions, the State Statistical Board since the mid-1980s has gained increased power to acquire and disseminate data for media and business use, reducing or eliminating the hitherto common practice in which each sector used "its own" data.
Virtually all foreign reporters in China operate under restrictions that are considerably more severe than in most Asian countries. One result is that Western media influence on Chinese media organizations as a whole is generally limited. Nonetheless, the contacts that do occur are having an impact on individual Chinese journalists, according to people interviewed for this study. In particular, one observer noted that younger reporters who have measurable, if cautious, contact with the West generally show minimal trust in official sources of information, are inclined to discount propaganda, and are determined to be comprehensive in their reporting.(11)
Television revenues also are growing dramatically: they totaled about $2 billion in 1995 (see table 1) and are expected to rise above $6 billion by 2005.(12) In 1995, Chinese Central Television earned nearly $150 million in advertising revenue, covering almost 90 percent of its total costs.(13) In the past, Chinese radio and television tended to run well behind the print press in their news coverage.(14) More recently, television has come under market pressure to be as timely, informative, and responsive as the print media.
Competition from outside mainland China has further impelled domestic media organizations to become more diverse, assertive, and skeptical of official authority. For example, in order to compete against higher quality Hong Kong radio stations that could be heard in Guangdong Province, Guangdong radio managers created Pearl River Economic Radio (PRER) in 1986. PRER, copying Hong Kong radio's approach, began to emphasize daily life, entertainment, "celebrity" deejays, and caller phone-in segments, while eliminating ideological, preachy formats that included little information beyond what was provided by government sources. By 1987, PRER had obtained 55 percent of the Guangdong market; previously, Hong Kong radio stations had held 90 percent of this market. Local party cadre in southern China reportedly are unhappy about PRER, mainly because some of the station's commentators, as well as its talk radio programs, highlight party failures and the misdeeds of individual party members in the region.(15)
The top national Chinese Communist Party papers (People's Daily, Guangming Daily, and Economic Daily)--which mostly feature party speeches, announcements, propaganda, and policy viewpoints--are steadily losing circulation and much-sought advertising revenues to evening municipal papers that have far more diverse content (see figure 5). For example, People's Daily's circulation fell from 3.1 million copies a day in 1990 to 2.2 million in 1995; the paper's 1994 advertising revenues were down as well. Moreover, its subscriptions consist overwhelmingly of mandatory ones by party and government organizations. Similarly, the Liberation Army Daily has become almost entirely dependent on State subsidies. Its circulation has fallen from 1.7 million in 1981 to fewer than 500,000 at present.
Table 2 China: Comparison of Per Capita Advertising Revenues, 1994
By contrast, the circulation of the Xinmin Evening News, operated by the Shanghai Municipal Government, has risen from 1.3 million to 1.7 million over the same time period. The Guangzhou Daily, owned by the Guangzhou Municipal Government, doubled its circulation in six years to 600,000 in 1994, and its ad revenues also were up.(16)
Improved training, more education, and higher professional standards are bolstering the skills and confidence of journalists across East Asia, better positioning media organizations to gain positions of influence in their societies. Although Chinese journalists only recently have begun to participate in these opportunities, there is some evidence that such training is having an effect. Many of the young Chinese journalists being trained at US and other universities and professional programs in the West have been characterized by their trainers as "smart," "aware," and devoted to the profession.(17)
Beginning in the 1980s, it became necessary in most cases for reporters to have a college education, and often a university degree, to get good jobs with the top party newspapers. The highly profitable evening papers, sponsored in the main by municipal governments, usually also require a college education.(18)
Through the Internet, residents of China can get uncensored news from the Chinese News Digest, an on-line service created by Chinese volunteers in the United States and Australia.(22) This service carries information on such issues as trials of prominent dissidents, develop-ments in Taiwan, and divisions among the party's top leaders. A Western specialist on Internet in China has noted that about one-fifth of the more than 500,000 personal computers sold there in 1994 were designated for installation in residences, where it is especially difficult for the State to limit Internet use.(23)
Since the beginning of 1996, the State has suspended all new applications from Internet service providers seeking to commence operations in China; moved to put all existing Internet services under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Electronics Industry, and the State Education Commission; and attempted--without much success--to establish firewalls, limit the contents of home pages, and block access to certain Internet sites through routing filters.(24) Government officials are worried that, as the number of Chinese homes with telephone lines grows from the present level of less than four percent, the State will become totally unable to monitor Internet access at residences.
Chinese provincial broadcasters increasingly are trying to identify subjects on which the party will allow them more autonomy. Recent demands--unmet thus far--by such broadcasters include seeking authority to carry international news, to contract out television and radio programming to nongovernment organizations, and to explore possibilities for quasi-private media ownership.(26)
As State resources have become stretched more thinly, the media have found it far easier than before to print and broadcast material that falls within vaguely defined gray areas. Officials are too few, too busy, and often too incompetent to be able to micromanage the media as in the past. Prior to the 1990s, it was common for party and government officials to participate in the actual drafting of newspaper editorials. Now, for the most part, these officials merely discuss editorial policies with newspaper managers.(27)
In the past, prime-time news in state-owned Chinese Central Television (CCTV) was routinely examined, prior to airing, by the Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television. Since 1994, however, the Ministry has ceased to prescreen CCTV news programs; now the programs are examined after they have aired.(28) The diversity and quantity of material, moreover, have compelled officials to prioritize their reviews of broadcasts; the 7:00 p.m. news broadcasts, for instance, receive far more attention from the authorities than does the midnight news.(29) In another manifestation of weakening government controls, recently launched news programs such as CCTV's Focal Report and Beijing Television's Express News include moderate criticisms of the party and government and explore some controversial public topics in an effort to make programs relevant to--and more popular with--viewers.
Evidently recognizing the limits on their ability to maintain tight control over an industry that has been expanding rapidly, party leaders during the last decade have publicly acknowledged the need to establish priorities. In particular, they have spoken of the high priority attached to maintaining control over the "big media"--national party papers and central and provincial TV and radio stations.
Many Chinese officials appear anxious to avoid confronting the media because they are afraid they will be accused of transgressions in newspapers, in magazines, or on television or radio. As media autonomy has expanded, print and broadcast organs have tried to flex their "independence," albeit cautiously, in their coverage of State activities. Such coverage often focuses on specific government officials suspected of illegal actions, including use of their authority for personal gain.
Although the media's leverage stems mostly from officials' worries that rival insiders will use such publicity against them, it also appears to reflect growing respect within Chinese officialdom for the emerging influence of public opinion. A case in point is the Beijing Youth Daily. This paper has been punished for criticizing government actions and policies, but the authorities have stopped short of shutting it down, almost certainly out of reluctance to antagonize the paper's expanding readership.
Beyond those arrested for their involvement in protests, the party also decided to punish--mainly by demotion or transfer--one percent of all staff members in major Beijing media offices as a warning to others.(31) Although the Tiananmen crackdown damaged morale among Chinese journalists, journalists' spirits recently have begun to rebound as a result of increasing party tolerance of (and inattention toward) diversity in the media, as well as improvements in journalists' salaries and benefits.(32)
The lack of an independent judiciary further hamstrings efforts by the media to mount court challenges against restrictions on media activities. The party appoints judges, and the position of the courts is merely equal to--not above--that of the bureaucracy.
The government uses a variety of approaches to retain some control over the media:
The government also exploits a longstanding hierarchical relationship among Chinese print and broadcast entities in seeking to maintain some control over the media. It appoints the leaders of the most powerful media institutions, and then uses these organizations to try to dominate the rest of the media countrywide.
In many ways, Xinhua is the fuel propelling China's print media. Perhaps unique in the world because of its role, size, and reach, Xinhua reports directly to the party's Propaganda Department; employs more than 10,000 people--as compared to about 1,300 for the UK's Reuters, for example; has 107 bureaus worldwide both collecting information on other countries and dispensing information about China; and maintains 31 bureaus in China--one for each province plus a military bureau. Inasmuch as most of the newspapers in China cannot afford to station correspondents abroad--or even in every Chinese province--they rely on Xinhua feeds to fill their pages. People's Daily, for example, uses Xinhua material for approximately 25 percent of its stories.(b) Xinhua is a publisher as well as a news agency--it owns more than 20 newspapers and a dozen magazines, and it prints in Chinese, English, and four other languages.
Like other government entities, Xinhua is feeling the pinch of reduced State financial subsidies. Beijing has been cutting funding to the news agency by an average of seven percent per year over the past three years, and State funds currently cover only about 40 percent of Xinhua's costs.(c) As a result, the agency is raising revenues through involvement in public relations, construction, and information service businesses.
In the past, Xinhua was able to attract the top young journalists emerging from the universities or otherwise newly entering the field, but it can no longer do so as easily because of the appeal and resources of other newspapers and periodicals and the greater glamour of television and radio jobs. For example, midlevel reporters for the Xinmin Evening News often are given an apartment, whereas at Xinhua and People's Daily this benefit is reserved for the most senior journalists.(d)
Like many other media organizations, Xinhua struggled to find the "right line" to use in covering the Tiananmen Square events of April-June 1989. Although more cautious than People's Daily in its treatment of sensitive topics during that period--such as how to commemorate reformist Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang's April 1989 death, the then ongoing demonstrations in Beijing and elsewhere, and basic questions of press freedom and individual rights--Xinhua gave some favorable coverage to demonstrators and intellectuals who were questioning top party leaders. Even so, many Xinhua reporters were angry with top editors for not going far enough and for suppressing stories about the Tiananmen Square crackdown.(e) For several days after the violence on 4 June, almost no one at Xinhua did any work, and journalists demonstrated inside the Agency's Beijing compound.
Xinhua and many other Chinese media organizations produce reports for the "internal journals. Informed observers note that journalists generally like to write for the internal publications--typically, only the most senior or most capable print and broadcast reporters are given such opportunities--because they can write less polemical and more comprehensive stories without having to omit unwelcome details as is commonly done in the print media directed to the general public.(1) A Chinese historian has noted, as an example of such self-censorship, that only a minority of China's population are aware 30 million people starved to death in the early 1960s, because the Party has never allowed the subject to be openly explored in the media.
The Chinese Government's internal media publication system follows a strict hierarchical pattern designed to facilitate party control. A publication called Reference Information (Cankao Ziliao)--which includes translated articles from abroad as well as news and commentary by senior Xinhua reporters--is delivered by Xinhua personnel, rather than by the national mail system, to officials at the working level and above. A three-to-ten-page report called Internal Reference (Neibu Cankao) is distributed to officials at the ministerial level and higher. The most highly classified Xinhua internal reports, known as "redhead reference" (Hong Tou Cankao) reports, are issued occasionally to the top dozen or so party and government officials.
There are signs the internal publication system is breaking down as more information becomes widely available in China. A Hong Kong-based political journal circulated on the Chinese mainland has questioned the need for such a system in light of China's modern telecommunications and expanding contacts with the outside world.(2) Internal publications are becoming less exclusive; some are now being sold illegally on the street and are increasingly available to anyone with money.(3)
Some of the internal publications have changed substantially in an effort to avoid becoming obsolete. For example, the publication News Front--started in 1957 as a weekly tool for the Communist Party to instruct journalists on what to write--no longer was limited to that function when it reappeared after the Cultural Revolution. It continued to change gradually and is now a monthly publication that serves as a professional rather than political guide for journalists.(4)
See also:
 Radios Golden Years: The Encyclopedia of Radio Programs, 1930-1960 |
 A Thirty-Year History of Programs Carried on National Radio Networks in the United States, 1926-1956. |
 Radio Drama: A Comprehensive Chronicle of American Network Programs, 1932-1962 |
 Radio Program Openings and Closings, 1931-1972 | ||||
 Radio Programs, 1924-1984: A Catalog of over 1800 Shows |
 Media Log: A Guide to Film, Television, and Radio Programs Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Pu |
 Great Radio Audience Participation Shows: Seventeen Programs from the 1940s and 1950s |
 Radio Program Ideabook. | ||||
 Greater than the bomb : the first publication in English of a radio program broadcast internationally in 1950 and repeated many times since |
