Political control, media marketisation, and news production

Based on a critical review of empirical studies on how political authorities in China influence news media practices and shape news content, this chapter proposes an integrated model of political control on news production in China. The model delineates how different forms of political control on news production, including government news censorship, journalism education, appointment of media management, and control of political information dissemination, would have an impact on the news selection autonomy across different news organisations and on journalists’ news reporting strategies, which will then shape the news media content, for example news agendas and frames built by news organisations. The theoretical model built on findings from existing studies on the particular topic, that is political control and news production, suggests that news media control in China remains effective, but news media marketisation in the country has considerably increased the autonomy of news organisations in the reporting of some types of issues, for example wrongdoings of local cadres or political scandals at the local levels of government. The autonomy is accompanied with the negotiation of journalists to expand news reporting boundaries in the background of state-led marketisation which essentially safeguards the legitimate ruling of the Party-state yet provides news organisations leeway to the reporting of news issues that do not challenge state legitimacy. Such news control practices partly symbolise the sophisticated methods of governance of the Chinese Party-state and the activeness of news media practitioners in the face of manipulation.