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Journalism History

China

Shihua Chen and Qian Wang

Prehistory of Journalismin Ancient China

China is a very ancient country and has experienced a different kind of media history compared to other nations. Its earliest newspaper can be traced back to the Tang dynasty. Before that, there were no special news media; news was communicated mingled with other information.

The first newspapers, named Zhuangbao or Dibao, were about court news; they were first produced spontaneously byJinzouyuan, a governmental agency set up in Chang'an where the emperor lived, and served the Jiedushi, provincial governors in charge of civil and military affairs. Such newspapers were government organs aimed at magistrates and officials, produced and circulated only among the bureaucracy (Bin, 1999).

Called variously Jinzouyuanzhuang, Baozhuang, Chaobao, or Dibao in ancient China, today people refer to all of them by the name Dibao. These ancient newspapers differed dramatically from modern newspapers. First, the content is quite different: Dibao are all about the emperor's orders, officials' memorials to the throne, and announcements of official promotions, demotions, rewards, and punishment. Second, the form is quite different: the Dibao was full of information without any fixed form. Handwritten on silk or paper or printed on paper, it didn't have any columns, headlines, or divisions of information. Third, the circulation and distribution were very different. Instead of being published and circulated by a newspaper office, the Dibao was issued by the court and government and distributed through the post. There was no independent profession of journalism.

This was true of the Han, Tang, Song, Ming, and Early-mid Ch'ing dynasties. During the Song dynasty, the Dibao became a centrally managed organ, strictly supervised by authority, which limited its content and weakened its timeliness. These limitations left an opening for the development of the Xiaobao, unofficial and uncensored newspapers whose news was chosen and disseminated according to the needs of the communicators. Though banned by the government, Xiaobao's timeliness and news appeal allowed it to survive. Dibao grew more abundant in content during the Ming dynasty, and began to report news about agriculture, the climate, and society (Yungong, 1990).

With the development of the economy and society, non-governmental newspaper houses in Beijing publicly issued Jingbao in the Ch'ing dynasty. News in those newspapers also came from the court; they reported news that the Dibao neglected. The Jingbao were full-fledged newspapers, aiming to satisfy people's need for news at that time.

The Nineteenth-Century Rise of a Modern Press in Late Ch'ing China

Limited by the feudal economy, China's ancient Dibao developed very slowly in both form and content. Things changed with the outbreak of the Opium Wars (1840–1842), which brought an end to China's closed-door policy. The 1,200-year history of the ancient newspapers also ended; they gradually disappeared, replaced by modern newspapers.

The Western capitalist powers, especially Britain, were busy enlarging commercial markets and accelerating colonial expansion in the nineteenth century. Aiming to grab the huge market in China, groups of businessmen, missionaries, politicians, and adventurers came, bringing opium as well as other varieties of goods, like Western-style hospitals, schools, and newspapers.

The old agrarian–bureaucratic imperial China was no match for the expanding British and other empires of international trade and gunboats. Thus the Opium Wars became a watershed of Chinese history which rapidly caused the unified feudal empire to evolve into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial state. The development of foreign newspapers in China was divided into two phases by the period of the Opium Wars.

Before the Opium Wars, Western religion and newspapers were strictly forbidden by the Ch'ing government. Covert publications appeared in the coastal areas, however. These included the Chinese Monthly Magazine (chashisu meiyue tongji zhuan) and the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine (dongxi yangkao meiyue tongji zhuan). There were six Chinese-language newspapers and 11 foreign-language newspapers, including the Portuguese A Abelha da China (mifeng huabao) and English Canton Register (guangzhou jilubao). Foreign missionaries published Chinese-language newspapers for Chinese readers. Foreign-language newspapers' readers were foreigners, and most of their content was news and business reports.

The first Chinese-language newspaper was the Chinese Monthly Magazine (1815–1821), which was printed using carved woodblocks and published monthly by the British missionary Robert Morrison and William Milne at Malacca, which is very near China. This newspaper's fundamental task was the elucidation of Christian doctrines; it also tried to propagate ethics and morals and offer information about other countries and knowledge of astronomy and geography. And it published some poetry and fables. Morrison and Milne were attentive to their craft. To make their message more effective, they chose easily accepted Chinese traditional forms and worked hard to make their articles short and popular.

The Eastern Western Monthly Magazine (1833–1838) was another foreign religious Chinese-language newspaper. Published in Guangdong, it was the first modern Chinese-language newspaper produced in mainland China. It focused on current affairs, business, and politics. At the same time, foreign businessmen and politicians published the first group of foreign-language newspapers, which also saw themselves as protecting the rights of foreign businessmen and adventurers. The earliest published English newspaper was the Canton Register in Guangzhou.

After the Chinese defeat in the Opium Wars, the Ch'ing government was forced to open its borders to Western powers and grant missionaries the right to proselytize openly throughout China (Twitchett & Fairband, 1978). Foreign newspapers expanded, spreading from Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Macao to many other areas of China. A web of foreign newspapers appeared, about 300 in all, and more than 200 of them published after the Wars. Important newspapers included the Shanghai Serial (1857), the Chinese Glohe Magazine (1868), Shenbao (1872), and the North China Daily News (1882).

The foreign newspapers had significant influence on the development of modern society in China. First, they reinforced cultural colonialism. Second, they promoted communication between China and the West. Third, the practice of foreign-owned newspapers contributed to the development of Chinese publishing experience, skills, and printing techniques. Chinese journalists like Wangtao and Chen Aiting were employed at foreign-owned newspapers and then became leaders of a new generation of Chinese journalists.

After contact with a Western newspaper, Chinese people became familiar with it and began to use it. Two groups, officials and businessmen, gathered information from it to learn the trends in politics, military affairs, and business. Others, like Chen Aiting, worked for Western newspapers writing articles for the Chinese; they went on to edit Chinese-language newspapers. The Chinese didn't publish their own modern newspapers until social innovation from inner China came into contact with foreigners in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and elsewhere in the 1870s. Xunhuan Ribao (1874), one of the most successful Chinese-owned newspapers, was also one of the earliest newspapers openly advocating political reform. It was founded and its first editorial was written by Wangtao, an early bourgeois reformist thinker. His columns were terse and forceful and took clear-cut stands. Filled with feeling, they explained profound theories in simple language; their style greatly influenced writers at that time and continued to inspire reformers afterward.

The tempo of foreign invasion steadily accelerated. The Opium Wars of 1840–1842 were followed within 15 years by the Anglo-French invasion of 1857–1860, then within another decade or so by Russia's occupation of Yili in 1871 and Japan's takeover of Liu-ch'iu in 1874, and the next decade by the Sino-French War of 1883–1885. Nine years later in 1894–1895 came the crushing Japanese victory over China (Twitchett & Fairband, 1978). China was forced to sign unfair treaties and to surrender sovereign rights under humiliating terms. Then the Reform movement, launched by Chinese bourgeois reformists, swept across China in the mid-1890s, encouraging Chinese-owned newspapers to develop rapidly. About 80% of 120 Chinese-language newspapers were Chinese owned, among which the bourgeois reformists and their related non-governmental bodies engaged the most and with the greatest influence. Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Yanfu, and their newspapers played positive roles during this period.

During the Reform movement, newspapers aimed to reach the upper ruling class and gain their sympathy and support. In the period from August 1895 to August 1896, Zhongwai jiwen and Qiangxue bao were representative. The newspaper became a vital tool to organize, lead, and guide the campaign during August 1896–August 1898. Shiwu hao (China Progress) in Shanghai, Guowen bao (National News) in Tianjin, and Xiangxuebao and Xiangbao in Changsha all played significant roles during the campaign. Liang Qichao deserves special attention.

Liang Qichao (1873–1929) has been widely recognized as the most prominent journalist in the late Qing period. His involvement in journalism lasted altogether 27 years: he was editor in chief of ten newspapers and associated with at least another 19 newspapers throughout his life. Liang created a new journalism style which revolutionized the Chinese press. Liang's effort in establishing normative press theory is also well known. From 1895 to 1911, he published about a dozen essays in Shiwu bao, Qingyi bao (China Discussion), Xinmin congbao (New Citizen Journal), and other newspapers, writing at length on the importance of modern journalism. His works have been widely quoted and celebrated by Chinese journalists and historians of journalism as a breakthrough in modern Chinese journalism. Liang established a theory of the public and public opinion. He suggested a normative model of journalism as political at heart and public in character and placed the press in a central position in the development of civil society and modern political discourse. He mainly envisioned journalism as part of a middle realm between the common people below and the officials above, thus serving as a contemporary political authority replacing the old imperial court (Zhang Volz, 2009).

Following the upsurge of reform newspapers, a new style of government organ came into being, published by the Ch'ing dynasty in an attempt to save the decaying regime. A network of over 100 newspapers throughout the country formed a system that included both central and local organs. This news network seems to have temporarily delayed the collapse of the Ch'ing dynasty.

1900–1949: Journalism for Revolution

The Chinese political situation changed dramatically after the Hundred Days Reform in 1898. The national bourgeois class divided into two different factions, bourgeois reformists and bourgeois revolutionaries. They launched the Reform movement and the Revolution movement, respectively. The former was represented by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, who promoted moderate reform aimed at a constitutional monarchy; they vehemently opposed the bourgeois revolutionary goal of democratic revolution. Sun Yat-Sen led the revolutionaries, whose strength grew after 1900. They hoped to violently overthrow the feudal system and the Ch'ing dynasty. During the Revolution of 1911, they published numerous newspapers and periodicals to propagate and serve the revolution. Both sides published partisan newspapers.

Reformist newspapers went on to develop in China and abroad after the Xinyou Coup. Qingyi bao and Xinmin Congbao were influential newspapers published in Japan. Shibao was the most famous newspaper after 1903, when the bourgeois reformist newspaper revived in China. Some bourgeois reformists were radicalized after the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing and the Boxer Rebellion failed.

As the revolutionaries developed, their party's newspapers and periodicals grew briskly. The activities of the bourgeois revolutionary newspaper can be divided into three phases. The first phase was from 1900 to 1904, during which the bourgeois revolutionary newspaper was published by students abroad and exiles in Japan. Zhongguo ribao (1900), the first revolutionary organ in Hong Kong, and Subao, the earliest newspaper controlled by revolutionaries in China, were representative. The Chinese Education Society, the Patriotic Society, the Restoration Society, the Society for the Revival of China, etc., had published a group of revolutionary newspapers in China, which included Guomin riribao, Jingzhong ribao, and Zhongguo baihuaba. The second phase was from 1905 to 1907, during which Minbao (1905), the official organ of the United League, the bourgeois revolutionary united party, was representative. Minbao propagated the ideas and theory of the revolution. On the other hand, it debated with the Royalist Council newspapers to good effect. The third phase was from 1908 to 1911, during which a group of revolutionary newspapers referred to collectively as Vertical Sanmin appeared and developed significantly – Minhu ribao, Minyu ribao, Minlibao, and Dajiangbao published by Yu Youren were representative. According to the needs of the revolution, the newspapers' propaganda focus changed from abroad to back home and performed an indispensable function in the final struggle of overthrowing the feudal rulers.

Journalism took off after the Ch'ing dynasty eliminated newspaper censorship in 1901. News reporting was the main content: political, economic, and social news became prevalent, often in-depth, supplemented by photographs and other design features, and often put together by specially appointed and accredited journalists. As the political situation developed and the influence of Western newspapers increased, the forms of news also increased – editorials, review comments, editors' notes, and so forth were adopted. Some newspapers were divided into serious and satirical sections, and literary supplements grew in importance. Advertisements became more important, and more attention was paid to design. Newspapers became more differentiated from periodicals, evolving into their present forms.

Sun Yat-Sen instituted a system of freedom of the press immediately after the Provisional Government of the Republic of China was set up in 1912. This provided a huge impulse for the development of journalism in China. The following six months came to be called the Golden Age of the Press; newspapers around the country surged from 100 to 500, with a total circulation of 42 million (Tingjun, 2008, p. 131). Among the newly published newspapers, most were political party newspapers. More than 300 political parties appeared after the government was set up, but they quickly combined and divided into two grand party coalitions, the United League–Kuomintang (KMT) and the Republican Party–Progressive Party. The various parties founded organs to promote their election campaigns and to counter their opponents' newspapers.

Soon, though, Yuan Shih-kai gained control of press regulation and put an end to this period. His centralized authority targeted the press, closed down newspaper houses, and arrested, expelled, and killed newspapermen. Newspapers decreased to 139 from 500 in the course of 1912, in a moment that came to be known as the Guichou Disaster. After Yuan Shih-kai died in 1919, the political situation degenerated into turbulent chaos under the rule of the Northern Warlords (1912–1927). Journalism changed in complex ways, with notable innovations like the popular Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School art supplements, and controversies over “yellow” tabloids.

Some encouraging developments occurred during this frustrating time. Because political comment was forbidden by the government, newspapers paid more attention to news reporting. The emphasis on news in newspapers became larger than ever, and many newspaper houses spared no expense to employ talented, experienced journalists; they even sent their journalists abroad to report the international news. The other important phenomenon in the early Republic of China was the development of news agencies, set up with the support of bureaucrats and businessmen. Most prominent among them was Shao Piaoping, who set up the successful Tokyo agency.

A number of elite journalists, distinguished by education, experience, and a reputation for high standards of journalism, appeared at this time, including Huang Yuansheng, Shao Piaoping, Liu Shaoshao, Lin Baishui, Hu Zhengzhi, and others. Huang Yuansheng was the preeminent journalist, credited with shaping the style of the news report (Wu, 1994). He published and edited the weekly Shaonian Zhoukan (Youth Weekly), then worked as a special correspondent stationed at Beijing for Shibao, Shenbao, and Dongfang Ribao, and often wrote for many other leading newspapers. Shao Piaoping, another well-known journalist, was famous for his skill at interviewing. These elite journalists enhanced the social standing of the profession.

Reacting against Yuan Shih-kai's autocratic reign and the sense of danger of national subjugation, radical intellectuals led by Chen Tu-hsiu and Li Dazhao promoted Citizenship Reform, arguing that, in order to realize democratic politics, it was necessary to use bourgeois-democratic ideology to arouse the people. The magazine New Youth (Xin Qingnian) was founded in Shanghai under the editorship of Chen Tu-hsiu in September 1915. It drew together ideas which formed a third stage of the reform movement that began in the 1890s. New Youth did not begin in 1915 with a straightforward affirmation of this optimistic philosophy of progress. Rather, at first, it was a vehicle for radical intellectuals anxious to counteract what they saw as retrogressive forces in politics and culture which were growing stronger as the experiment in republicanism faltered under the presidency of Yuan Shih-kai, and then fell hostage to contending militarists after his death. By 1920 Chen Tu-hsiu and his close collaborator on New Youth, Li Dazhao, announced their conversion to Marxism and turned the magazine into a vehicle for the new Chinese communist movement. During the May Fourth movement, which followed China's betrayal at the Versailles peace conference, many newspapers' supplements abandoned their previous commercial strategies to embrace new ideas, new knowledge, and new art. Some of them turned to Marxism. Newspapers were also buoyed by more and better advertisements during that time. And journalism education and research began, with Xu Baohuang and Shao Piaoping contributing much to that project. Some universities established the curriculum of journalism in the 1920s.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in 1921. The CCP produced newspapers and periodicals for workers, peasants, women, youth, and the army; they inaugurated what became the party newspaper network. Meanwhile, progressive newspapers and revolutionary journalists were suppressed in the areas controlled by the northern warlords. Prominent newspapermen Shao Piaoping and Lin Baishui were murdered by minions of the northern warlords in Beijing, to the shock of the country. As a whole, the news media's social influence grew, spreading beyond the circle of politics and academics into the general public and playing a positive role in the workers' movement, peasant movement, united patriotic movement, and the Northern Expedition.

After a period of cooperation, the right wing of the Kuomintang (KMT)/National Party turned against the CCP, boycotting the revolutionary newspapers. The counter-revolutionary coup launched by Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei in 1927 seriously weakened left-wing journalism.

The ten-year civil war between the KMT and CCP that followed (1927–1937) was also a war between competing camps of journalism. The KMT led by Chiang Kai-shek established the Central News Agency, which anchored a large news communication network that included the Zhongyang Ribao (Central Daily) and Saodang Bao (Sweeping Daily) and a broadcasting network revolving around Central Broadcasting. The KMT also controlled many privately owned news organizations. The KMT regulated the press and targeted CCP media in particular. In the KMT-controlled areas, the CCP published newspapers secretly, with the active center still in Shanghai, where Lu Xun was the best-known journalist. The CCP and its Red Army controlled the Revolutionary Base Areas, and there operated a competing newspaper and communication network, which was instrumental in the building of the regime, and included the Red China News Agency, the Red China newspaper, and the Red Star Newspaper.

After the September 18 Incident, in which Japan engineered an explosion near a Japanese-owned railroad to justify an invasion of Manchuria, CCP media proclaimed a goal of national salvation. Most prominent among the journalists was Shi Liangcai. A dramatic change also occurred in the newspaper Shen Bao (Shun Pao), which switched from ineffectual mild comment to full-throated criticism. Shen Bao's progressive articles had a great social impact. Shi Liangcai, who had become recognized as the voice of independent public opinion, was assassinated by a KMT spy in 1934. Zou Taofen, another outstanding activist journalist, published Shenghuo (Life Weekly); his work still greatly influences journalism today. Fan Changjiang's book-length report, The Northwest Corner of China, became a bestseller, and American journalist Edgar Parks Snow's Red Star Over China also told the story of the Red Army. The former was the first timely objective report of the Long March and its influence, the latter was an earlier book which publicly introduced the CCP revolution and its leaders. Snow's book had tremendous impact worldwide and gained understanding and support for the Chinese struggle. Meanwhile, in the field of journalism research, Ge Gongzhen's History of the Chinese Newspaper (1927) laid a solid foundation for Chinese journalism history.

When the Marco Polo Bridge incident on July 7, 1937, led to full-scale war between China and Japan, it also unleashed a crescendo of journalistic activities. An unprecedented unity in the face of Japanese aggression replaced the factionalism of the early 1930s. Journalists were national patriots. Following its political headquarters, the center of KMT journalism moved from Shanghai to Wuhan and then to Chongqing. A Chongqing-centered journalism network was established and developed well despite the moves and disruption, so that the total number of newspapers actually increased during the war. But as the war developed into stalemate, KMT newspapers lessened their anti-Japanese passion and strengthened their anti-CCP activity. As the CCP's revolutionary base area enlarged, its central organ, Liberation Daily, expanded in influence. At the same time the CCP created a group of legal news organizations in districts under KMT control, among which Xinhua Daily and Mass Weekly had the broadest reach. Most of the privately owned newspapers dedicated themselves to national integrity, a good example being Dagong Bao (Takung Pao). From November 1937 to December 1942, Shanghai was a concession of Britain, the United States, and France, and was surrounded by Japanese-occupied zones. A number of privately owned anti-Japanese newspapers published there, the most famous being Wen Hui Daily. In the Japanese occupied areas, a small group of progressive anti-Japanese newspapers were published at great risk.

After eight years of war, Japan unconditionally surrendered and withdrew from China in August 1945. The force of the CCP army grew, entering a full-scale civil war with the KMT. The journalism of the two parties can be divided into three phases as the military situation developed.

From September 1945 to June 1946, before the full-scale civil war broke out, the two parties' journalism competed fiercely; both established newspapers in the liberated areas. From June 1946 to July 1947, the CCP was on the defensive, and their news operations struggled, while KMT journalism developed to its peak. In the last phase, as the CCP succeeded militarily, KMT journalism collapsed in mainland China. The center of the CCP media system moved from the countryside to the cities. Privately owned newspapers changed their stand gradually to align with the CCP. Hence journalism developed into an entirely new pattern in China.

1949–1978: Journalism as the Party's Mouthpiece

Within a few years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, reforms of the press system turned privately owned journalism into publicly owned journalism. The PRC constructed a newspaper system led by the CCP's People's Daily, the Xinhua News Agency, and China National Radio. Photojournalism, newsreels, and journalism education continued to develop. The General Administration of Press and Publication was set up in 1949; it led and managed the whole country's news system. During the seven-year “socialist transformation,” economic news was the major content of the press. The press also dedicated itself to demonstrating the new image of China. Reports on the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea were also major political news. In cultural reporting, the media also achieved success, although some serious problems emerged. The CCP and Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Sung) used the techniques of partisan journalism to launch a much-expanded discussion and critique of cultural academics. The imitation of the dogmatism of the Soviet Union's journalism also presented a problem. The press became divorced from Chinese reality, which limited its supervisory function. Under the cultural development policy of the “Double Hundred,” the Chinese press learned from these lessons and carried out a socialist reform which began from the revision of China Daily, then expanded to other media in 1956, producing rapid improvement.

However, during the painstaking exploration of building socialism from 1957 to the first half of 1966, the media inflicted one tragedy after another in responding to Left political movements. Trying to cater to the needs of the movements, it lost its capacity for independent thinking and judgment, promoting ideas that harmed both the party and the people on a huge scale; journalism itself suffered in the process. The years from 1958 to 1965 were a period of major transition in the Chinese revolution. The press became a tool in the anti-Right struggle, and many newspapermen were also identified as belonging to the Right in 1957. During the Great Leap Forward in 1958, journalism did not report objectively, but conveyed arbitrary and impracticable directions on social construction. The press lost its sense of social responsibility. Then, from the second half of 1960 to the first half of 1962, the press adjusted itself, drew lessons from the past, and performed according to journalistic values. Two years later, the press was forced by the top leader to report the class struggle and anti-revisionism as the Chinese revolution entered a new stage in 1966.

Today it is acknowledged that the top leader, Mao Zedong, wrongly evaluated the Chinese situation. In Mao's competition with inner-party leaders, Liu Shao-chi and some other party leaders became the key initial targets of the Cultural Revolution. Groups of workers and students joined in, believing in the need to struggle against any bourgeois enemy. Many innocent people were persecuted. The movement launched China into a decade of tumult, during which the press became a tool of the counter-revolutionary groups. Media controlled the representation of public opinion, and all the media reported the same content. Journalists left their jobs in droves, and the quality and quantity of formal newspapers declined, while a rapidly increasing tabloid press flooded the nation (Hanqi, 1999). Journalism research and education during that time was also in a state of paralysis. The entire journalism system lost the trust of the people. China woke up from the terrible nightmare when the Gang of Four fell in 1976.

After 1978: Journalism Between Partisanism and Commercialism

The CCP took three years to revise its guiding ideology and establish the “Emancipating the Mind and Seeking Truth from Facts” ideology. The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party, held in 1978, shifted the emphasis to modernization. On May 11, 1978, an article titled “Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth” was published in Guangming Daily. This article elaborated the notion of truth in Marxism, claiming that social practice should verify whether a theory was in accord with reality (Hanqi, 1999, p. 429), and that practice is the only criterion to test truth. The article was reprinted in the People's Daily, Red Flag magazine (both organs of the CCP), PLA [People's Liberation Army] Daily, and other media nationwide. At that time, “Emancipating the Mind” became the main social ethos; this was interpreted as meaning the breaking down of conventions and subjectivism to study new situations and solve new problems. “Practice is Truth” was established as the normative journalism ideology in the post-Cultural Revolution era. After this discussion, many of the newspapers and magazines that closed during the Cultural Revolution reopened. Media reform began, and reporting on economic construction became the focus. The years from 1982 to 1991 saw a wide-scale shift in media ecology. In 1989 the number of newspapers reached 1,618 (from 186 in 1978), and party newspapers yielded the vanguard of press development to evening, business, cultural, lifestyle, youth, and women's publications. Broadcast television stations developed rapidly, and cable television spread even into rural areas (Ganlin, 2008, p. 367). Newspapers commercialized, paying more attention to advertising and circulation. The degree of open reporting increased so that the National People's Congress was reported live by both Chinese and foreign journalists. Influenced by Western journalism, in-depth and investigative reports appeared and became more common. Journalism education and research also developed, and journalism degree programs and departments were set up in many universities. Techniques of news interviewing, editing, and broadcasting advanced. The use of laser typesetters, document-processing terminal equipment, automatic picture transmission systems, and international telecommunication satellites by the media greatly improved timeliness and effectiveness.

After the Fourteenth National People's Congress in 1992, the “Socialist Market System” was proposed and established, gradually pushing Chinese journalism into commercialization. The scale of the mass media expanded rapidly, newspapers were enlarged, and TV channels increased. Groups of urban newspapers appeared and were very popular in the mid-1990s. Huaxi City Daily began in 1995 and Nanfang City Daily was established in 1997; these were among the first urban dailies with strong commercial features, with advertising income as their major economic source rather than party subsidy. Nanfang Weekly (Nan Fang zhou Mo) is a key newspaper featuring “watchdog” reports criticizing politics and society. Beijing News, a daily established by Guangming Daily and Nanfang Daily in 2003, is the first newspaper co-managed by two media groups, indicating a new era of regional and national commercial news-papering. In 2000, Chengdu Boray Investment Holding Group, owner of Chengdu Business Daily, became the first publicly traded company in China's media industry. Titan Weekly, featuring sports news, is a successful example of professional media in the market economy. Titan began in 1988 with a circulation of 800. In 2005, the circulation rose to 1.6 million daily or over 5 million weekly, accounting for 60% of the market for sports newspapers. Titan now has the largest circulation in China.

Competition among the media was very fierce, especially among advertising companies and news groups. At the end of 2009, there was a total of 49 newspaper groups distributing nationally. The influence of TV surpassed the newspapers, and television advertising rates were higher than for newspapers. Chinese journalism reached out to the world with the English-language channel CCTV-9 broadcast from September 2000, and Great Wall Satellite TV available in the United States from October 2004.

Another change in journalism in the post-1992 era was the transformation of the image of women and female journalists. In Confucian China, women were discriminated against, and throughout the nineteenth century women were kept in a box. Not until the Reform movement of 1898 did the first generation of female journalists appear, but in the first half of the twentieth century the situation again deteriorated. In the first Constitution of the People's Republic of China, approved in 1954, women's rights were guaranteed, but the slogan of Gender Equality concealed continuing inequality, especially in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Prominent women in the news were treated as outlandish and called “Iron Lady” or “Forceful Woman.” At the beginning of the 1980s, China gradually joined the rest of the world, and gender inequality truly started to diminish in the construction of a market economy. Women play significant roles in journalism, in the development of city newspapers and commercial TV channels, and more and more outstanding female journalists and TV anchors are emerging, but a deep Confucian culture of male superiority persists.

With the development of information and communication technology, new media – via the Internet, mobile phones, digital TV, mobile TV, IP TV (Internet TV) – came on the scene and enjoyed a great success. Mass media convergence became a major new trend. Numerous media established websites from 1995. According to statistics, network media were the fourth-largest media, and by the end of 2010 there were 457 million “netizens” in China, among which mobile phone netizens numbered 303 million. On the Internet ordinary people could release news, so that the media could more effectively perform the function of social supervision and service. The news published on the Internet also seemed somewhat inauthentic to the mass of people.

New problems appeared in journalism education. Since 2000, journalism majors have increased too fast, and demand for journalism education has produced a shortage of qualified teachers, inadequate funding, and employment difficulties for graduates.

Although the media have developed fast, party control remains. Yuezhi Zhao, an outstanding scholar of Chinese media, has argued that, if China boasts one of the fastest-growing economies since the 1990s, it also has one of the most oppressive regimes in using coercive state power to control public communication (Zhao, 2008, p. 20). Lee Chin-Chuan (2000) has also affirmed that media freedom in China ranks low globally, and that the media system has changed from totalitarianism to authoritarianism even with the national embrace of the capitalist market. Politics and economics are neither friendly nor aloof with one another, and the market is simultaneously interlinked with and trying to divorce itself from state power; the contradiction between them creates the space for the development of media. Media can be the beneficiary of the market, while also the mouthpieces of the party–state. The tension between media and the party–state creates a demand for negative liberty, or freedom from state control and censorship (Berlin, 1969). In order to capture audiences, media compete with each other in innovating new styles and market strategies, but they are dependent on the state because of their enslavement to political direction (Zhongdang, 2000). Media try everything to satisfy media markets in their news style and content, but they always try their best to avoid stepping on the mine of ideology. He Zhou (2000) described the market-oriented party–state media as a capitalist body with a socialist face. The media transformed from the mouthpiece of the party–state to the party's public relations consultant; their mission is not brainwashing, but maintaining the party's positive image and legitimacy. With the development of commercial media and supervisory newspapers, journalism manifests itself increasingly as an important force to facilitate democracy in China.

In a word, journalism in China is full of uncertainty. Reviewing the whole history of journalism in China, journalism's periodic rise and fall moves in rhythm with politics, and the development of media relies heavily on politics and ideology. There is still a long way to go before Chinese journalism catches up with Western journalism.

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FURTHER READING

Chang, Tsan-Kuo (1993). The press and China policy: The illusion of Sino-American relations, 1950–1984. Norwood, MA: Ablex.

Guo, Zhenzhi (1991). Zhong Guo Dian Shi Shi [The History of TV in China]. Beijing, China: Renmin University of China Press.

Lai, Guanglin (1978). Zhong Guo Xin Wen Chuan Bo Shi [The Journalism and Communication History in China]. Taipei, Taiwan: San Min.

Lee, Chinchuan (1990). Voices of China: The interplay of politics and journalism. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Mittler, B. (2004). A newspaper for China? Power, identity, and change in Shanghai's news media 1872–1912. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.

Twitchett, D., & Fairband, J. (1978). The Cambridge history of China (vols. 10–15). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Yutang, Lin (1936). A history of the press and public opinion in China. Shanghai, China: Kelly & Walsh.

Zeng, Xubai (1966). Zhong Guo Xin Wen Shi [The Journalism History in China]. Taipei, Taiwan: San Min.

Zhao, Yuezhi (1998). Media, market, and democracy in China: Between the party line and the bottom line. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Zhu, Chuanyu (1967). Song Dai Xin Wen Shi [The Journalism History of the Song Dynasty]. Taipei, Taiwan: Commercial Press.

Zhuo, Nansheng (1998). Zhong Guo Jin Dai Bao Ye Fa Zhan Li 1815–1874 [A History of Modern Press in China 1815–1874]. Taipei, Taiwan: Chenchung Bookstore.