Media development on the growth of civil society in China: The case of Nanjing

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Media development on the growth of civil society
in China The case of Nanjing

• Wang Yi

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Outline

• Statement of the issue
• Research questions
• Brief literature review
• Research claims
• Proposed methodology
• Significance

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Statement of the issue

• The development of mass media in China
• Mass media and civil society in China
• The case of Nanjing

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Media Organizations Propaganda Office
Figure 1 A brief structure
of media system in China
Nation Province
Regulate


City
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Site selection Nanjing, China

• As one of the 10 biggest
• cities in China, Nanjing stands
• a significant status in Chinas
• media system concerning the
• administrative factors.

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• Nanjing is always famous for its heated media
  competition. For example, with the population of
  six million, it now has 9 daily newspapers.

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• The profound education background (48 colleges
  and universities, 508 scientific research
  institutions) and diverse culture dimension has
  also gained much chance for people in Nanjing to
  interact with mass

media.
Sources Nanjings yearbook of 2002
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Research questions

• How has media commercialization affected the
  growth of civil society in Nanjing and in what
  aspects?
• How has government control in media affected the
  growth of civil society in Nanjing and in what
  aspects?

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Literature review

• In Habermass historical narrative of the public
  sphere (1989), he considered it as a domain of
  our social life. Through the democratic procedure
  public opinion can be formed while access to the
  public sphere is open in principle to all
  citizens.
• Dahlgren (2001) argued that the mass media today
  has made current affairs throughout the world
  available to most citizens and it has also become
  the key source of information as well as forums
  of speech for much of the discussion among
  citizens and thus it qualifies as the public
  sphere.

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In the context of China

• Wang (2003) argued the commercialization of
  Chinas media has generally reinforced the
  medias independence from government because
  financial liberty is closely connected to
  political liberty.
• Caplan (1997) found ever increasing numbers of
  Chinese journalists now understand the meaning of
  press freedom and, restrained as they might be,
  have begun pushing the envelope to report the
  news in an unfettered manner.

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• Meanwhile, the regulation of government as a
  negative factor within the impact of media
  development on civil society should be taken into
  account.
• Zhong (2002) claimed his findings that the
  Chinese propaganda authorities have not
  relinquished their control over television based
  on a series of research he has done since 1998.
• As Wu (2000) pointed out, its noticeable the
  socio-economic liberalization has offered an
  increasingly larger space for journalistic
  reports in the social realm, albeit not yet in
  the political realm.

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• Additional negative factors are related to the
  commercialization of mass media.
• Dahlgren (2001) admitted that since the mass
  media are much driven by market forces and
  commercial interests, only a small portion of the
  mass medias output concerns the public sphere.

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Framework

• Positive Commercialization
• (Economic
  independence, ICT adoption
• and the growth of
  journalists)
• Negative Government Control
• (Political dependence, lack of
  legislation
• and lack of updated
  management)
• Commercialization

Public Sphere
Media
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Research claims

• Nanjings media has set up a relatively
  independent social space for public sphere mostly
  resulting from its commercialization and the
  development of both ICT and the journalists.
• However, there are also several negative effects
  on the growth of civil society due to the tight
  government censorship, in addition to the lack of
  legislation and old management system.

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Proposed methodology

• My research design would primarily be a
  qualitative research which includes a series of
  case studies.
• Data will be collected by a combined method of
  interviews, observations and documents, etc.
  Specifically, intensive interviews towards media
  journalists, audiences and propaganda officials,
  observations about the process how media has
  affected growth of public sphere and documents
  scrutiny such as news reports, letters from the
  audiences and scholars comments, etc. will be
  conducted.

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Why case studies will be adopted?

• Insight is needed into how media has influenced
  the growth of civil society in Nanjing.
• Case studies are valuable when the phenomena
  under study are contemporary and not under the
  control of the researcher, yet there is a desire
  to answer how questions. (Yin, 1984).
• Moreover, as Williams et al. (1988, p.113) put
  it, a definite advantage of a case study is that
  the research activities can be modified as the
  study progresses.

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Importance of the Research

• Chinas media has changed a lot since the 1978
  and has gained constant scholars attention.
  Whether we see Chinas media in optimistic or
  pessimistic terms, we should recognize that they
  are closely related to the public sphere and,
  to participate in the growth of civil society in
  China.
• Chinese media is continuing to sponsor these
  debates as an important way helping foster the
  growth of democracy, which catches the whole
  worlds attention.
• Comparing to previous studies based on only
  theoretical generalization, the research is
  unique because it will offer a more concrete view
  of the influence that media has put on the growth
  of civil society through the empirical study.

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• Thank you very much!
• Questions or suggestions?