state policy and news websites in china dong han & ying zhang university of illinois at...
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State Policy and News Websites in China
Dong Han & Ying ZhangUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
April 2009
Introduction News websites in China—what and
why?• State-owned news websites vs. commercial news websites.• 78.5% Internet users read news online.• How/if news websites in China contribute to media democratization?
Internet growth Explosive and unbalanced growth
• Users: 620 thousand in 1997 298 million in 2008
• Urban-rural divide: 28.4% users are rural residents, which amount to 2/3 of total population.• Gap between economically developed and less-developed regions. • Users: mostly students and office employees.
State policy Boosting the economy and
controlling news production• Information and communication technology as the key to development. • Media commercialization within the orbit of the Party-state.
Licensing—who can set up a news website?
Two-track system • For state-owned media outlets: easy and simple (and encouraged).• Established big commercial websites: ban on news production.• Non-profit, or small commercial websites: a de facto ban.
News on big commercial websites
No original political news stories • Can only reprint state-owned media outlets’ stories.• Transforming copyright law facilitated massive reprinting. • The quantity of news and the editing of “special topics.”
Concentration of news sources The big three
• Sampling news.sina.com.cn, the news site of Sina.com.• Most headline/political news come from Xinhuanet, People’s Net, and ChinaNews, all key state-owned media outlets.• 66% of non-headline “current and political” news, and 74% of headline news, came from the big three.
Two case studies: People’s Net and Sina.com People’s Net
• Online presence of the foremost Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily.• Propaganda-oriented: “to insist on correct guidance of public opinion.”• Set up in Chinese Internet’s infancy, and received high-profile support from state leaders.• Drastic development of state-owned news websites in early 2000s, when the Internet bubble burst.
Sina.com• Grew out of a sports (soccer) forum in 1996.• Investment from venture capital, merger with a US-based Internet company, adopting the new name Sina.com (1997-1998).• More transnational investment, listed in NASDAQ (2000).• State policy grew the Internet market, allowed in-flow of capital, and shaped the “production” of news.
Internet and media democratization in China News websites matter
• Internet is not only interactive technology, but also provision of news and information.• Reading news is the most popular online activity in China. • Diversified news sources and in-depth, investigative stories are indispensable for an informed public.
Does Internet news defy censorship and provide more diversity?• State-owned websites: loaded with propaganda tasks,
other websites: banned from news production, non-profit and small commercial sites: simply
banned.• No independent source of political news, no organized alternative efforts to provide in-depth stories.
Technology and democratization• State policy played a key role in the development of news website in China.• Internet does not automatically liberalize or democratize. • Internet growth and democratization endeavors in Internet-related settings need to be situated in social and political contexts.
