Geographies of difference: Media in China
The development of mass media in China has a breathtaking history. Chinese media environment faced dramatic changes from the total censorship to openness to the World. Nowadays the Chinese media world has a tremendous impact on every aspect of the social life. The market figures are impressive: according to Jens Linde (2008) and Richard Simcott (2014), there are over 2000 newspapers, 8000 magazines and, several hundred of broadcasters, and numerous web-sources explored by 600 million internet users. With 91% of online population having account in one or several social media sites, China even overcomes the U.S. with 67% of social networks penetration rate. An average Chinese has accounts in 3.4 social networks as compared with 2.1 networks in the U.S.
Combination of the technological advancement with the continued control over the mass media is unique to China (Wetherbee, 2010.) While the country is becoming one of the World’s largest economies, its authorities continue the old-world control and censorship policies towards the media, especially emerging media (web, mobile, including social networks).
While freedom of speech is guaranteed by the constitution, the level of press freedom in China is still one of the lowest across the Globe (163d place among 169 countries, according to the Reporters Without Borders’ ranking, 2007.) The government controls media using all the tactics possible – it uses firewalls, web monitoring systems; it closes and bans publications or media sites; journalists and bloggers can be simply put in a jail (Xu, 2014.) Strict regulations (for example, Law on Guarding State Secrets white paper on the Internet as of 2010) don’t allow the Chinese media to reach the same level of openness and globalization as the business and technological progress in this country (Wetherbee, 2010.)
Right after creation of People’s Republic of China in 1949, its government tried to create the social and economic system similar to the Soviet one, featured with low level of transparency and with forbidden critics addressing government policies and authorities. The main task of the media was to promote and to strengthen the power of the Communist Party and its ideology.
Despite of social and economic reforms made under the “open-door” policy of Deng Xiaoping, there was a little change in the mass-media domain. The great example of it was lack of media coverage of the well-known Tiananmen Square Student Movement in 1989 (Wetherbee, 2010.)
Nowadays the Chinese media are not so dependent from the government. Mostly self-funded, they have also more power to criticize authorities and their policies. Total reform of and complete openness cannot be expected in the nearest future, but recent trends evidence that the media landscape in China changed dramatically.
The policies on mass media become less restrictive. The authorities understand that following its media liberalization policy is vital for the future of the governing party and make steps forward freedom of speech.
One of the factors driving evolution of the Chinese mass media is a growing pressure of internationalization (Hong, 1998.) With increasing flow and exchange of people, funds, goods and ideas, China can’t stay isolated. Chinese private media companies are taking a significant role in the global market, competing even with the global digital media giants based mostly in the U.S.
The next driver of media liberalization is penetration of internet and social networks. The country authorities monitor web usage and web content. There were some shutdowns of internet providers, the authorities blocked access to worldwide-spread search engines and blog hosting platforms, such popular social networks like Facebook are not allowed. But, despite censorship and government control, the digital media segment increased its importance in the social life of Chinese people. 600 million of the Chinese web-users can express their opinions, share their thoughts and feelings about the various facts and events through local social media, becoming more and more popular.
One of the most popular social networks, Facebook-like Pengyou has over 260 million users. Being a part of Tencent QQ network with almost 800 million active users, Pengyou allows establishing social contacts, following companies and brands and also sharing thoughts. Another Chinese social networking giant, RenRen has about 200 million accounts and 54 million monthly active users (Simcott, 2014). Targeting mostly young generation, RenRen had recently launched its mobile version to keep up with the recent “mobility” trend. Kaixin, similar to the both above mentioned networks, addresses the older generations quite successfully, with the number of users exceeding 100 million.
In addition to Facebook-like social networks, microblogs (or Weibos) are very popular and trusted in China. As Twitter is blocked (unless it has about 50 thousand users accessing it via VPNs), local platforms like Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo take attention of the Chinese networkers. Sina Weibo is known as the most popular social media in China (Simcott, 2014) with almost 300 million active users and 500 million general registered user base. Tencent Weibo lags just a little with 230 million users. Users are quite open in these networks, but the content flow is monitored and censored. Weibo’s popularity became to grow after detailed coverage of rail crash that took place in 2011 and of government institutions’ misdoing causing such a terrible catastrophe.
Speaking about blogosphere in China, it’s necessary to mention that there are no strong politically-oriented online communities. Big Vs, or top bloggers with verified accounts and large number of fans and followers, are monitored by the authorities. “Anti-rumour” government campaign of 2013 caused a large-scaled crackdown on many popular online influencers; a part of them had stopped posting and commenting (Buckley, 2013.)
China has also a local analogue of YouTube (blocked by the authorities) – YouKu with impressive statistics – 400 million of monthly views as of 2013. The Communist party requires users to register their real names (so called “real names policy” – the only way to access option of video content posting). The same policy applies to signing up for microblogs and mobile messaging apps (for example, WeChat by Tencent).
Almost every global social platform has its local analogue in China – MySpace (QZone and Douban in China), Tumblr (Diandian), etc.
WeChat is one of the most popular social mobile tools, even having eclipsed Sina Weibo (Johnson, 2014), enabling its 300 million users, similarly to WhatsApp, to send and receive instant messages, also adding features that can be also found in applications like Skype, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The users say that it’s less censored than other social networks, because it allows private peer-to-peer conversations. According to Ian Johnson (2014), the activists say, that “WeChat allows them to dig deeper into issues with like-minded people.” There are other instant messaging services (QQ, Momo, etc.)
Social networks are playing an important role in exposing government corruption. For example, there was a corruption scandal with Rui Chenggang, Deputy Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, broadly exposed via internet.
But tough restrictions, imposed by the government authorities, limit the freedom of speech in China significantly. The government tries to limit people’s opportunities to discuss political issues and to criticize authorities via social networks, doing it under the slogan of fighting online rumors. In 2013, according to latest amendments to the government regulations, people, whose untrue posts online are widely reposted can be jailed for up to three years. People will be prosecuted with defamation if the false information they make public is visited by 5 000 web users or reposted over 500 times (Kaiman, 2013.) The web commenters can be charged with defamation if the information they share causes public riots, religious or ethnic unrest or even if it has a "bad international effect” (Kaiman, 2013.) It’s difficult to define whether the information is true or false; and it’s quite easy for a topical social media post to reach 5000 visits and 500 reposts, so this regulatory norm can be abused and will probably become a tool to fight political dissidents.
Authorities are extremely attentive to a content related to any public meet-ups and other collective actions, even unrelated to the politics. For example, is someone wants to go out for a barbeque with 100 or 200 people, that can be censored, the account owner can be warned. But in general terms, they allow individuals to express their thoughts and opinions, even about state policies. So, according the findings of the study performed by Gary King and his colleagues (2013), ‘the Chinese people are individually free but collectively in chains.”
In 2014, new restrictions were imposed on messaging-app services. In addition to “real name policy” mentioned above, the regulations, issued by the State Internet and Information Office, state that only news organizations and other authorized websites “are allowed to post or share political news through public accounts” (Levin, 2014.) Preventive measures can be used (accounts may be warned or restricted from posting), after serious violation the accounts can be closed.
Most global social media in China are prohibited, mostly due to international exposure and to presence of various political comments, including comments on major events like riots and disobedience campaigns. The Chinese government simply blocks those media that it cannot control or influence to prevent people to exchange their opinions freely. That’s why usage the famous networks and platforms like Google+, Facebook, Instagram and others is prohibited, and people have only an option to use the Chinese analogues of that media. The government has no impact on such global networks’ policy, and it’s afraid these channels can be used by activists to initiate public protests, to form the negative opinion on the Communist party policies and to criticize government institutions. This is described by “state critique” and collective action potential” theories studied by Gary King and colleagues (2013.) The ban on the global social networks doesn’t cover only 17 square miles free-trade zone in Shanghai, where people can access those media without limitations (Woollaston, 2013.)
Despite strict regulations, the digital media opened the new era of the Chinese society, facilitating online communities’ creation, thoughts exchange and liberalization of the society as a whole.
The state authorities understand that trend and try to comply. In summer of 2014, the Communist party opened the official public accounts in the most popular social networks - WeChat and Yixin covering hundreds of millions internet users, almost all the online audience in China. With officially declared educatory goal, going social for the party leaders means more transparency (in a way that it can be possible in China), more community involvement, and more public dialogue. Of course, propaganda of party values and ideas will not be omitted, but the fact that the state authorities take the socialization and mobility trends seriously and they are fighting to win the attention of the internet audience in clamorous social networks of China (Lu, 2014.)
Emerging digital media re-shape social interaction within the Chinese society and foster information and ideas exchange with the World community. Diving into this home-grown web ecosystem allows people from various countries to learn more about China. It also enables international companies and brands seeking expansion to Chinese market to research the market, to conduct consumer research, to launch products and to manage public relations, collecting feedback from the audience.
As an involvement of the Chinese in social media is much more than elsewhere in the World and penetration of social platforms is continuing to grow, the digital media is a fertile ground for increasing international economic, social and cultural dialogue between China and the rest of the Globe. Participating in this dialogue allows Chinese people, being locked for years behind “the great Chinese wall” of communist ideology, restrictions and prohibitions, to get acquainted with new ideas, thinking patterns and cultural codes of the global society.
Works cited
Simcott, Richard. Social Media Fast Facts: China. SocialMediaToday. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/social-media-fast-facts-china.
The growth of media in China and its impact on political and economic development in China. Conference report. Conference organized by International Media Support, the Danish National Commission for UNESCO and Copenhagen Business School. Copenhagen, 28 November 2008. http://www.mediasupport.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ims-growth-china-2008.pdf
Wetherbee, Rebecca J. Censorship and Evolving Media Policy in China. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications . Vol. 1, No. 1. Winter 2010.
Xu, Beina. Media Censorship in China. Council on Foreign Relations, 2014. http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515
Hong, J. The internationalization of television in China: the evolution of ideology, society, and media since the reform. Westport, Conn. [u.a.] : Praeger, 1998.
Johnson, J. An Online Shift in China Muffles an Open Forum. NY Times, July 4th, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/world/asia/an-online-shift-in-china-muffles-an-open-forum.html?_r=0
Buckley, Ch. Crackdown on Bloggers Is Mounted by China. NY Times, September 10th, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/world/asia/china-cracks-down-on-online-opinion-makers.html
Kaiman, J. China cracks down on social media with threat of jail for 'online rumours'. The Guardian, September 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/10/china-social-media-jail-rumours
Levin, N. China Tightens Restrictions on Messaging Apps. The Wall Street Journal. Aug. 7, 2014 http://online.wsj.com/articles/china-issues-new-restrictions-on-messaging-apps-1407405666
Woollaston, V. China lifts ban on Facebook - but only for people living in a 17 square mile area of Shanghai. The Daily Mail, September 2013. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2431861/China-lifts-ban-Facebook--people-living-working-small-area-Shanghai.html
King, G., Pan, J. and Roberts, M. How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression. American Political Science, May 2013. http://gking.harvard.edu/files/censored.pdf
Lu, R. The Chinese Communist Party Just Opened a WeChat Account. Foreign Policy, August 25, 2014. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/25/the_chinese_communist_party_just_opened_a_wechat_account
