INFORMATION DIFFERENTIATION, COMMERCIALIZATION AND LEGAL REFORM

Abstract

Scholars have recognized the importance of commercial news media in disseminating diversified information to challenge state censorship. However, these observations fail to explain adequately how and why the authoritarian regime in China is able to strengthen its capacity to control information even after information flourished dramatically since the 1990s. From a state perspective, I argue that besides disseminating information, commercialization also differentiates informational and state–media conflict, which transforms the previous single-dimensional state–media regime into a three-dimensional one. During this process, the development of the court system and the labor market have played a significant role in shaping state–media dynamics and offer the state the structural resilience to survive these information challenges. The implications of the new state–media regime are further discussed.

Keywords:

• authoritarian regime
• information differentiation
• journalism
• legal reform
• media commercialization

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy (2003), and City University Start-Up Grant (7200139). I am grateful to Dingxin Zhao, William Parish, Edward Laumann, Tsan-Kuo Chang, Chin-Chuan Lee, Amanda Snow Conant, Yang He, Jason Teo, Yikley Chan and Sida Liu. Special thanks to those journalists whom I cannot name here.

Notes

1. Detailed information on this database can be found at: http://www.chinalawinfo.com/bdfb/Lib_04.asp.