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Introduction

Having a cross-disciplinary approach, as Lindhoff and Rydholm believe, the transforming of media in global age in china, leads us to look over the whole process during the time. Apparently, the concept of ownership is a significant prerequisite to discuss about the media. Although “ownership” seems, somehow, unclear in a socialist culture, Lindhoff and Rydholm use the term transition which discloses a gradual converting process from dominant political ownership to a market economic dependent one.( Lindhoff and Rydholm,2007) As Xin’s argues what has taken place in China is rather ‘commercialization without independence’ or ‘liberalization without political democratization’.(Xin,2006)

Ownership of the media

When it comes to ownership of the media, (it should be kept in mind that most of the time the media has been considered as a core political resource since 1949) two outlooks seems more probable: firstly, to watch over from economic market dependencies and secondly, unresolved contradiction between “freedom of speech” and “censorship” or on the other word, between “press freedom” and “party-state control”.

In the next step, this transition of cultural reforming as Lindhoff and Rydholm refer to Zhengrong and Yunhong , can be seen in three levels: marketization, conglomeration and capitalization. In the first step, marketization announces that financial incomes from advertising and audience fees make certain party-state media independent from state support. In the second step we are dealing with the concept of media-market oligopoly that declares a transition in investment of foreign media. Eventually, in a greater step, capitalization may lead to an integration of Chinese media as a capital based one. Besides, in the case of China because of state domination, it is controversial to say that the media are going to join global markets, as much disputable as to believe that authoritarian regime can reach the pace of global developments.

In the other side, some scholars believe that marketization has nothing to do with reduction of party-state domination. Brady in her delicate analysis on the role of CCP, central propaganda on Chinese media, states that it seems to be no contradiction between a market economy as practiced in China and the continuance of the one-party state.(Brady, 2006)

Major changes in Chinese Media toward globalization

As mentioned above, it is controversial to say that the media in china, certainly, is getting commercialized. But, there are some changes which should take into account. Many scholars point to Chinese entry to World Trade Organization as the main development toward commercialization. ” China’s WTO entry has accelerated the structural reforms”.(Ekecrantz,2007) Zhang also points out that China’s entry into the World Trade Organization has made researchers more and more interested in the interaction between Chinese television and the rest of the world (Zhang 2006).

Within the analysis of institutional changes in Chinese television, in the context of decentralization, Su claims the same idea as Zhang about the changes in Chinese media and specifically local television after joining WTO, but he continues this argument by a critical viewpoint about the action applied by state (State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) in 2003) to stop several broadcasting groups or generally stop “a policy of media conglomeration” as he states: “The central government’s analysis of the operation and transformation of the broadcasting system was insufficient because it failed to consider local conditions.”

(Su, 2006:43) Among a case study of Whitecanal town, a small city in northern part of China, Su emphasizes on a discreet confirmation of this claim through the conflict between city bureau and town television station. (Su, 2006)

Accordingly, China integration with the global capitalist market after the WTO admission, is seen as a Big “paradox” by Ekecrantz, as the continuous authoritarian political rule by the party and state. (Ekecrantz,2007)

“Another major development in Chinese television that has attracted scholarly interest is the so-called government led drive towards ‘industrialization’” (Zhang,2006:28) In the year 2002 the ministers of SARFT, announced a plan for future broadcasting development in China in the so called ‘media industrialization’ policies .Zhang’s prediction is that with applying these policies the broadcasting structure will change to a two central and provincial levels. She delicates industrialization reform as a new opportunity to create integrated media groups, both in producing and broadcasting radio and television programs, and spreading their business into wider areas.(Zhang, 2006)

Ekecrantz, with putting emphasize on the role of media in what he calls” in other worlds” believes that the media can contribute to a particular modernity, “a society’s particular institutionalization of the processes of modernization and globalization.” ( Ekecrantz, 2007:117) Zhang conclusion indicates a delicate point that in the case of China,( in contrary to Islamic countries that globalization is seen as a cultural threat) workers in a local television channel “describe globalization as a commercial reality”, thus, “foreign” ,in this case, does not have any thing to do with cultural matters.(Zhang , 2006:38)

Conclusion

There is no doubt that in party-state countries as well as China, politics have essencial role in social life. Hallin and Macini believe that in these group of countries the influence of the political field on the media should be strong. (Hallin and Macini,2005). But some others, more than state, blame the Western world which is “possesses or controls almost all of the world’s media and they mostly show the negative side of China to the Western audiences.” (Brady,2006:71)

Even though some western scholars state that Chinese media are strongly under state domination, some Chinese scholars challenge their claims. For instance Brady states that the content of the Chinese visual and print media is increasingly similar to that found in most other countries in the world, with a focus on mass consumerism and entertainment although the effects of political propaganda on the media is undeniable, but encouraging

Chinese people to make money and spend it in large quantities has been one of the key propaganda messages coming from the central government in the post-1989 period.(Brady,2006) With taking account all these ideas, it seems we are going to see a kind if pluralism in China which in terms of Nederveen Pieterse means political strategy for incorporating alternative representations, (Nederveen Pieterse, 2004) while state may survive by accepting most of these pivotal changes.

References

• Nederveen Pieterse, Jan (2004a) Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange. New York & Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
• Media in China, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, vol. 3(1), March 2006.
• Media Cultures and Globalization in China, Stockholm Media Studies 2007:1, Lindhoff, H. & Rydholm, R., eds.