China's news organizations – particularly the
more commercially-oriented ones serving local and regional markets – like
news organizations everywhere, are working hard to innovate through creative
use of digital technologies. However their ability to conduct independent
investigative journalism, and actually publish or broadcast these
investigations in their newspapers or on television, is severely constrained by
strong party and government controls. Individual journalists have been able to
use blogs and microblogs as an alternative distribution channel for some news
and information, though the result is that news organizations do not directly
benefit from their staff's most cutting-edge investigative talents. Meanwhile,
websites that are not part of government-approved news organizations are not
allowed to conduct original news reporting – although online media companies
are constantly seeking ways to subtly get around the strict rules about who can
report news under what circumstances, particularly on local stories.
When it comes to television – which remains
the most important and powerful form of media for the majority of Chinese – the
government naturally controls the switchover process from analog signal to
digital. It also controls which companies are allowed to participate in the
provision of bundled internet, voice, and digital TV services – as well as who
is allowed to create what sorts of content disseminated through these services.
The same of course goes for mobile services of all kinds. When it comes to
allocation of spectrum, politics "plays a decisive role in spectrum allocation
policies." There is no notion of "public service media" independent of party
and state which "view themselves as the overseers of the public interest." Yet
there is no process by which the bureaucracy – often a patchwork of different
agencies and departments – determines the broader public interest as they go
about creating and enforcing rules and regulations.
The report makes a number of
recommendations:
- Media literacy. With "hundreds of millions
of people with little knowledge or understanding of how the media are used and
how they might use the media," greater media literacy education for all ages
would "help educate people to participate in public life so that the
opportunities which digitization brings can be more widely enjoyed."
- Relaxation of government and party controls
on media. This would make it more possible for journalists to carry out
independent, investigative journalism that would hold authorities accountable
to the public interest.
- Constrain local government abuse of power
over media. The central government should take "measures to end the pattern of
violent retribution, harassment and victimization meted out to journalists or
whistleblowers by local offcials angered by critical media coverage."
- Passage of a press law. This would be
consistent with existing national policy of governance based on rule of law. A
specific press law "can help prohibit administrative control and interference
in the media."
- Official tolerance and support for press
freedom organizations. Such organizations would "defend press freedom and the
independence of media from the government and help address a crisis of ethics
in the profession."
- Independent public service media. A
"non-commercial, non-profit, public radio and television system" would help to
"guarantee the dissemination of education, science, health, and other content
to feed an information-hungry populace."
- Better coordination and stakeholder
collaboration on the digital switch-over process. There is currently no clear
process for mediating different bureaucratic, economic, commercial, and public
interests. The report argues that "there should be the means for collaboration
between industry players, especially broadcasting companies and mobile
operators. Close collaboration between the principal stakeholders— the
government, regulators, broadcasters, transmission providers, receiver
manufacturers and retailers, and consumer representatives—is essential."
The results of this month's leadership
transition provide little reason to expect that these things will happen in the
near or even medium term. In the long run, however, the report's authors remain
hopeful. The internet, they write, "cannot change China's political life in a
dramatic way. It can, however, enhance the existing social capital, so that
social forces that are operating independently of the state can have a chance
to grow and prosper."
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