The Impact of Media Commercialization on the Relations Between the Chinese State, the Media, and the Public

The Impact of Media Commercialization on the Relations between the Chinese State, the Media, and the Public

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Introduction

China is a collectivist culture with a one-party political regime. The political leadership of the country is quite authoritarian, and its laws are based on the traditional civil law. Through the regime, the Chinese government has commercialized media that forced the media to break from the traditional freedom. In the Chinese regime, media commercialization has had both social and political implications. The consequences of media commercialization usually depend on the design of a state and in democratic countries; media commercialization has unnoticeable social and political impacts. An analysis of media commercialization in China reveals that it has brought stability in the political regime besides democratizing a force for change in China.

Media commercialization in China

The increasing prosperity of China made gave its citizens financial stability and as a result, they began demanding for more entertainment services. The government, through its control of media services, could not meet the rising demand for entertainment services; consequently, it had to commercialize media services. Furthermore, every household could purchase a television set and as a result, media operations increased to the level that the government could not sufficiently finance them. The commercialization of media changed the view of media from cultural and political institutions to business enterprises that could make profits and be taxed by the government for the purpose of revenue generation (Qian & Bandurski, 2011).

Media commercialization in China was characterized by the reduction of government subsidies, which encouraged commercialized financing. Some newspaper publishers were completely denied subsidies after the commercialization policies were implemented. Government monopolies on media were eliminated; thus attracting new players in the market. In the broadcast sector, investments were encouraged to enable the broadcasters to fill the gap that had been caused by the increased demand for media commercial services. Investments from multiple channels were encouraged to facilitate the growth of media companies (Qian & Bandurski, 2011).

The impact on the relationship between the government and media and the society

The commercialization led to the improvement of relationships between the government and the media industries. Even though most broadcasters have not adopted the enterprise management systems that commercialization policies encouraged them to adopt, they have established contracts with the financial departments of the government making them take responsibilities over certain issues. This has improved their relationships with the government. Through such contracts, the government provides investment funds and in case of surplus profits, the government becomes the sole decision-maker of how the profits are used. However, in case of losses, the media houses take full responsibility (Qian & Bandurski, 2011).

The government also adopted an advertising policy that encouraged the media to advertise products and services for both public and private firms. The policy was considered a driver for the Chinese economic reform. According to the view of the government, advertising can promote production, increase the circulation of commodities within the society, increase the convenience of consumers, invigorate the economy, and serve the socialist construction needs. The policies on advertising were favorable and led to the growth of media industry in China. The advertising business led to a boom in the media business with media companies recording over 26% annual growth in revenue for several years (Qian & Bandurski, 2011). The booms of the business enabled the government to increase its revenues; thus enabling it to finance other activities for development.

The commercialization has led to the evocation of the ambivalence between the government officials and the Chinese Commercial Party (CCP). Currently, the traditional media has combined with web-based media, and this has heightened pressure against the political regime of the country. Even though the political impacts of media commercialization are not impressive, the current Chinese political leadership seems weaker than those of the past and its control over the media has frequently been challenged. Media commercialization has encouraged media personnel to strategize, and they can manipulate the government through their freedom (Zhao, 1998).

The commercialization led to the decline of peasant papers. The papers were published for the peasant. As a result, the relationship between the government and the peasants has declined due to the lack of newspapers that can make them aware of government activities. Commercialization changed media activities from the distribution of news to the focus on profits. Most media houses stopped publishing peasant newspapers due to the difficulty of distribution that made them less profitable. Other rural newspaper editions are not currently published for the same reasons. Furthermore, the end of the monopoly of the post office in newspaper distribution has made media companies to focus on densely populated cities; thus, making information unavailable in the rural areas. Such activities have increased rural-disparity and distorted the relationship between the society and the government (Qian & Bandurski, 2011).

The media commercialization policies require the government to control the media outlets with advertising activities remaining a market for sellers. Consequently, advertisers have been forced to push to get a chance in the broadcasting stations. The advertising pressure and the revenues that come from it has made media houses to focus more on advertising. Accordingly, the focus on editorial content has declined; thus depriving members of the society of information (Yoshida, 2008). The public does not have any form of investment that can be used to encourage media industries to increase their attention on information content.