Transitional Media vs. Normative Theories: Schramm, Altschull, and China

Abstract

Wilbur Schramm's “Soviet” communist model and J. Herbert Altschull's “Marxist” approach have been widely used as general theoretical frameworks to examine press systems in the Marxist world in general and China in particular. Though a growing literature suggested significant changes in Chinese journalism in the past 2 decades, very few studies have sent a direct challenge to the 2 models' theoretical wisdom through the Chinese case. This article finds neither of the 2 models is sufficient in conceptualizing the Chinese case because of Chinese news media's transitional nature and the 2 models' inner theoretical flaws as normative press theories. Furthermore, realizing the growing conflict between normative media theories and accelerated post‐Cold War global media transformation, the author suggests using a transitional media approach to revisit the traditional normative media approach and calls for a more systematic study of the transitional phenomenon of global media systems.

Single country multiple Perspectives – Media Discourses on North Korea in Global News Stations - CNN, CCTV and Al Jazeera

“…Nevertheless, from being the "throat and tongue" of the party line (Zhao, 1998), contemporarily the station has become the leading voice of China with the reporting based on facts rather than ideology, yet the dominant national image of the country portrayed by Chinese media focuses on country's economic development and improving lives of its citizens by peaceful and long-lasting cooperation with other nations without unnecessary involvement in international political or ideological disputes. Zhang and Fleming (2005) write that contemporary media in China no longer serve as the Party instrument but now they have been turned into multicultural media industry focused on providing news, information, entertainment but also public opinion voice that, even though in a limited way, attempts to evaluate government actions (Huang, 2003) by criticizing some decisions of low-level local government officials. Nevertheless, under such a complicated model balancing propaganda and the market, there are areas that fall into a strictly controlled category, namely the central propaganda tends to censor mainly those events which are harmful to state legitimacy and might provoke the audiences and endanger social stability (Luther and Zhou, 2005;Zhao, 1998).…”

Examination of Characteristics of News Media under Censorship: A Content Analysis of Selected Chinese Newspapers’ SARS Coverage

“…An extension of The Authoritarian theory, the Soviet Communist theory posits that the former Soviet Party system instrumentally used its mass media for various political purposes, particularly as propaganda tools (Huang, 2003). Siebert and colleagues also grouped China, former Yugoslavia, Portugal and Spain [under Franco] into the Soviet bloc because in these countries '[the] press control is complete' (Siebert et al, 1963: 31).…”

“…First, Chinese media no longer serve the single purpose of being the Party's instrument (Huang, 2003). In fact, they have now been largely transformed into a multicultural media industry with multiple functions such as providing news, information, knowledge, entertainment, voicing public opinions, and criticizing the government's wrongdoings, in addition to being economically independent (Huang, 2003;Zhao, 1998). Second, the media control has been relaxed somewhat, as 'the means, extent, and strategy of control have changed' (Huang, 2003: 448).…”