Communication, Society and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. xxii, 334 pp. (Figures, tables.) C$95.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-107-01844-0.
Since the early 2000s, many scholars and observers on China have argued that media marketization does not necessarily undermine the legitimacy of the communist regime. The rise of investigative journalism since the mid-1990s, for instance, has seemingly signaled the expansion of the space of critical reporting and discourses in the media. But investigative reporting in China has faced severe constraints and remained “on party leashes” (Yuezhi Zhao, “Watchdogs on Party Leashes? Contexts and Implications of Investigative Journalism in Post-Deng China,” Journalism Studies 1 no. 2, 2000: 577). From the state’s perspective, investigative journalism, as long as it is under control, can be an effective means to present the image of a caring and responsive government. More generally speaking, if the marketized media no longer serve as a propaganda machine, they may nonetheless act like a “publicity agent” promoting the image of the government and its leaders by more nuanced and/or “softer” means (Chin-chuan Lee, Zhou He and Yu Huang, “Chinese Party Publicity Inc. Conglomerated: The Case of the Shenzhen Press Group,” Media, Culture and Society 28 no. 5, 2006: 581–602).
The implication of this line of thinking is that marketized media can actually help the authoritarian regime in China to maintain stability and legitimacy. The literature, however, lacks studies with solid empirical evidence—especially evidence about public opinion—illustrating why, how and under what conditions marketized media can benefit authoritarian rule. The latter is what Daniela Stockmann’s Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China achieved.
To summarize, Stockmann argues that marketized media can help solve the dictator’s dilemma by serving as a means for the dictator to monitor public opinion. Media marketization entails the need on the part of the media to respond to audience demand. But as long as the Chinese state has the capacity to retain effective control of the media, journalists will also take up the norms and rules about whether, when and how to cover politically sensitive matters. Given the persistence of media censorship and control, the contents offered by official and marketized media outlets in China are actually quite similar to one another. Marketized media do offer content that deviates from the most preferred official stance, but the deviation is often minor and invariably stays within the state’s latitude of acceptance.
Nevertheless, the apparent difference between marketized and official media outlets is enough to help the former build up an image of being relatively independent and even occasionally daring. The non-official media, as a result, enjoy higher levels of credibility among the general public. This higher level of credibility allows the non-official media to exert influence on public opinion. Since the non-official media actually provide information and messages largely in line with the state’s perspective, non-official media effectively lead public opinion to get closer to the preferred government stances on various issues.
In substantiating the above account, Stockmann draws upon data collected through solid empirical research. The range of methods employed is impressive, encompassing in-depth interviews with journalists and officials, content analysis of newspaper coverage of two selected topics (labor laws and foreign countries), and experimental and survey studies about media effects on public opinion. Remarkably, Stockmann also puts China into a comparative framework. She tries to substantiate the point that media marketization can help the Chinese state to maintain stability and legitimacy because China is a strong one-party state. This move broadens the appeal of the book substantially and makes it valuable reading to all political communication scholars interested in issues of media-state relations under different political systems.
Of course, the study is not without limitations. Two questions are particularly worth noting because of their implications on how one should judge the validity of the book’s account. First, the empirical studies focus on the topics of labour laws and foreign countries (the US and Japan), which are, as the author acknowledges, not particularly politically sensitive. It also means that these are not issues or topics that are most likely to present challenges to the state’s legitimacy. In association with this, in the empirical studies on public opinion, the dependent variables are people’s attitudes toward labour laws and the US/Japan, instead of their trust in the Chinese government or perceived legitimacy of the Communist regime. Does the ability of marketized media to generate acceptance for the government’s preferred stance on relatively non-sensitive topics entail the ability of the media system to maintain social stability and government legitimacy in face of serious crises and/or when the truly politically sensitive matters are dealt with?
Second, the content and public opinion data reported in the book are somewhat dated (mostly in the early to mid-2000s), and yet the empirical situation in China is continually evolving. As the author notes, even the marketized media could not reflect the audience’s perspective when the audience’s perspective falls beyond the state’s latitude of acceptance. With the rise of the Internet and social media platforms, the limitations of the mainstream media—both official and non-official—may become clearer to at least the politically aware citizens. Then, over time, what can prevent the media themselves from losing their own credibility if they repeatedly fail to cover important matters in line with what the people want to see? In other words, is the strategy of using marketized media to promote state legitimacy sustainable in the long run?
These two questions are not meant to undermine the value of the book. It is practically extremely difficult to directly tackle public opinion on regime support and highly sensitive political matters in China, and the author herself has acknowledged the uncertainty in how the situation of China may evolve. The book also offers some useful discussions about the Internet and public opinion in China. The above questions simply suggest certain issues on which more and continual research is needed. The book, on the whole, is a significant contribution to the literature on changing media-state relations in China. Readers of the book should find their reading time well spent.
Francis L. F. Lee
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR , China
pp. 835-837