Annotated Bibliography
Mass media, the dragon and the bear
by Johnathan L. Wright
October 17, 2001

This annotated bibliography lists materials that address the role of mass media in the People’s Republic of China and in late- and post-Soviet Russia. Among other things, the sources discuss the social use and function of mass media, mass media regulation, state and public expectations of mass media, and mass media history. Sources comprise theses, dissertations, books, and peer-reviewed publications from 1990 to 2001.

Anonymous. (1990, April 23). Media’s role in party-populace ties. Beijing Review, 33, 9.

The study examines the media's role in strengthening the ties between the State and the people. Li Ruihuan, a Party Central Committee official, argues that the media must play a role in improving social unity in China.

Baoduo, W. (1997). Loud thunder, small raindrops: How the market economy is redefining print media in China [Online]. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations. Accession no.: AAT MQ27032.

Chinese media have been pushed into a market economy over the past decade as the State cut their subsidies. The media have taken various adaptive measures, including increasing advertising and entertainment content. The study concludes that a market economy is a good foundation for eventually separating the media from Party control.

Bin, Z. (1996, October). The little emperors’ screen: Parental control and children’s television viewing in China. Media, Culture & Society, 18, 639-647.

The study examines the interaction of urban children and parents with television programs and with each other with respect to television viewing issues.

Cartledge, S., & Lovelock, P. (1999, May/ June). China promotes the Internet. The China Business Review, 26, 12-13.

Chinese leaders are wary of the Internet and closely control access to it. When that control can be maintained, the authors find that Party leaders encourage Internet use to boost economic growth and to disseminate Party messages.

Chaffee, S. H., Pan, Z., & Chu, G. (1997). Western media in China: Audience and influence. Mass Comm Review, 24, 19-39.

Western media gained a measure of popularity in China in the 1980s and contested with traditional Chinese culture and Communist ideological influences for the attention of the people. The authors evaluate the impact going forward of this competition through media channels.

Chan, J. M. (1994, Summer). Media internationalization in China: Processes and tensions. Journal of Communication, 44, 70-88.

The author identifies the five processes by which the Chinese media have become internationalized and discusses how the processes interact.

Chang, T.-K., Wang, J., & Chen, C.-H. (1994, Summer). News as social knowledge in China: The changing worldview of the Chinese national. Journal of Communication, 44, 52-69.

The authors argue that the Chinese news media are the primary source of social knowledge. Their study suggests that since political reforms in the late 1970s, the news media have provided the people with the basis upon which to build social consensus.

Chang, T.-K., Wang, J., & Chen, C.-H. (Summer, 1998). The social construction of international imagery in the post-Cold War era: A comparative analysis of U.S. and Chinese National TV news. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 42, 277-296.

This study argues that internal and external social structures greatly influence the news. The authors collected data during a 26-day period from China Central Television and from ABC to examine how international media messages are socially constructed.

The author argues that political reform in China has unintentionally liberalized its media system. The author contrasts current reform with previous reforms in 1942, 1945, and 1956.

The study was published just after the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in China. The author finds that while the role and function of China’s media changed in the past 40 years as society changed, the fundamental guidelines governing the media have not: they remain an instrument whereby the Party ideologically indoctrinates the people.

Guo, Z., & Chen, H. (1997). China’s media content under commercialism. Mass Comm Review, 24, 85-101.

The authors apply Western media content theories to rapidly changing journalistic practices in China.

He, Z. (1997). Mass media and Tiananmen Square. Commack, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

The author concludes that far from being univocal mouthpieces of the Party, the Chinese mass media "both legitimized and delegitimized" the pro-democracy movement at different times. Although the journalism rebellion was short-lived, the author’s survey and interview data suggest it transformed the way many Chinese viewed the role of the media in society.

Hong, J. (1998). The internationalization of television in China: The evolution of ideology, society, and media since the Reform. Westport, CT: Praeger.

The author describes the evolution of Chinese television and suggests that it is the best empirical window onto how the Chinese media might develop in the future. The author’s central thesis is that the internationalization of Chinese television has been caused more by internal factors (the Party’s political guidance and motivations) than by external forces (Western-style market forces).

Hong, L. (1998, January). Profit or ideology? The Chinese press between party and market. Media, Culture & Society, 20, 31-41.

As economic reforms take priority over political reforms in China, newspapers are no longer funded by the State but are still expected to serve the State’s interests. The lack of funding leads newspapers to print soft news or to merge with other media into conglomerates–both of which, the author argues, undermine newspapers’ role as government mouthpieces.

Hua, J. (1996). Moving toward the information society in China: A case study on Shanghai’s media reform [Online]. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations. Accession no.: AAT MM12038.

The author portrays Shanghai as the leader in Chinese economic reform and in media liberalization. Shanghai’s case demonstrates that market forces are the principal factor in the reshaping of China’s State-centered mass media.

Kenney, K. R. (1991). Newspaper photography in China [Online]. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations. Accession no.: AAT 9208793.

This study examines the factors influencing the production and selection of photographs and analyzes the content of photographs. The author found that Chinese newspapers publish fewer photographs of political affairs than American newspapers but the same percentage of human-interest images. Photographic coverage was ideological but not biased toward any group of people.

Lee, C.-C. (Ed.). (1994). China’s media, media’s China. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

This collection of 16 essays assess the role of the media, mainly newspapers, in China and the portrayal of China in American and Hong Kong media. Though compiled in 1994, the essays have not been overtaken by events. The best essays demonstrate that the changing role of the Chinese press cannot be stated as a simple struggle between the market and Communism–both forces seek to bend the media to their purposes.

Lee, P. S.-n. (1994, Summer). Mass communication and national development in China: Media roles reconsidered. Journal of Communication, 44, 22-37.

The author charts the history of the media in China since the 1950s.

Lynch, D. C. (1999). After the propaganda state: Media, politics, and "thought work in reformed China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

The author argues that a combination of administrative fragmentation, property rights reform, and technological advance has weakened the Party’s ability to use the mass media to control the information that shapes the attitudes, values, and perceptions of the Chinese people. This weakening has not led to a liberalized public sphere but to a "praetorianism" in which no force can control the mass media.

MacKinnon, S. R. (1997, January). Toward a history of the Chinese press in the Republican period. Modern China, 23, 3-32.

The author describes the political and cultural experimentation in the Chinese media during the Republican period (1911-1949) before Communism.

Saywell, T. (1999, August 19). Well-read guard. Far Eastern Economic Review, 162, 27-28.

Yangcheng Evening News reopened in 1980 after being shut down in 1966. Like all newspapers, Yangcheng performs a balancing act between pleasing readers and appeasing Party regulators. To win readers in a tight south China market, Yangcheng has begun running stories that require Western-style in-depth reporting and are aimed at righting wrongs.

Shi, X. (1992). Communism and communication: News media and political communication in China [Online]. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations. Accession no.: AAT 9307214.

This study focus on what the author says are critical yet largely ignored facets of the Chinese Communist news media established since 1921, including its news selection, its professional journalists, and its system of worker-peasant correspondents. The author argues that media political communication in China has followed a non-Western, participative model, one that can no longer articulate or provide solutions for Chinese political and social problems.

Tan, F. (1990, Summer). The People’s Daily: Politics and popular will–Journalistic defiance in China during the spring of 1989. Pacific Affairs, 63, 151.

The author describes how editors and reporters at China’s official newspaper briefly defied government controls and published material that was pro-democracy and supported the cause of student demonstrators.

Tubilewicz, C. (1997, October). Chinese press coverage of political and economic restructuring of East Central Europe. Asian Survey, 37, 927-943.

The author examines Chinese press coverage of political and economic changes in former Soviet satellites and finds that the press tried to discredit the changes.

The author examines the impact of China’s changing socioeconomic structure on its foreign television programming. The author proposes a conceptual approach to explaining the form and content of the Chinese media.

Wu, M. (1999). Negotiating a community space in the state media: The development of cable television in china. A case study of a community cable TV station in Tianjin [Online]. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations. Accession no.: AAT NQ43561.

The spread of cable television in the 1990s continues to challenge the traditional role of the Chinese media as State propaganda organs. Many cable stations are run by communal work units known as danwei. This study investigates how the danwei both incorporate required propaganda messages and agitate against centralized State regulation. This struggle maps out "changing patterns of control, contestation and conciliation" between communities and the Party.

Xiaohua, D. (1999, January 11). Mass media play supervisory role. Beijing Review, 42, 9-11.

The author discusses "Focus," an immensely popular program from China Central Television that boldly exposes social contradictions.

Xupei, S. (2000). An orchestra of voices: Making the argument for greater speech and press freedom in the People’s Republic of China. Westport, CT: Praeger.

The author criticizes Western media for being profit-driven at the expense of the people, and Marxist media for being too ideologically rigid. He proposes a socialist press "with Chinese characteristics," one that incorporates Western-style editorial freedoms with a social mission and social ownership through citizen corporations.

Because of government restrictions on satellite dishes and cable retransmission, the author finds that most viewers in China have no access to foreign satellite television programming. The author argues that foreign programmers, in an attempt to gain access to Chinese media markets, limit their products to what is acceptable to State regulators. The author calls for supranational regulatory agreements covering transfrontier television.

Yang, B. (1998). Personal values and electronic media adoption and postadoption in urban China [Online]. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations. Accession no.: AAT NQ35374.

This study examines the social and psychological characteristics of urban Chinese who adopt television, recording devices, telephones, and pagers. Television, telephones, and pagers are characterized by achievement oriented values, while recording devices are characterized by enjoyment oriented values. The author finds that of the four, television is most likely to be perceived differently by location, education, generation, and occupation.

Zhang, K., & Xiaoming, H. (1999, January to March). The Internet and ethnic press: A study of electronic Chinese publications. Information Society, 15, 21-30.

This study explores the role of Chinese language online publications in promoting ethnic communication. The author argues that such publications expand upon the functions of traditional ethnic media to further strengthen cultural and communal ties of immigrants. As a result, ethnic groups are more likely to be assimilated into the mainstream culture without losing their cultural roots and identities.

Zhao, Y. (2000, Spring). From commercialization to conglomeration: The transformation of the Chinese press within the orbit of the party state. Journal of Communication, 50, 3-26.

This paper discusses how the State incorporates market-based press reforms and practices into existing press structures designed to serve it. Market forces have created an urban, middle class audience for programs that are not propaganda or Party-sponsored. This, in turn, undermines the ability of the Party to use the press as an organ of the State.

Zhao, Y. (1998). Media markets and democracy in China: Between the party line and the bottom line. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Like many scholars, the author studies the tension between authoritarian government and mass media changes brought on by market forces. But the author goes on to argue that in many ways the State still wields substantial control over media content. Mass media change is tolerated only as long as it does not contradict Party positions or goals. Certain media products are also tolerated if they can perform this balancing act and contribute money to Party coffers.

Zhu, J. J.-H. (1997). Antecedents, covariates, and outcomes of media credibility in China. Mass Comm Review, 24, 5-18.

The author argues that because the Chinese media are an integral part of the State-Party apparatus, the usual distinction between source and media is blurred in the minds of journalists and audience members.

Alexseev, M. A., & Bennett, W. L. (1995, October). For whom the gates open: News reporting and government source patterns in the United States, Great Britain, and Russia. Political Communication, 12, 395-405.

This study investigates whether political content cues in the news in both established and emerging democracies can be explained using a set of norms for the relationship between journalists and government sources. The issue is explored in a comparative study of national security issues in the United States, Great Britain, and Russia at the end of the Cold War.

Androunas, E. (1993). Soviet media in transition: Structural and economic alternatives. Westport, CT: Praeger.

This book is general in nature and the bibliography should have been expander. Nonetheless, it makes two substantive points: (i) an independent Russian media depends on a vigorous advertising sector, and (ii) the authoritarian tendency in Russian culture is an obstacle to private ownership and, thus, to press freedom.

The author argues that late Gorbachev-era press coverage was driven by Russian over-enthusiasm for US capitalism and an attempt to mimic its success. More recent press coverage has also largely been driven by an imitation of the United States–this time its tradition of independent news gathering The author investigated more than a decade of Russian press coverage of American life using quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Downing, J. H. (1996). Internationalizing media theory, transition, power, culture: Reflection on media in Russia, Poland and Hungary, 1980-95. London: Sage.

The author’s main goal is to point out deficiencies in current analyses (media theory and cultural studies) of the countries’ media. Still, the author does raise important, concrete questions about Russian media: who actually owns influential Russian newspapers? What media receive government subsidies and in what amounts? Who controls advertising on Russian state television? Where do the advertising profits go?

Ellis, F. (1999). From glasnost to the Internet: Russia’s new infosphere. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

The author argues that the old Soviet command economy could operate–albeit inefficiently–within a State information monopoly. But information economies, he says, demand openness, entrepreneurship, and free-flowing information, notions that were anathema to the Communist Party. This "information deficit" still challenges current political leaders as they attempt to stabilize the Russian economy. The author also provides a full text of the laws regulating the Russian media and a list of Soviet and Russian media terms.

Gibbs, J. (1999). Gorbachev’s glasnost: The Soviet media in the first phase of perestroika. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press.

The author traces the development of the policy of glasnost and the ways in which Gorbachev used the media to further his notion of openness.

The author argues that ideology as a specified set of social doctrines did not disappear at the end of the Soviet Union but remains an essential tool by which the non-Communist regime maintains power. The mass media in Russia have not achieved independence from the State and for the most part remain under its political and economic control.

Jones, A. J. (1999). The press in transition: A comparative study of Nicaragua, South Africa, Jordan, and Russia [Online]. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations. Accession no.: AAT NQ38908.

The author proposes a comparative model of press functioning and a more tentative model of transition media, with a strong focus on the mainstream press. In general, the author characterizes transitional media as an interplay between professional imperatives (media management, editorial independence) and mobilizing imperatives (responding to pre-existing political and media structures).

Malinkina, O., & McLeod, D. M. (2000, Spring). From Afghanistan to Chechnya: News Coverage by Izvestia and The New York Times. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 77, 37-49.

This study analyzed coverage from the two newspapers to gauge the impact of political change on newspapers.

McNair, B. (1996, July). Television in post-Soviet Russia: From monolith to Mafia. Media, Culture & Society, 18, 489-492.

The author examines the relationship of television to post-Soviet cultural identity.

McReynolds, L. (1991). The news under Russia’s old regime: The development of a mass-circulation press. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

The author argues that pre-Revolutionary, privately owned Russian daily newspapers, like their counterparts in the West, helped to shape a social order emerging from traditional domination by the State. She uses the work of a variety of theorists to connect daily newspapers to politics, economics, and the spaces of public discourse.

The author describes how policies on television coverage changed during the perestroika of Gorbachev, under Yeltsin’s leadership, and through to the Russian presidential election of 1996. The author argues that Russians’ intolerance of divergent opinions on television mirrored the political polarization of society, reducing "the space for a tolerant middle." The author also discusses the ongoing struggle for media control in Russia.

Morrison, J. (1997, Autumn). The changing model of Russian media and journalism education. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 52, 26-34.

The author compares past and present Western and Russian journalism models and raises questions about the suitability of the US model to a nation in social and economic transition.

Morrison, J. F. (1994, Spring). Professional media training in the CIS and Russian Far East. The Journalism Educator, 49, 97.

The author discusses journalism training programs in Yakutsk and elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the national political structure that preceded the founding of the Russian Federation.

Murray, J. D. (1994). The Russian Press from Brezhnev to Yeltsin: Behind the paper curtain. Brookfield, VT: E. Elgar.

The author examined contemporary source material and interviewed leading Russian journalists. The author investigates over the past decade the changing relationship between the press and politicians, the emergence of Western-style newspapers, and the economic problems facing post-Soviet newspaper publishing.

Richter, A. G. (1995). The Russian press after perestroika. Canadian Studies Journal, 20. Downloaded October 13, 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwpress/jrls/cjc/BackIssues/20.1/richter.html (link expired as of posting date of this document).

This study concerns changes that have occurred in the Russian press since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The author describes issues relating to legal regulation, press ownership, printing facilities, newsprint production, newspaper distribution, newsroom practices, etc. The author concludes that local publications are gaining increasing importance because of weakened central press organs.

Rogerson conducted a comparative study of the Poland and Russian media during political transition. The press is changing with society, attempting find a role that will fit it economically and ideologically, or it is actively promoting a certain course of action, as with the Westernization (democratization) of the press or with shaping the ideologies of nationalistic movements.

Washburn, P. C., & Burke, B. R. (1997, Fall). The symbolic construction of Russian and the United States on Russian national television. Sociological Quarterly, 38, 669-686.

The authors analyze 1995 broadcasts of Vremya, the Russian national television network, and find few traces of the Cold War framing of stories that had been the rule for more than 40 years.

Wolfe, T. C. (1997). Imagining journalism: Politics, government and the person in the press in the Soviet Union and Russia, 1953-1993.;

The author examines the rhetorical figure of the chevolek, or person, a journalistic variant of the Socialist heroic worker ideal, and traces its use and development in the Soviet and Russian press. The author concludes that the new Russian tabloid press rejects the ideological frame of the Soviet media even as it evokes a similar ethos of didactic concern for the person.

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