Beyond Professionalism? A Case Study of Journalists’ Discursive Strategies for Rationalizing ‘Brand Propaganda’ Within the Chinese Local Press Industry

• In Event: Power, Resistance, Professonalism, and Internationalization in China's Media Industries

Abstract

The failure of China’s local press industry in increasing market profits and re-seizing advantages within the domain of information communication has rendered it more dependent on the local government’s financial support. A major form of this support is called ‘brand propaganda’. This study adopts a bottom-up perspective, exploring the local journalists’ reaction to ‘brand propaganda’, typically how they engage in such activities and rationalize their behaviors discursively so as to attain a better understanding of the effect of professionalism on China’s journalistic reform. In-depth interviews are adopted with the press industry of Fujian Province as the case of analysis to answer the questions of how the local journalists respond to and think of the administrative order of ‘brand propaganda’.

Authors

• Hui Xiong, Xiamen U

• Jian Zhang, Xiamen U