The Invisible Hand or the Invisible Chain: The Decline Chinese Critical Media

• In Event: Poster Session: Dynamics of Authoritarianism in China & New Research in African Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Dynamics of Authoritarianism in China

Abstract

“Dancing in chains” is a commonly seen metaphor among media practitioners in China to describe how they try to conduct critical journalist reports under the harsh restrictions of censorship and the pressure of the market. This narrative usually describes the “dance” and the “chains” as two separate and antagonistic practices. However, the dual constraints of state regulations and market demands also inevitably alters how journalists understand their profession and their everyday work. This subtle alteration has been studied very little by scholars of Chinese media politics. This article tries to explore how work environment and professional norms of critical journalism is affected by the constraints imposed upon the practitioners. Through insider interviews and ethnographic works, I argue that as a defense against the mounting pressure from the state and the market, critical journalists in China in the past decade has built up a professional norm of “objectivity” and “neutrality,” which retreats from ideological debates and instead emphasizes accurate and detailed reporting of events. This new norm, together with the new professional evaluation criteria that emphasize quantified “data traffic,” has further reduced the criticalness of the already severely censored critical journalism.

Author

• Clyde Yicheng Wang, Washington and Lee University