![]()
1
Introduction
This book studies the transformation of the policy and regulation of the Chinese television sector within a national political and economic context from 1996 to 2015. The study also engages in the theoretical debates over the nature of the transformation of television broadcasting in the transitional Chinese state, the nature of the implication of the central-local tension upon the policy-making, regulation and the structure of China’s television sector, and the nature of the television broadcasting modernization process in a developing country.
At the national level, the study investigates China’s national television regulatory policy and structural changes from 1996 to 2015 and the reasons for the changes, because since 1996, a substantial transformation has been ongoing in China’s television broadcasting system, involving institutional, structural and regulatory changes. Theoretical accounts developed in the former communist Eastern European context to explain the nature of transformation of Chinese TV broadcasting are contested.
At the national-local level, it investigates the changes in practices and market structures in the local Shanghai television broadcasting system, and the television policy-making and implementation process in Guangdong. China is not a homogeneous entity; it is a large country with diverse local cultures with different dialects, lifestyles, traditions and customs. The uneven economic development between regions has led to differentiation in the structure of the market and different priorities in development policy. It is important for researchers to recognize this regional segmentation, and investigate its impact upon the local media (Ciu and Liu, 2000). Second, the tension between central and local governments observed in China’s economy has also become increasingly apparent in the television sector: how does this central-local nexus influence policy-making, regulation and the transformation of the television sector? This is a very important issue that cannot be ignored in a study that aims to understand the complex reasons for the changes. Three interpretations of the implication of the central-local tension upon the existing political structure are contested.
This research adopts the case study method for the investigations on localcentral tension and local diversity. The identification of the case studies is based on the degree of relevance of the case to the theoretical concerns of this study, the economic and political significance of the case study and the accessibility of the data. The case studies chosen are two local broadcasting systems – those of Shanghai and Guangdong.
By drawing evidence from the investigations above, the study then moves on to analyze the major theoretical issue – the nature of the modernization process in developing countries in international communication studies. Three arguments conceptualizing the nature of China’s modernization process – the development paradigm, political economy and Chinese modernity – are also contested against the evidence.
Outline of the book
The book consists of 11 chapters. In Chapter 1, the aims and theoretical framework of the study are introduced.
In Chapter 2, China’s culture, political structure, the central-local relationship and economic and political reform are reviewed, with particular focus on the period from 1996 to 2015. This chapter serves the purpose of setting up the general background for the research, covering significant issues and tendencies observed in the field.
In Chapter 3, the historical development of China’s broadcasting regulator – SAPPRFT – is examined as is the supervisory mechanism used by the State Council and the Party’s propaganda department to control the regulator. The command-based regulatory methods of SAPPRFT are then studied in detail, and the chapter suggests that the Chinese state’s broadcasting regulation is shifting from heavily relying on legal rules and normative documents to a combination of command and consensus building mechanisms.
In Chapter 4, how the change in the Chinese Communist Party’s political legitimacy has affected the functions of broadcasting regulation in China is explored, and it is argued that the political legitimacy of the Chinese Party-State shapes the discourse of the rule of law and the country’s broadcasting regulatory strategies and structure.
In Chapter 5, the structure and major features of China’s television system are reviewed, and the issues and problems that emerged from the interaction between the Chinese state, its local media and foreign satellite TV channels from the 1980s to mid-1990s are explored. The conflicts between the local and national government and the media, caused by the disjunction of each other’s interests, are set out. This chapter also introduces the beginning of the substantial and significant restructuring of China’s television since 1996.
In Chapters 6 and 7, China’s national TV policies and structural changes from 1996 to 2015 are studied, and the underlining reasons for the changes in relation to domestic political and economic factors are investigated. The initial implications of the process of the changes are set out.
Having examined the historical development of China’s national broadcasting regulatory policy and structure, in Chapters 8, 9 and 10 in-depth cases studies on three topics are conducted: public service broadcasting; Shanghai broadcaster’s transformation from state institution to enterprise; and the role of local broadcaster in national media policy-making process.
Chapter 11, the conclusion chapter, summarizes the research findings, contests the arguments and theories and spells out the theoretical implications of the findings upon the study of Chinese television in general and its regulatory policy in particular.
Theoretical framework
In this section, the issues and arguments concerning the transformation of the broadcasting media in a one-party state, and the relationship between global influence and local media in media and international communication studies are examined. In this way it aimed to establish a coherent theoretical approach to analyzing the research subject. The section is organized according to different topics of discussions. First, it examined the theoretical accounts developed to explain the nature of social and media transformation in the former communist Eastern European countries, and suggested that these models could also be used as an analytical framework to discuss the nature of the television policy changes in the one-party state China.
Second, amid the decentralized television network structure and the emergence of localism in China, the study reviewed three major arguments concerning the nature of the central-local tensions observed in the country’s economic transformation, and points out the significance and essence of studying this central-local nexus for understanding the complex reasons for the development of Chinese television policy, regulation and structure.
Beyond these local and national levels of study, the nature of the media modernization or development process in developing countries, was identified as important subject for discussion in this research. This section examines the arguments of three different core paradigms developed in the Euro-American context and China, and proposes to contest them with evidences drawn from China’s television restructuring process.
The final part of the section introduces the normative requirement of the fulfilment of the political and socio-cultural functions of the media serving as a starting point for the discussion of the implications of Chinese TV broadcasting’s transformation.
The nature of transformation in the communist state
In his study of Eastern European former communist media systems, Colin Sparks points out that, as the media is a social organization, its structure in any country is constrained and influenced by three factors: the external pressures from the economic and political structure of an increasingly globalized world economy; internal pressures from different dissident groups; and divisions within the ruling group or bureaucracy1 itself as to the future of the society they ruled (Sparks, 1998: 65).
Despite the variety of communist media systems, they share some common features and practices. First, in order to protect their leading positions in society, the ruling class seeks to make mass media directly subordinate to their political goals via the direct supervision of the political elite over the daily workings of the mass media, and economic force plays a marginal and secondary role. The media are the mechanism through which the ideology of the ruling class is disseminated and generalized for the maintenance of the regime. Second, the media does not work with a commercial dynamic but is primarily determined by the political interests of the Party. It is run according to the logic of a centrally planned economy to ensure that there is not enough economic benefit that could make the mass media risk their political duties. Third, the socio-cultural function of the mass media is to organize and mobilize the masses to support the construction of socialism and defend their country via news reports. Its content production is not motivated by considerations of audience maximization. Most interestingly, Sparks observes that, “the basic aim of the media was didactic enlightenment rather than diversion.” In other words, the media is to “improve the morale and the consciousness” of the masses by providing information, education and entertainment rather than pure entertainment content and infotainment. There is no real competition; the mass media’s volume, channels and nature are subjected to planning. The mass media is financed by State subsidy rather than advertisements (Sparks, 1998: 44).
After the fall of communist political rule and the collapse of the command economy in the region in 1989, many theoretical accounts were developed to explain the nature of the transformation of these societies and their mass media. Amongst these Sparks identified two groups of approaches: the first group looks at the discontinuous nature of the changes while the second stresses the continuity of systems before and after 1989. In conjunction with these, he establishes four models to analyze the nature and role of communist television broadcasting in transformation2 – total transformation, social revolution, political revolution school and what revolution models (Sparks, 1998).
In the context of one-party state China, as Sparks observes, the order of economic and political transformations differed profoundly between the formerly communist Eastern European countries and communist party ruled China, especially in the mass media arena. In the former, the collapse of political rule decided economic changes while, in the latter, the economic changes preceded the end of communist political control. Despite this difference in sequential logic, Sparks argues that the underlying social logic is the same in both cases, the typical feature of transformation is about to transform “the collective ruling class of the communist epoch into the individualized rulers of a private capitalist economy” (1998: xv). In other words, it is about two things, one is the transformation of the socialist state economy into a private capitalist economy; the other is the transformation of the old communist political ruling class into the new capitalist economic elite, or in the Chinese critic He Qinglian’s words, it is a process of “marketization of power” (2002: 26). For Sparks, the transformation of the Eastern European countries could exemplify typical features of China. In Sparks’ later article (2008), he explicitly argues that there is no correlation between marketization and democratization: despite the rapid marketization in China, authoritarian control has not been relaxed but political control has increased. The transformation in China in general and in its media in particular is a political process: it is the transformation of the way in which the country is governed, but not a fundamental change of social order and elite composition in media or the state machine (Sparks, 2008: 10). Not only did the political institution survive the changes, but there was also continuity amongst the elite personnel in the media sector and throughout the society, which demonstrated a shift from political to economic power. In other words, it is the shift from state control of productive property to private control of productive property and the direct introduction of market relations into the internal working of the economy. In his 1998 book, Sparks called this the capitalization process. That is, the process of transforming the older socialist economy and the ruling elite group into a free enterprise and market capitalist system and true capitalist class respectively, in which the state sets the rules for privatization while the formal political processes that are required in democratic government are absent. While the shift to individualized private capital could create a pluralization of power in the society, it does means that this will automatically translate into a democratic impulse (Sparks, 2008).
In this book, the explanatory power of Sparks’ model will be assessed, with empirical evidence drawn from the development of Chinese broadcasting policy and the local Shanghai Media Group’s transformation since the 1990s.
The central-local relationship in China
In contemporary China, the Party and State’s power are integrated and the realization of the State’s authority is tied to the Party’s Central Committee (CC). The state government is the representative of the CCP’s authority and the executive body of the principles and policies of the CCP. The CCP’s CC, or its correspondent party committees in local areas, appoint people to the key government and social organization positions (People’s Daily Online, 2002; Saich, 2001; Xian, 2002; Yang, 2002). The Party, state and social organization are thus fused under the control of the Central Committee – a tiny elite group. In terms of formal institutions, China has constitutionally remained a unitary state whereby all local governments are subordinate to the Central Government. China’s Constitution defines the principle of the territorial distribution of power, and, according to this, all provincial governments are local state administrative organs and they must accept the unified leadership by the State Council, implement administrative measures, regulations and decisions by the State Council, and be responsible and report to the State Council (Constitution of the PRC, 1982). On the other hand, the State Council can define the specific functions and powers of the local governments, nullify their decisions, impose martial law in the localities and direct its auditing agencies to conduct financial inspections. Similarly, while the Provincial People’s Congresses have the right to make local laws, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress can annul this legislation if it conflicts with national laws. There is also no clear demarcation regarding the scope and content of the respective legislative authority between the Central and Provincial Congresses (Zheng, 2006).
China’s economic reform since 1978 has changed the country fundamentally. Economically, it resulted in the transformation of a centrally planned economy to a quasi-market economic system (Ma and Chao, 2002; Saich 2001; Xian, 2002). Socially, it helped to alter the Party’s hegemony over society and public discourse, partially by the Party’s will and partially by default (Ma, 2000; Tang et al., 2000).
Alongside economic and social changes, the existence of the “inhabited center” to Chinese political authority is observed. Because of the decentralization of fiscal and administrative power that devolved part of these powers from the Central Government to the local governments, and the shift of emphasis from political movement to economic development between the 1980s and 1990s, there was a more complicated center-peripheral relationship. In this relationship, the objectives and interests of the CCP and the State are not always synonymous and the Party can no longer count on State organs for automatic policy support.
It is argued that, after 20 years of economic reform, there is no specialized state institution existing in China that serves to provide public goods exclusively. However, various local governments and organizations have used or abused power to pursue their own ends rather than performing the functions of State institutions (Li, 2002). In order to pursue their own interests, local governments may adopt policies that are in conflict with or against Party policy. They warn that this tendency to regionalism or localism and the growing power of the provinces could cause a crisis in Central Government’s authority (Li, 2002; Tang et al., 2000).
On the other hand, Zheng Yongnian (2006) points out that although China does not have a federalist system of government – it has neither constitutional division of power between the different levels of government nor the separation of power within the branches of government – the political system existing in China is, de facto, federalism.3 The central-local relationships are becoming increasingly like federalism, not at a formal institutional level but at an actual practice and behavioral level, so that power is divided between the central and local actors. In a behavioral sense, China...
