The Survival and Development of Chinese New Media Business: Among State, Market, and Public
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS THE SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE NEW MEDIA BUSINESS: AMONG STATE, MARKET, AND PUBLIC LIZE ZHANG (B.A., WHU) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NEW MEDIA NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2016 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is my original work and it has been written by me in its entirety. I have duly acknowledged all the sources of information which have been used in the thesis. This thesis has also not been submitted for any other degree in any university previously. _________________ ZHANG Lize 17 May 2016 Acknowledgements I had never thought that writing thesis would be such a tough battle. You always had to fight against your own procrastination caused by perfectionism, indolence, and uncertainty. It was really a matter of gritting your teeth and bashing through it. Although my battle lasted for a long time, finally, I survived. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and immeasurable appreciation to my supervisor Dr. Zhang Weiyu for her help and support. In the past three years, she has led me into the academic world. Frankly speaking, my academic ability was not very strong three years ago. Without Dr. Zhang Weiyu’s guidance, knowledge, patience and strong sense of responsibility, I will not be able to complete my thesis and stand where I am here today. More importantly, Dr. Zhang Weiyu has taught me why and how to do research, how to think critically and rigorously, with both language and action. I believe these precious gains will be helpful for me regardless of my future career path. I would then like to express my gratitude to all the staff of CNM. I am grateful for Ms. Retna Muthuveloo who was always ready to provide her assistance, time and words of encouragement during last years, especially when I needed to extend my candidature half a year ago. I would also like to thank Dr. Iccha Basnyat and Dr. Ganga Sasidharan Dhanesh, for their valuable advices and suggestions that benefited me much during my fieldwork. My sincere gratitude is also extended to all my fellow friends at CNM and NUS, for all the fun we had in the last three years. Master student life, sometimes, was dull i and boring. It was often the encouragements and inspirations from them that helped me pass these difficult times. Besides, I devote my special thanks to my husband and my parents. They have always been there for me, making me know I always have my family to count on when times are tough. Thanks for all the persons mentioned above. You all let me know that I am not fighting alone in this tough battle. ii Contents Summary ............................................................................................................................... v Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework .................................................................................. 6 2.1 The Political Economy of Communication ....................................................................... 6 2.2 Media Marketization in China ............................................................................................ 9 2.3 Commercial Media and Market ....................................................................................... 13 2.3.1 The influence of advertisers ..................................................................................................... 13 2.3.2 The impact of media market competition ............................................................................ 16 2.3.3 The interaction between domestic and transnational investment ................................. 18 2.3.4 Summary of market-media relationship ............................................................................... 21 2.4 Commercial Media and State ........................................................................................... 23 2.4.1 State control on media ................................................................................................................ 24 2.4.2 The interdependency of state and media .............................................................................. 28 2.4.3 Competition between official media and commercial media ........................................ 30 2.4.4 Summary of state-media relationship .................................................................................... 33 2.5 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 34 2.5.1 An integrated model: the hybrid of authoritarianism and capitalism ......................... 34 2.5.2 New possibilities brought by new media ............................................................................. 36 Chapter 3 Background Review and Research Questions ........................................ 39 3.1 Historical Review of China’s New Media Industry ..................................................... 39 3.1.1 State promotion and competition ............................................................................................ 39 3.1.2 The power of capital in new media market ......................................................................... 50 3.1.3 Trajectory of explorations of business model ..................................................................... 54 3.1.4 State regulation and control ...................................................................................................... 60 3.2 Sina Weibo ............................................................................................................................ 69 3.3 Research Problems and Questions .................................................................................. 76 Chapter 4 Research Methods ......................................................................................... 81 4.1 Why Ethnography? ............................................................................................................. 81 4.2 In-depth interviews ............................................................................................................. 82 4.3 Participant observations .................................................................................................... 85 4.4 Archival Documents ........................................................................................................... 88 4.5 Ethical Procedures .............................................................................................................. 91 4.6 Reflexivity vis a vis this study ........................................................................................... 92 Chapter 5 Balancing State and Public ......................................................................... 94 5.1 Why Weibo Becomes the Most Popular Public Sphere in China ............................. 94 5.1.1 Weibo’s news media gene and public sphere function .................................................... 94 5.1.2 Challenges to state’s information order and authoritarian rule ..................................... 97 5.2 Weibo Censorship and Conflict of Interest ................................................................... 99 5.2.1 State delegating the censorship power to social media companies .......................... 100 iii 5.2.2 Exercising self-censorship: survival strategy but burdens .......................................... 103 5.2.3 State or public: the paradoxical role of Sina Weibo in 2013 Southern Weekly incident .................................................................................................................................................... 109 5.3 Government Weibo: A Real Cooperation between State and Social Media Companies ................................................................................................................................. 120 5.3.1 Sina’s promotion in the development of government Weibo ..................................... 121 5.3.2 “Occupy Weibo” ....................................................................................................................... 123 5.3.3 Benefits for social media companies .................................................................................. 126 5.4 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 131 Chapter 6 Increasing Profits or Preserving User Experience? .......................... 134 6.1 Motivations for Weibo’s Monetization ......................................................................... 134 6.2 All-rounded Monetization of Weibo ............................................................................. 136 6.3 Profit-making or Public Interests: Sina Weibo in Strategic Alliance with Alibaba ...................................................................................................................................................... 139 6.3.1 Why Alibaba? ............................................................................................................................. 140 6.3.2 Integration of the two platforms ........................................................................................... 142 6.3.3 Interests brought by the alliance .........................................................................................