Media Politics
How is the media agenda of Chinese television set by the state, market, and civil society？
Nan Li
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, the University of New South Wales
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Dedicated to Weiqing Ding, my mother and Yu Yao, my wife who cared most about the importance of my academic pursuit
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Acknowledgments
This thesis is the fruit of my five-year endeavor and cooperation of many others. It is a great honor for me to acknowledge the contributions of the following individuals to the development of my research. First and foremost, I am very much indebted to my supervisor Dr. You Ji, for his confidence and trust on me. Without his guidance and constant encouragement, it would have been impossible to write this thesis from the very beginning. I very much appreciate advices on the content and organization of this thesis as it annually reviewed by Dr. You Ji, Dr. Stephen Fortescue, Professor Gavin Kitching, and other members in the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, the University of New
South Wales.
I owe a great intellectual debt to Professor Yuhui Zhao, former director of China
Central Television International, who gave me valuable suggestions of how to access most up-dated resources of media policies, laws and regulations on Chinese television.
Professor Renqiu Yu from New York State University, Pat Ovis a senior journalist reporting United Nations, and Stella Alvo, an investment researcher in New York, had collectively done proof reading and corrections for the most part of my thesis. In addition to brainstorming discussions, they even helped me to discover many small but important errors in both grammatical and logical terms. I am also very fortunate to take interviews with many television professionals, managers of broadcasters, and government officers responsible for television broadcasting, who offered me their precious opinions and knowledge that contribute a great deal to my thesis particularly in factual terms. Without their understanding and cooperation, it is impossible to initiate any serious case studies.
Finally, I want to acknowledge my great debt to Weiqing Ding, my mother, who told me her belief when I was a child that pursuing knowledge and seeking truth is one of the
- 3 - most worthwhile and happiest things in life. I also owe this great debt to Yu Yao, my wife, friend, and partner beyond compare. Without her patience and loving support, I might never have reached the point of accomplishing this thesis.
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Abstract
How is the media agenda of Chinese television set by the three institutional powers, the state, market and civil society? How do formal and informal institutions of the state, market and civil society in contemporary China set the media agenda with specific rules and organizations? And what are the power relations among the three institutions that shape the structure and functionaries of mass media in general? Based on a new theoretical framework of media agenda-setting for the analysis of media politics in contemporary China, these questions are explored in three sections.
First, policies and regulations had been established by formal and informal institutions of the state to safeguard the state agenda as the primary media agenda. The second, market set audience rating and commercial income as major rules for Chinese television to survive in a competitive economy. The third, emerging civil society set moral standards for television broadcasters to produce programs to check the failure of the state and market on one hand, and to serve the needs and rights of audience-as-citizens on the other. The constant changing power relations between the state and market, or between the state and civil society are also explored in sections that market and civil society interact respectively with the state to set the media agenda.
The first finding of this thesis relates to the nature of contemporary Chinese television. As one servant for three masters, Chinese television is a mixed entity, which can be motivated to be a state agent, a market entity, and sometimes, a civil society player as well. In long term, Chinese television can be expected to be differentiated and reorganized as affiliates to the three institutions respectively along with the gradual establishment of a checks-and-balances system within and between the state, market, and civil society. The second finding concerns power relations among the three institutions.
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While both market and civil society emerged to be more and more dynamic in motivating the media to accommodate new social agendas, the state remains as the primary power in setting the media agenda of Chinese television.
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List of figures and tables
Figures
Figure 1 A Three Sector View of State and Society Complex ...... 27 Figure 2 Three Sectors and Public Spaces in Contemporary China ...... 44 Figure 3 Communicator-audiences Relationship...... 56 Figure 4 Model of Media Agenda-setting...... 59 Figure 5 Systems of Laws and Regulations on Broadcast Media...... 94 Figure 6 Structure of SARFT...... 135 Figure 7 Organizations of the CPC and the state in Media Agenda-setting...... 137 Figure 8 Market Share of Chinese TV Audience in 2003...... 154 Figure 9 Structure of Chinese Television Drama Market ...... 173 Figure 10 Social Strata in Contemporary China ...... 181
Tables Table 1 Differentiation among the State, Market, and Civil Society ...... 29 Table 2 Structural Changes of Chinese Economy from 1985 to 1995 ...... 36 Table 3 China as the World’s Third Largest Trading Power (US$, billion) ...... 37 Table 4 China as the World’s Fourth Largest Economy in Terms of GDP (2005) ...... 37 Table 5 Statistics of SOs and NPOs in China (,000)...... 39 Table 6 Two Usages of “Public” ...... 48 Table 7 Three Normative Models of Broadcasting Media...... 49 Table 8 Forms of Power ...... 54 Table 9 Formal and Informal Institutions of the CPC...... 62 Table 10 Chinese Television in Different Development Stages...... 64 Table 11 The Growth of Chinese Television from 1978 to 2004 ...... 76 Table 12 Overseas Channels Approved for Transmission in China in 2003 ...... 126 Table 13 The History of Broadcast Administration in China...... 135 Table 14 Objectives of Economic Reform and Development of Chinese Television ...... 140 Table 15 Formal and Informal Institutions of Market in Media Agenda-setting...... 141 Table 16 Ratio of State Revenue to GDP ...... 143 Table 17 Government Fund and Commercial Income for CCTV Non-business Sector from 1983 to 2004 (,000 RMB Yuan) ...... 143 Table 18 Development of the Chinese Advertising Industry...... 146 Table 19 Composition of Chinese Advertisement Market from 1999 to 2003...... 147
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Table 20 Composition of American Advertising Expenditure in 2003(%) ...... 147 Table 21 Development of Chinese Television Advertising ...... 148 Table 22 Accessibility to Different Mass Media for Chinese (%) ...... 148 Table 23 Viewing Time Per Day for Chinese TV Audience (minutes) ...... 149 Table 24 Composition of CCTV (non-business) Employees in May 2003...... 151 Table 25 Commercial Income and Expenditure of CCTV in 2003 ...... 152 Table 26 Composition of CCTV Production and Management Costs in 2003 ...... 152 Table 27 Advertising Revenues of Golden Time Bunch of CCTV-1, CCTV and all Television Broadcasters in China (million RMB)...... 153 Table 28 Market Share of the Top 15 Television Channels in 2002 and 2003...... 155 Table 29 Weekly Programs from 22:35 to 23:20 in CCTV-1 in 2003...... 158 Table 30 The Purposes of Watching Television for Chinese Audience in 2002...... 165 Table 31 Market Shares of Various Television Programs in 2003...... 166 Table 32 Market Share of Entertainment Program in 2002...... 166 Table 33 TV Drama Production and Broadcast by CCTV from 1981 to 2000 ...... 170 Table 34 Advertisement Income of TV Drama over Total Income of Chinese Television Advertisement in 2002 ...... 171 Table 35 Broadcast Hour and Market Share of TV Drama in 2001 and 2003 ...... 171 Table 36 Annual Output of Chinese Domestic TV Dramas ...... 172 Table 37 Decrease of Shares of SOEs in Four TV Related Listed Companies...... 178 Table 38 Formal and Informal Institutions of Civil Society in Media ...... 183 Table 39 Broadcasting Hours and Percentage of Various Programs in CCTV...... 187 Table 40 Comparison of Ratings for CCTV-4 in the 9:30-10:00 p.m. time slot between March 16-19 (before the war) and March 21-24 (during the war) 2003 ....190 Table 41 Audience Rating of “National News” and the “Focus” in CCTV-1...... 193 Table 42 Classification of Reports in the “Focus” in 1999 ...... 194 Table 43 Classification of the Levels of Government being Subject to Criticism and Praise in the “Focus” in 1999...... 194 Table 44 The Timeline of “Three Citizens” in Media Agenda-setting of Sun Zhigang Event.196 Table 45 Feedbacks from audiences to CCTV from 1997 to 2000 (,000 pieces)...... 203 Table 46 Composition of Feedbacks from audiences to CCTV in 2000 (%) ...... 203 Table 47 Composition of Feedbacks from Audiences to the “Focus” in 2003 (%)...... 204 Table 48 Four Types of SARS Reports in the Serial Reports by the “Focus”...... 210
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Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used throughout the thesis.
ACJA All-China Journalists Association/中华全国新闻工作者协会 CAA China Advertisement Association/中国广告协会 CPC Communist Party of China/中国共产党 CCCPC Central Committee, CPC/中国共产党中央委员会 CCTV China Central Television/中国中央电视台 CITVC China International Television Corporation/中国国际电视总公司 CIR China International Radio/中国国际广播电台 CFDC Chinese Film Distribution Company/中国电影发行公司 CNNIC China National Network Information Center/中国国家网络信息中心 CPPCC Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference/中国人民政治协商会议 CPR Central People’s Radio/中央人民广播电台 CRFTG China Radio, Film and Television Group/中国广播电影电视集团 CSRC China Securities Regulatory Commission/中国证券监督管理委员会 CSM CVSC-SOFRES Media/央视 – 索福瑞媒介研究1 DPCC Department of Publicity, Central Committee, CPC /中共中央宣传部2 EPLGCC External Publicity Leadership Group, Central Committee, CPC/中央对外宣传领导 小组 GAP General Administration of Press/新闻总署3 GAPP General Administration of Press and Publication/中国新闻出版总署 GDP Gross Domestic Product/国内生产总值 MCA Ministry of Civil Affairs/民政部 MII Ministry of Information/信息部 MNS Ministry of National Security/国家安全部
1 CSM was founded in Beijing on December 4, 1997; it was a Joint Venture between CTR (CVSC-TNS Research) Market Research and TNS (Taylor Nelson Sofres) Group, the world’s third largest market research company providing opinion and market research survey. Founded in 1995, CTR Market Research, a joint venture between CVSC (Central Viewer Survey and Consulting Center) of CITVC (a CCTV affiliated company) and TNS, was the largest market research company in China and possessed the country's largest media research network. 2 DPCC is widely known as the Department of Propaganda, however, its English name was changed in 1998 to stay away the negative connotation of the word “propaganda”. 3 GAP was existed from November 1949 to February 1952 as the predecessor of SAPP.
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MOC Ministry of Culture/文化部 MOF Ministry of Finance/财政部 MOFTEC Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation/对外经济贸易合作部 MOFCOM Ministry of Commerce/商务部4 MPS Ministry of Public Security/公安部 MRFT Ministry of Radio, Film and Television/广播电影电视部5 NGO non-government organization/非政府组织 NPC National People’s Congress/全国人民代表大会 NPO Nongovernmental Nonprofit Organization/民办非企业 NWCMC National Wireless Communication Management Committee/国家无线电管理委员 会 PBCC Politburo of the Central Committee, CPC/中共中央政治局 PLA People's Liberation Army/人民解放军 PRC People’s Republic of China/中华人民共和国 SAIC State Administration for Industry and Commerce/国家工商行政管理局 SAPP State Administration of Press and Publication/国家新闻出版总署6 SARFT State Administration of Radio, Film and Television/广播电影电视总局 SARS Severe acute respiratory syndrome or infectious atypical pneumonia/非典型性肺炎 SCB State Confidentiality Bureau, (the predecessor of MNS)/国家保密局 SCIO State Council Information Office/国务院新闻办公室 TDCC Television Drama Censorship Committee/电视剧审查委员会 TDCR Television Drama Censorship Review Committee/电视剧复审委员会 TPWLG Thoughts and Publicity Works Leadership Group, Central Committee of the CPC / 中共中央思想宣传工作领导小组 TRIPs (WTO’s Agreement on) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights/与贸 易有关的知识产权协定 WHO World Health Organization/世界卫生组织 WTO World Trade Organization/国际贸易组织 XNA Xinhua News Agency/新华社
4 In March 2003, the State Economic and Trade Commission and MOFTEC were merged into MOFCOM. 5 1n 1998, MRFT was restructured and renamed as SARFT. 6 SAPP was existed form 1987 to 2001 as the predecessor of GAPP.
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Contents
Chapter One Introduction...... 14
Chapter Two Media Politics of Chinese Television ...... 19
I The State, Market, and Civil Society of China ...... 21 A Evolution of the State Society Relationship...... 22 1 Three Historical Stages of Civil Society ...... 23 2 A Three-sector View of State Society Complex ...... 26 B Three Sectors in Contemporary China ...... 30 1 An Authoritarian Pluralist State with Political and Coercive Power...... 31 2 A Growing Market with Economic Power ...... 35 3 An Emerging Civil Society with Civil Power ...... 37
II One Servant for Three Masters...... 42 A Norms of “Public” and Broadcasting Models ...... 43 1 Public Sphere, Public Opinion and Clarification of “Publics”...... 44 a Public Sphere...... 44 b Public Opinion...... 45 c Clarification of “Publics” ...... 47 2 Broadcasting Models...... 49 B Media Politics of Television Broadcast in Contemporary China ...... 52 1 Forms of Powers in Media Politics ...... 53 2 Agenda-setting and Media Agenda-setting...... 56
Chapter Three The State and Chinese Television...... 61
I Informal Institution of the CPC in Media Agenda-setting...... 62 A An Historical Review of the Media Policy ...... 63 1 Establishing a State Media ...... 64 a Media Policy in Pre-television Stage (1949 – 1958) ...... 65 b Television Station Established as a State Agency (1958 – 1978) ...... 67 2 Commercialization and Decentralization ...... 68 a Recovery and the Primary Stage of Commercialization (1978-1983)...... 68 b Decentralization and Expansion Stage (1983 – 1989)...... 72 c Readjusting Stage (1989 – 1993)...... 80 3 Pluralist Broadcasting Stage (1993 – 2003) ...... 81 B Organizations and Basic Characteristics in Media Policy Making ...... 87
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1 Organizations of the CPC in Media Policy-making ...... 87 2 Four Unchangeable Principles...... 88 3 Flexibility of the Media Policy Making ...... 90
II Formal Institution of the State in Media Agenda-setting...... 93 A Laws and Regulations ...... 94 1 The Constitution and Laws...... 95 a The Constitutional Rights Regarding the Freedom of Press...... 95 b Laws Relevant to Mass Media...... 98 2 Rule-by-regulations ...... 101 a Administrative Rules of the State Council ...... 103 b Ministerial Regulations on Television Program Production and Broadcast ...... 107 B Organizations of the State in Media Agenda-setting...... 134 1 Administrative Structure for Television Broadcast ...... 134 2 Press Conference and Government Speakers ...... 138
Chapter Four Market and Chinese Television...... 140
I Formal and Informal Institutions of Market in Media Agenda-setting...... 141 A Formal Rules of Market in Setting the Media Agenda...... 142 1 Independent Financial Management Based on Advertising Income ...... 145 2 Program Scheduling Based on Audience Rating...... 155 B Informal Rules of Market in Media Agenda-setting ...... 158 1 “Image Reporting” or “Paid News” ...... 160 2 “Infomercial Programs” and “Second-rated Advertising”...... 161 3 “Paid Silence”...... 163
II Market Rules Changing Broadcasters into Market Entities...... 163 A Market Oriented Entertainment Program Production ...... 165 B Marketization of Television Drama Production and Distribution ...... 169 C Non-government Investments in Television Industry ...... 176
Chapter Five Civil Society and Chinese Television ...... 180
I Formal Ways of Civil Society in Media Agenda-setting ...... 183 A Civil Society Rules in Media Agenda-setting ...... 185 1 Increased News Production for the Right of Audience to Know...... 186 2 Program of Supervision by Public Opinions to Check the Failure of the State and Market...... 191
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B A Case Study of Three Citizen’s Petition to Check the Failure of the State...... 196
II Informal Ways of Civil Society in Media Agenda-setting...... 202 A Feedbacks to Mass Media from Audience-as-citizens ...... 203 B A Case Study of SARS Reports on the “Focus”...... 205
Chapter Six Conclusion ...... 214
Bibliography...... 217
English Literature ...... 217
Chinese Literature...... 224
Appendix ...... 230
1 Historical Events of Chinese Television...... 230
2 Laws, Rules, Regulations and Administration Documents in Regulating Chinese Television Broadcasters...... 236 A Laws issued by NPC ...... 236 B Rules and Regulations Issued by the State Council and SARFT ...... 236 a Administration Rules Issued by the State Council ...... 236 b Ministerial Regulations on Television Program Production and Broadcast ...... 236 c Ministerial Regulations on Management of Television Broadcasters ...... 238 C Ministerial Administration Documents ...... 238
3 Letter of Jiang Yanyong to CCTV-4 and Phoenix TV ...... 239
4 Proposal for Reviewing “Regulations on Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Area” ...... 241
5 CCTV Structure ...... 244
6 CCTV Broadcasting Channels (2005) ...... 245
7 Broadcasting Schedule of CCTV 1 (January 31, 2005, Monday) ...... 248
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Chapter One Introduction
Three evolutionary processes of civil society exist as both concept and practice in human history that reflect the changes of state society relationship for any state society complex. In ancient Greek and Roman, civil society denoted to the civilized form of the state, or the state was the only form of civilized society. When civil society was used to refer to market that derived in modern history, the civilized form of the state society complex was the one, in which the state and market were differentiated as two equally important institutions. After civil society was further differentiated as voluntary associations among citizens in the last decades, advanced form of the state society complex turned to be composed by the state, market and civil society that were three independent yet intertwined sectors. The principle of checks-and-balances within and between each of the three institutional forces is applied as division of social governance among the three institutional forces, division of power among the state agents, division of labor among market entities, and division of civil responsibilities among civil society players.
The study of media politics concerns the power relations among the three institutional forces with specific rules and organizations in media agenda-setting. As three poles by equal length and strength can set up a table with a sustainable level, the state, market, and civil society can check and balance each other to sustain and maximize the well being of the state society complex.
Contemporary China can be regarded as a state society complex in a process of pursuing modernity with the three institutional forces under constant changing in terms of balance of power.
Taking Chinese television, particularly China Central Television (CCTV) as an example, the sequence of importance in selecting news and other media products parallels to the hierarchy of the institutional arrangement, political power of the state is the first, market follows, and civil society is at the last. The aim of this thesis is to try to establish an institutional framework to elaborate how this media agenda-setting happen in contemporary China.
In the last two decades, the purpose of the state in making media policy and regulations is changed from dictatorship and propaganda to hegemony and publicity, which incurred a gradual but fundamental reform to state owned media including all television broadcasters. Instead of
- 14 - doing what the government asks to do, television broadcasters start to do whatever the government does not restrict to do, especially in producing programs of social issues. Except a few taboos or red lines such as questioning the legitimacy of the Communist Party and the government, or challenge the policy of the state in general, there are growing spaces for mass media to provide open and free discussion to the public. Growing editorial independence or autonomy of Chinese television means that market and sometimes civil society may determine the media agenda based on a negotiable and cooperative manner toward the government.
Dramatic change happened when Chinese television could not receive enough subsidies from the government at the turn of 1980s. When television broadcasters had to pay their own expenses, and later, some kind of tax, as other state own enterprises did to the government, they could no longer serve solely as mouth and throat for the government, they had to meet market competition to produce diversified programs to attract as much audiences as possible so that commercial income could be generated through advertising. Comparing with the fear of political wrongdoings, the fear of business failure became another important and even more pressing one in program production for almost all Chinese broadcasters.
The explosion of entertaining and various kinds of programs in large quantity compelled the government to prioritize its control over selected programs and broadcasters, and this brought larger editorial freedom to the media. At the same time, market competition within and between state owned broadcasters, along with the rules and values of civil society motivated the watchdog journalism that focused on local government officials suspected of illegal or immoral actions.
These programs in the name of supervision by public opinions not only brought higher audience rating and advertisement income to the media, but also increased credibility of the media.
Encouraged by the government in some degree, stimulated by demand of audience-as-market, and motivated by civil society rules and values, watchdog journalism extended the power of checking over all levels of local governments and officials. Although program of supervision by public opinions itself is supervised by the government and no central government officials could be criticized, it has changed rule of the game. The mode of these programs has generally shifted
- 15 - from government addressing citizens to citizens addressing the government. Based on this new rule, civil society players tried to increase its opportunities to actively set the media agenda in formal and informal ways. As a result, when the cost is too high for the state to monopolize the media agenda in a diversified society consisted of different social classes, strata, and interest groups, the state has to negotiate and sometimes compromise with players of civil society to reach consent in media agenda-setting for the common interest of the state society complex.
This thesis argues that the three institutional forces of the state, market, and emerging civil society can set the media agenda of television broadcasters in contemporary China. In a foreseeable future, Chinese television will continue to be a servant for three masters. It can be motivated as, first of all, a state agent, then a market entity, and a civil society player in some circumstances. Chinese journalists will continue to be encouraged to report what happened in an objective, prompt and comprehensive manner, but they have to do this at least under one condition that is not against the state agenda. The truth above the bottom-line may still be part of the truth, but definitely may not be the whole truth. There is still long way to go for Chinese television to be accessed by a relatively balanced distribution of power among the state, market, and civil society in media agenda-setting.
This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter one introduces the aim of this political study of Chinese television, which is looking forward to see what should be done in the future rather than looking back to review what could be done. Chapter two sets up a theoretical framework and forward looking model for the analysis of how can the three institutional forces set the media agenda in contemporary China. A series of old and new concepts related to media politics will be discussed, such as state and (civil) society relationship, public opinion and public sphere, public institution and broadcasting models, media agenda and media agenda-setting. Chapter three discusses how the state set the media agenda of Chinese television in history and in present. From a state agent to a multi-functionary mass media, Chinese television was reformed informally by media policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) and formally by laws and regulations of the government. Informal institutions of the state include media policies and the policy maker, the
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Department of Publicity, the Central Committee of the CPC (DPCC) in particular, and the formal institutions of the state include laws and regulations on mass media, and the regulator, especially the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).
Chapter four examines how formal and informal rules of market set the media agenda of
Chinese television. It focuses on how diversified production of programs oriented on news, features, drama, entertaining and other programs had been developed to meet diversified needs and interests of audiences-as-market. To some extent, audience rating, which generally parallels to commercial income generated from advertising, could become the primary consideration for broadcasters in arranging the sequence of programs on air. Chapter five explores how emerging civil society set the media agenda of Chinese television in direct and indirect ways that protect civil rights of audience-as-citizens and check the failures of the state. Two case studies of civil association and activist who made successful efforts in media agenda-setting will be carefully discussed. Chapter six concludes that the media agenda of Chinese television can be set by the three institutional forces, but the balance of these institutional powers needed to be further adjusted in order to maximize the stability and well-beings of the state society complex.
Three methods will be applied in this study. The first is to collect documents and analyze media related policies of the CPC, government laws and regulations, academic literatures, and reports of the media itself. Most of media policies and regulations issued by the CPC and Chinese government were once classified as confidential documents without disclosure to the public.
Thanks to economic reform that increased administrative accountability, theses documents had been published in recent years, and transcripts of key television programs of CCTV could be accessed through its website. Secondly, extensive interviews are taken within media professionals and managers who best know what, if any, influence their editorial decisions in program production. Finally, content analysis of CCTV and other local broadcasters is elaborated to examine the intricate relations between television discourse and media agenda-setting forces. As a senior professional in CCTV for more than a decade, I take the advantage of getting broad access to the first-hand resources of the media for both printed and oral materials. However, the
- 17 - convenience of easy access may also become the trap of indulging in accumulated facts and data and lack of sharp analysis. More efforts need to be done in the future on how the three institutional forces interact between each other in media agenda-setting, especially between civil society and the state and between civil society and market, the later, for the limits of length, will not be discussed in this paper. What this study could be expected to achieve is working for the beginning of media politics.
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Chapter Two Media Politics of Chinese Television
As a modern form of public message production and dissemination, mass communication is performed as industrial activities that involve considerable division of labor in large organizations whose policies and professional routines are located within the political, economic and legal framework of the state society complex in which they operate.7 Thanks to the invention of television broadcast, especially satellite television broadcast, mass communication through electronic media facilitated the formation of “global village”, in which people around the world could inform or being informed without the barrier of distance.8 At the turn of twenty-first century, digital television broadcast and Internet brought forth an interactive scenario to mass communication.9 A new age of mass communication, in which television broadcast is still the crucial player, will bring the world more closely connected than before both in scale and in depth.
The study of television communication could be divided into three categories. The first
7 There are four kinds of communication: mass media communication (listening to the radio or reading the paper); interpersonal communication (talking with your friends); intra-personal communication (communicating with yourself by writing a shopping list); and extra-personal communication (communicating with machines). See J. Watson and A. Hill, Dictionary of Media & Communication Studies, Arnold, London, 2000, p.178. 8 Technical developments in the UK, the Soviet Union and the US collectively made television broadcast available in 1931 when a research group was set up in Britain under Isaac Shoenberg, who had had considerable experience in radio transmission technology in the Soviet Union. Shoenberg developed a system of electronic scanning method which proved far superior to the mechanical canning method pioneered by Scotsman Jone Logie Baird (1889-1946) who had first demonstrated his system publicly in 1926. The BBC was authorized by British government to adopt Shoenberg’s standards (405 lines) for the world’s first high-definition service which launched in 1936. TV pictures were first transmitted via satellite on 10 July 1962 when Telstar, the first communications satellite, was launched at Cape Canaveral, US, and circled the earth every 157.8 minutes, enabling live TV pictures transmitted from Andover, Maine, to be received at Goonhilly Down, Cornwall in Brittany. The first commercial communications satellite was Early Bird which marked the regular TV transmission via satellite on May 2, 1965. As early as the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan described the world as an electronic village and his phrase “global village” became part of the language of mass communication. 9 Digital TV uses less bandwidth than transitional analogue mode to transmit same amount of information, thus it offers many more channels with improved visual and sound quality. China planned to start its full digital broadcasting in 2015. Internet is a global network of computers that allows people to provide information and/or to access information. It was created by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of American government in 1960’s, which was first known as the ARPANet, and used at academic and government institutions for accessing files and sending email. On September 20, 1987, Professor Qian, Tianbai /钱天白 sent the first email from Beijing to his colleague in Germany, which signaled the beginning of the Internet usage in China.
- 19 - focuses on the social, cultural, psychological, behavioral, and political economic process of television communication, which includes broadcasting regulation, editorial policy, program production and interplay between the media and its audiences or clients. The second takes television communication as cultural apparatus.10 The content analysis, which divided television products as news, drama, talk show, documentary and entertaining program, etc, is the main method to reveal the impacts of television programs on people’s worldview.11 The third put television communication against the context of power relations between and within the three institutional forces that may set the media agenda in competitive or cooperative ways. Media politics, which treats mass media as a passive and neutral arena for contending forces to interplay, is actually a study of more about politics and less about mass communication.
In 1984, Harry Harding noted the coming of the third generation of scholarship regarding contemporary Chinese politics in the post-Mao reform era.12 At the end of the cold war, the relationship between the state and (civil) society turned to be an important topic in the study of social transformation and modernization of pre-socialist countries. Since 1991, the need to build or rebuild civil society after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe has been a common theme of political commentators there. And the transition away from communist dictatorships has often been treated in terms of “return of civil society”.13 After the 1989 Tiananmen incident,
10 The cultural apparatus is the lens of mankind through which men see; the medium by which they interpret and report organizations and milieu in which artistic, intellectual and scientific work goes on, and of the means by which such work is made available to circles, publics and masses. See Wright Mills, Power, Politics and People, Oxford University Press, US, 1963, p.72. 11 Large-scale quantitative content analysis of television programs was initiated by Gerbner and co-workers in the late 1960s and 1970s, the result of which were central to the formulation of the so-called “cultivation theory,” a theory of television’s long-term consequences for people’s world view. See Gerbner G.., “Cultural indicators - the third voice”, in Gerbner G., et al ed. Communications Technology and Social Policy. Wiley, New York, 1973, pp553-573. 12 The first-generation scholarship was signaled as the totalitarian model and second-generation was signaled as various brands of pluralism. The third-generation scholars turned to models of state society relations. See Harry Harding, “The study of Chinese politics: toward a third generation of scholarship,” World Politics, No. 36, January 1984, pp. 284-307. An early harbinger of this trend was Victor Nee and David Mozingo ed. State and Society in Contemporary China Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1983. 13 See Perez-Diaz V M., The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. MA. 1993.
- 20 - scholars in the West also emphasized the importance of a parallel civil society for China, which was regarded as one of the necessitate factors for the emergence of modern democracy.14 Civil society was then taken as an important institution as the state and market that may define the nature of China as a state society complex.
Media politics is the study of power relations within and between the state, market, and civil society in media agenda-setting, which concerns the order of importance of news and current affairs issued by mass media in the effort of shaping public opinion. It is about the relationship among the three institutional forces, the state, market, and civil society that possess dominant powers in political, economic and moral arenas respectively. A new theoretical framework will be established for this political study of television broadcasting in contemporary China. An authoritarian pluralist state, a growing market, and an emerging civil society are assumed to compete, cooperate or negotiate with each other in media agenda-setting. A constructive interaction among the three institutional forces will lead to a checked and balanced distribution of powers. The nature of television broadcasting, and the identity of China as a whole, will be shaped and reshaped in the process of this interplay.
I The State, Market, and Civil Society of China
Human history, like Adam Ferguson presented, is a series of social transformations leading to modern society in which common rules and shared values exist in various state society complexes.15 A modern state-society complex could be anticipated if, and only if, an autonomous
14 See Modern China, Vol. 19, No.2, April 1993, a symposium on public sphere and Civil Society in modern and contemporary China. Other applications include Tsou Tang, “The Tiananmen tragedy: the relationship, choices and mechanisms in historical perspective”, in Brantly Womack ed., Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp.265-328; Martin K. Whyte, “Urban China: a Civil Society in the making?” in Rosenbaum, Arthur ed., State and Society in China: The Consequences of Reform, Boulder, Westview Press, 1992, pp.77-101; G.. White, et al, In search of civil society: market reform and social change in contemporary China, Oxford, Clarendon 1996; J. Howell, “Striking a new balance: new social organizations in post-Mao China”, Capital & Class, 54, 1996, pp.89-111; Tony Saich, “Negotiating the state: the development of social organizations in China”, The China Quarterly, March 2000, pp.124-41; and Qiusha Ma, “The Governance of NGOs in China since 1978: How much autonomy?” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Sept. 2002, pp.305-328. 15 See A. Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ, 1995.
- 21 - society could be differentiated from the state. As an evolutionary process, state and (civil) society relationship evolved in three stages: homogeny, the state equals to (civil) society; dichotomy,
(civil) society is derived as market and independent from the state; and trichotomy, civil society is differentiated from market and the state. After 1990s, the study of state-society relations that pertaining to state-building, civil society, and the relationship between market development and democratization gained currency in a new generation of Chinese political study.16 One of the fundamental problems in the analysis of state-society relationship in China is that it treats the state and society as dichotomous, confrontational, and zero-sum. As Ding mentions, “the binary conception of civil society versus the state, when bestowed on nonconformity and opposition movements in communist system, is usually misleading, being applicable only in rare, extreme cases”.17 In this study, a trichotomic perspective of state society relationship is adopted, and
China as a state society complex will be defined not only by the state, but also by market and an emerging civil society.
A Evolution of the State Society Relationship
Historically, the creation of society precedes the creation of the state, and the domain of society covers that of the state. Society is “any form of association of persons possessing any degree of common interests, values, or goals” .18 According to Hennessy, a given society encompasses individuals and five basic types of social groups: kinship, economic, moralistic-ritualistic, artistic-recreational, and political.19 Claiming a monopoly of legitimate use of coercive power by a territorial sovereign government, the state is defined as “a distinct set of political institutions whose specific concern is with the organization of domination, in the name of the common interests, within a delimited territory”.20 There are at least two distinctions between the state and society. The first is that the state is “in the name of the common interests”,
16 Elizabeth J. Perry, “Trends in the study of Chinese politics” The China Quarterly, Sep 1994, p.704. 17 Ding X. L. The Decline of Communism in China: Legitimacy Crisis, 1977-1989, Cambridge University Press, 1994, p.26. 18 See Iain Mclean, ed. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, 1996, p.461. 19 Bernard C. Hennessy, Public Opinion, Belmont, California, Wadsworth Publishing Company, INC. 1965, p.117. 20 Mclean, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, p.472.
- 22 - while society is possessing “common interests”. The second is that state activities are legally
“within a delimited territory”, while social activities are not necessarily bounded by a geological territory.
There are notions that tend to mix the functionaries of the state and society as one body.
One is Statism, which means absolute control of economic and social affairs by the state.21
Another one is Sozialstaat, or social state, which represents a process whereby society is continuously formed and reformed under the administrative activities of the state, and in which the active participation of the citizen in the state’s decision making is central to this process.22
There are also theories that try to define the origin of relationship between the state and society as either consenting or contradictory in nature.23 In this study, conceivable boundaries will be drawn between the state and society that is further divided as market and civil society, and thus a trichotomic framework is formed to reflect the fluid relations among the state and two social sectors, market and civil society. In fact, differentiation between the state and society can be discussed only if the notion of civil society can be adopted, which reflects the evolutionary process of state society relationship in human history.
1 Three Historical Stages of Civil Society
Originally, in Greek and Roman political thoughts, as Aristotle (384-22 BC) and Cicero
(106-43 BC) noted, political and civil society (Koinonia Politike or Societas Civilis) was coterminous with the state itself.24 At this stage, both the state and civil society indicated groups and individuals united by laws and institutions with the objective of obtaining a social harmony.25
21 In development study, statism is compatible with state capitalism. 22 See Pasquino P., “Introduction to Lorenz von Stein”, Economy and Society, 10 (1) 1981, pp.1-6 23 There are two theories of the origin of the state in terms of the state society relationship. One is the consent theory of the state: the state evolves from society by will of God or by treaties between limited government and the governed. Another one is conquest theory: the state is formed in a continuing act of war internally or externally committed against Society. See Wendy McElroy, “Defining the State and Society”, The Freeman, Vol.48, No.4, 2002, pp.223-227. 24 For a comprehensive understanding of civil society evolution in history, see H. Islamoglu, “Civil Society, Concept and History of”, in Neil J. Smelser, Paul B. Baltes ed, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Volume 3, ELSEVIER, Amsterdam-Paris-New York-Oxford-Shannon-Singapore-Tokyo. 2001, pp.1891-1897. 25 See Ellis E., “Immanuel Kant’s two theories of Civil Society”, in Trentmann F ed. Paradoxes of Civil Society: New
- 23 -
Political community was the central bearer for both the state and (civil) society. The first division of the state and society came in the late eighteenth century, while the concept of sovereign state was established and commercial activities was widespread both in Europe and around the globe.
A civil society then became equated with market economy for scholars such as Adam Smith
(1723-1790), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and later Carl Marx (1818-1883), who saw civil society as an independent self-regulating network of economic relations among self-interested individuals and groups competing in marketplace for goods, labor, and capital.
Compared with the “public” life of the state sector, these self-regulated and self-interested market activities were treated as “private”.
While civil society was defined as market economy by these scholars, different views existed. For Smith, civil or civilized society was an absolute positive concept equal to a self-governing market economy, which was assigned the duties of protecting private property and correcting severe inequalities created by market force itself.26 For Hegel, the idea of universal state marks the origin of social state that is used by later social economists and political economists. Civil, or liberal, or bourgeois society here manifests itself in economic relations with conflicts and oppression that threaten to destroy the productivity of individuals pursuing their self-interests.27 The destructive potential of civil society can only be ameliorated through the state’s administration. For Marx, different from Hegel, economic relations in civil society precede and determine the state, different from Smith, civil society is potentially self-destructive through mobilization of proletarian revolution against bourgeois class.28
The dichotomist view of state society complex is still valid in contemporary study of politics, in which it generally fails to distinguish between market institutions and associations of nonpolitical and noncommercial volunteers.29 From neo-conservative stance in the late twentieth perspectives on Modern German and British History, Bergham, New York, 2000. 26 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK, 1974. 27 See Reidel M., Between Tradition and Evolution: The Hegelian Transformation of Political Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1984. 28 See Bottomore T ed., Civil Society: A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1983. 29 See Iain McLean, ed., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996, p.74.
- 24 - century, civil society, in opposition to the state, represented the depoliticized sphere of market activity and all else.30 A boundary was popularly drawn in most political studies between the public realm of state affairs and private realm of economic activities and other nexuses of associations expected to generate civility, social cohesion, and morality. Contradictorily, no one can deny that interests of the state, market and civil society as well are all public interests.
Therefore, state affairs, market affairs and civil society affairs are all public affairs in nature.
The second division came in the same period as the first one. Addressing the corrosion of civil service in administrative state by commercial interests, Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) conceived the modern concept of civil society based on emerging self-help groups and charitable societies, which had expanded rapidly in eighteenth century England. As network of self-governing voluntary associations, civil society engenders civility beyond the special interests of state administration and the commercial class.31 Civility for Ferguson, as for his compatriot
David Hume (1711-1776), rooted in moral and emotional communication among citizens, especially bourgeois elites that fostered social cohesion. Based on such a trichotomic analysis of state society complex, the notion of civil society was originated as a sphere of self organized activities independent from the state and market.
The second division of the state and society gained its currency in the 1980s. Considering the unresponsiveness of government and business bureaucracies to the public interests in the second half of twentieth-century America, Theodore Levitt emphasized the importance of the
Third Sector in 1973. Different to the government, or the First Sector and profitable market economy, or the Second Sector, the Third Sector is a self-governing, non-profit service body with formal constitution and private legal nature; it is the voluntary domain away from the state, and market. Varying in scope and specific purposes, the general purpose of these voluntary associations is broadly similar:
… to do things business and government are either not doing, not doing well, or not doing often
30 See H. Islamoglu, “Civil Society, Concept and History of”, in Smelser Neil J., Baltes Paul B. ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Volume 3, ELSEVIER, Amsterdam etc., 2001, p.1895. 31 See Ferguson A, Essay on the History of Civil Society, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ, 1767.
- 25 - enough. The existence of a Third Sector reflects the failure (sometimes the deliberate reluctance or refusal) of the business and government sectors to seal with many of the human, economic, and social problems that they were often created or widely assumed somehow to solve, or that have never been assumed to be the province of any specific sector” .32
The Third Sector was also named as non-profit sector or citizen sector. As the leading growth sector in America, non-profit employment has doubled in the last two decades and currently represents 9.5% of the workforce.33 From the Third Sector point of view, civil society can be regarded as a set of rules and organizations outside the domain of the state and market.
The aim of these self-governing, noncommercial and voluntary associations is to maximize social cohesion in a persuasive rather than coercive way that may checks and balances the powers of the state and market. Networked by volunteers and non-profit groups, civil society generally includes religious groups, benevolent funds, recreational clubs, professional associations, academia, trade associations, labor unions, and other social organizations.34 For the common interests of a modern state society complex, the state and market will acknowledge the contribution and sponsor the development of civil society as much as possible.
2 A Three-sector View of State Society Complex
A three-sector view of state society complex was formally conceived by Robert Wuthnow in 1991.35 A similar three-sector view was re-drawn by the United Nations Development
32 See Theodore Levitt, The Third Sector; New Tactics for a Responsive Society, Amacom, New York, 1973, p.49. 33 See George Melloan, “As NGOs Multiply, They Expand a New Private Sector”, The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2004, p.19. 34 An ideal civil society organization is defined by UNDP as a self-initiated; formally organized with accountable behavior and system of governance; demonstrates public responsibility; uses resources in sustainable ways; it is self-financed which ensures autonomy in decision-making; it is democratic and equitable in its functioning and in the way it wants society to be; it is effective and efficient in realizing the goals its sets for itself; it is able to position and assert itself towards or collaborate and compromise with others on the basis of well reasoned considerations; and finally it is functioning with an accurate awareness of the way society, economy and politics works around it. See official website of UNDP, CSOPP Current Programs: Global CSOPP Program: Program Framework http://www.undp.org/csopp/CSO/NewFiles/programmesglobalfmwrk2.htm, (last visited October 25, 2003). 35 Wuthnow, Robert, Between States and Markets: the Voluntary Sector in Comparative Perspective, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1991.
- 26 -
Program (UNDP) in 2000 to show the difference between “North” and “South and East” models of the complexes (see figure1). The UNDP diagram is adopted in this study for its simplicity, but its implication will be re-addressed.
Figure 1 A Three Sector View of State and Society Complex36
In the south and east model of state society complex, business and voluntary sector are relatively smaller and almost embedded in the state sector. There are no overlaps between business and voluntary sectors, because they are separately governed by the state, and no independent or joint forces can be organized by market and civil society to check the overuse or failure of the state. In such a state-shadowed complex, market and civil society remain subservient to the state; differentiation can be hardly drawn between the state and society. In reality, Three Sectors are changing constantly and perhaps nowhere as fast as in contemporary
China, in which, the state is the most powerful; market is the second, and civil society remains the last. Given that China is moving from a “North” model towards a “South and East” one, and the purpose of this study is to look forward to what would be done in the future rather than looking back to review what should be done, a transformation model similar to the North rather than the
South and East will be adopted in this thesis for the analysis of Chinese television with redefined nature of each of Three Sectors.
In the north model of state society complex, the state, market, and civil society overlap with
36 The figure is cited from the CSOPP Current Programs: Global CSOPP Program: Program Framework, Civil Society Organizations and Participation Program (CSOPP) of the UNDP, http://www.undp.org/csopp/CSO/NewFiles/programmesglobalfmwrk2.htm, (last visited October 27, 2003).
- 27 - one another. The interactions among Three Sectors can be competitive in one case, and cooperative in another. The overlapped or shared portions of Three Sectors are public spaces where bilateral or tri-lateral interplay take place. Thanks to these public spaces, a modern state society complex can be regarded as a well-established checks-and-balances system, in which the state, market, and civil society interplay and compensatory complementarity or synergy of powers among these sectors can take place.37 With specific rules and organizations, Three Sectors can be regarded as the three institutional forces that check and balance each other and sustain the well being of modern state society complex.
In a modern state society complex, the aim of the state is to protect national security and order with political and coercive resources; market is organized to produce maximized material wealth with free trade and investment; and civil society is operated to improve justice and social cohesion based on moral consciousness and voluntarinism. When one sector tends to fail, it is the responsibility of the others to extend helping hands for the common good and public interests of all sectors. Generally, the state, market and civil society can be differentiated according to different nature of powers, values, main agents, aims, norms of good governance, and means of media agenda-setting (see Table 1).
The formation of any state society complex is a historical process. Before the industrial revolution happened in Europe in the eighteen century, the state power was the only effective institution to secure domestic stability and to expand national interests overseas through armed forces. As capitalist market started to expand around the globe, the state and market began to join force to accumulate wealth through military forces, trade and investment After the Second World
War, market became the most efficient and acceptable institution for accumulating wealth and expanding national interests. The failures of the state and market in the 1970s in America facilitated the creation of the Third Sector as modern form of civil society, which not only checked the overuse of the state and market powers, but also voluntarily tried to fulfill
37 The relationship between the state and Non-Profit Organizations can be called in a status of compensatory complementarity, see L.M. Salamon, “The Rise of the Nonprofit Sector”, Foreign Affairs 73 (4) 1994, pp.16-39.
- 28 - responsibilities that the state and market are reluctant or incapable to accomplish.
Table 1 Differentiation among the State, Market, and Civil Society
The State Market Civil Society nature of coercive and forceful in cooperative and civil and persuasive in general powers general peaceful values political stability, economic profit, freedom, justice, love and civil rights expansion of the equal business of individual citizens, and cohesion of national interests opportunities state society complex main agents government, corporations self-governing voluntary groups parliament, court, army, charity associations, trade union, and police religious and community groups aims providing services and providing goods providing moral standards for civility infrastructures to secure and services for oriented evolution of state society social order free trade complex38 norms of good realism and division of liberalism and idealism and division of civil governance power division of labor responsibility means of media policy, laws and advertisement and consciousness of improving public agenda-setting regulations, coercive commercial good and checking the failures of the forces in some cases sponsorship state or market
The interest conflicts between and within each sector does not necessarily means that the interest conflicts are destructive or explosive in nature; actually all sectors and organizations within a sector may work for public interests and pursue individual interest at the same time.
Different sectors may solve the interest conflicts within themselves. For instance, civil society may check and expose the failures of the state and market and challenge the credibility for both of them, at the same time, it may also save the state and market by filling gaps in social services that the two sectors assume to but fail to provide.39 Like the state and market, civil society may also
38 Civility here denotes the moral consciousness of human beings and their commitment to each other to make efforts for a better society, for improving living environments for everyone. 39 The study on failures of the state and the market are divided into two theories, “government failure theory” and contract failure theory”. For “government failure theory”, see Burton Weisbrod, “Toward a Theory of the Voluntary Nonprofit Sector in Three-Sector Economy” in E. Phelps ed. Altruism Morality and Economic Theory, New York, Russel Sage, 1974. For “contract failure theory”, see Henry Hansmann, The Role of Nonprofit Enterprise, Yale Law
- 29 - overuse or misuse its power due to voluntary failure in forms of “philanthropic insufficiency”,
“philanthropic particularism”, “philanthropic paternalism”, and/or “philanthropic amateurism”, etc.40 As it happens, the state and market may also provide political or economic resources to do what civil society claims but fails to do. Similarly, different organizations within each sector can also solve internal interest conflicts within themselves. For instance, within civil society organizations, animal protection association may have interests conflict with plant protection associations on biological diversifying issues of how to balance the allocation of living spaces for different species. But collectively, these voluntary associations constitute a checks-and-balances system within civil society.
There are two levels of checks-and-balances that are crucial for good governance of a modern state society complex. The first level demands that each principal institution holds specific resource, and each plays specific role. The second level requires the establishments of division of power in political affairs of the state, division of labor in economic affairs of market, and division of civil responsibility in civil society. Division of powers among horizontal branches of government (legislative, judicial and administrative, etc.) and among vertical levels of government is necessary for a modern state to collect political and coercive resources to secure national stability. Division of labor among horizontal and vertical dimensions of economic actors is adopted by a well-established market to locate its factors of production to maximize wealth accumulation. Division of civil responsibilities among various voluntary associations is the pre-requirement for a fully-fledged civil society to promote moral standard and check the failures of the state and market in an efficient way.
B Three Sectors in Contemporary China
Theoretically, the state, market, and civil society are equal institutions for a well-established state society complex. Like tripods for a platform, the stability of a state society
Journal, 89, 1980, p.835-901. 40 See L.M.Salamon, Rethinking Public Management: Third-CPC Government and the Changing Forms of Government Action, Public Policy, 29(3), 1981, pp. 255-275.
- 30 - complex depends on relatively balanced distribution of powers among these Three Sectors.
Taking China as a state society complex approaching modernity, it can be regarded as a political, economic, and civil existence. Although the state is still the dominant power within this complex, market and civil society are growing rapidly that changes balance of power relations among the three sectors against a global context, which is more and more open and efficient for relocation of economic and social resources.
Political identity of contemporary China is defined by the state, while market and civil society play critical roles in social affairs. Economic identity of China is defined by market. In an age of economic globalization, any state authority cannot manipulate market activities of its citizens or non-citizens who invest or trade within or beyond the national territory. China as a market is a global business network with international regulatory framework that is beyond the reach of the state. The third concept concerning China’s identity is civil society, which is transnational with such international players as Red Cross and Green Peace setting up branches in
China. Civil society players emerged in China also receives sponsorship from overseas. Sporadic
Chinese societies can be regarded as part of China in terms of a shared history and value system, common lore and literature, characteristic symbols and cultural norms, which makes Chinese people different from non-Chinese and provide a symbolic system for Chinese identity.
1 An Authoritarian Pluralist State with Political and Coercive Power
Western scholars used to depict the state of China as “totalitarian”, a “Leninist party state”.41 In such a totalitarian status, the state is the sole governing organizer of social activities; freedom of association and any kind of self-governing activities are strictly prohibited. While
41 On China’s “totalitarianism”, see Tsou Tang, The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms: A Historical Perspective, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986; On a “Leninist CPC state”, see Bruce Dickson, Democratization in China and Taiwan: The adoptability of Leninist Parties, Oxford University Press, New York 1997; and Barrett McCormick, Political Reform in Post-Mao China: Democracy and Bureaucracy in a Leninist State, University of California Press, Berkeley 1990; On “fragmented authoritarianism”, see Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michel Oksenberg, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Process, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1988. On “soft authoritarianism”, see Edwin A. Winkler “Institutionalization and Participation on Taiwan: From Hard to Soft Authoritarianism?” China Quarterly, No. 99, September 1984, pp.481-499. On “bureaucratic pluralism”, see H. Gordon Skilling, “Interest Group and Communist Politics revisited”, World Politics, Vol. 36, October 1983, pp.1-27.
- 31 - both public discourse and private lives are depressed, people cannot become self-determined volunteers but prisoners of the state, no matter how huge the jail could be. This totalitarian picture of China before the 1980s was also described as mono-organizational socialism, in which all forms of associations were dependent upon the state, and ordinary citizens were unable to participate in any policy making process.42 The key features of China as an authoritarian state was summarized, in another way, by Deng Xiaoping as he formulated Four Basic Principles on
March 30, 1979:43
1) We must keep to the socialist road;
2) We must uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat;
3) We must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party; and
4) We must uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.
After two decades of opening and reform, China has been transformed from a totalitarian state with a planned economy and no civil society at all into an authoritarian-pluralist state practicing “fragmented authoritarianism” or “bureaucratic pluralism”. Some important political changes contributed to the process of this political transformation, such as free immigration of urban and rural residents across the country, democratic election of village committees/村委会 in rural areas at the turn of the 21st century.44 Similar free election of street/community bureau
42 The policy process or cycle – in a ‘liberal’ Civil Society – can be simplified as agenda-setting, decision making and policy implementation. See Shi Tianjinan, Political participation in Beijing. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1997. 43 In 1982, the second principle was changed to “upholding the people’s democratic dictatorship” as the Four Basic Principles were written into the “Preamble” of the Constitution of the PRC. See Deng Xiaoping, “Adherence to Four Basic Principles”, in the General Office of the DPCC, and Editorial Department of Central Archives Bureau, CPC ed. Collections of literature on CCP Publicity Works, 1957-1992, 1999, p.478. 44 There are about ten provincial authorities in China at the beginning of 2002 have declared to unify the urban and rural resident registration system, which meant free immigration between rural and urban areas for Chinese citizens, no mater he or she is an urban or rural resident before. See Tang Jianguang/唐建光, “Free immigration”/自由迁徙, Xinwen Zhoukan/新闻周刊, 26/2002, Zhongguo Xingwen She/中国新闻社, p.20. “Villagers’ committee organization law” was passed on Nov. 24, 1987 at the People’s Congress, which safeguarded direct election of officials in village as an autonomic unit in Chinese Society. In 2002, 60-70% villages in China had established their own committees in which 10% undertaking open and democratic management. See Dong Yuyu, Shi Haibing ed. “Chinese Politics/中国政 治”, China Today Press, Beijing 2002, p.367. It was estimated that 300,000 village committees were elected in China’s
- 32 - chief/街道办事处主任 was also taken place in urban areas in 2002.45 At the same time, another crucial change took place as private businessmen or “capitalists” were encouraged to join the
CPC, which indicated that the CPC was to be reformed as a Catch-All-Party/全民党, for which
President Jiang Zemin formally defined in 2001 with his new theory of “Three Represents”:
In a word, the CPC must always represent the requirements of the development of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation of the development of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people in China (hereinafter referred to as the “Three Represents”. …… The “Three Represents” are the foundation for building the CPC, the cornerstone for its exercise of state power and a source of its strength.46
Robert A. Scalapino initiated the concept of Authoritarian-pluralism in 1989 as a transitional political system between totalitarianism, or the Leninist system, and the parliamentary democracy that emerged popularly after the Second World War among Asian-Pacific states such as Taiwan.47 Scalapino re-defined this political system again in 1992:
In such a system, political choice is restricted and civil rights are controlled, with freedom of whatever type limited. Power may be held by either military or civilian elite, or some combination
18 provinces in 2005. See Howard W. French, China’s New Frontiers: Tests of Democracy and Dissent, The New York Times, June 19, 2005. 45 Although much less resource and administration power can be distributed than that of village committee, which is defined in constitution as a self-governing organization in rural area, street/community bureau is the grass roots government office in urban area. After the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued its 23rd document in 2001 about strengthening the community construction in urban area based on the principle of democratic participation and administration, supervision and free election, Jiudaowan community bureau in Dongcheng district of Beijing launched the first democratic election for bureau chief in China under the direction of two non-governmental research institutes. See Sun Yafei/孙亚非, “A democratic exercise in Beijing”/北京的一场民主演练, and “Creating Civil Society straight away”/支接打造公民社会, in Xinwen Zhoukan, 25/2002, Zhongguo Xingwen She, pp.42-45. 46 While the concept of “Four Basic Principles” of Deng Xiaoping was put into preamble of Constitution of PRC, “Three Represents” of Jiang was also added as a new concept in the preamble of amended Constitution in 2004. See Jiang Zemin, “Speech to mark the 80th anniversary of the founding of the CPC” on July 1, 2001, http://www.china.org.cn/e-speech/a.htm (last visited July 20, 2001). 47 For the concept of Authoritarian-pluralism, see Robert Scalapino, The Politics of Development: Perspectives on 20th century Asia, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1989. For the parliamentary democracy that emerged after the Second World War, see Hung-Mao Tien, “Transformation of an authoritarian CPC state: Taiwan’s Development Experience”, in Tung-jen Cheng and Stephen Haggard, ed. Political Change in Taiwan, Lynne Reinner, 1993, p.36.
- 33 - of both. Generally, political restraints are not as rigid as those of the Leninist system but authoritarian-pluralist states are not politically open. A civil society outside the state exists, however, and in such fields as education, religion and family, operates with considerable autonomy, the precise amount depending upon the political culture as well as the immediate circumstances, domestic and international. The economy, moreover, is one in which market plays the critical role, although with extensive state involvement as guide, pilot, source of stimulus and
- more rarely – restraint.48
In 2002, withdraw of the state and expansion of market and civil society in contemporary
China was noted by Michel Oksenberg as:49
1 administrative reform in personnel management and financial system;
2 new mechanisms to circumvent restrictions on property rights;
3 emergence of quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization;
4 spread of the rule of law through the promulgation of laws and regulations;
5 withdraw of the propaganda apparatus and commercialization of the cultural market;
6 increasingly fair and competitive elections of village chiefs;
7 new policy process involving more consultation with expert and affected agencies.
Since government withdrew from direct management in competitive industries; privatization of small and medium sized SOEs (State Owned Enterprises) had been rampant in most parts of China. At the same time, the retreat of government is pronounced in the cradle-to-grave social welfare provision. Health, housing and education services have almost shifted to a “user pays” principle, which has resulted in growing inequality of access. For state owned “public institution” such as CCTV, the welfare reform of housing and health care was smoothly finished at the end of 1990s. However, in poor rural areas, primary education system was endangered as heavily indebted local governments often cannot even afford to pay school
48 Robert Scalapino, “Northeast Asia – Prospects for Cooperation”, The Pacific Review Vol.5 No. 2, 1992, Oxford University Press, p.105. 49 See Michel Oksenberg, “China’s Political System: Challenges of the Twenty-First Century”, in Jonathan Unger, ed. The Nature of Chinese Politics: From Mao to Jiang, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York, 2002, p.196.
- 34 - teachers. A range of social insurance schemes has been attempted by the government to address some of the most pressing problems, but the social security system is generally undercapitalized and has limited reach to the vast population.50 In a predictable future, the government appears to be functioning as a facilitator, rather than a direct provider, of social services. The failure of the state due to the lack of knowledge in dealing with social crisis will be exacerbated by corrupt behaviors of government officials.51
2 A Growing Market with Economic Power
The market reform was started in the rural area, which earned official recognition and spread into urban areas in China at the turn of 1980s.52 After the State Council promulgated “Certain
Policy-Related Regulations on the Non-Agricultural Individual Economy in Cities and Towns”/关
于城镇非农业个体经济若干政策性规定 on July 7, 1981, individual and private economy started booming around urban China. A deregulation process had been processed that increased the autonomy of existing State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), which had withdrawn from competitive industries accordingly.53 Finally, privatization of middle and small SOEs signified the establishment of a market oriented economy.54 As a result, more than eighty percent of
50 See The China Business Review, May-June 2001, p.18 51 Two kinds of merging powers between the state and the market exist in contemporary China. One is “Official Businessman”/官商, which means a government official holding a managerial position in a state owned enterprise. The second is “Entrepreneur Officers”/商官, which means a private businessman holding an official position in a government agency. Nationally, the CPC issued new document at the beginning of 2004 to clean up its cadres managing enterprises in part time. In Jiangsu, Anui and Sichuan provinces, some private businessmen appointed by the local People’s Congress as vice governors of county governments, while continuing to do their businesses as well. See Sun Yafei/ 孙亚菲, “The embarrassment behind the local Entrepreneur Officers”/“商官”背后的地方困局, Southern Weekend/南方周末, 2004.4.8, A-4. 52 Risking the punishment by the state, peasants from Xiaogang Village, Anhui Province de-collectivized the farmlands without official approval in 1978. “The household contract responsibility system with remuneration linked to output” was put into practice throughout the countryside along with the policy of opening and reform, which was launched by the Chinese Communist Party in the Third Plenary Session of its Eleventh Central Committee on December 18, 1978. 53 For the reform of state-owned enterprises, see Wang, D, The twenty years of reform of the state enterprises/中国国 有企业改革二十年, Zhengzhou, China, Zhengzhou International Publishing House, 1998. 54 The nationwide privatization of small enterprises is completed in 1990s, and the nationwide privatization of middle enterprises is quietly completed at the beginning of 2000s. As early as 1992, the output value of the non-state-owned
- 35 - industrial output was produced by non-SOEs, and more than eighty percent of employees were employed by non-SOEs in 1995. A dramatic shifting of employees and industrial output from
SOEs to non-SOEs above designated size took place from 1985 to 1995 (see Table 2).55
Table 2 Structural Changes of Chinese Economy from 1985 to 1995
Percentage of employee (%) Percentage of industrial output (%) 1985 1995 2000 2001 2002 1985 1995 2000 2001 2002
SOEs 41.1 31.6 26 20.2 16.2 64.9 34.0 23.5 18.1 15.6 Non-SOEs 58.9 68.4 74 79.8 83.8 35.1 66.0 76.5 81.9 84.4 Sources: (1 ) National Bureau of Statistics of China/国家统计局, 2004, The Third National Industrial Survey/第三次全国工业普查主要数据公报. (2) Yearbook of Chinese Economy/中国经济年鉴 2001-2003.
In 2005, China became the second largest recipient of foreign direct investment, the third largest trading power, and fourth largest economy in terms of gross domestic product (see Table 3 and Table 4).56 The development of Chinese market brought in new social stress and problems that was unlikely to be solved in a short run. These social problems include increased crime; growing rural-urban migration without growth in employment opportunities or basic social services; deteriorating environmental problems. Facing these emergent social problems, the role of Chinese enterprise was changing but sometimes in a negative direction. Gradually liberated from welfare provision, Chinese enterprises were encouraged by the state to earn profits as more as possible. Some of the most dynamic economic sectors, such as private and nominally
“collective” ones, have thrived in an almost unregulated condition in 1990s. Environmental standards and many legal requirements only existed on paper, and no effective enforcement
economy exceeded the state owned. See Cheng, X, The development of Chinese Society during the transition period/转 型时期的当代中国社会发展, Beijing, Contemporary China Press, 2000. 55 Non-SOEs above designated size indicate those Non-SOEs that their sales income overcomes five million RMB. 56 By the end of January 2005, foreign-invested enterprises in China reached the number of 512,504 with contracted foreign investment of 1, 109.445 billion US Dollars and actual use of foreign investment of 566.196 billion US Dollars, secondary only to that of America. See the Foreign Investment Department of the Ministry of Commerce, PRC, News Release of National Assimilation of FDI in January 2005, 2005-02-22, http://www.fdi.gov.cn/common/info (last visited March 1, 2005).
- 36 - mechanisms had been adopted.57 Like the failure of the state, the failure of market also calls the establishment of an effective checks-and-balances system.
Table 3 China as the World’s Third Largest Trading Power (US$, billion) U.S. Germany China Japan France 2637.0 1744.8 1422.1 1111.9 955.0 Source: World Trade Organization
Table 4 China as the World’s Fourth Largest Economy in Terms of GDP (2005)58 GDP(US$, billion) Per Capita GDP (US$) U.S. 12428.6 39700 Japan 4643.7 36350 Germany 2792.5 33300 China 2225.7 1703 U.K. 2202.3 35600 Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, National Bureau of Statistics of China
3 An Emerging Civil Society with Civil Power
It was a hot debate whether institutions of civil society existed in history of either imperial or pre-communist China.59 It was also a question whether the Western concept of civil society could be a useful methodological tool in understanding contemporary China. In this thesis, civil society, as well as the state and market, is assumed, as an unavoidable historical process, and their rules and organizations appeal to all forms of state society complex. Civil society, with various forms and strengths, certainly made and continue to make contributions for the civilization of
China both in history and present.
Since the mid 1990s, many scholars both in and outside China had analyzed the final
57 According to a survey performed by All China Federation of Trade Unions in 1998, only four percent of private sector companies have trade unions; but according to amended Trade Union Law in 1995, all enterprises with twenty five or more “unionists” must set up a trade union committee. 58 Except for China, per capita GDP figures refer to 2004. 59 See P. Huang, “‘Public Sphere’/ ‘Civil Society’ in China? The Third Realm between State and Society”, Modern China, Special Symposium Issue on Public Sphere and Civil Society in China 19(2), 1993, pp216-40; and Sun-yun Ma, “The Chinese discourse on Civil Society”, The China Quarterly 137, 1993, pp.180-93.
- 37 - collapse of the Danwei/单位 system in Chinese mainland, which was the basic functionary unit in the totalitarian state before the economic reform.60 Vivienne Shue argued in 1994 that, civil associations had succeeded in shaping independent social forces as the state became unable, or unwilling, to carry the same wide range of social services and functions as before.61 These civil associations, under the shadow of the state, had been permitted to increased autonomy. With publications of the “Regulation Codes on Social Trust”/基金会管理办法 on September 25, 1998, the “Registration and Regulation Codes for Social Organizations” /社会团体登记管理条例 on
September 27, 1988, and “Registration and Regulation Codes on Non-governmental, Non-profit
Organizations”/民办非企业登记管理暂行条例 on October 25, 1998, the government formally acknowledged the legal status of non-government organizations (NGOs).62 In opinion of many
Chinese scholars, the boom of NGOs was giving birth to a new form of civil society in contemporary China.63
Similar to so-called quasi NGOs (QUANGOs) in the West, which are created and funded partly, or fully, by government, but given operational independence in general, Social
Organizations and Social Trusts in China have to be nominally affiliated to one of government
60See Feng Lu/路风, “Danwei: a typical form of social organization”/单位：一种特殊的社会组织形式, Chinese Social Sciences/中国社会科学, Vol. 1, 1989; and “The origin and formation of the Danwei system in China”/中国单位体制 的起源和形成, Chinese Social Sciences Quarterly/中国社会科学季刊, Autumn, 1993.; Liping Sun/孙立平, et al., “The great changes of Chinese social structure after reform”/改革以来中国社会结构的变迁, Chinese Social Sciences/ 中国社会科学, Vol. 2, 1994; Shangli Sun/孙尚立, Study of political formation in contemporary China/当代中国政治 形态研究, Tianjing Renming Chuban She/天津人民出版社, 2000; and Jianjun Liu /刘建军, Danweinization of China/ 单位中国, Tianjing Renming Chuban She, 2000. 61 V. Shue, “State Power and Social Organization in China”, in J.S. Migdal, et al. ed. State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World. Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 75-76. 62See Wang Ming, et al, China NGO Research—Case study on China’s NGOs, http://www.ngorc.net.cn/english/tushu/tushufenlie.php (last visited August 17, 2002) 63 For Chinese study of Civil Society in China, See Zhenglai Deng/邓正来, “The state and society: review of civil society study in China”/国家与社会：回顾中国市民社会研究, in Jing Zhang/张静 ed. The State and Society/国家与 社会, Zhejiang Renmin Chuban She/浙江人民出版社, 1998, p.287; and Jing Yuejin/景跃进, “Briefing of academic seminar on Civil Society and modernization of China”/市民社会与中国现代化”学术讨论会述要, Chinese Social Sciences Quarterly, 1993, Vol. 4.
- 38 - agencies.64 Over the last two decades, these two kinds of NGOs that were initiated and sponsored by the government have gradually developed their own managerial strategy for being separate from, but acting in harmony with, the government.65 Lots of these two NGOs had achieved standard of financial transparency and accountability that was quite novel in China. Such transparency attracted substantial endowment from international corporations and overseas
Chinese. Different from SOs, NPOs was organized by grass roots activists rather than state agencies. These genuinely non-governmental and non-commercial organizations were interested in charitable affairs, civil rights issues, academic researches and many other social activities that are ignored by the state and market. Although the government applied strict regulations on the emerging NPOs, official statistics showed that NPOs developed rapidly and reached almost the same amount as SOs in 2004 (see Table 3).
Table 5 Statistics of SOs and NPOs in China (,000)66 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 SOs 175 182 187 180 166 137 131 129 133 137 150 NPOs 6 23 82 111 121 133 Source: Chinese Official Annual Report on Civil Affairs Development from 1994 to 2004 by the Ministry of Civil Affairs/1994 至 2004 年民政事业发展统计公报, PRC. www.mca.gov.cn
As the authority calculated only registered SOs and NPOs, a big gap between official statistics and academic one existed. In 2000, the number of NPOs estimated by scholars was
700,000, thirty times more than the official number.67 It was obviously that great amounts of
64 Existing regulations firmly tie any civil associations to government agencies and limit diversity of these associations by insisting that only one association of any one kind can register at any one administrative level. Rules also prevent associations from conducting activities outside their place of registration, restraining their natural growth. 65 Regarding various kinds of non-government organizations development in harmony with the government in contemporary China, see Nick Young, and Pia MacRae, “Three ‘C’s: Civil Society, corporate social responsibility, and China”, The China Business Review; Washington; Jan/Feb 2002, Volume 29, pp.34-38. 66 The statistics of the number of social organizations made by Chinese scholar, like Lu Jianhua is 190,000 in 1999, much more than that given by government. See Jianhua Lu/陆建华, “The emerging social organizations in China’s Mainland”/ 大陆民间组织的兴起, 1999, http://www.cyd.com.cn/gb/cydgn/content_374347.htm, (last visited September 5, 2000). 67 See H. Liao, “The report on the development of civil affairs in 1999”/1999 年民政事业发展报告, in Z. Shi, ed., The
- 39 - grass roots NPOs were civil right groups that were difficult to be officially registered. The government seemed to be of two minds in dealing with the rapid growth of these non-registered
NPOs. Predictably enough, the government might warn of the dangers an independent civil society posed to the authority of the state. But the government might also recognize, however tentatively, that it cannot deal effectively with every social issue without contributions from these civil right groups68.
One typical example of these unregistered NPOs that could be regarded as civil rights group was Prospering Farmers Association/兴农合作社 in Fuyang, Anhui province. It was organized by Yang Yunbiao/杨云标, a graduate of law school, who was defeated numerous times in the efforts to protect the civil rights of farmers in his hometown, but tirelessly tried to save the interests of local farmers against corrupted local leaders. Motivated by principles of voluntary participation, shared responsibility and benefits, Yang was successfully elected by local farmers as director of a self-governed association to deal with collective farming and civil right issues.69
An example of non-registered NPOs that could be taken as charitable group was Aizhixing or Care Group organized by grassroots activists who took care of AIDS patients infected through contaminated blood transmission.70 The government was very cautious about the development of these non-registered NPOs, because activities of charitable NPOs were always connected with issues of civil rights protection, and civil rights pursuit could be turned into the expansion of political rights for every citizen. The government therefore tended to sponsor officially registered
NPOs that might propose moderate challenge to the government. A typical example of registered
NPOs that often appeared on mass media was Working Skill Training School in Beijing, which
report on the development of social welfare and society as a whole/中国社会福利与社会进步报告 Beijing, China, Social Science Documents Publishing House, 2000. 68 Zhu Guangyao, deputy chief of the State Environmental Protection Agency, recognized that the importance of private environmental groups in China had lagged behind their role in other countries, and that his agency wanted to play a more important role in developing “legislation to secure their interests and existence in China.” See the Associated Press, “Chinese Official Sees Private Role on Environment”, New York Times, June 6, 2006. 69 This story was reported by Phoenix Satellite Television at 10:00pm on March 28, 2006. 70 See Howard French, “Chinese Turn to Civic Power as a New Tool”, New York Times, on April 11, 2006.
- 40 - was founded by Professor Wu Qing/吴青, a well-known social activist for girls immigrating to
Beijing. This school was aimed to cater to children of migrants who are not eligible to enter formal urban schools sponsored by the government because of their status of rural residents.71
Some NGOs also grew in the shelter of academic institutions.72 These dynamic groups engaged in political, economic, and social issues, from policy research to advocacy to specific rights-based themes such as domestic violence and child abuse; from legal services for disadvantaged citizens to rural development programs including direct election of village chiefs.
Groups of volunteers were active in the fields of environment protection, consumer rights, and rights of migrant workers and other marginalized citizens. There were also determined individuals with professional skills, under the motivation of civil society values, had helped to solve social problems that the state was reluctant to address.
When International Conference on NGO Poverty Reduction Policy held in 2001 in Beijing,
Chinese NGOs reported that they have mobilized more than fifty billion yuan (about six billion
US dollars) for poverty reduction since the mid-1990s.73 After 1988, government established more and more charitable organizations;74 and grassroots charitable associations, including
71 The story of professor Wu Qing was showed on “Up-close”, CCTV-9 in July 2004. 72 The first non-governmental and non-commercial academic institute in China, Tianze Economic Research Institute/天 则经济研究所, was established on July 26, 1993. Another good example is the Legal Aid Firm, which was established on August 25, 2003, by some distinguished scholars of law in the Law Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Sponsored by the Ford Foundation from America and appreciated by some Chinese officers from the central government, this legal aid agency was aimed to deal the case proposed by voluntaries and civil rights groups. 73 See Bart W. Édes Milestone NGO Meeting in the PRC: Chinese NGOs are gaining ground in fighting rural poverty, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Periodicals/ADB_Review/2002/vol34_1/ngo.asp (last visited March 20, 2003). 74 One of the best-known official charitable organizations is the China Youth Development Foundation’s flagship Project Hope/希望工程, which has raised funds around the world to build rural schools and provide scholarships for students from poor areas in China. Since 1989, most of ordinary urban Chinese citizens have been activated and contributed in Project Hope. Other influential actors are the China Children and Teenagers’ Fund, established in 1981 by the Women’s Federation, and the Poverty Alleviation Foundation, established in 1989. A relative newcomer is the China Charity Federation, which since its founding in 1994 has developed a national network of mobilizing funds for disaster relief and a wide range of health, social-welfare, and poverty-reduction projects, from cancer research to micro-irrigation.
- 41 - religious ones, could be established by non-governmental agencies. 75 However, in 2004, according to Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), two hundred eighty thousand registered non-government charity organizations received about five billion yuan donation, which meant only about sixteen yuan or two US dollars, in average, could be channeled to each disaster victim, or absolutely poor or disabled people in need.76 In order to further encourage the raising of charity fund, the government started to plan a tax reduction system for donations.77
While Chinese NGOs grew very fast in recent years, it was still far below the record in history. For instance, in Shanghai, about one hundred thirty trade associations represented several hundred industries in 2004; the number was only one fifth of the trade associations in the pre-communist period before 1949.78 Although NGOs had served vital welfare functions in contemporary China, in areas such as increasing agricultural productivity, expanding economic and social opportunities for women, protecting environment, increasing access of the poor to financial resources, managing orphanages and retirement homes, and provision of health and education, the government might still be reluctant to formally acknowledge the contribution of civil society in China.
II One Servant for Three Masters
As part of mechanical medium, the signal of free-to-air television that carries news and other information can be regarded as public goods, for once it is supplied to some consumers, it is
75 These include many religious organizations such as the Amity Foundation and the Chinese Christian service organization. The Catholic Church has several smaller, but vibrant, counterparts, such as Beifang Linde, which grew out of a Catholic newspaper in Hebei Province. In several cities the YMCA and YWCA have reemerged and offered recreational facilities for young people. 76 In 2004, China had about 60 million disaster victims; 75 million people in rural areas living in abject poverty require social assistance and 140 million senior citizens aged over 60 and some 60 million disabled people in need of social assistance. Meanwhile, the charitable donation in China accounted for 0.05 percent of the gross domestic product. In comparison, it was 2.17 percent in the United States. See “China highlights charity’s role in narrowing rich-poor gap” 11/23/2005, on the official website of Chinese government, http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/xw/t222953.htm, (last visited November 22, 2005). 77 It was discussed on November 20, 2005, when the first China Charity Conference was held under the sponsorship of MCA and China Charity Federation, the largest non-governmental charity organization in China. 78 See Liu Jianping/刘建平, “Shanghai: the biggest scale of NGO reform in China”/上海：全国最大规模 NGO 改革, Southern Weekend, March 25, 2004, A-4.
- 42 - necessarily supplied to all others.79 However, free-to-air broadcasting is an unique public goods.
It benefits two types of “consumers”. The first is “general/passive” audience or consumer, who is benefited by being informed, entertained and educated. The second is “specific/active” audience or consumer; who is capable to access not only what the media has produced, but also what the media will produce. These specific consumers include advertisers, political agents and civil society actors, who can motivate mass media individually or collectively for specific or public interests. Driven by specific rules and organizations of the state, market, and civil society, broadcasting media can be classified into four models: the state broadcast, commercial broadcast, public service broadcast, and transitional or mixed broadcast. Each of the former three models may specifically serve one of the three institutional forces, and the mixed one like Chinese television may serve the three institutional forces together.
A Norms of “Public” and Broadcasting Models
Traditionally, the term “public” is used to indicate the state dominated sphere, while the term “private” is used to indicate non-state covered sphere. This differentiation between public and private in terminology causes serious confusion in many cases. In reality, “Public Service
Broadcast”, such as BBC, is titled with “public” because it is kept away from both the state and market. “Public institution”, such as CCTV, is titled with “public” because it is not only owned by the state but also motivated by market and civil society in contemporary China. In order to clarify the concept of “public”, this thesis differentiates “public” in narrow and broad senses. Narrow or specific “public” refers to particular area covered by institution of civil society. Broad or general
“public” refers to all areas covered by institutions of the state, market and civil society. In this way, CCTV can be regarded as a transitional broadcasting model, which is motivated by the three institutional forces.
79 The notions of television in this thesis are both works and acts of the media. According to John Fiske in Introduction to Communication Studies (UK, Methuen, 1982), television is a mechanical media, which is a transmitter of the presentational media and representational media.
- 43 -
1 Public Sphere, Public Opinion and Clarification of “Publics”
There are four public spaces or common areas among Three Sectors or the three institutional forces in contemporary China (see Figure 2). SM is the public place of the state and market, SC is the public place of the state and civil society, MC is the public place of market and civil society, and SMC is the core of these common places, where the state, market, and civil society meet each other. SM, SC, MC, and SMC are public spaces where various kinds of general
“public institutions”, such as mass media and legal institutions are located. In these public spaces, wherever the state power reaches, the dominant power will be the state, although influential forces from market and civil society are growing. As one of the key public institutions, mass media in Contemporary China are located in the area of SMC, in which the dominant power comes from the state.
Figure 2 Three Sectors and Public Spaces in Contemporary China
State
SM SC
SMC Civil Market MC Society
a Public Sphere
The idea of public sphere/公共区间 was originated in 1962 by German philosopher,
Jurgen Habermas. Resonating to what Ferguson had perceived as the emergence of civil society independent from the state and market in late eighteenth-century England, Habermas noted the comparable emergence of an elite public sphere composed of private citizens, in which public opinion could be formed:
“By ‘public sphere’ we mean first of all a domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed. Access to the public sphere is open to all citizens…Citizens act as a public
- 44 - when deal with matters of general interest without being subject to coercion; thus with the guarantee that they may assemble and unite freely, and express and publicize their opinions freely”.80
Furthermore, Habermas linked public sphere and public opinion with the core of civil society that “comprises a network of associations that institutionalizes the problem-solving discourse on questions of general interest inside the framework of organized public spheres”.81
Public sphere shrinks and ceases to be a “neutral zone” under twin processes of state intervention in society (state-ification of society) and societal assumption of state authority (societalization of the state) that result in merging of the state and society. As Habermas described, since the late
19th century, the combination of the state and market forces in a modern capitalist system undermines the distinction between the state and society. A “re-feudalization” of the public sphere happens as the state, industrial conglomerates, and the media undergo a process of fusion. The essential function of civil society is to re-produce the public sphere and initiate the process of
“republication” of state society relations.
Public sphere, the bearer of public opinion is one of the key composites of “modern” civil society. The search for re-producing a pubic sphere is taken in this thesis as a universal aim for both the developed and developing state society complexes. As Madsen noted in 1993, “…far from presuming that a society like China must become like the West, it assumes that the West itself needs to search for ways to institutionalize a public sphere under modern (or post modern) circumstances brings China and the West together in a common quest”.82 b Public Opinion
In history, French philosopher Rousseau was the first modern political thinker to make an
80 See J. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a category of bourgeois Society (Translated by T. Burger in 1989) Cambridge, MIT Press (originally published in German in 1962), 1989, p.398. 81 J. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1992, p.367. 82 Madsen, Richard, “The Public Sphere, Civil Society and Moral Community” in Modern China, Special Symposium Issue on Public Sphere and Civil Society in China Volume 19, Number 2, SAGE Periodicals Press, 1993, p.187.
- 45 - extended analysis of public opinions. He believed that all governments rest fundamentally on opinion rather than on law or coercion:83
“Along with these three kinds of laws (constitutional, civil and criminal) goes a fourth, most important of all, which is not graven on tablets of marble or brass, but on the hearts of the citizens. This forms the real constitution of the state, takes on every day new powers, when other laws decay or die out, restores them or takes their place, keeps a people in the ways in which it was meant to go, and insensibly replaces authority by force of habit. I am speaking of morality, of custom, and above all of public opinion; a power unknown to political thinkers, on which, nonetheless, success in everything else depends”.
Public opinion, as “the complex of beliefs expressed by a significant number of persons on an issue of public importance”, is not “a mere aggregate of individual opinions, but a genuine social product, a result of communication and reciprocal influence”.84 While exploring the relationship between public opinion and mass media, some British scholars refer public sphere as both the place and process of facilitating the formation of public opinion, which mass media are played the key role:85
“… in which private individuals exercise formal and informal control over the state: formal control through the election of governments and informal control through the pressure of public opinion. The media are central to this process. They distribute the information necessary for citizens to make an informed choice at election time; they facilitate the formation of public opinion by providing an independent forum of debate; and they enable the people to shape the conduct of government by articulating their views. The media are thus the principal institutions of the public sphere or, in the rhetoric of nineteenth-century liberalism, ‘the fourth estate of the
83 See Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and the Discourses, trans. G. D.H. Cole, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1913, p.44-45. 84 See Cooley C.H. Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind, Scribner, New York, 1909; and Bernard C. Hennessy, Public Opinion, Belmont, California, Wadsworth Publishing Company, INC. 1965, pp.97-98. 85 See Garnham N., “The media and the public sphere” in Golding P, et al. ed. Communicating Politics: Mass Communication and the Political Process. Leicester University Press, Leicester, UK 1986; and Gramham N, Capitalism and communication, Global Culture and the Economics of Information, Sage, Newbury Park, CA 1990.
- 46 - realm’ ”.86
As part of checks-and-balances system in a modern state society complex, mass media can be taken as the open forum where agents of the state, market, and civil society meet each other in a rational-critical discourse to facilitate the formation of a genuine public opinion. Public opinion-watchdog or supervision by public opinion is another name for this rational-critical discourse, in which opposite opinion holders debate with each other to check the failure of one another. In a developing state society complex like China, mass media is not a fully opened forum equally accessed by agents of the state, market, and civil society; it is a forum accessed by institutional forces with sequence of power importance. Generally speaking, public opinion can be produced in mass media in a genuine “public” way; only if the three institutional forces, especially civil society can be equally involved in manufacturing media products. c Clarification of “Publics”
“Public institutions or social welfare units”/事业单位 in China such as mass media, hospitals, schools, and law firms are defined by the government as “public” in broad sense, because they can affect the public life of all citizens. They are organized by the government for various kinds of social/public services, from education, science and technology research, arts and cultural entertainments, and public health to philanthropic activities.87 There were more than one point three million “public institutions” in China’s mainland in 2004, which employed more than twenty nine million faculty members.88 These so -called “public institutions” are officially regarded as the extension of government entities, especially in the area such as mass media,
86 The “fourth estate” refers to the press and its role within the state domain. According to Edmund Burk (1729-97), the other three “Estates” were the Lords Spiritual (the church), the Lords Temporal (the judiciary) and the Commons (parliaments); the press, like other estates, serves the state, as differentiable from government, and thus functions as a force for social, cultural and national cohesion. See James Curran, “Rethinking the media as a public sphere”, in Peter Dahlgren, Colin Sparks ed. Communication and Citizenship, Routledge, London and New York, 1991, p.29. 87 Referring to the “Registration and regulation codes on public institutions”/事业单位登记管理暂行条例, which was issued by Chinese government in 1988. 88 Referring to Dongkai Liu/刘东凯, “Discussion on the reform of public institutions in China”/我国考虑实施事业单 位改革, www.sina.com.cn/news (last visited March 23, 2004).
- 47 - where private business and/or non-governmental organizations are not allowed to access.
However, these traditionally non-commercial “public institutions” established by government gradually changed to market oriented entities in 1980s. Most of the public institutions are currently affiliated to government but operated as self-supportive and profit making entities.
In discussing public sphere, public opinion and traditional public institutions, the specific notion of “public” tends to be confused. First of all, “public” is not differentiated from “private” in previous academic works. For traditional “public institutions” in China, the state rules and organizations were described as “public” without regard to its openness and access to participation of citizens, while economic and other social activities were treated as private without considering their impact on public life. Secondly, “public” can be further divided into two categories, one is broad or general, and another is narrow or specific. General “public” is the domain for activities of all institutional forces in a state society complex. Specific “public” is exclusively the domain for activities of civil society, whose ultimate concern is “pure” public interests. Two usages of “public” in this thesis can be differentiated in contrast with their counterparts (see Table 6).
Table 6 Two Usages of “Public” Two Usages of “Public” Associated Actors Counterparts public goods/institutions the state, market, private goods, family and and civil society individuals public sphere/ opinion civil society pseudo-public spheres/opinions Public Service Broadcast state or commercial broadcasts
The output signals of television broadcast can be regarded as public goods in general that, if supplied to anyone, are necessarily supplied to everyone. However the output messages of the media, especially the news and comments produced with specific media agenda, are not public goods any more. They can only be interpreted as representation of public or non-public opinions that are driven by either civil society rules or rules of other institutions. For Chinese television, the pattern of news or other media products is set before broadcasting by institutional forces with
- 48 - hierarchy of power relations. In some cases, the media can reflect public opinion when it is motivated by rules and values of civil society. But in all other cases, the media can only reflect opinions of institutional powers of the state or market that make effects on public life. Generally speaking, these pseudo-public opinions are manipulated by political and/or economic powers, and not based on genuinely free debate that is open to all voluntary participants.
2 Broadcasting Models
Traditionally, three normative models of television broadcast can be differentiated based on three media control system that associated with three principal institutional forces in a state society complex: the state, market, and civil society.89 In terms of normative, it means how television broadcasting should be, rather than what it happens in practice. Presumably, state broadcast can be found in the former Soviet Union and China before 1980s; commercial broadcast was and is still dynamic in the US and other countries, and civil society broadcast was originated in the UK and still active in some developed countries. The main differences between these three normative models are listed in Table 7.
Table 7 Three Normative Models of Broadcasting Media
state broadcast commercial broadcast public service broadcast
organizations and state organs, order market agencies, civil society players,
rules in control and stability economic efficiency morality and justice
means for media regulations and advertisement and persuasion for civil rights
control government fund commercial sponsor and social cohesion,
non-commercial sponsor
targeted viewers viewer-as-recipient viewer-as-consumer viewer-as-citizen
State broadcast refers to state dominated political media, which are owned, ruled, managed or otherwise influenced by state organs. They are meant to propagate the official or convenient
89 See American media analysts G.F. Siebert, et al., Four Theories of the Press, US, University of Illinois Press, 1956.
- 49 - views of the state dominated entity. All ex-Soviet Union blocs, East Asian communist countries including China before 1980s fall into this category.90 Some other examples may also be included in this category. British government established international television broadcaster BBC World in 1932 as one of the department of British Colonial Office, which was the ministry controlling the overseas colonies and territories. American congress financed Arabic-language satellite television channel Al-Hurra, “the Free One” in English, which was lunched on February 14, 2004 with $62 million as its first year budget. It was described as “the U.S. government’s largest and most expensive effort to sway foreign opinion over the airwaves since the creation of Voice of
America in 1942”.91 These State media generally do not worry about supervision of civil society or market competition. The aim of these state broadcast is to maintain domestic stability or to promote national interests overseas.
Commercial broadcast refers to mass communication vehicle that is established and managed by market entities to meet the commercial interests of its owners. It overwhelmingly existed in America and other free market economies. As one of the archetypal capitalist or “free market” organizations, the main purpose of commercial broadcast is to maximize commercial income by increasing audience rating to attract as more commercial advertisements as possible.
Rules of market rather than that of the state or civil society generally motivate daily operation of commercial broadcaster.
Public Service Broadcast (PSB) can be regarded as a form of civil society media. It is ruled, managed or decisively influenced by civil society actors and determined to promote non-governmental and non-commercial views and interests. A typical PSB was conceived originally as a crucial part of public sphere in a well functioning democratic society.92 British
90 For a comparative study that clarifies considerable differences between the various national broadcasting systems, see Syvertsen T. 1992 Public Television in Transition. PhD. thesis, University of Leicester. 91 See Abdul Hadi Jiad, “The BBC: A Personal Account”, in Miler, David ed. Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq, London, Pluto Press, p.204. And Ellen McCarthy, “Va.-Based, U.S.-Financed Arabic Channel Finds Its Voice”, Washington Post, October 15, 2004, p.A01. 92 For a general survey of PSB history and development in the world, see Toby Mendel, “Public Service Broadcasting. A comparative Legal Survey - Kuala Lumpur: UNESCO”, 2000, Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development,
- 50 -
Broadcast Corporation (BBC) in Britain and Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) in Australia and PSB in America and others fall into this category. With a license agreement between a PSB and the state, the government cannot impose direct control over the media; The state can only set up legislative framework for the operation of broadcasters. For example, broadcasters may be required to ensure “impartiality” in their coverage of current affairs; they may be required to ensure that certain kinds of material are not broadcast when young children are likely to be watching, and so on.93 Because such system of regulation demand that PSB has to provide
“quality broadcasting” with less or no commercial interests, this broadcast treat audience as citizens rather than consumers.
It is under debate if there is genuine PSB that can be independent from the state and market.
Severe critics already exposes that too much power is concentrated in the hands of the government in managing PSB, such as BBC. Indirectly through its power of appointment of the
Governors of the BBC Board, the Secretary of State – in relation to the World Service, the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office – is given substantial power over the operation of BBC. And in the near term, there seems to be little hope to establish an independent broadcasting council to take over functions currently exercised by government.94 However, the independence of BBC is principally guaranteed and acknowledged in the preamble of its Charter and in Clause 2.1 of the
Agreement.95 Announced by British government in 1994, six key features of public service
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/publications/mendel/uk.html, (last visited Septemter 20, 2002). 93 In the UK, the legal framework for independent broadcasting companies is set out in the Broadcasting Act 1990, which, in addition to requiring the development and operation of a range of policies (e.g. the Family Viewing Policy or “9 o’clock watershed”, policy on showing hypnotism, policy on showing violence etc.), also provides for the existence of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission and the Broadcasting Standards Council. The PSB providers such as BBC in the UK and ABC in Australia are regulated in a more stringent way than other press. For example, in the UK or Australia, there is clearly no requirement that the press should be impartial in their coverage of current affairs, unlike broadcasters. 94 See Toby Mendel, Public Service Broadcasting: A comparative Legal Survey - Kuala Lumpur : UNESCO, Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, 2000, www.unesco.org/webwolrd/publications/mendel/uk.html (last visited September, 2, 2002). 95 BBC was founded in 1926 under a Royal Charter and continues to enjoy the same status to this day. Royal Charters are periodically renewable and granted for a number of years, the most recent for a 10-year period dating from May 1996. A License Agreement between the Secretary of State for National Heritage and the Board of Governors of BBC
- 51 - broadcasting organizations are noted in the White Paper on the future of BBC, in which independence from both the state and commercial interests is crucial:96
general geographical availability;
concern for national identity and culture;
independence from both the state and commercial interests;
impartiality of programs;
range and variety of programs; and
substantial financing by a general charge on users.
In contemporary China, the government can directly control media content, especially news, current affairs, and let other non-political related programs go free. While market and emerging civil society have growing powers in competing or negotiating with the state to decide the sequence of importance for programs on air, Chinese television broadcast can be defined as a transitional or mixed model, which is under the motivation of the three institutional forces together.97 The hierarchy of principal institutional powers in motivating media operation is the state at first, market followed and civil society at last. With this sequence, the media used to consciously eschew negative reporting and favors positive one. 98 Watchdog journalism or criticizing reports checking the failures of the state and market is encouraged as far as it does not disturb the political stability at national level. The freedom of civil society actors to facilitate accountability of the state and market through mass media is still jeopardized in general.
B Media Politics of Television Broadcast in Contemporary China
While political identity of China changed from totalitarianism to authoritarian pluralism, the specifies in further detail the governance and public service obligation of BBC. The Agreement is technically a contract between the Minister and the Governors, the most recent having been signed in 1996. 96 See Eric Barendt, Broadcasting Law: A Comparative Survey, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995, p. 52; and BBC White Paper, The Future of the BBC: Serving the nation, Competing world-wide, Cmnd. 2621, 1994, pp. 6-7. 97 For Chinese television in transition, see Polumbaum, Of the CPC, by the CPC and for the CPC--and the people: China's journalists in an era of reform, Stanford University, 1989. 98 Here the negative information indicates those cultural products that are regarded by the authority as damaging the image of political stability, and social and economic progress. The positive information indicates those cultural products that are regarded by the authority as enhancing the image of national building.
- 52 - media policy of the government gradually changed from propaganda to hegemony, which is more about leadership less about dictatorship.99 In the 1990s, the term propaganda was deliberately transformed as “publicity” in official press, which indicated that both positive and negative information, ideas, opinions, and images of the state could be published.100 The new policy aims to help the state seeking consent with different social institutions. To maximize the common interests and to build the hegemony, the state learned to be adept in encouraging mass media to manufacture consensus among different institutional powers or opinion groups. The “agenda” carried by mass media is, in the end, representation of key institutional forces on specific public issues.101 For the state, Chinese television can be used as a political tool to promote official ideology and national stability. For market, it can be treated as a commercial player that may generate material wealth. For civil society, it can be, though may not always be, assumed as a public sphere where public issues are discussed and debated as free as possible.
1 Forms of Powers in Media Politics
In media politics, four forms of powers can be summarized in relation to their resources, which they depend upon, and the paradigmatic institutions, in which they are concentrated (see
Table 8). Firstly, economic power is directly related to market entities. Secondly, political and coercive powers are managed by the state organs. Thirdly, moral or civil power is fundamentally
99 Likert identified four main types of leadership: automatic, persuasive, consultative and democratic. Research into leadership tends to point towards the democratic leadership style as being superior to the others. However, the situational approach to leadership argues that different styles of leadership will be appropriated to different situations. The functional approach to leadership focuses on identifying the behavior needed from leaders so that particular organizations may achieve their goals. Generally speaking, individuals can improve their leadership abilities through improving their communication skills. See Robert Likert, The Human Organization, US, McGraw-Hill, 1967, and Anne Sassoon, “Hegemony”, in Outhwaite, William and Tom Bottomore, ed, The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought, Oxford and Cambridge, Basil Blackwell, 1993, pp.255–256. 100 The State Council Information Office (SCIO) noted that “propaganda” contained “derogatory sense”, and “propaganda department”/宣传部 was therefore translated as “publicity department”. See SCIO supervised CEVFAF committee ed, Chinese-English Vocabulary of Foreign Affairs/汉英外事工作常用词汇, Foreign Language Press, 1998, p.299. 101 For representation theory in mass communication study, see Nick Lacey, Image and Representation: Key Concept in Media Studies, UK, Macmillan, 1998.
- 53 - operated by civil society agencies. Finally, symbolic power is carried by cultural institutions including mass media, which is the power of representation for other institutional forces.
Table 8 Forms of Power102 Forms of power Resources Paradigmatic institutions Economic power Material and financial Economic institutions (e.g. commercial entreprises) instruments Political and Administrative and Political institutions (e.g. government) and coercive coercive power physical forces institutions (e.g. the military, the police) Moral and Moral-consciousness Voluntary associations (e.g. NGOs, charitable civil power and persuasiveness groups, academia, public service broadcasters) Symbolic power Public information and Cultural institutions (e.g. religious groups, schools, opinions art performers, media industries)
Comparatively, civil society that possessed moral or civil power is more likely to form coalition with cultural institutions that possesses symbolic power, because both civil and symbolic powers are fundamentally empowered by public opinion, they are powers that makes effects through persuasiveness or symbolic influence rather than coerciveness or pressure of material wealth. Successful cultural institutions basically have to claim to represent the power of morality, which is inherited in civil society. From historical point of view, moral power is fluid and transferred from one sector to another in the evolutionary process of civil society. Moral power was originally claimed by the state, as the state was the only form of (civil) society and no difference between the state and civilized society existed; it was transferred to market, as market replaced the state as new and advanced form of (civil) society; finally it was occupied by civil society, as civil society emerged as an independent social sector from both the state and market.
The primary bearer of civil rights and social justice can claim the moral power to the most.
In the study of mass communication, any communicator-audience situation can be
102 John B. Thompson summarized forms of power as economic power, political power, coercive power and symbolic power. Civil power is added in this thesis to the original model as a new form of power. See Thompson, John B. 1995, The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media, Polity Press, UK, p.17.
- 54 - preconditioned by external factors.103 For state broadcasters, this external factor is government, who is supposed to insert the state agenda in mass communication. The “policy agenda” of government and political power tends to convert active audience to passive audience.104 For commercial broadcasters, the external factor is market. For instance, an enterprise can impose its business agenda in mass communication through buying commercial times that add advertisements as “normal” part of television program. The commercial insert may not only interrupt the process of readership, but also aim to convert audience-as-public to audience-as-market.105 For public service broadcasters, the external factor is civil society, who promotes civility-based agenda for mass media and tends to convert passive recipients to active participants of mass communication.
Traditionally, mass communication can be regarded as a process that involves communicator and two kinds of audiences, the activated/specific and inactivated/general ones
(see Figure 3). General or passive audiences do not react to what is being communicated to them and reluctant to feed any views back to the media. Specific audiences are active in giving specific opinions back to mass media as news making initiatives, and thus constitute the cycle of interactive communications between mass media and specific audiences. In general, these activated or specific audiences represent at least one of the three institutional forces, the state, market, and civil society.
103 Audience refers to the aggregate of viewers or individuals, as an abstractive concept, it also indicates all the reception process of message sending from communicator. For a study of triangular relationship between communicator, public and client, see Pertti Alasuutari, ed., Rethinking the Media Audience: The New Agenda, UK, Sage, 1999. 104 Opposite to passive audience, the notion of the active or resistive audience considers audiences proactive and independent rather than docile and accepting. 105 The difference is simple but profound: broadcasting aimed at audience-as-public defines its function as being serve, audience-as-market, to sell. See J. Watson and A. Hill, Dictionary of Media & Communication Studies, Arnold, London, 2000, p.14.
- 55 -
Figure 3 Communicator-audiences Relationship
News Clues and Feedbacks Messages Specific Audience Mass Media General Audience
Messages
2 Agenda-setting and Media Agenda-setting
Maxwell McCombs and Donald L. Shaw coined the term “agenda-setting” in 1972, which specifically indicated the role of mass media in building up public images of political figures during the American presidential campaign of 1968.106 In their study, one hundred undecided voters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were interviewed and the question was what issues they were most concerned about in the coming presidential election. After comparing five issues the voters deemed most important with the content of stories provided by the local media (both print and broadcast), McCombs and Shaw concluded an almost perfect correlation between the types of stories the media covered most often and the voters’ concern. Mass media, with a given agenda,
“may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about”.107
What McCombs and Shaw found is that the mere number of times a story is repeated in the news would affect peoples’ perception of the story’s importance, regardless of what is said about the topic. For instance, people may believe that the crime rate has increased in a given period of time only because the media have reported too many criminal events, while in fact the crime rate has been decreased. For the same reason, it is often the richest who can spend the most on advertising, but not necessarily the best candidate, wins. It is hypothesized that “the mass media set the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the salience of attitudes toward the
106 The classic literatures on agenda-setting include Maxwell E. McCombs, Donald L. Shaw, “The agenda-setting function of mass media”, Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 36, 1972, pp. 176–187; E. M. Rogers, J. W. Dearing, “Agenda-setting research: where has it been? where is it going?” in J. A. Anderson ed., Communication Yearbook, Newbury Park, CA, Sage, 1988, pp. 555–594; and James W. Dearing, Everett Rogers, M., Agenda-Setting, Thousand Oaks, London & New Delhi, Sage Publications 1996. 107 Bernard C. Cohen, the Press and Foreign Policy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1963, p13.
- 56 - political issue”.108 It is further concluded, “The heart of the agenda-setting idea is the assertion that the content of the media agenda determines, or at least substantially influences, the public agenda”.109 This indicates that the public agenda is the result of the media agenda-setting. Who set the media’s agenda? This becomes the key question for the study of media politics.
Media agenda-setting refers to the process of institutional forces setting the order of importance of current issues for mass media. There used to be two categories in previous studies of media agenda-setting. In the first category, scholars emphasized the overwhelming political influence of government on media agenda.110 The state was regarded as one of the unavoidable institutions for media agenda-setting in any state society complexes. For instance, American federal agencies anonymously produced television news for domestic distribution:111
“Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the
Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in their production”.112
In the second category, scholars focused on the controlling power of transnational
108 See Maxwell McCombs, Donald Shaw, “The Agenda-Setting: Function of Mass Media”, p.177. 109 David L. Protess, Maxwell McCombs ed, Agenda Setting: Readings on Media, Public Opinion, and Policymaking, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1991, p44. 110 For readings in this field, see Protess, David L. and Maxwell McCombs, edited, Agenda Setting: Readings on Media, Public Opinion, and Policymaking, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers 1991. 111 Al Hurra, which translates to "The Free One" in Arabic, was aired on February 15, 2004. It was the new Arabic-language American satellite TV channel based in Virginia, "beamed across the Arab world". The channel is owned by the Middle East Television Network Inc., a holding company, and overseen by the U.S.-funded Broadcasting Board of Governors. It was established with $32 million in funding from the US Congress and is expected to obtain an additional $30 million in congressional appropriations for its first year operation. See D. Shelby, “US prepares to beam Arabic Satellite TV channel in Mideast”, Washington File. http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20040130-22.html (last visited October 22, 2004) 112 David Barstow, and Robin Stein, “Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News”, New York Times, March 13, 2005.
- 57 - corporations on the media at the turn of 1990s. Herbert Schiller argued that transnational corporations had come to dominate and shape culture; set political, economic and cultural agendas, and call the tune of mass media.113 The privatization of public space, as Schiller cited, had happened through “corporatization” of arts, literature, and media. Furthermore, Edward
Herman and Noam Chomsky concluded in 1988 that the state and market motivated propaganda system existed in self-proclaimed democracies such as America, and manifested as
“manufacturing consent” in mass communication process. He argued that the freedom or independence of media, even in developed state society complex, has not yet come true:
“the organization and self-education of groups in the community and workplace, and their networking and activism, continue to be the fundamental elements in steps toward the democratization of our social life and any meaningful social change. Only to the extent that such developments succeed can we hope to see media that are free and independent”.114
In contemporary China, the state, market and civil society are the three institutional forces that integrate social activities with specific rules and organizations. While the state remains as the most powerful institution, market and civil society emerge as competent institutions to set media agenda for television broadcast. To some extend, these three institutional forces may compete with each other for the priority in setting the media agenda with less political sensitivity; they may also negotiate with each other to reach consent in setting the media agenda with great conflicts of interests. The media agenda, in the end, accommodates the interests of three key institutional forces to the most. The model of media agenda-setting is restructured to depict the interaction among three media agenda setters, mass media and public agenda in contemporary
China (see Figure 4).115
113 See Herbert I. Schiller, The Corporate takeover of Public Expression, UK, Oxford University Press, 1989. 114 See Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Panthoeon Books, New York, 1988, p.307. 115 For previous agenda-setting model, see E.M. Rogers and J.W. Dearing, “Agenda-setting, where has it been, where is it going?” Communication Yearbook 11, US, Sage, 1987. And that model was also examined in McQuail, Windahl ed. Communication Models for the Study of Mass Communication, UK, Longman, 5th impression 1988.
- 58 -
Figure 4 Model of Media Agenda-setting
Market
The State Media Agenda Public Agenda
Civil Society
It is assumed that, each of the three institutional forces has its own agenda; each of them can act as watchdog of the others, and is suited to understanding and regulating the behavior of the others. Different institutional forces may set media agenda in different ways. The state will set the media agenda to take audience as recipient of the state policy. Market will set the media agenda to take audience as consumers, and civil society will set the media agenda to take audience as citizens. While mass media accommodates the agendas of the state, market, and civil society in a hierarchical sequence, the media agenda is the interactive products of the three institutional forces, which generally determined public agenda.
The idea of leading public opinion through setting the media agenda was stressed by former
President Jiang Zemin on September 26, 1996.116 Public opinion leadership/舆论导向, according to President Jiang, will benefit both the CPC and the people if it is performed correctly.117 In the
Administrative Rules on Radio and Television issued next year, this idea was formally included by the State Council as “adhere to the principle of setting correct media agenda for public opinion leadership”.118 Since then, the political correctness of the media agenda-setting had been defined as the capacity to accommodate interests of the CPC, the state, and the people.
116 Jiang, Zemin, “Comrade Jiang Zemin’s speech during his visit to People’s Daily/人民日报” in China Journalism Yearbook, Beijing, China Journalism Yearbook Publishing Company, 1997, p.3. 117 Alex Chan firstly translated “Yulun Daoxiang” as agenda-setting in order to draw attentions from media studies. See Alex Chan, “From Propaganda to Hegemony: Jiaodian Fangtan and China’s Media Policy”, Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 11, No. 30, 2002, p.47. 118 See article 3 of Administrative Rules on Radio and Television promulgated on August 1, 1997 issued by the State Council as Decree No. 228 and effective as of September 1, 1997, http.www.sarft.org, (last visited May 17, 2003).
- 59 -
Media agenda-setting is actually adopted in different norms under different institutional forces in Contemporary China. It was coined as public opinion leadership by the state/government; it was used as consumption leadership/消费导向 by market; and it was accepted as supervision by public opinion/舆论监督 by activated citizens in an emerging civil society to check the failures of the state and market. The gate-keeping of mass media is a process of selecting various agendas by key institutional forces.119 And politics of accommodation to mass media is a process of negotiation or competition conducted by the state, market, and civil society.120 In this sense, media politics is the art and science of how the three institutional forces set the media agenda in mass communication.
119 To reach its target, every message has to pass through many “gates”. In the process of television news broadcasting, gatekeepers include all the team members in the news collection and edition: reporter, cameraman, editor, producer and executive producer, etc. the selection or rejection of news materials is made according to a set of criteria determined by both internal and external factors. The internal factors concern the “values” of the news media and its gatekeepers. The external factors are, elaborated in this thesis: the state, the market and civil society. For the study of gatekeepers in the media, see Stuart Hood, “The politics of television” in Denis McQuail, ed., Sociology of Mass Communications, UK, Penguin, 1972. 120 Politics of accommodation: Potential conflict between various individuals and groups within media corporations and between these corporations and a central social authority is mediated by a politics of accommodation. While notions such as professional standards and the public interests are used as trading pieces, a negotiated compromise can be conducted at several levels: between the professionals and management, between one corporation and another and between a corporation and the government. See Tom Burns, 1977, The BBC: Public Institute and Private World, UK, Macmillan.
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Chapter Three The State and Chinese Television
The leadership of the Communist Party over China as a whole is legally authorized by the
Constitution. Rules and organizations of the state and the party can be regarded as one principal institution or system in formal and informal characters. In terms of media politics, formal institution of the system includes media laws and regulations, and the state organs that make and implement these laws and regulations; while informal institution of the system includes media policies and internal instructions launched as conventions, customs, and codes of behavior, and the CPC organs that make and implement these policies.121 In this political system, formal institution of the state is ultimately ruled by informal institution of the CPC. It is impossible to transfer all media policies to law to deprive the CPC officials of the possibility of interpreting policies according to their own interests at the policy implementation stage.
The relationship between the CPC and the state is evolved in an analysis of how the CPC and the state set the media agenda of Chinese television. In this process, the formal institution of the state is relatively stable, accountable and coercive, while the informal one of the CPC is flexible, unaccountable and persuasive (see Table 9). Compared with explicitly written and formally published laws and legal regulations of the state, media policies and internal instructions of the
CPC informally play a much more significant role in media control process, because these policies and instructions have to be implemented by the state organs and television broadcasters at the first place especially in dealing with emergent social crisis.122
While the Constitution, laws and regulations issued by the state are coercive, and formally informed to the public, the media policies and internal instructions issued by the CPC organs are persuasive, and informally kept as confidential documents within the political system. Media laws and regulations issued by the state organs have to be accordance to media policies of the CPC, but not all media policies issued by the CPC officials will be ultimately lifted as laws and regulations
121 See Michael Keane, “Broadcasting policy, creative compliance and the myth of civil society in China”, Media, Culture & Society; London; Nov 2001. 122 For a study of the role of informal institutions in shaping social life, see Douglas North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp.36-53.
- 61 - through their counterparts in the governments. Under consultation with the CPC officials, the state organs may issue media policies too, in form of instructions or notices for media managers especially when issues are too urgent and making relevant laws and regulations are regarded as either too time consuming or un-matured. In rare cases, the CPC and the state will join together to issue both media policies and legal documents.
Table 9 Formal and Informal Institutions of the Party and the State in Media Agenda-setting
Formal Informal Rules The Constitution, laws, and Media policies and internal regulations instructions Organizations The state agencies (eg. NPC, the The party organs (eg. the DPCC) State Council, and the SARFT) Characteristics Accountable and coercive Unaccountable and persuasive
NPC: National People’s Congress; SARFT: the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television; DPCC: the Department of Publicity, Central Committee of the CPC
I Informal Institution of the Party in Media Agenda-setting
The media policy and internal instruction are principles and rules in written or oral form, and codes of behavior or publicity disciplines initiated by the CPC in media agenda-setting. They are issued as documents and reports circulating within the party and the state organs. Sometimes oral speeches of the top leaders play an important role in both issuing internal instructions and making media policies, which are eventually reflected in official documents issued by the party or the state organs.
The CPC issues media policies and internal instructions to safeguard the “correct media agenda-setting for public opinion leadership”, which is legally addressed as Administrative Rules on Radio and Television by the State Council in 1997. Technically, what is the correct agenda for mass media depends on expedient maneuver of the CPC leaders. Any news reports that may cause social instability or endanger the legitimacy of the party and the state are politically incorrect and
- 62 - thus forbidden to produce; if produced, they will definitely be “gunned down” at the stage of censorship. However, media policies and internal instructions issued by the CPC were changed in many ways in the last two decades in order to accommodate emerging interests of market and civil society. For instance, the top CPC leaders delivered eighty-eight internal instructions in 2003 to China Central Television (CCTV), which for better or for worse accompanied with both high audience ratings and commercial success on the Iraq War and SARS reports.123
A An Historical Review of the Media Policy
Currently, mass media in China are still, first of all, controlled informally by the CPC in terms of media policy making. The media policies are often formulated behind the doors and circulated within a specific group of publicity officers of the CPC who are not assumed to be responsible directly to the public, while their government counterparts claim the responsibility for the implementing these policies. The expression of these media policies is always imprecise and vague in language, which may deliberately increase the flexibility in the process of policy implementation. The closed-door formulation and flexible implementation of the media policy are self-justified as to meet challenges and opportunities caused by rapid economic and social changes. But the price paid for this kind of unaccountability is unpredictable.
There are three historical periods in formulating media policy of Chinese television. From
1958 to 1979, the first period of the media policymaking is to ensure the establishment of an absolutely state controlled media. From 1979 to 1993, the second period is to create an environment for the development of a state and market jointly motivated media, which is principally financed by business operations and ultimately directed by the authority. Since 1993, the third period is to further open the way for various institutional forces to access the media to set the media agenda to accommodate the interests of the state, market, and not intentionally, emerging civil society, which allows broadcasting media becoming a servant for three masters.
These three policy-making periods are correspondingly related to six development stages of
Chinese television (see Table 10).
123 This was addressed by Zhao Huayong, president of CCTV in CCTV Annual Meeting on February 11, 2004.
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Table 10 Chinese Television in Different Development Stages The state media Pre-television stage (1949-1958) State media stage (1958-1978) The state and market motivated media Recovery stage (1979-1983) Expansion stage (1983-1988) Re-adjusting stage (1989-1992) The state, market and civil society Pluralist broadcasting stage (1993-2003) motivated media
1 Establishing a State Media
Media policy of the CPC was designed to keep smooth political communication between the Party and the people during wartime. The idea was that mass media should be a bridge between the CPC and the people, to bring opinions of the people to the CPC for decision-making on one hand, to bring instructions of the CPC to the people to educate and mobilize them for the success of revolution. In 1948, Liu Shaoqi, the general secretary of the CPC said in a speech to representatives from the Northern China Press Crops: “You travel to all locations. The people depend on you to voice their demands, difficulties, experiences and even to describe mistakes in our work. You turn them into news, features, and reports to the CPC Committees at various levels, and to the Central Committee. In this way, you make a connection between the party and masses.”124 This bottom-up or instrumentalist communication between the people and the party was not aimed to inform the people but to provide information for decision-making of the CPC. It was interpreted by Andrew Nathan as an intelligence mission for the party leaders, which excluded ordinary people from vital information and decision-making process.125
In the same year, Mao Zedong, Chairman of the CPC, emphasized the principle of top-down or propagandist communication between the party and the people: “the role and power of the newspapers consists in their ability to bring the CPC program, the CPC line, the CPC
124 Liu Shaoqi, “A Talk to the Northern China Press Crops”, in Journalism Research Institutie of Xinhua News Agency ed., Selections from Documents on Journalism, Xinhua Press, 1990, p94. 125 Andrew J. Nathan, Chiese democracy, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985, p154.
- 64 - general and specific policies, its tasks and methods of work before the people in the quickest and most extensive way”.126 In terms of transmitting political values and the CPC directives to persuade people’s thinking, emotions, and behaviors, this media policy of propaganda was given full play both in wartime and after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In
1981, the Central Secretariat of the CPC defined the basic nature and role of broadcasting media in a similar way: “Radio and television are the most powerful modern instruments to educate and stimulate the whole military and people of all nationalities in the construction of socialist material and spiritual civilizations”.127 Chinese television, as well as other forms of mass media, is generally taken by the state as a tool for decision making and mobilizing the people to achieve political goals. a Media Policy in Pre-television Stage (1949 – 1958)
Although television broadcast was established nine years after the founding of the PRC, it is necessary to learn the characteristics of the CPC media policy between 1949 and 1958 in order to understand the background against which television broadcast was established. Three principles are formed during this period with a legacy for media policy making of the CPC in the following decades. The first is that two institutions of the party and the state stand for one political system in terms of media control. While the government supervises mass media in technical and administrative aspects, the CPC makes media policies and instructions, which are implemented by the government as measures of media management.
The second principle is that only the Central Committee of the CPC can prove the news reports and comments on international affairs, and original international reports and comments is authorized only by Xinhua News Agency (XNA) and the People’s Daily that are directly responsible for the DPCC, chief publicity bureau of the CPC. Reports on international crisis
126 Zedong Mao, “A Talk to the Editorial Staff of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Daily.” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Beijing, Foreign Languages Press. vol. 4, 1961, p.241. 127 Zhu Yan, “The Guiding Role of the Theory of Socialist Market Economy in Broadcasting Reform”, Chinese Journal of Broadcasting, April 1994, p5.
- 65 - especially those directly related to China have to be checked firstly by the DPCC. The third principle is that the party media has no right to express different ideas with the party organs at the same or higher administrative level, while mass media in China are either state owned or under the ultimate control of the CPC.128 This principle is applied to the state agencies and readjusted as that mass media can only criticize the state bureau or government officers below the administrative level that the media belongs. Currently, a national media like CCTV at vice-ministerial level is still prohibited to criticize the central government and local government at provincial level and a local media can only criticize a local government, which is under the administrative level that the local media belongs. Finally, no media is ever allowed to criticize any party organs, because no party organs will formally acknowledge any wrongdoings while its counterparts in the government can officially claim the responsibility.
Correspondingly, three important documents of the CPC related to media policy defined the nature of Chinese television from the very beginning. The first document was issued jointly by the DPCC and XNA together to branches of the XNA and local party media on October 30,
1949.129 In this document, it declared that as the new government established, the administrative affaires should be discussed, decided and executed by the government agencies rather than party organs. The CPC should not issue administrative decisions, regulations or notices to the public in the name of the government. The CPC owned press should not publish any articles or editorial comments in forms of government opinions and administrative orders. The articles in the press of the party should be written with persuasive manner by summons, suggestions and advisories. In other words, the function of the party’s press is to persuade people to follow the CPC policy.
128 In China, any state agencies and state owned public institutions possess an administrative level, for example, CCTV is at the vice ministerial level, the head of CCTV enjoys the treatment of a vice minister. As a vice ministerial leveled media, CCTV is authorized to issue reports to criticize only wrongdoings incurred by local governments, especially under the level of provincial bureaus. 129 See “Instructions of DPCC and Xinhua News Agency on key points of publicity works after the establishment of people’s government, October 30, 1949”, in the General Office of DPCC and Editorial Department of Central Archive Bureau, CPC/中共中央宣传部办公厅,中央档案馆编研部 ed., Collections of Literatures on CPC Publicity Works /中 国共产党宣传工作文献选编 1949-1956, Beijing, Study Press/学习出版社, 1996, p.10.
- 66 -
The second document was issued on August 27, 1952 by the Central Committee of the
CPC.130 It decided that, on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPC, only the XNA and the
People’s Daily could issue reports and comments on international current affairs, and these official reports should be transferred by other Chinese media. Local media could only report ceremonial activities of foreign official visits in local area. This document had two implications.
Firstly it wanted media organization to do the same report on international issues to prevent the introduction of any uncensored and decentralized contents that might contain capitalist ideology and Western life style and thus endanger domestic stability. Secondly, it wanted to control the influence of international reports on overseas readers, which is crucial for the new government in dealing with international affaires. After two decades of opening and reform, this document turned to be less effective but restrictions on international report still existed, especially when the issue was directly related with China.
The third document that set a boundary for media organization was issued in March 1953 by the DPCC. It instructed local propaganda bureau of CPC in Guangxi Province that “Yishan
Farmers Newspaper”, a local party’s press in the province should not be allowed to criticize the
CPC committee of Yishan. It declared as an internal discipline that the editorial policy of any press should not be contradictory to the policy of the party and the state agencies at the same or higher administrative level, while the party and the state agencies can do self-criticizing in the press that is under its leadership. Thanks to this policy, all members of the central government of the party and the state are automatically immune from public scrutiny and criticism by Chinese media. b Television Station Established as a State Agency (1958 – 1978)
The first television broadcaster, Beijing Television Station (the predecessor of China
Central Television) was established on May 1, 1958 as one subdivision of the Department of
130 Lang Jinshong/郎劲松, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy /中国新闻政策体系研究, Beijing, Xinhua Press/新华出版社, 2003, p.220.
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Broadcast Affairs (DBA). While the technical and administrative affairs of the station were supervised by the Second Division of the State Council, its propaganda/publicity affairs were supervised by the DPCC. From 1958 to 1978, the twenty years of social upheavals in Chinese modern history was once officially recorded by the party and the state as socialist revolution.
Planned economy and social movements characterized this totalitarian period. The social and political crisis reached its peak during the Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), in which television broadcasting were frequently disrupted. The media policy of the CPC in these twenty years was simply unchanged. Chinese media, including television broadcast were used as tool of
Proletarian class fighting against Capitalist class. Very few documents of the CPC were specifically issued as media policy when every corner of Chinese society was unanimously claimed as one part of territory of the party and the state.
2 Commercialization and Decentralization
The CPC decision to launch a competitive, self-financed media was accompanied by the policy of Opening and Reform at the turn of 1980s. Since then, a media boom had occurred as
China tried to adopt modern ideas and practices that include division of power in political arena and division of labor in market.131 As population coverage of television broadcast reached more than fifty percent in 1982, television broadcast technically became a genuine mass media that performed mass communication effectively. The rapid growth of television broadcasting was facilitated by two media policies: commercialization and decentralization. The policy of decentralization increased the quantity of local television broadcasters, and commercialization elevated the quality of all television programs for audiences-as-consumers while broadcasters could make more revenue, import more foreign content, apply the latest technology, and attract foreign and private investment to produce attractive programs. a Recovery and the Primary Stage of Commercialization (1978-1983)
131 From 1978 to 1996, the number of Chinese newspaper increased 11.84 times, periodicals 9 times and broadcasting stations, the fastest, 15.2 times. See Sun Xupei/孙旭培, Chinese media waiting for new thoughts and new policies, Conference on Asia and Social changes/需要新思路新政策的中国新闻业，亚洲与社会变迁研讨会论文, 1998, p.2.
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The CPC introduced market mechanism into the state owned public institutions after the
Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee, held from 18th to 22nd December 1978. The first document related to media policy was issued by the Ministry of Finance to approve the idea of
“managing public institute or social welfare unit as enterprise” /事业单位企业化经营, which was originally proposed by the People’s Daily and other eight newspapers in Beijing at the end of
1978132. This allowed the state owned media to earn commercial income through business operations such as advertising. Similar to an old media policy in 1949 that encouraged advertising on newspaper, the revived policy kept the nature of mass media unchanged as non-profitable public institution. According to this document, “commercial income” but not “profit” can be made to renew technical equipment and to improve the welfare of media staff.133
The Liberation Daily/ 解放日报 and the Shanghai Television issued the first advertisement after the Cultural Revolution on January 28, 1979, which initiated the commercialization of mass media in China. 134 The DPCC retroactively authorized this re-appearance of advertisement in a notice issued at the end of 1979.135 However, the economic reform was accompanied by political restraint. On January 29, 1981, Central Committee of the
CPC issued a document with three disciplines on media operation, which remained as one of the most influential media policy in contemporary China:136
1 Every news organization must adhere to the current CPC policy to serve the economic
growth and political stability, and unconditionally adhere to the Four Basic Principles
announced by Deng Xiaoping in 1979.
2 Every news organization must keep a proper proportion among the positive or praising and
132 Tang Xujun/唐绪军, /Newspaper economy and management/报业经济与经营, Xinhua Press, 1999, p.125. 133 See the General Office of DPCC and Editorial Department of Central Archive Bureau, CPC, ed., Collections of Literatures on CPC Publicity Works 1949-1956, 1996, p.16. 134 Commercial press was popular before 1949 and existed until 1953 when almost all press in China’s mainland were de-privatized. The emergence of commercials in 1979 could be treated as recovery of commercialization. 135 DPCC issued “A notice to publish advertisement for foreign commercial products on newspapers, radio and television broadcast/关于报刊广播电视台刊登和播放外国商品广告的通知, on November 11, 1979. 136 Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, pp.227-228.
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negative or criticizing reports, and insist on the principle of giving priority to positive ones. It
must be cautious to criticize someone in names. To do that, the facts must be checked with no
mistakes and content of the reports must be consulted with concerned departments of the CPC
and the targeted persons as well. The quantity of negative reports must be under control,
because the social impact of criticizing someone is much greater than that of praising
someone especially in television media.
3 Every news organization is part of the CPC “opinion organ” /舆论机关, and must obey the
internal discipline of the CPC, and unconditionally agree with the CPC policy or agenda. It is
prohibited to publish ideas and opinions against the policy or agenda of the CPC.
In accordance with this policy, the reports of the “Focus”/焦点访谈, the most famous current affaires program in CCTV since 1994, was disciplined to keep a fixed annual proportion of reports with one-third positive or praising, one-third negative or criticizing, and one-third neutral or balanced, although seventy to eighty percent feedbacks from audiences that offered news clues were always negative.137 However, it was impossible for any mass media doing negative reports in a huge quantity to consult each related department of the CPC or every accused government official in advance. Practically, if editors of CCTV consulted the local department of the CPC where negative news took place, the answer was always denying any wrongdoings. Almost no local officers would encourage the negative reports on his-own governed area. Journalists who made negative news reports were either under the instruction of higher leveled officials of the party and the state or taken the political risk by themselves. This is why negative reports made by local journalists were less and less. The lower the administrative level the television station located, the fewer opportunities it holds to criticize government officers at the same or lower administrative levels.
In order to revive the enthusiasm of CCTV journalists to make negative reports for the
“Focus”, and to maintain a relatively high audience viewing rate, which brought both political
137 Li Wenming/李文明, Interpreting the “Focus”/新闻评论的电视化传播《焦点访谈》解读, Sichuan University Press/四川大学出版社, 2003, p.12.
- 70 - credits for the central government and commercial interests for the media, Li Changchun, the top leader responsible for ideology and publicity works of the CPC, instructed that the proportion of negative reports of the “Focus” could be elevated to fifty percent in 2003.138 Finally, the policy of keeping a proportion between the positive and negative reports was abolished in 2004 by the
SARFT.139 Although this kind of proportions between negative and positive reports is still in effect, the freedom for television journalists to do negative reports is under growth.
The editorial policy of CCTV in dealing with the correct media agenda-setting demanded by the CPC was illustrated by Sun Yusheng, the former executive producer of the “Focus”. He concluded how the “Focus” tried to produce negative reports or programs of supervision by public opinions in a way that, first of all, being acceptable by the party and the state:
During the process of previewing the programs, I keep thinking about the following questions: will this produce negative effects? Will it cause damage to political stability? Will it intensify tensions and be detrimental to solving the problem? After all these possibilities are eliminated, I will say that an item is a good one and should be on air.140
Former President of CCTV, Yang Weiguang, who was the final decision maker to launch the
“Focus”, elaborated how the CPC media policy should be adopted as the crucial part of CCTV editorial policy:
No matter whether a topic is a positive or negative one … programs must give people encouragement, confidence, and strength to march forward, rather than a feeling of hopelessness … Don’t deal with problems that are essentially unsolvable. Don’t deal with those problems for which there are definitely no immediate solutions … It is of primary importance to seek the opinions of responsible authorities and to clearly state the position of the government …
138 Li Changchun, a member of Standing Committee of the Political Bureau in the sixteenth congress of the Central Committee of CPC, was assigned to be responsible for ideology and propaganda affairs of the CPC from 2003. The information was collected in an interview with a producer of current affairs programs in CCTV in 2004. 139 It was elaborated that negative reports or programs of “supervision by public opinion” should not be regulated in a fixed proportion”. See “In Notice of Improving the Program Management of Supervision by Public Opinion in Radio and Television”/关于加强和改进广播电视舆论监督工作的通知, issued by SARFT on September 8, 2004. http.www.sarft.gov, (last visited May, 17, 2005). 140 Yuezhi Zhao, Media, Market, and Democracy, 1998, p. 117
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It is not enough just to have the public talk … Don’t induce interviewees to express dissatisfaction toward the CPC and the government and to talk about the mistakes committed by the CPC in the past”.141
On December 1, 1983, the DPCC issued a notice to strengthen its control over local press.
It informed that local newspapers should collect and cover news happened only within its authorized area or administrative region where it is registered. For those locally established newspapers that are distributed across regions, and want to collect news nationally, they must apply first and being approved by the DPCC and the Ministry of Culture, and operated under the supervision of both central and local administrative agencies of the party and the state.142 This policy, when applied to broadcast media, actually authorized CCTV as the only national news collector among television broadcasters in China. However, this policy, like others, was not obeyed very well by prominent local media. Some news bulletins in provincial channels such as
Oriental Television / 东方卫视 in Shanghai were collecting news nationally and even internationally.143
In 2004, the SARFT issued a renewed regulation to encourage cooperation between broadcasters to set up authorized joint channels or programs across regions.144 In the end, a document of the DPCC was once again factually abolished by the SARFT. While it was not a routine for the DPCC to abolish the outdated documents by itself, the duty of policy renewal sometimes depended on the SAFRT to issue new regulations to replace old documents issued by
DPCC. This indicated that the decisive means of media agenda-setting could be shifted in some way from the party to the state, from informal to formal institution. b Decentralization and Expansion Stage (1983 – 1989)
141 Ibid, p.120. 142 Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, p.229. 143 At the turn of 2004, correspondents of Oriental Television collected news in Beijing and other cities, and international correspondents of Xinhua News Agency also did telephone reports for Oriental Television. 144 SARFT issued “Examination, Approval and Administration Measures of Establishing Radio and Television Stations”/广播电台电视台审批管理办法 on August 18, 2004.
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On September 1, 1982, the breaking news of the opening ceremony of 12th CPC congress was initially aired on the National News/新闻联播 by CCTV at seven o’clock, instead of the
National News at eight o’clock on the evening by Central People Radio (CPR).145 This signified that the Central Committee of the CPC formally authorized the broadcast of official news by
CCTV ahead of the CPR. As television broadcast was overtaking radio broadcast as the most popular media in China. A new policy of decentralization for television media was prepared by the government. The new policy allowed provincial, city and county authorities to exercise greater autonomy in planning, establishing, and managing local television stations, while forcing local authorities and television stations to take financial responsibility for their own. This vertical division of power between the central and local government over media operation facilitated the booming of Chinese television broadcast.
The motivation for this division of powers in television administration came from the below rather than the above. At the beginning of 1980s, there were signs that many provincial and municipal governments, particularly in prosperous coastal areas, were frustrated at the centralist structure of the broadcasting media. The division of power between levels of governments was demanded by local officials who were enthusiastic in setting up local television stations to earn political and economic credits for their governance. While more and more families owned television set, and advertising market enlarged rapidly, local authorities, especially in coastal regions, could achieve both political and economic benefit through local broadcast.
On March 31, 1983, Wu Lengxi, Minister of the MRFT (Ministry of Radio, Film and
Television, the predecessor of the SARFT), articulated the new policy and its rationale, which was approved later by the CPC politburo and thus handed over the power of administrative control over local television broadcast to local government agencies:146
In response to growing demand from both the general public and local governments, and in
145 See Yang Weiguang/杨伟光 ed. Chinese Television in General/中国电视论纲, Beijing, China Radio and Television Press, 1987, p.24. 146 The Four-level policy proposal was approved by the CPC politburo in October 1983, six months after the conference.
- 73 - order to speed up the development of the broadcast sector, we must adjust and reform the existing regulations and bring the initiative of people at the grassroots into full play. As a result, we propose a two-point new policy for future development: A Four-level development and management of radio and television services; Four-level, mixed coverage of television signals.
From this point forward, local people can involve themselves in broadcasting by setting up and running their own stations, providing they meet certain conditions. The local authorities are bestowed with the key role of managing and funding the local service, while the central
Broadcasting Authority supervises local performance through policy consultation and administrative instruction. Our principle is clear: whoever invests should benefit.147
This is a typical example of the government initiated media policy making, and the framework of vertical division of powers among government agencies on media management were enhanced after this policy making. In a Four-level development and management system of television services, at the top of the structure sits CCTV, which is owned and directed by the central agencies of the party and the state. The second level of the system is owned by the thirty one provincial governments. The third and fourth levels of the system are owned by more than two hundred municipal governments and two thousand county leveled governments. All television broadcasters including CCTV are administratively independent from each other.
However, one of the pre-conditions for setting up local broadcasters is that they have to give priority to transmitting designated programs of upper leveled broadcasters, especially that of
CCTV. By 1987, more than ten thousand state owned enterprises and other large institutions had set up their own cable networks to pump in programming from broadcasters at all levels. The new policy benefited Chinese audiences by giving them more choices and diversity in watching television programs.
The policy of decentralization greatly increased the number of television stations and channels in the following decade (see Table 11). Prior to the implementation of decentralization,
147 Lengxi Wu, “Report on the 11th National Broadcasting Conference” in Direction and Practice: selected documents of the 11th National Broadcasting Conference, Beijing, China Broadcasting Publishing House, 1984, pp.96-116.
- 74 - growth of television stations remained slow and relied on investment from central government.
There were only a dozen of television stations at city-level, and no stations at county-level existed before 1983. After a decade of decentralization, approximately seventy percent of local cities and twenty five percent of counties established their own television stations, and the SARFT had to liquidate excessive broadcasters at county level in 1996, which led to a quick drop of broadcasters, but the number of television channels still kept growing.148
From 1978 to 1989, dramatic economic and social changes were accompanied by political disturbances. The party and the state issued three documents that specifically aimed to discipline broadcasting media149. The first one was a notice to correct some wrongdoings of television broadcasters in managing and broadcasting advertisements. 150 It prohibited journalists to negotiating advertisement deals while doing news report. It also prohibited the media to publish any advertisements in any form of “news”. Again, broadcasting media was not allowed to insert any advertisements within news program. This reflected that corruption had become a serious problem in mass media, which had endangered the quality of journalist report as a whole.
However, this document was never seriously implemented especially after the second round of media commercialization was initiated in 1993. Since then, both local and national television channels had aired commercials within segments of news programs except National News at evening in CCTV-1.
148 The General Offices of the Central Committee, CPC and the State Council promulgated “A notice of strengthening the administration on press, publication, radio and television industries”/关于加强新闻出版广播电视业管理的通知, on December 14, 1996. 149 The Press Bureau, DPCC/中共中央宣传部新闻局, Collections of Literatures on CPC Press Works/中国共产党新 闻工作文献选编, People Press/人民出版社, 1990, p.124. 150 It was issued jointly by the SAIC (State Administration for Industry and Commerce), the MRFT (Ministry of Radio, Film and Television) and the MOC (Ministry of Culture) on April 17, 1985.
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Table 11 The Growth of Chinese Television from 1978 to 2004
Year Television Channels Television Set Population Stations151 Ownership (000) Coverage (%) Transmitters 1978 3,040 193 1979 38 39 4,850 45 289 1980 38 40 9,020 49.5 353 1981 42 48 15,620 57.3 469 1982 47 54 27,610 59.9 586 1983 52 60 36,110 64.7 755 1984 93 104 47,630 68.4 1985 202 219 69,650 71.4 1598 1986 292 325 92,140 73 4609 1987 366 405 116,010 75.4 8233 1988 422 465 143,440 77.9 12658 1989 469 512 165,930 79.4 19505 1990 509 554 185,460 80.5 28271 1991 543 596 206,710 81.3 39627 1992 586 644 228,430 82.3 54084 1993 684 755 83.8 73337 1994 766 848 84.5 96528 1995 837 932 86.2 1996 880 983
87.68 1997 923 1032 300,000 89.01 1998 347 1065
91.59 1999 352 1108 92.50 2000 357
93.65 2001 354 2289 94.61 2002 368 2124 94.80 2003 358 2262 400,000 95.30 2004 314
Sources: Editorial Committee of Chinese Encyclopedia/中国大百科全书编辑委员会, 2000, Television in China, Chinese Encyclopedia Press, Beijing; China Broadcast Yearbook/中国广播电视年鉴,1980 to 2003, Beijing Broadcast Institute Press;
151 Television stations here include only free to air television broadcast stations, but not cable television stations.
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Statistic Report on National Economy and Social Development in 2004/2004 年国民经济和社会 发展统计公报, National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2005.
The second document was aimed to improve the quality of television programs.152 It noted that international media reported breaking news happened in China more swiftly than Chinese media. This was no doubt, an embarrassment for both the government and the state owned media.
It demanded that media organization should report domestic news in a more speedy and accurate way in order to influence public opinion at home and around the world. In order to facilitate
Chinese journalists to compete with foreign journalists on government press conference, Xinhua
News Agency (XNA) and the SARFT were authorized to be the final gate-keeper for news reports on government press conference. This means journalists from XNA or CCTV could publish their news without the censorship of other government offices that organize the press conference.
In the same document, the CPC was worried about the influence of negative reports that expose too many shortcomings of the party and the state and thus damage the social stability; it demanded every news organization to limit the number of negative reports to a certain degree.
What news could be published and how to publish them, these questions could only be decided according to the media policy or the CPC line. It was forbidden to report social news with serious negative effects that may cause panic and damaging the image of the party and the state.
Regarding international news, the timing of report is crucial and should be well managed because news report at the wrong time could cause negative effects on domestic stability. This conservative policy incurred many serious mistakes in the following years as media organizations dared not to report breaking news without the permission of the authority. For instance, all media organizations deliberately failed to report the Qiandao Lake/千岛湖 tragedy in 1994.153 This
152 It was issued jointly by the DPCC, the EPLGCC, and Xinhua News Agency on July 18, 1987 153 On March 31, 1994, when a yacht named “Ruihai” touring Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang Province, Eastern China, three criminals robbed of the guests and fired the yacht. Among 32 victims, 24 victims came from Taiwan. Because this tragedy concerned the sensitive relationship between China’s mainland and Taiwan, no mass media in China’s mainland published any news at the time. In addition, the local government spokesman had no experience to deal with crowds of Taiwan journalists in a proper way. The international media and media from Taiwan focused on this hot topic for a long
- 77 - kind of failure damaged again the credibility of both the state and the state owned media. Chinese government was overwhelmingly embarrassed as the news being reported exclusively and repetitively by overseas media including those from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The second document emphasized that media organizations were the mouthpieces of the
CPC, the government and the people.154 Previously, mass media was generally emphasized as a tool of the CPC to educate and mobilize people. This could be regarded as an important signal of change in media policy, which indicated the tolerance for a pluralist media agenda that accommodates broadened interests of different social groups. Meanwhile it was the first time that
CCTV, CPR and CIR were authorized to publish central government news at the first time along with the XNA. This signified another way of decentralization in terms of publicity discipline155.
Five significant decisions in this document can be concluded as follow:
1 Mass media are the mouthpieces of the CPC, government and people; it is the channel of
communication between the party, the state and the people;
2 The state leaders have the right to decide whether his activities could be reported or not. If
the activities could be reported, the news articles should be checked by the state leaders
first.156
3 Journalists doing international news reports should obey the diplomatic policy of the state.
News about the political upheavals in foreign countries should be reported in a neutral way
without mentioning the diplomatic stance of Chinese government.
period of time and Chinese government was being criticized as irresponsible. The relationship between Taiwan and China’s mainland was seriously damaged due to this event. 154 Hu Yaobang, the former General Secretary of CPC, formally claimed mass media as the mouthpieces of the CPC, the government and the people as well in February 1985 in his speech “Regarding the journalism of the CPC ”/关于党 的新闻工作, see The Press Bureau, DPCC, Collections of Literatures on CPC Press Works, p.288. 155 CCTV, CPR and CIR are vice-ministerial administrative unit, while XNA is a ministerial administrative unit according to the internal regulation of the CPC and state. 156 According to the document, the state leaders here includes members of standing committee of Political Bureau, Central Committee, CPC, President of the State, Chairman of the Central Military Committee, Chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC), Prime Minister of the State Council, Director of Consultant Committee, Central Committee, CPC, the First Secretary of Discipline Committee, Central Committee, CPC, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
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4 It is no longer appropriate to limit the broadcast of important domestic news within China’s
mainland, they should be broadcasted to international audiences in a swifter manner.
5 Unlike the case in capitalist countries, the relationship between various kinds of mass media
in China is cooperative in nature to reach the common agenda set by the CPC. XNA, CCTV,
CPR and CIR are given the equal opportunity to release official news of the party and the
state.
The third document was issued at the beginning of 1989 to improve the efficiency of news reports on emergent events while national stability was ensured.157 Three important points were emphasized:
1 News reports on great natural disaster and man-made accident, large-scale terrorist attack and
mass turbulence, and other breaking-out momentous events with great political importance
must be approved by the State Council; less important reports about emergent events can be
done locally or nationally with the approval of lower leveled authorities.
2 The censorship of news reports on emergent events should be decentralized; locally covered
news reports on emergent events should be approved by local authorities. And nationally
covered news reports of so called “express briefing news”/快讯稿 should be proved by the
leader of national news organization after the facts are checked by local authority at
provincial level where the news happened.
3 Because foreign correspondents in China often inaccurately report emergent events, relevant
government departments should actively release relative information through press
conference or other channels to show the truth of the events, and to make a right direction for
the reports of foreign correspondents. Generally speaking, it is inappropriate to allow foreign
correspondents independently go to schools and other grass root units to collect news or do
live reports.
Three important points can be derived from this document. Firstly, the authority to prove
157 On January 28, 1989, the general office of the State Council and DPCC jointly issued “A Notice on Improving the Reporting Works on Emergent Issues”/关于改进突发事件报道工作的通知.
- 79 - news release on emergent events was the executive branch of the state instead of the CPC, which indicated, for the first time, a clear division of power between the state and the party in media control, the CPC was responsible for policy-making while the government was responsible for execution of these policies. Compared with the CPC agencies, the government agencies are relatively more transparent and accountable in decision-making. This document definitely increased the efficiency of emergent news release because the state organs could give instructions to mass media in a more efficient and informative way, as they are directly dealing with emergent social events. Secondly, the power of the government authority in proving the emergent news release was decentralized, local government authorities and national media could gate-keeping less important emergent news with a certain degree of autonomy. This could partly explain why news reports on Tiananmen incident of 1989 were out of the state control in the early stage. c Readjusting Stage (1989 – 1993)
The Tiananmen incident of 1989 was almost comprehensively and freely reported not only by foreign media but also domestic media until June 4, when the protest was finally put down.
The party and the state, due to its internal conflicts of powers, for the first time in history lost solidarity to set a clear agenda for its own media. After the Tiananmen incident, strict control over the media was resumed over a couple of years. It was frequently addressed in 1990s by leaders from the DPCC and the SARFT that a qualified media manager and journalist should at least make no political mistakes. Journalists were required again to get used to the convention of
“Covering Good News and Avoiding Bad Ones/报喜不报忧 in this period. In reviewing the media policy, the CPC issued a notice to emphasize the importance of adhering on Four Basic
Principles of Deng Xiaoping.158 It suggested the necessity of the press laws, in which the leadership of the CPC and Marxism should be addressed in setting the media agenda. However, the effort of launching the press law failed due to a serious political consideration: how the CPC
158 The Central Committee of CPC issued “A Notice on Strengthening Publicity and Ideological Works”/关于加强宣 传思想工作的通知, on July 28, 1989.
- 80 - rather than the law can hold the ultimate control over mass media.
While emphasizing the control of the CPC over mass media, two measures were adopted to initiate media reforms from both political and economic perspectives. On the one hand, top leader of the CPC declared that the supervision by public opinion should be done by the people, and the target of this supervision should include the CPC and government officials.159 This measure was aimed to deal with the well-acknowledged corruption of the CPC and government officers to prevent serious social upheavals like Tiananmen incident of 1989. On the other hand, the party and the state launched a market oriented economic reform for the tertiary industry.160 The tertiary or service industry includes transportation, telecommunication, science and technology, education and other public welfare related institutions, in which mass media are regarded as a new and important component. The document encouraged that all members of tertiary industries should be reformed as a business enterprise or adopted measures of business management. In general, tertiary industry entities should be financially self sustainable to relieve the burden of the state.
The new policy brought out the booming of various kinds of television programs on the screen, which brought remarkable commercial interests to both mass media and the government.
3 Pluralist Broadcasting Stage (1993 – 2003)
Deng Xiaoping made a series of speeches to push the implementation of opening and reform policy in his trip to the South China in 1992, which created an environment to conduct new reforms including pluralist broadcasting. As one of the important publicity working projects for the CPC in 1993, the DPCC instructed the head of CCTV to initiate reform in program production.161 It demanded CCTV to expand reporting on hot topics, to invite representatives of
159 See Li Ruihuan/李瑞环, “Adhering the principle of positive reporting”/坚持正面宣传为主的方针, in The Press Bureau, DPCC ed. Collections of Literatures on CPC Press Works, p.172. 160 On June 16, 1992 the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council jointly issued “Decision to Facilitate the Development of the Tertiary Industries”/关于加快发展第三产业的决定(中发〔1992〕5 号). In China, the first industry indicates agriculture sector and the second industry indicates manufacture sector, the tertiary industry indicates service sector. 161 See “The testing period of the Oriental Horizon”/《东方时空》的前期探索, www.cctv.com/program/jdft/20030821/101438_1.shtml, (last visited March 20, 2004).
- 81 - workers, peasants, soldiers and specialists to make comments on public issues to set “correct media agenda for public opinion”. CCTV was thus encouraged to initiate great amount of current affair programs and talk show programs in the following years. From 1993 to 1996, current affairs programs like “The Focus”/焦点访谈 and talk show program like “Talk it like it is”/实话
实说 became the most famous programs around China.
In reviewing its “working on press and public opinion”/新闻舆论工作, the CPC issued a critical document in 1995, which detailed some measures of building systematic rules and organizations to set “correct media agenda for public opinion”:162
1) A system of monitoring news and current affair programs/新闻阅评制度 will be
established to ensure the correct media agenda-setting.163
2) A system of media investigation/新闻调研制度 will be established to advise the
government on how to improve the work of setting correct media agenda in advance.
3) A system of internal news coordination meetings/新闻通气会制度 will be established,
which will be attended by key media managers and concerned officers of the party and
the state.164
4) A system of current affairs report meeting/形势报告会制度 will be established to
inform media managers and journalists the latest media policy of the party and the state
in depth and on time.
5) A system of press conference/新闻发布会制度 will be established to set the agenda of
domestic media and to influence overseas media.
In regulating dramatic development of television broadcasters at county level, the party and
162 The General Office of Central Committee, CPC issued “Some Suggestions for Improving the Works on Press and Public Opinion”/关于进一步做好新闻舆论工作的若干意见, on January 6, 1995. 163 Accordingly, SARFT had established a special group to monitor and make comments on major important news, current affairs programs, drama and entertaining programs in all CCTV channels and other provincial satellite channels. 164 This is a well-established system. On a weekly base, this internal communication of news and information meeting will be held in various media administrative levels, and the key points of DPCC and SARFT will be transferred to director of every department of the media and then re-transferred to every faculty member and journalists of the media.
- 82 - the state issued a notice in 1996 to clean up and liquidate excessive media organizations that tended to be out of control.165 It demanded that radio station, cable television station, free-to-air television station, and education television station at county level must be merged into one organization. Only a few local news and features programs can be produced by the merged station whose main duty is to transmit programs from upper-level broadcasters. It also demanded that non-administrative region-specific cable (television) station should connect its networks with respective local administrative region-specific cable (television) station. 166 No education television station at county level will be permitted to establish, and existing education television channels/stations shall not broadcast irrelevant contents other than educational ones.167
After provincial broadcasters launched so-called “shared television channels” according to instructions of the SARFT, all county broadcasters stopped producing any programs by themselves.168 Since 2002, county broadcasters served only as re-transmission stations for municipal, provincial and CCTV channels. As a result, the previous four-level administrative system of Chinese television evolved as a three-level or even two-level one, as most of the provincial broadcast conglomerates tended to merge both city and county leveled broadcasters in
165 On December 14, 1996, the General Offices of the Central Committee, CPC and the State Council jointly issued “A Notice of Strengthening the Administration on Press, Publication, Radio and Television Industries”/关于加强新闻出版 广播电视业管理的通知. 166 According to “Regulations on Cable Television”/有线电视管理规定 issued by MRFT on February 3, 1994, administrative region-specific cable station (ARCS) was established by the local radio and television administrative bureaus. Each city or region can establish only one ARCS. Far away from the urban centers, state agencies include army units, social organizations, large enterprises and institutions at or above the county level can apply to establish non-administrative region-specific cable station (NARCS). 167 This regulation, like many others, was less powerful to discipline local or even national broadcaster. For instance, China Education Television(CETV) launched a TV drama program named as “New TV Drama Theater”/首播剧场 in 2003. Although SARFT warned CETV to stop the irregular behavior, CETV, under the direct leadership of Ministry of Education, refused to obey. See Hong Yin/尹鸿, Degang Li/李德刚, “Memorandum for 2003 Chinese Television Industry”/2003: 中国电视产业备忘, South China Television Journal/南方电视学刊, Vol. 45, 2004, p.36. 168 The idea of establishing shared television channel was initiated in “Opining concerning improving the work on liquidation of radio and television broadcast organizations”/关于进一步推进广播电视播出机构治理工作的意见, issued by SARFT on April 6, 1999. See the SARFT ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry/广播 电视行业管理手册（修订本）, China Radio and Broadcasting Press, 2001, p.201.
- 83 - the same administrative areas. In deepening the media reform, the party and the state reiterated some market-oriented measures that were regarded as improving the interests of the state:169
1) Mass media is not only an industry but also the battlefield of publicity/propaganda,
which concerns national security and political stability.
2) While the reform of mass communication industry must first of all adhere to the
unchangeable principles of the media policy, the successful experiences of economic
reform in other fields and advanced experiences in foreign countries should be taken into
account.
3) The publicity/propaganda works of the media should be divided from the commercial
management of its non-publicity operations.
4) Media policies should be transferred as laws and regulations, which should be
compatible with international standards.
5) A competitive market environment for spiritual and cultural products should be well
established in order to produce more products with high quality.
6) Giant media groups shall be organized at national and provincial levels, which may
integrate radio, film, television entities and information networks together.170 All cable
television stations will be merged into free to air television stations at the same level, and
provincial, municipal and county leveled broadcasters should be merged into one group
to facilitate the formation of large scaled media groups. While giant film and distribution
groups are in nature of enterprise, giant media groups of newspapers, publication, radio
and television are in nature of public institution or non-business entities. No foreign and
private capitals are allowed to invest in media groups.
7) The SARFT bureaus shall issue licenses to qualified independent producers and private
169 On August 24, 2001, the General Offices of both the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council jointly issued “Some Opinions on Deepening the Reform of News, Publication, Radio, Film and Television”/关于深化新闻出版广播 影视改革的若干意见. 170 Information networks indicate infrastructures owned by SARFT administrations such as cable networks and internet web stations that are treated as enterprises within the media group.
- 84 -
owned audio-video production units.
The giant media groups that were supposed to meet the perceived international competition on the one hand, to clean up unqualified local television stations on the other was proved to be a failure. These media groups at national and provincial levels were actually new kind of state owned enterprises with inherited internal conflicts. Top leaders of the SARFT and its provincial branches were designated as chairmen of these giant media groups to strengthen the leadership of the CPC. This strategy of “one stone for two birds” virtually went to the end in 2005, when the
SARFT declared to abolish its media conglomerate at the national level.
The first prompt reporting of CCTV on emergent events was made on the explosion of
American space shuttle “Columbia” on February 1, 2003.171 Before that, almost no swift responses were ever made by CCTV when breaking news happened. In fact, the professional performance of overseas media pushed ahead the reform of Chinese media. For instance, when
Chinese could only reached television report of 9’11 terrorist attack on America in 2002 through
Phoenix TV of Hong Kong, the credibility of CCTV was seriously challenged. The situation was greatly changed as Iraq War happened in 2003, which was comprehensively covered by CCTV-1,
CCTV-4 and CCTV-9 from March 20 to April 24. Based on a well-prepared live broadcasting, the audience rating of these three CCTV channels increased respectively ten, twenty eight and eight times during the period.172
Another important achievement in media reform was also happened in 2003, when the CPC, under the new leadership of Hu Jintao, instructed that only those very important activities and meetings of the party and the state leaders could be reported and the length of those reports should be as short as possible.173 The most obvious change brought by this new policy to CCTV was that the total length of the reporting on official activities and meetings were shortened to less than three minutes in the half hour “National News” in CCTV-1. Before that, one piece of news
171 This was addressed by Zhao Huayong, head of CCTV in 2004 CCTV Annual Meeting on February 11, 2004. 172 Ibid. 173 On March 28, 2003, the Politburo of CPC issued “Some Opinions on Improving the News Reports on Official Meeting and Leaders’ Activities”/关于进一步改进会议和领导同志活动新闻报道的意见.
- 85 - reporting about “important” official activity or speeches of the President or Prime Minister could be lasted for more than ten minutes in “National News”.
The most recent media policy issued by the SARFT was “Opinions on Improving the
Development of Radio and Television Industries”/关于促进广播影视产业发展的意见 on
December 30, 2003.174 Radio and television broadcasts were re-addressed as part of the tertiary industry. Pay TV business and other forms of commercial operations besides advertising was encouraged. Non-news program productions including entertaining, sports, film and TV drama should be separated from news program productions, while the rights of censorship and broadcast of all programs must be remained in the hands of state owned broadcasters who hold airwaves and broadcasting channels on behalf of the authority. It expected that commercial and non-commercial sectors within state owned broadcasters could be separated; qualified non-state owned production companies could produce non-news programs, and overseas investors could establish joint ventures with Chinese television production companies that hold majority of the shares.
Obviously, the policy making of the CPC is always lagging behind the reality. Non-state owned production companies actually produced TV dramas underground before 2003, some of them even jointed in contracted production of news related programs for local television broadcasters. For example, Jianshi Company/嘉实公司 had cooperated with Shanghai Cultural,
Radio, Film and Television Group to produce news programs, such as “Witness”/目击者 and
“Hot Figure”/热点人物.175 While marketization process of television broadcasters was always ahead of the government planning, market had become the most dynamic power to force the state to relocate its political resources to cooperate with non-state owned enterprises to set the media agenda in a way that benefits both the state and market.
174 See official website of SARFT, http://www.sarft.gov.cn/manage/publishfile/21/1568.html, (last visited August 20, 2004). 175 See Hong Yin, Degang Li, “Memorandum for 2003 Chinese Television Industry”, South China Television Journal Vol. 45, 2004, p.34.
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B Organizations and Basic Characteristics in Media Policy Making
Media policy is made by the CPC to set media agenda with political correctness, which can be defined as influencing public opinion under the leadership of the CPC in contemporary
China.176 Although state agencies such as the SARFT join in media policy making for television broadcast, the principal actor is the DPCC based on two basic characteristics in the process of policy-making. The first is that media policy must adhere to some unchangeable principles, in which correct media agenda-setting under the leadership of the CPC is crucial. The second is that media policy is flexible in meeting rapid social and economic changes while administrative orders issued by the government is relatively stable.
1 Organizations of the CPC in Media Policy-making
The DPCC was once known as the Department of Propaganda, Central Committee of the
CPC, whose English name was specifically changed in 1998 as the Department of Publicity,
Central Committee of the CPC. The DPCC is currently consisted by ten administrative bureaus:
General Office/办公厅 for administration of general affairs; Cadres Bureau/干部局 for taking care of assigning media managers above the director general level, which includes directors of both CCTV program divisions and provincial television broadcasters; News Bureau/新闻局 for supervising news production and publication of newspapers and broadcasters; Theory Bureau/理
论局 for organizing publicity related theoretical research, and directing ideology issues of the
CPC, Research Bureau/研究室 for organizing publicity related project research; Publication
Bureau/出版局 for overseeing publication issues other than press; Publicity and Education
Bureau/宣教局 for promoting both public image of the CPC and public awareness of the CPC
176 Political correctness is a term originated in an influential movement on US campuses beginning in the late 1980s, it is gradually accepted by some of its targets. Appealing to the principle of affirmative action and to various understandings of “multiculturalism”, the movement for political correctness sought changes in undergraduate curricular to emphasize the roles of women, non-white people, and homosexuals in history and culture, and attacked the domination of “Western” culture by dead white European males. It promoted anti-sexist and anti-raciest speech and behavior codes, which opponents denounced as illiberal. See Iain Mclean, ed., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1996, p.379.
- 87 - policy; Reform Office/改革办公室 for policy-making related to the reform of mass media;
Public Opinion and Information Center/舆情信息中心 for collecting public opinions on current media policy of the CPC and feedbacks on important publications of mass media, and analyzing the effects of media agenda-setting; and Central Spiritual Civilization Office/中央精神文明办公
室 for coordinating ideological and publicity works among different departments of the CPC and the government, which is headed by a member of the standing committee of the Politburo of the
Central Committee, CPC.177
As a rule, minister of the SARFT is also the vice director of the DPCC, although both the
SARFT and the DPCC are ministerial leveled departments of the party and the state. The same principal adopted in lower leveled authorities of the party and the state. While DPCC is responsible for domestic publicity affairs, the EPLGCC (External publicity leadership group,
Central Committee, CPC) or the SCIO (State Council Information Office), which is actually one joint publicity department of the Sate Council and Secretariat of Central Committee, CPC, is responsible for international publicity. Functioned as one institution with two titles/一个机构两
块牌子, the title of the EPLGCC is used when dealing with media organization promoting national images abroad, and the title of the SCIO is used when regulating international media collecting news at home.
2 Four Unchangeable Principles
Based on the Four Basic Principles formulated by Deng Xiaoping, the cardinal principles for media policy were also formulated in a document of the CPC as the Four Unchangeable
Principles in 2001:178
Under whatever the circumstances in China
177 DPCC does not offer public information as SARFT does on the government website. The updated information about the administrative structure of DPCC came from an interview with a DPCC officer in 2005. 178 These four principles were expressed in a document named as “Some Opinions on Deepening the Reform of News, Publication, Radio, Film and Television”/关于深化新闻出版广播影视业改革的若干意见, issued jointly by the general offices of both the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council on August 24, 2001.
- 88 -
1 It is unchangeable that mass media is the mouthpiece of the party and the people/坚持党和人
民喉舌的性质不能变
2 It is unchangeable that the CPC controls mass media/坚持党管媒体不能变
3 It is unchangeable that the human resources or cadres of mass media are controlled by the
CPC /坚持党管干部不能变
4 It is unchangeable that the media agenda must be set with political correctness in order to
lead public opinion /坚持正确的舆论导向不能变
The technical aspects of the media policy could be changed from time to time but the principles remain unchangeable, which means the CPC must control media agenda in the end.
The political correctness of media agenda-setting is expressed officially by the Four Basic
Principles made by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 and the Three Represents made by Jiang Zemin in
2001. The political correctness of media agenda is adopted by media organization in a way that they have to acknowledge the leadership of the CPC and its capacity in accommodating all political, economic and social interests of the people. Although the interests of the party and the people are different in many ways, and the conflicts of interests always exist, the CPC always tries to persuade the media and the people that the ultimate goals of the party and the people can meet together.
However, it is noteworthy that, at least rhetorically, these so-called unchangeable principals could and did change sometimes. In April 2003, Li Changchun, a member of the Central
Politburo Standing Committee who is responsible for ideology and publicity works of CPC, proposed a new policy to advance the media reform in China: all philosophical boundaries that pose impediment to advance cultural development should be broken through; all measures and stipulations that bound advancement of culture should be changed; and all institutional barriers that undermine cultural enrichment should be eliminated.179 It was an informal speech to all
179 In Chinese version, it is “一切妨碍先进文化发展的思想观念都要坚决冲破，一切束缚先进文化发展的做法和 规定都要坚决改变，一切影响先进文化发展的体制弊端都要坚决革除”, see Li Changchun/李长春, “Improving the Method of Propaganda, Reporting on Newsworthy Events/要改进宣传方法,报道有新闻价值的事情”, on April 16,
- 89 - media managers, which did not become a formal document of the CPC in the end. This speech did not induce a fundamental reform of the media policy, but it would definitely influence the policy-making of the CPC in the future.
3 Flexibility of the Media Policy Making
While the political correctness in setting the media agenda remained crucial, the CPC may change its technical measures for media agenda-setting case by case. The flexibility of media policy-making turned to be obvious during two social reform periods. During these periods, along with political and economic transition from New-democratic Revolution to Socialist Revolution at the turn of 1950s and from Planned Economy to so-called Socialist Market Economy at the turn of 1980s, the CPC had to adjust its media policy significantly along with the rapid changes of domestic and international environments.180 The aim of these adjustments of measures or flexibility of media policy-making was still focused on strengthening the leadership of the CPC over mass media.
On November 11, 1949, the State Administration of Press (SAP), which made media policy together with DPCC from 1949 to 1952, issued an instruction to both public and private newspapers. It demanded that news articles written by journalists must be pre-examined by leader of concerned government department or social organization, or individuals from whom the news collected. After the news article was pre-examined, it should be better to be endorsed by those concerned parties, and then the article could be handed over to editorial office of the press. The preliminary duty for concerned editor was to re-examine whether the pre-examination had been taken or not. It emphasized that the parties taken part in this process of pre-examination included those non-party leaders or well-known nonpartisans.181
It seemed irrational that if a journalist wants to do a news report to criticize an organization
2003. www.Chinanews.com.cn/n/2003-04-16/26/295013.html, (last visited August, 27, 2004). 180 Socialist Market Economy in China indicates a market economy mixed with Chinese socialist characteristics. CPC differentiated its revolutionary process in China into two parts, the first part is new-democratic revolution that is from 1927 to 1953, the second part is socialist revolution that is from 1953 when capitalist and private property were transformed to state owned property. 181 Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, p.217.
- 90 - or a person, the report has to pass the pre-examination process checked by the targeted organization or person. However, this policy practically tried to kill two birds with one stone. It firstly disciplined the journalists of the CPC press to respect the work and opinions of non-communist party members, especially those well known figures working for the government, in a New-democratic Revolution period. Secondly, it disciplined journalist of private owned media to do their reports under the supervision of the CPC and government agencies. This discipline actually imposed more severe restrictions on private media than state media, because journalists from private media were not accustomed to such kind of disciplines and they would definitely meet more embarrassments when their reportage was checked by the CPC members and government officers. This could be regarded as the formal initiative of a pre-censorship system, which tried to control the media agenda at the first place.
The DPCC followed up a similar document on November 20, 1949 to state owned press to stress the importance of pre-examination process. However, five months later, the Central
Committee of the CPC issued another document named “Decision to Deploy Criticizing and
Self-criticizing on Newspapers and Magazines”. According to the policy, journalists who criticized anyone in the reports would take independent responsibility for their own, and it encouraged the state owned media to increase the quality and quantity of the reports in terms of criticizing. It called a retreat from the previous document issued by the SAP and the DPCC. It said “in current circumstances, more harms than benefits will be incurred” to follow through such pre-examination process.182
After another three months, on July 17, 1950, the Politburo of Central Committee of the
CPC issued a renewed document named “A Decision Made by Central Committee of the CPC to
Improve the Work of Newspaper”. This time, the importance of criticizing and self-criticizing on newspaper was re-emphasized, “the editorial office must take full responsibility ……the stance and opinion of criticizing must be correct, every step must follow the CPC principle, decision of
182 Press Bureau, DPCC, Collections of Literatures on CPC Press Works, p.26.
- 91 -
Central Committee of the CPC, and guidance of the CPC committees at various levels”.183 In other words, individual journalist cannot be independently responsible for the news reports anymore. Instead of responsible first for their readers, journalist had to be responsible first to the editorial office, which is the deputy of the CPC in reality. Since then, the news report being taken independent from supervision of the CPC is politically unacceptable. The party and the state therefore resumed its power of pre-censorship over the press.
In the 1980s, along with the implementation of opening and reform policy, the cleansing activities on mass media were taken nearly every two years by the CPC, in the name of
“anti-capitalist liberalization campaigns”, to punish those media in distributing “spiritual pollutions” of capitalism and feudalism.184 In the cycle of loosing and tightening control over mass media in this period, at least three political campaigns were undertaken for the construction of “socialist spiritual civilization”:185 z the “Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign” in 1983 z the “Anti-Bourgeois Liberation Campaign” in 1987 z the “Anti-Peaceful Evolution Campaign” in 1989
On December 1, 1983, the DPCC issued “A Notice of Cleansing and Neatening
Newspapers”. A by-product of this notice was that it strengthened the monopolization of the national leveled media in news collection and production. Accordingly, local government and associations could establish only local press, and the locally established press in principle was only allowed to collect news and articles locally. For those locally established press that wanted
183 Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, p.38. 184 “Spiritual pollutions” is a term coined by Deng Xiaoping in October 1983. He made a speech in the second session of twelfth congress of CPC named “The Emergent Works of the CPC on Organizational and Ideological Battle Front”. He said that, in order to eradicate “spiritual pollutions”, articles promoting Western capitalist thoughts, feudalist thoughts, eroticist and other corrupted life style must be strictly prohibited. Later, “bourgeois liberalization” was used to replace “spiritual pollution” because the CPC found out that Hitler had used the phrase “spiritual pollution”. 185 Socialist Spiritual Civilization and Socialist Materialist Civilization are two goals set by CPC in driving the modernization process of Chinese society. The discourse of spiritual civilization in 1980s attempts to promote an essential national character; or ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’; stimulate patriotism, strengthen the morals of the populace, the importance of tradition, culture, and family, ritual issues; and the subtle demonizing the West as immoral and decadent.
- 92 - to cover national news must be authorized by the DPCC and under the leadership of both central and local authorities.186 This principle was also applied to broadcasting media as well, and CCTV thus became the only television broadcaster formally authorized to collect news across the country.
From 1985 to 1987, the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council issued two documents respectively to liquidate disobeyed press that publish so-called unhealthy contents with capitalist and feudalist thoughts, eroticist and other corrupted life style, and thus promote the bourgeois liberalization. 187 Under the instruction of these two documents, the number of newspapers and magazines were reduced from 1359 in 1986 to 1022 in 1987188. Certainly, the greatest cleaning up of mass media as a whole taken place after the Tiananmen incident in 1989, when the Central Committee of the CPC issued “Notice to Strengthen the Work on Publicity and
Thoughts”. Not a single newspaper had been permitted to be established in the following year, and many media managers and journalists who made dissenting opinions during the incident were purged. Four Basic Principles were re-emphasized as the guiding principle in media operation.
II Formal Institution of the State in Media Agenda-setting
The state agencies formally set the media agenda of television broadcaster in China directly and indirectly by four levels of legal issues (see Table 3-4). The first is the Constitution/宪法 and the second is law/法律, both of them are promulgated by the National People’s Congress (NPC).
The third is executive orders/行政法规 in forms of rules issued by the State Council and regulations issued by ministries of the State Council, particularly the SARFT and its local branches that issues local regulations that are effective within specific administrative areas.189
186 See Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, p.229. 187 In June, 1985, the offices of both the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council distributed a DPCC proposal to all the CPC state agencies, which is named as “Notice to Liquidate Unhealthy Contents in Newspapers and Magazines”. In January 1987, the Central Committee of CPC issued another “Notice on Some Issues Related to Fighting against the Bourgeois Liberalization”. 188 Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, pp.74 -75. 189 Since 1982, the Constitution grants State Council and its ministries the power to set executive orders on a lower level than laws that are established by the National People’s Congress.
- 93 -
The fourth is regulatory documents/规范性文件, which is issued in forms of internal notice and suggestions. Similar to documents issued by the CPC as media policies, regulatory documents is less coercive than regulations (see Figure 5). The Constitution and laws related to the press are general and indirect, while rules, regulations and regulatory documents are specific and directly linked with media operation. This regulatory system served for one purpose, to safeguard “the principle of correct media agenda-setting for public opinion”, which is prescribed as the key point in the Administrative Rules on Radio and Television.
Figure 5 Systems of Laws and Regulations on Broadcast Media
The NPC the Constitution and laws
The State Council rules
The SARFT and its local branches regulations and regulatory documents
A Laws and Regulations
While media policy makers, especially the DPCC, believed that media policy, which are technically more flexible, should not be replaced by laws in monitoring media operation, government agencies also preferred using rules and regulations rather than laws to control mass media. The SARFT once investigated the possibility of an expected radio and television law proposed to the NPC and did make a draft in 1986. But it claimed after the Tiananmen incident that the law making in ideological field was quite different from the law making in economic field. The SARFT explained further that media related law making was checked not only by the degree of political reform, but also by the rapid development of high technology that challenged the knowledge of the law makers.190 Although the Central Committee of the CPC formally announced in the late 1989 and again in 1995 that the legislation of press law was urgent, not a single law specifically related to press and broadcasting media had ever been made.191
190 See the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.119. 191 Central Committee of CPC issued “Notice to Strengthening Propaganda and Thoughts Works” on July 28, 1989, it called to collect the experience of June 4th Tian An Meng Event, and speedy the work on formulating News Law and Press Law. On June 1, 1995, the Administration Office of Central Committee of CPC issued “Suggestions on
- 94 -
1 The Constitution and Laws
The Constitution and laws relevant to mass media constitute some guidelines, though not comprehensive, for media operation in China. The Constitution declares freedom of the press, which means that Chinese citizens should have the rights to establish their own mass media and express their opinions freely on the media. However, the reality is, mass media can be only set up by the party and the state, which claims to be the representative of the people in every aspect. The rights to establish and manage mass media are limited to the state rather than other social institutions like market entities or civil society associations. a The Constitutional Rights Regarding the Freedom of Press
In the preamble of the latest amended Constitution, it outlines the legitimacy of the CPC in leading Chinese people to achieve a “strong, prosperous, culturally advanced, democratic socialist” state, it also emphasizes the Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, Deng
Xiaoping Theory and the Three Represents of Jiang Zemin as the official ideology in safe-guarding the socialist nature of the state.192 It concludes that every one in China is subordinate to the Constitution, the supreme law, while retrospectively it declares that Chinese people are under the leadership of the CPC and its ideology:
Our country is in the primary stage of socialism. The basic task before the nation is walking on the socialist road with Chinese characteristics, concentrating efforts on socialist modernization construction. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the guidance of
Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the Three Represents, the Chinese people of all nationalities will continue to adhere to the
Improving the Work on News and Public Openings”, it called to advance the work on legislation of the Press Law. See Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, pp.243-254. 192 The current Constitution of the P.R.C was adopted at the Fifth Session of the Fifth National People's Congress and promulgated for implementation by the Proclamation of the National People's Congress on December 4, 1982. It was amended for the first time at the First Session of the Seventh National People's Congress on April 12, 1988. It was amended for the second time at the First Session of the Seventh National People's Congress on March 29, 1993. And it was amended for the third time at the Second Session of the tenth NPC on March 14, 2004.
- 95 - people’s democratic dictatorship and the socialist road and to uphold reform and opening to the outside world, steadily improve socialist institutions, develop socialist market economy, develop socialist democracy, improve the socialist legal system, and work hard and self-reliantly to modernize the country's industry, agriculture, national defense and science and technology step by step, and enhance the harmonious development of physical, political and spiritual civilizations to build China into a strong, prosperous, democratic and culturally advanced socialist nation….
The people of all nationalities, all state organs, the armed forces, all political parties and public organizations and all enterprises and undertakings in the country must take the Constitution as the basic norm of conduct, and they have the duty to uphold the dignity of the Constitution and ensure its implementation.193
The freedom of the press had been protected by the Constitution ever since it was initiated in 1949. It announced, “true report on news is safeguarded”, and “citizens of the People's
Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration”.194 The latter clause remains unchanged in article 35 of the current Constitution. In article 41, the Constitution declares that Chinese citizens have the right to criticize the state organs who must deal with the charges in a responsible manner; otherwise,
Chinese citizens can demand compensation for their losses due to wrongdoings of the state organ.
This clause grants Chinese citizens the rights to expose the failure of the state through various
193 Abstract from the Preamble of the amended Constitution, promulgated by the Second Session of the Tenth National People’s Congress on March 14, 2004. All English translation of the Constitution of PRC in this thesis is adopted from the official website of the People’s Daily, http://english.people.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html (last visited November, 23, 2004) 194 See the 87th clause of the first Constitution, which was promulgated in 1954; and the 49th clause of the Common Creed/共同纲领, a semi-constitutional document, which was promulgated in the first national committee of CPPCC in September 1949. It was made in a system called multi-CPC co-operation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC. It was the supreme law of the State until the first Constitution was launched in 1954. Governed by the Common Creed, the status of so called democratic parties and other non-CPC social activist were highly respected, and the media policy of the CPC were made in a way to accommodate as more as possible the interests of other parties. This trend was completely reversed on June 8, 1957 when Anti-Rightist Movement/反右运动 was started by CPC, after that, mass media was used unconditionally as the mouthpiece of the CPC in the following class struggle movements.
- 96 - means including mass media, which is therefore under legal protection to publish various opinions of audience-as-citizens. These opinions of audience-as-citizens motivated by civil society rules and values facilitate the production of current affairs programs, which is defined by the CPC as programs of supervision by public opinions.
Article 41: Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions regarding any state organ or functionary. Citizens have the right to make to relevant state organs complaints or charges against, or exposures of, any state organ or functionary for violation of the law or dereliction of duty, but fabrication or distortion of facts for purposes of libel or false incrimination is prohibited. The state organ concerned must deal with complaints, charges or exposures made by citizens in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures or retaliate against the citizens making them. Citizens who have suffered losses as a result of infringement of their civic rights by any state organ or functionary have the right to compensation in accordance with the law.
Although Chinese citizen enjoys the rights of free press according to the Constitution, the state practically owns all forms of mass media including broadcasting ones. In reality, the accessibility of citizens’ opinions to government controlled media depends on the primary media agenda setter, the party and the state. Free press, which means freedom of establishing and operating mass media, and freedom of speech on mass media in general, could be expected, only if the party and the state can accept the concepts such as inviolability of private property rights and undeprivability of human rights. In 2004, the amended Constitution revised in Article 13,
“law-abiding private property of the citizens is inviolable”, and “the state, in accordance with law, protects the rights of citizens to private property and to its inheritance”. It added in the Article 33,
“the state respect and protect human rights”. Obviously, the relationship between the state and its citizens is not equal. The state is the protector of human rights that include the right to pursue private property. In other words, without the protection of the state, there can be no human rights.
The Constitution grants freedom of the press for Chinese citizen on the one hand, leadership of the CPC over Chinese people on the other. Accordingly, the CPC, which is assumed
- 97 - as the representative of the people in collective, actually possess the greatest freedom to own, to operate and to set the media agenda in the name of the people. The problems remain that the CPC may not only provide good leadership but also bad one, and freedom of press for Chinese people collectively does not equal to freedom of press for Chinese citizen individually. What the people can do if the CPC misleading them, and if freedom of press is infringed by the CPC, in the name of the people? And finally, what media organization could do if power conflicts between the CPC and the people, between the CPC or the people and the citizen, occurred in media agenda-setting?
No answer could be found in the Constitution, which indicates the failure of the Constitution in checking the power of the party and the state. b Laws Relevant to Mass Media
Although no specific laws related to press and broadcasting media had ever been introduced, the NPC did issued some laws that were economically relevant to the administration of mass media, such as copyright law and advertising law.
Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China/中华人民共和国版权法195
Article 42 When a radio or television station broadcasts another CPC unpublished work, it
shall obtain permission from the copyright owner and pay remuneration thereof.
A radio or television station that broadcasts another CPC published work need not obtain
permission from the copyright owner, but shall pay remuneration.
Article 44 A radio or television station shall have the right to prohibit the following acts that
are undertaken without permission:
1) re-broadcasting its radio or television broadcasts; and
2) recording its radio or television broadcasts onto an audiovisual medium and the
duplication of such medium.
The rights set forth in the preceding paragraph shall be protected for a period of 50 years
195 It was adopted on September 7, 1990 by the fifteenth Session of the Standing Committee of the 7th National People’s Congress to take effect from June 1, 1991; it was revised pursuant to the Decision to Amend the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted by the Standing Committee of the 9th NPC on October 27, 2001.
- 98 -
and expired on December 31st of the 50th year after the first transmission of such radio or
television broadcast.
An important amendment was made in 2001 regarding the broadcasting of a published audio recording. The first Copyright Law prescribed a broadcaster do not need to pay the copyright owner when doing non-commercial broadcasting; while the amended Copyright Law prescribed that a broadcaster shall pay remuneration, unless the parties have agreed not to do so.
Other amendments includes acknowledging the right to rent computer programs, films, sound and video recordings; imposing restrictions on the “fair use” of other’s work; shifting, in certain circumstances, the burden of proof in copyright cases from the complainant to the alleged infringing CPC; and providing measures for the immediate cessation of ongoing infringement
(i.e., court orders) as well as preserving property and evidence to litigation. This amended
Copyright Law is made to reconcile to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement of World Trade Organization (WTO).196 For the second time,
Trademark Law was also amended and promulgated on October 27, 2001, which extended the scope of trademark protection from words and designs to colors and three-dimensional symbols.197
Advertising Law of the People’s Republic of China/中华人民共和国广告法198
196 TRIPs Agreement is a multilateral agreement under the framework of WTO providing for intellectual property protection, enforcement, dispute prevention and settlement and came into effect on January 1, 1995. 197 Comparing the first amendment of Trademark Laws of the PRC that was made on February 22, 1993, the key points of the second amendment include: extending the scope of trademark protection from words and designs to colors and three-dimensional symbols; providing protection for collective marks, certification marks and geographic indicators; providing protection for both registered and un-registered widely recognized trademarks; including costs associated with enforcing one’s registered trademarks in monetary damage awards; eliminating the need for the injured CPC to show that the infringing CPC knew or “had reasonable grounds to know” that he was/is infringing on a registered trademark or copyright as a prerequisite for establishing a trademark infringement offence; providing measures for achieving the immediate cessation of ongoing infringement (i.e., court orders) as well as preserving property and evidence prior to litigation; and allowing for a judicial review of administrative decision concerning trademarks. See Jesse T H Chang, et al., China’s Media & Entertainment Law (Vol. 1), Hong Kong, Trans Asia Publishing 2003, p.289. 198 It was adopted on October 27, 1994, by the 10th Session of the Standing Committee of the 8th National People’s Congress to take effect from February 1, 1995. “Advertisement” in the Advertisement Law refers to commercial advertisements that either directly or indirectly, by means of certain media and forms, and at dealer’s or service
- 99 -
Article 3 The contents of advertisements shall be true and lawful, and shall comply with the
requirements for constructing socialist spiritual civilization.
Article 5 When engaging in advertisement related activities, advertisers, advertising agents and
advertisement publishers shall abide by laws and administrative regulations, as well as
adhere to the principles of fairness, honesty and trustworthiness. 199
For content-related censorship of advertisement, the State Administration for Industry and
Commerce (SAIC) authorizes a quasi-governmental industry association, the Chinese
Advertisement Association (CAA/中国广告协会), to examine and verify the advertising contents in terms of accuracy and appropriateness. For instances, the use of superlatives such as “highest level” or “the best” is prohibited in advertisements; advertising of various “special-purpose drugs such as anesthetics, psychotropic drugs, toxic drugs or radioactive drugs” as well as tobacco products is banned. Advertising agencies and media organizations are also assumed the responsibility for the advertisements. Consumers whose rights and interests have been harmed by false advertisement can sue the advertiser and publisher for compensation, according to Article 38 of the Advertisement Law and Article 39 of the Consumer Protection Law.200 At the same time, sellers are responsible for the repair, replacement or return of products and must also offer audience-as-consumer appropriate compensation for losses due to disparity between the actual product and the product as advertised, according to the Product Quality Law of the People’s
Republic of China.201
Before NPC issued the advertisement law, the government had designed its own regulations
provider’s own expense, promote the goods they sell or the services that they provide. 199 In the Advertisement Law, “advertiser” refers to any legal person, economic organization or individual that undertakes, or commissions another CPC to undertake, the design, production, and publication of advertisements so as to promote the sale of goods or services; “advertising agent” refers to any legal person, economic organization or individual that provides advertising design, production, and agency services on a commission basis; “advertisement publisher” refers to any legal person, economic organization, which publishes advertisements on behalf of advertisers, or on behalf of advertising agents commissioned by advertisers. 200 The Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests was promulgated by NPC on October 31, 1993. 201 It was promulgated on February 22, 1993 by NPC.
- 100 - to deal with the development of vibrant advertisement industry.202 However, specific rules relating to the establishment of Sino-foreign advertising joint ventures were not issued until 1994, when the Certain Rules Regarding the Establishment of Foreign Invested Advertising Enterprises was issued. 203 According to these specific rules, a foreign party equity investment was technically limited to 49%, which was not well enforced since then. China’s WTO accession had permitted foreign majority ownership in joint venture advertising entities since December 11,
2003, and will permit wholly foreign-owned subsidiaries on December 11, 2005.204
2 Rule-by-regulations
Rule-by-regulations is a system that makes and executes regulations subservient to political goals. The system of rule-by-regulations on broadcasting media is currently consisted by five administrative rules/管理条例 issued by the State Council; forty six regulations/部门规章 and more than two hundred administrative documents/规范性文件 issued by SARFT. SARFT regulations are the major component of this system, which can be categorized into two groups.205
The first are specific regulations on television program production and broadcast, such as administration of foreign satellite television programs landed in China, censorship on domestic and imported programs, license on program production, distribution and broadcasting, and permit of distributing video and audio products in various information networks. The second focuses on administration of television station, network and personnel, such as the establishment of free-to-air and cable television stations, regulation on foreign invested joint production.
Administrative documents issued by the SARFT are quasi-regulations with a flexible and ad hoc
202 On October 26 1987, the State Council issued the Advertisement Regulations. 203 It was jointly promulgated on November 3, 1994 by the SAIC and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) and taken into effect on January 1, 1995. 204 Report of the Working CPC on the Accession of China, Addendum: Schedule CLII – PRC, Part II – Schedule of Specific Commitments on Services, issued by the WTO on October 1, 2001, II-F. 205 Up to the end of 2004, SARFT had issued forty six regulations and numerous administration documents. Sometimes, DPCC joined with SARFT to issue regulations, for instance, Rules on Prohibiting Paid News was jointly issued by DPCC, SARFT, SAPP, and ACJA, referring to the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry. Some major rules, regulations and administration documents are collected in Appendix 2.
- 101 - manner.206
Authorized by the State Council, the SARFT is responsible for ensuring television broadcasters to “promote spiritual and material civilizations”/社会主义精神和物质文明 and to
“set correct media agenda to guide public opinion”.207 Other government agencies, such as the
Ministry of Information Industry (MII), the Ministry of Culture (MOC) and the Ministry of
Commerce (MOFCOM) sometimes also join in making regulations on television industry. For instance, the MII jointed with the SARFT to issue regulation on television broadcast via various means of information networks; the MOC worked together with the SARFT on anti-piracy activities for audiovisual products, and the MOFCOM jointed with the SARFT to issue regulations on Sino-foreign joint venture in television industry.208
This rule-by-regulations system became more and more complicated in the last two decades due to three factors. The first was due to the vertical division of powers between central and local governments on media control, which took place in 1983 as four tiered management of television broadcast. The second was due to the horizontal division of labor in production of television programs, which took place in 1990s, when great amount of program production, especially television drama production, was shifted from broadcasters to independent production entities including private ones. The third was due to the rapid development of new technologies that diversified the forms of broadcast from a small group of “free-to-air” transmitter relayed broadcasting to a complicated network of satellite, cable, free-to-air, video-on-demand and
Internet-based broadband services.
206 After a thorough check on its complicated documents, SARFT abolished forty five undue ones in 2005. See “Decisions to Abolish Some Administration Documents”/关于废止部分法规性文件的决定, issued by SARFT on March 25, 2005, www.sarft.gov.cn/manage/publishfile/20/2725.html, (last visited May 27, 2005). 207 See Articles 1 and 3 in Regulations for the Administration of Radio and Television, promulgated on 11 August 1997 by the State Council. 208 In some regions of China, the SARFT and the MOC have cooperated to function as one office, for instance, the administrative bureau in Shanghai for broadcasting and culture in general is a joint office, which is named as the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Culture and Broadcasting. In 1980s, the idea of merging Ministry of Radio and Television (the predecessor of the SARFT) into the MOC was under discussion and failed, the result was transferring the bureau of film from the MOC into the MRT and restructured the MRT as the MRFT (Ministry of Radio, Film and Television) in 1986.
- 102 - a Administrative Rules of the State Council
1) Administrative Rules on Radio and Television/广播电视管理条例(August 1, 1997, the
State Council)
Article 1. These rules are enacted in order to strengthen the administration of radio and
television, to develop radio and television institution and to promote socialist spiritual and
material civilization.
Article 3. Radio and television undertakings must adhere to the policy of serving the
people and serving socialism and must adhere to the principle of setting correct media
agenda for public opinion leadership.
Article 8. The radio and television administrative department of the State Council is
responsible for the administration of radio and television station, their distribution across
China and their composition.
Radio and television stations as mentioned in these rules refers to organizations, which
compile and produce radio and television programs and broadcast them by cable or
wireless methods.
Article 10. Radio and television stations will be set up by radio and television
administrative bureaus of the people’s government of the county or of the
municipality where no district is established or at a higher level. Education
television stations may be established by administrative bureaus for education of
the people’s government at or above the municipality (with district) or autonomous
prefecture where a district is established or at a higher level. No other units and
individuals are permitted to set up radio and television stations. The state prohibits
the establishment of radio and televisions by wholly foreign-owned, sino-foreign
equity joint venture or sino-foreign cooperative joint venture operations.
Article 13. Where a radio or television station needs to alter its station name, station
logo, scope of programs run or number of channels, it shall obtain the approval of
the State Council’s administrative department for radio and television. Radio and
- 103 -
television stations are not permitted to lease out or transfer broadcasting timeslots”.
“Correct media agenda” in article three implies setting media agenda in accordance with the CPC policy, which defines what is politically correct. “Public opinion leadership” is the specific expression of the CPC leadership in media agenda-setting, and the aim of this leadership is to help the formation of public opinion in accordance with the CPC policy. In conclusion,
“adhere to the principle of setting correct media agenda for public opinion leadership” means broadcasters must be operated as representatives of the party and the state for public opinion leadership with a politically correct media agenda. Chinese broadcasters are thus authorized to operate as a state organ specialized in forming public opinion with correct media agenda under the instruction of the CPC policy.
In terms of general management of television broadcast, the SARFT is authorized by the
National Wireless Communication Management Committee (NWCMC) to be responsible for planning and designating television channels with licensed airwaves to free to air broadcasters.209
In order to secure the safety of radio and television broadcast in a cable television network, the
SARFT issued Measures for Administration on the Security of Cable Radio and Television
Broadcast Networks on April 3, 2002. The measures reaffirmed that broadcasters of cable radio and television must be licensed by the SARFT and its branches an Operating Permit for Radio and Television Program Transmission Services/广播电视节目传送业务经营许可证.210 Cable broadcasters must transmit and relay programs as specified in their permits and ensure the integrity of those programs. Without authorization, broadcasters can not insert any other programs and advertisements.
2) Administrative Rules on Ground-Based Reception Equipment for Satellite Television
Broadcasts/卫星电视广播地面接受设施管理规定(October 5, 1993, the State Council)
209 See NWCMC, “Informing SARFT to Manage National Broadcasting Airwaves on behalf of NWCMC, on May 21, 1996”, in the SARFT ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.432. 210 This measure related to cable broadcasters was originally issued by SARFT on November 12, 1999, as “Provisional Measures for the Examination, Approval ad Administration of the Operation of Radio and Television Program Transmission Services”/经营广播电视节目传送业务审批管理暂行办法.
- 104 -
Article 2 The term “ground-based reception equipment of satellite television broadcasts” as
used in these rules refers to facilities that receive television programs transmitted by satellite,
including antennas, high-frequency amplifiers, receivers, encoders and decoders.
Article 3 The licenses for manufacture, import, sale, installation and use of ground-based
reception equipments of satellite television broadcasts shall be issued by the relevant
administrative departments of the State Council.
As early as May 28, 1990, Administration of the Reception of Foreign Satellite Television
Programs via Ground-Based Reception Equipment/卫星地面接收设施接收外国卫星传递电视
节目管理办法 was issued jointly by the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television (MRFT, the predecessor of the SARFT), the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), and the Ministry of National
Security (MNS). The administration on ground-based reception equipments for foreign satellite television programs is one of the strictest rules and regulations in history of government controls over television broadcast, because what kind of foreign television programs can be broadcasted on the air of Chinese territory is the key area in media control activities. Currently, individual citizen in general are prohibited to own any reception equipments for satellite television broadcast that can receive foreign television channels. Any activities of manufacture, import, distribution, installation and use of these reception equipments without licenses are illegal.
Based on the rules of the State Council, MRFT issued respectively Detailed Implementing
Provisions in 1994 and Notice on Issues Regarding the Administration of the Reception of
Foreign Satellite Television Programs/关于接受境外卫星电视节目管理的有关问题的通知 in
1995 to regulate authorized entities that can receive foreign satellite television programs. In order to increase radio and television coverage around China and regulate domestic radio and television stations that transmit Chinese programs via satellite, MRFT issued Measures for the
Administration of the Transmission of Radio and Television Programs via Satellite/卫星传输广
播电视节目管理办法 in 1997.
Detailed Implementing Provisions for Administrative Rules for Ground-Based Reception
- 105 -
Equipment of Satellite Television Broadcasts/《卫星电视广播地面接受设施管理规定》实
施细则 (February 3, 1994, the MRFT)
Article 4 Any entities may apply to install ground-based satellite reception equipments for the
reception of domestic television programs transmitted by satellite. But only three kinds of
entities may apply the license to set up the equipments to receive foreign television programs
transmitted by satellite:
1) high leveled and large scaled educational, scientific research, media, financial,
economic and trade entities that require the reception of foreign television programs for
operational needs on a daily bases;
2) three-star (or above) or national standard class two (or above) hotels that are open to
foreigners;211 and
3) work facilities and living apartments exclusively provided for foreigners and persons
from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.212
Article 6 Individuals are not permitted to install or use ground-based satellite reception
equipment. However, individuals may apply to install the equipment to receive domestic
television programs transmitted by satellite in areas that are unable to receive television
programs via local television stations, television re-transmission stations, television radio
transmitters or cable television stations (sub-stations).
According to this implementing measure of the MRFT, high leveled government agencies, large scaled state owned enterprises and important scientific and cultural institutions like CCTV can set up ground based reception equipments for foreign television channels via satellite. The application for licenses to install and use ground-based satellite reception equipment will be checked jointly by television administrative bureaus and national security departments at
211 Based on statistics of China International Television Corporation (CITVC), a subsidiary of CCTV, there were approximately 5,000 hotels across China’s mainland in 2003 that opened for foreigners, about 40% of these got accesses to foreign satellite television channels through SinoSat platform operated by CITVC. 212 Based on statistics of CITVC, the number of these apartment complexes in 2003 was approximately 3,000 across China’s mainland, about 50% of these got accesses to foreign satellite television channels through SinoSat platform operated by CITVC.
- 106 - provincial level, and the license of “Permit to Receive Television Programs via Foreign Satellite by Ground-based Reception Equipment”/卫星地面接受设施接受外国卫星传送电视节目许可
证 will be issued and registered at SARFT and MNS. Licensed entities are not allowed to transmit those foreign satellite television programs again for commercial purposes. Entities that are proved to receive foreign satellite programs must be under inspection periodically by the
MNS and the MPS offices.213
After Tiananmen incident of 1989, the state paid special attention to the reception of foreign television programs via satellite and strengthened the control over reception equipments.
However the restriction seemed not very effective in the following decade. According to an official survey made in 1999, 2176 out of 6576 established reception equipments were operated without licenses, or one third of the equipments were established illegally; 61 out of 145 existing production factories of reception equipments were not licensed, or forty two percent of existing production units were against the regulation.214 A typical example was found in Guangyuan city in Sichuan Province, the local film distribution company illegally established reception equipment for satellite television programs and transmitted a lot of unauthorized foreign television programs into its commercial television network for more than two years. Once a so-called “anti-revolutionary drama” was aired, serious reaction was taken by the top executive agencies of the party and the state. In 1996, the DPCC jointly with the MRFT issued an instruction notice to local authorities, ordering them to punish those television networks that illegally established reception equipments for foreign television channels via satellite.215 b Ministerial Regulations on Television Program Production and Broadcast
1) Provisional Regulation on the Administration of Sino-foreign Joint Venture and
213 MRFT, MPS, MNS, the State Tourism Bureau and the State Import Inspection Office for Machinery and Electronics jointly issued “Notice on Certain Issues Regarding the Implementation of the Administrative Measures for the Reception of Foreign Television Programs via Satellite by Ground-Based Reception Equipment” on September 13, 1990 214 See the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.376. 215 See the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.145.
- 107 -
Cooperative Company for Radio and Television Program Production and Management/中
外合资、合作广播电视节目制作经营企业管理暂行规定(October 28, 2004, the SARFT,
the MOFCOM)
Article 3. SARFT is responsible for examination and issue of Radio and Television Production
and Management Permit (joint venture)/广播电视节目制作经营许可证（合营）to joint
ventures that have been authorized with License of Foreign Investment Enterprises/外商投资
企业批准证书..
Article 4 It is forbidden to establish solely owned foreign company in the area of television
production and management.
Article 6. Chinese partners and foreign partners should possess independent legal status. Chinese
partners should possess a Radio and Television Production and Management Permit/广播电
视节目制作经营许可证 or Television Drama Production Permit(Long Term)/电视剧制作许
可证（甲种）, and foreign partners should be professional radio and television companies; …
Chinese side should occupy no less than 51% of the joint venture;
Article 12. The joint venture could produce any program other than news and current affairs
programs, Should the joint venture produce television drama, it has to apply for Television
Drama Production Permit as an independent entity.
Article 13. No less than two third of the programs produced by the joint venture must be
recognized as Chinese content
This provisional regulation was the first one that the government issued to attract foreign investment in Chinese television industry. The key points of this regulation include that foreign television and film producers can hold up to forty nine percent of the joint venture while the registered capital of the joint venture must be more than two million US dollars; the joint venture licensee must be a Chinese citizen or an entity controlled by Chinese citizen; the joint venture can not collect news or produce current affair programs as all these programs are included as politically sensitive; the last but not the least, television programs produced by the joint venture
- 108 - must focus on China and Chinese in general. The issue of this provisional regulation can be regarded as a significant step to open up market of television program production to foreign owned companies.
By 2005, News Corp, Viacom Inc, Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures Entertainment respectively obtained the approval of SARFT to set up joint ventures with CCTV and the state-owned China Film Group, the country's biggest film producer. However, television program production is still taken as one of the crucial industries that relate to the national security, the state strictly controls the establishment of these joint ventures. In March, 2005, the SARFT added that
“foreign companies that have been approved to set up joint ventures with Chinese film and television producer are not allowed to set up a second one”.216
On October 18, 1995, Regulations for the Administration of Television Drama Production
Permit/电视剧制作许可证管理规定 was originated by the MRFT, which was abolished after
Regulation for the Administration of Television Dramas/电视剧管理规定 was issued by the
SARFT on June 15, 2000. According to these regulations every television drama must be produced with a Television Drama Production Permit/电视剧制作许可证, and distributed with a
Television Drama Distribution Permit/电视剧发行许可证. The production permit is classified into two types, A or Long-term/甲种, and B or Temporary/乙种. The valid period is three years for Long-term Permit, and one hundred eight days for Temporary Permit. One Temporary Permit is limited to only one television drama. Until August 2003, the SARFT refused to issue any Long
Term Permits to any non-state owned television drama production companies.
Meanwhile, the establishment of private and foreign companies that aimed to produce television drama and other non-news programs was also restricted by the government. According to article 5 of Provisional Regulations for the Administration of Film and Television Production
Entities/影视制作经营机构管理暂行规定, issued by the MRFT, on September 1, 1995, the
216 See Interactive Investor, China tightens control over audio/video production joint venture, http://www.iii.co.uk/news/?type=afxnews&format=reformatted&articleid=5228920&action=article (last visited March 7, 2005).
- 109 -
Operation Permit for Film and Television Program Production was generally issued only to qualified film and television production and business unit, which is established by first class national associations, ministerial government and professional entities at provincial level. These entities applied for the permit should be state owned although non-state owned companies undertaken business of television production with or without the operation permit were booming in the following years. This provisional regulation was outdated and finally abolished by the
SARFT in 2005.
2) Regulations for Administration of the Import and Broadcast of Foreign Television
Programs/境外电视节目引进、播出管理规定( September 23, 2004, the SARFT)
Article 4 No imported television programs can be broadcasted without the approval of SARFT or its administrative agents.
Article 5 The importers of overseas dramas and television programs via satellite transmission are
authorized by the SARFT.
Article 18 In terms of broadcasting time in any television channels, overseas drama cannot
exceed 25% of the overall daily dramas on air, and overseas programs in total can not exceed
15% of the overall daily programs on air. No overseas drama can be broadcasted during the
prime time period (between 19:00 and 22:00) without the approval of the SARFT.
The MRFT originated the same kind of regulation on February 3, 1994, in which it regulated the broadcasting time of imported drama can not exceed 15% of that during the prime time period (between 18:00 and 22:00). In order to intensify the implementation of this regulation, the MRFT issued Notice on Further Strengthening and Improving the Administration of the
Import and Broadcast of Foreign Films and Television Dramas in August 18, 1995 to put some further restrictions and penal provisions to the previous one. Since 1999, the SARFT regularly published a list of imported television dramas that could be broadcasted and re-broadcasted on television stations217. In 2000, the SARFT issued a notice to all television stations, in which they
217 See SARFT, 1999, “Notices to Strengthen the Administration on Re-broadcast of Imported Television Drama by Local Television Stations”, in the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio And Television Industry, p.279.
- 110 - were only permitted to broadcast imported dramas authorized by the SARFT during the timeslot of 19:00 to 21:30218. Compared with previous regulations, the current regulation tended to be more serious in restricting the broadcast of imported drama, the airing time of imported television programs can not exceed 15% of overall daily broadcasting time in any channels, and no imported drama can be aired without the approval of the SARFT. However, only CCTV strictly obeyed the current regulation and no overseas television drama had ever been broadcasted in the prime timeslot of CCTV.
3) Regulations for Administration on Joint Production of Television Drama/中外合作制作
电视剧管理规定(September 21, 2004, the SARFT)
Article 16 The text or story summaries of the television drama that has already been
pre-examined and proved to be filmed or drama as well as cartoon holding the License of
Distribution issued by the SARFT should not make any substantial changes afterwards. If the
name of the drama, top figures, main story line and length of the drama series need to be
changed, it has to re-apply for approval.
Compared with Regulations for the Administration on (Sino-Foreign) Joint Production of
Television Drama (Video Recordings) /中外合作制作电视剧（录象片）管理规定, issued on
September 1, 1995 by MRFT and abolished in 2005, the new regulation was much more sophisticated in legal terms. SARFT was responsible not only for issuing licenses of production and distribution, but also for censoring these cooperatively produced dramas. Some technical aspects were carefully taking into account. For instance, “not less that one-third of the key persons (including scriptwriters, the director and key actors) in the joint production shall be from
Chinese side”. The strict censorship and examination procedures greatly reduced the enthusiasm of foreign investors, and the joint production of television drama was always narrowed on historical stories, in which almost all overseas partners came from Hong Kong and Taiwan”219.
4) Regulations for the Administration of Censorship of Television Drama/电视剧审查管理
218 The SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.237. 219 See the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.255.
- 111 -
规定(September 20, 2004, the SARFT)
Article 1 This regulation is established along the line of Administrative Rules on Radio and
Television, to set criterion for the censorship of television drama, to guarantee the correct
media agenda of television drama, to enhance the prosperous production of television drama,
to improve the healthy development of television drama industry.
Article 15 Two committees in SARFT are in charge of television drama censorship,
the Television Drama Censorship Committee (TDCC/电视剧审查委员会) and the
Television Drama Censorship Review committee (TDCR/电视剧复审委员会).
Provincial branch of SARFT shall set up its own TDCC to be responsible for the
censorship of television drama produced by television drama production entities
within their jurisdiction.
Article 20 It can not pass the examination and get approval if television drama
conveys following contents:
1) programs that oppose principles of the Constitution;
2) programs that is detrimental to national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the
state;
3) programs that would expose the state secret, endanger the national security, damage the
national pride and interests;
4) programs that glamorize national hatred and prejudice, destroy national solidarity, or
disrespect national traditions and habits;
5) programs that propagate cult and superstitions;
6) programs that disturb social order, destroy social stability;
7) programs that promote obscene, gambling, violence and instigate crimes;
8) programs that humiliate or defame others, violate the legal rights and interests of
others;
9) programs that endanger public ethics or national cultural heritages or
10) programs that contain other contents that violate China’s laws, rules and regulations.
- 112 -
A provisional regulation originated by the SARFT on April 7, 1999 was abolished when the current one formally launched in 2004.220 Both old and new ones regulated that TDCCs at central and provincial levels were responsible for ensuring that all television drama/series broadcasted in
China must be conformed to the content requirements and broadcasting standards, and uncensored television dramas must not be distributed, broadcasted, imported and exported. As reassessment bodies, TDCRs at central and provincial levels were responsible for the requests of re-examinations of the censorship decisions made by national and provincial censorship bodies.
The criterions set in Article 20 of the current regulation were deemed as universal for
Chinese television programs production, distribution and broadcast. They had appeared again and again in other regulations regarding both drama and non-drama program productions, such as
Regulation for the Administration of Television Dramas/电视剧管理规定 issued on June 15,
2000, Administration Measures of the Operation of Radio and Television Program Transmission
Services/广播电视节目传送业务管理办法 issued on July 6 2004, Regulations for the
Administration of Radio and Television Program Production and Business Management/广播电
视节目制作经营管理规定 issued on July 19, 2004, Administration Measures of the
Transmission of Audio and Video Programs via Internet and other Information Networks/互联网
等信息网络传播视听节目管理办法 and Administration Measures of Radio and Television
Video/Audio-on-Demand Service/广播电视视频点播业务管理办法 issued on July 6, 2004.
The standard for content censorship can be illustrated as the detailed points of political correctness in setting the media agenda of Chinese television drama. However, for local and cable television stations at county level, the foremost and biggest challenge was the shortage of television program supply. With very limited resources to produce high quality programs, many local television stations were always buy cheap programs and dramas that were produced
220 The provisional regulation was loaded with more details, such as a television drama must not contain any scenes or languages that are overtly sexual, violent, “of low taste” or that promote activities such as gambling, drug-taking, fortune telling, religious zealotry or intentionally damaging environment. See SARFT, 1999, Article 11 of “Provisional Regulations for the Censorship of Television Series/Drama”, in the SARFT, ed. Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.275.
- 113 - domestically or imported illegally from private distributors or advertisement companies. Most of these programs were not authorized by government for distribution and broadcast. In order to secure a stable and healthy channel for program provision that can reach the standards of government censorship, the MRFT instructed in 1994 that the provincial bureaus of the MRFT were the exclusive providers of television dramas, films, entertaining and art programs to local television stations221.
Compared with the current standard for imported television dramas, it was significant to take a review that the MFRT once issued astonishing criterion after the Tiananmen incident of 1989, in which “human rights”, “democracy”, “freedom”, and “equality” were all treated as unacceptable bourgeois concepts:
Standard of the Censorship of Imported Foreign Television Dramas/关于引进海外电视剧的
审查标准(November 28, 1990, the MRFT)
Article 4 The broadcast of the following programs is strictly prohibited:
1) programs that oppose the socialist system, that are anti-communism, anti-China, seek to
divide China, and discriminate against Chinese people;
2) programs that advocate bourgeois concepts of “human rights”, “democracy”,
“freedom”, and “equality”;
3) programs that glamorize the capitalist suppression and looting of backward peoples and
nations as the means of development and prosperity;
4) programs that glamorize superpower activities which prevent Third-World nations from
independence or interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.
5) programs that propagate discrimination on a racial, gender or regional basis;
6) programs that promote obscene or pornographic content of the kind listed in the
Provisional Regulations for the Administration of Obscene and Pornographic
Publications promulgated by the SAPP;
7) programs that graphically show murders, brutality, drug-taking, gambling, prostitution
221 See the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.286.
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or other criminal acts;
8) programs that advocate juvenile crime;
9) programs that propagate superstitious beliefs and disasters;
10) programs that advocate religious supremacy;
11) programs that show the undermining of the natural ecological equilibrium, the wanton
slaughter of endangered wildlife and denudation of forests;
12) programs that have mediocre themes and are artistically crude;
13) programs that may arouse international, inter-ethnic or religious disputes; or
14) programs that violate China’s Constitution, laws, rules and regulations.
5) Provisional Administration Measures on Radio and Television Advertisements/广播电
视广告播放管理暂行办法 (September 15, 2003, the SARFT)
Article 4. Radio and television advertisements must not contain false statement to mislead
consumers;
Article 16. Advertisements for public welfare must be accounted for at least 3% of total
advertising time in any radio or television channels.
Article 17. The ratio of advertising time to total broadcasting time in any radio or television
channels must not be over 20%. During prime viewing period from 19:00 to 21:00,
advertising should be less than 15% of the total output or 9 minutes in each channel.
Article 18. To ensure the integrity of radio and television programs, advertisements can be only
inserted between segments of programs. For each part of television series, which is usually
lasted for 45 minutes, less than 2.5 minutes advertising can be added except the timeslot from
19:00 to 21:00.
Article 19. Advertisements that contain “offensive” content (e.g. sanitary napkins or medicines
for hemorrhoids and athlete’s foot) are prohibited during meal times (i.e. from 6.30 am to
7.30 am, from 11.30 am to 12.30 pm, and from 6.30 pm to 8 pm).
Article 20. Alcoholic advertisements should be broadcasted strictly according to relative
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regulations of the state, and no more than 12 items can be aired on one radio or television
channel each day, in which less than 2 items can be aired during 19:00 to 21:00, and less
than 2 items can be aired within one hour in each channel.
On August 23, 1999, the SARFT issued an Urgent Notice of Prohibiting Random Inserting and Overloading Television Commercials/关于坚决制止随意插播、超量播放电视广告的紧急
通知, to correct the wrongdoings of local broadcasters, in which several dozen advertisements could be inserted into one television drama that aired about forty five minutes, and some prohibited advertisements, such as the one that promoted drugs for sex diseases, was aired to increase the commercial income. 222 The notice regulated that the length of commercials/advertisements must not be more than 15% of the total television program in general, and specifically no more than 12% of the total length in the segment between 18:00 and 22:00.
The current measures increased the advertising allowances to 20% in general and 15% in prime time slot. But, according to a national survey made by the CVSC-TNS Research (CTR), a market research company affiliated to CCTV, advertising time during prime viewing period from 19:00 to 21:00 among 154 major television channels was 12.6 minutes in average, or 3.6 minutes longer than what regulated by the official standards.223
Current measures stressed that broadcaster must set up its censorship system to prove the qualification of advertisements on air. It further required that advertiser must comply with moral and ethic standards set for the production of advertisements. For both advertiser and broadcaster, advertisements related to tobacco or special medical products such as anesthetic and radioactive medicine must not be produced and broadcasted. Finally, the measures prohibited journalist to sell advertisement timeslots to advertiser or its agency while doing news report or producing other television programs.
6) Provisional Administration Regulation on Mass Participated Live Broadcast /群众参与
222 See the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.326. 223 See Lu Di/陆地, “2004, Decoding Chinese Television”/中国电视大解码, South China Television Journal, 45, 2004/1, p.19.
- 116 -
的广播电视直播节目管理暂行办法(December 2, 1999, the SARFT)
Article 3 To safeguard the political correctness of television programs on air, mass/audience
participated live broadcast programs must be produced under some basic requirements. For
instance, “time-lag instrument”, “audio restoring functionary” and other techniques should
be adopted to provide a short period of time for prompt check by experienced editors on the
spot. Those talk shows participated by mass/audience with too much political subtleties are
not suitable for live broadcasting.
Article 4 Mass/audience participated live broadcasting held by radio and television station must
be authorized first by radio and television administrative bureau.
This regulation was made to facilitate the prompt check on live broadcast just before the program was on air. There is always a danger of losing control over what can be aired when free and open discussions in the studio may be simultaneously accessed to the public through live broadcast. Compared with broadcasting of recorded programs that is well censored before they are on air, live broadcasting is always regarded by the authority as less secured. Since the inception of live broadcasting of Spring Festival Gala Show in 1983, there have been more and more live broadcasts of television programs in China. Supported by techniques of “time-lag instrument” and “audio restoring functionary” specified in this regulation, CCTV broadcasted the
Iraq War live in 2003. Currently, both government press conferences and regular news programs including the CCTV National News at 19:00 are broadcasted live.
7) Regulations on Foreigners Participating in Production of Radio, Television Program and
Film/关于外国人参加广播影视节目制作活动管理规定(May 21, 1999 the SARFT)
Article 7 Radio and television stations are not permitted to employ foreigners as anchors of news,
news features and current affairs programs. (For non-news programs, drams and film
production, the employment of foreigners has to be authorized by the SARFT.)
Foreigners and even Chinese who married foreigners were prohibited to anchor news and news related programs right after the issue of this regulation. However, the regulation lost its effectiveness in the following years at least in English program production. Since the beginning
- 117 - of 2004, CCTV-9, the English Channel of CCTV, has deployed short-term foreign employees as anchors for its news and feature programs224. These foreign employees were formally employed as language specialists in prove reading of news reports written by Chinese journalists and editors.
Ignoring the regulation of SARFT in deploying foreign employees, the new measures adopted by
CCTV-9 greatly improved the quality of program presented to Western audiences.
8) Temporary Regulation on Producing and Broadcasting Documentary of Revolutionary
Theory and Literature/关于制作播出理论、文献电视专题片的暂行规定的实施办法
(March 30, 1999 the SARFT)
SARFT will establish leadership group to coordinate relevant party and state departments and
CCTV to produce “documents of revolutionary theory and historical literature”. Documents of
revolutionary theory will promote the Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thoughts and Deng
Xiaoping Theory; and documents of historical literature will reflect the great revolutionary
events and figures in Chinese modern history. The permit for broadcasting these documents will
be issued by the SARFT.
Before 1999 CCTV produced some influential documents for revolutionary figures, such as memoirist documents of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. This regulation was made after the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPC issued an internal instruction to restrict the production of television documents that aimed to illustrate revolutionary theory and historical figures of the CPC. Because of the subtlety of these documents, only CCTV and very few broadcasters could hold the permit of production. Other than internal instruction of the CPC, administrative regulation was also enforced as a more accountable and efficient means to control the production of this kind of television documentary with ideological and political importance.
9) Rules on Prohibiting Paid News/关于禁止有偿新闻的若干规定(January 15, 1997, the
DPCC, the SARFT, the SAPP, the ACJA)
Article 1. Any news production units and journalists are prohibited to be paid in collecting,
224 The first news anchor in CCTV-9 is Edwin Ma, who was born in New Zealand and worked as a senior presenter for ABC, Australia for many years.
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editing and broadcasting news. News reports must be clearly differentiated from advertising,
which should be clearly marked as commercials.
Article 4. Journalists and editors are prohibited to be paid and work for enterprises or other
institutions under any circumstances, they are prohibited to do part-time job for other media
without the permission of his or her own employer.
Article 10. Journalists and editors are prohibited to do business related with advertising.
These rules were issued to try to prohibit the production of paid news that mixed news production with advertising business. However, as an open secret and well known phenomenon,
Chinese journalists did paid news in many ways, such as “news flash”, “subliminal” advertising,
“infomercials” and other “non-program matters”.225 Actually, many journalists opened private companies in the name of their family members, or perform part-time job for other companies to earn extra payments. Some famous anchors performed as actor or actress in advertising to earn commercial income for themselves although it was forbidden by every media organization. Some anchors of entertainment programs, asked a non-negotiable price to host business ceremonies or commercial shows to earn extra-money far more then their salaries, which was agreed by media managers in silence. Market became an important force in changing the behavior of mass media other than the regulations of the government.
10) Regulations on Confidentiality in Press and Publication /新闻出版保密规定(August 3,
1992, the SAPP, the SCB, the MRFT, the EPLGCC)
Article 1. These regulations are formulated in accordance with Article 20 of the Law of the
People’s Republic of China on Confidentiality of State Secrets in order to maintain the
confidentiality of state secrets in the press and publishing works.
Article 11. In order to prevent state secrets from being disclosed and to ensure that the press or
publishing works can be carried out normally, various departments of central government
agencies and relevant units shall improve contacts with mass media or publishing units
according to the characteristics of their professional work: regular channels of
225 These forms of “paid news” will be further elaborated in chapter four.
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communication between government agencies and mass media shall be established, news
release systems shall be enhanced, and the publicity requirements shall be circulated in a
timely manner.
These regulations were issued to secure internal communication between the party and the state and its media. Propaganda or publicity requirements were thus regularly handed down by
DPCC and relevant government agencies to media managers and finally reached every editor and reporter. As routine, once a week, every editor and reporter is required to attend a “publicity weekly meeting”/宣传例会, in which recent “publicity disciplines”/宣传纪律 of the party and the state are announced as the key points of editorial policy in the coming week. These key points that are treated as directly related to national security are divided into two groups. The first is related to positive events and figures that are required to promote. The second is related to negative ones that are restricted or forbidden to report. Politically correct usage of specific terms and definitions are also established as standard expression for any reports. For instance, “China’s mainland”/中国大陆 is the correct term for the mainland area that is under control of Chinese government, but “mainland China”/大陆中国 is not acceptable, which indicates another China outside the mainland exists.
11) Examination, Approval and Administration Measures of Establishing Radio and
Television Stations/广播电台电视台审批管理办法 (August 18, 2004, the SARFT)
Article 22 Channels of radio and television station can be divided into public interested
(non-business) and business ones; institutional settings with specific organizations and rules
should be differentiated to suit specific characteristics of these two different kind of channels;
administrative measures will be detailed separately;
Article 23 Radio and television stations can apply to set up joint channels or joint produced
programs across regions of China;
This is a breakthrough of opening market for local broadcasters to set up joint ventures with each other in producing market oriented of television programs. Predictably, market competition
- 120 - among different broadcasters will be enhanced, and the monopoly of CCTV in domestic television market will be seriously challenged. Before the launch of the measures, local television channels managed by local broadcasters were only authorized to produce television programs within specific administrative regions where the broadcasters located, and joint channels or joint production across the region were not permitted in general, although each provincial broadcaster was authorized to launch one satellite channel that covered the country and attract advertisers across China. These measures offer equal opportunities for both local broadcasters and CCTV as well to establish joint channels and joint production of television programs across regions. New national television networks may be thus emerged to compete with the existing national one,
CCTV.
12) Administrative Measures for Transmission of Radio and Television Programs via
Satellite/卫星传输广播电视节目管理办法 (September 23, 1997, the SARFT)
Article 5 Radio and television stations at or above the provincial level can apply to transmit radio
and television programs via satellite.
Article 6 For each radio and television channel via satellite, the length of self-produced program
must be over 5 hours each day, and the overall broadcasting time of the satellite channel
should be over 18 hours or more each day. As one of the security measures, the broadcaster
should possess the technical capability to shut down its signal transmission urgently at any
time if necessary.
Article 13 Satellite broadcasters should submit their program schedules to the MRFT one week
in advance.
Article 18 The MRFT may take the decision to shut down satellite transponders and close
program transmission under emergent circumstances.
The signals of satellite television channels can cover China’s mainland and some parts of the bordering states. So it was strictly regulated by the government from the very beginning to ensure the quality and political correctness of television program on air. Meanwhile, the commercial interests of these up-linked channels can be greatly increased as it greatly enhances
- 121 - the population coverage for advertising via satellite. Market competition among these satellite television channels may cross administrative regions. Although CCTV is the national television network and exclusively authorized to collect news across the country, it has to compete with another thirty one satellite channels that cover the nation to focus on expanding their commercial interests.
13) Administration Measures of the Transmission of Audio and Video Programs via Internet
and other Information Networks/互联网等信息网络传播视听节目管理办法 (July 6,
2004, the SARFT)
Article 6 SARFT shall be responsible for authorizing Permit to Transmit Radio, Film and
Television Programs via Information Networks/《信息网络传播视听节目许可证》to those
entities with differentiated program products, distribution networks and recipient endings.
Article 7 Foreign investors or Sino-foreign joint ventures shall not be authorized with the permit.
Article 17 News programs transmitted via information networks can be only produced by Chinese
radio and television stations and officially designated websites; films and television dramas
transmitted via information networks should be those holding Television Drama Distribution
Permit/电视剧发行许可证 and Film Distribution Permit/电影公映许可证.
Foreign investment in any cable network construction is officially inhibited, because cable network is the infrastructure of broadcasting or electronic media. Cable network with digital techniques and Internet formed high-speed and interactive broadband-information-network. As a routine, the State Council banned the SARFT from engaging in telecommunication operations, and the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) from engaging in cable networks for radio and television services. In a trend of merging conventional electronic media, which include radio and television broadcaster, with new electronic media, which indicate Internet service provider in general, Internet and other information networks become an overlapped administrative area for the MII and the SARFT.226
226 SARFT has invested in China Netcom, a broadband internet service company, which is jointly organized by ministries other than the MII, to build a fiber-optic backbone network, and ordered local cable providers to supply local
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In general, the SARFT is authorized by the State Council to control the publication of various products of radio, film and television on Internet. The SARFT issued its first Provisional
Measures for Supervision and Administration of the Transmission of Radio, Film and Television
Programs via Information Networks/信息网络传播广播电影电视类节目监督管理暂行办法 on
April 7, 2000. “Information networks” in the measures referred to an integrated telecommunication system, which transmit radio, film and television programs to computer, mobile phone and television set through various means, such as cable, satellite, microwave and other specific means. It could be a mixture of radio and television transmission networks, communications networks, computer networks and close-circuit television system, etc.227
In regarding to the administration of news release on Internet, the license of producing and releasing news programs on Internet was specifically authorized by the government. In clause five of “Temporary Regulations on Publishing News Programs on Internet Web Stations/互联网
站从事登载新闻业务管理暂行规定, which was issued by the SARFT in 2000, it regulates that only state owned Internet Web Stations that established by state owned media can be authorized to collect, edit and publish news, while non-state owned Internet Web Stations can only be authorized to transmit news already published by state owned media. This unequal treatment was never performed well since the very beginning. Actually, non-state owned websites such as Yahoo,
Soho and Sina had been so popular for internet news-readers; almost all Chinese journalists in state owned media have to take them as one of un-deductible news resources.
14) Measures for the Administration of the Landing of Foreign Satellite Television
access for China Netcom. Commercially, the SARFT tried to make China Netcom a competitor to China Telecom, the flagship company of the MII. Furthermore, the SARFT authorized domestic investors to build backbone cable network and operate value-added information services, which was an area competitively administrated by the MII. The SARFT did not allow similar investments in the local cable access networks or basic transmission services, which was a traditional governing space of the SARFT. 227 According to statistics issued in July 2003 by China National Network Information Center (CNNIC), there were over 120 million residents in China’s mainland using Internet service in 2005, and this number ranked China as the second largest in the world. See CNNIC, Statistics on the Development of Chinese Network Conditions (中国互联网络 发展状况统计报告), www.cnnic.net.cn/download/2005/2005011801.pdf, (last visited January 19, 2005).
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Channels/境外卫星电视频道落地管理办法(June 18, 2004, the SARFT)
Article 4 A foreign satellite television channel that applies for landing must meet the following
conditions:
1) the broadcast content does not violate Chinese laws, regulations or related rules;
2) it is a legally registered television media;
3) it is capable of developing “reciprocal” cooperation with Chinese party based on its
overall strength, and will undertake and actively assist the landing of Chinese radio and
television programs abroad;
4) the channel and its directly related entities maintain long term friendly relations with
China and promote friendly exchanges and cooperation with Chinese counterparts;
5) it agrees to transmit its programs through an entity designated by the SARFT, and
undertakes not to land its programs by other means in Chinese territory228; and
6) it agrees to take the SARFT designated entity as its exclusive agent to manage all
business in landing its programs in China.
Article 6 In principle, one foreign satellite television entity will be approved to land only one of
its channels within the designated areas. Foreign satellite news channels or satellite
television channels independently or jointly established abroad by domestic radio or
television entities, other departments, groups, enterprises, or individuals should not be
granted approval to land in China. If there is a special need to land such channels, special
approval is required.
The landing of foreign satellite television channels means that these specific foreign channels can be accessed by audiences in China’s mainland with the “Permit to Receive
Television Programs via Foreign Satellite by Ground-based Satellite Reception Equipment”.
Foreign residents in China and some special group of Chinese are accessible to foreign television
228 The sole entity designated by SARFT to transmit foreign satellite programs is China International Television Corporation (CITVC), an enterprise wholly owned by CCTV. It works as an agent of SARFT in processing applications from foreign satellite television channels (including those from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao) for the landing rights through the SinoSat platform, which owns 30 Sino-Sat 1 transponders.
- 124 - programs via satellite receivers according to Detailed Implementing Provisions for Administrative
Rules on Ground-Based Reception Equipment for Satellite Television Broadcasts issued by the
MRFT on February 3, 1994. To regulate the service of foreign television programs to specific audiences who lived in specific residential areas, the Administration of the Landing of Foreign
Satellite Television Channels were originated by the SARFT in November 4, 2003, which ceased to be effective since the current measures were put into effect.229
From January 1, 2002, the application of landing foreign satellite television channels into
China’s Mainland was subject to certain preconditions set by the SARFT. One of the key preconditions is that applicants have to land their channels through an exclusive satellite platform, which is operated by a SARFT designated entity. The exclusive platform was ready to block objectionable programs of foreign television channels whenever needed. 230 Henceforth, only government-issued decoders can be used for satellite receiving dishes, which must be directed toward the state-owned satellite, SinoSat-1/鑫诺一号, to receive authorized foreign television programs.
Because transponder space in this satellite platform is limited, landing right becomes a prized commodity for all applicants.231 As of May 2004, all thirty transponders on SinoSat-1 were leased by foreign television channels, among which half came from America (see Table 12).
229 The original measures were more severe but less pragmatic; for instance, it required that applicant must be ranked among the top three television media in its home country (region) in terms of operation scale and audience ratings. 230 “A seven-second delay between the time signals reaches the satellite and the time they are retransmitted to cable viewers allows censors to selectively black out programming. … in recent months, many CNN reports on controversial government issues -- human rights, Tibet, and the Falun Gong spiritual movement -- have been blacked out”. See Jaime FlorCruz, “China censors CNN SARS report”, May 15, 2003, www.edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/05/14/sars.censor/, (last visited June 20, 2004). 231 According to CITVC’s review of application during the fall of 2002, over 30 international channels competed for only four available transponders spots on SinoSat-1.
- 125 -
Table 12 Overseas Channels Approved for Transmission in China in 2003232
Foreign Television Channels Origin Nature of Content CNN/美国有线电视新闻网 USA/美国在线时代华纳集团 News HBO/家庭影院亚洲频道 USA/美国在线时代华纳集团（非控股） Movies CINEMAX Asia/CINEMAX 亚洲频道 USA/美国在线时代华纳集团（非控股） Movies CNBC Asia Pacific/全国广播公司 USA/美国通用电器-全国广播公司/道琼斯 Financial News 亚太财经频道 公司 MTV Mandarin/全球音乐电视台中文频道 USA/美国维亚康母集团 Music National Geographic Asia/国家地理亚洲频道 USA/美国新闻集团 Documents Star Movie International/卫视国际电影台 USA/美国新闻集团 Movies ESPN/娱乐体育节目网亚洲频道 USA/美国娱乐体育节目公司/美国新闻集团 Sports Channel [V] /[V]音乐台 USA/美国新闻集团 Music Star Sports 卫视体育台 USA/美国娱乐体育节目公司/美国新闻集团 Sports AXN/索尼动作影视娱乐频道 USA/美国索尼影视娱乐公司 Movies USA/美国有线电视公司（TCI）/美国 Discovery Asia/探索亚洲频道 Documents 舵手传播（COX） Hallmark/贺曼娱乐电视网电影台 USA/美国贺曼娱乐公司 Movies BBC World/英国广播公司世界频道 UK/英国广播公司 News NHK World Premium/日本广播协会 Japan/日本广播协会 News/Entertainment 收费娱乐电视频道 JETV/日本娱乐电视频道 Japan/日本娱乐电视公司 Entertainment Hong Kong/凤凰卫视控股（开曼群岛） Phoenix Movies/凤凰卫视电影台 Movies 有限公司 Hong Kong/凤凰卫视控股（开曼群岛） Phoenix Mandarin/凤凰卫视中文台 News/Entertainment 有限公司 Hong Kong/香港电视广播公司卫视娱乐 TVB8/香港无线八频道 Music （百慕大）有限公司 Hong Kong/香港电视广播公司卫视娱乐 TVB Galax/香港无线星河频道 Entertainment （百慕大）有限公司 Hong Kong/阳光文化网络电视（百慕大） SunTV/香港阳光文化频道 Documents 有限公司 NOW/香港世界网络频道 Hong Kong/香港盈科集团 Entertainment Macao Tourism/澳门卫视旅游台 Macao/澳传媒控股（开曼群岛）公司 Travel/Entertainment Macao/五星卫视控股（英属开曼群岛） Macao Five Star/澳门卫视五星台 News/Entertainment 有限公司 MAC/澳门卫视澳亚台 Macao/澳亚卫视有限公司 Documents TV 5 法国电视 5 台 France/法国国家电视台 News/Entertainment Hong Kong/凤凰卫视控股（开曼群岛） Phoenix InfoNews/凤凰卫视资讯台 News 有限公司 Bloomberg/彭博财经电视亚太频道 USA/美国彭博资讯公司 Financial News Xingkong Weishi/星空卫视 USA/美国新闻集团 Entertainment EuroSports News/欧亚体育新闻台 France/法国布伊格集团 Sports
The foreign channels have to apply for landing rights annually to CITVC, a subsidiary of
CCTV. Approved foreign channels signed a Transmission Rights Agreement with CITVC, and then their programs could be viewed by specific viewers in China’s mainland through closed circuit television system. By terms of this agreement, foreign channels had to appoint CITVC as
232 See the document published on the official website of SARFT in 2004 by Social Administration Bureau of SARFT, http://www.sarft.gov.cn (last visited June 25, 2004).
- 126 - the exclusive agent to transmit and sell programs to authorized hotels and specific residential complex. While CITVC made financial income from the transponder leasing fee, it still reserved the right to impose sanctions or even suspend the transmission of foreign television channels that did not adhere to the agreement. This means CITVC could blackout foreign satellite channels if they broadcasted “faulty”, “reckless” or “malicious” programs.233
According to the measures, a foreign applicant that is qualified for landing in China has to develop “reciprocal” cooperation with Chinese parties, and assist the landing of Chinese radio and television programs abroad. In order to facilitate domestic radio and television programs to land in foreign countries, encourage qualified domestic radio and television entities to lease and purchase of radio and television channels (frequencies) and time slots overseas, as well as establish radio and television stations abroad, the SARFT issued Provisional Regulations for the
Administration of the Lease and Purchase of Channels and Establishment of Stations Abroad on
February 10, 2002. Only national and provincial leveled broadcasting entities may apply for approval to engage in the landing of their programs overseas.
Since September 2001, News Corporation’s Xingkong Weishi/星空卫视, AOL Time
Warner’s CETV, ATV, and Viacom’s MTV had been granted a special right to broadcast into
Guangdong province over existing cable networks, which access to millions of cable television households. As an exchange of benefits, News Corporation, AOL Time Warner and Viacom had agreed to beam CCTV-9, an English channel through American cable networks they owned respectively. While Phoenix Mandarin/凤凰卫视中文台 as a free-to-air or wireless “foreign” broadcaster had been permitted to land in Guangdong province unconditionally from October 19,
2001, these examples of local landing through cable network and free-to-air broadcast do not
233 Under the SinoSat-1 Platform Agreement, “reckless” broadcasting refers to the contends of a foreign broadcaster’s programming that violates the standards of government censorship, or contains slanderous, distorted or non-objective comments on the following matters: fundamental aims and policies of Chinese government towards China’s economy, society and culture; official activities of Chinese leaders; China’s national defense facilities and military activities; foreign policy and foreign affairs activities; and status of China’s national economic and social development. “Malicious” broadcasting, under the Agreement, refers to two or more occurrences of reckless broadcasting within one month, which brings serious negative effect to the government.
- 127 - mean that international broadcasters can cover the whole area of China’s mainland in the near future.
14) Examination, Approval and Administration Measures on Cable Television
Channels/关于建立有线广播电视频道审批管理办法(November 2, 1999 the
SARFT)
Article 6 Qualified cable television stations can apply to set up their own television channels,
after three months of test broadcasting, qualified cable television channels will be authorized
by the SARFT to provide formal broadcast service.
Article 7 Cable television channel shall be professionalized, which provides services to special
interested group of audience, a professional channel will broadcast at least 60%
professional programs that focuses on a specific division of audience.234
Article 8 Cable television channels will not be authorized as an integrated channel when there
has been a local integrated wireless or free-to-air television channel.235
The cable television networks can be used as network of broadband services for multimedia communication, which connect information from computerized Internet, telephone and television programs. The content providers for cable television are strictly regulated by the SARFT to ensure political correctness and quality of the services. In 2001, the SARFT issued the
Provisional Measures for the Administration of Guest House and Hotel Video-on-Demand
Services, and the Administration of Cable Television Video-on-Demand Services respectively to regulate the value added cable television services.
16) Regulations on Cable Television/有线电视管理规定(February 3, 1994, the MRFT)
Article 8 Administrative region-specific cable station (ARCS) shall be established by the local
radio and television administrative bureaus. Each city or region can establish only one
ARCS.
234 A professional channel produces only specific kind of program and targets special interested groups of audiences who can be divided as groups of children, adult, women, and movie or sports funs. 235 An integrated channel indicates a television channel with mixed interests of program production that broadcasts various kinds of programs targeted to general audiences without differentiation.
- 128 -
Article 9 Far away from the urban centers, big institutions include army units, social
organizations, large enterprises, and institutions at or above the county level can apply to
establish non-administrative region-specific cable station (NARCS).
Article 10 No private person can apply to set up cable television stations. No foreigners are
allowed to join the establishment of cable network infrastructure and cable television
stations. Cable television stations can not lease broadcasting channels or time slots to any
entities, including foreign organizations or private persons.
The first municipal cable television station was established as Shanghai Minxing District
Cable Television Station/上海闵行区有线电视台 on August 1, 1987 in Shanghai. And the first provincial cable television station, Hunan Cable Television Station/湖南省有线电视台, was established in September 1990 in Hunan Province. At the end of 2000, Chinese cable television subscribers were over ninety million; it covered more than two hundred million audience or seventeen percent of the total population, which was more than the users of telephone and computer at the time.236 In regulating the rapid development of cable television broadcast, both
ARCS and NARCS are required to procure from SARFT a Cable Television Station Permit/有线
电视台许可证, while Cable Television Program Broadcast Approval Certificate/有线电视节目
准播证 is issued by provincial administrative bureaus to qualified cable television broadcasters.
On August 6, 1997, the MRFT issued an instruction to its local agencies to integrate county-leveled radio, wireless and cable television stations as one entity. And the radio and television administrative bureaus at county level was required to mix with the integrated radio and television stations, and perform as both government agency and broadcasting entity in order to monopolize the local broadcasting resources.237 This government bureau and broadcaster complex can be called as “one organization with two names”/一套班子两块牌子, which merged the interests of the state and market in broadcasting at the county level. The merger of
236 China Cable Television/中国有线电视, 3rd volume, 2000, p.62. 237 See the SARFT, ed., Administrative Manual of Radio and Television Industry, p.189.
- 129 - government bureau and broadcasters reached higher level on August 24, 2001 when the DPCC and the SARFT decided to establish broadcasting conglomerates at state and provincial level. For more than three years, the minister of the SARFT was also the Chairman of the national conglomerate, China Radio, Film and Television Group (CRFTG), which was consisted of CCTV,
CPR, CIR and other the SARFT affiliated business entities. CRFTG was abolished by the SARFT itself in 2005, which declared the test of combining government agency with broadcasters at the national level failed.
On December 26, 2001, the SARFT issued Provisional Measures for the Administration of
Urban Community Cable Television System to improve the administration of urban community cable television systems. In a densely populated residential area, which is not yet covered by government sponsored ARCS, a large scaled state or social institution may apply to establish a community sponsored NARCS, and install ground-based equipment to receive central and provincial television programs via satellite. The municipal administrative department for radio and television was responsible to issue applicants the Urban Community Cable Television System
Permit/城市社区有线电视系统许可证 and the Permit to Receive Domestic Television
Programs Transmitted by Satellite/接收卫星传送的境内电视节目许可证.
17) Notice of Improving the Management on Program of Supervision by Public Opinion in
Radio and Television/关于加强和改进广播电视舆论监督工作的通知 (September 8,
2004, the SARFT)
1) Radio and television programs of supervision by public opinion should serve the overall
strategy of the party and the state;
2) Adhering on the principle of truthfulness, accuracy, objectiveness, and fairness;
3) Paying attention to the timing of exposing problems to facilitate the effectiveness of the
government to solve the problems, problematic events that had been passed by the
government in silence should not be exposed;
4) The programs should not only expose problems but also reflect how problems are solved at
the end by the governments, follow-up reports are important;
- 130 -
5) The sources of news should be reliable, and they should mainly come from concerned CPC
and state departments.
6) Reporting subjects should be selected in accordance with policy of the party and the state;
7) Safeguarding the public interests and facilitating the solving of problems;
8) Maintaining proper balance of criticizing among different administrative regions, economic
and social areas within a given period of time, it is crucial to do proper criticizing on
someone or some events to avoid worsening the problems;
9) Keeping smooth connections with concerned government departments, unsure problems
should be reported to concerned departments first;
10) Taking care of faculty training, temporary workers and practiced journalists should not be
permitted to do programs of supervision by public opinions;
11) Internal and external reports shall be differentiated, internal reports should be made to the
party and the state departments when external or formal news reports were not proper to
proceed, policy issues that are under discussion internally by the party and the state
departments are not permitted to report openly, internal or secret issues of the party and the
state are not permitted to report to public;
This notice provided a comprehensive guide lines or editorial policy for how to do programs of supervision by public opinions, which included how to select proper subjects to report, who can do the report, and finally, what means a politically correct report. These regulations were based on a well-established censorship system that was aimed to ensure the correct media agenda-setting by the party and the state before, during and after the programs on air. For censorship prior to airing, SARFT issued Ensuring the Safe Broadcasting of All Radio and Television Stations(substations) /关于确保各级广播电视台（站）播出安全的通知 on
November 12, 1996. It regulated that all radio and television stations must set up a prescreened censoring system internally before program broadcasting, which included a three leveled censorship: examination should be done by producers of the program, director of the program department, and director of the television station. And re-broadcast of programs must be
- 131 - re-examined.
In terms of direct government censorship before broadcasting, some influential programs such as the “Focus”, “Talk It like It Is”, “News Probe” in CCTV-1, and “Half Hour Economy” in
CCTV-2, optional subjects designed to be reported have to be briefed and registered each week to the DPCC and the SARFT.238 Before 1994, prime-time news such as National News at seven o’clock every night on CCTV-1 was routinely examined, prior to airing, by the DPCC and the
SARFT officials along with a vice president of CCTV. These CPC and government officials sometimes even went into CCTV studio to monitor and instruct the work of the newsreader when the news event concerned important state affairs.239 Programs like Spring Festival Gala Show of
CCTV gained special attention from the authority since 1983. As the Spring Festival Gala Show became a part of celebrating the traditional New Year’s Eve for most Chinese, directors from
DPCC examined many times before it was on air.240 While the CPC leaders cared too much about the balance of political interests among all the nationalities, administrative regions and professionals, program producers and viewers complained about the loss of artistic and entertaining tastes of the show.
For censorship during broadcasting, the SARFT issued Temporary Regulation on
Mass/Audience Participated Live Broadcast Program on December 2, 1999 (see discussions before). For censorship after broadcast, the SARFT issued Opinions on Monitoring Radio and
Television Programs/关于开展广播电视节目监听监看工作的意见 on March 30, 1999. It was focused on censoring programs with high audience ratings, no matter they are news, features, documentary, drama, artistic or entertaining programs. Accordingly, from 1999, radio and television administration bureaus at various levels should establish special groups to monitor the
238 This information came from a “News Probe” producer, who was interviewed in 2003 239 This information came from a newsreader of CCTV National News in 7:00 pm, who was interviewed in 2002. 240 In 1983, Huang Yihe directed the gala show in a brand new way that is “live broadcasting, ordering songs through telephone, and TV stars to anchor the show. All these three methods were forerunners in television production in China and won great success in both entertaining and consolidating all Chinese. It is said that eating water dumpling, fireworks and watching CCTV gala show consists the new traditions of Chinese in celebrating Spring Festival, especially in Northern China.
- 132 - broadcasting of radio and television programs, especially all CCTV channels and satellite channels of provincial television stations. Special attention should be taken on program contents, proportion of commercials and ratio of foreign programs to overall programs.
18) Informing Local Broadcast Stations to Transmit CPR and CCTV Programs as a Whole/
关于地方广播电台、电视台必须完整转播中央人民广播电台、中央电视台节目的通
知 (December 8,1993, the DPCC, the SARFT)
All local radio and television stations and transmitters must operate a specific channel to
transmit programs of China Central People’s Radio (CPR) and CCTV-1 in integrity. It is not
allowed to insert any self produced program or commercials into programs of CPR or
CCTV-1.
Television stations at county level were required to transmit both national and provincial television programs. They could produce some local news and features programs but not art and entertaining programs. All dramas and entertaining programs were provided by national and provincial radio and television administrative bureaus to county leveled broadcasters to ensure the quality and political correctness of the programs. Meanwhile the cable television network established in hotels that host foreigners must transmit CCTV-1 and the main channel of local television stations; otherwise they would not be permitted to receive authorized satellite programs from overseas. CCTV-1 National News from 19:00 to 19:30, in which advertisements was inserted before and after the news, was required to be transmitted by all local channels, while no commercial interests were shared with local ones.
Interest conflicts between national and local broadcasters were aroused from the beginning, because local broadcasters are built by local governments other than the SARFT. Practically, most local television channels transmitted CCTV-1 National News and inserted their-own advertisements. Oriental Satellite Television in Shanghai did not transmit CCTV-1 National News at all. This conflict was also facilitated in 1996 when the SARFT issued a notice, in which it regulated that all local television stations could broadcast only international news programs that were issued by CCTV, CPR, CIR or XNA. Currently, this kind of regulation turned to be ceased.
- 133 -
Local broadcasters like Oriental Satellite Television in Shanghai produced and broadcasted international news directly through its exchanging network with foreign news agencies.
B Organizations of the State in Media Agenda-setting
As the principal government administrator for radio, film and television broadcast in China, the SARFT is responsible for making regulations and other legal documents, supervising the content production, overseeing film and television program imports and stipulating the proportion of foreign programs aired on television channels. The SARFT is also responsible for controlling the public access to satellite and cable networks as well as supervising the transmission of foreign satellite television channels landed in China. Under the leadership of the State Council, the
SARFT is formed to set the media agenda of CCTV and local broadcasters with formal institutions, to lead public opinions in a way that accommodates the interests of both the party and the state.
1 Administrative Structure for Television Broadcast
Broadcasting media in contemporary China was originated as one of the party and the state divisions. In 1958, CCTV (its predecessor is named as Beijing Television Station) was established as a subdivision of the Department of Broadcasting Authority (DBA), the State Council. The predecessor of the DBA is the Division of China Broadcast Affairs of the DPCC from June 1949 to November 1949.241 The internal structure of any broadcasters, such as CCTV, is infiltrated with institutions of the party and the state. As a rule, president of CCTV enjoyed the treatment of vice minister of the SARFT, and entitled as a member of CPC Leadership Group in both the
SARFT and CCTV.242 In August 2005, ten directors or vice directors of CCTV departments were assigned, for one year, to local government as county leveled leaders, which were deemed as
241DBA, the governing body of broadcasting media was originated as the Division of China Broadcast Affairs of DPCC in June 1949 before People’s Republic of China was founded. The internal setup of DBA was composed of Domestic Radio Department (the predecessor of the Central People’s Radio), External Radio Department (the predecessor of the China International Radio), Beijing Television Station (predecessor of CCTV), Technical Department, etc. 242 CPC Leadership Group is the core of collective leadership body in the CPC State organizations above the vice ministerial level.
- 134 - equivalent to their ranks in the media. This political exercise was a new measure adopted by the
DPCC to keep its media cadres as close to the state as possible.
A system of double tracked supervision by the party and the state over broadcast media was formed as Chinese television broadcast launched in 1958. As one division of the DBA, the technical and administrative affairs of CCTV were supervised by the second division of the State
Council, while its publicity affairs were supervised by the DPCC. Although names of these administration bureaus changed from time to time, the name of double tracked supervision by the party and the state agencies on broadcasting media remained the same (See Table 13).
Table 13 The History of Broadcast Administration in China243
Time Host of Broadcasting Media Supervision Bodies The Broadcast Administration of June 1949 The DPCC/中央宣传部 China /中国广播事业管理处 The Broadcasting Authority/广播事业 State Administration of Press, the November, 1949 局 State Council/政务院新闻总署 Cultural and Education Committee The Central Broadcasting Authority/中 1952 of the State Council/ 央广播事业局 政务院文教委员会
Technical and administrative affairs were supervised by the second The Broadcasting Authority/广播事业 1954-1966 division of the State Council, 局 propaganda affairs was supervised by the DPCC
Administrative affairs was The Central Broadcasting Authority/中 supervised by the State Council, 1967-1981 央广播事业局 propaganda affairs was supervised by the DPCC The Ministry of Radio and Television/ 1982-1985 (Unchanged) 广播电视部 The Ministry of Radio, Film and 1986-1987 (Unchanged) Television /广播电影电视部 The State Administration of Radio, 1998 Film and Television/国家广播电影电 (Unchanged) 视总局
As the central governor for broadcasting media, the SARFT is composed of nine administrative bureaus, five internal affairs departments and thirteen affiliated “public
243 See the government website of the SARFT, www.sarft.gov.cn (last visited March 22, 2004).
- 135 - institutions”/事业单位 or non-business entities (see Figure 6). From 1967, the administrative affairs of the predecessors of the SARFT were directly supervised by the State Council, and their publicity affairs were supervised by the DPCC. Based on the principle that every aspects of the state and social issues are under the leadership of the CPC, administrative bureaus of the state responsible for television broadcast are actually under the direction of publicity bureaus of the
CPC at the same level (see Figure 7).
Figure 6 Structure of SARFT
Chief Editor’s Office, News organization Auditing Bureau, Social Management Department, Bureau of Disciplinary Inspection, Administrative Film Administration Bureau, Bureaus Foreign Affairs Department, Security Department, Science and Technology Department Planning and Finance Department
The CPC Commission, Internal Affairs Human Resources Development Department, General Office Trade Union, SARFT Office for Retired Senior Officials
China Radio International, China National Radio, China Central Television, Academy of Broadcasting Science, Broadcasting Information Network Center, China Record Company, China Broadcasting Arts Troupe, Public Affairs Wireless Bureau, China Council for TV Art, Design Institute of SARFT, Radio and Television Publishing House, Beijing Broadcasting Institute; Beijing Film Academy
- 136 -
Figure 7 Organizations of the Party and the State in Media Agenda-setting
the Secretariat and Political Bureau the Standing Committee Central Committee, CPC National People’s Congress
the Thoughts and Publicity Works Leadership Group, Central Committee, CPC the State Council
DPCC EPLGCC or SCIO
the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television provincial CPC China Central Television provincial broadcasting publicity departments administrative bureaus
Provincial leveled broadcasters municipal CPC municipal broadcasting publicity departments administrative bureaus
Municipal leveled broadcasters local CPC local broadcasting publicity departments administrative bureaus
County leveled broadcasters
Since 1983, the four-tiered structure of television broadcast management had reflected the political administration of the country. China’s administrative structure is based essentially around four major and four minor “layers”. The national or central/中央; provinces and autonomous regions/ 省 ; prefecture cities/ 市 and counties/ 县 comprise the four major levels. Below them are township/乡镇 and village/村 in rural areas, district/区 and community or street/街道 in urban areas. In nearly twenty years, governments of all the four major layers were authorized to set up and run their own television stations244. In 2004, the four-tiered structure of the television management was changed into the three-tiered one when the SARFT regulated that only governments above the county level were authorized to set up television broadcasters.
244 There are 34 provinces, administrative regions and central government directly administered cities, and specific administrative regions; 660 municipalities and 2142 counties in China in 2003.
- 137 -
In general, government administration on broadcasters was a system of dual rule. For example, the broadcasting bureau on the provincial level has to report to both the provincial government and the SARFT.245 It was claimed as a “vertical plus horizontal, and basically horizontal”/ 条块结合以块为主 administrative structure, which means that the central government can “horizontally” own and govern national broadcasters, and vertically supervises local broadcasters while local governments at lower levels own and govern respective local broadcasters. If the SARFT found local broadcasters acting against its regulations, it could only
“vertically” suggest its local branches to execute punishments. In history, not a single broadcast license had been cancelled, and horizontally, administration bureaus of local governments inevitably safeguard local broadcasters, because the interests of local government and its broadcasters are closely related together. Television broadcasters are currently regarded by relative government owners as both money makers and publicity instruments of the state.
2 Press Conference and Government Speakers
As early as April 1988, the General Office of the Central Committee of the CPC issued
“The Key Points on Press Reform Conference”/新闻改革座谈会纪要, which proposed to establish a public channel of communication between the government and various kinds of mass media including foreign ones. It suggested that various state agencies should have their own spokesmen or spokeswomen, and hold news conference regularly to release government information accountable for both domestic and foreign media. It suggested that government news information should be announced to the public to facilitate the transparency and efficiency of the administrative affairs.246 This system of holding press conference regularly was once again stressed by the CPC in 1995 as an important measure to set the media agenda in an effective and correct way.247
A formal channel of communication between government and mass media was gradually
245 For more on the theory and practice of dual rule, see Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, Berkeley, LA and London: University of California Press, 1968. 246 The Press Bureau, the DPCC, Collections of Literatures on News Works of CPC p.137. 247 See Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, p.253.
- 138 - established with an effort of more than one decade. As a result, government speakers at all levels can publish official information regularly and influence public opinion in a way that follows international practice. Meanwhile government press conference also provides an opportunity to inquire government related public issues for both domestic and overseas journalists who might represent different interest groups other than the state organs. At the beginning of 1990s, the press conference held by SCIO for the newly elected Premier became an effective way to present the leadership capability of the Premier and his government to the public. It gradually became a routine for SCIO to hold regular press conferences for various department of the State Council to inform public the recent social and economic developments through mass media.
In conclusion the party and the state, tried to set the media agenda with both soft and hard measures. Laws, regulations and administrative documents, and relative legislative and administrative organizations of the state are formal institutions that are relatively hard and coercive in controlling television broadcasters. And media policies, internal instructions and relative decision-making organizations such as DPCC are informal institutions of the party that are relatively soft and persuasive, but more flexible and effective on content censorship and operation of mass media. As political stability of the state was challenged by domestic or international forces, the party and the state tend to tighten their control over television broadcasters. As political stability was relatively secured, the party and the state tend to loose their control over the media. In establishing a regulatory system on broadcast media, the party and the state have to improve their effectiveness by accommodating pluralist interests of both the state and society, and adopting international practice in exercising their media policies, laws and regulations.
- 139 -
Chapter Four Market and Chinese Television
When reform and opening policy was initiated at the end of 1970s, about three dozen television channels operated around China. Two decades later, there were more than two thousand television channels in China. Beyond the bottom line of not doing anything that the party and the state prohibited, these state-owned broadcasters could produce whatever programs they deemed as necessary to achieve commercial success for themselves and their government owners as well.
This commercial freedom of the state owned media introduced various social forces to participate in the media agenda-setting especially in non-political issues. Currently various kinds of market entities became dynamic social forces in reforming the content and operation of broadcasting media. Five development stages of Chinese television were evolved in accordance with five objectives of macro-economic policy in contemporary China (see Table 14).
Table 14 Objectives of Economic Reform and Development of Chinese Television
Evolving objectives of reform248 Development of Chinese television 1958-1978 Planned economy The stage of pure state media 1979-1983 Planned economy supplemented by Primary commercialization market regulation 1983-1988 Planned commodity economy Decentralization and expansion stage 1989-1992 Planned economy integrated with Re-adjusting stage of the state control market regulation over media 1993-present Socialist market economy with Further commercialization and Pluralist Chinese characteristics broadcasting stage
Based on increased market competition, the commercialization of Chinese television had become a constant and dynamic process, in which almost every aspects of television broadcasting was involved. After two decades of reform and opening, the state had withdrawn, in a micro-management level, from television administration in the areas such as advertisement management, production and distribution of entertainment program and television drama, cable
248 For this section, refer to the table of “The evolving objectives of reform” in The World Bank, China 2020: development challenges in the new century, Washington D. C., The World Bank, 1997, p.9
- 140 - network operations, and audience-oriented multi-media business. In these areas, state owned media enterprises had to compete with non-state owned media enterprises according to the rule of market. Inevitably, television broadcasters were shifted away from the state to market in terms of business operation.
I Formal and Informal Institutions of Market in Media
Agenda-setting
Market can set the agenda of television broadcasters in formal and informal ways (see table
15). In terms of market rules, audience ratings can formally differentiate which program is more appreciated by audience and advertisers. In the end, “the media agenda is manifested in the ratings of importance or salience of issues among audience members”.249 Advertising income is generally parallel to audience rating, although they may not be exact proportion to each other.
Commercially, for every television program producer, the aim to increase audience ratings is to attract the attention of advertisers or its agencies, who actually decides what kind of market-oriented programs should be produced, and how they should be produced.
Table 15 Formal and Informal Institutions of Market in Media Agenda-setting
Formal Informal Rules motivations based on audience incentives for non-program matters rating and advertising income Organizations advertisers and market agencies public relations agencies Characteristics open to the pubic covert
Informally, non-program matters, or secondary advertisements that do not identify themselves as advertisement but present advertising effects can motivate broadcasters to increase commercial incomes in covert measures. These informal activities performed by mass media are between immoral and illegal areas. However, there are also legal ways market organization can informally set the media agenda. For instance, public relation companies can promote images of
249 Jack McLeod, et al. “Another Look at the Agenda-setting Function of the Press”, Communication Research Vol. 1, No.2, 1974, Sage Publications Inc, p.131.
- 141 - their clients through well-targeted public relation activities. Typical public relation activities include making friendship with journalists in order to leak “commercial secrets” smoothly, holding news conference to release positive news for specific products, organizing charitable activities that can promote the image of specific clients. These public activities could attract or even “buy” the intension of mass media to produce programs consciously or unconsciously oriented by market forces.
For almost all broadcasters in contemporary China, making money had become equally important as making no political mistakes. To achieve more commercial incomes through increasing audience ratings, broadcasters have to reform their operation system and diversify their channels to look after different interest groups of audiences. For example, CCTV had developed sixteen differentiated or so-called professional channels including news, economy, traditional drama, movie, sports, music, science and education, art and entertainment etc. A competitive market environment based on division of labor draws television broadcasters closer to the needs of their clients and audiences. In this regard, commercialization and de-politicalization can be taken as two sides of one coin for Chinese television broadcasters.
A Formal Rules of Market in Setting the Media Agenda
From 1993 to 2003, the average growth rate of commercial income for radio, film and television, in which television was the fastest developing sector, was twenty-three percent, much faster than the average growth rate of GDP. 250 Outstandingly, the increase of television commercial income in the opening and reform era had been accompanied with the declining percentage of annual state revenue over GDP (see table 16). While the state revenue to total national income fell sharply, the state sponsorship for television broadcast was also turned down.
For the self sustainable development of CCTV and other local broadcasters, a relatively independent business operation had been authorized to meet the interests of both mass media and the state.
250 The data is collected from an internal reference book edited by SARFT, Collections of Research Papers on Reform and development of Radio, Film and Television/广播影视改革发展调研报告汇编, 2003, p.131.
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Table 16 Ratio of State Revenue to GDP 1959 1969 1979 1989 1999 State revenue (000,000,000RMB yuan) 48.7 52.7 114.6 266.5 1144.4 GDP(000,000,000RMB yuan) 143.9 193.8 403.8 1690.9 8206.8 Ratio of state revenue to GDP (%) 33.9 27.2 28.4 15.8 13.9 Sources: Ministry of Finance251
Table 17 Government Fund and Commercial Income for CCTV Non-business Sector from 1983 to 2004 (,000 RMB Yuan) Government Commercial Ratio of Government fund Spending Fund Income to Commercial Income 1983 32,405 38,648 83.85% 36,829 1984 40,120 51,209 78.35% 44,952 1985 52,750 63,523 83.04% 62,913 1986 56,590 70,914 79.80% 58,085 1987 64,187 82,535 77.77% 76,675 1988 74,426 115,707 64.32% 88,208 1989 65,114 141,149 46.13% 90,644 1990 61,508 141,649 43.42% 101,722 1991 49,171 331,704 14.82% 214,531 1992 70,473 642,394 10.97% 493,769 1993 61,403 825,566 7.44% 716,560 1994 82,668 1,190,774 6.94% 1,028,313 1995 75,750 2,366,790 3.20% 1,990,390 1996 76,640 3,815,340 2.01% 3,485,050 1997 31,040 4,516,800 0.69% 4,286,740 1998 29,870 4,444,890 0.67% 4,139,102 1999 23,150 5,126,490 0.45% 4,682,350 2000 26,010 5,748,140 0.45% 5,176,330 2001 12,430 6,109,650 0.20% 5,574,620 2002 70,400 7,046,830 1.00% 6,587,120 2003 78,280 8,172,180 0.96% 6,800,000 2004 123,720 8,895,910 2.39% 8,611,900 Sources: CCTV Financial Office
251 See official web site of MOF http://www.mof.gov.cn/news/uploadfile/guojia021.xls, (last visited March, 17, 2003.
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The impact of transition from governmental subsidy to commercial financing was immense.
In 1983, the ratio of government fund over the income of CCTV program sector or non-business sector was more than 80%;252 that meant the most part of CCTV program productions were financed by the government. Twenty years later, the ratio became less than 1% (see Table 17), and government fund to CCTV was far less than what CCTV financially contributed to the government.
Actually, CCTV had paid more to the state than it received since 1991, when sixteen percent of its commercial income paid to SAIC and SARFT, and government fund to CCTV was equivalent to fifteen percent of the income, which indicated that government fund for CCTV had virtually been ended. This indicated that CCTV and many local broadcasters had become pure financial contributors to government. In 2003, CCTV paid seventeen percent of its commercial income or 1.77 billion RMB yuan to the government, twenty two times more than it received from government financing.253 A sense of cost and effectiveness in daily management and a market agenda for editorial policy were gradually adopted by CCTV. The institutional powers acted on media agenda-setting of broadcasters turned to be equally distributed between the state and market.
To maximize the commercial interests for both mass media and the state, the state encouraged CCTV to present educational and political programs in entertaining forms. The interests of the state and market can be a win-win situation when audience ratings and commercial incomes are increased by broadcasting of programs that promote nationalism and loyalty to the state in an artistic way. However, sometimes, the interests of the state are confronting that of market seriously, such as the audience ratings and commercial income of the
252 CCTV non-business sector includes program production and management sector. The data was collected from CCTV Finance Office in May 2005. The financial data offered to public and SARFT is different from the data CCTV held for itself. This is due to an undeveloped statistic system, which can be manipulated for various administrative purposes. The data collected directly from CCTV Finance Office is generally more reliable and comprehensive than that from CCTV Yearbook, which is published by China Radio and Television Press, an affiliation of SARFT. 253 These data is collected from the annual report made by Zhao Huayong, president of CCTV on 2004 CCTV Working Conference on February 11, 2004, Beijing.
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“Focus” in CCTV-1 were both dramatically dropped during a four week political campaign against an officially claimed cult organization, Falungong/法轮功, from July 23 to August 18,
1999.254
1 Independent Financial Management Based on Advertising Income
There were more than 70,000 advertising companies registered in China in 2000, employed a workforce of 640,000.255 According to statistics provided by SAIC, the annual growth of national advertisement revenue maintained remarkably in an average of forty percent (see Table
18).256 While advertisement industry of China enjoyed the fastest growth rate in world history, each of the world’s ten leading advertising agencies has established a joint ventured with Chinese counterparts in the last decade. According to WTO regulations, restrictions on foreign investment in advertising agencies had been removed in 2005. Nielsen Media Research predicts China’s advertising market will be the world’s second largest one by the end of 2010.257
Although Chinese television advertising increased rapidly in the last two decades, it remained as a small business sector and shared less than one percent of the total GDP in 2003.
Comparatively, American advertising expenditures was US$245 billion and shared nearly three percent of GDP at the same period.258 Similar to the case in America, Chinese television
254 Born in Gongzhuling, Jilin Province, Northern China, Li Hongzhi originated Falungong or Falun Dafa (Great Law of the Wheel of Law) in 1992 as a new kind of traditional Chinese qigong or medical treatment that coordinated different breathing patterns with various physical postures and motions of the body. Falungong was seriously suppressed by the government after July 20, 1999, when some 10,000 practitioners assembled in silent protest at the Central Appeal Office at Foyou Street, Beijing, outside Zhongnanhai, the location of the central government. See program introduction of the “Focus” from July 23 to August 18 1999, which is abbreviated in CCTV website: http://www.cctv.com/news/focus/focus.html, (last visited May, 27, 2005). 255 See Li Yanling and Jiang Chen, “Ad Industry on Bumpy Road to Success”, China Daily/Business Weekly, 29 January 2002. 256 Still the current scale of Chinese market is relatively insignificant compared to more developed economies, for instance, advertisement spending in the United State reached US$165 billion in 2000, 16 times more that that in China. See “China continues to Top Asia-Pacific Ad Market”, People’s Daily, 9 March 2003, citing AC Nielsen Media International statistics. 257 Pamela Pun, “Ad Market may be World’s No. 2 by 2010”, The Standard, 20 June, 2003. 258 See Television Bureau of Advertising, “Media Trends Track”, www.tvb.org/nav/build_frameset.asp?url=/rcentral/index.asp. (last visited August 20, 2004).
- 145 - advertising shared also the largest portion of total advertising market in 2003 (see Table 19 and
Table 20). However, the annual growth rate of television advertising income was the lowest, and the growth rate of Internet advertising income was the highest, which indicated a serious market competition between traditional media and new media in recent years.
Table 18 Development of the Chinese Advertising Industry Year Ad Revenue Annual growth Ad Revenue as a (million RMB) rate (%) percentage of GDP(%) 1981 118 0.024 1982 150 27.1 0.028 1983 234 56.0 0.039 1984 365 55.9 0.051 1985 605 65.7 0.068 1986 845 39.5 0.083 1987 1112 31.7 0.093 1988 1493 34.1 0.100 1989 1999 33.9 0.118 1990 2502 25.1 0.135 1991 3509 40.3 0.162 1992 6787 93.3 0.255 1993 13409 97.5 0.387 1994 20026 49.3 0.428 1995 27327 36.4 0.467 1996 36664 34.1 0.540 1997 46196 26.0 0.620 1998 53783 16.0 0.686 1999 62205 16.0 0.758 2000 71266 15.0 0.797 2001 79489 12.0 0.829 2002 90315 13.6 0.89 2003 107868 19.44 0.92 Sources: Data of 1981-2001 collected from China Advertisement Association; Data of 2002 – 2003 collected from Advertisement Supervision Department, SAIC.
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Table 19 Composition of Chinese Advertisement Market from 1999 to 2003 Commercial Income (billion yuan) Average Growth Market share 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Rate(%) in 2003(%) Television 15.61 16.89 17.94 23.10 25.50 13.73 23.64 Newspaper 11.23 14.65 15.77 18.85 24.30 18.82 22.53 Radio 1.25 1.52 1.83 2.19 2.56 14.47 2.37 Magazine 0.89 1.13 1.19 1.52 2.44 28.35 2.26 Internet 0.09 0.35 0.39 0.49 1.08 129.27 1.00 Outdoor 5.4 6.2 8.04 9.99 12.00 20.79 11.12 Others 39.99 37.08 Sources: SCIC Table 20 Composition of American Advertising Expenditure in 2003(%) TV News- Radio Magazine Direct Yellow Internet Out- Business Others paper Mail Pages door Papers 24.8 18.3 7.7 4.7 19.7 5.7 2.3 2.2 1.6 13 Source: Television Bureau of Advertising
Television advertising of Chinese broadcaster was initiated on January 25, 1979 when a director from Shanghai television station, Zou Fengyang/邹风扬 proposed to DPCC and SARFT branches in Shanghai for the permission of broadcasting advertisement on a trial bases. The authority of Shanghai swiftly reacted with two documents: “Provisional Measures for the
Administration of Advertisements aired on Shanghai TV”/上海电视台广告业务试行办法, and
“Provisional Standards for Domestic and Overseas Advertisement Prices on Television ”/国内外
广告业务试行办法. Accordingly, Shanghai Television broadcasted the first domestic advertisement for Sangui Bujiu/三桂补酒, a Chinese healthy wine, on January 28, the day of
Chinese new year, followed by the first foreign advertisement for Rada watch on February 25.
After that, Guangdong Television broadcasted its first commercials on April 13. And Sichuang
Television broadcasted its first commercial on August 13. After DPCC officially approved television advertising on November 8, CCTV started to air advertisements in its two channels in
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December, and its advertisement department was established at the same period259.
In twenty years following the launch of television advertisement in China, the annual revenue of television advertisement had been increased nearly 5000 times, while the annual advertisement revenue of Chinese market as a whole increased nearly 3000 times. The percentage of television advertisement revenue to the overall advertisement revenue increased from 6.9% in
1979 to 25% in 1999. Television broadcast thus became the number one media in terms of annual advertisement revenue (see Table 21). According to CCTV national surveys, which were taken every five years since 1987, watching television kept the highest percentage compared with accessibility of other four major media (see Table 22), and the average time of Chinese viewers watching television per day in 2002 was 179 minutes, 56 minutes more than that in 1992 (see
Table 23), 25 minutes less than the average level worldwide.260
Table 21 Development of Chinese Television Advertising (in constant 1,000 yuan units)261 Year TV Ad Revenue Total Ad Revenue TV Ad Revenue as a proportion of the total
1979 3,250 21,000 6.9% 1999 15,615,000 62,205,000 25%
Table 22 Accessibility to Different Mass Media for Chinese (%) Year Newspaper Radio Magazine Internet TV 1987 38 57 94 1992 29 57 95 1997 49 44 95 2002 44 23 25 6 99 Sources: CVSC-Sofres-Media
259 Guo Zhengzhi, Chinese television history/中国电视史, Wenhua Yishu Chuban She, Beijing, 1979, p.22 260 In 2003, Viewers in Japan remain the world's top TV watchers, with a viewing time of 269 minutes per person per day, just ahead of the United States where time spent in front of the box was 265 minutes. Europe was runner-up with 213 minutes, followed by Asia-Pacific, 203 minutes. Then came the Middle East, 195 minutes, Latin America 194 minutes, and South Africa, 179 minutes. See “Glued to the screen” March 30, 2004, http://www.smh.com.au/articles, (last visited May 23, 2004) 261 See Zhang Haichao/张海潮, ed. Television and China/电视中国 Beijing Broadcasting Institute Press 北京广播学院 出版社, 2000, p.105.
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Table 23 Viewing Time Per Day for Chinese TV Audience (minutes) 1992 1997 2002
Viewing time/day 118 131 174
Sources: CVSC-Sofres-Media
After advertising was introduced as a new source of fund for broadcasters, CCTV adopted a new financial arrangement, which aimed to reduce the financial burden of the government. For the first time in history, a contract was signed between CCTV and the government departments that included the SARFT and the Ministry of Finance (MOF), which outlined the annual financial expenditure of CCTV from 1979 to 1984. According to this contracted financial arrangement,
CCTV tried to earn as much commercial income as possible through advertising, the surplus that overcomes the contracted expenditure remained as the bonus of CCTV, which can be used to increase television production and improve the welfare of CCTV faculty members. Again, the
MOF would supply the financial shortage if CCTV could not get the minimum income prescribed in the contract. The contract can be briefed as “surplus earned as bonus, and deficit supplemented by the government”/节余不交，差额照补. CCTV, as a relatively independent market player started to negotiate with its state owner in a contract-based business relationship. Meanwhile, the state started to allow CCTV and other broadcasters to accept market agenda.
In December 1984, the second financial contract between CCTV and the MOF was authorized by the State Council. While the major conditions remained the same as the first contract, MOF would not supply the financial shortage that could be occurred when CCTV could not get the contracted income through advertising. The second contract can be described as
“surplus earned as bonus, and deficit not supplemented by the government”/节余不交，差额不补.
From 1987 to 1990, the financial contract was technically claimed to stop. While all commercial income of CCTV was nominally handed over to MOF, it was completely returned back to CCTV afterwards. Practically, the financial arrangement remained unchanged. The second period of financial reform coordinated with the decentralization of television broadcast in China.
From 1990 to 1997, the financial contract was recovered between the MOF and CCTV,
- 149 - which was similar to what contracted from 1984 to 1987. Since 1997, the contract between CCTV and the government changed. CCTV was contracted to pay a proportion of its commercial income as tax to SAIC and sharing income to SARFT. According to the data from CCTV Finance Office, with 10.2 billion yuan commercial income in 2003, CCTV paid 603.86 million yuan, or six percent of the total, as tax to SAIC, and 1.168 billion yuan, or eleven percent of the total, to the
SARFT as sharing income, which was used to develop broadcast industry in China as a whole.262
In the same year, CCTV spent three percent of its total income, or 300 million yuan, as bonus for its faculty members, which was much more than the total salary of CCTV faculty members, which awarded CCTV members as typical middle class professionals in contemporary China. The new contract can be described as “income distributed as tax and shares to the government on proportion, while deficit not funded by the government”/收入按比例上交，差额不补.
The financial contract between CCTV and the government marked the beginning of commercialization. The second round of CCTV commercialization was initiated by a daily program “Oriental Horizon”/东方时空 launched on May 1, 1993. As the first regular program funded only by its own advertising, the program was described as a “special economic zone” in
CCTV. It became so popular, advertisements poured in. The price for broadcasting 30 second advertisements on the program increased more than ten times in the first year.263 Since then, commercial income of CCTV had taken a major boost and a new form of program production with contracted management of finance and personnel emerged in CCTV.
Economic reform was accompanied by reformed management of human resources. Before
1993, formal employees in CCTV were regarded as “cadres of the state”/国家干部 without any employment contracts. After 1993, without any formal contracts, CCTV started to hire temporary workers informally at different levels of the station, departments, and production teams to cope
262 For CCTV commercial income in 2003, 2.03 billion came from CCTV affiliated enterprises; 8.17 billion came from broadcasting sectors, in which 7.53 billion came from advertisement income. 263 it changed from 2500 Yuan RMB at May 1993 to 30,000 Yuan RMB at the end of 1994, see Sun Yusheng/孙玉胜, Ten Years: Started from Changing the Way of Expression on Television/十年：从改变电视的语态开始, Sanlian Shudian, Beijing, 2003, p.39.
- 150 - with expanded production of television programs. According to CCTV Human Resource Office, the total number of CCTV employees in program production or non-business sector was 9426 in
May 2003. Seventy three percent of these employees or 6926 in number was informal ones, in which twenty three percent was employed at the station level, twenty three percent was employed at department level, and twenty seven percent was employed at the level of production teams.
Accordingly, four tiers of CCTV employees can thus be differentiated based on different political and economic treatments (see Table 24).
Table 24 Composition of CCTV (non-business) Employees in May 2003
Number of CCTV employees Percentage Formal employees 2500 27% Station leveled employees 2147 22.63% Division leveled employees 2216 23.36% Production team leveled employees 2563 27.01% Total 9426 100% Source: CCTV Human Resource Office In 2004, informal or temporary employees working in CCTV were all capable to sign contract with one of CCTV affiliated companies, while CCTV Human Resource Office also signed contract with its formal administrative, technical, and professional members. The “iron rice bowl” system was transformed to the new system of a performance-based staffing, when both cadres of the state and temporary employees of CCTV held a formal contract with an effective term. Driven by higher salaries and nation-wide reputations, more and more competent professionals, including overseas Chinese, were attracted to join CCTV as contracted workforce.
This reformed management of human resources greatly improved the quality of program production when every journalists of CCTV may work with each other based on equal footings.
The commercial income of CCTV is consisted by business or qiye/企业 and non-business or shiye/事业 sectors. The income of business sector was earned by CCTV affiliated companies.
The income of non-business sector, or advertising fees in principle, was earned by Advertisement
Department, which is subordinated to Advertising & Economic Information Center of CCTV. In
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2003, the expenditure of CCTV was 6.8 billion, and its financial surplus was 3.4 billion yuan (see
Table 25). Although CCTV was still in a primary stage of taking the cost and effectiveness into account, it had paid special attention on the accountability of its cost composition, especially in program production and management sectors (see Table 26).
Table 25 Commercial Income and Expenditure of CCTV in 2003 Income (billion RMB) Percentage (%) CCTV affiliated companies 2.03 19.9 CCTV non-business sector 8.17 80.1 Total 10.2 100 Expenditure (billion RMB) Percentage (%) Program production sector 3.94 57.94 Management sector 0.26 3.82 Tax to SAIC 0.60 8.82 Interests return to SARFT 1.17 17.21 Bonus to employees 0.3 4.41 Equipments and construction of buildings 0.53 7.8 Total 6.8 100 Source: CCTV Finance Office
Table 26 Composition of CCTV Production and Management Costs in 2003 Program production Percentage(%) Management Percentage(%) Arts & entertaining 25 Technical operation 34.7 News 14 Administrative office 30.4 Sports 12 Finance office 12.6 Advertising & economic 11 New CCTV building 12.6 Science & education 11 Human resource 9.7 International 10 CPC committee 4.6 Chief editorial office 9 Discipline & checking264 1.3 Youth and children 6 Auditing 1.2 China television weekly 2 Key program office 0.3 Total 100 100 Source: CCTV Finance Office
264 Discipline and checking is one part of CPC committee, and this was introduced as internal check-and-balance system within various levels of the CPC committees.
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Table 27 Advertising Revenues of Golden Time Bunch of CCTV-1, CCTV and all Television Broadcasters in China (million RMB) Ad Revenue of the Golden Ad Revenue TV Ad Revenue Time Bunch in CCTV-1 of CCTV in China 1979 0.03
1989 6.15
1990 108 561 1991 270 1001 1992 560 2055 1993 760 2944 1994 1,000 4476 1995 360 2,000 6498 1996 1,060 3,500 9079
1997 2,300 4,059 11441
1998 2,800 4,501 13564
1999 2,680 4,714 15615
2000 1,920 5,350 18055
2001 2,160 5,650 17937
2002 2,626 7,000 23100 2003 3,315 7,530 25504 2004 4,412 8,531 2005 5,869 8,600 Sources: CCTV Yearbook 1991-2004, China Advertising Yearbook 1991-2003, data of 1979, 1989, 2004 and 2005 are provided by CCTV Financial Office.
As current affairs program the “Focus”/焦点访谈 became famous in 1994, advertisements flushed in and CCTV decided to try new sales methods to maximize its advertising income.
CCTV put together the advertising segments among the intervals of “National News”, “Weather
Prediction”, and the “Focus” from seven to eight o’clock every evening, and auctioned these prime time advertisings as a package. Since 1997, CCTV income earned by this prime time advertising bunch reached nearly half of the total advertising income, while CCTV advertising
- 153 - income occupied almost one third of the total advertising revenue in Chinese television industry
(see Table 27).
Currently, there are fifty-three domestic television channels that cover the territory of
China’s mainland through satellite. They include fifteen CCTV channels, two China Education
Television (CETV) channels and thirty-six provincial television channels. Technically, these satellite transmitted television channels can compete with each other for the market share of national audiences and advertisements. However, the competition among CCTV and local broadcasters is not based on an equal footing. With political support from the central government,
CCTV can always hold the larger share of nationwide audiences and commercial income through satellite broadcast (see Figure 8).
Figure 8 Market Share of Chinese TV Audience in 2003
0. 5 33. 6 1 2 3 65. 9
1: CCTV, 2: Provincial Satellite TV, 3: China Education TV Sources: CVSC-Sofres-Media In order to defend their own commercial interests, local broadcasters united to stop re-transmitting CCTV programs with inserted advertisements, though it was against the government policy of 1993 to safeguard the commercial success and political popularity of CCTV programs across the country.265 In October 28, 2002, Advertisement Association of Provincial
265 See “Informing Local Broadcast Stations to Transmit CPR and CCTV Programs as a whole” issued by DPCC and SARFT on December 8, 1993.
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Television Broadcasters was established by more than thirty provincial television stations. The
association decided, from January 1, 2003, all provincial television broadcasters would put away
CCTV advertisements from compulsorily re-transmitted CCTV programs and insert shared
advertisements of the association within sixty five second advertising segments before and after
the re-transmitted CCTV “National News” every evening. This associated effort did not help local
broadcasters to achieve remarkable commercial success in 2003, but it did pave the way for a fair
market competition as the government kept quiet to this collective rebellion (see Table 28).
Table 28 Market Share of the Top 15 Television Channels in 2002 and 2003266 2002 2003 No. Channels Market share (%) Channels Market share (%) 1 CCTV-1 30.3 CCTV-1 31.2 2 CCTV-6 9.5 CCTV-6 7.7 3 CCTV-5 8.6 CCTV-8 7.3 4 CCTV-8 6.3 CCTV-5 4.9 5 CCTV-3 4.6 Hunan Satellite TV 4.7 6 CCTV-2 3.4 CCTV-3 4.4 7 Shangdong Satellite TV 2.9 CCTV-4 4.1 8 Anhui TV-1 2.5 Anhui TV-1 3.0 9 Beijing Satellite TV 2.3 Shangdong Satellite TV 2.9 10 Hunan Satellite TV 2.1 Beijing Satellite TV 2.7 11 CCTV-4 1.7 CCTV-2 2.5 12 Liaoning Satellite TV 1.5 Jiangxi TV-1 1.6 13 Shanghai Satellite TV 1.5 Liaoning Satellite TV 1.4 14 Anhui TV Station 1.5 Shanghai Oriental TV 1.4 15 Heilongjiang Satellite TV 1.3 Henan TV-1 1.3 Sources: CVSC-Sofres-Media
266 See Lanzhu Wang/王兰柱, China TV Audience Rate Yearbook: 2003/中国电视收视年鉴: 2003, Beijing Broadcast Institute Press, 2003, p.19; and Dong Wu/吴东, Yan Cao/曹珩, “Analysis on behavior of Chinese television viewer and market competition in 2003”/2003 年中国电视观众收视行为与收视市场竞争分析, 2004, on the website of CVSC-Sofres-Media, www.csm.com.cn/content/news_events/index/articles, (last visited April 6, 2004).
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2 Program Scheduling Based on Audience Rating
On October 26, 1987, the second day of the 13th CPC congress, instructed by one of the
CPC top leader, CCTV withdrew an important political feature program and aired live a football match, in which Chinese team attended the World Cup selective competition of Asia.267 It was instructed that Chinese audiences, including the CPC leaders, cared more about the performance of Chinese team in the World Cup rather than that of the annual congress of the CPC. This was the beginning of the state to set the media agenda in accordance with what audience wanted to know instead of what the CPC wanted audience to know. In other words, the media was allowed to set sequence of importance for program broadcasting based primarily on audience interests.
The growing power of market in media agenda-setting of broadcasting, especially for entertainment programs, was recognized by the government. When entertaining program became so popular, it could also be used to promote the state agenda to the public. A typical case of using popular and entertaining program to constitute a symbol of double happiness for the CPC and the people was the Spring Festival Gala Show/春节联欢晚会. On January 26, 1990, the eve of
Chinese New Year, Jiang Zemin, former President and Li Peng, former Prime Minister, appeared in CCTV studio to send good wishes to Chinese audience through the Spring Festival Gala Show, which was broadcasted on live and viewed by nearly half of Chinese population268. Besides good wishes, what Jiang and Li showed to the public was the solidarity between the two top leaders of the party and the state, which became the primary state agenda after political chaos of Tiananmen
Incident of 1989.
To cope with a market oriented media agenda, CCTV issued an internal regulation in
September 2002, to terminate regular programs with the lowest audience rating in each channel.
In this “CCTV Regulations on Warning and Terminating Programs”/中央电视台栏目警告及淘
汰条例, it regulated that any regular program in each channel with the lowest audience ratings
267 Guo Zhengzhi, Chinese television history, p.33. 268 Refer to CCTV Yearbook from 1995 to 2001.
- 156 - should be washed out annually.269 And any regular programs that had been warned with second lowerest ratings in each channel for three times in a year should also be washed out. Producer of the eliminated program should not be reappointed as producer for another program in two years after his program was washed out. At the beginning of 2003, ten regular programs of CCTV with the lowest audience ratings in ten respective channels were eliminated.270 At the end of 2003, another ten regular programs in ten respective channels also washed out after a six-month warning and adjusting period.271
Up to June 2004, more than eighty regular programs in CCTV had been warned or eliminated.272 Some high cultured programs with good reputation among specific audiences became victims of this regulation, such as “Reading Time”/读书时间, “Profile”/人物, “Starry
Sky of Arts”/美术星空, “Midnight Books”/子午书简, “Cultural Report”/文化报道, and “Culture
Weekly”/文化周刊. This market-oriented practice elevated popularity and attractiveness of general television programs for audiences on one hand; it damaged programs with higher cultural and historical values on the other. As high cultured programs appealed only to narrowed audiences and oriented less on market interests, programs with high historical and artistic value but lower audience ratings had to face the challenge of being washed out. As a result, “grabbing viewers” turned to be the most important consideration in scheduling programs to attracted more audiences and advertisers for CCTV.
Furthermore, CCTV regularly reviewed and rescheduled program broadcast on each
269 Regular programs indicate well schemed and timely presented programs regularly appeared daily or weekly in a television channel; it is contrasted with irregular programs that appear without a fixed timetable. 270 They included “Local Arts”/地方文艺, “TV Shopping”/电视购物, “Music Revival”/音乐再现, “Audience’s Friend”/观众之友, “Echo to Audience”/回音壁, “Film Market”/电影市场写真, “Agriculture News”/农业新闻, “Original Film and Television”/原声影视, “City Platform”/城市平台, “Stunt”/绝活. 271 They included “Chinese Population”/中国人口, “Artistic Scenery”/艺苑风景线, “Market Celebrities”/商界名家, “Music Hall”/音乐厅, “Foreign Arts”/外国文艺, “Taiwan Cyclopedia/台湾百科, “Talking and Seeing”/边说边看, “Happy Tapping”/快乐点击, “World Classic Films”/世界名著名片, “Foreign Language Education”/外语教学. 272 Huayong Zhao/赵化勇, “抓住机遇迎接挑战”/Grasping Opportunity, Facing the Challenge, TV Research/电视研究, 2004.6, CCTV, 2004, p.10.
- 157 - channel according to their audience ratings. At the beginning of December 2000, broadcasting time of a weekly program “Tell It Like It Is” /实话实说, which was the most famous talk show program in CCTV, was changed from Sunday morning to Sunday evening after it showed a high audience rating of 4.2%. On May 8, 2003, CCTV re-scheduled some regular weekly programs in its flagship channel CCTV-1. Seven days a week, in a 45 minute timeslot started from 22:35, seven most well known weekly programs were introduced in a regular format to attract as more audiences as possible (see Table 29).
Table 29 Weekly Programs from 22:35 to 23:20 in CCTV-1 in 2003
Programs Nature of Contents Monday News Probe/新闻调查 Investigative
Tuesday Tell the Truth with True Words/实话实说 Talk Show
Wednesday Life of Arts/艺术人生 Talk Show Thursday Lucky 52/幸运 52 Game Show Friday Traditional Drama and Arts/曲苑杂坛 Arts & Entertaining Saturday The Same Song/同一首歌 Popular Songs
Sunday Dictionary of Joy/开心辞典 Game Show
Sources: CCTV General Editorial Office Except “News Probes/新闻调查”, all other weekly programs in this timeslot were talk shows and entertaining programs in nature, which had been favored by the biggest number of audience. Television drama aired on the golden time period in CCTV-1 started from 19:55 was increased from one volume to two volumes. Programs, that entertaining audiences rather than educating people, became the mainstream products in CCTV. And audience rating rather than government instruction, to some extend, became the first priority in media agenda-setting, which means the sequence of program importance on air can be determined by market rather than the state.
B Informal Rules of Market in Media Agenda-setting
Informal market competition between CCTV and local television broadcasters took place
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very seriously. For example, CCTV earned US$73 million advertising revenue in 2002 World
Cup Soccer tournament, six times more than that in 1998 World Cup. The commercial success
of CCTV, however, was not fair in the eyes of local broadcasters, because CCTV was authorized
to monopolize the negotiation with World Cup committee to hold exclusive right to broadcast
the game across China. In order to fight back for their commercial interests, local broadcasters
unanimously put CCTV signal that transmitted the tournament into local channels without
permission, and inserted local advertisements instead of original CCTV ones.273
Regarding informal or even illegal market activities of individual journalists, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television (MRFT) issued “Some Decisions on Strengthening Incorruptness and Correcting Wrongdoings”/关于加强廉政建设, 纠正行业不正之风的若干规定 on
November 26, 1990. Some other regulations and internal documents also followed the suit to disciplines broadcasting journalists. However, it seemed that no specific regulations or executive orders could systematically prevent corrupt behaviors of journalists. Similar to other social problems in China, corrupt behaviors based on shared interests of the state and market was resistant to checks-and-balances systems in general.
There are three measures being used as informal activities for market agencies in setting
media agenda. The first measure is to pay journalists to do “Image Reporting”形象报道, or
“Paid News”/有偿新闻, which is positive news report for specific customer and paid in one way
or another by public relations company serving for specific customer. The second is to pay
journalists to do “Infomercial Programs”/商务信息 or “Second-rated Advertising”/二类广告,
which are special news like programs with commercial information about specific goods and
services. These measures are informal because they are deliberately produced to make
commercially interested reports undifferentiated from either normal news reports or normal
advertisements. The last one can be named as “Paid Silence”/有偿不闻. It is to pay journalists
to withdraw planned reports, to keep silence on specific news events that may cause negative
273 Chris Liu, “Stations Dump CCTV World Cup Ads”, Media, July 12, 2002.
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effects on specific customers.
1 “Image Reporting” or “Paid News”
Customers who want to promote their commercial images or products can pay journalists
through public relations agency in one way or another to cover specific market oriented news,
which is called “Paid news” or “Image reporting”. The value of such news making depends on
the professionalism of concerned public relations agency and journalist, while the promotion
effect for specific commercial images or products depends on the financial investment to the
news making. The commercial income for journalists involved in the production of this “image
reporting” or “paid news” is called “grey income”/灰色收入 or “red purse”/红包, which is
against the government regulations that forbid journalist to do news report for commercial
benefits. However, ever since the launch of opening and reform policy two decades ago, the
“grey income” was not only limited in news program production, but existed in every kind of
program productions. Sometimes, such immoral activity of earning “grey income” can be turned
into illegal action.274
It was until May 2004, three most important national newspapers, People’s Daily,
Guangming Daily and Economic Daily, announced that they would formally abolish “Image
Reporting” for companies or local governments in the name of facilitating local economic development.275 For press media, “Image Reporting” is produced by articles and photos with positive stories that introduce local economic potentials based on specific state owned enterprises or administrative capacity of the region. Without appealing words and images as dramatic as advertising, “Image Reporting” is deliberately produced as normal news report and but paid to improve the credibility of state owned enterprises or local governments. Any enterprises,
274 A well-known media corruption case of CCTV occurred in 2003, when Beijing No. 1 Middle Class Court sentenced Zhao An, a former director of CCTV Arts and Entertainment Center to ten years in prison with the crime of receiving bribery. After that, CCTV decided to start a regular rotation of its middle-leveled executives among different departments in order to avoid a systematic corruption due to long term occupancy of the same position without well established checks-and-balances mechanism. 275 The news was aired on National News of CCTV-1 at 7:00 pm on May 11, 2004.
- 160 - especially state owned ones, and local governments with specific political or economic interests can buy this positive reports with a cheaper price compared with formal advertisements.
A recent example of “Image Reporting” in CCTV was “2004 Image Competition of the
Most Attractive Cities in China”/CCTV 2004 年度中国魅力城市展示 held by CCTV-news channel in July 2004. The program was a mixture of positive features report and competition show for the glamorous social economic development in about twenty middle and small cities.
The production of specific features report or image promotion program for tourist industry of the city was sponsored respectively by a state-owned tourist company of each city. In this “Image
Reporting” show, young and beautiful ladies who represent the image of these cities, celebrities and mayors of these cities showed the attractiveness of their cities. For each municipal government and its affiliated tourist company participated in the show, the championship related not only to the real attractiveness of the city but also to the commercial investment in the name of publicity activities.276
2 “Infomercial Programs” and “Second-rated Advertising”
Broadcasting of commercial information or “Infomercial Programs”/商务信息节目 was popular since the beginning of 1990s in CCTV. Audience could not differentiate advertisements from these regular programs, which was always presented as features stories by anchors or anchoress. These “Infomercial Programs” were paid by specific customers to be produced as normal programs that were viewed by specific audiences with business interests. These programs were also named by television professionals as “Second-rated Advertising”/二类广告, which is between advertising and formal news programs. Actually, many advertisers preferred this kind of semi-news program, because it could provide positive reports that can earn credits for specific goods and services with a relatively lower price than advertising.
276 In an interview with He Jiayi, CEO of Dali Tourism Group Company, He said that his company spent two hundred thousands yuan in the program production of the “Image Reporting”, and another two hundred thousands yuan in public relation activities in Beijing, which focused on CCTV producers and the people who can influenced the decision of the competition result.
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The first “Infomercial Program” or “Second-rated Advertising” program was aired by
Shanghai Television named as “Market Glance”/市场掠影 in 1981, and Guangdong Television as “Market Walk”/市场漫步 in 1982. Similar programs were followed by CCTV-2, such as
“Business TV”/商务电视, “Demand and Supply Hot Line”/供求热线, and typically, a 40 minutes
“General Economic Information”/综合经济信息, which was divided into paid and non-paid
“programs”. Non-paid programs are normal programs that do not need to pay to be reported. Paid programs in “General Economic Information” were further divided into first and second sorted advertisements with respective payments of 3000 yuan and 1000 yuan per minute for each advertising piece. About 40 local television channels transmitted “General Economic
Information”. The income of this program was shared by CCTV-2 and its local partners, who were encouraged to introduce second rated advertisements or paid programs to CCTV-2.277 In this way, the relationship between CCTV-2 and its local broadcasting partners became commercially motivated. Although these kind of “Infomercial Program” was no longer existed, new form of infomercial programs such as “TV Superstore”/电视商场 emerged in BTV and many others local broadcasters.
Another popular form of producing “Second-rated Advertising” is to include image of specific products or brand names into story lines as part of the drama show. In this way, advertisers and their agents will work with the writers and producers of the drama show, and advertisement dealers to integrate specific commercial contents as part of the show. These kinds of “products integration” or “brand entertainment” adopted by Chinese television producers in drama and entertainment shows are also worldwide phenomenon. Drama producers, television executives and advertisers argue that commercial products and brands are part of our daily lives and they exist in television dramas very “naturally”, so why not showcase them. However, the problem is that this kind of unconventional market activity is not accountable to public including the state taxation agency when commercial incomes are taken under the table.
277 Guo Zhengzhi, History of Chinese Television, 1979, p.55.
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3 “Paid Silence”
“Paid Silence” can happen in two ways. One is legal but immoral, in which mass media
deliberately avoid criticizing their own customers or advertisers in order to avoid commercial
losses. For instance, CCTV had never done any negative reports on its main advertisers.
Respectively, the biggest advertiser for CCTV was Kongfuyan Winery/孔府宴酒 in 1995, and
Qingchi Winery/秦池酒 in 1996. Both of them became well known and achieved great success
in selling their products after advertising on CCTV-1 golden time slots, and both of them were
almost bankrupted in the following years due to excessive business expansion. However, CCTV
always reported the good news for these two wineries, but never mentioned the bad news.
From March 1997 to March 2000, All-China Journalists Association (ACJA) received 1627 letters that reported corrupt behaviors of journalists and related mass media.278 Most of these corrupt cases belonged to “Paid Silence”, which journalists and related media were paid to stop releasing negative reports. For example, eleven journalists from different national media were paid by the owner of a coal mine not to report a serious mining accident happened in Shanxi province that claimed thirty four lives of coal miners in 2003. This collective corruption of journalists reflected both the fall of moral standard of those journalists and the seriousness of informal market forces in media agenda-setting. Although this special case was reported by other journalists and those corrupted ones were washed out by their employers respectively, informal market players would not stop to set the media agenda again in immoral or illegal ways.279
II Market Rules Changing Broadcasters into Market Entities
After two decades of economic reform, market rules and organizations had not only set the agenda of television broadcasters, but also changed television broadcasters as cooperators of market institutions. Television broadcasters and journalists had to compete with each other to
278 Chenshu Zhao/赵晨妤, “The practice and ideas on prohibiting paid news”/禁止有偿新闻工作的实践与思考, Zhonghua News Daily/中国新闻报, December 4, 2000. 279 See Zhen Liu/刘铮, “The Truth of Fansi Mining Accident”/繁峙矿难水落石出, China Youth Daily/中国青年报 September 16, 2003.
- 163 - report exclusive news or produce programs for higher audience ratings, which in turn attracted more advertisement revenue for the media and its journalists as well. The seriousness of market competition among television broadcasters in China was quantified by statistic survey on audience ratings, which was initiated by CCTV and joined later by foreign market research companies as partners.280 Although the reliability of such statistic data provided by CCTV, the principal player in Chinese television market, was doubted by local broadcasters, this exclusive market research on audience ratings were widely used by both media buyers and all broadcasters to relocate their business resources in order to become more competitive market players.
A new editorial policy was encouraged by the CPC to combine the state agenda with market agenda within the media. It was defined as “Educating People Through Entertaining Them or Embody Education in Entertainment Process”/寓教于乐. While reflecting political stability, economic and social progress of the stare society complex, production of entertainment programs was differentiated into two categories. The first tends to be more entertaining. It includes dating show, competition and reward show, variety game show and various kinds of comedy and martial arts drama, which entertain audiences with games, jokes and martial arts rather than serious political subjects. The second tends to be more educational. It is defined and favored by the CPC as “Mainstream Melody Product”/主旋律作品, in which revolutionary history, nationalist tradition, and collectivist ethics are introduced with enjoyment and entertainment. While a market for entertainment programs gradually emerged, television broadcasters established their own companies that produce entertainment programs. Some of these broadcaster affiliated companies were listed on the stock exchange market and became a normal market entity.
280 CCTV covered twenty eight major cities of China in its first television audience survey, which was performed from April to June 1986. Currently, China’s primary source of television ratings data comes from CVSC-SOFRES MEDIA (CSM) and AC Nielsen. CSM provides rating data every day of the year for about 700 channels in 12 provinces and some 70 cities across China. The ratings are obtained from a representative sample of 22,000 households, using diary and people-meter methods. AC Nielsen provides data for southern east cities of China. CSM, a joint venture between CTR Market Research and TNS Group, was founded in Beijing on December 4th, 1997, while CTR Market Research was founded in 1995, and subsequently became a joint venture between CITVC, a CCTV subsidiary, and TNS.
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A Market Oriented Entertainment Program Production
As watching television became the first choice in leisure time for most Chinese, entertainment became the primary purpose for television viewers. According to CCTV internal annual reports that initiated from 1994, broadcasting time of arts and entertaining programs in
CCTV was always the highest among various kinds of programs (see Table 30).281 The program holding the highest audience rating in CCTV was always “Spring Festival Gala Show” that reached around 50% since 1995.282 This encouraged producers of television programs to increase the production of entertaining programs in order to achieve higher audience ratings and more commercial revenues.
Table 30 The Purposes of Watching Television for Chinese Audience in 2002
Purpose of watching TV Percentage (%) Entertainment 75.4 Learning policies of the party and the state 72.4 Learning domestic current affairs 57.6 Learning international current affairs 57.6 Increasing knowledge 53.3 Learning new skills 34.3
In an effort to produce entertainment programs that can pass government censorship and attract more advertisements, television producers obeyed the principle of trying not to do what government does not want, and trying to do whatever market wants. The result was that entertaining program and television drama production tended to be as less political as possible, while market competition among producers and broadcasters of entertainment programs became
281 The table is taken from Jianming Liu/刘建鸣, et al., “Analysis report of sampling surveys on national TV audience for the year of 2002”/2002 年全国电视观众抽样调查分析报告, in Hong Cheng/程宏, Jianhong Wang /王建宏 ed, Analysis report of sampling surveys and paper collections of China’s national TV audience for the year of 2002/中国电 视观众现状报告 – 2002 年全国电视观众抽样调查分析报告和论文集, Beijing, China Radio and Television Press, 2003, pp.18-24. 282 The average audience rate of Spring Festival Gala Show from 1995 to 1998 is 50%, see CCTV Annual Report from 1996 to 1999.
- 165 - more serious in both depth and expanse. Entertainment programs in all Chinese broadcasters, including sports, music, film, traditional drama, television drama, arts and entertainment, occupied 53.3 percent of the total audience viewing time in 2003, in which, television drama attracted 36.6 percent of audiences, the biggest market share in all varieties of television programs (see Table 31). Provincial television broadcasters in total aired much more entertainment programs than CCTV did. For market shares of audience ratings and commercial incomes, provincial broadcasters in total also overcame CCTV in 2002 (see Table 32).
Table 31 Market Shares of Various Television Programs in 2003 Variety of television programs Market share (%) TV Drama 36.6 News 15.5 Features 7.1 Arts and entertainment 5.8 Film 5.3 Sports 3.1 Life and service 2.6 Carton & children 2.1 Music 1.6 Traditional drama 0.9 Economic and finance 0.7 Science and education 0.1 Foreign language 0.1 Others 18.5 Sources: CVSC-SOFRES Media Table 32 Market Share of Entertainment Program in 2002283 Broadcasting Time Market Share CCTV 6% 39% Provincial Broadcasters 51% 51% Municipal Broadcasters 39% 7.5% Sources: CVSC-SOFRES Media
283 Data in this column is collected by Dong Wu, Yan Cao, “Analysis on behavior of Chinese television viewer and market competition in 2003” on the website of CVSC-Sofres-Media, www.csm.com.cn/content/news_events/index/articles, (last visited April 6, 2004).
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Since 1980, various kinds of competition and reward shows were launched by broadcasters in Shanghai, Guangdong and Beijing. Among these shows, a Sino-foreign joint production
“Zhengda Varieties Show”/正大综艺 was the most famous one initiated by CCTV and a
Thailand company on April 21, 1990.284 This audience participated show invited public figures to join quiz-like competitions to answer questions related to foreign cultures, histories, and funny stories found by some tour guides who travel around the globe. The audience rating maintained high for many years, which facilitated the first generation of television stars like Zhao
Zhongxiang/赵忠祥 and Yang Lan/杨澜 in China. The government control over this kind of entertainment programs turned to be lessened while market became the occupying power to decide the importance of entertaining topics being showed in the program.
Followed the success of competition and reward shows, various kinds of dating shows emerged as another popular form of entertainment programs in the second half of 1990s.285 In
July 1997, a Taiwanese program “Special Man and Woman”/非常男女 was distributed by
Phoenix Television (Hong Kong) to Chinese cable television channels as “Yajia Special Man and
Woman”. Yajia is the brand of a cosmetic product, which became popular among Chinese consumers along with the success of the show. “Xizhilang”, a Japanese food company, followed to finance a local dating program in 1998, when “Xizhilang Romantic Meeting/玫瑰之约” was tune in Hunan Satellite Television. It was renovated as a collective match game among boys and girls, for whom family members, friends and workmates were accompanied to cheer up the competition. This format was soon cloned by almost all local television channels that included
“Saturday Meeting”/相约星期六 in Shanghai Television, “The Square of Heart”/心心广场 in
Hebei Television, “Tonight We Know Each Other”/今晚我们相识 in Beijing Television,
284 Zhengda Zongyi (literally “the upright arts magazine”) is a co-production between CCTV and Zhengda Group based in Thailand that specializes in livestock and agricultural fertilizers. Zhengda Group brought overseas programs and films together with its own image advertisements into Zhengda Zongyi variety show. In this way, CCTV get free programs and films from overseas while Zhengda Group get advertisement to promote its positive image. 285 The dating program concept was developed by Fuji Television in 1974. For a more detailed study of dating shows see Michael Keane, “Send in the clones: television formats and content creation in the People’s Republic of China”, in S. Donald, et al ed, Media in China: Consumption, Content, and Crisis, Curzon Press, 2002.
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“Everlasting Romance”/浪漫久久 in Beijing Cable Television, “Today We Date”/今日有约 in
Shandong Television, “Good Man and Good Woman”/好男好女 in Shanxi Television, “Who
Does Your Heart Beat For?”/为谁心动 in Nanjing Television, “Conjugal Bliss”/花好月圆 in
Nanjing Cable Television, “Talking Marriage”/男女当婚 in Hainan Television, and “Fate in the
Heaven”/缘份天空 in Chongqing Television. The rampant cloning of dating shows declined when too much similarity made audience bored and turned away at the end of 1990s.
The third wave of popular entertaining programs was initiated by Hunan Satellite Television as variety game shows in 1997. It was named as “The Citadel of Happiness”/快乐大本营. The program was joined and enjoyed by boys and girls who are interested in modern lifestyle, and pop culture. It became so successful that this new format was quickly cloned by more than one hundred local broadcasters. Finally, these new variety game shows in local broadcasters drew audience away from CCTV old styled entertaining programs such as “Zhengda Zongyi” or “Arts
Kaleidoscope”/综艺大观. In order to resume its market share in entertaining programs, CCTV fought back with some innovative competition and reward game shows such as “Dictionary of
Joy” and “Lucky 52”/幸运 52 at the turn of 2000s. The great success of these two programs rewarded their own anchors Li Yong/李咏 and Wang Xiaoya/王小丫 the top Chinese anchor and anchorwoman in 2001.286
Approaching the end of 2005, the most famous variety show was “Super Girl”/超级女生, which was once again produced by Hunan Satellite Television. Similar to “American Idol” and
“Australian Idol”, this program attracted large amount of young audiences who might choose their favorite idol by paying a fee to vote through mobile phone - another source of revenue for the program. More than 120,000 girls from five provinces participated in this slightly rebellious
286 This selection of famous television anchors was organized by a couple of famous Chinese media in February 2002, see Editorial Committee of Chinese Television Red Paper, Chinese Television Red Paper 2001, Lijiang Press, 2002, p.204.
- 168 - and self-exposing show.287 After months of wild singing and dance competition, Li Yuchun/李宇
春, a 21-year-old girl from Sichuan won the final competition and became the hottest pop model in China. Like all other entertainment shows before, a commercial brand was crowned upon the show, it was “Mengniu” or “Mongolian Cow”, one of China's biggest dairy companies. With a huge sponsorship, the full title of the show became “Mengniu Super Girl” and promoted further on the screen as “Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girl Contest”. In the rise and fall of various kinds of entertainment shows, the driving force was market, which set the media agenda by audience ratings and commercial revenues.
B Marketization of Television Drama Production and Distribution
Marketization of Chinese TV drama is a process of actualizing free trade of TV drama products and services to meet the demand of audience-as-market. The marketplace of Chinese TV drama production and distribution was formally initiated when Chinese Film Distribution
Company (CFDC) stopped offering new films to CCTV in June 1979. As the Ministry of Culture reformed the film distribution system from a planned economy to a market economy, CFDC decided to stop offering its films free of charge to CCTV. While refusing to accept the new broadcasting fee of new films proposed by CFDC, CCTV and local broadcasters as well, had to import foreign TV dramas or produce their own dramas.288
Motivated by market demanding, TV drama production by CCTV grew rapidly in the following years. Since 1997, CCTV had produced more TV drama episodes than it needed to broadcast in its own channels, and CCTV had to find new buyers for its surplus among other broadcasters (see Table 33). In 2002, more than 90% commercial income of Chinese broadcasters came from advertising, and more than one third of this income came from advertisings on TV drama, the biggest generator of commercial income for all television broadcasters.289 In the same
287 David Barboza, “Upstart From Chinese Province Masters the Art of TV Titillation”, New York Times, November 28, 2005. 288 Guo Zhengzhi, History of Chinese Television, p.19. 289 See Haichao Zhang, “Chinese Advertising Market Analysis in 2003”/2003 年中国电视广告市场分析报告, TV
- 169 - period, advertisement income of TV drama occupied thirty to forty percent of the total advertisement income in twenty four percent of television broadcasters, and sixty to eighty percent of the total advertisement income in thirty six percent of broadcasters, and finally, thirty percent of the total advertisement income in forty percent of broadcasters (see Table 34).290
Table 33 TV Drama Production and Broadcast by CCTV from 1981 to 2000 TV Drama Production TV Drama Broadcast Year (episodes) (episodes)291 1981 less than 100 1982 150 1983 277 1984 326 1985 251 1986 300 1987 399 1988 1155 1989 1839 1990 1570 1991 516 1752 1992 1070 1630 1993 978 1907 1994 1002 1829 1995 1167 1580 1996 1040 1854 1997 1795 1579 1998 2446 1546 1999 2641 2420 2000 3023 2071 Sources: CCTV Yearbook 1996 to 2001, data of TV drama production from 1998 to 2000 is collected from General Editorial Office of CCTV in 2002.
Research/电视研究, 2004.4, CCTV, p.58. 290 See CVSC-Sofre Media, China TV Drama Report 2003-2004, Huaxia Press, 2004, p.146. 291 Each TV drama is usually consisted of serial episodes, which is broadcasted one episode per day. The number of TV drama episodes calculated here does not include those drama episodes re-broadcasted in CCTV.
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Table 34 Advertisement Income of TV Drama over Total Income of Chinese Television Advertisement in 2002 for 24% broadcasters for 36% broadcasters for 40% broadcasters Ad income of TV drama/ 30%-40% 60%-80% 30% total TV Ad income Source: CVSC-SOFRES Media
Because high audience rating could be achieved by TV dram like other entertainment programs in general, local broadcasters broadcasted much longer hours of TV drama than CCTV did. For example, broadcasting hour of TV drama in provincial television channels occupied more than fifty six percent of the total TV drama broadcasted in China in 2001. The longest broadcasting hours brought provincial television channels the largest amount of audience, sixty five percent of the total audience. However, because less than two percent of total broadcasting hour was traded with nearly fifteen percent of the market share, advertising revenue for CCTV was relatively higher than its local competitors in the same period (see Table 35).
Table 35 Broadcast Hour and Market Share of TV Drama in 2001 and 2003 Broadcasting Hour Market Share 2001 2001 2003 CCTV 1.9% 14.6% 16.72% Provincial TVs 56.6% 65% 61.2% Municipal TVs 37.7% 16.72% Foreign TVs 3.03% Source: CVSC-SOFRES Media
In order to encourage non-state owned companies to produce more TV dramas, SARFT issued Long Term Television Drama Production Permits to eight non-state owned companies in
August 22, 2003, and to another sixteen non-state owned companies in June 16, 2004.292 Since
292 See “A notice made by SARFT to issue Long Term Television Drama Production Permits to Beijing Yingshi Film and Television Arts Lt. Co. and other non-state owned TV drama production companies”/广电总局对北京英氏影视艺 术有限责任公司等非公有制制作机构发放《电视剧制作许可证(甲种)》的通知 on August 22, 2003, and “A notice made by SARFT to issue Long Term Television Drama Production Permits to Shiji Yinxiong Film Investment Lt. Co.”/ 广电总局对世纪英雄电影投资有限责任公司等非公有制制作机构发放《电视剧制作许可证(甲种)》的通知 on June 16, 2004, www.sarft.gov.cn. (last visited August 29, 2004)
- 171 - then, non-state owned TV drama producers had been authorized to hold the copyright of drama, which they legally produced for commercial purposes, and TV drama production and distribution market was no longer monopolized by the state entities.293 While eighty percent of domestic production of TV drama was produced by private owned production companies, which also accounted about eighty percent of annual TV drama consumption, a free and open market for TV drama production and distribution had been formed, in which the major player became non-state owned companies.294
Table 36 Annual Output of Chinese Domestic TV Dramas 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1997 1999 2001 2002 2003 Volumes 482 489 489 Episodes 117 113 292 291 478 627 670 5623 6277 8877 9005 10381
Source: SARFT 2004, China Radio and Television Yearbook/中国广播电视年鉴 2004
In 2003, nearly 500 volume or 10,000 episodes of TV drama serial were produced in
China. Each TV drama was consisted of 20 episodes in average, and each episode lasted about forty five minutes (see Table 36).295 In the same year, SARFT improved importation of 284 volume or 1992 episodes of overseas TV drama, it also authorized 8 volume or 231 episodes of
TV drama to be jointly produced by Chinese and foreign producers. The trading volume of TV drama was three billion yuan and occupied ninety percent of the total trading program in China.296
Comparatively, the production and distribution of TV drama enjoyed the highest degree of marketization among various television programs in China. In return, a dynamic relationship
293 The private investments in TV drama production were once illegal according to government regulations before 2003, which did not license any non-state owned entities to produce and distribute TV dramas. For most of private TV drama producers, the cost was high for them to illegally “rent” a production license from a state owned entity when they could neither hold the copyright nor trade their products legally. 294 Di Lu, “Analysis of Chinese Television in 2004”/2004:中国电视大解码, South China Television Journal/南方电视 学刊, 45, 2004/1, p.18. 295 In many cases, TV drama serials were deliberately prolonged and divided into as many episodes as possible in order to keep as many advertisements as possible. For example, the longest-running TV drama serials in China, “The Great Qin Empire”/大秦帝国, lasted 136 episodes. 296 See SARFT, China Radio and Television Yearbook, 2004, p257.
- 172 - among TV drama producers, advertisers, broadcasters and television viewers was emerged (see
Figure 9).
Figure 9 Structure of Chinese Television Drama Market297
TV Drama TV Drama Television Viewers TV Television Audience rate Drama Broadcasters Fee Commodity Producers Fee Advertising Advertisers Fee
Born as a propaganda tool of the CPC, the first Chinese TV drama, a thirty-minute play, “A
Veggie Cake”一口菜饼子, was aired on live to educate audience about the miserable life of working classes before the establishment of P.R.C.298 This political oriented production of TV drama stopped during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).299 At the beginning of 1980s, imported TV drama serials from America, Japan and Hong Kong in CCTV became so popular that it helped to cultivate Chinese audiences the habit of watching TV drama serials on regular time every night.300 It also stimulated Chinese television producers to produce more native TV drama serials to achieve higher audience ratings and more advertising incomes.
One of the earliest native TV serials was “New Star”/新星, a twelve-episode drama produced by Taiyuan Television, which was bought and aired firstly by CCTV in 1986. It became very popular because of its highly political sensitive subject, which tackled the hot issue of local
297 For the original graph, refer to Sofre Media Research, China TV Drama Report 2003-2004/2003-2004 中国电视剧 市场报告, Beijing, Huaxia Press, p.21. 298 It was a single-episode TV Drama produced and aired live by Beijing Television (predecessor of CCTV) on June 15, 1958, Hu Xu, the director of this drama, coined the term “dianshi ju” (literally “television drama or TV drama”), which was copied from already existed “guangbo ju” (literally “radio drama” or “radio play”). From 1958 to 1966, nearly two hundred “TV Drama” were performed, produced, and broadcasted live in China. 299 See Hong Shi, “The practice and concepts of Chinese television drama in the period of direct broadcast”/直播期中 国电视剧的实践和观念), Contemporary Film/当代电影 1, January 1994, pp.87-92. 300 In the first half of 1980s, most well known overseas TV serials aired in CCTV were imported from America, such as “Man from Atlantis”/大西洋海底来的人, “Garrison’s Gorillas”/加里森敢死队, “Hunter”/亨特探长, and “Falcon Crest”/鹰冠庄园. Hong Kong martial arts drama such as “Huo Yuanjia”/霍元甲 and the Japanese soap opera such as “Oshin”/阿信 were also very popular at the time.
- 173 - economic and social reform in a remote county of Shanxi Province, central China.301 However, the interests of both television producers and TV drama audiences were gradually shifted from political to other issues, when production of drama serial with political sensitive subject generally had to face higher political and economic risks. From the second half of 1980s, successful TV drama serials based on classic novels in history were produced by CCTV, that included “A Dream of Red Mansions”/红楼梦, “Journey to the West”/西游记, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”/三
国演义, “The Water Margin”/水浒传. The popularity of these historical dramas among Chinese audiences rewarded CCTV not only advertising revenues but also political credits offered by the government, as nationalism or patriotism generally evolved as an important state agenda in these dramas.
Encouraged by increased advertising income, almost all kinds of TV drama varieties that existed in other parts of the world were produced in China.302 At the turn of 1990s, TV drama production reached another high, and marked the maturity of “soap opera” in China.303 Covering broader aspects of social life, some famous drama serials at the time included “Yearnings”/渴望, a fifty episode serials produced in 1990;304 “Stories of a Magazine Office”/编辑部的故事, a 25 episode serials produced in 1991;305 and “Beijingers in New York”/北京人在纽约, a 21 episode
301 For a discussion of this drama and Chinese television in general, see James Lull, China Turned On: Television, Reform, and Resistance, London and New York, Routledge, 1991. 302 Some terms were coined by Chinese critics for different television drama formats, such as “television serial”/连续 剧, “popular drama”/通俗剧, “melodrama”/情节剧或言情剧, “indoor drama”/室内剧, “situation comedy”/情景喜剧, “comedy”/喜剧, “historical drama”/历史剧, “martial arts drama”/武侠剧), and “detective and crime drama”/警匪剧) 303 The term “soap opera”/肥皂剧, in America derives from the fact that detergents and cleaning products were often advertised on these TV drama serials. 304 “Yearning” expressed the aspirations of several ordinary families in Beijing during the ten-year turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and the early reform period in the 1980s. The serials addressed many important social and moral issues at the time confronting the society: family harmony, maintenance of traditions, social morality, class conflicts, status of women, responsible parenthood, child development, and so on. 305 “Stories of the Editorial Office” followed the current work and life of several editors in an editorial office of a magazine at the turn of 1990s in Beijing. It filmed funny stories happened among these editors that reflects changes of social life and common people’s attitudes on these changes.
- 174 - serials produced in 1993.306 All these three popular TV drama serials were co-directed by Zheng
Xiaolong and Feng Xiaogang, and produced by Beijing Television Art Center, a subsidiary of
Beijing Television Station (BTV). Along with the success of directors and producer of the
Chinese “soup opera”, some detergent products also became famous in the Chinese market through advertising on these popular TV serial. For instance, “Dailaoli”, literally “save your labor”, became a famous brand after it was advertised on every episode of “Yearnings”.
A new plebeian culture was emerged with the commercial successes of TV “soup operas”.307 The plebeian or populace culture looked after the interests of mass audience, the need of ordinary Chinese to reflect their most recent historic experiences. These “soup operas” explored what people from the grass roots cared about. The difference between this populace culture and the state promoted political culture is obvious. Under market motivated media agenda,
TV dramas become the mirror that let people think who they are and what they want. Under the state motivated media agenda, TV dramas are responsible to make people believe who they should be and what they should want. For some TV dramas, especially those described national heroes in history that successfully changed entertaining storyline into “mainstream melody products”, the media agenda is motivated by both the state and market in a cooperative manner, which meets both ends of commercial interests and propaganda aims.
306 “Beijingers in New York” told the story of Wang Qiming, a Beijing man and new immigrant in New York City. Wang came to the States but could not find a suitable job. He and his wife started working as cheap laborers in a sweater factory. His wife later left him and married the owner of the factory, David. Wang subsequently established his own business under the help of Ah Chun, a Chinese restaurant owner. At the end of the serials, Wang defeated David in a financial competition and takes over his factory. It was catered for the curiosity of ordinary Chinese to learn the hardship and possibility to fight for a better life in a new world. 307 Some critics have identified three major forms of public culture in contemporary China: (1) official culture and state ideology, which is supported by the State to promote the legitimacy of the authority. (2) elite culture or high culture/精英文化, which is supposed to be the discourse of intellectuals who assume the responsibility of establishing moral standard for a civilized society, and (3) plebeian culture/平民文化, the culture of the masses and the populace, which is principally sponsored by advertisers in market. See Xizhang Xie, Di Wu, “A Cultural Perspective: The Reasons for the Flourish of Popular Dramas and Their Axiological Choices”/文化透视：通俗剧的兴盛原因及价值趋 向, Contemporary Film/当代电影, 6, November 1994, pp.79-84.
- 175 -
C Non-government Investments in Television Industry
Ever since 1978, Television broadcasters in China had been allowed to operate as enterprises, while they were still documented by the government as public institutions or non-profitable entities. While crisis of identity was hanging on for television broadcaster and its potential investors, the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council further improved commercialization of mass media in 1992. The document of “Decision to Facilitate the
Development of the Tertiary Industries”/关于加快发展第三产业的决定 was jointly issued, in which mass media was included as part of the tertiary industry. As financial support from the government gradually disappeared, mass media, hospitals, art performance groups, schools, and other traditionally non-profitable public institutions had to join market competition to earn commercial income that could cover their own expenses at least.
Under the approval of SARFT, non-government investors took a breakthrough in investing in television channel when Hainan Tourism Satellite Television (HTSV)/海南旅游卫视 launched on January 28, 2002 in Hainan province. It was the first thematic television channel owned by provincial government but leased to be operated by a joint venture Hianan Weishi
Chuanbo/海南卫视传播, in which 42.2 percent of the share held by state owned Hainan Radio and Television Station, and 57.8 percent of the share held by other two non-state owned companies308. Before the launch of HTSV, all Chinese television channels were treated as “public institutions” or non-profit entities at least in name, but practiced as enterprises in a restricted way.
After the launch of HTSV, it became possible that the government could treat television channel as a pure enterprise both in name and in practice. Although the first round of leased management was not successful and Hainan Radio and Television Station had to change its partners in 2004, the test of treating television channel as a complete market player was initiated.
Business operations of television broadcaster are undertaken in two ways. Firstly, it is
308 Dingwei Fu/符定伟, “the biggest acquisition case in mass media industry, a research on how Hainan Tourism Satellite Television was transferred”/中国最大传媒产业并购案 旅游卫视转让调查, 2003, http://news.xinhuanet.com/newmedia (last visited December 12, 2003).
- 176 - operated by its advertising department, which generally contributes the largest portion of commercial income to broadcasters. Secondly, it is performed by its affiliated or related companies, which are established for television related business operations. Broadcaster and its affiliated companies formed alliances to do businesses in areas of advertising, production and trade of TV drama and entertainment programs, tourism, and real estate. The new version of
Directory of Industrial Categories for Listed Companies issued by China Securities Regulatory
Commission (CSRC) of the State Council on April 2, 2001, formally defined television broadcast as a market player.309 Since then, some affiliated companies of television broadcasters started to be listed on stock exchange market.
Currently, around forty media related companies are listed on Shanghai or Shenzheng
Stock Exchanges, in which only four listed companies are traditional television related businesses.310 These four companies included Shanghai Television Station related Shanghai
Oriental Pearl (Group) Co., Ltd./上海东方明珠(集团)股份有限公司, CCTV controlled Wuxi
Zhongshi Film and Television Base Co. Ltd./无锡中视影视基地股份有限公司 or CTV Media
Ltd., Hunan Satellite Television related Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary Co. Ltd./湖南电广
传媒股份有限公司, and Beijing Television Station related Beijing Gehua CATV Network Co.
Ltd./歌华有线电视网络股份有限公司.311 After the reform of decreasing the state owned shares
309 According to the new directory, publishing, audio and video production, radio, television, film, arts, and information transmission were taken as cultural industry and included into one of the thirteen basic industries that can be listed on stock exchange market. 310 According to Directory of Industry Categories of Listed Companies, listed media-related companies can be divided as traditional, transformational and experimental ones. Traditional or typical media-related companies are controlled by traditional media, such as newspaper, television, etc. With established infrastructure to produce, distribute and publish media related products, media related businesses account more than half of the company’s output. Transformational media companies are those that have put large-scaled investments in the media industry, and ready to shift their major business to media related one. Experimental media listed companies are those that recently become interested in the media industry, and have small-scaled investment in it. Media activities account for a small part of the companies’ business, and the companies have only one division that associates with media business. See Miao Guo, “Empirical Analysis on the Capital Operation Effect of Media Industry in Mainland China”, 6th World Media Economics Conference, Montréal, Canada, May 12-15, 2004. 311 CTV Media Ltd. has five major shareholders that are all CCTV affiliated companies: Wuxi Taihu Film/TV City,
- 177 - in listed companies in 2005, shares owned by state owned companies (SOEs) could be traded on the stock exchange market, and shares owned by television related SOEs started to decrease except CCTV controlled CTV media Ltd. (see Table 37).312 This indicated that non-government investment in television industry had been increased in general.
Table 37 Decrease of Shares of SOEs in Four TV Related Listed Companies
Listed Companies Date/Place of Listing Shares of SOEs (%) 2002 2006
Oriental Pearl February 24, 1994/Shanghai 70.37 64.26 CTV-media June 6, June 1997/Shanghai 67.06 67.06 Hunan TV & Broadcast March 25, 1999/Shenzheng 53.56 20.66 Gehua CATV Network January 4, 2001/Shanghai 73.38 47.74 Sources: CCTV Finance Office
Marketazition that officially pushed forward in television industry was not always smooth.
SARFT initiated merging among traditional broadcasters of CCTV, CPR and CIR was finally
proved to be a failure in 2005.313 On September 1, 2003, ten digitalized Pay TV channels were
launched by CCTV, and Beijing Radio, Television and Film Group in thirty three cities under the
approval of SARFT.314 In the following months, SARFT also issued licenses to another four
local broadcasters to broadcast digitalized Pay TV.315 The government policy in regulating this
China International Television Corporation (CITVC), Beijing Yingping Auto Rental Co., Beijing Zhongshi Hi-Technology TV Development Co. and Beijing Weilai Advertising Co. 312 Before 2005, under strict regulations of the government, state-owned shares on listed companies, which accounted about two third of the total shares on Chinese stock exchange market, could not be exchanged. On April 29, 2005, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued “Notice on Reforming Differentiated Shares in Listed Companies”/关于上市公司股权分置改革试点有关问题的通知, thus initiated the reform of decreasing shares of SOEs in listed companies. 313 SARFT initiated its market reform of giant broadcast media on December 6, 2001, as China Radio, Film and Television Group was founded and integrated CCTV, CPR, CIR and other broadcasting companies of SARFT. This government controlled giant group that merges cable, wireless and satellite television as well as Internet service was formally disbanded by itself in 2005 due to disarrangement from the very beginning. 314 In order to push the development of Pay TV around China, SARFT issued “A notice to improve the industrial development of cable and digitalized commercial channels of radio and television”/关于推进广播电视有线数字付费 频道运营产业化的意见的通知 in July 6, 2004. Digitalized Pay TV channels operated in cable networks was formally initiated. 315 The number of digital television users was jumped from 67,000 in 2002 to 168,000 in 2003, it hit over 1 million by
- 178 -
new broadcasting market is setting up an equal footing for all competitors and breaking up the
possible monopoly of CCTV from the very beginning.316 These new digitalized Pay TV
broadcasting channels were based upon large amount of qualified TV drama and entertainment
programs to attract new audiences. However, the real challenge for these CCTV and local
broadcaster controlled Pay TV services was already initiated by private invested
telecommunication companies in areas such as video-on-demand on broadband Internet service,
which had developed in coastal cities of China since 2001.317
After two decades of economic reform, market has become the most dynamic factor in changing the balance of power among the state, market and civil society. The commercialization and marketization of Chinese television, which was initiated by the state, tended to produce more and more entertainment programs to achieve higher audience ratings and commercial income.
While political correctness, which means no political opinions against the party and the state in producing various television programs, was regarded as the bottom line for any broadcasters to be or not to be, audience rating actually became the top criterion for any broadcasters to be better or to be worse. Other than the state, market emerged as a new occupying power in setting the media agenda in formal and informal ways. After the state approved commercialization of television broadcaster to increase both publicity effectiveness and economic efficiency of television media, market started to set the media agenda and even changed the rules and organizations of the media to suit the rules of market itself.
the end of 2004, and prediction for 2008 was 30 million. See Xinhua Hews Agency, “Over 30m digital TV in China in 2008”, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-06/25/content_342597.htm. (last visited June 25, 2004) 316 SARFT issued “Opinions on Improving the Development of Radio and Television Industries”/关于促进广播电视 业发展的意见 at the end of 2003 to encourage Pay TV and other forms of commercial operations. 317 See Wen Xie/谢文, “The fifth media, Internet TV: the next focus of broadband service”/第五媒体--网络电视：宽 带的下一轮焦点, 2003, Blogchina.com, (last visited August 3, 2004)
- 179 -
Chapter Five Civil Society and Chinese Television
An emerging civil society in contemporary China participated in media agenda-setting in two ways. First, rules of civil society influenced mass media and thus changed the media agenda especially in dealing with higher needs of audience-as-citizens. Second, voluntary associations and social activists deliberately acted as newsmakers and attract targeted mass media to cover the news event that related to issues of civil rights promotion. The program of criticizing specific wrongdoings of the state agents at local levels in television, which was officially named as
“program of supervision by public opining”/舆论监督节目 was flourished in the last decade under both encouragement from central government and moral support from emerging civil society. These programs not only checked the failure of the state and market at the local levels at least, but also increased the self-governing capability of civil society to the most.
According to the statistics provided by Institute of Unirule, a private based economic research association in Beijing, China's private assets had surpassed eleven trillion yuan or 1.33 trillion US dollar by the end of 2002, exceeding the state assets by about one trillion yuan or 121 million US dollar.318 While grassroots non-governmental associations could be established under the support of private donations, the number of Nongovernmental Nonprofit Organizations
(NPOs) that was financed by private donation reached almost the same amount of Social
Organizations that was financed by the state in 2004.319 This indicated that the economic responsibility of sponsoring civil society development could be shifted from the state to voluntary citizens with moral consciousness to promote commonweal through self-governed associations.
318 See Mao Yushi/茅予轼, “Amendment to Constitution to Clarify Private Rights” 2004, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn, (last visited April 1, 2004) 319 There were 150,000 SOs and 133,000 NPOs in China in 2004. See Ministry of Civil Affairs, PRC, “Chinese Official Annual Report on Civil Affairs Development from 1994 to 2004” www.mca.gov.cn, (last visited July 2, 2004).
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Figure 10 Social Strata in Contemporary China
Five Social Classes Ten Social Strata
State and social managers with organizational resources Upper Class: High-leveled state leaders Business managers General mangers of big enterprises with cultural or organizational High-leveled professionals resources Owner of big private enterprises Owners of private enterprises with economic resources Middle and upper class: Middle and lower-leveled state leaders Professionals Middle leveled managers of big enterprises with cultural resources General managers of medium enterprises Middle-leveled professionals Public servants Owner of medium private enterprises with small amount of cultural or organizational resources Middle class: Primary professionals Private businessman Owners of small enterprises with small amount of Public servants economic resources Private businessman Traders and servicepersons Middle and lower class: with very small amount of Private labors three resources Traders and servicemen Workers and peasants Industrial workers with very small amount of three resources Lower class Unemployed and half employed Agricultural labors workers and agricultural labors with very small amount of three resources living in poverty Unemployed and half employed people With no resources
Economic and social reform also brought forth new social classes and strata that diversified social interests and set media agenda to meet the higher needs and rights of audiences-as-citizens.
By the study of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, contemporary Chinese society is differentiated into five social classes and ten social strata based on different political, economic and cultural resources (see Figure 10).320 The social strata that possesses organizational resource
320 The figure is translated from Lu Xueyi/陆学艺, ed. “Social Strata Research Paper in Contemporary China”/当代
- 181 - tend to set the media agenda on behalf of the state; the social strata that possesses economic resource tend to set the media agenda on behalf of market, and the social strata that possesses cultural resource or symbolic power tend to be influenced by moral power of civil society in media agenda-setting. Different social classes and strata with differentiated social interests tend to motivate pluralist broadcast of Chinese television to accommodate various interests of the state, market, and civil society.
Based on the theory of Abraham Maslow about people's needs in communication, the success of a communicator in a mass communication process can be shown in its capacity to meet the hierarchical needs of its recipients in five levels.321 Maslow emphasized the humanist ultimate need for self-actualization, the realization of one's full potential as a human being.
Before one can set about self-actualization, a person firstly has to solve the problems associated with four lower-leveled needs: physical/survival needs, safety needs, social/belongingness and loving needs, and esteem needs. Correspondingly, in the process of mass communication, as basic or physical needs to be informed are fulfilled, a communicator or mass media will move to meet the higher needs of its recipients, the needs to feel safe, to be socially needed, to be loved, and to be respected, and finally to be self actualized. In practice, these needs of television audiences have be actualized one after another in a hierarchical order: z the needs/rights to be informed and survived in a symbolic world; z the needs/rights to know the truth of news events and the living environment as full as
possible to ensure the feeling of safety; z the needs/rights to express opinions on public issues to ensure the feeling of being socially
needed; z the needs/rights to be taken cared as one with specific interest in public debate to ensure the
feeling of being loved;
中国社会阶层研究报告, Social Science and Literature Press, 2002, p.9. 321 According to Abraham Maslow, one of the constantly referred humanist psychologists, communicators are generally concerned with examining people’s needs in communication in order to persuade people to do what they want people to do. See Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, the US, Harper & Row, 1954.
- 182 - z the needs/rights to be respected and acknowledged as honorable citizens ensure the feeling of
self-actualization.
In meeting these human needs or rights in mass communication, the media agenda of
Chinese television was set hierarchically by the state at the first, followed by market, and finally by civil society. While the state and market respectively set the media agenda to meet the basic rights or lower needs of audience-as-citizens, civil society is the final resort to set the media agenda to meet the higher needs or rights of audience. The higher needs of audience-as-citizens can be met by civil society rules and organizations in formal and informal ways (see Table 38).
Civil society agents may indirectly or informally set the media agenda by sending opinions and feedbacks to mass media, or, they may directly or formally set the media agenda by making news events that can motivate mass media to cover it. These civil society agents include civil rights groups, voluntary associations among social activists, and mass media that adopting civil society rules then and there. Generally speaking, the more the higher needs or rights of audience-as-citizens being met, the more contributions civil society agents may have made in media agenda-setting.
Table 38 Formal and Informal Institutions of Civil Society in Media Agenda-setting Formal Informal Rules making or producing news to protect the feed-backs of rights of audience-as-citizens audience-as-citizens Organizations civil right groups, voluntary associations, audience-as-citizens who mass media that adopting civil society rules could be associated based then and there on common interests Characteristics Direct and active Indirect and passive
I Formal Ways of Civil Society in Media Agenda-setting
During the disturbances of April and May, 1989 in Tian Anmen Square, Beijing, CCTV and other media operators in China, for the first time since 1949, were almost free from the
- 183 - government control due to internal disorder of the CPC. Some journalists were automatically resonant in their reports, literally or emotionally, to students and other protestors.322 Television programs at the time provided a relatively objective yet accurate stance toward the pro-democracy movement until it was disrupted at the beginning of June. After the broadcasting of the Tian
Anmen incident of 1989 and the collapse of state power in former Soviet Union and eastern
European countries on Chinese television, which caused great anxiety about the old political system, the government tried to strengthen its media control through a new way, to change its media policy from dictatorship to hegemony.
At the end of 1989, Li Ruihuan, the leader for publicity affairs of the CPC, instructed “… regarding news reports in agenda-setting of public opining, (mass media) should insist on promoting the CPC policy and transforming it as people’s self-conscious actions”.323 In order to implement the new policy of media agenda-setting, the production of “watchdog journalism” or
“program of supervision by public opinion”, which empowered the people to participate in media agenda-setting, was encouraged in this regard:
“Supervision by public opinion is done by the people, and the people use mass media to supervise the works of the CPC, the government and their faculty members…it should not be regarded as supervision done by journalists or mass media alone”.324
Still, these “programs of supervision by public opining” have to meet the standard of correct media agenda-setting of the CPC. The CPC deemed this kind of program production as a
“double-edged sword”, it can be a helping hand to check the failure of the state; it may also dramatize social problems and damage social stability at the same time. Therefore, these
“programs of supervision by public opining” are actually supervised again by the central
322 As a well known example, two famous news speakers of CCTV, Mr. Xue Fei and Ms. Du Xian who showed their sympathy to the students in the most popular CCTV National News at 7:00 pm, was forced to leave their job after the event was pacified. 323 See Li Ruihuan, 1989, “Insisting on correct publicity: a speech on press work seminar, November, 25, 1989”, in the General Office of DPCC, and Editorial Department of Central Archives Bureau ed. Collections of literature on CCP Publicity Works/中国共产党宣传工作文献选编, 1957-1992, Beijing, Study Press/学习出版社, 1996, p.934. 324 Li Ruihuan, 1989, “Insisting on correct publicity: a speech on press work seminar, November, 25, 1989”, p.937.
- 184 - government in an extremely cautious way. The government’s attitude in these program productions was utterly pragmatic. It demanded that these programs should “help to the betterment of government performance, to the solution of problems, to the stability of society and improving the morale of people, to enhancing the authority of the central government”.325
A Civil Society Rules in Media Agenda-setting
Under the new media policy, which aimed to improve the leadership or hegemony of the
CPC by taking care of various kinds of audience needs, civil society rules and values were allowed to access to program production of CCTV and local broadcasters. A great amount of current affairs columns, such as the “Focus” in CCTV-1, had been emerged in 1990s.326 A crucial amount of the reports, which was about one third of the reports, in these columns or regular programs were produced as “program of supervision by public opinion”. These current affairs programs, especially “program of supervision by public opinion”, enjoyed high audience ratings in general, which brought political and economic benefits to both the state and the media.
In making efforts to serve the interests of various social groups, more and more social activists representing different voluntary associations were interviewed or invited as guest speakers in these current affair programs and other news related talk shows programs that were flourished and deliberately focused on non-governmental and non-commercial issues, to improve the self governing capability of various social groups. Motivated by civil society rules to speak out for the weak and the poor, CCTV could be activated to convey public opinions in relatively free and open discussion about certain public issues with less political concerns. In this effort to convey public opinions through producing “programs of supervision by public opinion”, which is encouraged by the government to some extent, Chinese television broadcasters build their own professional standard, which tend to be independent from the state and commercial interests. Civil society motivated media agenda have important influences on government policymaking process and market behavior through the formation of public opinion.
325 People’s Daily, 4 October 1998, p. 4. 326 Column/栏目 is another name for regular program that is produced and aired regularly once a day or once a week.
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1 Increased News Production for the Right of Audience to Know
In the last decade, CCTV doubled its channels from eight to sixteen, and increased nearly four times of its broadcasting hours for all kinds of programs including news and current affairs programs (see Table 39). In 2004, CCTV launched its 24-hour news channel, which further enhanced the quantity of its news production. Thematic broadcasting channels such as Social and
Legal Affairs Channel of CCTV were also established to increase general awareness of legal rights among audiences. As more and more programs were produced under the motivation of market and civil society rather than the state, quantitative changes were gradually matched by qualitative changes. Division of labor in media industry and division of responsibility in program production accompanied division of power in media administration. In the end, these qualitative changes brought in television media were complimentary to the common interests of the state and society as a whole.
Social activists who represented various voluntary groups could join the production of these programs in two ways. Firstly, they were invited as specialists to give their opinions in environment protection programs such as “Mankind and Nature”/人与自然, or human rights protection program for woman such as “Half the Sky”/半边天.327 Similar “soft” programs accessible for social activists included “Social Recording” /社会记录, “Common Concern”/共同
关注, “News Community”/新闻社区, in CCTV-news, Ethnic Review/道德观察 in CCTV-1,
“Commonweal Action”/ 公益行动 in CCTV-10. Since 2003, in the production of live broadcasting of both anticipated and emergent news events, CCTV started to invite scholars and specialists as guest speakers in the studio, making comments or providing background information from a relative independent stance away from the state. This introduction of specialists into the live broadcasting was initiated at the beginning to kill the time of
327 “Mankind and Nature”, established in CCTV-1 on May 11, 1994, is a weekly program promoting environment protection. “Half the Sky”, established in CCTV-1 on January 1, 1995, is a weekday program (from Monday to Friday), promoting human right for Woman.
- 186 - embarrassment caused by unexpected delay of a given news event.328
Table 39 Broadcasting Hours and Percentage of Various Programs in CCTV
News Features Education Entertaining Service Total 1994 4405 7383 1832 9193 570 23384 (%) 18.84 31.57 7.83 39.31 2.45 100 1995 7961 11869 1553 11082 873 33340 (%) 22.3 38.7 4.2 32.1 2.7 100 1996 7155 17622 1685 22038 2367 50808 (%) 14.08 34.68 3.32 43.38 4.45 100 1997 8219 17528 1639 22300 3172 52858 (%) 15.55 33.16 3.1 42.19 6 100 1998 9213 16535 1495 21827 4069 53142 (%) 17.34 31.12 2.81 41.07 7.66 100 1999 8903 15654 1607 22063 5221 53449 (%) 16.66 29.29 3 41.28 9.77 100 2000 9277 17106 1476 21716 6926 56503 (%) 16.42 30.27 2.61 38.44 12.26 100 2001 13085 22453 2364 25374 9601 72879 (%) 17.95 30.82 3.24 34.82 13.17 100 2002 14652 26051 3661 29822 12168 86254 (%) 16.97 30.17 4.24 34.53 14.09 100 Source: CCTV Yearbook 1995 – 2003, and CCTV Technical Administration Office.
Secondly, social activists could join the production of talk show programs as designers or decisive consultants. For example, Yang Dongping/扬东平 and Zheng Yifu/郑亦夫, two famous social activists in China, played critical role to initiate the original style and media agenda of
“Tell It Like It Is”/实话实说, which helped to make it one of the most famous talk shows in
China.329 The uniqueness of “Tell It like It Is” was that it promoted democratic and scientific
328 In CCTV live broadcasting of Hong Kong’ returns to China in 1997, anchors were ordered to read prepared lines according to officially informed schedule. Disorders were frequently occurred when official procedures were changed. This induced idea of inviting scholars and specialists in the studio to help the anchor to comment on unexpected proceedings. See Yusheng Sun, Ten Years, Starting from Changing the Way of Expression, pp.241-243. 329 This is based on an interview with director of Current Affairs Department, CCTV News Center in May, 2003. Yang Dongping is the vice chairman of “Friends of the Nature”, one of the most well known environmental protection NGOs
- 187 - values through free and open debate between and within participated audiences who are invited to join program production in the studio. Audiences on the spot could express their opinions on public issues with the feeling of being socially needed; they could also get the feeling of being loved and respected as their speech are carefully listened, and heartily applauded when they fulfilled their aim to express themselves rationally. In this way, social activists helped the program producer to help audiences both in and outside the studio to fulfill in speaking out and making suggestions on how to produce a program for the purpose of building up a better society.
To improve the right of audience-as-citizen to know and to know better, live broadcast of undergoing great events of sports, culture and politics were initiated. On June 25, 1978, CCTV broadcasted live the 11th FIFA World Cup Argentina via international satellite. After that, CCTV aired live the first Spring Festival Gala Show in 1983, Chinese Women’s Volleyball team wining gold medal at 23rd Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, the first Premier News Conference at the conclusion of the National People’s Congress in 1988, the first “Consumer’s Friend Variety
Show” in 1991, the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty to China in 1997, and the success of
Beijing Olympic Bid in 2000. Some controversial events such as the public debate of President
Jiang and President Clinton in Beijing University about democracy in 1998 and public hearing of government regulation on train ticket prices during New Years’ period in recent years were also broadcasted live and attracted great amount of audiences.
However, the live broadcast of breaking news that demands both professional and political preparations was not taken as a regular maneuver by CCTV until recent years. When terrorist attacks on America occurred in September 11, 2001, DPCC swiftly informed all mass media in
China to withhold their reports on the issue and “keep silence”.330 CCTV therefore did not supply any live coverage when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York collapsed, and afterwards very few Chinese press made the tragedy as headline news. The damage of credibility for media organization was enormous when it is impossible to shut down all news input from
in China, and Zheng Yefu, is a famous social activists and a professor in Renming University. 330 See Lang, A Systematic Study on Chinese Press Policy, p.80.
- 188 - overseas media. The inactivity of CCTV simply drove audience away to overseas broadcasters such as Phoenix TV from Hong Kong, which covered China’s mainland through authorized satellite transmitter.331 The lesson for the government and CCTV as well was that reporting no news when real news happens, for whatever political excuses, would definitely lose positive national image abroad and agenda-setting advantage at home.
One and half year later, CCTV made a thorough reporting plan in advance when the Iraq
War was worldwide discussed as an issue that supposed to happen sooner or later. CCTV managers hoped that the war in Iraq would do for it what the first Gulf War reporting did for
CNN and 9’11 reporting did for Phoenix TV: building up media credibility and bring in advertising income. The headline of the reporting plan was approved by SARFT and DPCC, but the details such as how long CCTV would do the live broadcast were not reported to the government. Actually, little political interference was made during the war reporting on CCTV-1, the network's flagship, and other two international channels CCTV-4 in Chinese and CCTV-9 in
English. Although a special committee from propaganda department of the CPC monitored the news on CCTV everyday, it did not instruct CCTV anything in regard to news production during the war coverage.332
As the U.S.-led attack on Iraq began on March 20, 2003, CCTV, for the first time in history, started to run live transmissions of foreign broadcasters that included CNN, Fox and the pan-Arab network al-Jazeera, with simultaneous interpretation. In the following days, a balanced coverage was produced with experts debating the war strategies on both sides; and both positive and negative remarks on the war made by world leaders were also aired on time. Again, for the first time in history, there were no serious critics against U.S. hegemony, no formal assertions of the
Chinese government’s opposing to the war like what had done during the war of NATO on
331 Phoenix Satellite Television Co., a Hong Kong-based TV network, established in 1996, effectively covered Guangdong province via its free to air broadcast, its satellite signal could be received by audiences in specific government and public institutions, foreign residences and three star hotels in China’s mainland. Phoenix TV gained very high popularity among China's urban viewers for its live coverage on September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. 332 This is based on an interview with Zhang Changming, vice president of CCTV, who is the controller of CCTV-4 and CCTV-9. Zhang decided that the live coverage on Iraqi war lasted 8 hours in CCTV-4 at the first day of coverage.
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Yugoslavia. The war reporting of CCTV channels, especially international channel CCTV-4, was rewarded with dramatically increased ratings (see Table 40). At the same time, CCTV-4 had three-minute commercials every half hour during the war coverage, while before that there was only less than a minute advertisement inserted in normal programs for each hour.333
Table 40 Comparison of Ratings for CCTV-4 in the 9:30-10:00 p.m. time slot between March 16-19 (before the war) and March 21-24 (during the war) 2003 Before the war (%) During the war (%) Beijing 0.6 2.8 Average rating 1.6 6.7 Market share 6.5 22.8 Shanghai 0.8 3.2 Average rating 2.6 10.0 Market share 6.9 21.0 Guangzhou 0.1 1.0 Average rating 0.2 2.2 Market share 1.1 6.4 Average rating: percentage of population watching the program. Market share: percentage of households watching CCTV-4 over all TV channels. Source: CVSC-Sofres Media However, the government still insisted on its bottom line in media agenda-setting during the war report, least but not the last, to avoid international conflict with America. The authorities banned all Chinese journalists including CCTV reporters from entering Iraq after the war opened to avoid “accidental” killing of Chinese journalists which might cause serious trouble for
Sino-American relations.334 As a result, Phoenix TV of Hong Kong, which was regarded by the government as an “overseas” media, became the only Chinese media organization reporting war in Iraq. Some embedded journalists from China’s mainland could only report news “safely” from
333 This is based on a telephone interview with CCTV-4 program controller in May 2003. 334 What the government wanted to avoid was once happened at mid-night on May 8, 1999 when American bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade accidentally and killed three Chinese journalists. After that, the condemnation of America on the most popular current affaires program the “Focus” in CCTV-1 continued from 8 May to 26 May, almost without interruption, to accommodate the national protests against American government. The Sino-American relations dropped to the bottom due to this event.
- 190 - military pressroom of American and British armies in Qatar, or from the U.S. military carrier in the water of the Gulf.
2 Program of Supervision by Public Opinions to Check the Failure of
the State and Market
At the evening of March 1, 2004, one leader of the CPC from the most heavily AIDS infected village in Henan Province and one government officer from the provincial health department were invited to participate in the “News Meeting Room”/新闻会客厅, a well known current affair talk show in CCTV-news channel.335 The poor villagers infected by HIV virus due to contaminated needles used in blood selling stations in Henan province were exposed to the focus of pubic opinion. Only a few years ago, it is unimaginable that such kind of negative news could be aired by CCTV. Currently, the media agenda in producing “programs of supervision by public opinion” was allowed to be free as far as it does not impose threat to the credibility of the central government.
The first “program of supervision by public opining” was reported in CCTV evening news on September 8, 1979. The news criticized some high-leveled government leaders and their family members using official cars for private shopping and sightseeing. It was the first time that television in China had openly criticized corrupt behaviors of government officials. A current affair like program, which basically carries the function of supervision by public opining, was launched in CCTV one year later. As a weekly program, “Looking and Thinking”/观察与思考 actually did not cover news events on time, it focused on describing what had happened times ago and making comments. The daily and news-worthy current affaire programs had flourished in
CCTV channels since mid-1990s that tried to meet the basic needs of audience-as-citizen to be
335 The program was shown on March 1, 2004, by CCTV-news channel. AIDS or Acquired Immure Deficiency Syndrome refers to the immune deficiency caused by HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus. As a “Retrovirus”, HIV replicates in and kills the helper T cells, which are the body’s main defense against illness. HIV is only spread through: 1) sexual contact - unprotected vaginal or anal sex; 2) direct inoculation of the virus - for example infection through contaminated needles; and 3) contaminated blood products or transplanted organs - infected mother may sometimes pass the virus to her developing fetus during the birth or breast milk.
- 191 - informed and to be informed truthfully. Some of these well known programs are “Oriental
Horizon”/东方时空, the “Focus”/焦点访谈, “News Probe”/新闻调查 and “Talk about Law”/今
日说法 in CCTV-1, “Face to Face”/面对面 “News Meeting Room”, “Weekly Quality Report”/
每周质量报告 in CCTV-news, “Dialogue”/对话, “Variety Show in Consumer’s Day”/315 晚会 and “Economic Half Hour”/经济半小时 in CCTV-2.
At seven o’clock in the morning, on May 1, 1993, “Oriental Horizon” was launched by
CCTV-1. The first regular current affaires program in China, in which “Focus on Focus”/焦点时
刻, was embedded.336 “Focus on Focus” in “Oriental Horizon”/东方时空 was not originally designed to be a daily program with the function of supervision by public opinion. All of the first ninety-nine programs in “Focus on Focus” were neural or soft topics, which included the phenomenon of actor and actress who worked in cultural organization but tried to earn extra income through participating privately in commercial performances; and advisory speeches by specialists for middle school students how to pass the national annual exams of entering universities.
The first “program of supervision by public opinion” in “Focus on Focus” was aired on its 100th daily show after launching. It was titled as “Pollution of Yang River Destroyed Harvest in a Vast
Farm Land”/洋河污染导致大片农田绝收. It showed the severe pollution in a river at the suburb of Zhang Jiakou city, He Bei province; it criticized the indifference of the government officials to the environmental pollution. It was rewarded with the National News Prize of the year and marked the beginning of regular negative report that criticizing local government officials on
336 Before CCTV aired “Oriental Horizons”, Beijing Television Station (BTV) had aired a regular morning news program named “Good Morning Beijing”. The difference is that BTV aired short pieces of news, while CCTV produced news features, profiles and entertaining MTV. “Oriental Horizons” was composed by “Oriental Figures”/东方 之子, the first high profile interviewing segment; “Focus on Focus”/焦点时刻, the first regular program of supervision by public opining in China, originally designed as a daily social news features; “Living Space”/生活空间, the first social news features in a short documentary style, originally designed as public service program; “Oriental Horizon MTV”东方时空金曲榜, the first regular music TV (MTV) program in China.
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Chinese television.337
After an eight months trial period of many negative reports, CCTV started an evening program entitled the “Focus”/焦点访谈 on 1 April 1994 with more frequent and sharp exposure of wrongdoings of the state and market. It started broadcasting nationwide at seven thirty in the evening, seven days a week, right after the most popular “National News” in CCTV. Each report of the “Focus” lasted for thirteen minutes and soon became the second most popular program in
CCTV after the National News (see table 41).338
Table 41 Audience Rating of “National News” and the “Focus” in CCTV-1 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 National News 33.7% 25.6% 31.7% 33.4% 30.5% 29.0%
Focus 26.6% 21.3% 25.8% 27.5% 23.8% 23.1%
With nationwide influences, the “Focus” also achieved great success in helping central government to implement its political agenda. In July 1998, the General Office of State Council executed six cases relating violation of government regulation on grain circulation; four of them were originally reported by the “Focus”.339 When the former premier Zhu Rongji visited the
“Focus” studio on October 7, 1998, He praised the program as: “supervision by public opinion, tongue and throat of the people, the mirror of government, and pioneer of the reform”/舆论监督,
群众喉舌,政府镜鉴,改革尖兵.340 Zhu told CCTV journalists that he was also one of the officials who should be supervised by the “Focus”.341 He deliberately defined mass media as mouthpiece of the people, rather than the CPC and the government. However, when CCTV was
337 See Sun Yusheng, Ten Years: starting form changing the mood of expression, pp.124-126. 338 Data collected from Jianming Liu/刘建铭, Yunfang Hu/胡芸芳, Perspective of Audience Rate/收视率透析, China Radio, Beijing, Television Press, 2000, p.168. 339 Qianghua Wang/王强华, Yongzheng Wei/魏永征, Public Opining Supervision and Press Conflicts/舆论监督与新 闻纠纷, Fudan University Press, 2000, p.9. 340 See Department of Current Affairs, CCTV, The Echo of the “Focus”/焦点的回声, China University of Political Science and Law Publisher, 1998, pp. 1–4. 341 China Central Television Yearbook, 1999, p. 2.
- 193 - authorized, at least literally, to criticize the premier who holds a higher official rank than that of
CCTV, negative reports was less than one third of the all programs of the “Focus” in 1999, and not a single negative report was related to the central government (see Table 42 and Table 43).
Table 42 Classification of Reports in the “Focus” in 1999342 Types Number Percentage Propaganda 129 37.9 Criticism 91 26.8 Introduction 51 15.0 Foreign affairs 30 8.8 Praise 26 7.6 Progress Reports 6 1.8 Customs & Cultural Artifacts 4 1.2 Praise and Criticism 3 0.9 Total 340 100.0
Table 43 Classification of the Levels of Government being Subject to Criticism and Praise in the “Focus” in 1999343 Levels of government Praise Criticism
Central government 0 0 Provincial government/ministry 2 0 City or County government 13 25 Township, town, district 10 47 Village 1 15 Station/镇 0 4 Total 26 91
Although reports on extreme sensitive topics, such as demonstrations of laid out workers in urban area, large scaled upheavals made by exhausted farmers who encountered unfair treatments from land appropriation to various unfair financial burdens, were still strictly prohibited, and no criticism on central government was allowed either, CCTV journalists of current affairs programs
342 Alex Chan, “From Propaganda to Hegemony: Focus and China’s Media Policy”, Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 11, No. 30, 2002, p.42. 343 ibid. p.44.
- 194 - had become more aggressive in reporting hard and usually controversial topics rather than soft or neutral ones to achieve greater social impacts and higher audience ratings for the media. More and more such reports on floods, earthquakes, coal mining accidents and various corrupt activities among local government officials had appeared on the screen. As Elizabeth Rosenthal commented:
“…every evening at 7:38 more than 300 million people tune in to the 15-minute program whose hard-hitting investigations and interviews show just how far the television media have come since the days when they provided little more than Communist Party dogma”.344
As the “Focus” gained its popularity throughout the country, almost every provincial and local television station started current affairs programs and adopted the theme of supervision by public opinion. Other kind of media - radio, newspapers and internet – also started to do investigative news reports on controversial issues and corrupt activities.345 On October 1, 2003, the first grass-root public opinion net space, Chinese Supervision by Public Opinion Website/中
国舆论监督网 was established on internet, which signified greater tolerance of the government on non-state owned new media. Through the experience of news reporting on Iraq War and SARS events in 2003, the state finally realized that the efforts to increase public awareness of current affairs can effectively increase the credibility of both mass media and the state.
For CCTV and other local broadcasters, the higher proportion of criticism program or
“program of supervision by public opinion” always means higher audience rating and social impacts. For example, in 1998, while criticism program reached forty-eight percent of its total programs in the “Focus”, audience rating reached its peak of twenty eight percent, which equaled to nearly three hundred million viewers around China.346 As more than eighty percent of CCTV income came from advertising on CCTV-1 and more than eighty percent of CCTV-1 income
344 Elisabeth Rosenthal, “A muckraking program draws 300 million daily”, The New York Times, July 2, 1998 345 Up to 1999, there were more than 60 programs of supervision by public opinion among the television stations of 29 provinces, municipal cities and autonomous districts. Almost all major national newspapers and 31 provincial newspapers created columns related to supervision by public opinion. See People’s Daily, March 5, 1999, p. 1. 346 This is based on an interview with director of Current Affairs Department, CCTV News Center, in May 2003.
- 195 - came from advertising on the golden period, in which “National News”, the “Focus” and “TV
Drama Theater” were aired, the audience rating of the “Focus” did matter for a sustainable development of CCTV.347 In this way, CCTV was supported by both the state and market to keep criticism programs at an appropriate amount in the “Focus” for the benefits of all interest groups.
Beyond this appropriate amount are those issues that are prohibited to report by the government, which relate to extreme sensitive topics, such as demonstrations of laid off workers in urban area, or large scaled upheavals made by exhausted farmers in rural area who lose their land and other living resources due to mismanagement and corruption of the government officials.
B A Case Study of Three Citizen’s Petition to Check the Failure of the
State
On December 29, 2003, a regular program, “Legal Affairs” in CCTV-1 broadcasted a special program to honor ten groups of people who played key roles in a list of well known legal news events of the year, and contributed to the establishment of rule by law. Ranked eighth on the list, Xu Zhiyong/许志永, Teng Biao/滕彪, and Yu Jiang/俞江, three doctors of law as volunteer citizens, were honored for their collective efforts to check the failure of the state and protect the civil rights of marginalized citizens.348 Actually, these three public figures at the time were not only newsmakers, but also the media agenda-setters. This is a typical story of voluntary association of social activists who forged public opinion by influencing media agenda and finally pressured the government to change its administrative measures (see Table 44).
Table 44 The Timeline of “Three Citizens” in Media Agenda-setting of Sun Zhigang Event
347 This is based on an interview with director of CCTV Advertisement Department in April 2004. 348 See “Legal Affairs” program aired on December 29, 2003 in CCTV-1.
- 196 -
March 20, Sun Zhigang/孙志刚, a migrant worker in Guanzhou city, Guangdong province was identified by local policemen as “urban vagrant”, and then tortured to death during the period of official “reception”. April 25, “Southern Capital Newspaper”, a newspaper owned by Guangzhou CPC Committee, published the first report on the tragic death of Sun Zhigang. May 12, Thirteen suspects in the death of Sun Zhigang were caught by public security department under the pressure of public opinions. May 13, DPCC issued internal notice to restrict further reports on the death of Sun Zhigang especially on broadcasting media. May 14, “Three Citizens” collectively sent a proposal to the Standing Committee of the NPC, asking for Violation of the Constitution Check on the “Regulations of Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas” issued by the State Council on May 12, 1982. May 16, “China Youth Daily”, reported the story of “Three Citizens” appeal to NPC. May 22, The original petition letter was published by “Southern Weekend”, another newspaper owned by Guangzhou CPC Committee. May 23, He Weifang, Sheng Hong, Shen Yi, Xiao Han, He Haibo made a collective appeal to NPC, proposing a special investigation process on “Violation of the Constitution Check” on the “Regulations on Taking in and Sending back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas” June 5, “Economic 30 Minutes” of CCTV-2 aired the program: “The Court Opened for the Case of Immigrant Worker Sun Zhigang”. June 9, The Middle Judiciary Court of Guangzhou City made the first verdict on Sun Zhigang case: two principal criminals Qiao Yanqing/乔燕琴 and Li Haiying/李海樱 were sentenced to death, ten others were sentenced from three years to life imprisonment. June 20, the State Council issued a new regulation, “Regulations on Administration of Assisting Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas”, and abolished the old one at the same time. June 23, the “Focus” in CCTV-1 did its single report on the event, and deliberately avoided the two associated petitions for the violation of the constitution check on “Regulations on Taking in and Sending back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas” October 28, “Three Citizens” jointly established “Beijing Sunshine Constitutional Research Center of Social Sciences/北京阳光宪道社会科学研究中心, a non-governmental academic institute to promote constitutional reform in China. December 29, the event of “Three Citizens” petition was ranked eighth on the list of ten most important legal news events in 2003 by “Legal Affairs” program in CCTV-1.
- 197 -
On March 17, 2003, Sun Zhigang, a graduate from Wuhan Science and Technology
University and a contracted designer for a garment manufacture company in Guangzhou city,
Guangdong province, was identified by policemen as an “urban vagrant”.349 On the way to an
Internet café, Sun failed to prove himself as a legal resident in the city because he had just arrived
Guangzhou about twenty days ago and did not find time to register as temporary resident.
Policemen kept Sun in the police station over night and sent him to Guanzhou Municipal
Transitional Station For Vagrants/广州市收容遣送中转站, where he was tortured and then dead in Guanzhou Medical Treatment Station for Vagrants/广州收容人员救治站 on March 20.
The news about the tragic death of Sun Zhigang was first published briefly by a student of journalism in Beijing who learned the event from a schoolmate of Sun. It was exposed on a
Bulletin Board Service(BBS) area of Internet named Xici Hutong/西祠胡同, a well known
Internet community for exchange of information and ideas among young students and intellectuals. This brief news reached another Internet user, Chen Feng/陈峰, who worked for
Southern Capital Newspaper/南方都市报, a newspaper owned by Guangdong Provincial CPC
Committee in Guanzhou city. Chen Feng and his colleague did an investigative report titled “The
Death of Sun Zhigang as a Vagrant”/被收容者孙志刚之死, which was published on Southern
Capital Newspaper one month later.350
The initial report on Sun Zhigang event by Southern Capital Newspaper was followed up
349 Chinese households are divided into urban and rural ones with different ID cards and differentiated treatments of social welfares. Citizens in China are thus divided into urban and rural household card holders. A rural household card holder who wants to work in a city must apply for a temporary resident card from the security department of the municipal government. Any rural household card holders who work in the city without a temporary resident card will be identified as “urban vagrant”, and according to “Regulations on Taking in and Sending back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas”, they will be collected and sent back to the rural areas where they came from. Sun Zhigang came from a rural area in Hubei Province, although he had graduated from a college in urban area, he was still a rural household card holder before he can find a job in a state-owned enterprises or a state department that have the privilege to change his status from a rural household card holder to an urban one. 350 Chen Feng was selected by Internet users on cctv.com as one of the eight most well known journalists in 2003 due to his first report on Sun Zhigang event. For the whole story of news report on this event, see Feng Chen/陈峰, A Note of Reporting Sun Zhigang Event/孙志刚事件采访记, 2005, www.xixicathy.blogchina.com/2197079.html (last visited July 7, 2005).
- 198 - by other newspapers across the country and all these reports on state-owned newspapers became a hot topic among Internet communities. There was a great enthusiasm among speakers on Internet, who unanimously asked for a justified and accountable investigation on the event. Numerous articles of rational analysis appeared on many websites including people.com.cn of the CPC affiliated People’s Daily, which strengthened the determination of the authority to perform a swift investigation. On May 12, thirteen suspects in the case were caught by security departments in
Guangzhou.351
Among millions of others, Xu Zhiyong, Teng Biao, and Yu Jiang were three Internet users who cared about this event and communicated with each other almost every day through Internet.
As graduated doctors of law from Beijing University one year ago, and lecturers of law in three different cities, they cared more about how to establish an institutional mechanism to prevent the re-occurrence of such tragedy. They finally agreed that the best way to achieve the goal was to propose a “Violation of the Constitution Check ”/违宪审查 on “Regulations on Taking-in and
Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas” /城市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法 that was issued in 1982 by the State Council. They believed that the regulation issued by the State Council, which authorized public security officer the force to take in vagrants and beggars in urban areas and send them back home in countryside, was against the Constitution of PRC. The right of making such proposal was found out in the Law of Legislation of People’s Republic of China/中
华人民共和国立法法 issued in 2000.
They also agreed that the most effective way to turn their proposal from a private pursuit to a public petition was to attract the attention of mass media. In order to reach the maximum effect of mass communication, they carefully chose the date of May 14 to send the “Proposal for
Reviewing ‘Regulations of Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas’”/
关于审查<城市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法>的建议. They believed that before the date, the
351 See Ling Chufang/林楚方, Zhao Ling/赵凌, “Articles on People’s Daily Website Strengthened the Determination of Authority to Perform a Swift Investigation”/人民网文章增加了侦破孙志刚案的决心, Southern Weekend, June 6, 2003.
- 199 - agenda of media organization were still focused on SARS that had been lasted for nearly one month, while after the date, they were afraid that the entire reports concerned Sun Zhigang event might be completely prohibited by the authority across the country, because they heard about news that DPCC had restricted the reports on the event, and not a single television report had ever been done on the issue ever since it was reported by other sources.352
The newspaper they chose was China Youth Daily/中国青年报, an affiliation of the central committee of Chinese Communist Youth League. This daily newspaper enjoyed not only a reputation of aggressiveness in swift reporting of new ideas in general, but also a national influence based on its specific links with the central government as the publicity tools of the CPC for youngsters. They planned to publish it on the website if the newspaper did not react to their initiative. They were even prepared to be questioned by public security officers. However, two days after they sent the proposal through fax to the standing committee of NPC and released it to the newspaper at the same time, China Youth Daily published a news report named as “Three
Citizens’ Petition to NPC for an Violation of the Constitution Check on Regulations of Taking-in and Sending-back Measures”/三公民上书人大建议对收容办法进行违宪审查, in which the key points of their proposal was emphasized, the “Regulations of Taking-in and Sending-back
Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas” issued by the State Council two decades ago was against the 37th clause of the Constitution:
Freedom of physical movement of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable.
No citizens may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people's procurator or by decision of a people’s court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ. Unlawful detention or deprivation or restriction of citizens’ freedom of the person by other means is prohibited, and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited.
China Youth Daily highly praised the significance of this first proposal in Chinese history
352 The story of how the three citizens made their proposal well known to the public through mass media was recorded by Teng Baio/滕彪, in his article “Sun Zhigang Event: Knowledge, Media, and Power/孙志刚事件：知识、媒介与权 力”, http://www.yannan.cn/data/detail.php?id=7007 (last visited June, 20, 2005).
- 200 - for such a “Violation of the Constitution Check” on a government regulation353. The same appraisal was followed by other reports on newspapers across the country, and the whole text of the proposal was published by the most influential newspaper among Chinese intellectuals,
Southern Weekend, on May 22.354 The proposal was responded by another association of activated citizens too. On May 23, five well known professors of law in China, He Weifang/贺卫
方, Sheng Hong/盛洪, Shen Gui/沈岿, Xiao Han/萧瀚, and He Haibo/何海波, made a collective appeal to NPC for launching the process of Violation of the Constitution Check on the related regulation.355 After all these happened, “Economic 30 Minutes” in CCTV-2, aired its first program, “The Court Opened for the Case of Migrant Worker Sun Zhigang” on June 5. It gave a comprehensive and objective description on the issue including the collective appeals from the
Three Citizens and the Five Professors.356
After consultation with five scholars of law in Beijing, the State Council issued a new regulation, “Regulations on Administration of Assisting Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas”/城
市生活无着的流浪乞讨人员救助管理办法 On June 20, and abolished the old one at the same time.357 “The government role in dealing with vagrant and beggars,” commented the Southern
353 See China Youth Daily, May 16, 2005, “Three Citizens’ Petition to NPC for an Anti-constitutional Check on Regulations of Taking-in”. 354 For other important reports on the Three Citizens’ proposal, see “Three Doctors’ Petition for Violation of Constitutional Check on the Regulation on Taking-in and Sending-back Measures”/三博士上书 认为《收容遣送办法》 有违宪法, Beijing Youth Daily/北京青年报, May 17, 2003; “Taking-in Station Should Become Saving Station”/收容站 应当成为救济站, Xinhua News Agency, June 12, 2003; “It Is a Trend to Change Taking-in Station to Well-being Station”/改收容为救济势在必行, Wenhui Newspaper/文汇报 on June 13, 2003. 355 “The Idea of Re-constructing Taking-in and Sending-back System after Sun Zhigang Event”/孙志刚事件后关于 “收容遣送”制度的重构设想, International Herald/国际先驱导报, June 16, 2003. 356 See “Economic 30 Minutes” in CCTV-2, on June 5, 2003. 357 The five scholars of law being invited in consulting the new regulation of “Regulations on Administration of Assisting Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas” were Jiang Minan/姜明安, Ying Songnian/应松年, Yuanshuhong/袁曙 虹, Han Dayuan/韩大元, Ma Huaide/马怀德. Actually, the State Council drafted the new regulation as early as 1979, but the appeals of the Three Citizens and Five Professor facilitated the birth of it. See Xianjun Zheng/郑贤君, “Safeguarding the Freedom: the Progress of Basic Civil Rights Protection/自由的保障-公民基本权利保障的进展 http://www.chinalawedu.com/news (last visited May27, 2005).
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Weekend, “has been changed from a coercive policeman to a social service provider whose effectiveness is subject to the satisfaction of the affected citizens”.358 For the first time in the history of People’s Republic of China, a government regulation was abolished based on the appeal of associated volunteers and the pressure of public opinion that conveyed by state owned mass media. Although the ultimate goal of the Three Citizens and the Five Professors to sue the government regulation against the Constitution was neglected by the NPC, it was still a success for these voluntary associations of citizens to try to set the media agenda for public interests. On
October 28, in order to enhance the public awareness of the constitutional rights and improve study on rule of law in China, the Three Citizens continued their efforts and organized a formal non-governmental and non-commercial institute, “Beijing Sunshine Center for Constitution and
Social Sciences”.359
Three days after the State Council issued the new regulation and abolish the old one; the success of the Three Citizens in media agenda-setting was further approved by the single report on the “Focus” in CCTV-1. Compared with the report on “Economic 30 Minutes” two weeks ago, the report on the “Focus” was very conservative; it appraised the renovation of related government regulations, but deliberately avoided mentioning the two associated appeals for
Violation of the Constitution Check on “Regulations of Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and
Beggars in Urban Areas”. However, the contribution of the Three Citizens is finally recognized by “Legal Affairs” in CCTV-1 at the end of the year, which linked their proposal of checking the old regulation directly with the issue of the new regulation.
II Informal Ways of Civil Society in Media Agenda-setting
Informal ways of civil society in media agenda-setting are performed by audience-as-citizens who sends feedbacks as comments on published news, or news clues for future reports, to initiate
358 See Southern Weekend, June 26, 2003. 359 The similar Constitutional research institute was The Constitution and Civil Rights Research Center/宪法与公民 权利研究中心, which was established by The Constitution and Civil Rights Professional Committee of Beijing Lawyer Association and Law School of Qinghua University in May 2003.
- 202 - the media to change its media agenda. Sometimes, these voluntary citizens could passively become newsmakers when their opinions or news clues are so important that the media has to interview them and verify the facts to the public. Compared with the formal way of media agenda-setting, in which association of voluntary citizens collectively bring themselves to the focus of news reports and thus change the order of importance of ongoing news events, this informal way of media agenda-setting through feedbacks of individual viewer or reader to the media is indirect and less aggressive. The opinion maker or news clue provider reacts passively to what had reported by the media, but do not deliberately make news with a renewed topic that may directly change the media agenda.
A Feedbacks to Mass Media from Audience-as-citizens
Grassroots viewers who provide comments or news clues to television broadcasters increased rapidly in recent years. For instance, feedbacks in forms of letters to Audience
Department of CCTV increased more than two hundred times from 1996 to 2000, in which feedbacks offering news clues and reflecting social problems were 33% of the total (see Table 45 and Table 46). Besides these “general” feedbacks to Audience Connection Department, much more feedbacks were given directly to various department and regular programs such as the
“Focus” in CCTV-1.
Table 45 Feedbacks from audiences to CCTV from 1997 to 2000 (,000 pieces) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 300 300 4431 4051 7311 Sources: CCTV Yearbook 1998-2001 Table 46 Composition of Feedbacks from audiences to CCTV in 2000 (%) Seeking Offering Social Appraising Offering Commenting Others advices news clues problems programs suggestions on anchors 41 20 13 14 5 3 2 Sources: CCTV Year Book 2001 In 2003, the average feedbacks to the “Focus” in CCTV-1 were more than three thousand pieces each day, which was composed by more than three hundred letters, five hundred telephone
- 203 - calls, and more than two thousand three hundred mobile messages and emails.360 Such quantity of feedbacks indicated the great enthusiasm of audiences’ voluntary participation in advising program production for the “Focus”. Among these feedbacks to the “Focus”, fifty percent of them concerned corrupt issues of government officials, twenty percent of them concerned the infringement of civil rights or private properties. The remaining thirty percent concerned other hot debated social problems (see Table 47).361 The proportion of reflecting negative issues in feedbacks to the “Focus” that consisted of informing government corruption and civil rights infringements is much higher the general feedbacks to CCTV that consisted of offering news clues and reflecting social problems.
Table 47 Composition of Feedbacks from Audiences to the “Focus” in 2003 (%)
Informing government corruptions Informing civil rights infringement Others
50 20 30
Sources: Television Research/电视研究, 5/2004, CCTV
In 1985, the former general secretary of the CPC, Hu Yaobang, suggested a conventional proportion of eighty percent positive news and twenty percent negative news for the media agenda in China.362 Obviously, this proportion was abandoned ever since the “Focus” was launched in 1994. The effects of audience’s feedbacks on what kinds of topics should be selected for the “Focus” were impressive. According to statistics provided by the “Focus” producer, one third of the “Focus” programs in 2003 can be categorized as programs of “watchdog journalism”, or “programs of supervision by public opinion” to check the failures of the state and market.
Among these “programs of supervision by public opinion”, eighty percent of them were produced based on news clues offered by feedbacks of audiences.363 In this way, audience-as-citizens indirectly participated in setting the media agenda of almost one third of the “Focus” in CCTV-1.
360 This data was addressed in a ten year anniversary of the “Focus” aired on April 20, 2004, CCTV-1. 361 Liang Jianzeng/梁建增, “Choosing topics is the origin for the success of Focus”/选题是焦点访谈成功的源头活水, Television Research/电视研究, 5/2004, CCTV, p.11. 362 People’s Daily, 14 August 1985, p. 1 363 Liang, “Choosing right topics is the origin for the success of ‘Focus’”, p.11.
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While no civil society institutions in China formally claimed their rights in setting the media agenda, more and more individual citizens who represented rules of civil society had actively set the media agenda, particularly in a way that is deemed as supplementary to both the state and market. In such cases as environment protection, the central government encourages individual activists and voluntary associations to undertake more and more civil responsibilities.
According to a testimony of Elizabeth Economy before US congress in 2005, the majority of
China's environmental activists have media background, “which has proved invaluable in raising the profile of environmental issues within the Chinese government and throughout the country”, and “China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has emerged as a strong supporter of NGO activity, and works very closely with NGOs--both publicly and behind the scenes--to achieve common goals”.364
B A Case Study of SARS Reports on the “Focus”
On February 17, 2003, the “Focus” in CCTV-1 reported that three hundred and five cases of infectious atypical pneumonia/非典型性肺炎, which was later defined by the World Health
Organization (WHO) as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), occurred with five death in
China’s south Guangdong province until February 10.365 The program reported that on February
12, ninety three patients recovered from the disease and left hospitals. While occurrence of the new disease was claimed to be turned away, local people calmed down typically after the government press conference to explain the current situation. The report reassured that a well
364 Two thousand environmental groups were officially registered as NGOs in China’s mainland in 2004, many registered as for-profit business entities, or not registered as all. See Elizabeth Economy, “China’s Environmental Movement, Testimony before the Congressional Executive Commission on China Roundtable on Environmental NGOs in China: Encouraging Action and Addressing Public Grievances”, February 7, 2005, http://www.cfr.org/pub7770/elizabeth_c_economy/chinas_environmental_movement.php (last visited May 27, 2005). 365 See the “Focus” in CCTV-1 on February 17, 2003. SARS was first broke out in Guangdong Province in November 2002, which is a viral respiratory illness caused by a corona-virus, called SARS-associated corona-virus (SARS-CoV). Over a few months, the illness spread to more than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia before the global outbreak was contained. According to the WHO, a total of 8,098 people worldwide became sick with SARS during the 2003 outbreak. Of these, 774 died.
- 205 - established anti-epidemic system in China could deal with even larger scaled infectious disease.366
The message was no need to worry about this unknown yet already under-controlled epidemic, especially before the annual congress of the NPC and the CPPCC from March 5 to 15.
After the annual congress of the NPC and the CPPCC, the Iraq War started on March 20, all television news including programs of the “Focus” was shifted to cover the war on a daily base for about two weeks. For over one and half month, no SARS related reports appeared on the
“Focus”. The media agenda was set during this period to indicate that the SARS had been under absolute control, and the affected area was restricted in Guangdong province. But, in early March,
Jiang Yanyong/蒋彦永, a retired surgeon from Beijing’s No.301 Hospital, general hospital of the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA), found out that several medical workers in a neighboring military hospital had been infected by the epidemic. At the end of March, Dr. Jiang confirmed that there had already been forty suspected or diagnosed SARS patients and six SARS related deaths in only one military hospital. The figure reached sixty patients and seven deaths in the following days. In the mean time, another forty suspected or diagnosed SARS patients was also confirmed in another military hospital by Dr. Jiang.
On April 2, after a very optimistic news report about SARS containment in the name of
“Talking about SARS with Minister Zhang Wenkang/卫生部部长张文康谈非典型肺炎” in
“National News” of CCTV-1, the “Focus” made its second SARS related report, which showed overwhelmingly optimistic on controlling the epidemic. Zhang Wenkang, the minister of Health
Ministry at the time was once again interviewed, in which he emphasized that the spread of SARS was undoubtedly under effective control in affected areas. In April 3, CCTV aired live a press conference held by the State Council Information Office, in which Minister Zhang announced that only twelve suspected or diagnosed SARS patients and three SARS related deaths were reported in Beijing by March 31. Dr. Jiang was astonished and could not believe the official figure announced through CCTV. The next day, when he asked the manager of his hospital to report the
366 This is a feature program named as “Talking about SARS/话说非典型肺炎” aired on the “Focus” on February 17, 2003. See http://www.cctv.com/news/focus/20030217/index.html (last visited May 27, 2005).
- 206 - spread of SARS in military hospitals in Beijing to the higher authority of the army, the number of suspected or diagnosed patients treated in three military hospitals in Beijing was confirmed as one hundred forty six all together. Dr. Jiang found the situation was so urgent, he believed that the public should no longer wait to learn the truth only through official announcement.
On April 4, as the “Focus” in CCTV-1 aired its third SARS related program and reaffirmed that the epidemic is under control, Dr. Jiang wrote a letter and emailed it to CCTV-4 and Phoenix
TV, hoping to bring the alarm to the public. In the following days, no responses came from these two broadcasters, due to their unwillingness to openly challenge the political agenda of Chinese government, although they had earned great public trusts in the Iraq War coverage. However, the email was apparently transferred to other sources through Internet when the “Focus” in CCTV-1 continued to produce other optimistic reports on controlling the disease at the time. By April 8, Dr.
Jiang received a telephone call from a correspondent of the Time magazine in Beijing. Making sure that he was the “Doctor Jiang” who had written the email, the Time published the interview of Jiang on its website that evening. In the following days, Jiang Yanyong became the focus of mass media around the world, while the article “Beijing’s SARS Attack” was published by the
Time, quickly and widely spread out through the Internet.367
As the most influential intergovernmental organization of public health in the world, the
WHO watched closely on the epidemic progress and sent experts to Beijing for investigation on
April 10, one day after the first SARS report on the Time. When Beijing was formally designated as an infected area of SARS by the WHO on April 11, no media organization dared to publish the news. Instead, the Ministry of Health maintained the previous statement: “the published epidemic statistics included all diagnosed cases in civil and military hospitals”, and, “up to April 9, twenty two SARS cases were reported in Beijing”.368 At this stage, Dr. Jiang learned that all hospitals in
367 Jakes, Susan, “Beijing's SARS Attack, doctor and CPC member insists there are many more cases than officials will admit”, Times, April 8, 2003, http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/daily/0,9754,441615,00.html (last visited May 27, 2005). 368 Li, Qing/ 李菁,2003, Jiang Yanyong: “People’s interests is higher than anything”/蒋彦永:人民利益高于一切 Vol. 243, Sanlian Life Weekly/三联生活周刊, 2003-06-09
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Beijing were demanded by higher authorities to treat SARS patients by themselves, because the only two special hospitals for epidemic diseases in Beijing were fully occupied with SARS patients, there were no spare space to accommodate any SARS patients who should be transferred immediately from ordinary hospitals. This was a decision that against the normal standard of infectious diseases treatment.369 On April 13, the “Focus” repeated its optimistic report on SARS issue in Beijing to support the official statement of the Ministry of Health. In the program, Tang
Yaowu/唐耀武, the member of SARS experts group of Beijing Health Bureau, insisted that the disease was absolutely under control, even when he failed to answer how many SARS patients now existed in Beijing.
On April 15, the “Focus” shifted its focus to how medical exchanges of SARS prevention and treatment skills were undertaken among Guangdong, Hong Kang and Taiwan. The success of
Guangdong experience in preventing and treating the disease was highly appraised. The program started with the meeting between Chinese President Hu Jingtao and Dong Chihua, the Chief of
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, in which President Hu promised that the central government would help Hong Kang to cut off SARS. According to the program, up to April 13, one thousand one hundred and eight SARS cases were reported in Hong Kang, among which two hundred and twenty three patients were recovered, and twenty three patients were reported in
Taiwan. In contrast, up to April 10, one thousand two hundred and thirteen patients were diagnosed in Guangdong, among which one thousand and four were recovered and left hospital. It suggested that the experience of controlling the disease in China’s mainland could be adopted by
Hong Kang and Taiwan to achieve the same success.
However, on April 16, WHO held a press conference concerning the SARS investigation in
Beijing, in which Dr. Jiang’s material and data on SARS was confirmed. On April 17, Chinese
President Hu Jintao made a statement on a formal meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC that no one was allowed to cover the SARS situation. On April 18, the Time magazine detailed how
369 In Dr. Jiang’s opinion, some small hospitals should be transformed to infectious hospitals as soon as possible and provided with experienced doctors and nurses.
- 208 - patients were moved to other hospitals and hotels, or even driven on the road around Beijing by ambulances to avoid the WHO inspection.370 At the same day, Premier Wen Jiabao urged governments at various levels and all localities to report the true situation of SARS accurately, timely and honestly. He said that anyone who covered up SARS cases or delayed the release of information would be harshly punished.371 It was until this day, the “Focus” changed its tone in the program on SARS, which was named as “Heart connected with people and fighting SARS together with people/心系人民 共克“非典”. The program stressed that the top leaders of the stare had taken the prevention and treatment of SARS as the most important issue, and the health and life of people was and should always be the top agenda of the state.
On April 20, Gao Qiang/高强, vice minister of the Health Ministry, acknowledged at a press conference that Beijing had reported three hundred thirty nine diagnosed SARS cases and four hundred and two suspected cases, while the CPC Central Committee had dismissed former health minister Zhang Wenkang and former Beijing Mayor Meng Xuenong/孟学农. From April
18 to May 4, except a special program on April 29 to promote the debut of CCTV-news, the
“Focus” consecutively issued sixteen SARS related programs, which is unparallel in its own history. From May 7 to May 17, another five reports was issued every two days. On June 17, the
“Focus” ended its SARS related consecutive reports, which lasted for four months, the longest consecutive reports in its own history.
From February 17 to April 15, all seven reports on the “Focus” were about that the spread of
SARS was under control. It was after April 18, when the government changed its tone on the issue, which was truthfully exposed by the Time magazine and WHO based upon evidence provision of Dr. Jiang, no more blinded optimistic reports had ever bee appeared in the following
370 Susan Jakes, “Beijing Hoodwinks WHO Inspectors, TIME Exclusive: Hospitals in the Chinese Capital Hid SARS Patients from International Health Officials”, Time Asia, April 18, 2003. http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/printout/0,9788,444684,00.html (last visited May 27, 2005). 371 People’s Daily Online, “Chinese Premier Urges Accurate Reporting of SARS Cases” http://english.people.com.cn/200304/19/eng20030419_115439.shtml, (last visited April 19, 2003).
- 209 - programs of the “Focus”(see Table 48).372 Twenty nine reports on SARS by the “Focus” within the four months can be divided into four types. Type A, SARS under-control was only appeared before April 15 and at the very end of the serial reports. All the other three types of reports that include type B, social groups organized to fight against SARS, type C, the state leaders and government involved in dealing with SARS, and type D, appraisal of heroic models in preventing and treating SARS, were appeared mostly after April 18. The efforts of Dr. Jiang made April 18,
2003 the turning point for the media agenda of the “Focus”.
Table 48 Four Types of SARS Reports in the Serial Reports by the “Focus” from February 17 to June 17, 2003 No/Types Dates Contents in the “Focus” 1/A 2/17 Talking about SARS/话说非典型肺炎 2/A 4/2 SARS being under effective controlled, an interview with Zhang Wenkang, Minister of the Health Ministry/非典型肺炎得到有效控制—专访卫生部部长张 文康 3/A 4/4 Diagnosing SARS/把脉非典型肺炎 4/A & B 4/6 International cooperation in preventing and treating SARS/国际合作防治“非典” 5/A 4/7 Stepping out of the SARS shadow/走出“非典”阴影 6/A 4/13 Working together to prevent and treat SARS/齐心协力 防治“非典 7/A 4/15 Hong Kong, Taiwan and China’s mainland working together to fight against SARS/两岸三地 共克“非典” 8/C 4/18 Heart linked with people and fighting SARS together with people/心系人民共克 “非典” 9/D 4/19 Holy duty/天职 10/D 4/20 Doctors and nurses in ICU, Guangzhou/战士—记广州 ICU 的医护人员 11/C &D 4/21 The launch of quick detecting technique of SARS by Academy of Military Medical Sciences/军事医学科学院成功研制“非典”快速检测技术 12/C 4/22 Facing the challenge of SARS/面对“非典”的挑战 13/C 4/23 Courageous soldiers in fighting SARS/无畏的“抗非”战士
372 These data are collected from the website of CCTV, on which the contents of the “Focus” from February 17, 2003 to June 17, 2003 were published. See http://www.cctv.com/program/jdft/01/index.shtml (last visited on March 27, 2005).
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14/D 4/24 Preventing the spread of SARS by all means/海陆空防“非典” 15/B 4/25 Consulting hotline with endless passion/咨询热线 真情无限 16/B 4/26 Controlling the price and ensuring the supply of drugs/控制价格保障供给 17/C 4/27 Preventing SARS by Law/依法防治“非典” 18/B 4/28 Step into the forbidden area of SARS/走近“非典”隔离区 19/C 4/30 One nation with one mind: fighting against SARS/万众一心,众志成城,弘扬民族 精神,全力抗非 20/B 5/1 Helping one other to overcome difficulties/团结互助 和衷共济 21/D 5/2 Overcome the hardship and fight for success/迎难而上敢于胜利 22/D 5/3 Miracles in building Xiaotangshan Hospital/奇迹—小汤山医院建设纪实 23/C 5/4 Collecting more resources to prevent and treat SARS/加大投入 防治非典 24/B 5/7 Cutting off contamination sources that spread SARS/切断非典垃圾污染源 25/A 5/13 Patients of SARS recovered from Beijing Pectoral Hospital 康复—北京胸科医院 非典患者出院纪实 26/C 5/14 New endeavor of Shandong people in assisting the national fight against SARS/再叙沂蒙情 27/C 5/15 Preventing and treating the epidemic by law/疫情灾害 依法防控 28/C 5/17 Interfering the prevention of epidemic will not be tolerated by law/干扰防疫国法 不容 29/A 6/17 The last patient of SARS recovered and left the hospital in Hebai/河北最后一名非 典患者康复出院 A: SARS under-control; B: Social groups fighting against SARS; C: State leaders and government involvement; D: Appraisal of heroic models.
For the impact of SARS reports on Chinese media, Zhang Huchen from Voice of America made a statement to American Congressional-Executive Committee on China in September 2003, he said:373
What about the future of the Chinese press? I see two forces at work: one is the
373 The Congressional-Executive Commission on China was created by American Congress in October 2000 to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the President and the Congress. It consists of nine Senators, nine members of the House of Representatives, and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President.
- 211 - conscientious effort on the part of Chinese journalists to break the control of the government.
Journalists continue to report on sensitive political issues either out of their sense of social responsibility or because of the forces of market economy. As more and more newspapers and other news organizations fight for their survival in an ever-growing market economy, they feel the need to increase their market share by reporting on topics people are concerned about. The other force is the Communist Party desire to polish its image and consolidate its rule. Reporting of large scale corruption and systematic failure would only weaken its rule.374
What lacks in his observation is that civil society activists like Jiang Yanyong and the rules carried by these activists could not be demolished. When the state changed its way of setting the media agenda in a process of learning how to communicate with the public in a more effective and constructive way, it learned to acknowledge and accept the positive pressure of civil society activists. The agenda of media organization was indirectly adjusted by civil society activists along with the changing methods of the state in dealing with social crisis. After the SARS campaign by
Chinese media, epidemic diseases, natural disasters and large scaled accidents that claimed lives in quantity were quickly covered by CCTV and other media organizations in China.
In May, director of the Beijing municipal leading group of preventing and controlling SARS informed in a press conference in Beijing that Dr. Jiang had not been put under any pressure or restrictions due to his letter to report SARS to concerned media.375 However, civil society motivated media agenda-setting could be taken place only under two circumstances. The first is a necessary condition, which is the tolerance of the state that treats civil society motivated media agenda-setting as benign and constructive to the state agenda in general. The second is the introduction of new media such as Internet or international institution such as WHO, which unconventionally but effectively put positive pressure on Chinese government to change its way of media agenda-setting. On February, 24, 2004, Jiang Yanyong sent another letter calling for
374 Huchen Zhang, “Statement Presented to the Congressional-Executive Committee on China”, September 22, 2003, http://www.cecc.gov/pages/roundtables/092203/huchen.php (last visited May 27, 2005). 375 People’s Daily Online, “SARS Whistle-blower Breathing Sigh of Relief”, http://english1.peopledaily.com.cn/200305/21/eng20030521_117004.shtml (last visited May 21, 2003).
- 212 - reappraisal of Tiananmen incident of 1989 directly to leaders of NPC, CPPCC, CPC, and the
State Council. This time, Dr. Jiang failed to attract further attention from mass media, while he was put under “shuanggui” or “double regulations” from June 1 to July 19, during the sensitive period of 15th anniversary for Tiananmen incident of 1989.376 After that, he was still not allowed to be interviewed by any media. The challenge of civil society activists to the state agenda, which might reset the media agenda, was definitely not always successful in contemporary China.
In the end, television media agenda motivated by civil society rules and associations can emerge under the negotiation with the state. In other words, civil society can only set the media agenda in a way that is accepted by the authority as complimentary to the interests of the state.
While improving moral standard and strengthening social cohesion are the basic needs of civil society in media agenda-setting, the representation of these basic needs in media agenda was acknowledged by the state within a certain boundary. When rules of civil society was fundamentally contradictory to the rules of the state or market in practice, civil society players had to compromise themselves or persuade the agents of the state or market to make compromise to set the media agenda based on the consensus of maximizing common good for the state society complex as a whole.
376 The term “shuanggui” (double regulations or stipulations) refers to the CCP’s request for a CPC member to appear at a stipulated time and place for questioning, and is a disciplinary measure enforced by the CPC’s Disciplinary Inspection Committee. It is based on the CPC’s Regulation on Dealing with Cases of CPC Discipline Violations, which came into effect on May 1, 1994. Article 28 of this regulation states, “everyone has a duty to report information concerning the violations. No person shall hamper, obstruct or impede the process of inquiry. The investigation team has the authority according to the stipulated procedures to initiate an investigation and take the following actions to obtain evidence… to request that the relevant person provide an explanation of the matter involved at the stipulated time and place.” For the report of “shuanggui” on Dr. Jiang, see Xiao Qiang, “Dr Jiang Yanyong freed from ‘double regulations”’, 2005-03-22, http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2005/03/cicus_dr_jiang.php (last visited May, 27, 2005)
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Chapter Six Conclusion
The media agenda is the products of competitiveness or compromise within and between the three institutional forces in the effort to influence public opinion through mass media. In the last two decades, China was reformed to be an authoritarian pluralist complex, in which the government restricted political freedom, while civil society outside the state was growing rapidly, and market was playing crucial role in the national economy. Television broadcasters in contemporary China have to respond to the order of the state, to the rule of market competition, and to the growing demand of audience-as-citizens to be informed, entertained, respected and represented as voluntary participants in open and free discussion about social issues.
Media policy of the state has been changed from propaganda to hegemony in the name of setting correct media agenda. It is more about leadership and less about dictatorship, which means giving different priorities to different tasks, rather than selecting a single task at the expense of all others. While the state maintained as the primary force in media agenda-setting, market and civil society could compete with the state to set the media agenda in a more pluralist way that accommodates the interests of not only the state, but also market, and civil society. When conflicts of interests occurs between the state and market in media agenda-setting, rules of market tend to lead the media to negotiate with government to accept market agenda to raise audience rating as much as possible. The similar strategy is adopted to civil society in dealing with conflicts of interests with the state, as rules of civil society tend to set the media agenda in a way that can persuade the government to tolerate the exposure of the state failures, and even to change government policy for the public well beings.
In the last two decades, Chinese television broadcasters had become relative independence from the state, which meant they can be free enough to support the rapid social and economic development, and yet closed enough to avoid any serious threats to political stability of the state.
This increased editorial independence of television broadcasters from the state happened along with:
1) A shift from informal institution of ideological and political means toward administrative
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and legal regulation of the media.
2) Independent operation on advertising and media related companies as well.
3) Increased managerial autonomy to contract out program production to non-state owned
companies, and to explore possibilities for quasi-private media ownership.
4) Accessibility of editorial policy and program production to rules and organizations of market
and civil society in particular.
After broadcasters like CCTV started entrepreneurial operation in 1979, the government began to decrease its fund for television broadcasting. The government virtually took financial revenues through commercial broadcasting from the beginning of 1990s, as market force became the most dynamic factor in changing the role of television broadcasters and setting the media agenda of non-political programs. Rapid economic development also freed great amount of
Chinese audience from worrying about the basic needs of survival to demanding higher needs of audience-as-citizens with spiritual fulfillment. With channels to access pluralist broadcasted programs, association of voluntary citizens or feedback of audience-as-citizens could directly or indirectly set or reset the media agenda and finally checked the failure or overuse of the state power.
Division of social governance among the three institutional forces did happen in setting the media agenda of Chinese television. First of all, the vertical division of power among different levels of the governments greatly increased the quantity of television stations and channels at the beginning of 1980s. Secondly, division of labor among business and non-business sectors, and further division of labor within non-business sector, such as separated productions of television drama, entertainment and news programs, increased productive efficiency and commercial income. Serious market competition within and between state owned television broadcasters and private owned program production companies improved the quality of television programs.
Finally, the division of civil responsibilities among voluntary associations of citizens, especially those who motivate the production of “programs of supervision by public opinions”, was serving higher needs of audiences-as-citizen. A mutually benefited relationship among the state, market,
- 215 - and civil society was gradually formed in shaping a pluralist media agenda of Chinese television.
Currently, the political correctness for Chinese journalism means to follow the sequence of power hierarchy among the three institutional forces in media agenda-setting, and at the same time, try to accommodate all the interests of the state, the market, and civil society. Growing interests of market and civil society can be taken into account only if the ascendance of the state in media agenda-setting was not challenged openly. In the long run, Chinese television has to be restructured in terms of ownership, fundraising, and agenda-setting mechanisms to meet growing demands from market and civil society. Three possible models for Chinese television can be expected under the pressure of the three institutional forces. The first is a model of state owned enterprise, merging of the state and market powers, in which television industry keeps booming while the state control remains as usual. The second is a model of market affiliated media, which will produce and broadcast whatever profitable. And the third is a model of civil society driven media, which is independent from manipulation of the government and market.
In the end, the media agenda-setting is a political process, in which the state, market, and civil society compete or cooperate with each other to reach consensus for maximizing the common interests of all. Although Chinese television is heading towards greater media autonomy and away from severe government control, the growing powers of market and civil society in media agenda-setting are still less competent to balance the power of the state in short term. Civil rights and rights of audience-as-citizens in theory can be proposed as universal, but in practice, there is a sequence of importance in fulfilling these rights. Chinese citizens have to actualize these rights one after another by themselves; some can come true in the years to come; many others may not. Chinese television broadcasters could be reformed as more representative and effective only if balance of power among the three institutional forces could be improved further.
This requires that power of the state withdraws and powers of market and civil society grow in media agenda-setting. The future of Chinese television and China as a whole will rely on the progress of establishing a trustworthy checks-and-balances system within and between the state, market, and civil society.
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策的中国新闻业 in Conference of Social Transformation and Asia/亚洲与社会变迁研讨会 论文. Sun, Yusheng/孙玉胜, 2003, Ten Years, Starting by Changing the Way of Expression on Television/十年,从改变电视的语态开始, Sanlian Shudian Press, Beijing. “Talking about SARS/ 话说非典型肺炎” aired on the “Focus” on February 17, 2003. http://www.cctv.com/news/focus/20030217/index.html. Tang Jianguang/唐建光, 2002, “Free Immigration”/自由迁徙, News Weekly/新闻周刊, 26/2002, Zhongguo Xingwen She. Tang Xujun/唐绪军, 1999, Newspaper economy and management /报业经济与经营, Xinhua Press /新华出版社. Teng Biao/滕彪, 2005, “Sun Zhigang Event, Knowledge, Media and Power”/孙志刚事件：知识、 媒介与权力, http://www.yannan.cn/data/detail.php?id=7007. Television Bureau of Advertising, 2004, “Media Trends Track”, http://www.tvb.org/nav/build_frameset.asp?url=/rcentral/index.asp. The General Office of DPCC and Editorial Department of Central Archive Bureau, CPC /中共中 央宣传部办公厅,中央档案馆编研部 ed., 1996, Collections of Literatures on CPC Publicity Works /中国共产党宣传工作文献选编 1949-1956, Beijing, Study Press/学习出版社. The General Office of DPCC, and Editorial Department of Central Archives Bureau ed. 1996, Collections of literature on CCP Publicity Works / 中国共产党宣传工作文献选编, 1957-1992, Beijing, Study Press/学习出版社. Wang, Lanzhu/王兰柱, 2003, China TV Audience Rate Yearbook: 2003, Beijing Broadcast Institute Press. Wang, D, 1998, The twenty years of reform of the state enterprises /中国国有企业改革二十年, Zhengzhou, China, Zhengzhou International Publishing House. Wang, Qianghua/王强华, Wei, Yongzheng/魏永征, 2000, Public Opining Supervision and Press Conflicts /舆论监督与新闻纠纷, Fudan University Press. Wu Dong/吴东, Cao Yan/曹珩, 2004, “Analysis of Chinese audience viewing behavior and market competition in 2003”/2003 年中国电视观众收视行为与收视市场竞争分析, http://www.csm.com.cn/content/news_events/index/articles/20040406. Wu, Lengxi/吴冷西, 1984, “Report on the 11th National Broadcasting Conference” in Direction and Practice: selected documents of the 11th National Broadcasting Conference. Beijing: China Broadcasting Publishing House. Xie, Wen/谢文, 2003, “The fifth media, Internet TV: the next focus of broadband service”/第五
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媒体--网络电视：宽带的下一轮焦点 Blogchina.com/博客中国 Xie, Xizhang and Wu, Di, 1994, “A Cultural Perspective: The Reasons for the Flourish of Popular Dramas and Their Axiological”, Contemporary Film, 6, November 1994. Yang Weiguang/杨伟光 ed. Chinese Television in General /中国电视论纲, Beijing, China Radio and Television Press. Yin, Hong/尹鸿, Li Degang/李德刚, 2004, “Memorandum for 2003 Chinese Television Industry”/2003: 中国电视产业备忘, South China Television Journal/南方电视学刊, Vo l . 45. Zhang Haichao/张海潮, ed., Television and China /电视中国, Beijing Broadcasting Institute Press/北京广播学院出版社, 2000. Zhang, Haichao/张海潮, “Chinese Advertising Market Analysis in 2003”/2003 年中国电视广告 市场分析报告, TV Research/电视研究, 2004.4. Zhao, Chenu/赵晨妤, 2000, “The practice and ideas on prohibiting paid news”/禁止有偿新闻工 作的实践与思考, Zhonghua News Daily/中华新闻报, December 4, 2000. Zhao, Huayong /赵化勇, 2004, “Grasping Opportunity, Facing the Challenge”/抓住机遇迎接挑 战, TV Research/电视研究, 2004.6, CCTV.
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Appendix 1 Historical Events of Chinese Television December 30, 1940 Xinhua News Radio of Xinhua News Agency launched in Yan An where the Central Committee of the CPC located. June 5, 1949 Radio Department of XNA was re-constructed as the Central Administrative Department of Radio, the DPCC May 1, 1958 First national TV broadcaster, Beijing Television (BTV, the predecessor of CCTV) started broadcasting. October 1, 1958 First local TV broadcaster, Shanghai Television started broadcasting. January 1, 1960 BTV started to set regular timetable for its programs on a daily or weekly bases, these regular programs were named as “News”, “Around China”, “Children Program”, “Sports Program”, “TV Dramas” and “Films”. March 8, 1960 Beijing Television University was established January 6, 1967
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BTV stopped broadcasting to join Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and recovered its broadcast on February 4. December 12, 1967 Central Broadcast Bureau was taken over by People’s Liberation Army. June 1971 BTV re-signed the contract of exchange news with Visnews (owned by Reuters, the BBC and NBC). May 1973 BTV beamed the first color program and was soon followed by Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou stations. January 1975 BTV started broadcasted all its programs in colored format, and its programs can be transmitted in 26 provinces at the end of the year. A national TV network was almost established. July 1, 1976 National News, a nationally collected news program provided by BTV and local broadcasters together, was on air at 19:00. May 1, 1978 BTV was renamed as China Central Television. June 25, 1978 CCTV brought forth its first live broadcasting of the 11th FIFA World Cup Argentina via international satellite. October 18, 1978 The policy of opening and reform was introduced in the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Congress, CPC. At the same time, Ministry of Finance approved the idea of “Managing Public Institutes as Enterprises”, which was proposed by People’s Daily and other eight newspapers in Beijing. January 28, 1979 First advertisement was aired on Shanghai TV. June 1979 China Film Distribution Company started its own commercial administration and stopped providing new films to television stations. August 1979 Central Broadcast Bureau held the first national television program meeting and encouraged television stations to produce TV dramas and imported films by themselves. August 8, 1979
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The first Sino-foreign joint TV production, a documentary program named “Silk Road” /丝绸之 路 was initiated by CCTV and NHK. April 15, 1980 CCTV started to broadcast international news regularly in its National News with raw materials contracted with VISS/英国维斯新闻社 and VPITN/英美合营的合众独立电视新闻社 via satellite. July 12, 1980 The first current affairs program “Looking and Thinking”/观察与思考launched weekly in CCTV, it was the pioneer of other “public opinion overseeing” programs. October 11, 1980 The first American soup opera “Garrison’s Gorillas” /加里森敢死队 was aired on CCTV. February 5, 1981 The first domestic production of soup opera, “Fighting 18 Years in Enemy’s Camp” /敌营十八年 was aired on CCTV. 1982 The Ministry of Radio and Television was established to replace the Central Broadcasting Authority, which had controlled television since 1958. The ministry was renamed as the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television (MFRT) in 1986. January 1982 An English education series program “Follow Me” produced by BBC was aired on CCTV, which greatly promoted the enthusiasm of studying English among Chinese. January 1982 The late night news was aired first on Shanghai Television; it initiated the extra timeslot for news broadcast in a day for Chinese television broadcasters. February 13, 1983 The first Spring Festival Gala Show/春节联欢晚会 was launched in CCTV, which had enjoyed the highest audience rate among all television programs in China ever since its debut. It became the biggest event in China’s entertainment industry, and a new way for Chinese families to celebrate the year’s biggest holiday. The show combines political elements with art and entertainment performances, some parts of the show express significant social concerns. March 31, 1983 The 11th National Broadcasting Conference launched a new strategy of “Four-Level Development and Management of Radio and Television Services”. January 1, 1984 An extra news bulletin was added at noon in CCTV-1.
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August 1984 Live broadcast of Chinese Women’s Volleyball won gold medal at 23rd Olympics in Los Angeles, which unleashed strong patriotic feelings around China and cultivated the first generation of China TV sports fans. April to June 1986 The first TV audience survey was launched by CCTV in 28 major cities of China. The followed survey showed that up to July 1987, the number of Chinese TV audience reached 600 million or 56% of the population, and 47.8% of the national households possessed TV sets, the number of which was 120 million. February 1, 1987 CCTV-2 expanded its coverage from Beijing to the whole country, and it gradually focused on economic program broadcasting. Meanwhile, Ministry of Agriculture, State Science Committee and State Population Control Committee were authorized to produce three programs for CCTV: “Agriculture Education and Science”/农业教育与科技, “Xinghuo Science and Technology”/星 火科技, and “Population and Family Planning”/人口与计划生育. March 1988 The first live broadcast of News Conference for newly elected Premier at the end of NPC. June 16, 1988 “Yellow River Elegy”/河殇, a six serial cultural program aired on CCTV-1. The script was a mixture of introspective political critique and intellectual treatise on Chinese civilization; it placed China’s development in global and historical context. It was forbidden to be on air after the Tian Anmen Incident on June 4, 1989. 1990 A fifty series soup opera,“Yearning”/渴望 aired on CCTV-1, which became one of the most popular TV drama in Chinese history. March 15, 1991 The first “Consumer’s Friend Variety Show” /消费者之友专题晚会 was aired on CCTV-2, since then, it was produced annually to promote the consumer’s rights. December 1991 Television advertising revenue reached over one billion RMB and overcame that of newspaper, magazine, and radio for the first time in China. June 16, 1992 The Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council jointly issued the “Decision to Facilitate the Development of the Tertiary Industries”/关于加快发展第三产业的决定. The Tertiary Industry includes transportation, telecommunication, science and technology, education and other
- 233 - public welfare related institutions, in which mass media were regarded as a new and important component. March 1, 1993 Number of news programs timeslots in CCTV-1 was increased to twelve. May 1, 1993 A morning news magazine program “Oriental Horizon” /东方时空 was aired on CCTV-1, in which “Focus on Focus” /焦点时刻 gradually turned to be a famous current affaires program named the “Focus” in 1994 with great influence of public opinion supervision. February 24, 1994 Shanghai Oriental Pearl (Group) Co., Ltd./上海东方明珠(集团)股份有限公司, a company closely related with Shanghai television broadcasters, was listed as the first television media related company on Shanghai Stock Exchange April 1, 1994 The “Focus” /焦点访谈 aired on CCTV-1 after National News at 7:30 pm. November, 1994 First Public bidding for the one minute advertising segments between National News and Weather Report was launched by CCTV that achieved 360 million RMB. November 1995 CCTV-5 (sports), CCTV-6 (movie), CCTV-8 (arts and entertaining) started to be broadcasted via satellite and cable networks with codes as Pay TV. March 31, 1996 Phoenix Mandarin/凤凰卫视中文台 brought on air in Hong Kong, China December 10, 1996 CCTV.com, the website of CCTV started operation. July 1, 1997 CCTV aired on live the Hong Kong sovereignty handover to China January 1998 Every provincial television station was authorized to broadcast one channel via satellite, since then more than 30 local television channels can air throughout China. Local satellite channels were still called “local” only because they were generally restricted to produce news and other programs locally, however some of them, such as Shanghai and Hunan satellite channels, backed up by a booming economy in the region or by an innovative production of entertainment programs, started to challenge CCTV in terms of audience rate and advertising income. November 1998 Haerbing Daily Group, a former CPC press in the capital city of Hei Longjiang province,
- 234 - registered as the first media corporation in China’s mainland. December 2000 Hunan Radio, Film & Television Group, China's first provincial-level radio and television conglomerate, was founded. April 3, 2001 China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) released a new version of the Directory of Industry Categories of Listed Companies that incorporated the media and cultural industry into the 13 basic industries. The media and cultural industry is defined as publishing, audio and video production, radio, television, film, arts and information transmission. September 2001 News Corporation’s Xing Kong Weishi, AOL Time Warner’s CETV, ATV, and Viacom’s MTV was permitted to broadcast into Guangdong province through existing cable networks, which access to millions of cable television households. As an exchange of benefits, News Corporation and AOL Time Warner had agreed to beam English channel, CCTV-9, through American cable networks they owned respectively. September 11, 2001 The reputation of Phoenix Mandarin in China’s mainland was well established as it did a live news coverage of 9.11 terrorist attack on America, while CCTV and other broadcasters in China’s mainland were forbidden to do any live broadcast. October 31, 2001 Phoenix Mandarin as a free to air “foreign” broadcaster was permitted to land in Guangdong province. October 2001 CCTV initiated digital TV broadcasting for testing. December 6, 2001 China Radio, Film and Television Group was founded by SARFT, which include CCTV, CPR, CIR and some other broadcasting companies; it was disbanded in 2005 due to institutional mismanagement from the very beginning. March 19, 2003 As U.S.-led attack on Iraq began, CCTV did a simultaneous coverage of this breaking news and re-established its accountability as the first news provider for Chinese audiences. August 22, 2003 SARFT issued Long Term Television Drama Production Permits to eight non-state owned production companies for the first time in history. September 1, 2003 Ten digitalized Pay TV channels were launched by CCTV, and Beijing Radio, Television and
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Film Group in 33 cities under the approval of SARFT.
2 Laws, Rules, Regulations and Administration Documents in Regulating Chinese Television Broadcasters
A Laws issued by NPC 1 Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China (Revised)/中华人民共和国版权法 (27/12/2001,the National People’s Congress) 2 Advertising Law of the People’s Republic of China/中华人民共和国广告法 (01/02/1995, the National People’s Congress) B Rules and Regulations Issued by the State Council and SARFT a Administration Rules Issued by the State Council 1 Administrative Rules on Radio and Television/广播电视管理条例 (01/08/1997, the State Council) 2 Administrative Rules on Ground-Based Reception Equipment for Satellite Television Broadcasts/卫星电视广播地面接受设施管理规定 (05/10/1993, the State Council) 3 Detailed Implementing Provisions for Administrative Rules on Ground-Based Reception Equipment for Satellite Television Broadcasts/《卫星电视广播地面接受设施管理规定》实 施细则(03/02/1994 the MRFT) b Ministerial Regulations on Television Program Production and
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Broadcast 1 Provisional Regulation on the Administration of the Sino-foreign Joint Venture and Cooperative Company for Radio and Television Program Production and Management/中外 合资、合作广播电视节目制作经营企业管理暂行规定(28/10/2004, the SARFT, the MOFCOM) 2 Regulations for the Administration on Import and Broadcast of Foreign Television Programs/ 境外电视节目引进、播出管理规定 (23/09/2004, the SARFT) 3 Regulations for the Administration on the Joint Production of Television Drama/中外合作制 作电视剧管理规定 (21/09/2004, the SARFT) 4 Regulations for the Administration of Censorship of Television Dram/电视剧审查管理规定 (20/09/2004, the SARFT) 5 Regulation for the Administration of Television Dramas /电视剧管理规定 (15/06/2000, the SARFT) 6 Standard of the Censorship of Imported Foreign Television Dramas/关于引进海外电视剧的 审查标准(28/11/1990, the MRFT) 7 Regulations for the Administration of Radio, Film and Television Festivals (Exhibition) and Program Exchanges Activities 广播影视节（展）及节目交流活动管理规定(07/09/2004, the SARFT) 8 Regulations for the Administration of Radio and Television Program Production and Business Management/广播电视节目制作经营管理规定(19/07/2004, the SARFT) 9 Provisional Administration Measures on Radio and Television Advertisements/ 广播电视广告播放管理暂行办法 (15/09/2003, the SARFT) 10 Provisional Administration Measures on Mass Participated Live Broadcast/群众参与的广播 电视直播节目管理暂行办法 (02/12/1999, the SARFT) 11 Regulations on Foreigners Participating in Production of Radio, Television Program and Film/关于外国人参加广播影视节目制作活动管理规定(21/05/1999, the SARFT) 12 Temporary Regulations on Producing and Broadcasting Documentary on Revolutionary Theory and History/关于制作播出理论、文献电视专题片的暂行规定的实施办法 (30/03/1999, the SARFT) 13 Regulations on Prohibiting Paid News/关于禁止有偿新闻的若干规定 (15/01/1997, the DPCC, the SARFT, the SAPP, the ACJA) 14 Regulations on Confidentiality in Media and Publishing /新闻出版保密规定 (03/08/1992, the SAPP, the SCB, the MRFT, the EPLGCC)
- 237 - c Ministerial Regulations on Management of Television Broadcasters 15 Administration Measures on Wireless Radio and Television Transmission Coverage Networks 广播电视无线传输覆盖网管理办法(15/09/2004, the SARFT) 16 Examination, Approval and Administration Measures of Establishing Radio and Television Stations/广播电台电视台审批管理办法(18/08/2004, the SARFT) 17 Examination, Approval and Administration Regulations on Establishing Radio and Television Sub-stations/广播电视站审批管理暂行规定(06/07/2004, the SARFT) 18 Administration Measures of the Operation of Radio and Television Program Transmission Services 广播电视节目传送业务管理办法(06/07/2004, the SARFT) 19 Measures for the Administration of the Transmission of Radio and Television Programs via Satellite/卫星传输广播电视节目管理办法 (23/09/1997, the MRFT) 20 Administration Measures of the Transmission of Audio and Video Programs via Internet and other Information Networks/互联网等信息网络传播视听节目管理办法(06/07/2004, the SARFT) 21 Administration Measures of Radio and Television Video/Audio-on-Demand Service 广播电 视视频点播业务管理办法(06/07/2004, the SARFT) 22 Measures for the Administration of the Landing of Foreign Satellite Television Channels/境 外卫星电视频道落地管理办法(18/06/2004, the SARFT) 23 Administration Regulation on Radio and Television Offices Established by Foreign Entities 境外机构设立驻华广播电视办事机构管理规定(18/06/2004, the SARFT) 24 Provisional Regulations on the Administration of Qualification of Radio and Television Editors, Journalists, News Readers and Anchors/广播电视编辑记者、播音员主持人资格管 理暂行规定(18/06/2004, the SARFT) 25 Provisional Regulations for the Administration of the Lease and Purchase of Channels and Establishment of Stations Abroad/赴国外租买频道和设台管理暂行规定 (10/02/2002, the SARFT) 26 Measures for the Administration on the Security of Cable Radio and Television Transmission Coverage Networks/有线广播电视传输覆盖网安全管理办法 (03/04/2002, the SARFT) 27 Examination, Approval and Administration Measures on Establishing Cable Television Channels/关于建立有线广播电视频道审批管理办法 (02/11/1999 the SARFT) 27 Regulations on Cable Television/有线电视管理规定(03/02/1994, the MRFT) C Ministerial Administration Documents 1 Notice of Improving the Work of Public Opinion Supervision through Radio and Television/
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关于加强和改进广播电视舆论监督工作的通知(08/09/2004, the SARFT) 2 Notice on further Strengthening and Improving the Administration of the Import, Joint-production and Broadcast of Television Dramas/关于进一步加强电视剧引进、合拍和 播放管理的通知 (28/08/2000, the MRFT) 3 Notice of Ensuring the Safe Broadcasting of All Radio and Television Stations (Sub-stations)/关于确保各级广播电视台（站）播出安全的通知 (12/11/1996, the SARFT) 4 Noticing that MRFT is Trusted to Manage Wireless Electronic Communication Network/关 于委托广播电影电视部行使无线电管理职权的通知 (21/05/1996, the NWCMC) 5 Notice on Issues Regarding the Administration of the Reception of Foreign Satellite Television Programs/关于接受境外卫星电视节目管理的有关问题的通知 (23/11/1995, the MRFT) 6 Informing Local Broadcast Stations to Transmit CPR and CCTV Programs as a Whole/关于 地方广播电台、电视台必须完整转播中央人民广播电台、中央电视台节目的通知
(08/12/1993, the DPCC, the SARFT) 3 Letter of Jiang Yanyong to CCTV-4 and Phoenix TV (Adopted from People’s Daily Online/人民网, “A Chinese Doctor’s Extraordinary April in 2003” http://english.people.com.cn/200306/13/eng20030613_118182.shtml, Last visited on: June 13, 2003)
Dear all: Recently the Hong Kong media made wide coverage of SARS, while the world communities also paid great attention to the epidemic detrimental to human life and health. A great deal of publicity was carried out to help the public take a positive attitude towards the issue. All this was normal and responsible. Yesterday, the Chinese minister of health told a press conference that the Chinese government had dealt with the SARS issue conscientiously and that the disease had been put under control. According to his figures, Beijing has 12 SARS cases of which three have died. It's virtually unbelievable. Zhang Wenkang is a graduate from the Second Military Medical University, but he abandoned his career in the most fundamental sense of moral integrity as a doctor. Today, I visited the wards and found that all the doctors and nurses were angry after watching yesterday’s news. Hence I wrote to you. I hope that you will also do your best to be responsible for human life and health by using your upright voices to join in the fight against SARS. The following is some limited information to my knowledge: When the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference began to hold their annual sessions in Beijing, No. 301 Hospital admitted an old man who was seriously ill. Suspected of being infected with SARS, he was transferred to No. 302
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Hospital (a special hospital for infectious diseases ¨C editor). Due to a lack of experience, some 10 doctors and nurses in the hospital were infected with the disease during the process of treating the patient. Two days in No. 302 Hospital, the old man died. His wife was sent to the same hospital and soon died too. At the time, the Ministry of Health convened a meeting of directors from various hospitals, notifying that Beijing had SARS, but as a discipline, the news was not to be made known to the public in order to create a stable environment for the two conferences. Soon after, the Liver Surgery Department of No. 301 Hospital admitted a patient of liver and gallbladder diseases who latter showed SARS symptoms. The patient was moved to No. 309 Hospital but later died. Unfortunately two doctors and three nurses at the liver and gallbladder ward were infected with SARS. Thanks to timely treatment, they are now recovering, but the ward had to be closed. Similar cases happed to several other wards in No. 301 Hospital. The kindergarten of the hospital was also closed. After watching the TV news yesterday I called No. 309 hospital (now designated by the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army as a special hospital for SARS patients). The doctors there also watched the news, saying what Zhang said did not tally with the fact since their hospital had admitted some 40 SARS patients of whom six died yesterday. The above information is true and I am accountable for it.
Signature (Jiang Yanyong) April 4, 2003
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4 Proposal for Reviewing “Regulations on Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Area” To: Legal Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee, National Peoples Congress According to the second clause of the eighty eight section of “Law of Legislation of People’s Republic of China”, the Standing Committee of National Peoples Congress holds the power to delete administrative regulations, which is conflicted with the constitution and law; and it states in the second clause of the ninety section that citizens can put forward reviewing proposal in written form to the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress, if he or she believes that administrative regulation is against the Constitution or related laws. We, as citizens of the People's Republic of China, believe that “Regulations on Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas”, issued by the State Council on May 12, 1982 and remained active up to now, is against the Constitution and the related laws, we thus put forward a proposal to the Standing Committee of National People's Congress to review “Regulations on Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas”. Proposed reviewing items: Whether or not “Regulations on Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas” belongs to one “lower laws breaching upper laws” in the second clause and thus is “exceeding the powers” in the first clause of eighty seven section of “Law of Legislation of People’s Republic of China”. Facts and reasons:
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According to the sixth clause of the “Regulations on Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas”, accepted personals “must” obey to the rules of taking-in and sending-back stations, this is to authorizes civil affairs department and public security department to put compulsory measures on accepted personals, in reality, it gives the administrative departments the power to deprive or limit the freedom of physical movement of citizen. According to the thirteenth clause of the implementation measures of the regulation, “Taking-in and sending-back station should perform sending-back on time. The duration of stop-over in the station for accepted personals living in and out the province where the station is located should not over 15 and 30 days respectively”. This indicates that related administrative departments can forcefully jail personal in taking-in stations and limit their physical other half month, one month, or even much longer. According to the thirty-seventh clause of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, the physical freedom of citizens of the People’s Republic of China must not be violated. Any citizens, without the order of the people’s examination court or the approval of the people's court, and be carried out by public security officers, are not summit to arrest. It prohibits illegal detaining and other measures to illegally deprive or limit the physical freedom of citizens, it prohibits illegal search the body of citizens. The ninth clause of the Administrative Punishment Law of the People’s Republic of China states that the administrative punishments that limit the human body freedom can only be set up by law. The eighth and ninth clauses of the Law of Legislation of the People’s Republic of China states that deprival of the political rights of citizen, compulsive measures and punishments to limit the physical freedom of citizens can be performed only through establishing laws. We believe, according to the above laws, there is no power in the State Council to establish administrative regulations to limit the physical freedom of citizens. Since the constitution and lawmaking laws had been promulgated in our country, the “Regulations on Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas”, as one regulation issued by State Council established to restrict physical freedom of citizens had become against the constitution and related laws. It is against the provision of “exceeding the powers” in the first clause of eighty-seven section and the “lower laws breaching upper laws” in the second clause of “Law of Legislation of People’s Republic of China”, and it should be changed or abolished. Therefore, as citizens of the People's Republic of China, we, based on the second clause of the ninetieth section of the Law of Legislation of the People's Republic of China, put forward the proposal to the Standing Committee of NPC, to check the “Regulations on Taking-in and Sending-back Vagrants and Beggars in Urban Areas”. Please review the above proposals. May 14, 2003
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Citizens of the People’s Republic of China: Yu Jiang (Doctor of Law, Law School of Huazhong Science and Technology University), ID Card Number: 510212720719161 Teng Biao (Doctor of Law, Law School of Chinese Politics and Law University), ID Card Number:229004197308020013 Xu Yongzhi (Doctor of Law, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Beijing Post and Communication University), ID Card Number:620102197303025316
Chinese Version: “关于审查《城市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法》的建议书” 全国人民代表大会常务委员会：
《中华人民共和国立法法》第 88 条第 2 款规定，全国人大常委会有权撤销同宪法和法律相 抵触的行政法规，第 90 条第 2 款规定，公民认为行政法规同宪法或法律相抵触的，可以向全国 人大常委会书面提出进行审查的建议。 我们作为中华人民共和国公民，认为国务院 1982 年 5 月 12 日颁布的，至今仍在适用的《城 市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法》，与我国宪法和有关法律相抵触，特向全国人大常委会提出审查 《城市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法》的建议。
建议审查事项： 《城市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法》是否属于《中华人民共和国立法法》第 87 条第 1 款规 定的“超越权限的”和第 2 款规定的“下位法违反上位法的”行政法规。
事实与理由： 《城市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法》第 6 条规定，被收容人员“必须”服从收容、遣送， 遵守收容遣送站的规章制度，这是授权民政部门和公安部门可以对被收容遣送对象实施行政强 制措施，实际上赋予了行政部门具有剥夺或限制公民人身自由的权力。该办法的实施细则第 13 条规定：“收容遣送站要及时组织遣送。被收容人员留站待遣时间：省内的一般不超过十五天； 外省的一般不超过一个月。”这说明，有关行政部门可以把那些没有违法的人关押在收容所里， 限制他们的人身自由长达半个月或者一个月，甚至更长时间。 《中华人民共和国宪法》第 37 条规定：中华人民共和国公民的人身自由不受侵犯。任何公 民，非经人民检察院批准或者决定或者人民法院决定，并由公安机关执行，不受逮捕。禁止非 法拘禁和以其他方法非法剥夺或者限制公民的人身自由，禁止非法搜查公民的身体。《中华人民 共和国行政处罚法》第 9 条规定：限制人身自由的行政处罚，只能由法律设定。《中华人民共和 国立法法》第 8 条和第 9 条规定：对公民政治权利的剥夺、限制人身自由的强制措施和处罚， 只能制定法律。 我们认为，根据以上法律规定，国务院没有权力制定以限制公民人身自由为内容的行政法 规。我国宪法以及立法法颁布之后，《城市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法》作为国务院制定的行政 法规中有关限制人身自由的内容与我国现行宪法以及有关法律相抵触，属于《中华人民共和国
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立法法》第 87 条第 1 款规定的“超越权限的”和第 2 款规定的“下位法违反上位法的”行政法 规，应该予以改变或撤销。 因此，作为中华人民共和国公民，我们根据《中华人民共和国立法法》第 90 条第 2 款之规 定，向全国人大常委会提出建议：建议全国人大常委会审查《城市流浪乞讨人员收容遣送办法》。 以上建议，请审查。 2003年 5 月 14 日 中华人民共和国公民： 俞江（法学博士，华中科技大学法学院），身份证号：510212720719161 腾彪（法学博士，中国政法大学法学院），身份证号：229004197308020013 许志永（法学博士，北京邮电大学文法学院），身份证号：620102197303025316
5 CCTV Structure
CPC Leadership Group President and Vice Presidents (Non-Business Sector) (Business Sector)
(Management division) CCTV Administrative Office China International TV Corporation (CCTV-12) Chief Editorial Office (CCTV-1) Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio Human Resource Office Beijing Science and Education Film Studio Finance Office China TV Drama Production Center Technical Administration Office Central Television Satellite Transmission Center Satellite Film Channel Program Center (CCTV-6) (Program division) News Center (CCTV-News) CCTV International (CCTV-4, CCTV-9 and CCTV-E&F) Social Education Center (CCTV-7, CCTV-10) Arts and Entertaining Center (CCTV-3, CCTV-8, CCTV-11, CCTV-Music) Sports Center (CCTV-5) Children and Youth Center (CCTV-Children) Advertising & Economic Information Center (CCTV-2, advertising management)
(Non-program division)
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Broadcasting and Transmission Center Technical Production Center CCTV.COM (CCTV Web Site) China Television Weekly
Notes: 1) News Center contributes the most of news programs in CCTV-1, however, all valued programs produced by other program centers in terms of political, economic and social importance could be enrolled as part of regular programs in CCTV-1. 2) At the turn of 21st century, CCTV started to manage its differentiated channels based on channel editorial committees, this brought contradictions between old program centers and channel editorial committees, especially when more than one channel editorial committees are affiliated to one program center. 3) CCTV Web Site (www. cctv.com) was developed by CCTV in December 1996 and opened to public in January 1, 1999. More than 110 regular programs (about 55% of the total programs) aired on CCTV were promoted in this web site in 2003. CCTV-4 and CCTV-9 aired 24 hours seven days a week on the web site from 2003. 15 million people visited the website per day in 2004, and this ranked cctv.com the fifth of the global media websites. Statistics offered by cctv.com. 6 CCTV Broadcasting Channels (2005)
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Channels Themes Starting Time CCTV-News 24 hours News and Current Affairs May 1, 2003 CCTV-1 Mixture September 2, 1958 CCTV-2 Economy May 1973 CCTV-3 Art and Entertaining November 30, 1995 CCTV-4 International (Mandarin) News and Variety October 1, 1992 CCTV-5 Sports January 1, 1995 CCTV-6 Movie January 1, 1996 CCTV-7 Agriculture, Military & Children November 30, 1995 CCTV-8 TV Drama May 3, 1999 CCTV-9 International (English) News and Variety September 25, 2000 CCTV-10 Science and Education July 9, 2001 CCTV-11 Opera July 9, 2001 CCTV-12 Social and Legal Affairs March 2002 CCTV-Children Children December 28, 2003 CCTV-Music Music March 29, 2004 CCTV-E & F International (Spanish & French) October 1, 2004 News and Variety
The data collected from “About China Central Television”, in CCTV official website, http://www.cctv.com.cn/pro.le/ecctvvgk1.html and “CCTV English language satellite feed channel”, http://www.cctv.com/english/pro. le/cctv9.html. CCTV-2 was reformed on October 20, 2003 as a specific channel oriented on economic affairs.
Summery of CCTV Channels CCTV-1 is the earliest and most influential TV channel in China. It is the flagship of CCTV, and it is also the most important media in terms of agenda-setting. More than 80% of CCTV
- 246 - advertisement income is currently earned by CCTV-1, which integrated the most popular programs produced by various production centers of CCTV. CCTV-news is a 24-hour news channel that began a trial operation at the beginning of May, 2004. Despite the major part of the audience remaining domestic, the coverage includes both events at home and big stories worldwide. CCTV-2 specializes in economic news, and information concerning living and working skills and services in China and abroad. It is practical, service-providing and entertaining, helps TV viewers learn about economic activities and gives them advices on stock and securities, new economy and health. With a certain category of viewers who are economically influential in the country, CCTV-2 is of high commercial value. CCTV-3 was originally produced as opera and music channel. After a special music channel was established in March 2004, classic music contents were largely transferred to the music channel. It features popular entertainment, which combines music, literature, theater arts and information services. It's aimed at general audiences, highlighting ethnic attractions. (Viewers can participate in several programs as guests or contestants). CCTV-4 focuses on providing serves to overseas Chinese audiences and residents in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. It is a comprehensive channel including news, feature, documentary sport, entertainment and drama. It introduces various aspects of China to the rest of the world-politics, economy, society, culture, science, education, and history. CCTV-4 had covered more than 10 million households of overseas Chinese in 2003. CCTV-5 is the most influential sports channel in the country. With exclusive right to bring top sports events to the Chinese audience, It features more than 1000 live broadcasts of domestic and foreign sports events each year, follow-up reports on hot events in sports, and contributes to the increasing popularity of everyday health and fitness activities, entertainment, sports know-how and education. CCTV-6 is reserved for movies and operated by Satellite Film Channel Program Center, which is directly operated by the Film Bureau of SARFT, and the commercial income it earned will go directly to the fund for development of filming industry in China. It broadcasts Chinese and foreign films, documents, science and educational films, cartoons, operas and TV plays as well as other features programs. CCTV-7 was originally produced as an comprehensive channel with contents of children, agriculture, military and science, after the special channels of children and science established later, it turned into a agriculture and military channel. Programs of military affairs cover domestic and international military news, promote defense knowledge and reflect military lives. The agricultural programs mainly target rural life and economy, featuring news, entertainment, agricultural science and information services. The viewers are mainly farmers.
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CCTV-8 is reserved for TV dramas. Among the TV plays it presents, domestically-made series account for 48.8 percent, overseas ones account for 35 percent, and the rest is a number of entertainment programs featuring show-business information, music and other art forms. CCTV-9 is an all-English channel. With a special focus on China, its news bulletins and various feature programs, documents and entertainment shows offer insight into Chinese society, from politics to economics, from history to culture. CCTV-9 had been transmitted in 2002 by American cable networks of AOL Time Warner and News Corporation’s Fox Cable Network, as an exchange, AOL Time Warner and News Corporation launched their Chinese channels into local cable network of Guangdong province. CCTV-9 had reached more than 22 million households overseas in 2003. CCTV-10 aims to popularize modern science and technology, promote modern education theories and show cultural heritage in China and around the world. It's an important source providing easy access for viewer to become connected with modern science and civilization. CCTV-11 set to promote China's excellent traditional opera arts. It fully embodies the Chinese people's profound culture, presenting more than 200 types of traditional operas from around the country. It emphasizes the relation between opera and Chinese culture. The channel also presents modern operas. CCTV-12 was originally named as the Western China channel and converted to Law and society channel in 2005. It started to be commercially managed by CITVC - a CCTV affiliated company - in 2004, which can be treated as the first commercially managed channel in CCTV. CCTV-Children broadcasts from 6:00 to 24:00 everyday, it set to provide healthy and enjoyable programs for young boys and girls. CCTV-Music was brought out under the direction of former president Jiang Zeming to promote traditional and classic works of both Chinese and foreign nationalities. CCTV-E&F is the third international channel of CCTV, which covering audiences who speak Spanish and French. It airs four hours of Spanish program and followed by another four hours of French program.
7 Broadcasting Schedule of CCTV 1 (January 31, 2005, Monday)
04:01 Dictionary of Joy/开心辞典(2005-4), entertainment show 04:45 Review on Science and Technology 科技博览(2005-25), scientific program
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04:55 Discovery/探索·发现(2005-27), documentary on science and nature 05:25 Witness/见证(2005-27), documentary on current affairs 06:00 Approaching Science/走近科学(2005-29), scientific program 06:30 Media Square/媒体广场, news from other media 06:52 Weather Forecast/天气·资讯, national weather report 06:57 Promo/宣传片, promotion for CCTV and its programs 07:00 News/整点新闻, 15 minutes news 07:15 Media Square/媒体广场, news from other media 07:52 Weather Forecast/天气·资讯, national weather report 07:57 Promo/宣传片, promotion for CCTV and its programs 08:00 News at 8 o’clock/新闻早 8 点, 30 minutes news 08:35 “Focus”焦点访谈, current affairs programs 08:50 People under Sunset/夕阳红, program for elder people 09:25 TV Serials: Legendary of Jin Ke(24)/电视连续剧：荆轲传奇(24), TV drama 10:17 TV Serials: Legendary of Jin Ke(25)/电视连续剧：荆轲传奇(25), TV drama 11:10 Happy around the World/同乐五洲(2005-4), entertainment show 12:00 News 30’/新闻 30 分, 30 minutes news 12:38 Talk about Law/今日说法(2005-31), features about law and legal cases 13:03 TV Serials: Mother-in-law(17)/电视连续剧：婆婆(17) , TV drama 13:59 TV Serials: Mother-in-law (18)/电视连续剧：婆婆(18) , TV drama 14:54 Chinese Nationality/中华民族(2005-4), features about minority nationalities 15:24 TV Preview/电视你我他(2005-4), CCTV program introduction 16:00 Daily Cooking/天天饮食(2005-24), cooking programs 16:10 Half the Sky/半边天(2005-21), woman program 16:40 Review on Science and Technology/科技博览(2005-26), scientific program 16:57 Cartoon City/动画城(2005-26), children’s cartoon program 17:27 Children’s Windmill/大风车(2005-31), children’s program 18:14 Oriental Horizon/东方时空, mixture of talk show, current affairs, and documentary 19:00 National News/新闻联播, news provided by all television broadcasters in China 19:38 Focus (attached with advertisings)/焦点访谈(含广告), current affairs program 19:55 TV Serials: Great Emperor of Hanwu(59)/电视连续剧：汉武大帝(59), TV drama 20:47 TV Serials: Great Emperor of Hanwu(60)/电视连续剧：汉武大帝(60), TV drama
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21:42 News Probe/新闻调查, investigative report 22:30 News at Night/晚间新闻, 30 minutes news 23:02 TV Serials: Great Emperor of Hanwu(52)/电视连续剧：汉武大帝(52), TV drama 23:57 TV Serials: Great Emperor of Hanwu(53)/电视连续剧：汉武大帝(53), TV drama 00:50 TV Serials: Great Emperor of Hanwu(54)/电视连续剧：汉武大帝(54), TV drama 01:36 Witness/见证(2005-28), documentary on historical events 02:11 Narration/讲述(2005-26), documentary on personal stories 02:33 Discovery/探索·发现(2005-28), documentary on science and nature 03:05 Programs on Demand/点播时间(2004-19), programs ordered by audiences
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