Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian China

Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian China

This article studies how the political affiliation and administrative rank of news organizations in a nondemocratic setting affect news selection autonomy. While existing studies have found that further commercialization contributes to more news selection autonomy, the extent to which political affi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Xianwen Kuang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2020-05-01
Series:SAGE Open
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020922980
id doaj-3f630b462c2641009e091ac3768b257c
record_format Article
spelling doaj-3f630b462c2641009e091ac3768b257c2020-11-25T03:26:26ZengSAGE PublishingSAGE Open2158-24402020-05-011010.1177/2158244020922980Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian ChinaXianwen KuangThis article studies how the political affiliation and administrative rank of news organizations in a nondemocratic setting affect news selection autonomy. While existing studies have found that further commercialization contributes to more news selection autonomy, the extent to which political affiliation and administrative rank of news media explain autonomy remains unknown. Eight Chinese news organizations of varying political affiliations and administrative ranks were thus selected to compare their news and frame selection strategies. The findings reveal that political affiliation largely explains news selection autonomy: Party-affiliated outlets generally have lower news selection autonomy than nonparty outlets. Administrative rank has some effect on news selection autonomy in the highly competitive media markets, where news organizations with a lower administrative ranking must play more with propaganda control to compete with their higher ranking counterparts.https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020922980
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Xianwen Kuang
spellingShingle Xianwen Kuang
Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian China
SAGE Open
author_facet Xianwen Kuang
author_sort Xianwen Kuang
title Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian China
title_short Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian China
title_full Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian China
title_fullStr Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian China
title_full_unstemmed Self-Caging or Playing With the Edge? News Selection Autonomy in Authoritarian China
title_sort self-caging or playing with the edge? news selection autonomy in authoritarian china
publisher SAGE Publishing
series SAGE Open
issn 2158-2440
publishDate 2020-05-01
description This article studies how the political affiliation and administrative rank of news organizations in a nondemocratic setting affect news selection autonomy. While existing studies have found that further commercialization contributes to more news selection autonomy, the extent to which political affiliation and administrative rank of news media explain autonomy remains unknown. Eight Chinese news organizations of varying political affiliations and administrative ranks were thus selected to compare their news and frame selection strategies. The findings reveal that political affiliation largely explains news selection autonomy: Party-affiliated outlets generally have lower news selection autonomy than nonparty outlets. Administrative rank has some effect on news selection autonomy in the highly competitive media markets, where news organizations with a lower administrative ranking must play more with propaganda control to compete with their higher ranking counterparts.
url https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020922980
work_keys_str_mv AT xianwenkuang selfcagingorplayingwiththeedgenewsselectionautonomyinauthoritarianchina
_version_ 1724592887916658688

Similar Items