Evolution of Newspapers, Journalism and its Censorships in China
As we have read many articles on the past, we have been reading about different censorships that are happening in China. It is very important to understand where China came from and how the country has developed their government, and how the totalitarianism government is and has been playing a role in the case of journalism. There are many scholars who have been studying the situations and evolutionary developments of newspapers and journalisms within China and it is important to see how these situations have developed over course of time. This article will elaborate on the facts how journalism and newspapers have evolved until today, and will give specific examples on certain local Chinese newspapers go extravagant ideologies on censorships within Chinese government and newspaper publications.
According to Greenberg and Lau China’s media development and education have changed over time to meet new demands that was triggered by the political and economical transformations. Educating journalist was another hindrance that Chinese government had to be sure of. Government only wanting the people to know what they want them to know, and journalist publishing articles by following authorized implementations and regulations that were given and guided by the Chinese government were extremely difficult. Journalism in China has been increasing. From 14 newspaper publishers in 1982 to 33 different newspaper publishers in 1986, within four years the number of publications increasing by 19 was too much in such short period of time . We also need to look at what was happening in China in those four years. In-between those four years, China was going through the great economi...
... middle of paper ...
...g and blocking was very shocking. It is a hard concept to grasp why the government would not want their people to know about the situations that are happening in their country. Why they must hide the situations? Don’t they deserve to know? There are many questions that could be asked regarding to these kinds of situations.
In conclusion, no one knows for sure how long Chinese government can watch over his or her media for sure. There are many Chinese studying abroad and nowadays number of Chinese studying abroad is increasing and bringing information not only about what had happened in China in the past and how others view China as a country, the government is loosing power to control or there will be increase of higher and stronger security system of China. The future of journalism of China is very vague because it is hard to see the plans of Chinese government.
Russian people enjoyed the liberty to express their views in the decade of 1855 to 1865. “The press then enjoyed greater freedom” (Newth, 2002). As the years passed by of non-censorship, the image of the Russian government and leader of Tsar Alexander at first was extremely favorable (Downs, 2014). Still, soon things started to go down in later years. In 1865, the censorship came back with Russian government and Alexander wanted to keep Russian image positive. The people of Russia soon started to lose their small freedom they had with free voice. Still, there was some sort of freedom of media, but it was not entirely true. “Although freedom of the press nominally existed in the Soviet Union, the government reserved the right to prevent the publication of certain materials.” (Kassof, 2004).
MacKinnon, Rebecca. “Flatter world and thicker walls? Blogs, censorship and civic discourse in china.” Public Choice 134 (2008): 31-46. JSTOR. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.
Typically, controlling ideological unification, regulating flow of information, and neutralizing critical opinion are the focal points of government controlled censorship. For centuries, the Chinese people have been isolated from the rest of the world due to the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, government’s strict censorship laws. Though the rise of the Internet has increased the flow of information within China, all information is heavily scrutinized by the current censorship machine known as the Golden Shield Project, colloquially referred to as the Great Fi...
The government in china is very concerned with limiting the freedom of expression for it's citizens in all possible ways. Let's examine first the reason why censorship is such an important aspect for the Chinese government. According to the book “A Short History of China” by Gordon Kerr when the renaissance took place in Europe from the 14th through the 17th century it changed people's view in many different ways because it was “a period of exploration, discovery and advancement in almost every field”(Gordon Kerr 87); it was a rebirth of the ancient traditions. Mean...
Throughout history, the use of information censorship, usually by control of the press, has been common. Though not common in the new digital age, this form of censorship still occurs. Countries, such as China,Russia, and North Korea, use this prolifically in order to keep its people ignorant of the ruling party’s short falls(Chang 30 ). China, for example, has become politically famous for its iron grip on any type of journalistic media. To enact this type of political blackout, the government had to create a specific government department aptly named, the department of publicity. This department, at first, only censored articles that it believed would incite riots or insurgents against the government. Over time, specifically during the 1990s and into the 2000s, this agency began to censor any type of political backlash. This increased grip on the media has been directly proportionate to Jiang Zemin being enacted into the office of general secretary of the communist party (Chang 30). Zemin, with the help of department of publicity director Ding Guangen, ...
The state-controlled media and the private wealthy individuals owned media decide the content that the public can get. The strict laws and regulations in China not only affect the domestic media but also influence the attitude towards foreign media. Even though China has a very different way to manage the media system, it already starts to approach media freedom, like the CNC reform and reforms document in 2013. In the future, the Chinese government would find its own way to free media industry with its social conditions.
American hold the Bill of Rights in high regards, especially when expressing the First Amendments like the freedom of the press. In Lorentzen “China’s Strategic Censorship,” freedom of the press is an important aspect of a democracy for the constant tool to keep political figures and the government of accountable (Lorentzen, 2014). The information the press provide allows people to make an informed decision for the next political race, making investments in the economy or learning about the new tax breaks. Media permits information to be spread. Although, in China, they are known to censor news reports in to control their own people because the government wants to make sure the society is not disturbed by having Chinese citizen to collect and
Every child from teenagers and teenagers from adult uses internet like Wikipedia, YouTube and various type of social media among many other sites in everyday life in most of the countries. The internet is open to everyone except parental control. The Internet, global network is being the important part of our life these days. Just imagine that you heard the notification sound in your phone and run to the phone to check your message or important email. You are expecting an email or message from your dream University, where you are trying and trying to get enroll in and they are the one who is sending you some important information on your admission and on your acceptant, but when you check your inbox there is a message from the server instead. Which says the message cannot open or Error because it contained some indecent material and this page is not available. Does this sound silly or ridiculous to you? It is the reality and this is the very similar situation in china. As you can see, the problem with the internet censorship is that it takes away your rights, freedom of speech and the chance of gaining useful information.
Zhao, Y., (1998), Media, Market, and Democracy in China - Between the party line and the bottom line (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press).
Xu, Beina. "Media Censorship in China." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
The first is the crisis of viability. The chance of success in the journalism in the mainstream is approaching a decline due to the transformations in technologies and new access to multiple sources of information. The second is a crisis in civic adequacy. The contributions of journalism to citizenship and democracy have begun to shift and this shift has caused a question of the relevancy of journalism to democratic processes. In a democratic society journalism plays the role of the government watchdog. The effectiveness of society’s watchdog is now being challenged and in turn alternating the structure of the current democratic society. Many critical theorists of the press during the beginning of the 20th century were concerned with finding appropriate forms of public regulation of the press and journalism to ensure that journalists are writing “news and information about public affairs which sustains and nurtures citizen information, understanding and engagement and thereby a democratic polity” (Cushion and Franklin, 2015: 75) (Dahlgren, Splichal 2016). Journalism is a political entity that influences and informs the public. It is meant to work as a source of public information that helps and does not hinder the general public specifically in political processes. The article
Due to these situations, journalists have been abstaining from reporting on certain topics to avoid harassment and attacks from government officials. Radios have been impeded to transmit their programs; while judicial and administrative processes have been initiated by government officials against journalists and media outlets (Freedom House, 2016). This shows clearly that freedom of speech does not
Censorship is the suppression of media or public communication deemed disagreeable or even dangerous, by the government or some sort of group in control. Even though the freedom of speech, opinion, information and press are considered individual human rights and are rooted in democratic ideology, media censorship is not uncommon in the world, and has been popular with authoritarian regimes such as the Soviet Union. However, how has censorship changed from the Soviet Union to the modern world? Compared to censorship in the past, modern censorship has become more difficult due to Internet and the media is mostly now controlled by a group of individuals rather than the government.. The countries we will reflect on for our topic are Turkmenistan, China and the United States.
James S. O’Rourke IV, Brynn Harris, Allison Ogilvy: Google in China: government censorship and corporate reputation Journal of Business Strategy Vol. 28 NO. 2 2007
With larger demand on high quality news reporting, in-depth analysis on social issues and broader coverage of information, more alternative media are formed to jump out of the limitation of mainstream media, in which of the financial influence and the political stance. Initium Media, as an alternative media which is good at making interview note and focus on news at Chinese-speaking places, it gains a large number of reputation and recognition from all around the world, such as the Human Rights Press Awards, Outstanding News Awards.