China Media Project

From their website:

The China Media Project leverages the Journalism & Media Studies Centre’s experienced staff faculty and its extensive contacts with mainland Chinese media and its unique position at the doorsteps of China to generate systematic, multi-facted research in the field of Chinese journalism.

JMSC established the China Media Project in late 2003. The project is directed by Qian Gang, a veteran Chinese journalist and well-known author of several books on journalism, and Yuen-ying Chan, an award-winning journalist and educator as well as founder and director of JMSC.

Last Updated: July 7, 2016

Keywords: Preserving Stability

Qian Gang
China Media Project
The two-character Chinese phrase weiwen is an abbreviated form of the full phrase, weihu wending, meaning to preserve or safeguard stability. The Chinese Communist Party has many such shortened phrases, compact verbalisms that pack a political punch...

Reading Deep Red

Qian Gang
China Media Project
On the question of political reform, there is one important terminology in particular we should remain alert to if we hope to read, between the lines as it were, the larger political climate of the 18th National Congress: the “Four Basic Principles...

Watchwords: The Life of the Party

Qian Gang
China Media Project
To outsiders, the political catchphrases deployed by China’s top leaders seem like the stiffest sort of nonsense. What do they mean when they drone on about the “Four Basic Principles,” or “socialism with Chinese characteristics”? Most Chinese are...

Editor's Suicide Prompts Reflection, Reproach

David Bandurski
China Media Project
News of the suicide last week of Xu Huaiqian (徐怀谦), the chief editor of the Earth (大地) supplement of the Party’s official People’s Daily, has prompted a burst of discussion on Chinese social media of the extraordinary pressures facing journalists in...

China's Party Papers, Losing Touch?

China Media Project
The influence of China’s Party-run newspapers has been sliding steadily for almost two decades now. Ever since the mid-1990s, these “mouthpieces“, operated by top Party leaders at various levels of China’s vast bureaucracy — and full of tinder-dry...

China’s Boldest Media: Losing the Battle?

David Bandurski
China Media Project
Over the past few years there have been repeated signs that newspapers in the southern province of Guangdong, long known to be among the China’s most outspoken, have come under intensified pressure from the authorities. CMP reported last May that a...

China's Malformed Media Sphere

Qian Gang
China Media Project
From July 2 to July 3, the residents of the city of Shifang in China’s western Sichuan province staged protests to oppose a molybdenum-cooper project they feared would poison their community. The protests were marked by fierce conflict, and the...

China Youth Daily Editorial on Journalists' Powerlessness

David Bandurski
China Media Project
Making waves today in China — at least in media circles — is an editorial on the Shi Junrong case written by journalist Cao Lin (曹林) in China Youth Daily, a newspaper published by the Chinese Communist Youth League with a longstanding reputation for...

Where Does Soft Power Begin?

David Bandurski
China Media Project
As we edge closer to the 18th National Congress of the CCP, we can expect hard news to enter a new cycle of tightening at every level in China. No local leader wants “negative news” to erupt on their turf, especially now. So the soldiers of “news...

What's Wrong with the Global Times Take on Corruption

Yang Hengjun
China Media Project
The following piece is a response to a May 29, 2012, editorial in the Chinese-language Global Times called “Fighting Corruption is a Crucial Battle for Chinese Society”. The article created a sensation last week on China’s internet, where some...

Reporting in the Gaps of China's Internet

David Bandurski
China Media Project
One of the key strategies of China’s Party leadership in enforcing media controls — under the information policy mandate of “public opinion guidance“, or yulun daoxiang (舆论导向) — has been to restrict the source of news production. This is why the...

Global Times: Reform Alone Cannot Fight Corruption

David Bandurski
China Media Project
As we edge closer to the 18th Party Congress and its important leadership transition, one of the most crucial things to watch is how the debate over “political system reforms”, or zhengzhi tizhi gaige, shapes up in China’s press. A key related issue...

Rigid Thinking Beggars China's Soft Power

David Bandurski
China Media Project
In recent weeks, China has emitted glints of intensifying anti-Western xenophobia. Last week, following the announcement of a three-month crackdown on foreigners without valid visas, CCTV anchor Yang Rui (杨锐) encouraged police to “clean out the...

Too Much "Negative" News, Or Too Little?

David Bandurski
China Media Project
Late last week we wrote about the latest hardline editorial in the Beijing Daily, the official “mouthpiece” of the city-level Party leadership in Beijing, an ideological attack on the concept of “freedom of speech” that singled out “certain...

Who Is Beijing Daily Speaking For?

David Bandurski
China Media Project
The Beijing Daily is on a tear. Earlier this month, the paper — the official daily run by the capital’s top Party leadership—led the propaganda charge against the U.S. for its involvement in the case of blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng. Earlier this...