To address the challenges posed by new technologies, Chinese media have embarked on a series of digital transformations, including a “think-tank turn” that has reconfigured newsrooms into research hubs and journalistic staff into policy consultants to assist with government decision making.Footnote 1 A central component of this shift is the provision of Public Opinion Monitoring Services (POMS). Playing a crucial role in sustaining the evolving media ecosystem, POMS not only help to relieve the financial pressure facing media organizations during times of economic crisis but also strengthen media’s political alliances with the state amid heightened political authoritarianism. Killing “two birds with one stone,” POMS represent a dual strategy for the media to simultaneously maintain economic viability and political legitimacy. Through a detailed examination of media POMS, this article seeks to explore the pragmatic rationality guiding China’s media in critical times, as well as the complex relationship between media, market and state in an era of digital disruption.
The POMS concept emerged in 2008 when People’s Daily, the central news media organ of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), established the People’s Net Public Opinion Monitoring Office (Renminwang yuqing jianceshi 人民网舆情监测室) and began providing information to various levels of governments regarding the development of online public opinion.Footnote 2 It soon led to the nationwide establishment of POMS organizations by tech companies, universities, research institutes and media organizations alike.Footnote 3 Although prior studies have highlighted the involvement of commercial actors, such as software development and big data mining companies, with a focus on the role of market forces and technology in authoritarian governance,Footnote 4 few have examined media-led POMS and their internal operations, despite their profound implications for the reconfiguration of media–state relations.
This study focuses on media-led POMS not only because of their theoretical and empirical significance but also because of their overwhelming dominance of the public opinion management market.Footnote 5 A decade after its establishment, the POMS operation of People’s Daily claimed to have generated an annual revenue of up to 165 million yuan.Footnote 6 Emulating this model, major national media agencies and local media groups, including Xinhua News Agency, China Youth Daily, the Hubei Daily Group, Gansu Daily Group and Dazhong Daily Group, have successively developed similar businesses. Typically, these media organizations operate POMS through a dedicated division. For instance, Xinhua News Agency runs its POMS through Xinhua Data (Xinhua shuju 新华数据), while the Gansu Daily Group operates its POMS through its public opinion data research centres (yuqing shuju yanjiu zhongxin 舆情数据研究中心). By 2018, more than 20 provincial media groups had established specialized POMS units, primarily catering to local government departments and large state-owned enterprises.Footnote 7
This paper contends that these media-led POMS organizations are crucial to understanding the shifting political economy of China’s media and their evolving relationship with the state in the digital age. It should be noted that the term “media” in this study refers exclusively to mainstream institutional media, state-owned and state-licensed press, and wire and broadcasting organizations or groups. It does not include internet companies or digital platforms, such as Weibo, WeChat or TikTok, which are owned by non-state capital and occupy a different position within media–market–state relations.
This article is structured as follows. It begins with a discussion of the political economy of China’s media and evolving media–state relations. It then continues with an examination of the rise of POMS in China. The subsequent sections outline the research questions and detail the research methods and data collection procedures, before presenting the findings. The article concludes with a discussion of the study’s theoretical contributions.
The Political Economy of Chinese Media
The political economy of Chinese media explores the interplay among political control, economic imperatives and media institutions in China. Following the economic reform and opening-up policies of the 1980s, China’s media organizations, which had traditionally been organized in a Soviet-style model as a branch of the CCP responsible for ideological dissemination and public education, were granted limited space to pursue commercial objectives. While the CCP in principle retained firm political control, media outlets were allowed, and even encouraged, to become more audience-oriented in order to attract advertisers and match the prevailing atmosphere of marketization. One influential framework for understanding this transformation from a political economy perspective is the “two-masters” thesis, which contends that media outlets, operating under both political mandates and profit motives, must simultaneously respond to political directives and market forces, or as Yuezhi Zhao famously put it, to survive between “the Party line” and “the bottom line.”Footnote 8 In a similar vein, Chin-Chuan Lee and colleagues argue that amid commercialization reforms, Chinese media experienced a persistent tug-of-war between political power and market logic, and these dynamics and tensions transformed media from a conventional propaganda apparatus into “Party Publicity Inc.”Footnote 9
At the same time, media marketization introduced a degree of autonomy that enabled the development of (semi-)independent journalism. Through more critical reporting practices, media organizations gained a limited space to perform a watchdog role akin to that played by their Western counterparts.Footnote 10 At its peak, investigative journalism was actively pursued by both local and national media organizations, and celebrated as a marker of professional excellence among journalists.Footnote 11 Accordingly, some scholars argue that media commercialization loosened the CCP’s political control and created “considerable room for media liberalization.”Footnote 12 In this context, certain media outlets came to be seen not merely as the “mouthpiece of the Party” but as “the mouthpiece of society.”Footnote 13 However, such liberalization was always constrained. As Zhao points out, the state retained ultimate authority, and the ostensibly liberal forms of investigative journalism remained, in essence, “watchdogs on Party leashes.”Footnote 14 The deepening of marketization reforms in the late 1990s and early 2000s further propelled media development from commercialization towards conglomeration. During this period, the state promoted media as a site of market expansion, even as it tightened its political control.Footnote 15 As Daniela Stockmann demonstrates, the government successfully deployed market mechanisms to reinforce, rather than weaken, its control over the media.Footnote 16 In short, despite periodical openness, media commercialization did not necessarily translate into sustained media liberalization.
With the advent of the digital age, the Chinese media landscape has grown more complex. Since the 2010s, the rapid diffusion of digital and social networking platforms such as Weibo and WeChat has led to a sharp decline in traditional media revenue streams.Footnote 17 In search of financial sustainability, media organizations have increasingly turned back to the state for support. State subsidies, both overt and covert, now constitute a crucial source of media financing.Footnote 18 This shift in funding sources has altered the balance between political and market logics in media operations, leading not only to the resurgence of Party-affiliated media but also to a reconfiguration of the political orientations of once (semi-)liberal outlets.Footnote 19
To conceptualize this changing terrain, newer theoretical perspectives have emerged. Jingrong Tong describes the collaborative alliances forged between financially constrained media organizations and local authorities seeking favourable publicity as a form of “symbiotic friendship.”Footnote 20 Maria Repnikova introduces the concept of “guarded improvisation” to capture how critical journalists navigate their relationship with the state, not through outright confrontation but via flexible, negotiated cooperation grounded in shared interests.Footnote 21 Together, these perspectives suggest that the contemporary media–market–state nexus in China is increasingly characterized by interdependence and strategic accommodation.
Nevertheless, much of the existing literature continues, either explicitly or implicitly, to portray Chinese media primarily as a passive victim of political capture. Such interpretations often rest on a Western normative assumption of the media as a fourth-estate institution independent of state power. In the Chinese context, however, media institutions have never been truly separable from the party-state. Although marketization reforms briefly enabled a phase of (semi-)autonomous journalism, the current political economy increasingly incentivizes media organizations to actively align and integrate with government structures, driven not only by political imperatives but also by economic necessity. While this realignment can be understood as the result of external co-optation, it also reflects the media’s own strategic adaptation to the dual pressures of politics and the market. As this process of active accommodation deepens, the role of Chinese media has undergone a notable transformation: from ideological propagandists in the planned economy era, to aspiring professional journalism during the market economy period, and now to strategic accommodationists in the digital age. It is within this evolving context that this article argues that Chinese media have taken on a third role, that of the government’s public opinion monitoring, analysis and consultancy agent.
The Rise of POMS in China
The rise of POMS is rooted in the rapid expansion of the internet and digital technologies, and the profound transformation of public expression that accompanied it. Technological advancement significantly lowered the threshold for public participation and expression, fostering a vibrant sphere of online discourse amplified by China’s vast population base.Footnote 22 For citizens, the internet created new opportunities for civic participation, critique and collective discussion. For the state, however, the same development posed an unprecedented governance challenge. For the first time, scholars argue, large-scale, real-time and highly visible expressions of “raw” public opinion confronted Party and government institutions.Footnote 23 Often unfiltered, emotionally charged and unfolding outside traditional media channels beyond the immediate orbit of state control, this new phenomenon made understanding, analysing and ultimately managing public opinion an urgent governmental task.
The early model of online opinion management can be traced to the early 2000s when Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs and bulletin board systems (BBS), had just become popular. Critical incidents such as the 2003 SARS outbreak and the death of Sun Zhigang 孙志刚 exposed the political consequences of unruly online opinion and the mobilizing power of the digital public.Footnote 24 In response, the government began to establish formal mechanisms for the collection and analysis of public opinion. In 2004, the Central Propaganda Department established a dedicated Public Opinion Information Bureau. Provincial and municipal propaganda departments soon followed, as did ministries under the State Council and governments at various administrative levels, all creating similar public opinion offices, divisions or centres.Footnote 25 Yet the sheer volume, velocity and dispersion of online discourse quickly exceeded the capacity of existing administrative resources. This gap between governance demand and administrative capacity created the conditions for the emergence and expansion of a POMS market, involving heterogeneous actors outside the formal government structure.
A notable innovation arose from the media sector. Drawing on their journalistic expertise and institutional proximity to the state, Party-affiliated media organizations began to explore media-based public opinion services. In 2006, People’s Daily launched Policy Information (Zhengce xinxi 政策信息), a publication explicitly designed to synthesize and interpret online public opinion for government officials.Footnote 26 Its slogan, “Helping leaders and cadres ‘read the internet’” (bang lingdao ganbu “duwang” 帮领导干部读网), captured both the practical function and political appeal of POMS. Two years later, the People’s Net Public Opinion Monitoring Office was formally established, marking the institutionalization of media-led POMS. In 2009, the journal Online Public Opinion (Wangluo yuqing 网络舆情) was launched, replacing Policy Information and rapidly becoming a key subscription publication among officials at different administrative levels. Following this model, a nationwide network of POMS took shape across national-, provincial- and prefectural-level media organizations, underscoring the centrality of institutional media in analysing, interpreting and managing online public opinion for governance purposes.
By 2014, the POMS industry had expanded rapidly, with estimated output values of approximately ten billion yuan and a workforce of around two million employees.Footnote 27 The central government continued to press local governments to respond to public opinion with greater responsibility and accountability,Footnote 28 and online opinion management became increasingly routinized within local governance.Footnote 29 At the same time, state institutions, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, cooperated with POMS units affiliated with People’s Daily or Xinhua News Agency to establish training, examination and certification systems for public opinion analysts, further professionalizing the field.
Alongside media-based POMS, universities and research institutions joined as complementary actors, and a growing number of public relations firms also entered the field, together forming a relatively mature industry centred on data collection, analytical reporting and response recommendations. Technology giants such as Sohu, NetEase and Tencent also developed POMS based on their digital news platforms.Footnote 30 In addition, the advent of “big data” gave rise to Software as a Service (SaaS)-based public opinion monitoring platforms, enabling firms to leverage algorithmic analytics to “forecast online public opinion like the weather” (xiang yubao tianqi yiyang yubao wangluo yuqing 像预报天气一样预报网络舆情).Footnote 31 According to industry estimates, the market size of China’s POMS exceeded 23 billion yuan in 2023, more than doubling over the past decade.Footnote 32
Nevertheless, despite the growing presence of technology firms, public relations companies and research-based providers, media organizations, especially national- and provincial-level Party media groups, have continued to dominate the POMS market. Their advantage stems from their close institutional ties to the state, long-standing working relationships with government agencies and professional journalistic expertise in interpreting public opinion. The rise of POMS thus reflects not only the technological transformation of public expression but also the adaptive reconfiguration of state–media relations in the digital era. Evolving from a tool for ad hoc responses to online crises into a routinized and industrialized instrument of governance, POMS has become a key infrastructure through which the state commands media loyalty and renders online opinion observable, actionable and governable.
Research Questions and Methods
From the perspective of media institutions, POMS, functioning as an integral component of think tank-like consultancy services, provide concrete evidence of the strategic transformation of Chinese media organizations. This transformation is guided by a deeply ingrained principle of pragmatic rationality within Chinese culture. As Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 famously remarked, “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice” (buguan baimao heimao, zhuodao laoshu jiushi haomao 不管白猫黑猫, 捉到老鼠就是好猫). Faced with existential pressures brought about by digital disruption, Chinese media organizations have embraced any strategy that enables institutional survival. Under this pragmatic logic, media outlets have proactively responded to governmental demand for governance consultation by assuming the role of public opinion analysts and policy advisors. The once tense and guarded relationship that characterized the era of critical journalism has softened. Seeking accommodation and alignment with state interests, the media now participate in a new mode of cooperation, while the government uses economic means to “purchase” policy consultation services from media organizations, thereby easing the financial strain caused by digital disruption. POMS thus emerge as a mutually beneficial outcome of this alignment; a case of strategic convergence between media and state.
Grounded in existing literature and the practice of media-led POMS, this study addresses the following concrete questions: 1) What motivates Chinese media to engage in POMS? 2) How do media organizations operationalize POMS? and 3) What impact does participation in POMS have on the media?
This study adopts a qualitative approach, incorporating in-depth interviews, field work and analysis of secondary documents. In-depth interviews were conducted with two purposively sampled media organizations, one in the north of China (coded N-POMS) and the other in the south (coded S-POMS). Both are provincial-level media groups and dominate the media market in their respective regions. According to the regulative body, the National Administration of Press and Publications, there are 43 press groups in China.Footnote 33 The two chosen groups were among the earliest responders in the country to organize POMS units: N-POMS was established in 2011 while S-POMS was launched in 2014. Both are also among the most successful nationwide. Their annual income is currently 60 to 80 million yuan (approximately US$8.25 million to US$11 million), which ranks them at the forefront of media POMS organizations in the country.
The interviews took place during three field trips in April and May 2024, one to N-POMS (11 interviewees) and two to S-POMS (12 interviewees). The interviewees covered diverse ranks of POMS personnel within the two organizations, which the study arranged into three categories: executive board (high rank), coded H; directors or heads of departments (middle rank), coded M; and the rank-and-file staff in operating posts (low rank), coded L. All were face-to-face interviews. The average interview length was 49 minutes, with the longest lasting 184 minutes and the shortest running to 31 minutes. Most of the interviewees agreed to be recorded and their sessions were transcribed verbatim. Where the interviewees preferred not to be recorded, the main points of the interview were noted in as much detail as possible. To ensure anonymity, all the interviewees were coded numerically, beginning with either “N” or “S” (referring to the region), followed by “H,” “M” or “L” for their ranks, and then given a number to indicate the order of the interview, for example, NH1, NM4, SH1, SL10.
Complementary to the in-depth interviews, secondary document research was conducted in relation to POMS operations within these two organizations. These materials included public speeches by their executives, self-reflective writings and practice sharing by their POMS staff in trade journals. The documents were collected by searching on Google, Baidu and Cnki.Net (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), the latter being the largest and most comprehensive professional and academic information database in China. A total of 32 documents were gathered. All were in transcribed form, with an average length of three pages (or about 1,000 Chinese characters) and were dated between 2012 and 2024. These materials enabled the research team to gain a deeper understanding of the research subject and cross-validate the evidence gathered through the interviews, and vice versa. These materials are coded in chronological order as NArchive1–17 and SArchive1–15.
In addition, one member of the research team took part in a public opinion management training course between 22 and 26 April 2024. The five-day residential training camp was organized by the POMS unit of People’s Daily, the flagship and most authoritative Party media-led POMS organization in China. People’s Daily holds this training programme approximately eight times a year. It is targeted at local officials, POMS personnel, PR managers of state-owned enterprises, journalists and other interested professionals and learners. The training camp attended by our researcher hosted 6 lecturers and 32 participants. Our researcher audited all of the lectures (amounting to 1,440 minutes) and studied the learning materials on topics such as characteristics of public opinion in the digital era, methods of online public opinion monitoring and public opinion crisis management, as well as guided case studies. The immersive environment allowed our researcher to closely observe and interact with both lecturers and participants, gaining perspectives on the overall situation of POMS in China as well as the operational details of a variety of media organizations. Field notes (coded as FNotes1–5) and training documents (coded as TDoc1–8) are also reflected in the analysis.
Motivation to Participate in POMS
To answer this question, POMS must be understood within the current reality of the Chinese media ecosystem, which has undergone significant political and economic shifts. Economically, the traditional business model has collapsed, leading to a sharp decline in advertisement revenue:
Our newspaper’s advertising revenue peaked in 2012, reaching 1.2 billion yuan: 600 million from real estate, 400 million from automobiles, and 200 million from various other sources. Starting in 2013, our ad revenue began to decline. Now, with the economic downturn, not only have real estate and auto ads vanished, but overall advertising has severely dwindled, with most of it shifting to the internet. (NH4)
To cope with the crisis triggered by digital disruption and revenue loss, media organizations were forced to develop new business models and find alternative funding in order to survive in the market (SArchive2). Whereas Western media typically pursued strategies such as paywalls and commercial or philanthropic revenue sources,Footnote 34 Chinese media sought financial opportunities by moving closer to the government. Many embraced a “think-tank turn,” reinventing themselves as policy research hubs and selling information and advisory services to policymakers to generate essential revenue.Footnote 35 POMS are an integral component of this transformation, with local governments being their primary clients:
In recent years, regulations from higher authorities have mandated transparency and accountability in the use of government funds for the “three public expenditures.”Footnote 36 Overspending and misuse are prohibited. As a result, some government budgets have ended up with unspent funds. This has presented us with an opportunity. I told [local government officials], “If you allocate that money to our newspaper for things like special publicity pages or public opinion monitoring services, that’s not only the safest but also the most beneficial option.” In this way, publicity pages and public opinion services became normalized, and we were able to secure a steady annual revenue from these streams. (SH5)
This pragmatic transformation is aptly encapsulated by the Chinese proverb, “one loses at sunrise but gains at sunset,” in that the loss of the mass consumer market has been compensated by the capture of the local governmental market. POMS have emerged as a direct manifestation of this market reorientation. Viewed through this lens, the economic rationale underpinning Chinese media has undergone a fundamental shift, from a dependence on advertising revenue derived from mass audiences to a growing reliance on income generated through think tank-like functions, including government publicity pages and public opinion monitoring services. Traditionally, institutional media have focused on news reporting and political propaganda, but with the new demand by local governments for POMS, media organizations are finding opportunities in a new market.
Politically, the relationship between media and local governments has also changed, transitioning from an initial state of tension to a present-day alliance. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the media’s pursuit of professional autonomy and journalistic independence often resulted in a contentious relationship with local governments.Footnote 37 Following the principle of “supervision by public opinion” (yulun jiandu 舆论监督), the media prioritized public interest and the service of the people through critical journalism. However, the subsequent tightening of political control by the central government significantly narrowed the media’s operational space.
A divergence has emerged between new and institutional media. While new media platforms operate with a relatively negative freedom of expression as long as they do not directly challenge the CCP’s legitimacy,Footnote 38 institutional media formats are constrained by a positive freedom that demands strict political correctness. An illustrative case is the reporting on the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan in early 2020. Although many institutional media organizations dispatched journalists to the city, few reports that diverged from officially sanctioned “positive energy” (zhengnengliang 正能量) narratives were able to be published. Conversely, the online diaries of Fang Fang 方方, a famous writer in Wuhan who recorded her experiences and hearsay about the pandemic on social media channels, gained significant traction online. The situation led to a profound sense of frustration among journalists:
Look, one Fang Fang negated the entire collective of media journalists. How is that even possible? Why did it happen? Fang Fang wasn’t even on the front lines. She relied mostly on second-hand information. Meanwhile, we journalists were out there on the front lines, but couldn’t get our reports published. It just doesn’t make sense, does it? (SM9)
We had reporters enter the hospitals, but they were only allowed to praise the doctors – all that positive energy stuff, that was all we could do. No questioning allowed. A friend of mine said, “Fang Fang beat all of you – just flattened you” [laughs]. It felt like a slap in the face. It was a total humiliation. (SM8)
Under these conditions, practising journalism, especially critical journalism, has become more difficult. From a pragmatic perspective, continuing to operate as before is like “throwing an egg against a rock,” as the Chinese proverb goes. Meanwhile, with the decline in advertising revenue mentioned earlier, local governments have effectively replaced the public as the media’s primary client, becoming their “gold master” (jinzhu 金主).Footnote 39 As one interviewee noted:
In the 1990s, between media and government departments, the media was Party A. The governments asked you to publish positive reports and not negative stories about them. Decades later, the media is now Party B. The media have to be thick-skinned for the sake of survival. You don’t need the governments to ask. You know what and what not to do. The [low] status of the media can be assumed. (NM2)
Consequently, the overwhelming priority of the media today is learning how to cater to local governments and win their favour. While publicity pages in institutional media help to construct a positive public image for local governments, controlling online public opinion has become a major concern in defending that image. The advent of POMS was a direct response to the flourishing of public opinion on new media platforms. Since the 2000s, led first by Sina Weibo and then later by WeChat, Zhihu, Douban, Douyin (TikTok) and others, China’s media ecology has undergone a significant transformation. Unlike in the past, when media organizations were centrally controlled by the propaganda apparatus, the new media landscape is highly fragmented and diversified, involving countless actors extending into corners of society that are beyond the reach of the government. There are now billions of people online, each with their own “megaphone.” Consequently, this generates significant uncertainty about how public opinion will form around any hot public event. For local governments, this is a risky situation. The problem is twofold, as explained by an N-POMS director:
If an incident is mishandled, people voice their dissatisfaction online, creating serious problems for local governments. This impacts officials both politically, by harming their performance evaluations and promotion prospects, and culturally, as maintaining “face” is crucial. Negative online opinions undermine their reputation, which they prefer to bolster with positive media coverage. (NM3)
As many government officials have experienced what can be described as “public opinion anxiety syndrome,” there is a pressing need to find a “cure” (NM2, SM1). Developing the capacity to manage unruly online public opinion has thus become an urgent task for local governments. This search for a cure has fuelled the rising demand for POMS, particularly those offered by the institutional media, as they are experts not only in understanding public opinion but also in producing and directing it.
How Media Operationalize POMS
Generally speaking, media organizations offer POMS to the government through the provision of three services: timely firefighting, regular monitoring and periodic training.
Timely firefighting
Many interviewees used the metaphor “firefighting” to describe their service, which involves helping the government guide, manage, control or even eliminate online public opinion. As one N-POMS director put it, “POMS are like a fire extinguisher” (NM3). However, media POMS do not typically engage in firefighting directly. Instead, they primarily provide consulting services and suggest solutions for the government to act on. Nevertheless, their suggestions are crucial in assisting governments to manage public opinion crises. Drawing on the “big data” they collect internally or purchase from data firms, the firefighting services of media POMS can typically be divided into three stages: early warning, real-time analysis and post-event review.
Through keyword searches, data collection, computer-assisted analysis and manual verification, a media POMS unit will initially send relevant messages to the local government departments it serves to warn them of the potential risk of public opinion outbursts. One S-POMS interviewee explained:
Generally, in the beginning, it’s hard to notice any signs, such as on Weibo or simple complaints online. They can easily go unnoticed, including by monitoring systems. But later, some people’s actions gradually turn it into a hot topic. For instance, a retweet by a major influencer can lead to widespread dissemination, or the involvement of big media like CCTV, People’s Daily, The Paper and others, which can also escalate the situation. (SM2)
Another form of early warning is linked to new policies, such as local adjustments to medical care, pensions, employment and school catchments (NM4, SM1). Since these policies affect a broad segment of the population, local government departments often proactively seek POMS from the media. In response, media POMS evaluate the potential risks and offer advice on how to standardize public statements and craft press releases.
Real-time analysis is aimed at controlling the scale of public opinion outbursts after an incident has occurred, and the “fire” of public opinion has been ignited. One interviewee described it as “cooling down the heat” (SL3). In today’s digital media, government officials are aware that seemingly minor real-world issues, claims, discussions or conflicts can be zoomed in on and magnified online, turning them into major events (SArchive2). As one archive source noted, “the people online are very emotional. Negative opinions can easily become viral. Besides, everyone with a smartphone is a walking media outlet. They can easily lose rationality” (Narchive9). Hence, the primary goal for real-time analysis is to pacify online emotions, thus enabling government departments to “turn a big issue into a small one, and a small one into nothing” (dashi huaxia xiaoshi hualiao 大事化小小事化了) (SL1). Specifically, by analysing factors like netizen comments, activity levels, media remarks, contextual sensitivity and trend graphs, media POMS provide local governments with suggested plans to mitigate further widespread dissemination. One N-POMS executive explained that “minimizing the amount of information that all the media can publish, reducing the media’s coverage. This is the significance and value of our POMS” (NH2).
During the post-incident review stage, POMS personnel collaborate with local governments to synthesize experiences and lessons learned. The purpose is “to prepare our clients for the problems they may encounter in the next cycle” (SM1). This stage also constitutes part of the POMS profit chain: “The review can be used as teaching material. If the same situation keeps reoccurring, we will make a compilation of similar cases and sell [them]” (NM1).
Regular monitoring
Different from timely firefighting, which focuses on specific events on a case-by-case basis, regular monitoring is conducted at fixed intervals, such as through daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly reports. As a routinized monitoring system, it naturally involves more complex efforts. Generally, monitoring can be categorized into four main types based on analytical focus: time, space, industry and issue. The nature and timing of each type of monitoring depend on various contextual factors.
Time-oriented monitoring targets sensitive dates, such as 14th May, the anniversary of the death of former CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang 胡耀邦; 4th June, the anniversary of the 1989 political unrest; and 5th July, the anniversary of the 2009 protest in Urumqi, which was followed by a series of violent riots. (TDoc3, TDoc5)
Space-oriented monitoring focuses on sensitive regions, such as Tibet and Xinjiang, where nationality and religion are sensitive issues, as well as on areas, such as Shanghai, which are densely populated with universities and politically active college students. Smaller localities may also become focal points, for example, Urumqi Road in Shanghai, the site of the 2022 White Paper Protest (FNotes2, TDoc5), or the former residence of Li Keqiang 李克强, the late premier, in Hefei, Anhui province (FNotes2).
Industry-oriented monitoring is organized by sector. For example, around 1st May [Labour Day], events related to back pay or social security are likely to provoke public concern. Near the Qingming 清明节, a traditional festival for honouring ancestors, mountain fire alerts are sent to forestry departments. Children’s Day, meanwhile, tends to draw public attention to issues such as the protection of minors or the academic burden on students. (SM1)
Issue-oriented monitoring pertains to highly sensitive topics that are subject to strict regulation. For instance, criticism of the socialist regime or government leaders, including the use of derogatory nicknames for top officials, is considered a “minefield” (FNotes3, TDoc5). Consequently, POMS personnel closely monitor online public discourse for such issues, submitting regular reports to government offices and alerting them to potential surges in public attention.
Periodic training
Beyond handling emergencies and supplying regular reports, another important function of POMS is to provide periodic training to government officials and stakeholders. This training equips them with the necessary knowledge and skills to understand and manage online public opinion. Both N-POMS and S-POMS are the dominant providers of such training in their respective regions. According to our interviewees, they typically conduct up to 200 training sessions annually (SM2, NH2). The training formats include in-house seminars, external lectures, training camps, and simulation exercises. An N-POMS director who has extensive training experiences noted:
The training and drill exercises aim to guide officials in identifying potential risk areas, drafting briefings, managing media interactions and guiding public opinion. While our public opinion services provide solutions, the training helps them build confidence and address their instinctive panic at the root. (NL7)
Training also constitutes an important source of revenue for media POMS. For instance, the People’s Daily POMS training camp attended by our researcher takes place on average eight times a year (FNotes1, FNotes4). It costs 9,280.00 yuan (approximately US$1,200) per person. According to a media report, since 2013, People’s Daily’s POMS have trained over 100,000 professionals from Party, government, corporate and other organizations in online public opinion management.Footnote 40 Participants are often attracted to these courses because of the authoritative status of the host media organization. As one participant explained, “People’s Daily is connected to the top government leaders and has the deepest understanding of public opinion management” (FNotes2). Furthermore, participants who complete the training and pass the exam receive an “Intermediate Public Opinion Analyst” certificate, which serves as a professional credential.
Impacts of POMS on the Media
POMS have directly benefited media organizations by alleviating the financial pressures they have faced in recent years. According to the N-POMS annual report, the unit monitored and processed 1.5 billion public opinion data points in 2024. It issued 740,000 early warnings on negative public opinion, engaged in handling over 700 public opinion incidents as a think tank with domain expertise, and generated more than 65 million yuan in revenue from related services (NArchive1). The other case organization, S-POMS, declined to disclose specific operational data, but it released a public statement asserting that POMS had enhanced its risk resilience, strengthened its business performance and achieved significant social and economic benefits (SArchive1).
Furthermore, POMS exert a latent influence on a journalist’s understanding of professionalism, the role of the media and the relationship between media and local governments.
Journalistic professionalism
Although Chinese journalism has never operated as a fully independent institution, scholars have identified a “golden age” from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, when journalists actively pursued Western-style professionalism and valued journalistic autonomy and social responsibility.Footnote 41 This period was characterized by a normative and operational separation between business and editorial functions; a “firewall” that safeguarded journalistic integrity. Practices such as paid news were widely condemned, and journalists believed that “to wrap journalism in a cloak of money is truly a misfortune for the profession.”Footnote 42 However, against the backdrop of a shifting political-economic environment and the rise of POMS, the dominant professional logic in the media has undergone a significant transformation, shifting from a journalistic professionalism guided by a value rationality to a consulting professionalism driven primarily by an instrumental rationality.
During our field research, staff at both N-POMS and S-POMS consistently emphasized their commitment to professionalism, albeit in a form fundamentally different from journalistic norms. Modelling themselves on consultancy firms, they defined their professionalism around the principles of “independence,” “proficiency” and “ethics.” For them, independence entails maintaining analytical objectivity as a third party, resisting client interference in interpretation and presenting the findings without bias. As one interviewee explained, “We are a third party between the government and the public, and we are independent. We maintain an objective attitude in our service and present public opinion analysis to our clients as it is. We don’t shy away from the hard truths, even when they are harsh” (NM3).
Proficiency, in their view, stems from their background as media professionals, which they believe grants them an innate understanding of public opinion dynamics – a competence that they believe makes them uniquely qualified. A director at N-POMS asserted, “We are journalists, and we are familiar with how public opinion works. As the old saying goes, ‘know yourself and know your enemy, and you can win every battle.’ No other agencies are more competent than us in this regard” (NM1).
In terms of ethics, POMS personnel emphasize a fiduciary duty towards their clients, which involves prioritizing client interests, demonstrating responsibility and delivering a high-quality, tailored service (NM3). This redefinition marks a fundamental reorientation of professional values. While journalistic professionalism has historically emphasized serving the public interest, the consulting professionalism embodied by POMS prioritizes the interests of the clients, who, in their case, are the local governments. This client-centric “ethics of service” was repeatedly highlighted by our interviewees:
We are service providers. It’s very important for us to have a service-oriented mindset, be responsive to our clients; what they need, what we will provide, offering the corresponding service. (NH1)
Our services are customized and individualized, not standardized. Different clients, different service content. We offer two main kinds of service contracts, one is a yearly package, and the other is project-based. The former is the most popular. (NM1)
Role of the media
The role of the media in a society is often shaped by national contexts, historical background and professional culture and traditions.Footnote 43 In China, under the rule of the CCP, the primary role of the media is political and ideological propagation, as reflected in the expressions, “ears and eyes” (ermu 耳目) and “throat and tongue” (houshe 喉舌), which are commonly used as synonyms for the media.Footnote 44 As the mouthpiece and organ of the CCP, the media constitute an integral part of the party-state’s governing apparatus. They are responsible for carrying out “thought work,” constructing a positive image of the Party and government, and fostering political alignment within Chinese society. Although the media economic reforms of the previous two decades introduced a degree of diversity to the media’s function and, for a time, partially diluted their overt propaganda role, the 2010s witnessed a reassertion of this core function, especially following Xi Jinping’s 习近平 declaration that “Party media must have the Party as their surname” (dangmei bixu xingdang 党媒必须姓党).Footnote 45 Since non-party-state capital is prohibited from operating media outlets in China, all media effectively belong to the party-state. Today, amid renewed political consolidation, even the formerly market-oriented press organizations have been fully integrated into the Party media system, with their central function being to unequivocally propagate government agendas.
The second function of Chinese media is to report news. The rise of market-oriented press in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the concurrent growth of critical and investigative journalism, brought the media’s role as a news provider to the fore.Footnote 46 Influenced by Western-style journalistic professionalism,Footnote 47 the watchdog function of the media gained traction both in academia and within the industry.Footnote 48 This further reinforced the media’s news-reporting role, emphasizing objective and critical coverage of social problems. However, in the digital age, amid a declining media market and tightening political control, critical reporting has gradually diminished, leading to a corresponding weakening of the media’s news reporting role.Footnote 49
The widespread adoption of POMS has introduced a new, third function: consulting. Many interviewees described POMS as representing a “third role” for the media. One executive from S-POMS explained:
In addition to news reporting and propaganda, there is now an additional public opinion monitoring function for Chinese media. It is not something that is entirely new. It is just turning the previously underrecognized routines of the media, such as internal references, confidential reports, even conversations and exchanges [with government officials] to something with a name, packaging them as POMS. This unleashes a third role for the media. (SH1)
As this “third role” expands, many media outlets have not only established dedicated POMS units but have also integrated POMS operations into their news departments. This represents an attempt to merge journalism with consultation, and in some cases, to subordinate the former to strengthen the latter. An executive from S-POMS stated that the media group sets annual POMS revenue targets for every department, including the news department, allocating a specific share to each (SH2). The fulfilment of these targets is directly tied to year-end bonuses and, consequently, to the personal income of every staff member in the department (SM1). This is common practice in media organizations across the country (SArchive7, FNotes1). Some are even more aggressive in pushing their staff to pursue POMS revenue, setting not only total financial targets but also strict percentage requirements – for example, a set portion of earnings must come from POMS (SM2). Consequently, participation in POMS work is not confined to the designated POMS unit and its staff: all departments and employees within the media organization are now involved. Journalists in news departments are considered particularly well positioned to facilitate POMS business. Through their reporting, they build strong work relationships and networks with various government offices, easily bridging those connections to the POMS unit. As an S-POMS interviewee explained, “They save us significant costs – customer acquisition costs. Government clients are not easy to secure. But we can. Our journalists can” (SM1).
Media–state relations
Once media organizations started prioritizing POMS operations and treating local governments as primary clients, their relationship began to transform. In essence, media organizations and local governments have effectively formed an alliance of interests. POMS alleviate local officials’ anxiety about public opinion, while the media gains crucial revenue. A senior interviewee described this as a win-win situation:
POMS work is not journalism but tailored analysis of public opinion for government agencies. Rather than expressing public opinion, [POMS] evaluate and interpret it, offering advice to the government based on data mining, sentiment analysis, network analysis, textual analysis and other techniques. This marks a shift to a new product and service model for the media, distinct from audience-oriented journalism. (SH2)
To facilitate business with local governments, media organizations often structure their POMS as distinct “companies,” “centres” or “offices,” signalling a degree of operational independence. In practice, however, regardless of the label, nearly all media-based POMS across China primarily serve government clients (FNotes2). For instance, both the north and south POMS in this study derived over 90 per cent of their revenue from local governments (Narchive15, Sarchive4). Revenue is generated through both horizontal and vertical channels. Vertically, it follows China’s four-tiered administrative structure: provincial, prefectural, county and township. While township-level projects occasionally contribute, the bulk of revenue flows from the three upper tiers (NM1, SM2). Horizontally, procurement of POMS projects spans nearly all government departments, particularly those involved in public livelihood sectors such as education, health, the police and civil affairs (FNotes3, NH2, SH1).
This commercial symbiosis has gradually influenced news content. Although many interviewees insisted that “assisting governments with POMS does not mean eradicating supervision by public opinion” (NM2), this is best interpreted as a gestural resistance. Local governments are no longer the primary targets of media criticism, and the tone used by journalists to criticize power, especially political power, has softened considerably. As an experienced reporter-turned-POMS staff member explained:
A government department offers you a package of two or three million [yuan], asking you to handle its propaganda work, including news reporting, advertorial and POMS. Now that they are paying you, you naturally befriend them. You won’t report negative news about them. Unless it is something really big, you simply won’t report negatively on them. (SM2)
As a result, tensions between the media and local governments, once fuelled by critical journalism, have largely dissipated, along with the journalistic autonomy that media outlets had once struggled to uphold. In their place, a new relationship of reciprocity has been firmly established.
Conclusion
Drawing on multi-source data, including in-depth interviews, field observations and secondary documents, this study examines how POMS fulfil an institutionalized “third role” of Chinese media. Beyond ideological propagation and news reporting, POMS represent the emergence of a consultative and policy-oriented function through which media organizations reposition themselves within China’s digital governance landscape. By providing a range of POMS – including the “timely firefighting” of dissenting voices, the “regular monitoring” of online sentiment, and the “periodic training” of information officers – media organizations translate volatile online discourse into administratively actionable intelligence. In doing so, they assist the state in navigating an increasingly complex digital environment of public expression, while simultaneously mitigating financial pressures and consolidating political legitimacy through alignment with governmental priorities.
These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the political economy of Chinese media in the digital age by illuminating how media–state relations are being reconfigured through the marketized provision of public opinion monitoring, analysis and management. Rather than a simple hierarchy or a binary of control and resistance, the evidence points to a relationship of strategic accommodation and reciprocal interdependence between media organizations and the state. Specifically, engagement in POMS serves a dual pragmatic function for media organizations. Economically, it provides a new revenue stream at a time when advertising income and traditional business models are under sustained strain, reflecting the media sector’s active embrace of digital transformation and organizational innovation. Politically, POMS deepen institutional embeddedness within governance structures by strengthening ties with government clients and reinforcing alignment with Party-centred values and agendas. Practices such as adherence to the principle that “all media are surnamed Party” thus function not merely as symbolic expressions of loyalty but as strategic mechanisms through which media organizations secure economic viability, political legitimacy and continued access to state resources within a (semi-)authoritarian media system. In this sense, POMS can be understood as a pragmatic institutional choice shaped by the distinctive political-economic constraints confronting Chinese media today, and their proliferation reflects a deeper strategic accommodation of media institutions to state power in the digital era.
Nevertheless, these findings should be interpreted with caution in light of several limitations. First, this study focuses on media-led POMS primarily over the past decade; future research should examine their longer-term evolution and implications for media–state relations. Second, the politically sensitive nature of media-based POMS constrained the case selection process and data access, which may limit the scope of the findings. Finally, because POMS are also provided by technology companies, research institutes and PR firms, this study does not fully capture the broader competitive and collaborative dynamics shaping China’s public opinion monitoring market. Comparative research across different providers would further illuminate the institutional and societal consequences of POMS expansion in China.
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available upon request from the corresponding author, Liangen Yin. The data are not publicly available due to privacy concerns and prior agreements to ensure participant anonymity.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the journalists, editors and managers who kindly agreed to be interviewed. Without their generous sharing of insights, this paper would not have been possible. We also thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of this journal for their valuable comments and their patience throughout the review process, which have greatly improved this paper.
Funding.
The research and publication of this article were supported by University of Macau research grants MYRG-GRG2024-00199-FSS and MYRG-GRG2025-00030-FSS.
Competing interests
None.
Haiyan WANG is associate professor in the department of communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau. Her research interests span digital journalism, media–state relations, media and technology, and feminist media studies, areas in which she has published extensively. She serves as associate editor for Journalism Studies and sits on the editorial boards of several SSCI-indexed journals. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Harvard Yenching Institute for the 2025–2026 academic year.
Chunyan HUANG is a PhD student at the department of communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau. Her research interests reside in journalism studies and digital activism. Her work has appeared in Discourse, Context and Media, Media and Communication and Communication and Society.
Liangen YIN is professor at the School of Media and Communication, and director of the Centre for Media and Social Change, in Shenzhen University, China. His research focuses on the sociology of journalism, and new media and society. He has published widely in leading Chinese journals as well as in SSCI-indexed journals, including Journalism, Media, Culture and Society and Discourse and Communication.
