A major fault line in discussions of mass communication in China runs between perspectives that link market-oriented reforms with prospects for democratization, and those suggesting economic liberalization works hand in glove with political control. This theoretically layered and empirically brimming book comes down on the latter side, yet with qualifications that belie any notions of a simple calculus between economics and politics.
Daniela Stockmann's key argument is that the particular configurations of media commercialization in the People's Republic of China have worked to the advantage of the Chinese Communist Party, most importantly in strengthening the stability and thus the durability of the one-Party state. She is far from the only scholar to emphasize the market's potential to serve as handmaiden to the Party, but unlike most other studies of media commercialization, Stockmann tries to identify specific mechanisms that produce the outcomes she observes. She also is expressly concerned with comparative implications and the circumstances under which “responsive authoritarianism” of the sort she identifies in China may find success, or not, in other countries and contexts.
The University of Michigan-trained political scientist, now a faculty member at Leiden University, makes use of an impressive range of interdisciplinary literature along with her own original studies and secondary analyses to develop her case, drawing liberally on social psychology along with communication and political science scholarship in an effort to integrate individual-level phenomena with macro-level questions. Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China offers three basic iterations of the argument – an introductory section, a section approaching the evidence via studies of news production and content, and a section focusing on dimensions of reception such as audience preferences and behaviour, media effects and public opinion – before concluding chapters applying a comparative lens to the Chinese situation.
Stockmann does not dispute the considerable empirical evidence that media commercialization has significantly expanded space for news reporting and information exchange in Chinese society; but rather than seeing concomitant perils for authoritarian rule, she interprets broadening tolerance in terms of potential benefits to the government and Party. On the one hand, she argues, the expansion of expressive space enables market media to profit through increased audience appeal and credibility, thus contributing to the overall success of market-oriented economic policies; while on the other, the shift away from reliance on coercive media management fosters a more benign image and reduces costs and challenges to the government.
As a by-product, in a kind of modern-day adaptation of the Communist “mass line,” popular media also serve the authorities as a feedback mechanism highlighting ordinary people's priorities and preoccupations. Even with more elastic frontiers, however, the propaganda system maintains both general and specific boundaries to which even the most market-oriented media defer. Ultimately, says Stockmann, a complex balance between openness and constraint creates an overall stabilizing influence that China's leadership desires and works in the government's favour.
Stockmann's broad mining of eclectic sources and mixed modes of inquiry yield some innovative contributions to thinking about media and mass communication in China. She explores the idea of “media citizenship,” or nature and degree of engagement with media, as it varies across regions, types of media outlet, and issues. Her emphasis on the concept of “issue publics” offers a novel way to look at the quixotic dynamics of communication control. Briefly, she finds that commercial media serve as an adjunct to the state's endeavours to reach particular audiences converging around specific interests, problems or events.
Toward the end of her far-ranging study of media authorities, news producers and audiences, and the interactions among people, groups and institutions of these varied constituencies, Stockmann raises a valuable caveat: briefly, she cautions against ascribing government media management to authoritarian states alone, reminding us that politicians in liberal democracies also use formal and informal means to shape media content to their advantage. This point certainly is supported by a great deal of communication literature.
Stockmann's emphasis here, however, is on media's political workings in authoritarian systems. Turning to comparative discussion, she suggests that the keys to managing news and information flows under varied forms of authoritarian governance include, among many factors, institutional arrangements, patronage networks and commercial media strategies. In her view, with media commercialization taking hold in an enormous variety of systems, the Chinese case helps explain why single-party regimes remain especially resistant to popular rebellions.
The book is replete with surveys of scholarship from disparate realms, deftly weaving together descriptive overviews, theoretical explanations, empirical findings and analytical assessments; but the prose is dense and often redundant, not surprising given the multi-method strategy of pursuing the same basic inquest repeatedly from various angles. As a result, the reading experience can be intellectually exhausting, and is best undertaken in instalments. Indeed, spread over a semester, this book could serve as the spine of a doctoral seminar on Chinese media and politics. It makes creative and provocative associations across disciplines and levels of analysis, and although the contents probably are beyond reach for all but the most sophisticated undergraduates, area studies and comparative scholars and graduate students in the social sciences should find it useful in both substance and approach.
