The Political Economy of News in China: Manufacturing Harmony

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The Political Economy of News in China: Manufacturing Harmony is the first full-scale application of Herman and Chomskys classic propaganda model to the news media content of a country with a system that is not outwardly similar to the United States. Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman examines the news media of the Peoples Republic of China using the five filters of the original model. He asks provocative questions concerning the nature of media ownership, the effect of government or private ownership on media content, the elite-centered nature news sourcing patterns, the benefits and costs of having active special interest groups to influence news coverage, the continued usefulness of the concepts of censorship and propaganda, the ability of advertisers to indirectly influence news production, and the potential increase of pro-capitalist, pro-consumerist ideology and nationalism in Chinese news media. This book will appeal to scholars of international media and journalism.

Reviews

By testing the Propaganda Model outside of the country for which it was developed, and by applying it to the rapidly evolving Chinese media scene, this book adds to the growing literature on the continuing and global relevance of the model and provides new insights on the operation and likely future direction of the Chinese media. This is a must-read for Chinese media specialists and those interested in the political economy literature. -- Andrew Mullen, Northumbria University
Jesse Hearns-Branaman makes a bold and provocative claim, not just about news journalism in the PRC, but also those in the U.S. and elsewhere. He presses this claim with great panache, citing a wide range of theories and masses of evidence. There is no doubt that this book represents a challenge to some of the common assumptions that underlie many of the comparative research projects that have appeared in recent years. The clarity and directness of his writing will make this book a valuable resource for teachers and researchers in journalism studies and more broadly for those engaged in writing and teaching about comparative media. -- Colin Sparks, Hong Kong Baptist University

Author Bio

Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman is lecturer of media and communication at the Graduate School of Language and Communication, National Institute of Development Administration, Thailand.