Contemporary Chinese Public Television Media Research (1978-2008)

This dissertation studies the development, representation and change of the TV publicity in contemporary Chinese from 1978 to 2008, with CCTV and Phoenix TV as the cases. It has been found that the TV publicity of China is different from that of the western countries, for in the west the TV publicity is the product of the democracy system, while in China the TV publicity is constructed by the state, the market, the journalists and the public, from 1978 till now, the TV publicity is the result of the composition of the above forces.Chapter First defines the important concept: media publicity, and it is essential to distinguish between the system dimension and the practice dimension.Chapter Second studies the development of CCTV from 1978 to 1992.the TV publicity was just beginning to bourgeon in this stage, and it is limited in some program making, especially some criticizing, public opinion supervising report and some intellectual's media practice. However, the publicity in this stage is limited, and the state was the main force constructing the publicity, the core position of the Xin Wen Lian Bo implies that the motivation of the state is to strength the official ideology promulgating. Besides, in the Eighties, inspired by the idealism, some intellectual joined in the TV program making, and they were an important force in constructing TV publicity.Chapter Three and Four deals with the development of CCTV from 1992 to 2008, and in this stage Chinese TV publicity can be defined as "limited and embarrassed". During this stage, as the national television station, CCTV had awakened the citizen consciousness, partly furthered the open of the power operation, and to some extent restricted the bottom official's power, its publicity cannot be ignored. Dong Fang Shi Kong is a sign showing the public discourse comes to appear in the TV; Jiao Dian Fang Tan has aroused the famous Focus Phenomenon, which supervises the power, sticks up for the public good and awakens the public to protect their rights, however, this publicity is special because it can only be found in Chinese; Xin Wen Diao Cha discloses the truth and dope through the independent investigation of the journalists ,and supervises the power and enlightens the public, however, this program is now being margined for the topic regulation and the adjusting of the broadcasting time. Shi Hua Shi Shuo arouses the national talk show phenomenon, which is a blend of the publicity and the privacy, and it has to some extent excited the public's expression passion, awakened the citizen consciousness, however, the majority of the talk show are concerned with personal experience, which distracts the pubic from important issues to private ones, and this can be seen as the crisis of the media publicity.In 2003, CCTV was criticized for the public cannot get anything about SARS through the national television station, which was another crisis of the media publicity, latter CCTV, together with the local television stations began to report SARS entirely, which was the crucial turning point. And in the year the News Channel opened, which is a momentous step in China.However, On the whole, the media publicity is limited, as for the ideal publicity, there is still a long way to go for the Chinese TV.Since 1992, Chinese TV has been put between the state and market, the condition is rather embarrassed.Since 2003, the Internet has grown up and we must admit that its publicity is highly important. However, it is not realistic to attribute the media publicity only to the Internet. A prominent phenomenon is that the Internet and TV have cooperated in reporting and commenting essential news.Since 1992, the main force constructing TV publicity are the state, market and the journalists. The state is the prime force, and its motivation is to maintain its power. The market is another force, which makes it impossible for the public discourse to appear in the TV, however, the market also erodes the publicity. The journalists are another force in constructing the TV publicity, and their motivation is to achieve the professionalism. The state, the market and the journalists together further the TV publicity, while their interaction is not balanceable, the state plays a key role in the process.Chapter five studies the commercial media publicity, with the Phoenix TV as the only case. This publicity is mainly constructed by the market, which is quite different from CCTV. Besides, the journalists in the Phoenix TV also construct the publicity. Though the publicity is also limited, the Phoenix TV brings forth a different approach, which means that the market may not bring about the decline of the media publicity.Finally the author concludes that it is urgent to reconstructure the TV publicity, and we must build the public service broadcasting to better the TV publicity in China.