| Since the early 1990s, driven by the vigorous market economy, newspapers in China have been redefined from government institutions to a commercialized industry. The prevalence of free market logic in the newspaper sector has eroded the influences of many high-ranking central Communist Party newspapers and given rise to the successful local newspapers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Guangdong, China's southernmost province and a pioneer of change within the country. Guangzhou's market orientation, characterized by an interaction between media and southern China's robust economy and its policy-driven openness to the outside world, makes Guangzhou the country's newspaper industry leader in terms of advertising revenue, domination of local newspaper markets, and circulation to the major cities and inland provinces. An analysis of three newspaper groups in Guangzhou will show the role of market orientation in the growth of a quasi-independent Chinese newspaper industry. The thesis concludes that Guangzhou newspaper groups are not independent operations but socialist conglomerates that remain in the hands of the ruling power. It will be a long journey for these semi-controlled, semi-commercial media to achieve both financial and editorial independence. |
