Running A Newspaper Is Running A Newspaper From The Countryside To The City: Establishment Of The Initial Ruling Party Newspaper Of The Communist Party Of China News,

The journalism is not only a recorder of the rise and fall of the times and social changes, its own evolution as an institution is also an important part of them. After the establishment of New China, the journalism of China has experienced a transition from the old social system to the new social system with the foundation of the party press system and the demise of the private media, which like the both sides of a coin. This paper tries to exam the historical process of the institution evolution that the CPC party newspaper underwent during the initial period when the Communist Party of China began to obtain the national power (1948-1953).This paper argues that when a set of formal or informal rules used to regulate the party newspaper and the behaviors of its employees are constantly imitated and identified by other media organizations, then become a news routine taken for granted, the party newspaper itself turns into a series of institution arrangements, restricting or incenting the actual process of news production.For this reason, this paper takes the People's Daily as a case study, using the analytical frame of historical institutionalism to research the institution building process of the party newspaper in New China. From the perspective of institutional analysis, we can promote and deepen our understanding of the current Chinese news reform through the institution formation and changes.The core question we attempt to address is:in the context of the CPC's ruling, how does the news institution of party newspaper in New China begin to build up? Specifically, the issues worth to think about should be included:under the changes of regime and social system, through which particular way does a series of institutional arrangements surrounding the newspaper be produced? What happened with the work of party newspaper before and after the establishment of New China? How did the practice of the party newspaper evolve into a kind of template system and then expand to a national news institution? Since 1949, whether the change of Chinese news institution has its own laws? What impact does the emergence of party newspaper institution bring to the development of contemporary Chinese journalism?According to the specific role of the institution played in different times, this paper describes the building process of party newspaper institution from the origin, adjustment, reform and diffusion these four stages, and discusses the institutionalization of the party newspaper model in the process of Chinese news institution changes, which provides constraints or incentives to the practice of the all news media organizations as a political institution.The Introduction presents the main problem, specifies the reasons for choosing the People's Daily as a case study, and explains the theoretical perspective, research method and significance. It also provides a literature review summarizing the research which has been conducted in this field.Begin with the origin of the institution building of the party newspaper, the Chapter two analyzes the institution planning in the period of Xibaipo. Concerning about the Chinese decision-makers' understanding of the party newspaper work in the new historical conditions, this chapter analyzes how did they create a "big newspapers" to further unify the thinking and policies inside and outside of the party, then to promote centralization and national unity. Also the emergence of the "Big newspapers" had the significance of accumulating experience for the party newspaper which will be published in cities and enriched the institutional arrangements for urban newspapers through its own actual practice.Chapter three analyzes how the party's urban newspaper begins the institution adjustment to adapt the political and economic environment of the initial period of CPC's ruling.The process of new concepts such as market and enterprise management being inputted and transformed clearly showed that the meaning and function of institution are how to be shaped by the socio-economic and political context where it is so embedded in.Chapter four is concerned about the "big transformation" of the central party newspaper-the People's Daily, which is under the leadership of its new president Fan Changjiang during the practice of the party's urban newspaper. Analyze this institution reform from the organization, actors and cognitive aspects that aimed at the thinking and working style of party newspaper. But such an institutional innovation brought by this new actor who participated in the building of party newspaper news institution was opposed and resisted by the rural cadres of the party newspaper. The reason is that the different methods of newspaper management under different news value caused institutional conflict.Chapter five analyzes how this news institution regulating the practice of party press spread and diffused among the other news media organizations, and then became a national news institution. By summing up a set of institutionalized organizational structure ofthe party newspaper and ritual strategy for media practice during the building process of party newspaper institution, we find a structural field of party newspaper taken the central party newspaper as institution template, and the institutionalized isomorphism of New China press through coercion, imitation and normative.The last chapter is the conclusion of this paper. From the level of the national news institution changes, the party newspaper is regarded as political institution closely related with the CPC's ruling. Such evolution is due to path-dependent characteristics in the process of institution building under specific historical contexts. And also Because of the asymmetrical power structure in the CPC's regime that makes the institution of party newspapers lead the changes of national news institution. So we argues that to promote and deepen the current Chinese news reform, we need to break the cognitive concepts which use the ruling party's political criteria as professional journalism standards to measure the operations of media organizations. Only by restoring the true colors of the news media, can we create a news institution through the active interaction between the journalism and government to ensure that the news we get will really contribute to the process of political democratization.