Study Of Critical Reports On "Southern Weekend"in Social Transformation Period

During China’s social transformation period, all kinds of old or new social contradictions frequently occur under the circumstance of the relationship between the state and society, between central and local governments in the event of shift. One of the important reasons for this is the shortage of a dialogue channel-ublic domain, between the nation and the society.Therefore, the dissertation is to discuss that as an important mechanism to construct public domain, whether the mass media have undertaken the basic functions in the construction of the public domain. Choosing critical reports as the research object, via the comparative analysis of these articles’contents on "southern weekend","China youth daily" and "Caijing" published from2000to2011, the dissertation is to analyze and contrast whether critical reports on the "southern weekend" reflected basic contradiction spectrum or covered the Chinese social reality, And in the end, whether maintained or challenged the existing social arrangements and power in the criticism on specific public issues, such as education, health care and rule of law.Due to the mass media it self’s complex faces shown in the transition period, the first chapter will explore concept definition and distinction among mass media’s critical reports served as nation’s governance technology, critical reports launched by mass media themselves and critical reports started by government’s first investigation and mass media’s follow up and then will give strict operational definition about "critical report" as the research object of this article, pointing out the difference of "supervision by public opinion" between China and western countries in the context, meaning and application. This chapter also points out the logic connection among the critical reports, news professionalism and construction of public domain.The second chapter will carry on the quantitative content analysis of the critical object, critical content and critical fields as well as the use of sources on the critical reports released on "southern weekend" by using the SPSS method. Results show that critical reports on the "southern weekend" have mainly focused on fields of education, medical treatment, the rule of law and the criticism of the administrative power; Chapter three will analyze the special type of critical reports, investigative reporting, by the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis. This study would found that investigative reporting on "southern weekend" expose public power by the early "billionaire-property-deprived-without-reason" reporting framework shift to the later "government-led" reporting framework, and more investigative journalism reporting framework have changed from transparent to the obscure layer; The fourth chapter will discuss whether public issues such as education, medical treatment, the rule of law and criticism to administrative officials reflected in critical reports on "southern weekend" and then will analyze whether the public domain is constructed in some sense mainly using qualitative analysis.Study found that critical reports on "southern weekend" mainly focused on the justice and national policy enforcement, education, health care and criticism to state administrative officials. Basic social contradictions and problems occurred during China’s transition period have basically been reported. Regrettably, because of the strict control of state ideology, investigative reporting on "southern weekend" presented a cycle of ups and downs. More specifically, insider stories closely related to public life relatively couldn’t be uncovered,"southern weekend" preferred to pursue corruption disclose and bullying investing of administrative officials at county-level office and below, which on the hand brought the medium risk, on the other hand showing the medium’s limitation and shortage in the construction of journalistic professionalism and public domain construction.Through the analysis of public issues’media expression, this article found that, even in the late stage when state ideology control becoming more strictly,"southern weekend" construct the public domain at a certain degree around law construction issues such as the death penalty approval power taken back, human rights protection, detention house system reform through the strategic use of self-preservation "government-led" media framework. This strategic reporting framework not only on the behalf or the "society" asked for the rights and interests to state ideology, but also escaped from forming sharp confrontation with state ideology. All in all, this reporting framework is a kind of helpless expression when pursuing journalistic professionalism under China’s current media management system.