A Study On The Evolution And Paradigm Of Chinese Media Economics:from The Perspective Of History Of Discipline

The study of history of discipline can be traced back to4th century B.C. Since the18th century, history of discipline has become an independent subject and has become increasingly important in academia. History of discipline is pivotal in facilitating the development and regularization of any subject in academia.Media economics still is a young discipline. In comparison to other major academic subjects, media economics is still in the growth stage. As a specific research field, it has only been through sixty years of development in the Western culture and twenty years of development in China.The study on Chinese media economics is from the "internal history of science" and "external history of science" these two dimensions, which based on the achievements of reviews of west media economics research and Chinese media economics research, from the perspective of history of discipline, to use the research method of bibliometric and quantitative research.This thesis shows that western media economics study is in the "normal science" stage.The existence of certain scale of research and cooperation among the institutions, western media economics'scientific community was already there. Economics methodology has been the major research methodology adopted in western media economics. Researchers with background in both economics and media study have been the pillar of the field.Along with the rise of private newspaper sector, Chinese media scholars have begun to study the field of media economics since the1920s. However, the incessant wars and social instability in the following periods have brought an abrupt stop to both the growth of media industry and the study of media economics. Until1970s, as a natural result of the development of media industry, media economics was again back to the stage.The period from1993to2000is defined as the "pre-academic" era in this thesis. During this period, media economics study was driven by the government's policies and the development of the media industry. Academia and media industry both contributed to the development of media economics study. Researchers with media study background dominated the media economics field in China. It was an era without systematic research methodologies. Hence, the subject was not yet ready to evolve into a scientific organic system. Chinese media economics research still in "per-science" stage.However, the robust growth in the media industry and China's media economics research since2001has brought the subject significant growth in terms of number of scholars, research areas and methodologies as well as the built up of the subject. Academic scholars, who saw increasingly diversified backgrounds, have become the pillar of the research team. This facilitates a more structured and scientific development of the research methodologies, which in turn incubates the organic growth of the subject. Media economics study in China is advancing towards the stage of "normal science"The thesis also points out the fact that the growth of media economics study in China has moved close to a threshold. The writer believes that insufficiency in research methodologies is the key obstacle to the further development of the field. Based on the current situations and the research framework which is consisted of five parts, the writer has constructed a research methodology that incorporates both economics and media study research methods from the perspective of theoretical economics, applied economics and media theories, in order to achieve breakthrough in Chinese media economics research.Although it is inevitable that there are limitations in this thesis, it does have the ability to provide a more resourceful platform for furthering the study of media economics in the future.