Globalization and marketization of China's television industry: A case study of southwest China's Chongqing Broadcasting Group

This study examines the influence of globalization and marketization on Chinese media, and, in particular, on Chinese television at a regional level. It is a case study of China's southwest Chongqing Broadcasting Group (CBG) and the joint forces of globalization and marketization that shape China's regional broadcasting industry.;Drawing on the literature of political economy and organization theory, the study reveals recent characteristics of Chinese media performances from an interdisciplinary perspective. It explains how encroachment of transnational media corporations and the process of marketization in the 1990s led to changes in media content and in the structure of media organizations. The analysis shows that, as a result of an enhanced level of media commercialization and growing competition among domestic television stations, the Chinese TV programming becomes more diversified and entertainment-oriented. The presence of global media players in the Chinese market adds additional pressure to institute change. The Chinese government has responded to these challenges by consolidating its broadcasting industry and integrating the country's fragmented television markets.;My approach is a departure from emphases on media effects, content and roles in social life; rather, it is grounded in an organizational perspective of mass communication, focusing on the administration of a media organization, the relationship between the organization context and its structure, and the conflict between media professionals and organizational constraints.