Homogenization And Institutional Isomorphism At CCTV-NEWS: From The Perspective Of Institutional Theory

Although China's international communication system is developing and maturing fast, its international media outlets are having a hard time expanding overseas market they are criticized as focusing too much on governmental activities and federal officials. They are viewed as straying away from audience needs and lacking balanced perspectives. This paper, through close observation of the newsroom of CCTV-NEWS, delivers a description of the unspoken rules, norms, culture and distribution of power within CCTV, one of China's most influential international communication media.The description, when combined with the institutional theory, analyzes how the dynamic of "Legitimacy", "Taken-for-Grantedness", "Coercive Isomorphism", "Mimetic Isomorphism", and "Normative Isomorphism" affects the organization's performance. In seeking for legitimacy and support, CCTV-NEWS incorporates societally-rationalized procedures. During the process of institutionalization and homogenization, dynamic of legitimacy and taken-for-grantedness encourages CCTV-NEWS to look at China's other international and domestic news organizations. Legitimacy facilitates an activity such as self-censorship moved from unfamiliar to accepted to venerated while taken-for-grantedness can entail condensation as this practice becomes so well understood that it can becomes unspoken, even unnoticable.This thesis then identify three mechanisms through which institutional isomorphic change occurs:(1) "Coercive Isomorphism that derives from political pressure, public influence and the problem of legitimacy"; (2) "Mimetic Isomorphism resulting from standard response to uncertainty"; and (3) "Normative Isomorphism, associated with professionalization" (DiMaggio and Powell 148). Among these mechanisms, the government plays a major role in exerting pressure, which is generally intangible, on CCTV-NEWS.