Transforming China: Media, Public Opinion, and Public Policy

Author: Wang Kai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: This book combines political science and communication studies, using a wealth of detailed cases such as the Sun Zhigang incident, the SARS crisis, and the Western Development Strategy to explore in depth the relationship among media, public opinion, and public policy in China during its transition period. The author examines from a historical comparative perspective how factors like marketization, social transformation, and the rise of the internet have positively and negatively impacted the roles and functional models of media and public opinion in the policy-making process. It is pointed out that mass media have made breakthroughs in crisis reporting, fulfilling public information rights, expressing public opinion, and remote supervision, but at the same time, there are practical issues such as excessive administrative control, an increasing tendency toward entertainment, and insufficient reflection of the voices of marginalized groups, especially encountering bottlenecks in expanding the scope and strength of public opinion supervision. The author believes that to enable mass media to more actively and effectively meet the diverse needs of stakeholders and promote the process of social democratization, under the socialist market economy system, mass media should enhance their autonomy, differentiate between business and content areas, and transform from simple propaganda guidance to comprehensive information dissemination. The book has a rigorous structure, concise language, sharp wit, and novel perspectives, making it a valuable reference for faculty and students in journalism and communication departments, media researchers, and media professionals.