(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
market share in the world’s biggest TV market. Both private media production
companies have extensive connections with state broadcasters who control the
channels for distribution and often engage in cooperative projects with them. Jilin TV,
the leading broadcaster of Jishi Media Co. Ltd, the media conglomerates in Jilin
province of Northeast China, is a minor player in the joint venture to produce and
broadcast Dwelling Narrowness. Its participation in such a venture is mostly driven
by business concerns and possibly facilitated through personal connections (guanxi)
in China’s TV drama industry.
The co-production of Dwelling Narrowness is telling about the changing pattern of
media operation in China. Since 1980s Chinese media have undergone a series of
reforms toward decentralization, marketization, and internationalization, led by the
party-state. These reforms have been taken to a new height since 1990s, prompted by
the increased integration of Chinese economy into global capitalism and China’s own
leapfrog in digitalization and information and communication technologies (ICTs)
development. From the introduction of contract system and producer responsibility
system, to outsourcing program productions to independent producers and private
production companies, from absorbing foreign capitals to adopting global media
giants’ business models by forming Chinese media conglomerates (first in the press
and then in the broadcast and communication sectors), from the explosion of lifestyle
news-oriented tabloids, metropolitan dailies and entertainment programs to the
proliferation of specialty channels and integration of digital platforms (Internet,
mobile phone and IP TV) in existing print and broadcast mediums—We have
witnessed a changing dynamic in media operation and management China. It started
with hesitations, anxieties and objections, and was characterized as “messy,
protracted, confusing, and confused, littered with odd, even counterintuitive
institutions, structures, and practices” (Zhao 2000, 3). But it has proved to be a
successful attempt (for the party-state and neoliberal intellectuals) to unleash the
potential of the market, promote creativity and entrepreneurship of individuals, and at
the same time retain the “commanding heights” of the party leadership in media
ideology and orientation.
Spearheaded by the party-organ media themselves, the reforms of Chinese media and
communication sectors have turned Chinese media into one of the most lucrative
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