Examination of Characteristics of News Media under Censorship: A Content Analysis of Selected Chinese Newspapers’ SARS Coverage

Ernest Zhang · Kenneth Fleming

59 citations0/0 files storedAsian Journal of Communication

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Media Studies and Communication Journalism and Media Studies Media Influence and Politics

Abstract

This study examines the characteristics of the Chinese print media under censorship on their coverage of the disease of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). With Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm's four theories of the press (Four theories of the press, Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1963) and Shoemaker and Reese's hierarchy model of influences on media content (Mediating the message: Theories of influence on mass media content, New York: Longman, 1996), the authors conduct a content analysis of the coverage of SARS in front pages of the Guangzhou Daily and all pages of the Southern Weekend, respectively, from December 2002 to June 2003 and from February to June 2003. The rationale of choosing these two data sets is that they are both important Chinese newspapers in southern China's Guangdong province where SARS presumably originated. Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm (Citation1963) summarized three ways in which the Soviet Communist Party and government controlled the content of media: (1) its departments of propaganda at various levels appointed editors; (2) the Party, through propaganda departments, issued directives for media content; and (3) the Party reviewed and criticized the press. Our content analysis of the selected newspapers from December of 2002 to June 2003 reveals that the political pressure during this period influenced the newspaper content via three factors, and that the three factors mainly match the three ways concluded by Siebert et al. (Citation1963). Therefore, this study concludes that this three-way model can still be applied to the analysis of the Chinese media system under political influence. However, in addition to the content analysis, the authors believe the information from Chinese editors and journalists about their views of the newspaper coverage of SARS would enhance the strengths of this study.

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References

2000McQuail's mass communication theory 1988Observing Interaction: An Introduction to Sequential Analysis 1963Four Theories of the Press 1999Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line.1998Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line 2002Beyond the Four Theories of the Press: A New Model of National Media Systems 2002A mass-communication society 1995China's media, media's China

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