2009/3/13

China and United States share the totally different cultural background, ideology and social system, so the media of the two countries would have a lot of differences. I am interested in what are the differences and how can they be shaped. However, I am still a stranger to American culture and there is a long way for me to go.
Although I am a stranger here, I still want to talk about the difference between media in China and America with my limited experience.
I have worked in the newspaper office in China for several months. In my aspect, the operation of media in China should follow certain rules and some rules are very strict. Because most of China’s media are controlled by the government, they should follow the principles which government made for them. For example, when some big events occurs such as the plan of exploring the moon, almost all the newspapers which serve for the party will receive a notice of how to report the news such as using what pictures, focusing on what aspects and even the position of the newspaper for the reports. It sounds crazy, but that is exactly how they work. Although it is a good way for government to control the reporting for big events, it is boring and suffocating for people to read the some articles in nearly all newspaper they get. In my opinion, this kind of control deprives the liberal right of media to present the different visual angles of such same thing and the delight of reading for readers.
Obviously, China’s media is more conservative than American’s due to the system reason. However, with the gradually implement of opening policy in China, the media have got more autonomy in their operation. First, they should work hard for supporting themselves, like the media in America. Government decreases the support on media so that they must find ways to survive in the fierce competition. Second, they have high-level power in deciding the operation, the advertising strategy and the topic selection.
I know in America the environment for liberal speaking is very loose, people can criticize the government, the present or the parties on either TV or newspaper publicly. But today, after I talked to a friend, I realized that there is no extreme liberal either in America or in somewhere else in the world. The liberal is always compared and the conservative forever exists.