ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the changes that have occurred in the media marketplace. It analyzes how the government has tried to promote supervision by the media and administrative transparency to check corruption and to cope with competition coming from social media and international sources. Using media reform and information transparency as an example, the chapter examines the process of "controlled liberalization", and explores the possibility of authoritarian transmutation in terms of the "developmental cycle view". The chapter focuses on how market forces, that is, commercialization, media competition, and reorganization of the media marketplace, have gradually changed the balance of power among the government, media, and consumers. Independent budgeting and commercialized operation of a media organization means that profitability is crucial to employee compensation as well as to the media's social impact. During the Mao era, mass media and publishing were jealously guarded as an important component of the superstructure.
