ABSTRACT
An increasing body of literature on Chinese media development has been published in the last decade or so. These studies recognise that Chinese media is no longer a tool of class struggle but instead a tool ‘in service of modernization’ (Lull 1991: 4). The ‘modernisation’ refers to economic modernisation, but inevitably infers cultural transformation. China’s structural transformations since 1978 provide the historical background for media reforms to take place. Through these reforms and transformations, Chinese media have evolved from the communist ‘commandist’ party-press system (Lee 1990) to a modern media industry that is essential to China’s strategic plan for sustained development. In the meantime, scholars have begun to question any simplistic dichotomies – such as global versus local, state versus market, and party versus people – in contemporary cultural production in China (such as Y. Zhao 1998). Cultural transformation in contemporary China is endowed with innovation and creativity by various social and cultural agents. These agents navigate the endless points of cultural multiplexes through representation, production, consumption and circulation. As such, interplay rather than simplified dichotomies is brought to the centre of media and cultural transformation in China.
