The crisis of the centralized media control theory: how local power controls media in China

This article examines the role of local power structures - alliances between local politicians and entrepreneurs - in media-government relations in China. The centralized propaganda control theory that has prevailed since 1949 is in crisis. The party-state's dominant control over media has been deconstructed among lower administrative levels of government. Local power structures require a high degree of propaganda control to maintain local political hegemony and to safeguard local interests even when such interests are in opposition to national policy. The Chinese Marxist principle of propaganda control, which served central government since 1949, has been adopted by the local power structures whereas central government has adapted a softer and more paradoxical attitude towards media. A gap is left in media control, which allows a certain space for media freedom. The scope of expression has broadened, as well as the plurality of the social discourse, which however, is limited by the local propaganda control and the media's tendency to lean towards local political patronage. The local power structure's control over media helps exclude the symbolic representations of lower strata of society, thus leaving the current social order and socio-political relationships in the locality unchanged.