CAMRI | Popularizing party journalism in China in the age of social media: The case of Xinhua News Agency

Popularizing party journalism in China in the age of social media: The case of Xinhua News Agency

A Research Paper by Xin Xin, published by Global Media and China

The phenomenon of the “popularization” of journalism has become widespread in the process of media marketization, globalization and digitalization. This phenomenon has been studied mostly in the Anglo-American context. This article instead draws attention to China, where the tendency toward popularizing (party) journalism is also occurring but taking a rather different form. It focuses on the case of Xinhua News Agency—the pioneer as well as the most representative case of traditional party journalism in the country. The article considers to what extent Xinhua’s online media content concerning the ruling party since 1949—the Communist Party of China—has been popularized both in terms of content and style. The changes to online media content made by Xinhua are indicative of the extent to which it is possible to combine the status of a state-owned central news organization with a new journalistic orientation that seeks to make the messages from and about the party more appealing to technology-savvy and entertainment-driven audiences in the new media environment in mainland China.

Cite as:
Xin, X. (2018). Popularizing party journalism in China in the age of social media: The case of Xinhua News Agency. Global Media and China, 2059436418768331.

Read full text

Photo by Alejandro Luengo on Unsplash

About Xin Xin

Xin is Reader in International Communications with a special focus on China.

She was RCUK Research/Senior Research Fellow in 2006-2011 and UK/China Fellow for Excellence in 2008-2009, studying China’s soft power project, media and social transformations, and politics. Xin’s work has appeared in Media, Culture & Society, Global Media and Communication, Javnost – The Public; Journalism Practice, Sport in Society; Journal of African Media Studies and a number of edited volumes.