Abstract

This chapter reviews the development of media in China with a special focus on the growth of new internet media in the world’s most populous country. The first section provides a brief history of media in China and outlines the structure of the traditional media system in the country. The second section discusses a theoretical framework based on Foucault’s knowledge and power discourse theory, followed by an illustration of the recent developments and trends of internet media in China and a debate over the impact of internet media on China. The chapter ends with the author’s projection of how internet media will further affect the social and political environment in the world’s second largest economy. By focusing on new internet media, this chapter focuses on new forms of news and information dissemination via social media channels, including the use of social media platforms for news and information reporting, and individual bloggers and subscribers on information- and news-related social media accounts. Hence, the term new internet media used in this chapter is specified as media channeled via the content-sharing functions (i.e. microblog, blog, v-log, etc.) on social media platforms. The analysis particularly focuses on the new internet media providing news and information services.