China’s media industry has always been an interesting balancing act. It has both officially dominated media outlets like the China Central Television (CCTV) and Xinhua News Agency, which are responsible for disseminating policy and shaping public opinion to ensure the spread of mainstream values; there are also commercial platforms represented by Douyin and Aqiyi, which profit from market competition to attract user traffic and generate advertising revenue. The combination of both policy and market forces has made China’s media ecosystem unique, but also full of challenges.
Balancing Policy and Market
Official media such as CCTV have long been responsible for publicizing national policies and propagating mainstream values. Their content is usually more formal, focusing on matching the country’s strategic goals and ensuring the message is consistent with the policy direction.
However, as users’ needs become more and more diversified, commercial platforms such as Douyin have become the main choice for young users through personalized recommendations and rich entertainment content.
These two different models satisfy the needs of different audiences to a certain extent: mainstream values are solidly disseminated through official media, while commercial platforms allow users to satisfy their individual interests. They also reflect the core characteristics of China’s media industry – policy guides the direction and the market adds vitality.
Is Douyin “Democratizing” Media?
Media democratization focuses on enabling ordinary people to participate in the production and distribution of content.
（McChesney 2000)
Douyin’s model seems to support this very well. With just a cell phone, any ordinary person can share their views and record their daily lives through short videos.
But the problem is that this “democratization” is not entirely pure. Platform algorithms often prioritize entertainment content that attracts more traffic over truly in-depth or diverse work. This kind of traffic orientation may lead to the overflow of low-quality content, and at the same time create a “cocoon of information”, so that users can only be exposed to content that is consistent with their own interests. Coupled with the requirements of policy regulation, it remains difficult for certain sensitive topics to be widely disseminated. The result is an environment in which “everyone has a voice”, where the boundaries are actually defined by both algorithms and policy.
The double challenge of policy and technology
China’s media environment has always been a balance between policy and market, and commercial platforms such as Douyin are dynamic but still subject to strict content restrictions. Commercial platforms such as Douyin are dynamic but still subject to strict policy restrictions on content, and a BBC article noted that China’s “firewalls” not only block the inflow of information from abroad, but also control domestic content. While such regulation ensures the stability of public opinion, it also poses a challenge to the diversity of content on platforms. (see China Media Guide from BBC)
Against this backdrop, short-video platforms have made it easier for ordinary people to participate in content creation, but how to maintain the vitality of the platforms under policy constraints while avoiding information homogenization and low-quality content is a key issue for Chinese media to address in the future.
The Future: A New Direction for Chinese Media
Chinese media need to find a new breakthrough between policy and market. Commercial platforms can optimize their algorithms to allow more quality content to be seen, rather than simply catering to traffic. Policy-wise, if creators are given more freedom of expression, it will also provide more space for diverse content. Whether it’s official media or commercial platforms, the key to the future lies in how to use technology and creativity to make the media ecosystem more open and dynamic.