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The demoralizing effects of digital technologies on Chinese newspaper journalists
Date Issued
2018
Citation
Wang, H., Sparks, C., Zeng, W., Wang, D., & Huang, Y. (2018 Jun 20-24). The demoralizing effects of digital technologies on Chinese newspaper journalists. Annual International Association of Communication and Media Research (IAMCR) conference 2018, Eugene, Oregon, USA.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
This paper reviews the impact of recent changes in the practices of newspaper journalism in China, based on an extensive programme of interviews with journalistic practitioners between 2016 and 2018. The impact of digital technologies on the newspaper industry in China took place after it was experienced in the west, but it has been even sharper. Almost all Chinese newspapers have seen drastic falls in their readership and a precipitate decline in advertising revenue. In the Chinese case, the diffusion of smartphones provoked a rapid mass exodus of advertisers and readers from the printed press. The fall in readership and the decline in advertising have meant that the conditions which allowed some newspapers a limited degree of freedom from the Chinese Communist Party's detailed editorial direction have been eroded. One response to the fall-off in normal commercial advertising has been to rely more heavily on state subsidies; another is to attempt to gain commercial revenue by tying journalistic output more closely to promotional material. In order better to accomplish these new tasks, many papers have combined editorial and business staff into single departments. These changes have had an impact on the work undertaken by journalists and produced different generational responses. Amongst the journalists whose formative experiences were in the so-called "Golden Age" of Chinese journalism (1997-2008) these developments are experienced as a degradation of their claims to professional status. Once amongst the most highly-paid of the new middle class, they are now poorly rewarded for their writing and obliged to supplement their income by soliciting revenues for their paper from government and industry. At the same time, the political restrictions on their ability to write critical stories have intensified, forcing them to retreat from the idealism which constituted an important factor in their job satisfaction. Over time, the social status of Chinese journalists has been going down. If in the 1980s and early 1990s, Chinese journalists regarded themselves as proud "state cadres" (guojia ganbu), then in the late 1990s and early 2000s they were celebrated "journalism professionals" (zhuanye jizhe). Today, many call themselves "news labourers" (xinwen mingong) or "digital labourers" (shuzi mingong). There have been a range of responses to these changes: some senior journalists have left the industry, often for jobs more akin to public relations; others have been marginalised and now write stories promoting the newspapers' new political and commercial clients; some remain, particularly in editorial positions, working in demoralised and routinized ways. On the other hand, younger journalists, often straight from college, have few aspirations beyond producing entertaining material that will help their newspapers survive. They do not appear to experience much of the sense of professional pride that marks their seniors. In conclusion, this paper argues that the changes in the morale of journalists have significant implications for redefinition of journalism as an occupation and its relationship with society in the digital environment.
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