MEDIA AT WORK IN CHINA AND INDIA: DISCOVERING AND DISSECTING
Robin Jeffrey and Ronojoy Sen (eds)
Sage Publications
347 pages; Rs 995
For anyone who covers the media business in the subcontinent, curiosity about Chinese media is a given. Rarely do I let go of an opportunity to read a research paper, article or attend an event that helps me understand what Chinese audiences read, watch or hear or how that market works. This is because there is hardly any analysis on the Chinese media and entertainment industry.
Media at Work in China and India, then, is the sort of book that speaks to me. An added incentive is that it is co-edited by Robin Jeffrey, whose earlier book, India's Newspaper Revolution I have re-read several times.
Media at Work in China and India is a good book to get into the subject. Its structure works to get over the biggest issue that reporting or writing on China involves - access to data, knowledge or insights and the language barrier. Instead of being one tome, it uses 17 essays from writers across India and China to tackle the structure of the two markets, how reporters working there view them, the practices and a section that dissects the media worlds in these two countries. The book is the result of workshops held by various units of the National University of Singapore in 2009. These brought together Chinese and Indian media analysts and practitioners.
The introduction, written by Dr Jeffrey and his co-editor Ronojoy Sen, talks of the four similarities between the media industries in China and India. These are their vastness, dependence on advertising, the experiences of the journalists and the degree of hostility and suspicion that media in India and China display towards each other. The stereotypes of Indians held by Chinese internet users reflected that, "India was racially and militarily inferior, economically backward and allied with the West to encircle China," according to an essay by Hong Kong-based scholar Simon Shen.
That the world's two most populous countries are either disinterested or suspicious of each other is not surprising - there is hardly any substantial, well-researched, information flow between the two media worlds. In late 2013, Indian media firms had only four correspondents in China and none were TV reporters. And Chinese media organisations had 15 stationed in India.
The three differences between the two countries media worlds are language, the degree of control and regulation and the contrasting perceptions that journalists in both countries had about their jobs. In India proprietorial and social controls play a larger role in shaping the role of media than government regulation says the book. In China every media organisation has members from the Communist Party which also retains 51 per cent in media outlets. The State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) oversees and censors all media in China. Chinese journalists can be jailed for offending the government. They know what is expected and self-censorship is widespread. This is also the case in India, but more because of an understanding of who your proprietor is close to or leaning towards.
The last difference, however, is so telling of the two countries. To the question "What is the responsibility of media?" Chinese journalists said "To promote development and harmony." Indian journalists said, "To search for truth," or "To keep politicians honest".
My favourite part was a piece on "China's Cultural war on the West," by Ying Zhu, a scholar on Chinese cinema and media studies. Her chapter is a lucid read on the structure of the Chinese television and film market, how it operates, the challenges et al. Sample this - China has a four-tier TV industry with stations at national, provincial, county and city levels. National and local regulators operate their own stations. These stations have to remit a percentage of their revenues to their respective regulators. The economic interest of regulators then is tied to the stations they are supposed to regulate. This in turn becomes the biggest protection for state control and monopoly. Local TV stations depend on the local governments to protect their markets. They in turn rely on TV stations to maintain their political influence and bring in revenues.
And this operates at the national level too. SARFT has banned talent shows from provincial broadcasters that were giving the national CCTV a hard time. In April 2014 it banned four very popular online Western shows including The Big Bang Theory. Zhu shares several such examples of how officialdom rules what Chinese people read, hear and watch with an iron hand.
It is my favourite part in the book because it veers away from news media, the prime obsession of most writers in the book, to an area that generates a lot more money and has tremendous influence - entertainment. And that is my quibble with the book. Despite the controls China is one of the biggest media markets in the world. At $4.8 billion it is Hollywood's biggest market outside of the US in spite of a quota of 34 for foreign films. But any discussion around media, usually implies news media. And that is the area to which this book has largely limited itself. The fact that House of Cards is popular in China came as a shock to me - this talks of an evolved audience, not just one crazy about pop singers. So maybe a bit more of that would have been nice.
That, though, is a quibble not a complaint. For someone thirsty to know more about Chinese media this book answered so many questions. It has raised some new ones too. As a working journalist in a loud, immature, chaotic democracy I have always looked at the China with envy for its economic success and with pity for its lack of democracy. But over the years the question that interests me is: has China queered the pitch for a free media driven, liberal democracy for good? The theory was that once the Chinese have their material comforts they will want their non-material comforts - such as free speech and a more robust media - too. Are there signs that that is happening? Is the popularity of high-end Western shows or the huge offtake of Sherlock and Doctor Who online a sign of that? Will someone be doing a book on that?
