Abstract
In 2018, in a short essay published in Journalism, the journalism scholar Thomas Hanitzsch argued that, despite attempts to internationalize journalism studies, there was still Western bias in how the study of journalism was approached and understood on a global scale (Hanitzsch, 2019). A review of major journals and book titles in the field will show that things have not changed much, regarding the quantity of scholarly work coming from outside the United States, the United Kingdom, and other European countries.
Most importantly, we do not have sufficient scholarly work to fully understand newsmaking in India and China, homes to more than one-third of the global population. China is particularly interesting as newsmaking in an official socialist country.
The journalism scholar Emily H. C. Chua has contributed to filling this gap with her book The Currency of Truth: Newsmaking and the Late-Socialist Imaginaries of China’s Digital Era. Based on an ethnography in a Beijing- and Guangzhou-based weekly, the author sheds light on the “complexities and contradictions” (p.x) present in the Chinese contemporary media system. In this ethnographic exploration of newsmaking in China, the author offers insights into how Communist Party politics regulate and shape the news in China. It also looks into how technology contributes to the changes in contemporary institutions of news in a late socialist society.
Chua’s conceptualization is of news as a currency. She has found that journalists consider their news articles as text which aims less to influence public opinion and more to “mediate the myriad agreements and transactions that the news industry’s numerous players were constantly brokering with one another” (p. 4). The ethnographic study shows how digitalization and marketization have transformed how newsmakers and newspapers work in China. The press’s role as an ideological and political mouthpiece has transformed into the news as a currency, creating new opportunities for newsmakers and new relationships with different stakeholders.
In Chapter 2, the author offers a historical background of cultural and political factors in shaping news institutions in China. It documents the history of newsmaking in China from the early decades of its modern nationhood to the twenty-first century. The chapter gives a vivid description of the transformation of news institutions from Mao-era to post-Mao-era. In Chapters 3 and 4, the author discusses the day-to-day newsmaker process in the Beijing- and Guangzhou-based weekly where she conducted the ethnography. In Chapter 3, she follows journalists covering one of the Communist Party officialdom’s grandest events of the year—the annual convention of the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference to produce “propaganda articles,” while in Chapter 4, she investigates some reportorial habits of journalists. Drawing from the “post-truth” news era in the United States, she shows how the weekly’s politics journalists’ “ethic of efficacy enabled them to stay morally and professionally oriented to their journalistic ideals in a newsmaking environment that was relentlessly hostile to such aspirations” (p.27). Chapter 5 documents the transformation of the contemporary Chinese institution of news. In this chapter, news has transformed into a kind of currency which has impacted the whole news institution. Chapter 6 illustrates the unexpected firing of the weekly’s editor-in-chief for “mismanaging company funds and engaging in extramarital affairs with … staff members” (p.117) and the shifting relationship of journalists with political institutions. The book ends with a brief epilogue where the author questions what it means to be a good journalist when news institutions have been going through changes coming from technology and commercialization in a restricted society like China.
The book has four significant contributions to the journalism literature. First, it offers insights into the Chinese media system, which is understudied. Second, it explores an exciting conceptualization of the news as a currency. Third, it joins other scholars (Almiron, 2010; Anderson, 2013; Boyer, 2013; Henry, 2007; Carlson, 2017) in exploring the transformation of newsmaking influenced by technological advancement and expanding it to China. Fourth, the book offers an interesting insight into what the institution of news can be in a post-socialist society.
All books come with limitations. In this case, readers unfamiliar with the Chinese media system might find it hard to understand the restriction on the freedom of the press and how this influences journalism in China. The author gives a historical background of news institutions in China in Chapter 2. However, a larger literature review will be a helpful addition to this chapter for readers outside China to understand newsmaking in the country.
