Political communication spaces in the Chinese context: a case study of the Chinese media’s reporting of Sino-Japanese relations

This dissertation joins a vibrant conversation in the media and communication scholarship about the media-politics dynamics in contemporary Chinese context. As a part of a more general reconsideration of the current state of China’s public communication, it addresses the questions of how has China’s political communication space been embedded in and evolved with social contexts, and how have diverse media participants interactively engaged in the discussion of foreign affairs of Sino-Japanese relations. This thesis argues that China’s political communication sphere is a ‘vigorous but censored’ space where the globally similar logic of networked connectedness coexists with the influences of the Chinese national contexts, and various media participants subjectively interconnect, interdepend, and inter-contextualize under networked but hierarchical structures. Through contextualizing the research model of the ‘actor, connector and interlocutor’ as well as conducting qualitative and quantitative analysis of media coverage and discussions on Sino-Japanese relations from China’s official media and social networking site, this dissertation suggests that political communication arrangement in the Chinese context as a three-dimension process of information flow in which the Party organ takes the role of monopolistic ‘actors’ through providing original, authoritative news and information, setting key themes for other participants, and delimiting the boundary of communication space; the public serve as inclusive but heterogeneous ‘connectors’ who connect with each other through subjectively engaging in civic discussion and deliberating political viewpoints; and the political, media, cultural and social elites play the role of ‘interlocutors’ through becoming ‘opinion leaders’ which dialogically relates actor to connector dimensions and integrate China’s political communication space by contextualizing, reinterpreting official’s narratives and exerting influence on public opinions. This study rethinks the changing relationships between the party state, various media actors’ representations of political issues, and individuals’ everyday civic discussions and engagements in contemporary China.