Academic Discourses of Digital Journalism in China

Abstract

‘Digital journalism’ (shuzi xinwen or shuzi xinwenye) is a promising, yet new and sometimes foreign and contested, term in the discourse community of Chinese academia. Analysing the Chinese literature on this topic from 1961 to 2021, we traced the development of the discursive relationship between ‘digital’ and ‘journalism’ and examined the process of the two separate terms becoming one. We found that over the years there have been three kinds of discourses dominating academic discussions: technological discourses, industrial discourses, and political discourses. We analysed the development of these discourses and argue that while much emphasis is placed on the issues related to technology, industry, and politics, the social and professional dimensions are underexplored and need to be strengthened in future investigations.