Television News as Political Ritual: Xinwen Lianbo and China’s journalism reform within the Party-state’s orbit

Abstract

Besides being the most influential television news program with the largest viewership in China, Xinwen Lianbo (Television News Simulcast) also boasts of unique political value in the Chinese media landscape. Each and every change in form the program has adopted since its first broadcast in 1978, has been a reflection of a certain aspect or element of the arch of political reform in the country, and has been widely interpreted as such, thus making it ‘the toughest nut to crack’ in news reform. Throughout its 35 years of history, by striving to represent, maintain, adapt and disseminate the established ideological framework, thus ensuring political reform has progressed at a cautious and gradual pace acceptable to the ruling party, Xinwen Lianbo has proven to be a great example of the construction of political reality by journalistic text on the symbolic level. This article adopts the methodology of new social history with semi-participatory observation as it combs through the evolution of Xinwen Lianbo over 35 years, in an attempt to explore the patterns and paths of Chinese journalistic reform and the factors that have come to shape this journey in the broader context of political reform in China.