Huang, C.J. “China’s State-run tabloids: The rise of the ‘city newspapers’, in International Communication Gazette, vol. 63, no. 5, 2001. p. 435-450.
In Huang’s journal, the author provides a case study to describe the emergence of the city newspaper in the post-Mao China era. The Chinese Communist Party plays a role in China’s newspaper. In the pre-Mao era, the press was under the influence of heavy propaganda however, in the post-Mao period, the propaganda decreased but the press still had limited press freedom. The newspaper is divided into the evening and morning section where wording and content are relatively different. However, both papers share a special sector of the Party press (p.436). The city newspapers are more focused on the Western concepts, professional journalism, and socialists tabloids while the traditional newspapers is more into the Chinese Communist Party, Party Journalism, and Party papers. Although both papers still exists in today’s world, the circulation of the Party Papers has decline tremendously (p.446). In my opinion, by providing the propaganda-oriented press and the market-oriented commercialized papers project a positive impact towards the press freedom. A bridge is always good for the transition of the media structure in having a balance news value of approaching its free press era. On the other hand in Indonesia, there is an outbreak in 1998 that caused the press to be the absolute freedom of expression. This creates an unbalanced society where people are exposed to sensitive issues that has been previously unknown to the public.
