[本篇论文由上帝论文网为您收集整理，上帝论文网http://paper.5var.com将为您整理更多优秀的免费论文，谢谢您的支持]INTRDOCTION During the past 20 years, China has been undergoing the greatest changes in its history, earmarked by rapid economic growth. In 1997, the annual income of Chinese residents reached an average equivalence of 660 US dollars, an annual increase of about eight times than that in 1990 (Xie, 1998). The increase, though low as compared with the western standard, is remarkable considering the fact that China has a large population base of more than 1.2 billion. The rapid economic growth has not only boosted the whole nation but promoted the development of its media system as well. In 1978, China had only 32 television stations and 93 radio stations (Chan, 1994); the number has jumped to 2,000 and 1,416 respectively in 1997 while the regular audience size has increased from 36.1 % in 1980 to 84.2% in 1996 for radio and 30% in 1980 to 86.3% in 1996 for television (Xie, 1998) . The number of newspapers in China has also risen from 186 in 1978 to 2,163 in 1996, an increase of almost 12 times, while journals have also flourished in China, with its number expected to be 930 in 1978 up to 8,135 in 1997. Advertising, once considered the capitalist taboo, has also seen fast development during this period. Since its debut in 1979, the total ad income of the above four media has been increasing at a rate of ten times every five years, reaching18.28 billion RMB yuan in 1996. (Xie, 1998). This chapter aims to discuss the media development in China since 1978 to present, which can be divided into two periods, characterized by a combination of economic liberalization and political conservatism. In the First Period ( 1978-1990), despite the back and forward swings, media development in China has been consistent. In the Second Period (1991-present ) when the market economy concept gained recognition, the competitive consciousness has become dominant among the China’s media system, which has brought about changes unprecedented in the 5,000 years of China. The media development in Shanghai, the dragon head of China, has been taken as a showcase, to discuss the trends in the media development and the impact of economic momentum and political orientation in the whole process. BACKBROUND Politically, the media in China still remain in a Communist Concept (Merrill, 1983) as defined in the traditional Four Theories of Press. The Chinese media, owned and operated by the State, are regarded as the organs of the Communist Party of China and the government, not the watchdog of the government as is the case in the U.S. (Streitmatter, 1994). The freedom of press in the Western sense, thought discussed a lot recently, is still "particles in the air," something that is yet to come (Lee, 1990). However, in terms of its economy, the media do not fit into the Communist Concept only anymore. They may fall more coherently into the Development Concept, a combination of the Authoritarian and Communist theories (Stevenson, 1994). This tendency has become more obvious in the Second Period (1991-present) when the media in China are endowed with a kind of dual functions: continue to be the voice of the government ( the political conservatism) while becoming the voice of the marketplace as well (economic liberalization). While it is true that the government still exercises control over the media system, a notion to which most westerners would object, the control itself does not necessary mean the stagnation of the media system itself. In fact, reasonable control can encourage the development of the media system( Xie 1998), as has been demonstrated by the practice of China in the past 20 years. FIRST PERIOD WITH THREE PHASES (1978-1990) Media development in China in the First Period from 1978 to 1990 can further be discussed in three phases featured by political campaigns which aimed to rein in media development, thus signaling the end of each phase, but laid the foundation for the media development in the following phase. The first phase began in 1978 and ended in 1984 when the campaign against "Spiritual Pollution" started. The second phase lasted from 1985 to 1986 when the brake was applied during the campaign against "Bourgeois Liberalization." The third phase reached its climax in 1989 when the government cracked down on the students' movement and fought against "peaceful evolution" by Western countries (Chu, 1994). Though intended to rein in the media, each of these political campaigns has stimulated rather than suppressed the media development in each phase. In fact, media development was accelerated on an escalating scale in each phase and usually was coupled with renewed emphasis in the liberalization process. First Phase (1978-84) The year of 1978 is a watershed for Chinese politics and media development (Lee, 1994). A strategic shift was proclaimed as the nation began to adopt an open and reform policy that aimed to modernize the country. One immediate and dramatic media change was the elimination of the pompous reporting style of the "Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)," summed up in the phrase "falsehood, exaggeration, and empty talk" (Polumbaum, 1990). Chinese media such as the People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece, called for shorter news reports and a more lively style with timeliness to cover growing economic activities. The increased volume of information in media is another sign of progress in this phase. The People's Daily took the lead to increase its pages from four to six in 1978 and then to eight in 1980, while the number of magazines and newspapers rose greatly from 1978 to 1984, as shown in Table 1. Table 1 YearMagazines Total Printed Sheets(100 million) NewspapersTotal Printed Sheets(100 million)197822.7113.5197930.1123.0198036.7141.7198145.4133.6198246.0129.1198352.5142.7198464.3162.3Source: China Journalism Yearbooks (various years) (Chu, 1994) Besides, advertising began to appear in Chinese media for the first time after the long silence in the “Cultural Revolution,” although it did not get int

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