Global Communication, 5th Edition

13Toward Globalization: The Approaches and Accomplishments of the Four Media Giants in Asia

Junhao Hong

In the last two decades or so, media in Asia, especially in the media giant countries such as China, Japan, India, and South Korea, have become more and more globalized as a result of various motivations and strategic approaches.

China: A Newly Emerged Major Player in the Global Media Arena

For nearly three decades from 1949, when communist China was established, to the mid‐1970s when the country was still under the control of Mao Zedong, the late chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, and his followers, Chinese media were completely closed to the outside world. The media were used purely as a party machine by the Chinese Communist Party for political and ideological ends.

Mao’s death in 1976 and China’s new leaders’ “open door” policy, which started in the late 1970s and early 1980s, have since drastically changed the country’s course, including the mass media system, which is one of the most enormous and complex media systems in the world. Over the past three decades, Chinese media, ranging from newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television broadcasting, to film production, have all experienced tremendous changes. After 30 years of reform, they are no longer purely a propaganda machine of the communist authorities, but are a multi‐function service. While their fundamental role remains little changed as the mouthpiece of the Communist Party and the government, ...