It's not just China

Leshi Chen

Professor Craig

UC World Politics

It’s not just China

Public opinion in the United States regards Chinese media as strongly influencing public opinions but people often don't realize that American media also plays a strong role in shaping public opinions.

Recently, China is trying to step in and interfere the media again. With the name of “culture reform”, Chinese government is trying to “regulate” the traditional media such as newspapers and TV, as well as the Internet. It’s obvious that the Chinese government feels the pressure from “Arab Spring”. And since the high-speed train accident in this past summer, the Chinese government has received many criticisms from the microbloggers. On October 26, “Chinese media carried the full text of a document setting a broad direction for cultural reform policy that the Communist Party of China's Central Committee adopted on Oct. 18.” The document asserts that the "popularization of the Internet has harmed its ability to guide public opinion in the right direction”, which indicates that the government will be paying efforts to restrict the information that the public is getting. Chinese government is running an Internet censorship system, which plays a role of watchdog online. It automatically deletes any critical information or comments of the government policy. The system can also prevent people from accessing overseas websites. The document is showing the increase of interference of Chinese government into the media with the saying that "guiding public opinion in the right direction will bring happiness to the party and the masses." From the U.S. perspective, this initiative “clarified an intention to use party organs, news agencies and TV as primary means of providing news and other information, while consolidating tabloids circulated in cities and online outlets.”

In this case, Chinese government is trying to turn the media into its tool. Media has always played a significant role in the society. People acquire information from all over the world through the media; therefore media has a huge impact on how people view the issues around the world. If the government has a good handle of the media, that can empower itself. As we can see, Chinese government is using the media and trying to manipulate the public opinions towards it. The government prevents people from getting any negative aspects of it so that it can obtain the trust from the public. This helps the government to stabilize both the country and the Communist Party since the public is convinced that the government is able to handle everything nicely and benefit the whole country.

While the United States is criticizing China for using the media to shape the public opinions, the U.S. itself is actually doing the same thing.

The battle at Tet during the Vietnam War is a good example of the U.S. using the media to shape the public opinion and receive support from the people. At the beginning of the Vietnam War, the U.S. government was trying to keep the transparency of the war for the people. Reporters were allowed to go anywhere they wanted. “The Vietnam war was the first time that reporters reported on American units that lacked discipline, used drugs on the battlefield, and had US soldiers questioning war aims while the war was ongoing.7 These stories, though factual, were viewed by the military as ‘negative’.” But then, the negative report on the Tet offensive by the media changed the U.S.’s openness towards the media. The public was confused by the purpose of the U.S. going to war with Vietnam; a debate broke out after the Tet battle. Suddenly, Vietnam War became a controversial issue within the country; therefore the government started to think about their media policy.

After Tet in 1968, the reports began to be about the difference between what Washington said versus what reporters in Vietnam saw. The media discredited military official reports on the progress of the war, thus creating a divide that would last for decades. What did the US military learn from this? They definitely learned that they needed the support of the American people—trying to hide two parts of Clausewitz’s triangle from the third didn’t work. It became the story. What the military failed to see was the importance of the media as a conduit to the people.

As a result, Vietnam War became the last time that the U.S. journalists had the freedom to access information they want without American censorship.

Nowadays, “ Media omissions, distortion, inaccuracy and bias in the US is something acknowledged by many outside the USA, and is slowly realized more and more inside the US.” Both Conservatives and liberals condemn the medias of being bias. The problem of polarization is driven to influence the all-news cable television channels and blogs; many of them are aggressively partisan. Fox television, as an overtly conservative orientation, is one of the great examples of media polarization. Due to the bias of the US media, it is difficult for the citizens to obtain open and objective views of any issues related to their own country.

The path for journalists or citizens to express their opinions towards the government has always been tough in China.

There is no press law that governs the protection of journalists or punishment of those who attack them. Instead, vague provisions in the criminal code and state-secrets legislation are routinely used to imprison journalists and other citizens for the peaceful expression of views that the CCP considers objectionable.

All these realities have shown how Chinese government has violated Chinese citizens’ rights to protect its sovereignty.

Under the protection of freedom of press and speech, U.S. citizens are free to express their views towards the government. “Criticism of the government and advocacy of unpopular ideas that people may find distasteful or against public policy, such as racism, sexism, and other hate speech are almost always permitted.” However, the United States government did violate the constitution. In 1798, the U.S. government enacted the Sedition Act.

The Sedition Act (officially An Act in Addition to the Act Entitled "An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States"; ch. 74, 1 Stat. 596) made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or certain officials.

Even though the U.S. government is not enforcing any punishments on people who criticize the government. There is not doubt that the government uses the media to advocate for itself. It is obvious that the U.S. government and the media have maintained a corporative and antagonistic relationship.

Media has a huge impact on political issues. In order to receive support form the public, different countries are using different ways to convince the public their abilities to bring the prosperity and stability in. Governments tend to use media to present the best aspect of themselves. While western countries are criticizing China for depriving people’s rights from getting information, they should also think of themselves because they are all doing the same thing. China is just doing it in a more obvious way. If the western countries do not agree with what China is doing which is what they are doing too, do they think this phenomena of protecting their own government is violating the international rules?

Work Cited:

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