Critical Journalists and the State in China: Grasping Transformation on the Boundary

This talk draws contrasts and similarities between the periods of Hu-Wen era and the Xi era through the prism of journalist-state relations. Specifically, Repnikova’s study focuses on the interactions between China’s outspoken journalists and the state, thereby exploring the terrain of politics on the boundary of permissible under the new leadership. She finds that whilst the space for critical journalism has shrunk in the past few years, the relationship between journalists and the state has consistently been characterized by improvised collaboration. The two actors partake in a shared nexus of improving governance, and negotiate their partnership through constant acts of creative improvising. Journalists and social commentators who manage to survive in the new era, are ever more inventive in their defiance strategies, finding new spaces for "semi-political" and fusing media with enterprising activities on the web.

Maria Repnikova is an Assistant Professor in Global Communication at Georgia State University. Her research examines information politics and state-society relations in authoritarian regimes, with a regional focus on China. Her book on Chinese media politics is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Prior to Georgia State, Repnikova was a post-doc at the Annenberg School for Communication. She received her doctorate in Politics from Oxford University where she was a Rhodes Scholar. 

Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies