Study On The Characteristics Of Chinese Media Institutional Changes In Recent 30 Years

Year 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of reform and opening-up policy in China, it also marks the 30th anniversary of the institutional reform of China's media. Professor Tongbing points out,"The issue we need to deal with at present is to review truthfully the path, achievements, experiences and problems of 30-year reform and opening-up, nail down the objectives of this year and the future in an effort to make the reform in the future smoother, faster and better."Over the past three decades, China has been going through many exponential changes in its political, economic, social and all other fields. China's political system is more and more open and democratized; China's economy is growing steadily and at a pace that the whole world envies; and China is transforming to a civic society as its social strata become more and more diversified. Furthermore, as part of the reform, media institute in China has also been experiencing changes by leaps and bounds. The changes in media institute is not only a direct result of the reform and opening-up policy, but also will affect China's further reform significantly, therefore, study on the characteristics of the changes in media institution in China will be of great help to understand the path, motivations and characteristics of China's media reform, in order to build a theoretical base and find a solution for breaking through the bottleneck in reform. Therefore, it not only has great significance on the theoretical study of the institutional change in China's media, but also has great impacts on the further revolution of China's media institution.I will study the characteristics of changes in media institution in China based on Game theory. According to Game theory, the generation and change of media institution are a result of players'strategic choices.According to my study, China's media born as a public institution is a direct result of the Dominant Strategies Equilibrium between the government and the media without the participation of the public. However, along with the development of the whole society, the media became alienated from the original institution in seek of new strategy as an effort to maximize its payoff, and at the same time, the government is changing its strategy accordingly. This process is a repetitious game model of Prisoners'Dilemma. The institutional changes in China's media during the 90s is a process of repeated Prisoners'Dilemma without generating a Dominant Strategies Equilibrium, therefore, the current institutional characteristic-Public Institution, Business Management-is only a second-best choice between the government and the media. Furthermore, with the breakthrough in media technology, transformation of media's function from Spokesman for Power to Public Sphere, the liberation of individual identification and the increasing awareness of individual rights, media begin to step down from the game and act as an auctioneer to coordinate the game between the public and the government. Although a steady institutional arrangement has not been generated from this game at this stage, it is foreseeable that the institutional arrangement of China's media will get rid of the characteristic of public institution,and take the form of public sphere.