Issue #2
Chinese Journalism is Dead: Long Live Chinese Journalism!
July—December 2024

Chinese journalism is dead—long live Chinese journalism! The dramatic transformations in China’s media landscape over the past decade have led many to declare the death of quality journalism in the country. The Party-State’s tightening grip on information, the dismantling of once vibrant investigative outlets, and the growing precarity of media professionals seem to confirm this narrative. And yet, as traditional spaces for critical reporting shrink, new modes of journalistic practice continue to emerge, often in dispersed and unexpected forms. From citizen-led investigations and social media exposés to transnational collaborations, Chinese journalism has not disappeared—it has adapted. This issue of the Made in China Journal explores the shifting terrain of journalistic production in and about China, tracing the resilience, reinvention, and risks that define the profession today.
Table of Contents
China Columns
Me and My Censor | Murong XuecunThe Tibet-Aid Project and Settler Colonialism in China’s Borderlands | James Leibold
Uxorilocal Marriage in Xiaoshan, 1970s to 2020s | Zhangluyuan Charlie Yang
China’s Urban Question: The Other Side of the Agrarian Question | Jane Hayward
Imagining Social Change through Policy Failures in China | Andrew Kipnis
Great, Glorious, and Correct: The Origins and Afterlives of a Maoist Slogan | Jeremy Brown
Rebooting Qualitative Research in China: Reflections on Doing Fieldwork in the Post-Covid Era | Zachary Lowell, Mengyao Li and Yuzong Chen
Gender and Disability in China: The Rise of Female-Led Disabled Persons’ Organisations | Luanjiao Hu and Ling Han
Is China Winning Hearts and Minds among Global South Students? | Yue Hou
Focus
Quality Journalism in China Is Not Dead; It’s Just More Dispersed Than Ever | Fang KechengLegitimacy on Air: How Chinese Local Television News Performs Governance | Dan Chen
Digital Hope or Digital Trap? | Tucker Wang-Hai
News Media and the Feminist Movement in China: A Brief History | Li Jun
Loud and Mighty: Navigating the Future of Chinese Diasporic Media | Vivian Wu
Protesting the Party-State through Self-Racialisation | Altman Yuzhu Peng
Global China and African Journalistic Agency: A Relational Perspective | Hangwei Li
Conversations
Ginkgo Village: A Conversation with Tamara Jacka | Nicholas Loubere and Tamara JackaCutting the Mass Line: A Conversation with Andrea E. Pia | Loretta Ieng Tak Lou and Andrea E. Pia
Soda Science: A Conversation with Susan Greenhalgh | Yangyang Cheng and Susan Greenhalgh
One and All: A Conversation with Pang Laikwan | Christian Sorace and Pang Laikwan
Covert Colonialism: A Conversation with Florence Mok | Anna Ting and Florence Mok