Authoritarian Media

Authoritarian Media

For starters, what I learned about media in a totalitarian government, such as China, is that the media is kept only in its region and isn’t really free press to outside media outlets in regards to their trending press coverage. In this post, I talked about a series of two different news stories from the South China Morning Post, a digital newspaper that gives readers a critical overview and analysis on the latest insights in China that matters to the world, and compared the similarities and differences of the original story to similar articles based on the same topic. As a quick heads up, there really wasn’t much difference as the articles covered the same viewpoints regarding the main points of the original news story. In fact, there were little to none topics based on the original context published or covered by any other online newspapers. In spite of this, here are a few examples that I have found:

Young Marriages in China 

‘High-quality singlehood better than low-quality marriage’: woman’s choice to stay single inspires many and renews debate on China’s marital obsession

The pressure of young marriages has been a trending concern in mainland China, a dominant cultural standard that is becoming an issue. A single woman (36) in northeastern China, located in Dalian went viral from her personal opinionated comments regarding the issue in an online video, exposing China’s culture of young people getting married early. The trending comments spoke on her joys of being single as she rejected “low-quality marriage”, returning a discussion about cultural standards that are pressuring young Chinese males and females into getting married as soon as possible. The woman, who goes unnamed, also mentioned her single lifestyle, living alone and her preference to not be rushed into marriage just because of it, stating that it would be difficult to live a genuine marriage and happy life married to the wrong person just because marriage is expected to be part of the culture. She included that she would rather live independently and be happy, not believing that marriage is a “guaranteed utopia/sanctuary”. (SCMP)

'High-quality singlehood better than low-quality marriage': China woman's choice to stay single inspires many

The anonymous woman’s attitude towards marriage refers to the new age of women, where they are not dependent on men in marriage but now have the opportunity to find and create their own life to live. In the viral video, she stated that everyone, no matter what the circumstances are, has regrets. She expressed marriage as an offering of home and stability, but it also comes with a price of sacrificing an individual’s freedom whereas the singles may sustain total control of one’s life without being involved in a relationship. She stressed the most important thing is to ‘have fun in life’. The woman has encountered 270K views and nearly 30K comments. (AsiaOne)

Young Chinese Have Shunned Marriage. Now, They Want Singles’ Rights.

For young singles in China, there has been a creation of online communities like Huddling Group that have become an essential tool lately. The groups are not only providing emotional support for their members, but are also helping to defend and stand alongside their interests in a community that still supports married couples. Chinese singles are facing challenges because of their demographic differences with Chinese authorities that have branded single females that refuse to marry as “leftover women”. 

To make matters even harder, the law within China is penalizing singles without a spouse, prohibiting child adoption, access to ART (assisted reproductive technologies), or in some cases, to claim maternity welfare. There are cities where singles are facing additional restrictions when purchasing a home. But despite that, the singles are stepping up to the plate to defend themselves against the odds that are restraining them from living a free, single life. Chinese singles are coming together, forming a strong foundation within online groups while encouraging a rising Chinese singles’ right movement that is growing in organization and ambition better than ever before. The community is changing values and pushing back, all while winning the public’s support. (SixthTone)

A General Overview

Each article alone talks about the same issue regarding young marriages in China and the chaos that it is causing to the younger generation. However, the original version along with its secondary source on AsiaOne talks about a particular woman whose public views on young marriage went viral, whereas the third one was an earlier version posted that talked more on the subject dealing with the perspectives of others rather than just one. There was no social posts other than one Twitter announcement regarding a newspaper. 

 Lower vs Upper Class 

‘Kneel or we’ll beat you to death’: elderly cleaner in China forced down on knees to apologise for accidentally sweeping rubbish onto luxury car

A male and female in China were filmed bullying a street cleaner by forcing him to apologize for sweeping litter onto their vehicle and threatening him. There have been earlier cases of low-income workers being wrongly targeted by the upper class in China, stirring up anger as more cases are being recorded and displayed publicly online. The video shows the couple forcing the elderly man to kneel and plead for forgiveness after he accidentally swept the waste onto their car. This occurred in eastern China in Zhejiang. The couple refused to give the man a chance to explain the situation, and instead demanded him to get in front of the vehicle, kneel, and apologize, threatening to beat him to death if he failed to comply. The man was too afraid to deny and did as he was told, which no doubt caused a flood of anger among the eight million viewers and the citizens of China. The company in which the poor man worked for had offered him support and went out of their way to track down the owner of the vehicle and have them apologize. (SCMP)

The woman from the previous incident was later penalized by traffic police for hundreds of Chinese yuan. This was not because of the assault, but for wearing a hat with a wide brim and high heels while driving. (AsiaOne)

General Overview 

There wasn't much of a difference, same exact news telling but different interactive photos and images provided. For instance, the actual video of what happened can be seen on the original site on South China Morning Post. The story was shared in four Twitter tweets, though no comments were made on the posts.