Public Opinion – a New Factor Influencing the PRC Press

Two noteworthy developments fuel the increasing importance of the role public opin-ion plays in mainland China's press. One is initiated from above: In an effort to counter corruption, the government has permitted the media to report misbehavior by local officials, which, in turn, has encouraged citizens to increasingly turn to newspa-pers to let them voice their concerns. Another tendency is triggered from below, as an unintended consequence of press commercialization: Since newspapers now rely on advertisement incomes that demand large readerships, audience interests influ-ence editorial decisions to a far greater extent than they did a decade ago. Both factors have to be assessed in order to determine, whether these criticism reports are primarily government- or market-induced. Current academic debate over public opinion in mainland China and empirical re-search on readership interests and journalists ' professional attitudes indicate that the rising importance of public opinion is primarily due to market competition and less to media policy. Moreover, the results suggest an even greater impact of public opinion on media content in the near future, clearly beyond the importance the lead