Abstract
This study examines the characteristics of the Chinese print media
under censorship on their coverage of the disease of Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). With Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm's
four theories of the press (Four theories of the press, Urbana &
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1963) and Shoemaker and Reese's
hierarchy model of influences on media content (Mediating the message:
Theories of influence on mass media content, New York: Longman, 1996),
the authors conduct a content analysis of the coverage of SARS in
front pages of the Guangzhou Daily and all pages of the Southern
Weekend, respectively, from December 2002 to June 2003 and from February
to June 2003. The rationale of choosing these two data sets is that
they are both important Chinese newspapers in southern China's Guangdong
province where SARS presumably originated. Siebert, Peterson, and
Schramm (1963) summarized three ways in which the Soviet Communist
Party and government controlled the content of media: (1) its departments
of propaganda at various levels appointed editors; (2) the Party,
through propaganda departments, issued directives for media content;
and (3) the Party reviewed and criticized the press. Our content
analysis of the selected newspapers from December of 2002 to June
2003 reveals that the political pressure during this period influenced
the newspaper content via three factors, and that the three factors
mainly match the three ways concluded by Siebert et al. (1963). Therefore,
this study concludes that this three-way model can still be applied
to the analysis of the Chinese media system under political influence.
However, in addition to the content analysis, the authors believe
the information from Chinese editors and journalists about their
views of the newspaper coverage of SARS would enhance the strengths
of this study.
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