Meso News-Space in China : Peripheral News Production of Platform Journalism

Yin, Q. and Fu, Z. and Zheng, S. (2024) Meso News-Space in China : Peripheral News Production of Platform Journalism. Digital Journalism, 12 (5). pp. 680-699. ISSN 2167-0811

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Abstract

Platform journalism in China shows a number of distinctive characteristics. This study employs Tenenboim and Kligler-Vilenchik’s concept of “meso news-space” and extends it from the social dimension to the institutional dimension to analyze peripheral news production by private digital news organizations on social media platforms in China. Based on interviews with 17 digital news practitioners and onsite participant observation, it reveals that such organizations practice peripheral news production by redefining news and using of strategic collaborations to build a “dual legitimacy”. Their news production tends to follow a nonconfrontational approach emphasizing traffic priority over public interest, so that their contribution to the publicity of the news space is limited. These findings illuminate the particular context of the Chinese meso news-space by examining peripheral news production and the process of building a meso news-space in non-Western media landscape.