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The mass media in the People's Republic of China primarily consists of television, newspapers, radio, and magazines. Since the start of the 21st century, the Internet has also emerged as an important form of mass media and is under the direct supervision and control of the Chinese government and ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Media in China is strictly controlled and censored by the CCP, with the main agency that oversees the nation's media being the Central Propaganda Department of the CCP. The largest media organizations, including the China Media Group, the People's Daily, and the Xinhua News Agency, are all controlled by the CCP. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and until the 1980s, almost all media outlets in mainland China have been state-run. Privately owned media outlets only began to emerge at the onset of the Chinese economic reform, although state media continue to hold significant market share. All media continues to follow regulations imposed by the Central Propaganda Department of the CCP on subjects considered taboo by the CCP, including but not limited to the legitimacy of the party, pro-democracy movements, human rights in Tibet, the persecution of Uyghur people, pornography, and the banned religious topics, such as the Dalai Lama and Falun Gong. All journalists are required to study Xi Jinping Thought to maintain their press credentials. Hong Kong, which has maintained a separate media ecosystem than mainland China, is also witnessing increasing self-censorship.Reporters Without Borders consistently ranks China very poorly on media freedoms in their annual releases of the World Press Freedom Index, labeling the Chinese government as having "the sorry distinction of leading the world in repression of the Internet". As of 2023, China ranked 179 out of 180 nations on the World Press Freedom Index. History Under Mao In both the Yan'an era of the 1930s and the early 1950s, the CCP encouraged grassroots journalism in the form "worker-peasant correspondents," an idea originating from the Soviet Union.During the early period (1966–1968) of the Cultural Revolution, freedom of the press in China was at its peak. Independent political groups could publish broadsheets and handbills, as well as leaders' speeches and meeting transcripts which would normally have been considered highly classified. During those years, several Red Guard organizations operated independent printing presses to publish newspapers, articles, speeches, and big-character posters.Mobile film units brought Chinese cinema to the countryside and were crucial to the standardization and popularization of cultural during this period, particularly including revolutionary model operas.: 30  During the Cultural Revolution's early years, mobile film teams traveled to rural areas with news reels of Mao meeting with Red Guards and Tiananmen Square parades, where they were welcomed ceremoniously.: 110  These news reels became known as hong bao pian ("red treasure films"), analogous to how the Little Red Books were dubbed hong bao shu ("red treasure books").: 110  Reforms and opening up Media controls were most relaxed during the 1980s under paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, until they were tightened in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Journalists were active participants in the 1989 demonstrations that culminated in the massacre, which made it all but impossible to reconcile the growing desire of mainland Chinese journalists for control over their own profession with the CCP's interest in not letting that happen. There have even been occasional acts of open, outright defiance of the CCP, though these acts remain rare.Media controls were relaxed again under CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin in the late 1990s, but the growing influence of the Internet and its potential to encourage dissent led to heavier regulations again under CCP general secretary Hu Jintao. Non-governmental media outlets that were allowed to operate within China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau, which have separate media regulatory bodies) were no longer required to strictly follow every journalistic guideline set by the CCP.In 1998, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) began the Connecting Every Village with Radio and TV Project, which extended radio and television broadcasting to every village in China.: 30 In the 1990s and early 2000s, the ways in which the CCP operated—especially the introduction of reforms aimed at decentralizing power—spurred a period of greater media autonomy in several ways: The growth of "peripheral"—local and some regional—media. This trend decentralized and dampened CCP oversight. In general, the greater the distance is between reporters and media outlets, and Beijing and important provincial capitals, the greater their leeway. A shift toward administrative and legal regulation of the media and away from more fluid and personal oversight. CCP efforts to rely on regulations rather than whim to try to control the media—as evidenced by the dozens of directives set forth when the State Press and Publications Administration was created in 1987, and by new regulations in 1990 and 1994—probably were intended to tighten CCP control, making it a matter of law rather than personal relationships. In fact, however, these regulations came at a time when official resources were being stretched more thinly and individual officials were becoming less willing—and less able—to enforce regulations. Vicissitudes of media acceptability. Since the early 1990s, the types of media coverage deemed acceptable by the regime have risen sharply. Growing uncertainties about what is permissible and what is out of bounds sometimes work to the media's interests. Often, however, these uncertainties encourage greater self-censorship among Chinese journalists and work to the benefit of the CCP's media control apparatus.As state resources have become stretched more thinly, the media have found it far easier than before to print and broadcast material that falls within vaguely defined grey areas, though again, this uncertainty can also work to the advantage of the CCP.In preparation of the 17th National Party Congress in 2007, new restrictions were placed on all sectors of the press, Internet-users, bloggers, website managers, foreign journalist, more than 30 of which have been arrested since the start of the year. In addition, a thousand discussion forums and websites have been shut down, and "a score of dissidents" have been imprisoned since July 2007.In efforts to stem growing unrest in China, the propaganda chief of the State Council, Hua Qing, announced in the People's Daily that the government was drafting a new press law that would lessen government involvement in the news media. In the editorial, Hu Jintao was said to have visited the People's Daily offices and said that large scale public incidents should be "accurately, objectively and unifo.... Discover the China Media Research popular books. Find the top 100 most popular China Media Research books.