Changes in Chinese media explored in new book

Chinese media have transformed profoundly over the past year in terms of integrating information and communication technologies and computer networks into media content, a recent blue book shows.

The book, released on Wednesday by the Social Sciences Academic Press and Beijing Journalists Association, is an annual report on cultural development of media convergence in China.

It pointed out that in the past year, Chinese media, particularly traditional media, have become more active in engaging in digitized and mobilized communications. The trend is going deeper and has undergone qualitative changes from the accumulation of quantity in the beginning, it said.

Media have actively explored new types of platforms and cooperated with many major commercial services to boost their influence. They have weighed more in building and maintaining application clients, cloud platforms and all-media monitors that received effective results and helped enhance communication power.

"It will be a profound transformation, as well as a successful leap for China's media industry as a whole," the book said.

With the rapid development of information technologies, it is an irreversible trend for today's media to go more digital. President Xi Jinping has called it an urgent task for traditional media to integrate with new media.

Zhi Tingrong, dean of the College of Journalism & Communication, Jinan University, said media integration has a very promising prospect. "In recent years, media integration has become a top practice for the Chinese press, fully demonstrating the leading and promoting role of policy design," he said.

Zhi said the information technology revolution inevitably boosts the news industry, while stronger and more innovative information content also needs to connect, adjust and adapt to every progress in information technology.

"In the future where humans and computers coexist and everything can be a medium, many functions of the media will be replaced by the internet of things and cloud technology. Thus it is imperative for our mass media to evolve," he said.

Zhi believes the challenges will include how to translate existing resources into effective communication, influence, guidance and credibility, and how to combine and balance the content production and other services, such as marketing.

"The goal is to make full use of the achievements of the information revolution and take the initiative to build a modern communication system that helps make mainstream public opinions grow bigger and stronger," he said.