Media coverage of higher education – From propaganda to watchdog

By Qiang Zha and Xiaoyang Wang. In many senses, the media is still state controlled in China and does not enjoy genuine freedom of speech. Yet the relationship between the media and higher education is multi-faceted, highlighting changing roles, focuses and approaches. Roughly, three stages can be discerned. In the first stage, from the 1950s through to the early 1980s, media coverage of higher education basically served the state propaganda agenda, showcasing government directives and opinions and how success was achieved by following government policy. Read more...