Chinese Journalists’ Discursive Weibo Practices in a Spin-Off Journalistic Sphere

This study examines Chinese journalists’ Weibo practices through analyzing 2,659 journalist Weibo postings. Past studies indicate that Western journalists generally “normalize” their postings on social media to fit their professional norms and practices, but this issue is much more complicated in China. Findings of this study suggest that Chinese journalists’ Weibo practices are influenced by offline discursive journalistic discourses that include four components: party press, professionalism, market economy, and Confucian intellectual. As Weibo has become a major news channel in China, this study takes journalist Weibo as a “spin-off journalistic sphere” where several boundaries are blurred. Journalist Weibo is both a private sphere and public sphere. Journalists operate on Weibo as both citizens and professionals. And journalists move from the backstage of news production to the front stage of news delivery. The changes offer opportunities for uplifting journalistic autonomy, but findings show that the official control is still tight.