Investigating impact of identities and organizational constraints on self-censorship of Chinese journalists from three types of newspapers

With the deepening of marketization and partial privatization of Chinese media, growing discrepancy of journalistic behaviors among different types of media organizations prevails. The aim of this paper is to examine motivations of self-censorship and impact of professional identity and organizational identity through investigation among Chinese journalists from three different types of newspaper (official, semi-official and commercial). Journalists' self-censorship, as a persistent focus of scholars, has been studied from various perspectives. Critical studies feature analysis of power impact on news gathering and writing, research drawing on sociology of news production reflects the tension between reporting and organizational /social control, and literature adopting journalism perspective reveals conflicts and negotiation in news writing and editorial decisions. As evidenced in case studies of controversial news reporting, interviews and surveys among journalists, it is also found that self-censorship reflects changing attitudes towards freedom of expression in a transitional society. Despite of the voluminous literature on self-censorship in Chinese news media, many studies adopt cases-based research method. Also, considering the coexistence of three different types of news organizations, it remains unclear how journalists from these organizations differ in terms of their perceptions and practices of self-censorship. In addressing these research gaps, we conduct in-depth interviews and survey among Chinese journalists from three different types of newspapers. Based on preliminary results, we find that journalists will project self-censorship when their professional values deviate from their organizational or social values. Journalists of official newspapers are more likely to account for self-censorship behaviors from their organizational identities while those from commercial newspapers from professional identities. Drawing on the Jonathan Hassid's categorization of Chinese journalists, we find that four types of journalists hold divergent political and commercial attitudes which are correlated with the extent of self-censorship (the more liberal the journalists are, the more they tend to project self-censorship). Taken the findings together, a self-censorship grid is proposed to illustrate different levels of self-censorship and impact factors. The implications specifically impacts of media commercialization on journalism practices, and limitations of current study are discussed in the end.