Weak awareness of the overseas audience

The overseas audience for Chinese media, as Wu (2001) summarises, primarily consists of three categories – namely, the native audience of the ‘mainstream society’, which speaks a foreign language; overseas Chinese immigrants whose native language is Chinese; and Chinese expats such as representatives of the Chinese government and employees of Chinese businesses and organisations. The attempt to meet the demands of each of these disparate audiences is admittedly a daunting task.

CRI’s localised radio station aired Mandarin Chinese programmes that were produced in China as well as in the local community, offering news information on both fronts. In addition to current events, the programming also included commentary, music and entertainment programmes and talk shows. However, due to inadequate awareness of the overseas audience’s preferences, CRI was unable to tailor its programming to meet its overseas audience’s needs. Specifically, rather than customise its domestic programming for any particular market, CRI headquarters produced one set of programmes to be broadcast in different countries. According to a division director (Interviewee C) at headquarters in Beijing, CRI domestically produced and selectively broadcast about a dozen Chinese language programmes – contingent upon the available time slots – in different major cities around the world. Moreover, the domestic production team based the programming on little more than speculation about the overseas audience’s preferences, as CRI had not established a comprehensive mechanism through which to interact with and collect feedback from the overseas audiences, especially in developed countries such as the United States.

According to the division director (Interviewee C), CRI headquarters increasingly expected the local production team to deliver programmes that were more localised. However, the local production team was subject to numerous constraints which impeded its ability to meet audience expectations.

Firstly, it was relatively difficult for the local production team to keep track of its audience’s reception preferences. Due to the fact that ethnic radio stations are mostly local and small-scale, it is not easy to obtain accurate ratings data for many of them (Matsaganis, Katz, & Ball-Rokeach, 2010). For many ethnic media outlets, a thorough measurement and analysis of their audiences tends to be cost-prohibitive. Furthermore, in terms of attracting advertisers, it is not helpful if ratings yielded by such analyses turn out to be low. According to the staff of XYZ, they had yet to obtain measurements of the listenership from major ratings companies, but the listenership was probably limited because of weak radio transmission as well as the radio station’s relatively low coverage rate (Interviewee E). Furthermore, there were often few participating callers during some of the programmes’ call-in sessions (Interviewee D).

Secondly, programming failed to meet the particular needs of the audience adequately, in terms of the kind of information that the audience needed or wanted to hear. Although the local production team received emails and calls from the audience, such feedback was not carefully scrutinised, and the team made few, if any, adjustments based upon it (Interviewee F). Localised media production was also characterised by a lack of proper planning and preparation. For instance, the media content was mostly aggregated from news websites and edited by staff members based on their personal choices and the availability of online resources.

Thirdly, as CRI’s joint venture, the studio was subject to tacit (self-) censorship, although such censorship was not as explicitly conducted as that at its headquarters. A staff member at headquarters said the domestic team received regular instructions and guidelines regarding what to report, and how to report it. Headquarters likely communicated this general principle – censorship of both style and content – to its partner station in implicit as well as explicit ways. In interviews, staff members in the US-based studio claimed to be aware of such self-censorship. Hard news and commentary programmes were produced almost entirely by staff members who were immigrants from the Chinese mainland. Most of the news content focused on the coverage of the mainland and was often selected from mainstream Chinese news sources, mostly state-owned media. Moreover, staff members understood that they were to avoid sensitive words or topics such as homosexuality and prostitution in the selection of news materials.

Self-censorship sometimes constrained the diversity and professionalism of the programming. Inattention to the local context limited the studio’s ability to satisfy the local audience’s need for professional, open and relatively objective news. Moreover, the programme’s content, format and style were not tailored to the particular character of the diaspora community.

Disjuncture in production standards

There were notable differences between CRI headquarters and the local production team in terms of their organisational structure, staff composition and media production techniques, and these differences led to marked discrepancies in the quality of the programming that each outlet produced.

Generally, CRI’s domestic production team was more organised; the domestic production team was characterised by clearly delineated job responsibilities and a professionally orchestrated media production system. CRI headquarters featured a media production team that was exclusively engaged in producing Chinese-language programmes for overseas Chinese audiences. Based on different responsibilities and specialisations, the team was further divided into groups that oversaw different programmes. Each programme was supervised by a producer and supported by a team of reporters and editors. Topics and outlines took shape in consultation with producers, editors and reporters; the producers also reviewed and revised the finished scripts and reports, and held regular meetings in which they discussed story ideas (Interviewee B).

At headquarters, professional media production routines, multi-level reviewing processes and a robust tech support team helped to ensure the quality of audio recording, editing and broadcasting. Moreover, the headquarters surpassed the local production team in staff development, its staff comprising of college graduates who had majored in relevant fields and professionals with substantial work experience. As a result, the domestic (Beijing) team produced substantially more original news stories than the local production team.

In connection with its efforts to localise in the United States, CRI headquarters adopted a highly decentralised management model that assigned a high level of autonomy to the local production team managed by XYZ. As another division director (Interviewee B) from headquarters noted, the local production team was not subject to domestic standards of news production and organisational management. These ‘double standards’ reduced the headquarters’ connection with and control over the local production team, in ways that had a pronounced effect on production quality.

By the time the participant observation was conducted, CRI headquarters had dispatched only two administrative staff members to their studio, and neither of these staff members was directly involved in localised media production. Almost all of the staff responsible for localised media production came from XYZ; the local team usually produced its own programmes independently of the domestic team.

Like most local ethnic media organisations, however, XYZ was understaffed. XYZ managed multiple media platforms, including radio stations, a magazine, a newspaper and a TV station. But its small teams – about a dozen employees worked in news production, for example – usually had to support more than one platform, and thus, inevitably, took on an excessive workload. This phenomenon has been widely observed in ethnic media organisations, in which staff are obliged to work long hours for relatively low salaries (Browne, 2005). On the one hand, ethnic media is not a popular career choice, and this can make hiring difficult. On the other hand, as economic enterprises, ethnic media have to consider the costs and benefits of their operations. In short, staff members in the studio were often under tremendous pressure, and they were obliged to handle multiple tasks and play several roles, ‘Many hosts manage to record programmes for several hours a day. They are sometimes also required to write articles or to complete other tasks, so basically they don’t have much time to prepare for the programming. As a result, the quality of broadcasting could be affected’ (Interviewee D). However, quality issues often received insufficient attention due to a general lack of producers, reviewers or supervisors at multiple levels who could have provided oversight and feedback.

Not only was the staff obliged to deal with a heavy workload, but many of them also lacked professional training or experience in media production compared with their counterparts at headquarters. As Matsaganis, Katz and Ball-Rokeach (2010) observe, staff in ethnic media usually come from various backgrounds and bring to their jobs different motivations, inclinations and sensibilities. Some end up in ethnic media because they find it difficult to acquire the skills necessary for other jobs, or because they find that there is little demand for the skills they possess in the job market of their settlement country. Zhou, Chen and Cai (2006) note that the staff’s lack of professionalism affects their ability to do the job, and as a result, news reporting, translation and localised production can suffer.

Observations of XYZ generally confirmed these findings about ethnic media organisations. As a result of such constraints, the studio’s news production team relied heavily upon secondary resources, and it often conducted its duties in a hasty and unprofessional manner.

In the name of efficiency, the editors were not allowed much time to glean valuable news from the available pool of information. Nor did they have time to edit such information carefully. Moreover, the materials were usually prepared and submitted by editors one or two days prior to broadcast. The timeliness of the news broadcasting was thus not guaranteed.

Further, the original news reporting was under-produced at the local level, with the local staff acting more as editors and hosts than as reporters. Interviews, if needed, were usually coordinated by two senior staff members:

More often than not, they may recruit interviewees through interpersonal connections. For instance, they may invite some acquaintances they occasionally meet to be guests on the shows. The interview arrangement is often contingent on the availability of the accessible interviewees. (Interviewee D)

This observation reflects the difficulty that ethnic media staff members then faced in attempting to gain access to first-hand news sources; they had a significantly harder time than their counterparts in mainstream media. This difficulty further restricted the scope of news production, which in turn reinforced the team’s reliance on secondary sources.

Disparity in goal orientation

The earlier localisation practices of US-based media conglomerates took advantage of a global wave of liberalisation and deregulation. When entering the overseas market, they not only facilitated the convergence of local and the global markets, but also provided local production teams with standardised norms and guidelines governing localisation operations. Local production teams thus remained consistent with the headquarters in their goals, values, agenda and mode of operation. However, due to the differences between the respective systems in which CRI and XYZ operated, the two media organisations diverged in their goals and demands.

As a state-owned media outlet whose international broadcasting is heavily subsidised, CRI’s goal is to serve the state’s project of soft power construction and public diplomacy. As a public radio station, its chief emphasis is not on economic returns from overseas markets, and its radio service for overseas audiences is generally less lucrative and less commercialised. As a staff member pointed out, the non-profit mode of operation might render the radio station less sensitive to the actual outcome of its broadcasting, ‘Though the programmes are broadcast overseas through local channels, we don’t know how they are received. Besides, the programming seems to lack a specific focus, as it is very diverse in scope, even including a programme that teaches Mandarin Chinese’ (Interviewee A).

Compared to CRI, local partners such as XYZ are usually market players with highly commercial operations. As an economic enterprise, XYZ is obliged to focus intensely upon profit acquisition to ensure its survival in the face of often fierce market competition.

In an increasingly competitive ethnic media landscape, one key challenge that local Chinese-language media outlets face is the difficulty of maintaining a balance between professional standards and commercial demands. Advertising typically constitutes a major source of revenue for ethnic media outlets. As the circulation of ethnic media products is generally limited, with many sold or promoted at low prices, if not free of charge, revenue from news production is seldom lucrative. Thus, ethnic media outlets might be compelled to shift attention away from their audience and toward advertisers.

In addition to regular advertising, another common profit-seeking operation is the hosting of commercial events. Almost all Chinese-language media outlets, including the most popular and influential, regularly host a myriad of events, ranging from concerts and competitions to street fairs and exhibitions. Through such activities, media outlets seek to derive revenue from ticket sales or booth rentals. The events that XYZ hosted annually included street fairs, cultural activities and festival celebrations. Though such events may well have proven commercially beneficial to XYZ, they can also exert a profound effect upon its news production. Many of the media production staff were required to organise such events – from sending invitations and making promo videos to receiving guests and hosting the event. During particularly large events, only a handful of staff members remained in the newsrooms. Furthermore, promotional videos and advertisements for such events on the radio channel occupied slots that could otherwise have been devoted to regular programming. Reporters were also sent to cover and promote such activities, sometimes at the risk of neglecting or overshadowing other important news events. This initiative undermined the quality of news production, as news values gave way to commercial incentives.

In addition to emphasis on advertising and commercial events, XYZ also valued its relationship with business partners, such as CRI, that provided support for its operations. According to the studio staff, as XYZ’s cooperation with CRI deepened, the financial underpinning it gained increased; after the launch of the studio, the partnership gained in strength, with CRI pledging to continue funding the localised media operation. To maintain this partnership, XYZ was obliged to coordinate with and cater to the demands of CRI and its preferred angle of news reporting. In general, XYZ prioritised the hosting of commercial events and the maintaining of cooperative relationships with media partners, because these constituted vital sources of revenue.

Inconsistency in brand identities

When applying localisation strategies in overseas markets Western media conglomerates much emphasise the importance of both managing local production and adapting media content to better suit local markets, whilst ensuring that their core brand identity and values remain uncompromised.

However, in this case, the consistency of the brand identity was not reflected in the localised media production. The studio had its distinct name and logo, without any obvious connection to CRI’s brand identity. Due to the headquarters’ lack of direct participation in the localisation practices, many staff members in the studio were unfamiliar with CRI’s style of programming. The hybridied approach to media production was absent and notable disparities existed between domestically produced programmes and localised ones.

Firstly, as a public radio station, CRI has to limit the extent of commercials in its programming. In comparison, the local radio station is a highly commercial operation. Commercials and promos were frequent between programmes. Moreover, the domestically produced and the localised programmes were characterised by obvious differences in their angles, concerns and choices of topics. Moreover, the hosts’ style and use of language were also markedly different. The hosts of domestic programmes were generally more professionally trained, but the way they talked to the audience sounded relatively formal and rigid. In the localised programmes, the hosts’ style of expression better aligned with the preferences of the local audience; however, the localised programmes often appeared to be less organised. These two sets of programmes were both aired on the same channel, without any transition or linkage. In general, the studio did not establish a coherent and recognisable brand in the overseas market. This lack of connection between CRI and the local studio respecting its brand image might have been intentional, if the aim was to influence an audience in a subtle and non-obtrusive way so as not to emphasise CRI’s identity as a state-owned broadcaster. Nonetheless, to attain sophisticated localisation may require the broadcaster to construct a coherent, hybrid and new brand identity rather than juxtaposing two inconsistent brand images.

Two divergent logics and their characteristics

With nation-states/governments as major actors, international communication often carries political meanings, whether overt or covert. In early theoretical accounts of international communication, propaganda logic is especially prevalent, and it is a paradigm that is characterised by ideological struggles, nationalism and media imperialism (Lu & Shi, 2013).

Although the term ‘propaganda’ has negative connotations in the West, this is not necessarily the case in China. When it comes to the ‘media going-out’ project, the logic of propaganda serves as a major driving force, and it comes with its own advantages. Firstly, because it has the support of the government, it ensures ample funding and resources that are beneficial to media production. This support, in turn, guarantees that the media operations continue to be in accord with the state’s goal of soft power construction. Secondly, propaganda logic places relatively more emphasis on public interest, social responsibility and the promotion of public virtues. Programming under such logic usually has significant educational value, which is absent in many of its commercial counterparts.

However, this logic also brings with it a number of disadvantages. For one, programming governed by propaganda logic follows a hierarchical one-way communication model that is sender-centric and prioritises political demands. It inevitably entails some degree of censorship. For another, bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure renders the media less responsive to an audience’s demands. The administrative hierarchy also hinders communication between different units of media production, thereby greatly reducing the synergy between them.

Unlike propaganda logic, market logic is predicated upon capital flows and the optimal allocation of resources. An exemplary case involves Western media giants’ localisation in overseas markets against the backdrop of liberalisation and deregulation. Western transnational corporations, mainly driven by commercial rather than political imperatives, began in the 1980s to play a more significant role in international communication. Along with deepening globalisation and the widespread application of satellite and digital technologies, free flows of capital contributed substantially to the development of the global media landscape. This market logic attaches more importance to financial returns than it does to political gains, and, in indirect ways, it promotes the values of neoliberalism and consumerism.

Market logic has some noteworthy merits. First, market logic-oriented media outlets are more responsive to the audience’s needs. Secondly, under market logic, news reporting is both timely and relatively pluralistic. Thirdly, in terms of management and operations, market logic requires media outlets to flatten organisational structures in order to maximise efficiency. It also pushes the media into establishing an appealing brand image.

However, market logic also has several major weaknesses. On the one hand, it reduces the audience to a set of exploitable consumers, and it is often indifferent to the public interest. In extreme cases, media outlets may abandon professional standards, value judgements and social responsibility in the effort to maximise profits, and this, in turn, can lead to the erosion of their credibility. On the other hand, based on cost-benefit calculations, media outlets may pay disproportionate attention to financial gains from revenue-generating activities, and this can divert resources away from media production and, in turn, negatively affect its quality.

Propaganda logic and market logic – driven by nation-states/governments and market/capital, respectively – present distinct sets of imperatives, and these lead to several tensions when the two logics come into conflict. The contradiction and disjuncture between them are evident in the case under examination.

Interaction and negotiation between the two logics

One key localisation strategy that CRI adopts is to cooperate with overseas Chinese-language media to construct platforms for the airing of both domestically produced and localised programmes. However, due to the divergence between ownership and institutional environment, CRI and its local partners in overseas markets, such as XYZ, are driven by different modes of management and by divergent operational logics. In the case of CRI’s US-based studio, propaganda logic and market logic intersected, enhancing and constraining each other in myriad ways.

Firstly, in the negotiation between the two logics, the audience only played a negligible part, and the gap between media production and audience expectation widened. As mentioned above, proximity to the audience constitutes one of the most salient advantages of market logic; however, these advantages were compromised by propaganda logic in the case under discussion. When CRI headquarters pumped adequate funding into the studio’s regular operations, there was less pressure on the local production team to compete with other media outlets for ratings. In other words, the studio’s reliance upon its audience decreased, and so, correspondingly, did its attention to its audience.

Furthermore, the local production team was subject to self-censorship so that it did not go against CRI’s editorial principles. Self-censorship propelled the team from balanced reporting toward ideologically slanted news coverage, and this affected the objectivity as well as the diversity of the content. Market logic’s advantage in encouraging pluralistic news content was thus constrained by propaganda logic that entailed media censorship and prioritization of the sender’s demand. Propaganda logic was even more dominant in domestically produced programmes broadcast to the local audience in the United States. The selection of news material was almost uniformly determined by considerations of a political nature, as well as by the extent to which they advanced the Chinese government’s propaganda campaign. The communication process was thus linear and hierarchical, in which the sender imposed its values upon a local audience whose preferences might have differed from those of the sender.

Secondly, when the two logics either reinforced, or came into conflict with, each other, it generated a tension that often jeopardised the synergy between headquarters and the local production team – particularly in terms of production quality. On the one hand, in order to secure financial support, the local production team was cautious in managing its relationship with headquarters. When reporting to headquarters as a subordinate franchise, it often highlighted its achievements and played down the problems it faced – an instance of profit-driven market logic seeking to satisfy bureaucratic propaganda logic. In a hierarchical, bureaucratic structure, this could undermine the efficacy of communication between headquarters and the local production team. On the other hand, the headquarters adopted a ‘double standard’ for local production. The double standard, or the phrase nei wai you bie – translated by Brady (2003, 14) as ‘treat insiders and outsiders differently’ – is often invoked as a principle in international broadcasting by Chinese media outlets (Lian, 2016). It refers to the idea that domestic communication and international communication should be managed differently. Central to this idea is the attempt of media outlets to tailor their content to their target audience’s reception habits. However, this idea was misconceived and misused in the case under discussion, because it led not to the adaptation of the programming to the needs of the local audience, but to relaxed quality control at the local level. Due to a misused double standard in media production, the advantage of propaganda logic in concentrating resources to ensure quality programming was absent at the local level. The norms and standards that the local production team followed thus failed to match those maintained by the headquarters, and this further widened the quality gap between domestic and localised programming. The market logic’s weakness in focusing excessively upon financial gains was manifest in XYZ’s operations, and the cost-benefit calculations shifted the media company’s attention away from media production toward commercial activities, thus affecting the quality of the localised programming.

Thirdly, because they followed two divergent logics, headquarters and the local production team prioritised different goals. As a Chinese state-owned media outlet, CRI’s goal is to promote the state’s image and influence abroad. However, for its local partner XYZ, the primary goal is to seek profits in order to survive in a highly competitive market environment. XYZ’s dual identity, both as CRI’s partner and as a local ethnic media outlet, enables it to seek funding and support from various sources. As mentioned above, market logic pushed media organisations towards more lucrative business operations, thus diminishing media production resources in order to increase their financial gains. The significance of advertising, commercial events and public relations outweighed the importance of the local audience. Such phenomena were attributable to structural factors innate to the ethnic enclave economy (Zhou, Chen & Cai, 2006). Moreover, the weakness of propaganda logic in neglecting the economic outcomes of localisation further estranged headquarters from the local production team.

Lastly but not least, the two negotiating logics and the tensions between them gave rise to the disjunction and incongruity between the brand identities of CRI and the local studio. Their respective sets of programmes, lacking intrinsic unity and conveying different messages to the audience, did not make for a coherent package. As mentioned above, the domestic and the local teams differed greatly in production standards, staff composition and goal orientation, all of which led to a sharp distinction between their respective programming in terms of their content, quality and style. For instance, the domestic team followed a relatively professional media production routine, but the style of their programmes was less responsive to the audience’s preferences; the local production team was closer to the audience, but their neglect of professionalism failed to meet the audience’s expectations of quality. The dual-track programming reveals that CRI has yet to master the strategy of hybridization, an approach that is adeptly employed by established transnational media companies. It also points to CRI’s lack of attention to the local audience, as it failed to adapt domestic programming to the local context. Thus, propaganda logic’s advantage in securing resources for media production was not effectively combined with the strength of market logic in attending to the audience’s preferences.