Mass Media and Tiananmen Square

What took place Tiananmen Square was a dramatic conflict. And it was, to a great extent, a media-aided conflict. Without the active involvement of both the Chinese national news media and the international news media, the conflict could never have reached such a magnitude and cast such an extensive impact on the Chinese people and on people around the world. This book adopts a theoretical framework that combines the following lines: the general social environment in which the conflict occurred and the news media operated; the societal, ideological, organisational and professional factors that influenced the news media's operations; and the interaction between the news media and the conflict. This book concentrates on the following areas to examine the effects of the news media on the movement: the goals, strategies and discourse of the movement; legitimisation or de-legitimisation of the movement; information provision; messages as signals for actions; and people's attitudes.