Editor's note: The following article was translated and edited from an article that appeared in Insight China (《小康》), a popular Chinese magazine. The article analyses the results of a survey conducted by Insight China on respondents' perceptions of media credibility in China. As predicted by a scholar in the field, online media sources, such as web portals and microblogging sites fared quite well compared to traditional media sources, particularly with young Chinese. While one survey by no means can offer definitive proof of a trend in a country as large and complex as China, this article nonetheless helps support what many already feel is happening: the Internet is becoming a force to be reckoned with in China.

Although "news extortion" and "paid-for news"—terms used to describe when individuals or organizations offer journalists gifts, money (or just threaten them) in exchange for beneficial news coverage—are by no means a phenomenon exclusive to China, the non-transparent nature of the nation's major media institutions has nonetheless helped to foster an environment in which such shady practices thrive. Well aware of the present and future problems associated with such unlawful practices, China launched a three-month campaign in May 2012 to "combat news extortion and clean up paid-for news", which officially came to a close on August 15. While it's still too early to judge the campaign's effectiveness, the real issue at hand, and the topic of the following article, is: "In light of traditional media's increasingly frequent bouts with news extortion and paid-for news scandals, are Chinese more likely to look to online sources like web portals and Weibo (microblogs) for more credible news?"

Are web portals the most credible news source?

According to Zheng Zhi'an, associate professor at Zhongshan University's School of Communication and Design and Secretary General of the Zhongshan University Media Institute, "Generally speaking, the more an individual accesses a media source, the more likely he or she is to consider it credible." Be that as it may, there are a few things to keep in mind when trying to measure the credibility of a media source.

For instance, while television remains the most widely accessed of the media sources in China, Zheng points out that the amount of time Chinese spend watching television is not necessarily spent exclusively watching news programs—there are a substantial amount of "entertainment" programs on television, and prior research suggests that a large number of viewers often choose to tune in to such programs instead of news programs. As for online sources, because a vast majority of netizens lack the power to conduct official interviews or research, consequently the quality of the information disseminated online is, at best, mixed. Factoring in all of these points, Zheng Zhi'an predicted that if one were to survey the general public on the credibility of various media sources, newspapers would fare better than television news programs, which would in turn fare better than online media. Acknowledging the worldwide age gap in frequency of online use, Zheng adds a caveat to this statement: "If the survey's sample were predominantly young people, then I'd expect the credibility rating for social media to increase at the expense of television news programs and other traditional media."

Survey: Which Chinese media source is the most credible?

As it turns out, Zheng's prediction was quite accurate. Insight China magazine recently conducted a survey—measuring respondents'perceptions of media credibility in China—with two different partners: the first in cooperation with Tsinghua University's Media Survey Lab; the second in cooperation with Sina (a major Chinese web portal and online media company). Analysis of both surveys' results show that 55.3% of respondents for the Tsinghua survey were below 35 years old, compared to 64.3% of respondents for the Sina survey. As Zheng predicted, the greater proportion of younger respondents on the Sina survey considerably shifted the credibility rating of social media upward, even higher than he predicted, to first place: 26.8% respondents thought the web portals were the most credible, compared to 23.6% for television and 17.7% for newspapers. In comparison, on the Tsinghua survey, television ranked first, followed by newspapers and web portals.

Results: online media seen as more credible than traditional media

In the credibility ranking for the multitude of Chinese web portals, Sina came out on top (25.3%), followed by ifeng (22.2%), Tencent (11.2%) and People's Daily Online (10%). Sina's high credibility rating is well in line with its strong fiscal performance—it ranked 9th in the 2012 Hurun Report's list of Chinese trademark values, with 14 billion RMB. But not all of the "major players" fared so well: although NetEase and Sohu are both considered part of China's "Four Major Web Portals" (along with Sina and Tencent), they were ranked much further down the list, in 7th and 8th place, with 5.3% and 5.1%, respectively. Also worth noting, survey respondents ranked the fairly independent (if not sometimes questionable) Weibo microblog networks (17.7%) over both radio (8.2%) and magazines (2.8%) in terms of credibility.

Although Chinese web portals and microblogging networks have yet to achieve a 100% credibility rating by the general public, looking at these results it becomes readily apparent that online media is well on its way toward replacing traditional media in the future, at least in terms of credibility (and especially with younger audiences). The numbers don't lie: 44.3% of respondents ranked online sources as the most credible, compared to 44.1% of respondents for television, newspapers and magazines—an approximate tie despite traditional media's multiple-decade "head start" and the relative infancy of online media.

Source: news.sina.com (originally published in Insight China magazine)
 

Related links
The Weibo Revolution - 140 Characters for a Voice
Fang Zhouzi: Exposing Academic Fraud, One Weibo Post at a Time
Get Connected: Why Are Foreign Dignitaries Increasingly Turning to Weibo?

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

Keywords: Chinese media credibility survey credible news China Chinese online media attitudes toward media China