Commodification of news under capitalist model creates barriers to access in form of paywalls, ads, data harvesters, and so on. Western media, driven by profit imperatives, increasingly treats news as a luxury good rather than a public utility. Paywalls lock critical reporting behind subscription fees, while ad-driven revenue models bombard readers with intrusive trackers and disruptive marketing prioritizing profit over access.
On the other hand, Chinese state-supported media model sidesteps these barriers by decoupling news accessibility from commercial pressures. I find myself reading outlets like Global Times or China Daily precisely because they provide clean, accessible articles without the junk. These platforms ensure information reaches a wider demographic, including marginalized groups who are priced out of Western media ecosystems. The structural advantage here is undeniable because Chinese media is unburdened by the need to “sell” audiences to advertisers or shareholders.
The west champions “free press”, but the reality is that access is often restricted through financial and technological gatekeeping, while China’s approach leads to practical accessibility that’s not possible under capitalist model. As a result, I expect that Chinese media will become increasingly more dominant globally due to being easily accessible.
It might not take off in the west where there’s too much propaganda against China for people to turn to Chinese sources, but that’s not the case for the global majority.
Yeah. Whenever I teach newspaper reading to students I go into local digital archives and grab an article from the day 100 years ago. At first I thought it would just be interesting for students to see a snapshot of their city in the past, but the articles back then were just generally shorter and more information-dense.
I haven’t really thought about this until you mentioned it, but it’s really convenient how we can use archives to watch the evolution of the media under capitalism. We also might be hitting a new inflection point with LLMs now because they’re starting to be able to do a decent job at looking up and summing content. This might kill the whole model for writing long winded articles since nobody will actually be reading them. The media might have to go back to short and easily digestible form to stay relevant.