Abstract
This chapter reflects on my experience of undertaking production research in China and the UK during a movement of digital globalisation. It begins with a discussion of the methodology developed from ethnography, taking into account the changes and continuity of China’s digital cultural spaces. It outlines the methods (including semi-structured interviews and participant observation) used to investigate the shifting power dynamics of China’s contemporary broadcasting sectors and explains how the role of the researcher has been conceived and enacted. It looks at the interactions between local, national and transnational markets, pointing to a need to internationalise the research contexts because of the complex nature of contemporary media politics that integrates China’s cultural sector with the global marketplace.
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Notes
- 1.
According to the research ethics of social studies involving human participants, where issues of sensitivity may be a concern, interviewees and contributors are anonymised and assigned a number with, as a prefix, I (for interviews), as in ‘I1’. For clarity and consistency, I will illustrate the participant’s job title, organisation and interview date, where relevant. The type of the interview method is indicated in Appendix IV, as per its status of a semi-structured interview or an unstructured/in-depth interview.
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Zhu, Y. (2022). Methodology: The Insider-Outsider in Production Research. In: Media Power and its Control in Contemporary China. IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6917-1_3
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