Digital News Conference
Digital News, Social Change & Globalization
Code 309G
Title Globalizing The Local: Analysis of CCTV-9 in China
Author Ke GUO
Affiliation Department of International Journalism, College of Journalism & Communication, Shanghai International Studies University, PR China
Abstract Known as Window on China, CCTV-9's 24-hour English-language channel, the only national English-language TV service in China, now claims to cover 98% of the land in the world since its launch on September 25, 2000.

The paper examines the challenges and opportunities that face CCTV-9 in its efforts towards effective international communication and globalization. The paper first discusses the influences of globalization on China's state-owned TV industry as whole and the historical context on how China's English service has developed with a concept to globalize the local in China. Based on an internet survey over CCTV-9.com that started in late 2001, the paper explores the effectiveness of CCTV-9's English services in terms of its popularity and influences among its viewers. The paper also content-analyzes CCTV-9's news reports and overall English coverage based on a sample in 2002, to make a comparison with the survey results and to further the discussions on CCTV-9's effectiveness and efforts towards globalization. Causal analysis is then offered for CCTV-9's performances (news presentation, style, China English, management system, funding etc), followed by an overall assessment of CCTV-9. To wind up, the paper wishes to use CCTV-9 as a case study, along with the writer's personal interviews with CCTV-9 directors, to provide some theoretical framing as to how English-language TV services in a non-English environment like in China can achieve a significant presence in the Western-dominated global media market.