Between the Lines

Outside China, the country’s media landscape is often depicted as a monolithic system, where journalists are subject to tight control and little room exists for perspectives that diverge from the official line. While the political and professional environment in which Chinese journalists operate remains challenging, it is far from static. This volume examines the dynamic interplay between journalistic genres, media outlet characteristics, and discourse variability in contemporary Chinese journalism, exploring how professional commentators navigate the boundaries between official narratives and self-expression. Focusing on the genre of opinion articles, the analysis draws on case studies spanning ten years to assess degrees of discursive flexibility in both institutional and commercial outlets. Though acknowledging growing restrictions under Xi Jinping’s leadership, this qualitative research suggests that space for improvised, nuanced expression persists—albeit in limited and context-specific ways. Combining genre analysis with tools from Critical Discourse Analysis and corpus-assisted methods, the book offers an empirically grounded contribution to Chinese media studies and calls for continuing, human-informed linguistic engagement in this evolving field.