Negotiation within legitimate political boundaries: revealing the bottom-up news filtering of Chinese Party newspapers

Abstract The extent to which media employees can make highly individualized decisions has been debated extensively in existing studies on gatekeeping. This case study proposes a bottom-up approach by examining the news filtering practices of Chinese Party (Communist Party of China, CPC) media employees, aiming to expand and deepen research in this field. Drawing upon 16 interviews conducted within a Chinese Party media newsroom, this research explores the news filtering process among different job groups. The study reveals the stratification of filtering preferences within the newsrooms and identifies two forms of bottom-up resistance: resistance by grassroots journalists driven by cost-effectiveness, and resistance by journalists and senior editors rooted in social responsibility. Furthermore, the study confirms that a unified propaganda function is insufficient to compromise the bottom-up resistance of media employees; however, it remains within legitimate political boundaries.