A supporting hand: effects of party participation in corporate governance on media companies’ performance in China

Research focusing on China's media system has mainly discussed the influence of the Party on media's editorial sectors. This study directs its attention to the Party's impact on the non-editorial sectors of Chinese media. Econometric analysis of the panel data collected from 30 state-owned listed media companies (2016–2020) found that the Party's involvement in profit-making and image-managing activities of media companies improved the latter's financial and social performance; such effects differ significantly across regions with different marketization levels. It was found that the CPC is acting as a 'supporting hand' in non-editorial sectors, presenting the emergence of a new state-media-society relationship in China. Such findings demonstrate the analytical role of econometrics for scholars to theorize the impacts of party-media relationship in contemporary China as well as lay an empirical foundation for the prediction of the next steps of China's media reform.