The “paradox of commercialization” and its impact on media-state relations in China and South Africa

According to various literatures, commercialization will inevitably pull the media away from its traditional, historical association with political groups and political institutions, and shift it toward the ambit of commerce and trade. This paper argues that this may not be the case, notably in the non-Western world. In fact, commercialization provides a range of opportunities for the state to intervene more deeply, and to strengthen its impact and influence on the media and on its content. We will be using the experiences of two countries, China and South Africa, the economic and political powerhouses in Asia and Africa respectively, to illustrate this phenomenon. In spite of their differences, commercialization has produced strikingly similar patterns of heightened state intervention in both countries. This is what we call the “paradox of commercialization”.