As China's state-run media works to boost its presence overseas, it is facing increasing competition from commercial media and citizen journalists who are providing more credible content than that disseminated by the government, award-winning journalist Yuen Ying Chan said at a recent lecture in Tokyo.
Chan, director and professor of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at Hong Kong University, described how the Internet and other technologies are making it increasingly difficult for the government to suppress information that could threaten the legitimacy of the Communist Party.
"While the media in China are developing very fast, the control by the government is also being stepped up," Chan said at the Japan National Press Club in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, Tuesday. One example is the government's ongoing censorship of the unrest in Egypt, she said. Keyword searches on microblogs produce no results on the subject.