Workshop on East Asia:

Politics, Economy and Society Presents

“The Duality of Structure in China’s National Television Market: A Network Analysis of Audience Duplication”

Professor Elaine Yuan

Assistant Professor, Department of Communication

University of Illinois at Chicago

4:00-5:30pm, Tuesday

December 1, 2009

Pick Lounge

5828 South University Ave.

Workshop website: http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/eastasia/

Student coordinator: Jean Lin (jeanlin@uchicago.edu)

Faculty sponsors: Dali Yang, Cheol-sung Lee, Dingxin Zhao (on leave)

The workshop is sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies and the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance, please contact the student coordinator in advance.

Abstract:

The study adopts Giddens’ structuration theory to assess audience agency and its dynamic relationship with media structures. It employs network analysis to examine the co-evolution of audience duplication patterns and elements of media structure in China’s national television market that is composed of 31 nationally-available provincial channels. The findings show that Chinese audiences tend to gravitate to channels with greater market share, higher household penetration rates, and more drama programming. Furthermore, channels tend to adjust their levels of drama programming relative to patterns of audience duplication in the long run. Additionally, channels within the same geo-cultural regions tend to share the same audiences. Finally, we found evidence of higher-order patterns of audience behavior, suggesting the existence of channel repertoires, as well as market concentration.