Advertising Industry and Culture in POST-WTO China

Abstract

This paper looks at recent developments in the Chinese magazine industry to illustrate trends in advertiser-funded media associated with China's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Advertising services are an integral element of the WTO ‘wrecking ball’ now being wielded to reform the marketplace and promote innovation and entrepreneurship. As the smallest of ‘main media’ categories, the Chinese magazine industry provides an interesting starting point for a larger investigation of the impact of competition unleashed by internationalisation on key creative industries sectors. Two case studies illustrate the roles and limits of advertising in this complex process and, more broadly, in the management of China's developing ‘commercial culture’. These are Shanghai Bride (linlang xinniang), a provincial magazine distributed from Shanghai targeted primarily at women considering marriage, and Caijing, a national ‘blue-chip’ financial magazine based in Beijing.