Mass Media and Censorship

If you are studying or teaching the mass media topic in sociology, the latest news about Google and the Chinese Government should feature somewhere in your classroom discussion.

In sociology lessons, the ability of states to control the media is frequently commented on, but the examples are usually close to home - in the UK the D notice system and so on, or historical - propaganda under the Nazis or in the Soviet Union. So China provides a really good example of a contemporary society where state control of the media - in a pretty heavy-handed way- is very much a reality.

This article on the BBC site gives a usefully summary of current developments. Interestingly though, it is a capitalist corporation - Google - which has decided it does not want to help enable a Government - indeed formally, a communist government, to curtail public freedom of expression. That might show how the Marxist and Pluralist debate in sociology can in fact get quite complex. You may wish to consider though, whether capitalist states are quite so blameless as some of them are portrayed. Don’t all governments at times manipulate the truth and manage information?