Digital Media, State's Legitimacy and Chinese Paternalism

Abstract

Building on the three approaches that try to explain the ‘democratic failure’ of China’s digital media, I would like to introduce a fourth perspective: the cultural logic of paternalism to rethink some key aspects of how the CCP governments have interacted with digital media. Chinese paternalism is not simply a type of governance, but it refers to a form of social structure and relations, a way of life and ultimately, the moral system that defines how Chinese societies (should) operate.