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Advertising and the Media System |
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Media systems (especially broadcasting) can be classified in two different types:
Public Media Systems: Government control over broadcasting through ownership, regulation, and partial funding of public broadcasting services.
Private Media System: Ownership and control lies in the hands of private companies and shareholders.
Both systems can exist in various forms, according to the degree of control by governments and private companies, with mixed systems (public and private) as the third main kind.
Whereas public media systems are usually at least partially funded by governments, private broadcasting solely relies on advertising revenue. Still also public media systems cannot exclude advertising as a source of revenue. Therefore both types are to a certain degree dependent on money coming in by advertisers.
And this implies consequences on the content provided by the media. As the attraction of advertisers becomes critically important, interests of the advertising industry frequently play a dominant role concerning the structure of content and the creation of environments favorable for advertising goods and services within the media becomes more and more common.
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Censorship of Online Content in China
During the Tian-an men massacre reports and photos transmitted by fax machines gave notice of what was happening only with a short delay. The Chinese government has learned his lesson well and "regulated" Internet access from the beginning. All Internet traffic to and out of China passes through a few  gateways, a few entry-points, thus making censorship a relatively easy task. Screened out are web sites of organizations and media which express dissident viewpoints: Taiwan's  Democratic Progress Party and Independence Party, The New York Times, CNN, and sites dealing with Tibetan independence and human rights issues.
Users are expected not to "harm" China's national interests and therefore have to apply for permission of Internet access; Web pages have to be approved before being published on the Net. For the development of measures to monitor and control Chinese content providers, China's state police has joined forces with the MIT.
For further information on Internet censorship, see Human Rights Watch, World Report 1999.
 http://www.dpp.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.hrw.org/worldreport99/special/inte...
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