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Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua recently announced plans to consolidate four existing state media companiesChina Securities Journal, Economic Information Daily, Shanghai Securities News and Xinhua Publishing Housewith a fifth soon-to-launch company, creating what is to be called the China Fortune Media Corporation Group.

Some reports have framed the news as relevant on a global scale. Business Insider, for instance, wrote China wants more control over its storyspecifically the story of its economybeing told around the world, in similar fashion to how RT acts to spread Russias viewpoint across the globe.

But while the consolidation is undoubtedly about message control, Jonathan Hassid, an assistant professor at Iowa State, says the move is about domestic communications more than international. And, he added, its hardly surprising.

The Chinese government has been pushing media consolidation for at least the last 15 years, Hassidalso the author of Pressing Back: The Struggle for Control over Chinas Journalists, which investigated journalistic resistance to government demands and censorship in Chinaexplained, the Chinese government wants to get these smaller players to consolidate because its easier to manage content.

Hassid doesnt mean manage in an administrative sense; content is controlled by the state in order to support and promote the Chinese Communist Party.

In fact, while the trend of consolidation is longstanding, President Xi Jinping has noticeably ramped up media control since taking office. Since 2013, the Chinese Communist Party has moved to reassert its dominance over the message, David Bandurski, editor of the China Media Project, a website that documents and analyzes the process of media reform in China, wrote last year.

As Bandurski summarized, Not only has General Secretary Xi Jinping, using the strongest language in decades, re-staked the CCPs longstanding claim to media controlhe has also moved aggressively against influential Weibo users, effectively muzzled the more outspoken commercial press, and placed himself at the helm of a powerful new Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs.

Just last year, Jinping visited three media companiesXinhau being one of themand reiterated their requirement to party loyalty. All news media run by the Party must work to speak for the Partys will and its propositions and protect the Partys authority and unity, he decreed.

Still, while Jinping has been explicit about the role and loyalty required of media, Hassid did add that censorship in China is unusual because its not always explicit. And, unlike censorship in the Soviet Union, for instance, its not carried out by a central group.

Most censorship in China is self-censorship, he said. People think theres this big government body that censors things. But its much more clever. Reporters involved will get in trouble days, weeks later. No one knows when the axe is going to fall. The rules are so deliberately unclear, most journalists step well back from any sensitive topic.

Alyssa Oursler is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. You can find her on Twitter at @alyssaoursler.

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The Chinese Government Is Rapidly Consolidating Its Media in Order to Control Their Domestic Message - Paste Magazine