Reinvented Chinese state media: The discursive construction of journalistic identity on WeChat

As China’s news organizations continue partnering with social media, they must wrestle with new ways to best present themselves to meet the expectations of audiences. Based on a series of news reports on a fire accident released by the WeChat official accounts of eight state-run media organizations, this study explores how China’s state news sectors reinvent their self-image in social media. The analysis of the communicative setting, content, linguistic and visual resources of the reports shows that the journalistic identity presented in the reports has changed gradually from news disseminator to news explicator juxtaposed with emotion conveyor, and to sentimental storyteller. The findings suggest while state media sectors try to maintain the image as authoritative news producer, they appeal to personalization to build a close tie with audiences. The study argues that China’s traditional journalistic norms, the state media’s political imperatives, and WeChat affordances converge to cause the shift of the journalistic identity. The study has enriched the analysis of journalistic practice in social media in the Chinese context and shed some light on the functions of multimedia settings to enact journalistic identity.