State Interests, Global Platforms: How Chinese Journalists Use American Platforms at Work

This study examines how a special subset of Chinese journalists (those who focus mostly on an overseas audience) navigate and utilize U.S.-owned social media platforms, which are banned in China, in their daily newsroom practices. While previous research has primarily focused on digital news production and platformization in Western contexts, this study offers a transnational and sociotechnical perspective on how Chinese journalists negotiate platform logics (such as audience metrics and recommendation algorithms) while balancing state-driven narratives with global audience demands. Drawing on 26 in-depth interviews, the study zooms in on Chinese journalists’ constrained freedom associated with social media use: they benefit from access to large audiences but lack control over platform design and governance. These Chinese journalists often feel alienated from the platforms they rely on: journalistic labor is regulated by the Chinese state, while platform infrastructures are governed by U.S. tech firms. This study highlights how platformization in transnational journalism is shaped by the entanglement of technology, politics, and professional norms, extending our understanding of how platform power operates across geopolitical boundaries and offering a distinctive lens on the global unevenness of digital media systems.