In China, as in most totalitarian states, the press is really little more than another arm of the government. In the Beijing Spring of 1989, however, for a brief moment that dynamic changed. Whereas the usual opposition or rebellion movement would have no voice in or means to manipulate the press, the student democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square found themselves both gaining straightforward coverage from their national press and also able to participate in the process by granting interviews and attempting to manipulate the coverage. The reasons for this change are multifold, among the most important of these being the behind the scenes power struggle within the government, during which it relaxed its control of the information flow. This did not, however, mean that the students were left free to manipulate the press. Instead, China's journalists, free from their master for the first time, took an active role in the uprising themselves. The consequence of these events was that, during the days of the Tiananmen protest itself, neither side really manipulated the media. Rather, the media took it upon itself to become a participant in and thus manipulator of the events.
The following study will analyze this phenomenon. The changes in the press will be followed as its roles evolved, with each section of the paper describing one of the following occurrences: In the early days, the press used its freedom to conduct mostly straightforward reporting of the news; when the government re-asserted its control, the press became once more the Party's mouthpiece; later, emboldened by their taste of press freedom, journalists joined the ranks of the protestors. Finally, the paper will conclude with a summary of the influence of the media on the events.
Starting from April 28th, stories about the students' protest activities appeared in all major newspapers as well as TV and radio broadcasts. Step by step, the pieces were based on...