Tiananmen Square

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 t

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offering a popsicle to a soldier sitting in a blocked military truck. A day earlier, a front page story and headline cited a Hungarian leader saying that Stalinist tactics of violence should not be used to suppress the people ("Martial Law Declared," 1989, 18). A group of students visited the famous retired marshals Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen to ask for their support. According to the Beijing Domestic Service Radio broadcast, the students spoke of their fear that the troops were going to use violence against them. The marshals assured the students that "the army comrades are, under no circumstances, willing to see a bloody incident" ("Martial Law Declared," 1989, 18). In the days following the declaration of martial law, the media carried several reports citing prominent Party members warning against the use of force. On May 23rd, television viewers were shown shots of the mass demonstration with about one million people demonstrating against martial law. The slogan "Down with Li Peng" could be faintly heard in the background. Xinhua News Agency's English Service wire story mentioned that "most of the slogans were directed against the chief leader of the State Council," but Li Peng's name was not mentioned ("Martial

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