Media Ethnography in China: Ethics, Access and Interviews in a Non-Western Context

This paper is based on my PhD thesis about the production culture of Chinese entertain-ment. I will discuss the challenges I faced during my fieldwork in China and will reflect on a general level on how to access this non-western field for doing media ethnography. As a UK-based university researcher, doing ethnography in my own country, China, this brought me particular challenges. Some ethical guidelines in the UK were not applicable to issues concerning consent. Regarding this inapplicability, Chinese scholar Suiming Pan questioned the application of Western guidelines in a Chinese context: as sociology in China lacks local theories, should Chinese researchers apply Western theories in China or invent new theories based on phenomena that have never occurred in the West? By the same token, how should Chinese researchers adapt Western ethics guidelines? This paper aims to discuss these questions in the Chinese context – how I had to be flexible with guidelines while upholding academic standards. Since gaining access to Chinese media remains challenging, many compromises were made during the interactions with television production teams, gatekeepers and colleagues in the field. Furthermore, I encountered problems during my interviews with creative workers. Lastly, I will illustrate how I built relationships with people in the field and how I handled my identity crisis as an ethnographer in my own culture, hoping that my research experience can shed light on future ethnographic works in non-Western contexts

Landfill Earth: A Global Perspective on the Waste Problem

Màster en Diplomàcia i Organitzacions Internacionals, Centre d'Estudis Internacionals. Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2019-2020. Tutor: Ana G. JuanateyThe 20th century’s increase in waste generation has caused waste management to emerge as one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. As countries have found themselves overwhelmed with the task of managing the waste they produce, they have resorted to trade as a cheap management practice (Asante-Duah & I.V.N., 1998; European Environment Agency, 2019; Lipman, 2002; Sembiring, 2019). The biggest importer of waste in recent decades has been China (Greenpeace, 2019); however, the country has recently begun to impose regulations and bans on the waste trade (Mosbergen, 2018; SRS Media, 2019; Zhao, 2017). This has had a huge impact on the global waste management system, pushing many countries’ domestic recycling facilities close to collapse and altering the direction of international waste flows, since most countries’ response is still to look for alternative dumping places instead of improving their own waste management systems (Media, 2019; Katz, 2019; Anthesis, 2019; Ross, 2018; European Environmental Agency, 2019; Greenpeace, 2019). Many recent studies have focused on the impact that the waste trade has had on the environment, since importing countries tend to have lower environmental standards and management capabilities. Sembiring (2019) does not seem to condemn it: she sustains, after having analyzed the industry from an economic and environmental perspective, that this system seems to be the most effective way to allocate resources to manage waste. However, other researchers in the field such as Asante-Duah & I.V.N. (1998) and Lipman (2002) tend to take a sharply critical approach to the waste trading and denounce the implications it has for human health and the environment. Furthermore, Lipman (idem) refers to the “polluter pays” principle to assert that countries should solve their waste problems themselves as it is their responsibility to deal with their own waste, rather than exporting it to industrializing countries in an even worse position than themselves to solve it. This is a view shared by many environmental and trade academics. All in all, there is a quasi-consensus that the current waste trade has a short-termist approach to waste management and is based essentially on economic principles that disregard environmental issues. However, few researchers have proposed long-term sustainable solutions to the problem or addressed its root —the overproduction of waste. On this note, it is worth mentioning the contribution by Singh (2014) who points to the lack of a holistic approach to the waste management system that aims at reducing waste from the start point of product creation, rather than only after the waste has already been produced. She claims that our practices should focus on preventing the problem rather than finding solutions to it. In practice, while there exists some international regulation for waste trading, there is an absence of a collective, holistic and long-term approach to solving the global waste problem. Starting from the hypothesis that the existing legal definitions of waste complicate waste minimization, this paper aims at addressing the aforementioned issues. In other words, by analysing the current global waste management system, this paper also intends to show how the lack of a more holistic approach to the management system thwarts any effort at managing, and more importantly, reducing waste

Power and precarity in Chinese television production: an ethnographic study into the working culture of studio-based entertainment

With a growing market of international television format trade, more and more television producers are looking for business opportunities in other countries, especially in China. China has become one of the markets with the biggest potential for UK exporters. However, due to China’s unique political-economic environment, it remains difficult for foreign scholars to explore the inner workings of the Chinese media industry. Even Chinese academics find it difficult to gain access to television stations and independent production companies. Scholars without access often have to study television production as outsiders, and very few have conducted ethnography in the industry. This ethnographic thesis aims to explore the everyday production practices of Chinese studio-based entertainment shows in order to understand the production culture of Chinese TV. It also analyses the precarious working conditions of television practitioners who are behind the production processes. Ultimately, this thesis argues that many external and internal factors have contributed to the precarious nature of the Chinese television industry, and in turn, the industry has shaped its practitioners into the new precariat of Chinese society

Political Participation and Entrepreneurial Initial Public Offerings in China

This paper examines the value of political participation by private entrepreneurs in China. Using a unique sample of all initial public offerings by entrepreneurial firms during 1994-2007 and political participation by the controlling entrepreneurs, we test the hypothesis that firms with entrepreneurs who participate in politics are able to exploit rent-seeking opportunities that normal firms do not have access to. We document that the long-run stock performance after the IPO of firms controlled by entrepreneurs who participate in politics is superior to that of common entrepreneurial firms. Our results also show that political participation has a significant positive effect on change in operating performance and a negative effect on first-day returns. Moreover, we find that economic development and local institutions are important for this value effect. The difference in performance is even larger in regions characterized by more abundant rent-seeking opportunities, indicating that the value effect of political participation likely originates from rent seeking. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that political participation facilitates entrepreneurs’ rent seeking.Political participation; Entrepreneurial firms; Corporate governance; Initial public offerings; China

The Emergence of Corporate Pyramids in China

We examine the pyramidal ownership structure of a large sample of newly listed Chinese companies controlled by local governments or private entrepreneurs. Both types of the owners use layers of intermediate companies to control their firms. However, their pyramiding behaviors are likely affected by different property rights constraints. Local governments are constrained by the Chinese laws prohibiting free transfer of state ownership. Pyramiding allows them to credibly decentralize their firm decision rights to firm management without selling off their ownership. Private entrepreneurs are constrained by their lack of access to external funds. Pyramiding creates internal capital markets that help relieving their external financing constraints. Our empirical results support these conjectures. Local governments build more extensive corporate pyramids when they are less burdened with fiscal or unemployment problems, when they have more long-term goals, and when their firm decisions are more subject to market and legal disciplines. The more extensive pyramids are also associated with smaller "underpricing" when the firms go public. Entrepreneur owners construct more complex corporate pyramids when they do not have a very deep pocket - as indicated by their personal wealth.

Founder Succession and Accounting Properties

Using a sample of 231 entrepreneurial firm successions in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, we find that firms' unsigned discretionary accruals decrease while timely loss recognition increases subsequent to successions, suggesting a shift in accounting toward a less insider-based system. We argue that the change in accounting properties is due to the loss of specialized assets in the succession process, such as the entrepreneur's reputation and political/social networks, inducing the firm to adapt to market-based rather than relationship-based contracting. Moreover, we find that the extent of the shift in accounting is larger in founder successions than in subsequent (non-founder) successions, as the dissipation of specialized assets is greatest in founder successions.Succession, founder, corporate governance, accounting properties

The Emergence of Corporate Pyramids in China

We examine the pyramidal ownership structure of a large sample of newly listed Chinese companies controlled by local governments or private entrepreneurs. Both types of the owners use layers of intermediate companies to control their firms. However, their pyramiding behaviors are likely affected by different property rights constraints. Local governments are constrained by the Chinese laws prohibiting free transfer of state ownership. Pyramiding allows them to credibly decentralize their firm decision rights to firm management without selling off their ownership. Private entrepreneurs are constrained by their lack of access to external funds. Pyramiding creates internal capital markets that help relieving their external financing constraints. Our empirical results support these conjectures. Local governments build more extensive corporate pyramids when they are less burdened with fiscal or unemployment problems, when they have more long-term goals, and when their firm decisions are more subject to market and legal disciplines. The more extensive pyramids are also associated with smaller "underpricing" when the firms go public. Entrepreneur owners construct more complex corporate pyramids when they do not have a very deep pocket - as indicated by whether they are among the top-100 richest people in China.Pyramidal Ownership, Decentralization, China