Women, globalization and mass media: the Chinese experience

Since the implementation of the reform and open policy in the late 1970s, China has experienced graduate yet remarkable globalization. It has increased its foreign trade volume, registering a record of 828.5 billion US dollars (Zhang, 2004). Increasing amount of foreign investment has been injected into China, recording 53.781 billion US dollars for foreign direct investment and 119 billion US dollars for contracted direct investment in the first 10 months of the year of 2004 (People’s Daily Online, November 16, 2004). By 2003, it hosted business operations of more than 400 of the 500 largest transnational companies in the world (China Statistic Yearbook, 2003). Globalization has also brought in alien cultural values and ideological doctrines via mass media from the outside world, exposing women to its benefits, challenges and drawbacks. In this chapter, we present the Chinese experience in the interaction between globalization, women and mass media.