The realities of journalism in the digital intelligence era and the development of Chinese modernization within the news industry constitute the practical starting points for its overall transformation. Photo: TUCHONG

Since the beginning of the 21st century—particularly with the rapid expansion of the digital intelligence era—the transformation of contemporary Chinese journalism has become a major and widely discussed topic, drawing sustained and ongoing attention from scholars across the field of journalism and communication. At its core, discussion of the overall transformation of contemporary Chinese journalism concerns the discipline’s future development. As such, reflection on transformation must proceed from two broad foundations: present realities shaped by technological and social change, and the historical accumulation of journalism theory and practice.

Meta-technologies reshape traditional structures

Over the past two decades, digital and intelligent technologies—functioning as meta-technologies—have fundamentally disrupted traditional news communication structures while simultaneously generating new forms of communication technology. These developments have driven iterative upgrades, accelerated convergence, and structural reconfiguration across the communication ecosystem. Therefore, the digital intelligence era must serve as the fundamental starting point for thinking about the future transformation of journalism and news activities, and it naturally constitutes the point of departure for discussions on the overall transformation of contemporary Chinese journalism.

Beginning from this new technological era—and from the new problems it generates—the creation of new conceptual frameworks, the construction of new theoretical systems, and the development of new perspectives have become necessary steps in realizing the overall transformation of journalism.

It is important to note, however, that although human news activities have entered a new technological age, and artificial intelligence—driven by data, computing power, and algorithms—has emerged as the most dynamic force in news transformation, journalism cannot be reduced to computation alone. News production is ultimately shaped by the people who design, control, and operate these technologies and media systems. Questions of truth, objectivity, ethics, and responsibility ultimately depend on human agency. In short, a people-centered approach remains the fundamental starting point for the transformation of journalism in the digital intelligence era.

Traditional journalism studies have largely centered on professional journalistic practice and human-centered news production, often overlooking news activities conducted by other social actors outside professional journalism. This has, to some extent, produced a partial or incomplete understanding of journalism. As human news activities continue to evolve, however, the scope of news production has expanded, and modes of news activity have diversified. To achieve an overall transformation in the digital intelligence environment and construct a more comprehensive, independent knowledge system for Chinese journalism, it is therefore necessary to establish a broader and more multidimensional research object.

Research objects constitute the primary basis for defining an academic discipline, while disciplinary perspectives shape the ways in which knowledge is explored and constructed. Journalism derives its disciplinary autonomy from its focus on human news phenomena and news activities. During the emergence and development of modern journalism, professional news production—shaped by the social division of labor—naturally became the primary research object. From a theoretical perspective, however, journalism should take the full spectrum of news phenomena as its research object, thereby enabling the construction of a comprehensive knowledge system. Incorporating non-professional news activities into journalism research is therefore essential for building a more complete disciplinary framework.

Non-professional news activities as research objects

First, to build a more comprehensive framework for journalism studies, non-professional news production and dissemination should be incorporated into the core scope of research. Traditional journalism, centered on professional news organizations, reflects a limitation in research scope. In the internet-driven “post-journalism era,” non-professional news production has increasingly developed alongside professional journalism. These activities have altered the structure of the news ecosystem and, in some contexts, now represent nearly half of overall news activity. This shift has prompted journalism studies to reassess its research objects and expand toward a more comprehensive knowledge system that better reflects contemporary realities.

Second, the relationship between professional and non-professional journalism constitutes a central issue in research on the transformation of journalism. Looking ahead, professional and non-professional news production will likely coexist and evolve together over the long term. As non-professional news becomes an important object of study in the digital news environment, examining the interaction between these two forms of journalism will become a key research focus.

In practice, professional and non-professional journalism may cooperate, complement one another, or come into tension and conflict. These relationships often intertwine, producing a complex world of news symbols and meanings. It is important to emphasize that, both at present and in the foreseeable future, the news industry and professional journalistic activities should remain the primary focus of journalism studies. This is because, as an industry, the news sector and the professional journalism it comprises continue to function as the dominant form of representation and a core force in shaping the routine news landscape of society.

Toward a complete news world

A complete news world consists of both “non-routine news” and “everyday life news.” Journalism studies can construct a comprehensive knowledge system only by treating this unified news world as its research object. This represents an important objective in the future transformation of contemporary Chinese journalism.

Everyday life news should therefore become an important research focus. In both historical and contemporary contexts, news activities encompass not only professional journalism aimed at the public sphere, but also a large volume of news related to individuals’ daily environments and lived experiencess, often characterized by more private, everyday contexts of communication. Such everyday life news is, in fact, more frequently exchanged among the general public and can exert a greater influence on daily life. Incorporating everyday life news into journalism knowledge production and disciplinary system-building is therefore both natural and necessary, and constitutes an important task in the overall transformation of contemporary Chinese journalism.

The development of artificial intelligence has ushered in a new era for journalism, reshaping the operational mechanisms of news production and dissemination and transforming how news is generated, distributed, and consumed. While traditional journalism studies have focused primarily on human-centered news activities, intelligent agents are becoming increasingly significant actors in the news ecosystem. Journalism studies must therefore, in pursuing a forward-looking overall transformation, incorporate intelligent news phenomena as an important research object while paying particular attention to the evolving relationship between human-centered and intelligent-agent journalism—an emerging domain supported by internet infrastructure and intelligent technologies that is likely to play a central role in the future development of journalism theory and practice.

The development of artificial intelligence has ushered in a new era and is transforming the overall modes of operation of the news industry and news activities. Traditional journalism studies have focused primarily on human-centered news practices. Today, however, intelligent-agent news activities and intelligent news actors are becoming increasingly significant.

In pursuing a forward-looking overall transformation, contemporary Chinese journalism studies must therefore take intelligent news phenomena themselves as an important object of study, while paying particular attention to the evolving relationship between intelligent news and human-centered news.

Intelligent news—grounded in the internet as its infrastructure and supported by intelligent technologies at its core—constitutes an almost entirely new object of inquiry for journalism studies. It is also a necessary research focus for constructing a more comprehensive journalism discipline and building a relatively complete knowledge system for the future.

Ultimate goal

What, then, is the ultimate goal of the overall transformation of contemporary Chinese journalism? Based on historical experience, present realities, and future development, several key objectives emerge: the construction of a journalism discipline characterized by greater subjectivity; stronger integration of universality and particularity; closer alignment between theory and practice; a balance between stability and openness; and enhanced interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity.

After more than a century of development, Chinese journalism has formed relatively stable disciplinary structures, theoretical frameworks, knowledge systems, and modes of discourse. Maintaining this stability is a necessary precondition for further development. At the same time, each era of transformation in the news field inevitably challenges existing disciplinary structures, theoretical frameworks, knowledge systems, and discourse modes. To adapt to changing circumstances and sustain progress, journalism must remain open while preserving stability.

Drawing on the historical foundations and contemporary realities of Chinese journalism, this article argues that Marxism—particularly its contemporary development in the Chinese context—provides an overarching theoretical framework for discussing the overall transformation of contemporary Chinese journalism. At the same time, other theoretical approaches should also be incorporated where appropriate.

The realities of journalism in the digital intelligence era and the development of Chinese modernization within the news industry constitute the practical starting points for transformation, while existing scholarship, particularly in the realm of Chinese journalism, provides the intellectual foundation. Taking as unified research objects the relationships between professional and non-professional journalism, everyday life and non-routine news, and human-centered and intelligent-agent journalism constitutes the objective basis for advancing this transformation. On this foundation, the overall transformation of contemporary Chinese journalism ultimately aims to build a discipline characterized by stronger subjectivity, greater integration of universality and particularity, closer alignment between theory and practice, a balance between stability and openness, and increasingly robust interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity.

Yang Baojun is a professor from the School of Journalism at Renmin University of China. This article has been edited and excerpted from the Journal of International Communication, Issue 8, 2025.