Growing economies put limelight on Indian and Chinese media

Growing Chinese and Indian economies collectively are expected to account for 39 per cent of the world economy by 2025, and their combined media surge started the discussions of the Arab Media Forum yesterday.

Although no speaker was available to speak for China which has been in the international news after Google decided to withdraw from there, the magnitude of the Chinese media was in full swing, alongside well-recognised growth of Indian media. In fact, the discussions enacted the familiar debate about democratic versus controlled media models as represented in the two most populated countries in the world, overshadowing the massive business and investment shift to Asian markets following the dawn of the global financial crisis.

The morning session, titled "Asia Rising: The story of China and India", featured Andrew Malcolm, member of the editorial board of Los Angeles Times; Jonathan Fenby, China Director at the Bric research service Trusted Sources; Dilip Cherian, Consulting Partner, Perfect Relations; Chua Huck Chang, chief editorial writer, The Straits Times; Abdulla Al Madani, Academic specialist in Asian affairs, and N Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu.

Malcolm referred to "ignorant American audience" who do not pay any attention to the rest of the world even when trying to report about the outer world, while suffering from the implications of the financial crisis on media organisations. The attitude of the Asian audiences was the opposite with more continuous search for information and knowledge sources.

Fenby, on the other hand, gave an inside overview of the Chinese media. Providing that China has grown since 1968 to house 700 TV stations, 1000 radio stations, 2000 newspapers, 7000 magazines, a total of 10000 publications, and internet connectivity that reached out to rural areas and extended to 350 million users, Fenby asked how this exponential growth would work out.

He noted that the Chinese market had seen major developments in terms of liberalisation of the goods market, but not labour, capital and land.