Globalization of Mediated Spaces: The Case of Transnational Environmentalism in China

Abstract

This study takes a network perspective on media globalization, demonstrating how transnational civil society provides linkages that circulate norms and globalize mediated spaces. Based on interviews in China with the most prominent transnational environmental NGOs, I describe their institutional position and strategies through interactions with media, other civil society groups, and the government. Supported by case study examples, I argue that this transnational network, bound together via a problem-solving logic and connecting with more localized structures, enables adaptation to the authoritarian constraints of Chinese society and, in providing global linkages, contributes to the quality and transparency of issue discourse. This holds for not only the environment but, one can speculate, other issues arenas as well.