Chinese scholars differ greatly in evaluating the current social situation as well as the overall media picture, specifying different symptoms and giving polarized diagnosis. The Southern theory presents the case for a radical criticism of the Western knowledge production but it is not without limitations of its own. This paper proposes an approach that shifts the emphasis to internal development processes within the social world rather than seeing globalization as the primary mechanism. The author argues that civic resistance should be targeted more to the authoritarian regime which deprives the citizens of their basic freedoms rather than to “American media system and the global hegemony of liberal media principles.”