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Transparency of Chinese media coverage became an international controversy when the COVID-19 outbreak initially emerged in Wuhan, the eventual crisis epicenter in China. Unlike studies characterizing mass media in authoritarian contexts as government mouthpieces during a crisis, this study aims to disaggregate Chinese media practices to uncover differences in when, where, and how the severity of COVID-19 was reported. We examine differences in how media institutions reported the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic in China during the pre-crisis period from 1 January 2020 to 20 January 2020 in terms of both the "vertical" or hierarchical positions of media institutions in the Chinese media ecosystem and the "horizontal" positions of media institutions' social proximity to Wuhan in terms of geographical human traffic flows. We find that the coverage of crisis severity is negatively associated with the media's social proximity to Wuhan, but the effect varies depending on the positional prominence of a news article and situation severity. Implications of the institutions' differentiated reporting strategies on future public health reporting in an authoritarian context are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much research stereotypes mass media in authoritarian contexts as mouthpieces of the ruling party, we argue that successful social media–driven activism also requires the support of mass media, even in authoritarian contexts. To investigate the roles of social media and mass media on collective mobilization, we analyzed a case in Guangzhou, China, and conducted in-depth interviews to conceptualize the interconnected relationship between social media and mass media from the perspective of resource mobilization. Findings reveal that social media facilitated the mobilization of participants by providing less fungible and timely resources at the initial stages of collective action. However, it is the more fungible and enduring resources provided by the mass media that sustain the intensity of external pressures to the government. The complementarity between social and mass media in atomized collective action in China is in essence the configuration between exclusive and monopolized resources mediated by a middle-ground discursive mode—"implied truth." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]