In the People's Republic of China are currently more than 2,000 daily and weekly newspapers printed (to the beginnings in the Empire see beginnings of Chinese journalism), there are more than 3,000 radio and television stations and over 550 publishers. The media scene has changed since the 1950s dramatically changed several times. During the years of the campaign against the rights or the Cultural Revolution, the media practically lives on the pronouncements of the Communist Party of limited diversity of the media is quantitatively as large as never before.

The media have Leninist view, the Communist Party in implementing its policies. For this reason, controlled and censored the propaganda department of the CP content of the press, as much as in the sheer quantity of publications goes. The degree to which the party of the media content in the last 20 years, was not always the same. In the late 1980s, some very liberal dailies tolerated, their editors, however, the protests at Tiananmen Square is closed. Other hand, the media also used to combat corruption within its own ranks to fight. Numerous publications are also the CP itself.

The control over the media works on the New China News Agency (Xinhua) which has a monopoly on news. In the editorial offices of the publishers, there is a party Secretariat, which monitors that the party line in the media is being implemented. The journalists have become a member of the Federation of Journalists and must be undertaken since the 1950s firm in Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong's thinking. Nevertheless, it came to several arrests by the party line unverpflichteten journalists.

The largest English-language China Daily newspaper, China Daily.

The Chinese government tries, the Internet activities of their citizens to monitor and censor content. Internet providers have to install a software obliged to keep certain websites can be blocked, even the Wikipedia has already been repeatedly target a blockade. This kind of censorship is not uniform nationwide, and also among Internet providers, there are providers who are considered more liberal than others. What technologies to monitor in detail are applied, is by nature not known to what extent the government succeeds, Internet critic to follow and to identify, is the subject of speculation. There were repeated spectacular arrests of citizens, in Internet discussion forums, political changes had called.

The People's Republic of China operates with China Radio International one of the world's largest international broadcasting services. The station produces programs in dozens of languages, including German-language program - over the short and medium wave in Europe a day to hear.

Critical reports on problems, such as the social situation of the 900 million people in rural areas about the book regards the situation of Chinese Peasants by Chen Guidi and Wu Chantao may appear in individual cases, but also quickly banned. Private publishers can be tolerated as agencies, which are missing crucial privileges (see Chinese literature).

Until 2010, the Chinese government establish 200,000 village libraries (the "Information and cultural gap between city dwellers and rural population decrease).

In 2009, China the host country of the Frankfurt Book Fair.