media - Watchdog, demagogue, trouble solver and rioter

I tipped you off a few days ago, when I disovered Liebman's study on the influence of Chinese media on the legal system in the Columbia Law Review, and I see no reason to mitigate my initial impression. The very detailed picture is a complicated one, it does not allow to reduce the conclusions to a few handy cliches, as for many of the media developments the qualification 'ambiguous' would be an understatement.
Some of Liebman's lines of thought. While the media have become more open, better, they only do so, because of the authority they derive from the one-party state. So, in stead of undermining the current regime - as is often wrongly assumed in writings about the media in China - revent media development actually strengthen the one-party state. They are certainly not consolidating the status quo: the profound changes in the Chinese society are too devastating for that. But the assumption that China might look more like 'us' as it develops, might be profoundly wrong.
As you might note, some of these conclusions fit also my own - quirky - viewpoints on China. Liebman does not see the internet as a new, more independent force as I would hope to see it. His own assumption, that the courts might follow a similar way as the media towards a more powerful and autonomous force in the society, is expectation I would not share. But then, we are all allowed to have our own dreams.