News Source Ideology: The Impact of Media Ownership Status-Asian Marxsist vs. Libertian Media

Abstract

Er, Dengdalai and Amartuvshin Sukhee

Previous studies on news sources have largely focused on usage, cases, cultural approaches, and influence, often overlooking the relationship between “source” and “medium” within the classic mass communication triad of “source– medium–audience.” This gap has served as the rationale for our study, whose findings reveal several latent patterns. This research aims to examine how media ownership status shapes news source selection through a comparative analysis of Marxist and libertarian press models.

Mongolia and China, neighboring Asian countries, provide a distinctive context due to their sharply contrasting media systems and ideological orientations. This makes them particularly valuable comparative research subjects. In this study, we selected a daily newspaper representing Mongolia’s libertarian, relatively free press, and a Chinese daily newspaper functioning as a central Marxist–statealigned organ for comparative analysis.

The findings show that source selection in media from two different systemic environments is heavily influenced by media ownership status and ideological framework. In Mongolia’s libertarian press, there is a strong tendency to preserve source diversity and balance, whereas in China’s Marxist press, state and official voices dominate, and sources are noticeably more onesided and propagandistic in orientation.

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