Chin-Chuan L. and This article explores the liberating and empowering potential of social theories for China"s authoritarian-bureaucratic journalistic practices. By relating them to empirical studies, it analyzes the sociology of knowledge-cognitive interests, social positions and politico-economic contexts-of (a) liberal-pluralism, (b) the reformist Chinese ""Old Left"" of the 1980s and (c) the radical-critical Chinese ""New Left"" of the 1990s. These social theories converge on the central importance of democratizing China"s party-state, but diverge on the role of the market in this process. While liberals empower the market to foster ""negative freedom"" for journalism, radicals attack the anti-democratic tendencies of media commercialization. Among the Chinese intelligentsia, the ""New Left"" is sharply critical of both liberal-pluralism and the ""Old Left"". New democratic discourses must explain the relationships between China"s journalism and the state-market nexus in the context of globalization, thereby balancing universalistic principles with national narratives."