Abstract: Legitimacy refers to the citizens’ identity with the governance of a certain state.Before the Reform and Open Policy,modern China took the Communist Ideology as the base for its legitimacy,when the media’s fundamental mission was to beautify socialism and defame capitalism.After that,the government took political performance as the base of its legitimacy,and the market economy has induced people’s desire of being rich and aroused an awareness of rights among them.Media then should shoulder a new historic mission to satisfy the citizens’ right to know,to supervise and to express.Although the legitimacy based on political performance has made a ground for the citizens’ awareness of right and offered a historic drive for the media to transform,it depends excessively on economical performance and fails to meet the citizens’ demand of political attendance,hence becomes a crucial element to prevent the media from taking on its news mission.This paper holds that Chinese government needs to make a second transformation for its legitimacy,setting up its authority based on jurisprudence,rules,procedures and system.Only by doing this can Chinese media realize their new mission authentically and meet the demand of new age.

Key words: media, legitimacy, ideology, political performance