Routledge handbook of Chinese media 9780415520775, 9781315758350

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Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media

The study of Chinese media is a field that is growing and evolving at an exponential rate. Not only are the Chinese media a fascinating subject for analysis in their own right, but they also offer scholars and students a window to observe multi-directional flows of information, culture and communications within the contexts of globalisation and regionalisation. Moreover, the study of Chinese media provides an invaluable opportunity to test and refine the variety of communications theories that researchers have used to describe, analyse, compare and contrast systems of communications. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media is a prestigious reference work providing an overview of the study of Chinese media. Gary and Ming-yeh Rawnsley bring together an interdisciplinary perspective with contributions by an international team of renowned scholars on subjects such as television, journalism and the internet and social media. Locating Chinese media within a regional setting by focusing on ‘Greater China’ (the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities), the chapters highlight the convergence of media and platforms in the region, and emphasise the multi-directional and transnational character of media/information flows in East Asia. Contributing to the growing de-westernisation of media and communications studies, this handbook is an essential and comprehensive reference work for students of all levels and scholars in the fields of Chinese studies and media studies. Gary D. Rawnsley is a Professor of Public Diplomacy, Aberystwyth University, UK. Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley is Research Associate, Centre of Taiwan Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Associate Fellow, China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham, UK.

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Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media

Edited by Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley

First published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 selection and editorial material, Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley to be identified as author of the editorial material, and of the individual authors as authors of their contributions, has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Routledge handbook of Chinese media / edited by Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Mass media—China—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Mass media— Taiwan—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Mass media—China—Hong Kong—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 4. Mass media—China—Macau— Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Rawnsley, Gary D., editor. II. Rawnsley, Ming-Yeh T., editor. P92.C5R825 2015 302.23'0951—dc23 2014038044 ISBN: 978-0-415-52077-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-75835-0 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo and Stone Sans by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK

Contents

List of figures List of tables Notes on contributors Members of the Editorial Board Editorial note Acknowledgements Introduction Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley

viii ix x xvi xvii xviii 1

PART I

The development of the study and the structure of Chinese media 1 (Re)-Focusing on the target: reflections on a trajectory of studying the Chinese media Yuezhi Zhao

7 9

2 China, soft power and imperialism Colin Sparks

27

3 Evaluating Chinese media policy: objectives and contradictions Rogier Creemers

47

PART II

Journalism, press freedom and social mobilisation 4 Western missionaries and origins of the modern Chinese press Yuntao Zhang 5 Setting the press boundaries: the case of the Southern (Nanfang) Media Group Chujie Chen 6 Chinese investigative journalism in the twenty-first century Hugo de Burgh

65 67

79 100

v

Contents

7 From control to competition: a comparative study of the party press and popular press Hsiao-wen Lee

117

8 Press freedom in Hong Kong: interactions between state, media and society Francis L.F. Lee

131

9 Media and social mobilisation in Hong Kong Joseph M. Chan and Francis L.F. Lee 10 Citizen journalists as an empowering community for change: a case study of a Taiwanese online platform ‘PeoPo’ Chen-ling Hung

145

161

PART III

The Internet, public sphere and media culture

179

11 Politics and social media in China Lars Willnat, Lu Wei and Jason A. Martin

181

12 Online Chinese nationalism and its nationalist discourses Yiben Ma

203

13 A cyberconflict analysis of Chinese dissidents focusing on civil society, mass incidents and labour resistance Athina Karatzogianni and Andrew Robinson

217

14 Workers and peasants as historical subjects: the formation of working-class media cultures in China Wanning Sun

239

15 An emerging middle-class public sphere in China? Analysis of news media representation of ‘Self Tax Declaration’ Qian (Sarah) Gong

250

16 Expressing myself, connecting with you: Young Taiwanese females’ photographic self-portraiture on Wretch Album Yin-han Wang

266

17 Against the grain: the battle for public service broadcasting in Taiwan Chun-wei Daniel Lin

281

18 Public service television in China Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley and Chien-san Feng vi

298

Contents

PART IV

Market, production and the media industries

313

19 The changing role of copyright in China’s emergent media economy Lucy Montgomery and Xiang Ren

315

20 Gamers, state and online games Anthony Y.H. Fung

330

21 The geographical clustering of Chinese media production Michael Keane

341

22 The politics and poetics of television documentary in China Qing Cao

355

23 Contemporary Chinese historical television drama as a cultural genre: production, consumption and state power George Dawei Guo

372

24 Live television production of media events in China: the case of the Beijing Olympic Games Limin Liang

389

25 Negotiated discursive struggles in hyper-marketised and oligopolistic media system: the case of Hong Kong Charles Chi-wai Cheung

403

PART V

Chinese media and the world

425

26 Internationalisation of China’s television: history, development and new trends Junhao Hong and Youling Liu

427

27 Decoding the Chinese media in flux: American correspondents as an interpretive community Yunya Song

446

28 Chinese international broadcasting, public diplomacy and soft power Gary D. Rawnsley

460

Appendix: Chinese dynasties at a glance Chinese glossary: selected Chinese names and terms Index

476 477 483

vii

Figures

10.1 10.2 10.3 13.1 13.2 13.3 17.1 24.1 26.1 26.2

viii

The image ‘When the excavators came to the rice fields’ which was posted online and broadcast on media, causing a national debate on land policy The website of PeoPo platform (www.peopo.org/) Citizen reporters participate in a face-to-face gathering sharing opinions on local affairs Screenshot (no. 1) of artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s parody of Psy’s Gangnam Style incorporating handcuffs in his dance routine Screenshot (no. 2) of artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s parody of Psy’s Gangnam Style incorporating handcuffs in his dance routine Twitter screenshot: debating Chinese dissidents and western values on Twitter, 30 July 2012 PTS annual average television rating and market share from 1998 to 2010 Structure of CCTV Olympic reporting system Comparison of the value of China’s imported and exported television programmes, 2004–10 Comparison of the value of China’s imported and exported television dramas, 2006–10

162 168 170 222 222 223 288 393 439 439

Tables

5.1 6.1 7.1 7.2 9.1 9.2 17.1 18.1 22.1 25.1 25.2 25.3 25.4 26.1 26.2 26.3 26.4 26.5 26.6 26.7 26.8 27.1

Constituents of the Nanfang Media Group, 2012 Main vehicles of investigative journalism in China and their mottoes Ownership of Beijing newspapers selected for coverage comparison Different conditions of news coverage and their influential factors Perceived representativeness of political actors, media and social institutions Media presence of selected movement organisations Chronological overview of public service broadcasting in Taiwan, 1983–2007 The number of PSB-related papers published in Chinese journals available on Zhongguo qikan wang (www.chinaqking.com), 1994–2011 Features of television documentaries in different periods Hong Kong journalists’ views on watchdog and balanced journalism across different years Types of discourse of youth predominately represented in news reports Reports and non-report articles that predominately represented different alternative discourses of youth in Apple Daily (March 2003 to February 2004) Reports and non-report articles that predominately represented different alternative discourses of youth in Ming Pao (March 2003 to February 2004) Percentage of imported programmes among the total on selected television stations in China, 1970s–1990s Television programmes imported in China, 2006–10 Value of imported television dramas in China, 2006–10 Number of imported television drama episodes and distribution of origins, 2003–11 Chinese television programme exports, 2006–10 Chinese television drama exports, 2006–10 CCTV overseas landing, 2003–10 Overseas household audience ratings CCTV-4 and CCTV-News, 2003–10 Occurrence of newspapers and periodicals in journalistic accounts, 1979–2009

80 103 123 128 147 151 287 303 358 415 415 417 417 433 433 433 434 438 439 441 442 448

ix

Contributors

Cao, Qing is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies and currently Head of the Chinese Department in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University, UK. Dr Cao’s research centres on the transformations of the Chinese media, and mutual perceptions and representations between China and the west. He has published extensively in these areas. His recent publications include China under Western Gaze (2014) and Discourse, Politics and Media in Contemporary China (2014). Currently he is completing a British Academy supported research project that examines China’s perceptions of its place in the post-financial crisis international world. Chan, Joseph M. is Chair Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he served as a director. He is currently the Director of the Center for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research and the Universities Service Centre for China Studies. His research interest lies in the intersection of international communication, political communication and journalism studies. In addition to the books he has co-authored or co-edited, he has published numerous articles in books and international journals. He served as a Changjiang Chair Professor at Fudan University, the President of the Chinese Communication Association, and the founding chief editor of Communication & Society. Chen, Chujie is a PhD candidate in the Department of Media and Communication at the City University of Hong Kong. His research lies at the intersection of structure and agency in news production, with special attention paid to the political economy of Chinese media, sociology of (online) news, organisational studies of media innovation, and to cultural meanings of journalism. Cheung, Charles Chi-wai is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University. Recent publications include Pop Hong Kong: Reading Hong Kong Popular Culture 2000–2010 (co-edited in 2012, in Chinese) and Reading Hong Kong Popular Culture: 1970–2000 (co-edited in 2002, in Chinese). Dr Cheung’s research focuses on media power, media industries and popular culture in Hong Kong. Creemers, Rogier holds graduate degrees in Sinology and International Relations and a doctorate in law. Currently, he is a Rubicon Scholar at the University of Oxford, UK, where he researches Chinese internet law and policy. He also edits a Chinese media law database, and has published broadly on topics related to Chinese media law and legal ideology. de Burgh, Hugo is Director of the China Media Centre and Professor of Journalism in the Communications and Media Research Institute of the University of Westminster, UK. He writes x

Contributors

on investigative journalism and specialises in Chinese affairs. His recent publications include China’s Media (2014), The West You Really Don’t Know (2013, in Chinese) and China’s Environment and China’s Environment Journalists (2012). Moreover, he is Professor, PRC 985 Programme, Tsinghua University and SAFEA (National Administration for International Expertise) Endowment Professor for 2014–16. Professor de Burgh holds honorary positions at China University of Politics and Law, South-Western UPL and Shandong University. Feng, Chien-san is Professor in the Department of Journalism, National Chengchi University, Taiwan. As a political economist of communication, he has published seven books in Chinese, including Media Publicness and the Market (2012). Moreover, he has (co-)translated sixteen books from English into Chinese, including John Roemer’s For a Future of Socialism, Edwin Baker’s Media Markets and Democracy, Dan Schiller’s Theorizing Communication: A History and James Curran et al.’s Misunderstanding the Internet. Fung, Anthony Y.H. is Director and Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He obtained his PhD at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, USA. He is also a Pearl River Chair Professor at Jinan University at Guangzhou, China. His research interests and teaching focus on popular culture and cultural studies, popular music, gender and youth identity, cultural industries and policy, and new media studies. He has published widely in international journals. He has also written and edited more than ten Chinese and English books. Gong, Qian (Sarah) is Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester, UK. Dr Gong has research interests in consumer culture and advertising, political communication, journalism studies and discourse analysis. Her recent research papers have appeared in journals including Political Communication, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Geopolitics. Guo, George Dawei is Lecturer in Broadcast Media in the Media Arts Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He obtained a PhD in Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Westminster (London) in 2012. Prior to arriving in England, he lectured at the Communication University of China (Beijing) between 2002 and 2006. His main research interest lies in the history and present of global broadcasting industries. He is currently researching the influence of the BBC on China’s early TV drama productions. Hong, Junhao is Professor in the Department of Communication at State University of New York at Buffalo, USA. He is also an Affiliate in Research of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University and a Senior Research Fellow of the Center of Communication for Sustainable Social Change at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA. He received his PhD in communication from University of Texas at Austin, USA. His research interests include media and society, international communication and international politics, and impact of new media. He has published several books and numerous research articles in various international journals. Hung, Chen-ling is Associate Professor and Director at the Graduate Institute of Journalism, National Taiwan University. She worked as political reporter in the late 1990s in Taiwan’s print media and received her PhD in mass communications from Pennsylvania State University in 2004. Her research interests include citizen journalism, media policy, digital divide, indigenous xi

Contributors

communications and media globalisation. She has published over twenty journal papers and book chapters. She has also edited several volumes on indigenous communities and communications. Dr Hung is dedicated to media reform in Taiwan. Karatzogianni, Athina is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Leicester, UK. Dr Karatzogianni is the author of The Politics of Cyberconflict (2006) and Power, Conflict and Resistance (co-author Andrew Robinson, 2010); editor of Violence and War in Culture and the Media: Five Disciplinary Perspectives (2012); Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion (2012) and Cyber Conflict and Global Politics (2009). She has contributed extensively to theorising digital activism and network forms of organisation for social movements, resistance and open knowledge production. Her work can be downloaded in pre-publication open access at: http://works. bepress.com/athina_karatzogianni/. Keane, Michael is Professor, School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin University, Perth. He was previously Principal Research fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Professor Keane’s single-authored publications are China’s Television Industries (2015), Creative Industries in China: Art, Design and Media (2013), China’s New Creative Clusters: Governance, Human Capital and Regional Investment (2011) and Created in China: the Great New Leap Forward (2007). Lee, Francis L.F. is Associate Professor and Head of Graduate Division at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author/lead author of Media, Social Mobilization and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong Kong (2011), Communication, Public Opinion and Globalization in Urban China (2013) and Talk Radio, the Mainstream Press and Public Opinion in Hong Kong (2014). He is also associate editor of the Chinese Journal of Communication and Mass Communication and Society. Lee, Hsiao-wen has worked as a journalist, editor and broadcaster for major stations and publications in Taiwan. Dr Lee’s research interests are the development of multi-platform media and new technologies as well as its implementations for the second and third screen markets. This is also combined with looking at aspects of social media such as citizen journalist, new methods of distribution, public relations and editorial control related to trending. She is the author of The Popular Press and Its Public in Contemporary China (2010) and the co-author of Public Service Media in the Digital Age: International Perspectives (2013) Liang, Limin is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at the City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are with the social organisation and cultural impact of journalism and new media. Her recent research focuses on media events and media rituals in a globalised context, media and social conflicts, as well as China’s expanding international broadcasting and implications for journalism practices and public diplomacy. Her publications have appeared in Media Culture and Society, Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism and Sport in Society. Lin, Chun-wei Daniel is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan. He has a BA and MA in journalism from the National Chengchi University, Taiwan. He worked as a correspondent and presenter on the news channel of the Broadcasting Corporation of China before going to Loughborough University in the UK and completing his PhD, which examines the ways in which the expansion of public service xii

Contributors

broadcasting in Taiwan was socially defined and the cultural and social consequences of it. His areas of research include journalism, media–democracy relationships, and political economy of communication. Liu, Youling is Assistant Professor in the College of Communication and Art at Tongji University of China. Her major research interests focus on international communication and intercultural studies. She also extends her research interests to the fields of new media and new communication technology. Dr Liu received her PhD in communication from State University of New York at Buffalo, USA. Besides the research background, Dr Liu also has rich professional experience as a reporter and TV host for the mass media of both in the USA and China. Ma, Yiben is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Communication Studies, University of Leeds, UK. His thesis investigates the rise of online Chinese nationalism, its modality, discourses and dynamism, and the way it shapes the politics of contemporary Chinese nationalism. His research interests include Chinese internet, Chinese nationalism, political communications in China and critical discourse analysis. Martin, Jason A. is Assistant Professor of journalism at DePaul University, Chicago, USA. Dr Martin’s research focuses on the intersection of news, civic life, and information and communication technologies with specific attention to the use of technology for political participation and its implications for free speech law and policy. His manuscripts have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Mass Communication & Society, Journalism Studies, Mobile Media & Communication and Communication Law & Policy. Montgomery, Lucy is Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University, Australia. Dr Montgomery was trained as a China specialist at the University of Adelaide, before going to complete a PhD in media and cultural studies at Queensland University of Technology. She has a decade of experience as both a researcher and as project manager, working on major international research projects. She is particularly interested in understanding the impact of transformative technological change on intellectual property and the growth of the creative economy. She is the author of China’s Creative Industries: Copyright, Social Network Markets and the Business of Culture in a Digital Age (2010). Rawnsley, Gary D. is Professor of Public Diplomacy in the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, UK. He is also the University’s Director of International Strategy. The author or editor of over a dozen books, his research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, diplomacy and communications, and he has published extensively on propaganda, public diplomacy, psychological warfare, soft power and political communication. Moreover, he is interested in the relationship between the media and democratisation, especially in East Asia. Before joining Aberystwyth University, Gary Rawnsley taught at the universities of Nottingham and Leeds, and was the founding Dean of the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China. Rawnsley, Ming-yeh T. is Research Associate, Centre of Taiwan Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Associate Fellow, China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham. Dr Rawnsley is also Secretary-General, European Association of Taiwan Studies. She publishes widely both in Chinese and in English on media and democratisation in Taiwan, Chinese-language cinema, literature and culture. Her most recent xiii

Contributors

research projects include science communications in Taiwan and the UK and Chinese film festivals. She has written, edited and translated more than ten Chinese and English books. Ren, Xiang is Research Fellow at Australian Digital Future Institute at the University of Southern Queensland. He completed his PhD with an outstanding doctoral thesis award at Queensland University of Technology. His doctoral research looked at open and networked initiatives and the digital transformation of academic publishing in China. This followed from his over twelve years’ experience in the Chinese publishing industry as senior editor and sales director. His current research interests include digital publishing, open access scholarship, eLearning, and new media business models. He has published many research papers and articles on relevant topics. Robinson, Andrew is a freelance researcher based in the UK. A former Leverhulme Trust fellow at the University of Nottingham, he specialises in critical theory and radical politics, and is author of over twenty papers and chapters on authors such as Deleuze, Negri, Žižek, Laclau, Spivak and Virilio, and on social movements worldwide. He is co-author of Power, Conflict and Resistance in the Contemporary World (with Athina Karatzogianni, 2010). His column ‘In Theory’ appears regularly in Ceasefire web-magazine. Song, Yunya is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism, Hong Kong Baptist University. She works in the areas of international journalism, global communication, and media sociology. Her scholarship straddles English, French and Chinese cultures and media. Her research on journalism and media politics has appeared in, among other journals, International Journal of Press/Politics, International Communication Gazette, Public Relations Review and Journalism Studies. Sparks, Colin is Chair Professor of Media Studies in the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University. Prior to taking up that post, he was for many years Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster, UK, where he helped found the China Media Centre. He was a founder of the journal Media, Culture and Society. He has published extensively on several areas of media studies, including on international communication issues. He is particularly interested in media in societies which, like China, are experiencing rapid social and economic change. Sun, Wanning is Professor of Chinese Media and Cultural Studies at China Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney. She researches in a number of areas, including soft power, public diplomacy and media; and internal migration and social change in contemporary China. Her research monographs include Leaving China: Media, Migration, and Transnational Imagination (2002), Maid in China: Media, Morality and the Cultural Politics of Boundaries (2009) and Subaltern China: Rural Migrants, Media and Cultural Practices (2014). She is a member of the editorial board for Communication, Culture & Critique, Media International Australia, Asian Journal of Communication and Continuum. Wang, Yin-han holds a PhD in media and communications from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Prior to joining LSE, she studied MSc Advertising at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Her research interests are identity and media consumption, gender and issues of representation, media literacy and young people’s social and civic uses of the internet. She is currently a visiting Assistant Professor at the Institute of Communications Research at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. xiv

Contributors

Wei, Lu is Professor in the College of Media and International Culture at Zhejiang University. Prior to 2008, Professor Wei taught at Huazhong University of Science and Technology and at the University of Rhode Island, USA. His research interests include the adoption and social consequences of new media technologies. He has published articles in journals such as Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Mass Communication and Society, Information Research, Telematics and Informatics, Newspaper Research Journal and Chinese Journal of Communication and Society. Professor Wei earned his PhD in Communication from Washington State University, USA, in 2007. Willnat, Lars is Professor of Journalism at Indiana University-Bloomington, USA. Before joining Indiana University in 2009, he taught at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His teaching and research interests include media effects on political attitudes, theoretical aspects of public opinion formation, and international communication. He is author of more than fifty journal articles and book chapters and coeditor of Social Media, Culture and Politics (2014), The Global Journalist in the 21st Century (2012), Political Communication in Asia (2009) and Empirical Political Analysis: Research Methods in Political Science (2008). Zhang, Yuntao is Lecturer in International Media and Communications in the School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University, UK. Dr Zhang formerly worked as a journalist in China. She is the author of The Origins of the Modern Chinese Press (2007) and of several other articles on Chinese media and culture. She is currently researching into the cultural dimensions of new media technologies and practices in contemporary China. Zhao, Yuezhi is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Political Economy of Global Communication at the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University. She is also a Changjiang Chair Professor and the Founding Director of the Institute for Political Economy of Communication at the Communication University of China, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She has published extensively both in English and in Chinese. Her work concerns both domestic Chinese communication politics and the role of media and information technologies in the global transformations linking to China’s real and imagined rise as a major political economic power.

xv

Members of the Editorial Board

Blumler, Jay (University of Leeds, UK) Brady, Anne-Marie (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) Chang, Chin-Hwa (National Taiwan University, Taiwan) Flew, Terry (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) Gold, Thomas B. (University of California, Berkeley, USA) Guo, Zhenzhi (Tsinghua University, People’s Republic of China) Hadland, Adrian (University of Stirling, UK) Han, Dong (Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA) Heylen, Ann (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan) Ip, Iam-Chong (Hong Kong Lingnan University, Hong Kong) Klöter, Henning (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany) Lee, Chin-Chuan (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Negrine, Ralph (University of Sheffield, UK) Thomas, Kristie (University of Nottingham, UK) Tomlinson, John (Nottingham Trent University, UK)

xvi

Editorial note

This book follows the Chinese convention for Chinese names, that is, family names precede personal names (for example, Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong). However there are two exceptions: first, the names of the contemporary Chinese authors of both English-language and Chineselanguage sources follow the English convention of the personal name preceding the family name (for example, Hui Wang, Jinhua Dai). Second, if a Chinese individual has adopted a particular English name that is well known in the field, the book will use the English formation (for example, Jimmy Lai, Jackie Chan). The Chinese pinyin system is adopted for the Romanisation of Chinese names (e.g. Xi Jinping, Hu Jintao) unless the individual has already obtained a particular English spelling of the name that is well known in the field (for example, Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen). Similarly we opt for ‘Kuomintang’ (instead of ‘Guomindang’ in pinyin) because it is widely used in English literature. The Chinese pronunciation of important Chinese phrases and terms that are directly relevant to the discussion of the book are given in pinyin after the English translation. For example, southern tour (nanxun), Democracy Wall (minzhu qiang). The editors also provide a Chinese glossary at the end of the book that gives conventional English spelling, pinyin, Simplified Chinese characters (used in the PRC) and Complex Chinese characters (used in Taiwan) to minimise confusion. Finally, as many chapters refer to different ancient Chinese dynasties, the appendix ‘Chinese dynasties at a glance’ is designed to help readers easily see the timeline of China’s often complicated history.

xvii

Acknowledgements

Any edited volume incurs a series of debts, and this one is no exception. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the contributors to this volume who wrote and revised their papers to a strict deadline. We are delighted that we were able to attract to this project such a stunning assembly of academic talent from across the world, bringing to our attention the latest research on media in China. We are especially pleased that the authors embraced the idea of expanding our understanding of media beyond traditional platforms and have analysed a range of subjects that would not normally be found in a volume of this kind. We also wish to thank the members of the Editorial Board who read and commented on each chapter and provided extremely constructive feedback to the authors, often with a very quick turn-around: Jay Blumler, Anne-Marie Brady, Chin-Hwa Chang, Terry Flew, Thomas B. Gold, Zhenzhi Guo, Adrian Hadland, Dong Han, Ann Heylan, Iam-Chong Ip, Henning Klöter, Chin-Chuan Lee, Ralph Negrine, Kristie Thomas and John Tomlinson. Finally, we acknowledge the continued assistance and encouragement of the editorial team at Routledge, especially Leanne Hinves who first approached us with the invitation to edit this volume, and Helena Hurd, the editorial assistant for Asian Studies who helped us find the book’s magnificent cover photo. This is our third edited book with Routledge and we are always impressed by the enthusiasm, professionalism and, when required, the flexibility of colleagues there. The editors dedicate this volume to all media workers and journalists who risk their lives across the world to bring us the news and tell the stories that otherwise would never be heard. Journalists are increasingly the targets of violence by states and non-state actors, and too many are being kidnapped, injured or even killed in the line of duty. ‘Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations’ – George Orwell.

xviii

Introduction Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley

Shooting ‘at a target that appears easy to focus on at first sight, but is in actuality rather elusive.’ —Yuezhi Zhao (Chapter 1 this volume, describing her experience of studying the Chinese media)

In the final stages of preparing this manuscript, the publishing team at Routledge asked us to choose the image we would like to use as a cover for the book. We considered a dozen possibilities, most of which depicted satellite dishes, flickering television screens, the new CCTV building in Beijing or the giant screens in Hong Kong’s Time Square – all rather pedestrian and uninspiring choices, we thought. However, we did find one photograph that spoke to both the vision and shape of the book you are now holding in your hand, and both editors immediately concurred that this should be the front cover. Take a look at it. We see two young people – they could be Chinese – sitting in what appears to be an underground train . . . where? Hong Kong? Singapore? Shanghai? Taipei? London, perhaps? The girl is absorbed in her mobile telephone, the boy sitting beside her is focused on his tablet. They may be reading the news, updating their Facebook status, downloading music, finding a restaurant for dinner, chatting on weibo or playing games. For the editors, this image captured instantly the transforming landscape of Chinese media and communications: a 24/7 information environment defined by the convergence of platforms, multiple methods of vertical and horizontal communication, and the overwhelming sense that one can never be out of contact with friends or out of touch with the world. Technology has shattered the boundaries between personal and mass communications, private and public space, news and entertainment, culture and information, producer and consumer. It has destroyed the temporal and spatial constraints that in the past defined the structure and meaning of our day. Our lives – our friends, our diaries, our memories in photographs, our means of amusement and distraction – are now available in one handy package and accompany us everywhere. Where once we could only ‘download’, we are all now encouraged to ‘upload’; just as soon as we got used to talking about ‘blogs’, along come ‘tweets’; Youtube users are now able to integrate their films with their Facebook accounts; we are coming to terms with the fact that clouds are no longer just those white fluffy things that float above us in the sky; and we are learning a brand new jargon of 4G, ‘apps’ and ‘android technology’.

Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley

Having surrendered to this new landscape, the editors – one obsessive Tweeter and one hardened player of Candy Crush – realised that the traditional approach to collecting and organising essays on the media had been rendered redundant. We could not include separate sections for print, television and film, for the convergence of platforms has made such distinctions obsolete. We refused to concede to fashion and label one section ‘New Media’: when do new media stop being new? For the generation who grew to adolescence after the 1990s, there is nothing new about the internet and social media. ‘New media’ is a tired classification used among the generations, including the editors, who can recall the dark times before the internet and email. Moreover, studies of journalism, culture, information and entertainment can no longer treat the ‘new media’ as separate categories, a sideshow, when journalists now blog, tweet and broadcast through the internet (how can media studies departments still justify delivering separate journalism and new media degrees?); and when new networks are choosing to upload major drama series made exclusively for the internet, turning their backs on more conventional methods of broadcasting (of course we’re thinking here of Netflix and the massive global hit drama series, House of Cards). Neither could we group the chapters according to geographical focus, for space and time have far less meaning now than they did a generation ago. The rapid development of new communications technologies and their almost immediate adoption by users (as recently as 2013 a Chinese student said to one of the editors, ‘You still use Whatsapp? That is so old!’) shapes and is shaped by equally transformative processes in politics, economics and culture. Globalisation and communication can no longer be analysed as distinct creatures; and this dense interconnected and relational environment generates its own logic and new challenges – for users, producers and governments – that were unthinkable only a decade before this book appeared. Globalisation and the new communications landscape also help us to understand the necessity of analysing multiple definitions of ‘China’ and ‘Chinese’. In this book we recognise China as a distinct nation-state that is officially called the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Our use of the term ‘Chinese’ in the title of the book refers to a culture and civilisation that is not tied to any particular territorial or political unit. It broadens the focus, allows for a more inclusive approach and permits our fellow contributors to discuss not only the PRC, but also Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as the regional and global flows of communications and cultures. Thus we are concerned with three societies which adopt very different perspectives on what the media can and should do, and how they can and should operate. Rogier Creemers in Chapter 3 notes that this debate is particularly pronounced in the PRC where the policy environment and the governance of the media are designed to help the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) maintain its own position, namely ‘monopolising the public debate within the Chinese territory’. This extends to the production of documentaries and historical dramas (Cao and Guo in chapters 22 and 23, respectively) in which continued government supervision has provoked the cultural industries into adopting a cautious approach to creating programmes. Hong Kong’s media are facing a set of unique challenges that reflect the politically guarded nature of news journalism (encouraging a growing culture of self-censorship among reporters) framed by the territory’s peculiar position within the PRC’s orbit. Yet Taiwan too, often labelled the ‘first Chinese democracy’ (Chao and Myers 1998), is confronting its own difficulties as the media there continue to negotiate and renegotiate their roles and responsibilities in a highly polarised democratic society. All three Chinese societies are coming to terms with the demands of market forces and an under-researched claim that audiences thirst for ever more sensationalist news, gossip and scandal. The similarities and differences experienced by the media and their consumers in the PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan – and their interactions with each other and the rest of the region and the world – validate Daya Thussu’s observation: the ‘global media landscape’, he noted, is 2

Introduction

now ‘multicultural, multilingual, and multinational. Digital communication technologies in broadcasting and broadband have given viewers in many countries the ability to access simultaneously a vast array of local, national, regional and international’ media products (Thussu 2014: 8). Emerging from this terrain of cross-national flows of communication, entertainment and news that breaches the personal and the public and is oblivious to considerations of time and space, is a complex, non-linear evolution of media processes, industries and agencies that erode further the increasingly fragile partitions between society, culture, economics and politics. These are issues discussed in Part I of this volume in which Yuezhi Zhao, Colin Sparks and Rogier Creemers reflect on the ‘state of the field’ from national and international perspectives. They identify the principal themes, questions and concerns that drive the subsequent chapters and engage with Chinese media on multiple disciplinary and geographical levels. The discussions in Part I embed the volume in a discourse of transformation – of the location and exercise of global power, in the nature of capitalism, and in Chinese and global media spaces. At the forefront in Part I, and in Part II which is concerned with varying understandings of, and practices in, journalism, are questions about media economy and shifting ideological priorities; the relationship between state, media and society; accountability, social mobilisation and empowerment; and the laws and regulatory frameworks and processes that govern media architectures and practices. In a novel approach to communications, Chapter 20 by Anthony Y.H. Fung on online gaming reveals the challenges facing the Chinese government in constructing appropriate frameworks to regulate a completely new landscape. The levels of popular participation and interactivity involved in gaming have provoked government authorities, finding themselves with little jurisdiction in the game environment, to reconsider their relationship with the cultural industries; while at the same time opening new opportunities for online participants to take control and shape their own virtual worlds. This represents a unique and unprecedented form of negotiation between government and civil society in China. Meanwhile, Joseph M. Chan and Francis L.F. Lee in Chapter 9 remind us of the way the media – and especially new media technologies – have played an essential role in the rise of social movements in Hong Kong. This is of course not limited to Hong Kong: in Why It’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere (2013), Paul Mason reflected on the global wave of protest and revolution. The book includes the so-called ‘Arab Spring’, the ‘Occupy movement’, and riots in Athens and London, and documents how social media have both encouraged and facilitated popular mobilisation throughout the world. Mason quotes one activist who explained her use of the social media during meetings and captured succinctly their democratic benefits: ‘We use Twitter to expand the room’ (Mason 2013: 45). Since the landmark protests of 1 July 2003 when the conversation about Hong Kong’s future expanded to the 500,000 participants who marched to force the government to postpone a controversial national security bill, we have observed frequent protest activity there, including the annual vigil in memory of the victims of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. We have witnessed a similar trend in Taiwan where, following the occupation (assisted by the mobilisation power of social media) of the legislature by the so-called Sunflower Movement in the spring of 2014, the number of demonstrations involving people from all walks of life and political persuasions, concerned about an expanding range of issues, have proliferated (e.g. Cole 2014). The themes of mobilisation and empowerment are explored further by the contributors in Part III who explore the formation and expression of particular political, social and economic identities. The internet, social media and the adoption of public service broadcasting (PSB) models have modified both the structure of, and popular participation in, the public sphere. But there 3

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are limits: in Taiwan, as Chun-wei Daniel Lin notes in Chapter 17, the (re)constitution of the public sphere has revolved around PSB. Although taking reference from the experience of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), debates about PSB in Taiwan have revealed less a commitment to its ideals than a contest between competing elites, with the public largely excluded from debates. This connects to Chapter 18 by Rawnsley and Feng on the development of PSB in China and Cheung’s discussion on the lack of PSB in Hong Kong in Chapter 25. While Cheung points out that ‘without a strong public media tradition, the Hong Kong media are hyper-marketised’, Rawnsley and Feng concur with Raymond Williams (1976: 130): ‘In one way the basic choice is between control and freedom, but in actual terms it is more often a choice between a measure of control and a measure of freedom, and the substantial argument is about how these can be combined.’ In Part III our contributors evaluate how the boundaries between the personal and private have adjusted to new communications technologies, and one example is the curious development of the ‘selfie’ among young Taiwanese females (Chapter 16 by Wang). It is good to remind ourselves that prior to the word ‘selfie’ entering the Oxford English Dictionary, and long before no celebrity, prime minister or president could consider themselves either authentic or popular (populist?) until they had tweeted a photograph of themselves taken on their own mobile phone, young people throughout Greater China were documenting their everyday lives through digital self-portraiture. Is this another example of the global flow of culture from east to west, confounding the advocates of the old-fashioned ‘cultural imperialism’ thesis? And how does this global flow connect with frameworks that approach the impact of online nationalism and the way Chinese view themselves and are viewed by global audiences (Ma in Chapter 12), and China’s growing commitment to exercising ‘soft power’ among its neighbours and the world (Sparks in Chapter 2 and Gary D. Rawnsley in Chapter 28)? Selfies, as in the other examples identified by the chapters in Part III, confirm that it is no longer possible to mark a clear distinction between producer and consumer, an issue that is again addressed in Parts II and III when the phenomenon of citizen journalism is considered as a supplement to (rather than replacement of) mainstream professional news reporting. This expansion of citizen journalism, as well as the growth in popular participation and intervention in news processes, is of course a product of evolving communications technologies, but is also partly explained by an apparent decline across the Chinese world in the quality of mainstream journalism via the pressures of marketisation and commercialism. This is certainly the case in Taiwan where, as Chen-ling Hung notes in Chapter 10, ‘citizen journalism has emerged at a time of widespread distrust of the sensational and commercial media’. The development of the ‘PeoPo’ platform in Taiwan has occurred alongside the evolution of PSB, and it is not a coincidence that PeoPo was created by Taiwan’s Public Television Service (PTS). This symbiosis has encouraged a new form of democratic participation in Taiwan’s media, but given the small audience enjoyed by PTS, is it making any real difference? Or are the converted merely preaching to the choir? The theme of marketisation runs through Part IV in which our contributors use a range of examples – including China’s evolving copyright culture, online gaming (a very recent and welcome addition to media studies), the ‘clustering’ of Chinese media production, and specific case studies of genres and events – to consider the interactions of Chinese cultural and media industries, free markets and issues of global governance. In Chapter 25 by Charles Chi-wai Cheung we learn how market forces help define the powerful and the powerless in Hong Kong. Using representations of youth as the focal point for his discussion, Cheung not only helps us to understand media representations of young people and their issues in Hong Kong, but also how youth groups and groups acting on their behalf engage in a form of resistance to disrupt 4

Introduction

mainstream representations. So the chapter also brings to our attention questions of visibility and the way media representation can decide who is deemed important, legitimate and authoritative. This connects with the discussions by Athina Karatzogianni and Andrew Robinson (on dissidents in China in Chapter 13), Wanning Sun (on the working classes in Chapter 14) and Qian (Sarah) Gong (on the salaried and lower middle classes in Chapter 15). We move beyond the region in Part V to analyse the global dimension of Chinese media. Our contributors discuss the way that China, broadly defined, is seen through foreign eyes and how the media help to project the particularly favourable image identified by the government in Beijing as a way of changing the global conversation about China. So Yunya Song in Chapter 27 evaluates how American journalists have ‘decoded’ China and Chinese media reports to narrate the incredible changes that have taken place in the country since the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s. This then feeds into Chapter 28 by Gary D. Rawnsley on China’s public diplomacy and ‘soft power’ in which he argues that China’s strategy of global engagement through its growing international presence has been determined less by clear foreign policy or diplomatic objectives, and more to correct what Beijing considers a distorted and inaccurate picture of China in foreign media. The interconnected nature of the global media space, highlighted in Chapter 26 by Junhao Hong and Youling Liu who discuss the interactions of the Chinese media industries with their foreign counterparts, has given rise to a most curious situation: the world is watching China watching the world watching China. Such is the complexity of the modern technologically driven international space, but it also demonstrates the capacity of the media to hold a mirror to themselves and reflect back to their own domestic audiences a view that may be a little more unpalatable than desired. In 2008, of course, the world was watching China live when Beijing hosted the Olympic Games. This exercise in soft power, discussed by Limin Liang in Chapter 24 as a ‘media event’, has been described as both China’s ‘coming out party’ (Leibold 2010) and a ‘campaign of mass distraction’ (Brady 2009), demonstrating that in discussing ‘soft power’ we have to remember that power lies not with the source of the message, but with the audience; for, as Song reminds us in Chapter 27, the audience can decide whether and how to receive, interpret and act upon particular messages. This is also addressed on a local level in Chapter 23 by George Dawei Guo who calls for the return of ‘audiences’ to studies of Chinese television drama. How viewers receive the official representation of Chinese history – in fiction or in documentaries (Cao in Chapter 22) will determine whether or not the government’s objective to create a new nationalist discourse (discussed by Yiben Ma in Chapter 12) will be successful. History has long proved a successful theme in the national propaganda of any country. China has a particularly long and complex historical narrative from which to draw its communications capacity (Rawnsley and Rawnsley 2010); and both Hong Kong and Taiwan are now constructing their own historical narratives that may define the way they see themselves and how they are seen by the world. We hope this book confirms what the authors have long known: that studying the Chinese media – in the PRC, Taiwan and Hong Kong – is a complex, exciting and challenging endeavour, but one which pays dividends in understanding how the media landscape is both an agent and an object of transformations taking place there. All three societies are engaged in intricate and sometimes difficult processes of change that affect their politics, culture, society and relationships with the world beyond their borders. Our contributors have adopted unique approaches and case studies that we hope will challenge the conventional methods of analysing not only the Chinese media, but the media in a more global and comparative perspective. We expect that the discussions here will raise more questions and issues; and we know full well that, because of the speed at which these societies are changing and communications technologies are 5

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developing, the specific data presented will soon be out of date, though the frameworks, perspectives and insights offered here will remain relevant. At that point, we hope that a second volume may address the new Chinese media landscape now evolving before our eyes.

References Brady, A.M. (2009) ‘The Beijing Olympics as a campaign of mass distraction’, China Quarterly 197(March): 1–224. Chao, L. and Myers, R.H. (1998) The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cole, M. (2014) ‘Was Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement successful?’, The Diplomat, 1 July. Available online http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/was-taiwans-sunflower-movement-successful/ (accessed 4 August 2014). Leibold, J. (2010) ‘The Beijing Olympics and China’s conflicted national form’, China Journal 63(January): 1–24. Mason, P. (2013) Why It’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions, London: Verso. Rawnsley, G.D. and Rawnsley, M.Y.T. (eds) (2010) Global Chinese Cinema: The Culture and Politics of Hero, London: Routledge. Thussu, D. (2014) De-Americanizing Soft Power Discourse? Los Angeles, CA: USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School and Figueroa Press. Williams, R. (1976) Communications, 3rd edn, London: Penguin.

6

Part I

The development of the study and the structure of Chinese media

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1 (Re)-Focusing on the target Reflections on a trajectory of studying the Chinese media1 Yuezhi Zhao

In the context of China’s rapid transformation in a turbulent global system since the late 1970s, to study the Chinese media is to shoot at a target that appears easy to focus on at first sight, but is in actuality rather elusive. On the surface, the target appears static as there has not been any radical transformation in the basic structure of the Chinese media system after more than thirty years of reform. Upon closer examination, however, the target has both undergone dramatic mutations in its shape and shed much of its original colour. Moreover, in the context of a highly unstable and rapidly evolving global order, the target has not only repeatedly defied conventional expectations in terms of the direction of its movement, but also is realigning its geopolitical relations with other objects and streams of flow in the global media universe. Which direction to look at? What does the target look like at a particular moment? What lenses to use and how to aim? What kind of shooting guns do we have in hand and are they adequate for the purpose? No less important, isn’t it the case that the shape and colour of the target, our ways of approaching it, even the very language we use to define and describe it, very much depends on who we are and where we stand as scholars? Finally, beyond the imperative of surviving the academic curse of publishing or perishing, what is this analysis for? Rather than writing a conventional chapter on a specific topic, I would like to take this opportunity to re-examine my own endeavour in this adventure of shooting at a changing target. In doing so, I hope to exercise intellectual self-reflectivity and discuss both the substantive and methodological issues involved in studying the Chinese media. Although I will inevitably discuss many of my own publications, I must stress at the outset that this is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of my own work, let alone a review of the state of the field – which, after all, is an objective of this handbook.

Media, market and democracy in China: the power of existing frameworks Born in China a year before the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, I received my secondary education during the transition years between the Mao era and the reform era (1975–80), and completed my undergraduate education in journalism at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute (now the Communication University of China) in 1984. After finishing graduate studies in communication at Simon Fraser University in Canada from 1986 to 1996, I had the privilege 9

Yuezhi Zhao

to pursue research in the field first at the University of California, San Diego, from 1997 to 2000, and since then at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Starting from the mid-1990s, I have had the opportunity to visit China frequently to conduct field research and to participate in a wide range of scholarly activities, from teaching intensive graduate seminars to giving guest lectures and participating at conferences. By the time this particular volume appears, it will be more than twenty years since I decided to study China’s post-Mao media transformation for my doctoral dissertation, which was published as Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and Bottom Line (Zhao 1998). I did not intend to write my dissertation on the Chinese media to begin with. With a plan to return to China to teach after my graduate studies in Canada, I was eager to find out what the western media system is really about, in particular how it claims and practises ‘objectivity’, in contrast to the Chinese media system’s self-proclaimed and (by then) much-challenged partisan stand, instrumentalist mentality and propagandist mission. By the time I finished my MA work on journalistic objectivity and started my doctoral programme in autumn 1989, the dominant narrative about China’s media reform process, that is, the struggle for greater freedom and autonomy by established journalists and liberal intellectuals, had come to an abrupt end with the 4 June crackdown that year. Realising that even the possibility of going back to China to pursue fieldwork could no longer be taken for granted, I spent the first few years of my doctoral programme doing further research on the ethos and practices of journalistic objectivity and issues of media and democracy in the Anglo-American context. This led to the co-authored book, Sustaining Democracy? Journalism and the Politics of Objectivity (Hackett and Zhao 1998). This volume not only deconstructs and demystifies journalistic objectivity as a Foucauldian knowledge–power regime that is deeply embedded both in the political economy and everyday practices of AngloAmerican media, but also depicts what we call the ‘regime of objectivity’, along with its underpinning political economic structure and ideological framework, that is, capitalism and liberal democracy, as in deep crisis. This work had an enduring impact on my own subsequent approach to studying the Chinese media. Just as we all use an ‘other’ to construct the self, we presume certain knowledge of the western, and to be more precise, Anglo-American media in studying the Chinese media. My critique of the Anglo-American media did not result in a blind endorsement of the Chinese media system; however, it does mean that I treated liberal justifications of the Anglo-American media model as an ‘ideology exhausted’ (Hackett and Zhao 1998: 180), and I refused to simply accept the then prevailing ‘end of history’ thesis by using liberal press concepts as taken-forgranted normative standards in analysing the Chinese media. These justifications include the liberal notion of press freedom, the watchdog role of the press, the notion of the press as an information smorgasbord providing people with diverse viewpoints and neutral, non-ideological and apolitical information for rational individual decision making in a democratic polity, the notion of the press as an eyewitness on behalf of the public and, above all, the notion of consumer sovereignty, that is, ‘the media best serve society when market mechanisms are unleashed from regulatory constraints, so that the media’s programming reflects the tastes and preferences of their audiences’ (Hackett and Zhao 1998: 186). I had armed myself with the arguments in Sustaining Democracy? when I recast my gaze on the Chinese media in early 1994. The year 1992 marked a turning point in China’s reform history when Deng Xiaoping’s ‘southern tour’ (nanxun) spearheaded the acceleration of marketoriented development of the Chinese political economy in the post-1989 era. As part and parcel of this process, China’s media reform process took a dramatic turn towards commercialisation and market-driven transformation. So, by mid-1994, when it was time for me to finalise my doctoral dissertation topic and when it was clear that returning to China to do research was 10

(Re)-Focusing: studying the Chinese media

not a problem, I felt I had a compelling new story to tell: commercialisation under party control, or the intertwined state and market dynamic in shaping the structure and content of the Chinese media. I had a unique perspective from which to tell the story as well: while I was aware of the modernisation theory-inspired perspective about the liberalising impact of market forces, I could not help but be influenced by the critical perspective I have developed through my study of the regime of journalistic objectivity in the Anglo-American media and my critique of the class bias of an advertising-supported and market-driven media system. Critical media scholarship on post-communist media transitions elsewhere, especially Slavko Splichal’s timely book, Media Beyond Socialism: Theory and Practice in East-Central Europe (Splichal 1994), also emboldened me to go beyond the dominant paradigm of ‘transitology’. Thus, while I described the positive changes brought by state-directed media commercialisation and documented in great detail how the introduction of market forces in the Chinese media had ‘made some parts of the system more responsive to readers and audiences’ and ‘modified the elitism of media professionals and given rise to populist sensibilities’ (Zhao 1998: 182), I had no hesitation in analysing the problematic dimensions of media commercialisation. These include the disturbing fusion of state and market power in various forms of journalistic corruption, the social biases of the market as a new mechanism of media control, as well as ‘evidence of reification of the market in much of the literature advocating commercialisation of the Chinese news media’ (Zhao 1998: 181). Thus, it is not fair to say that I only critique the market, not the state, which had become the most common way that domestic Chinese students, who barely had any chance to read my work in English and may have learned my work at second-hand, challenged me when I lectured in China in the first decade of the new century. Among other reasons, such an understanding was clearly caught in a conceptual framework that espouses a simplistic state versus market dichotomy. To be sure, at the time of my dissertation work my own reading of the western critical political economy literature was rather media-centric. For example, I had not read Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation (Polanyi 1944/1957) which offered a powerful analysis of the indispensability of state intervention, even state violence, in establishing a capitalist market economy. Indeed, as Radhika Desai put it well in a recent book, even though ‘the bourgeoisie could not do without the state’, ‘opposition between politics and economics and between markets and states have critical ideological functions in capitalist society’ (2013: 29). In a post-Mao China where the most famous neoliberal doctrine complains how the state’s ‘visible foot’ has stampeded the proper function of the market’s ‘invisible hand’, I would now go so far as to argue that such a dichotomy serves an even more powerful ideological function for the rising ‘new bourgeoisie’. Still, my basic critical political economy of communication learning at the time of my dissertation work had led me to conceptualise state and market as mutually constitutive mechanisms of power and allowed me to see how the media commercialisation process in China was driven by the state from the very onset, just as it was the post-Mao Chinese state which decided to install market relations in the broad Chinese political economy in the first place. Nor was I so naive that I was unable to make a distinction in media criticisms within the western and Chinese contexts by blindly following the calls of western critical scholars and applying the critical framework to China. I questioned any simple historical linearity in understanding China’s transformation and I was adamant in refuting the dominant liberal framework on the relationship between capitalism and democracy: While some people still believe that China’s capitalist revolution will eventually lead to a democratic political system, there is no necessary relationship between capitalism and political democracy even though capitalism and liberal democracy have been ideologically and historically fused together in the West. Indeed, there is a real possibly that global capitalism 11

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will become increasingly authoritarian. Although the current hegemony of neoliberalism makes it difficult to imagine and discuss alternatives, capitalism is not the only possible future for humanity. (Zhao 1998: 188) While I was not persuaded by criticisms against my 1998 book on the basis of a ‘state versus market’ dichotomy or from a neoliberal market fundamentalist perspective, in retrospect this book has omissions and blind spots. First, although my education in critical media scholarship in Canada had led me to be wary of any assumption of a necessary linkage between marketisation and democratisation, I could not help but be influenced by the prevailing neoliberal intellectual currents of the 1980s that had begun to sweep across east and west alike. This was the moment of the death of the ‘Third World Project’ (Prashad 2008) and the disintegration of the struggle for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). Within the academy, this was the moment of the decline of critical political economic analysis, and the ascendency of postmodernism and cultural studies. At Simon Fraser University where I received my graduate education, not only had Dallas Smythe, a pioneering figure in the critical political economy tradition, retired and was no longer teaching any graduate course, but also the very first advice I got from a fellow Chinese student was to avoid Smythe altogether because he had a leftist perspective on the Chinese Cultural Revolution. As a matter of fact, I did not have any political economy class in my MA and PhD transcripts. At the same time, I had not been able to fully dispose of the intellectual and ideological baggage I carried from China, with its heavy load of the intertwined elitist ‘New Enlightenment’ intellectual consciousness and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) official ‘reform consensus’ of the early 1980s. Although there was the ‘reformer versus hardliners’ division within the Chinese political field in the 1980s, and I had come to note the coexistence of reform Marxist, democratic, neo-authoritarian and technocratic tendencies within the broad reformist intellectual field after the mid-1980s (Zhao 1998: 42), overall there existed in the 1980s a ‘highly unified historical and cultural consciousness’ in the Chinese intellectual field (He 2010: 5). Humanistic scholars were at the forefront of articulating this new consciousness which held a historical nihilist perspective on the Chinese Communist revolution and the entire Mao era and constructed the post-Mao era as a second May Fourth period of Chinese Enlightenment (in an analogy to the western Enlightenment that had brought the west out of its medieval Dark Ages). In this perspective, the Communist revolution and the Mao-era attempt to build socialism represents a dark chapter of Chinese history. Specifically, it brought a violent disruption to China’s search for modernity and its integration with the modern world, the first attempt having culminated with the May Fourth Movement (wu si yundong) of 1919. Fortunately, with the death of Mao in 1976 and the launching of the reform process in 1978, China was to enter an era of new enlightenment, presumably following the old one of the May Fourth period. This, as He Guimei contended, is ‘one of the biggest “myths” constructed by the intellectual circles of the 1980s’ (2010: 18). Through this myth, the process of reform and openness to the global capitalist market by post-revolutionary China, which as a third world country attempted to break away from the Cold War geopolitical blockage and developmental impasse, was described as a process whereby China as a traditional empire suddenly awoke from self-imposed isolation and joined the world in the process of modernisation (He 2010: 18). This new consciousness bid farewell to revolution and mobilised the language of humanism to criticise the Maoist class struggle discourse and the socialist vision. Concurrently, it embraced the grand vision of modernisation – neither as a ‘theory’ nor a ‘school of thought’, but as ‘a matter of historical fact itself’ (He 2010: 278). Thus, as Jing Wang pointed out, although the utopian vision of modernity embedded in this new consciousness was in the 12

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end ‘modernity on paper, not in reality’ because it failed to acknowledge the necessary unsavoury process of modernisation, elite intellectuals, who assumed themselves a vanguard role in China’s modernisation project, ‘took for granted that their interpretation of the modern . . . did a tremendous service to the program of modernisation’ (Wang 1996: 55). Moreover, this ‘new enlightenment’ intellectual consciousness emerged both in tandem and tension with the official modernisation-centred and market-oriented ‘reform consensus’ forged by Deng Xiaoping. This ‘reform consensus’ does not abandon socialism in principle. Nor does it negate the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist revolution. Nevertheless, it was built around an ideological campaign against the ultra-leftism of the Cultural Revolution and the repudiation of the Mao-era class struggle discourse. This reform consensus was consolidated not only through the top-down process of the ‘truth criteria’ debate launched by the official newspaper Guangming Daily in May 1978, but also through Deng’s eventual suppression of the more radical bottomup Democracy Wall (minzhu qiang) movement of 1978–79. Spearheaded by a wide range of critical voices that aimed to reflect upon the Mao era, especially the Cultural Revolution, movement activists had mobilised both ‘big character posters’ (da zi bao) and unofficial publications – called ‘people’s publications’ (minjian kanwu) – for the expression of popular ideas on the directions of China’s post-Mao transformation, including the fulfilment of the promise to build a socialist democracy or people’s democracy in China. As is well known, the movement got its name for the big character posters mounted on a wall in Beijing’s Xidan district. To be sure, I was intuitively critical of the manifestations of the ‘new enlightenment’ consciousness in the Chinese media reform literature. Thus, in my assessment of the theoretical arguments of media reformers, I exposed the limits of the press reform discourse as advocated by reformist liberal media scholars and journalists of the 1980s, noting how ‘this emerging democratic discourse was burdened with potential contradictions and inconsistencies’ (Zhao 1998: 42). Specifically, in addition to critiquing their blind trust in the potential of the market in liberating them from party-state control, I pointed out that ‘many reformers who took part in the pro-democracy movement are neo-authoritarians and technocrats’ and that ‘there is a fundamental gap between these reformers, many of whom are within the party, and grass-root elements’ (Zhao 1998: 43). For example, I discussed how the press reformers’ apparent ‘democratic sensibilities often intermingle with elitist sensibilities’, as in the case of former People’s Daily chief editor turned press freedom advocate Hu Jiwei. There was clearly a tension between Hu’s argument for ‘press freedom for all the people’ and his imagined ideal newspapers of the future, established and run by entrepreneurs who are at the same time politicians or have the power to influence politicians (Zhao 1998: 42). However, it was a sure sign of the double hegemony of the elitist ‘new enlightenment’ intellectual discourse and the Dengist official ‘reform consensus’ that I failed to make any reference to the 1978–79 Democracy Wall movement and the flourishing ‘people’s publications’ in my historical account of post-Mao media transformation in my 1998 book. The ideological power of the elitist intellectual and official discourses in erasing historical memory and in suppressing counterintuitive empirical evidence in my writing of the post-Mao media reform narrative became all the more astonishing in retrospect when I realised that I was already a university student in Beijing by the autumn of 1980 to witness the last attempts to eradicate the unofficial publications of the Democracy Wall movement. It was only after I ventured beyond media-centrism to read a Modern China article by Lei Guang (1996) on the conceptual changes in China’s democracy movement from 1978/79 to 1989, and how the Democracy Wall era’s more diverse concepts of democracy, including a more grassroots-based, egalitarian, participatory and welfarist-oriented notion of socialist democracy had been replaced by an elitist and liberal notion of democracy by 1989 that I realised how I had been blinded by the shared elitism and vanguardism of both 13

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the dominant Chinese intellectual and official discourses. Grateful that my book’s generous reviewers had not faulted me for this omission, I rushed to address the conceptual and empirical oversights of my 1998 book in an article entitled ‘Media and elusive democracy in China’ (Zhao 2001) which, among other things, included a whole section on the Democracy Wall movement and its implications for understanding the theories and practices of media and democracy in China. Moreover, even though one of my 1998 book manuscript’s reviewers had raised a point about my lack of attention to the external dimension of China’s reform, including the role of transnational advertising in the commercialisation of the Chinese media, my inadequate grasp of the wider global political economy meant that I was not able to comprehend the broad geopolitical and conceptual issues this comment had raised. As a result, the book failed to adequately address the ‘openness’ part of China’s post-Mao transformation and its implications for Chinese media and its communication politics. In fact, even though ‘openness’ had always gone hand in hand with ‘reform’ and I was even selected by the Chinese education system to be an agent of this very process of ‘openness’ itself (I won one of the government scholarships to pursue graduate studies abroad), like many other Chinese scholars of my generation I was caught in a form of ‘methodological nationalism’ that views China’s reform as an internal process. After all, the nation-state is the taken-for-granted unit of analysis and it is commonly held to be the ‘“container” of political rights and democratic accountability’ in the dominant liberal framework (Zhao and Hackett 2005: 5). As a further manifestation of the double blind spots of the above-discussed intellectual currents in the east and west in the 1980s, I was not able to grasp the pivotal role of the Cold War geopolitical architecture in shaping China’s domestic and foreign policy options, let alone the significance of China’s reinsertion into the ‘new international division of labor’ (Hung 2009). Specifically, I was not able to see the articulations between China’s ‘reform and openness’ and a concurrent neoliberal revolution at the global scale, a development that would be later made strikingly clear by David Harvey in his A Brief History of Neoliberalism, which has a jacket cover image that juxtaposes the portraits of Ronald Reagan, Deng Xiaoping, Augusto Pinochet and Margaret Thatcher (Harvey 2005). To be sure, as Harvey pointed out, ‘the uneven geographical development of neoliberalism on the world stage’ had been a ‘very complex process entailing multiple determinations and not a little chaos and confusion’ (2005: 9). Moreover, although ‘the grim reach of US imperial power might lie behind the rapid proliferation of neoliberal state forms through the world from the mid-1970s onward’, it was not a case of the USA having ‘forced China in 1978 to set out on a path of liberalisation’ (Harvey 2005: 9). Rather, ‘the reforms just happened to coincide . . . with the turn to neoliberal solutions in Britain and the United States’ (Harvey 2005: 120). Nevertheless, my lack of an adequate critical world historical perspective had led me to neglect the Chinese media reform process’s complex articulations with the ongoing global neoliberal transformation. Such dimensions started with the enduring impact of the western media and the liberal democratic ideology, including the liberal press theory, in framing China’s ongoing transformation. Indeed, as I would later recognise, the direct impact of US media on China’s developing television industry could be traced back as early as Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, when the ‘professional and technological sophistication’ of US television networks that transmitted live satellite reports of Nixon’s visit back to US audiences left a powerful ‘demonstrative impact’ on their Chinese hosts. Thus, ‘[I]f it was the Soviet bloc that had helped introduced television to China, it was through US television that the Chinese television industry saw an image of its future’ (Zhao and Guo 2005: 523). During the early reform era, of course, the intersecting power of changing global geopolitics and western media was most dramatically illustrated by the pivotal role of Gorbachev’s visit to Beijing in the middle of the 14

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1989 pro-democracy movement and the prominent role of western media – with US television networks as its more powerful outlets – in framing and shaping the unfolding events of 1989. Not to be neglected are also the role of transnational advertising in the initial commercialisation of the Chinese media system and the promotion of China’s consumer revolution; and the revealing and even counterintuitive fact that the very first US–China business joint venture was actually established in the very unlikely area of the print media industry, an industry that even today is not officially open for foreign investment. As I documented in great detail in subsequent studies (Zhao 2003a, 2008), this joint venture was established as early as March 1980, between a Chinese state publishing entity and the Boston-based International Data Group (IDG), to publish a Chinese version of IDG’s flagship publication, Computerworld (Zhao 2008: 154–6). This event marked a pivotal intersection of what Dan Schiller (2008) calls digital capitalism’s two poles of growth: China and information technology. In 2000, I had the privilege to be invited by Dan Schiller to work with him on an article entitled ‘Dances with wolves? China’s integration into digital capitalism’ (Zhao and Schiller 2001): from then on, to study the Chinese media was no longer an internal Chinese affair for me. The nation-state-centric framework has proved inadequate. Similarly, I had realised that it was imperative to move beyond a narrow focus on journalism.

The ‘democracy question’ in hindsight: coming to terms with the global ideological air of the time Just as I had not been able to adequately locate China’s media reform within the broad global political economy, I was not self-reflective enough of the global ideological air – that of third wave democratisation – in my 1998 book. However, this came to me intuitively soon after while attending the ‘Democratisation and Mass Media: Comparative Perspective from Europe and Asia’ colloquium in April 2001. This was the academic venue that had provided me with a platform to write the ‘Media and elusive democracy in China’ article. As I quickly came to realise in a joke to a fellow participant at the colloquium, while it is comfortable, indeed an imperative, to speak about ‘democracy’, it is harder to speak about ‘capitalism’ in such a splendid setting – a heavenly villa on Lake Como in Italy, as guests of one of the most powerful foundations of American capitalism, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Conference and Study Center. This is not because somebody had explicitly influenced what we have to say: not at all. It was just that ‘democratisation and mass media’, rather than ‘capitalism and mass media’, was the title of the colloquium, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Conference and Study Center, and as a junior scholar I was only too honoured to be an invited participant. Thus, although my critical theoretical training and new empirical reality in China had led me to focus on the intertwining logics of the state and market in the Chinese media and to question any linear logic between market reforms and liberal democratic development in China, democracy was my conceptual and normative preoccupation. If I have an argument at all, it is not whether democracy or not (unless one is a diehard authoritarian or conservative ideologue, who dares to argue against democracy?), but liberal democracy or radical democracy. This is evident even in the titles of my work: ‘Sustaining democracy?’, ‘Media, market, and democracy in China’, ‘Media and elusive democracy in China’ or ‘Democratising global media’, and ‘Who wants democracy and does it deliver food?’. And I was not alone in this preoccupation with the ‘democracy question’. Even today, it is fair to say that this question continues to be the overriding normative concern of the entire Chinese media studies field – be it posed implicitly or explicitly, positively or negatively. To be sure, ‘democracy is a good thing’ as Keping Yu, a prominent Chinese scholar, famously puts it (Yu 2006). However, not only are there 15

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competing notions of democracy, but also there are profound contradictions between capitalism and democracy, and the pursuit of democracy has never happened in a historical vacuum. As Samir Amin put it, the choice is not whether democracy or not, but ‘“democracy” or democratisation associated with social progress’ (2011: 13). In this view, the entrenchment of the ‘democracy’ paradigm is not innocent in the Cold War global geopolitics: It was a stroke of genius of the Atlantic alliance diplomacy to choose the field of ‘democracy’ for their offensive, which was aimed, at the beginning, at the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the re-conquest of the countries of Eastern Europe . . . It was a stroke of genius because the ‘question of democracy’ was a genuine issue and the least one could say was the Soviet regimes were certainly not ‘democratic’, however one defined its concepts and practice. The countries of the Atlantic Alliance, in contrast, could qualify themselves as ‘democratic’, whatever the limitations and contradictions in their actual political practices, subordinated to the requirements of capitalist reproduction. The comparison of the systems operated in their favour. (Amin 2011: 13) As Amin went on to note, although the moral power conveyed by the democracy discourse was not fully appreciated by the Atlantic Alliance of US, European and Japanese capitalism until President Carter’s administration, it was highly successful in displacing the capitalism versus socialism rivalry between the west and east, because ‘choosing to concentrate the battle around the “democracy” discourse made it possible to opt for the “implacability” of systems and to offer the Eastern countries only the prospect of capitulation by returning to capitalism (the “market”) which should then produce – naturally – the conditions for democratisation’ (2011: 14). The collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communist regimes had complex internal and external reasons. Nevertheless, as Amin pointed out, the dominant classes of leading capitalist countries were able to learn a lesson from the success of their strategy vis-à-vis the Soviet bloc, and this in turn led them ‘to continue this strategy of centering the debate on the “democratic question”’ (Amin 2011: 15). Thus, from the vantage point of this strategy, ‘China is not reproached for having opened up its economy to the outside world, but because its policies are managed by the communist party’ (Amin 2011: 15). However, as Amin pointed out, one has to be naive to think that the triumph of democracy is the real objective of this strategy. Rather, the ‘only aim is to impose on recalcitrant countries “the market economy”, open and integrated into the so-called liberal world system’. Thus, this strategy is ultimately imperialistic to the extent that it condemns these countries to ‘the status of dominated peripheries of the system’, a situation that is ‘in no way an advance in response to the “democratic question”’ (Amin 2011: 15). Moreover, not only is the ‘democracy theme’ selectively invoked ‘against countries that do not want to open up to the globalised liberal economy’, but also the proposed ‘“democratic” formula hardly goes beyond the caricature of “multi-party elections” that are not only completely alien to the requirements of social progress but that are always – or almost always – associated with the social regression that the domination of actually existing capitalism . . . demands and produces’ (Amin 2011: 15). Consequently, Amin noted, this formula ended up undermining a society’s democratic prospects, leaving many confused people to substitute democracy with ‘religious and ethnic attachment to the past’ (2011: 15). Amin’s conclusion, then, is that it is ‘more than necessary now’ to reinforce a radical left critique that ‘associates, rather than dissociates, the democratisation of society (and not only its political management) with social progress (in a socialist perspective)’ (2011: 15). Thus, ‘in this critique, the struggle for democratisation and the struggle for socialism are one and the same. 16

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No socialism without democracy, but also no democratic progress without a socialist perspective’ (2011: 15). Here is one more passage from Amin that deserves full citation: Democratisation is an endless process, not to be reduced to pluriparty elected representative so called democracy, which does not empower the people and permit them to transform society. Democratisation is multi-dimensional. It integrates the major issues of gender as well as the guarantee of individual liberties, which should be developed, not restricted. It involves also collective social rights, with a view to socialising the management of the economy, moving therefore beyond capitalism, based on the sacred character of private property. (Amin 2011: 15) This excursion into Amin’s ideas has allowed me to further contextualise my own engagement with the ‘democracy question’ in the Chinese context: I could now read my own two decades of work with the hindsight of Amin’s framework. Even though I did not quite realise it at the time, there is no question that my engagement with the democracy question was conditioned by the prevailing wind of the time. However, rather than going with the wind, I had conceived my own project as one of writing ‘against’, that is, I was writing against the dominant paradigm of transitology and its narrow concept of democracy. In other words, my approach to the topic at the time was consistent with Amin’s recently advanced perspective; I viewed democracy as a broad process of societal transformation, and viewed the struggle for democratisation as the same as the struggle for socialism. This, to be sure, was a politically risky position to argue in the post-1992 Chinese context, because even though Deng suppressed the ‘socialist versus capitalist’ debate over the nature of the reform process, it remains the case that the CCP had not abandoned the banner of socialism altogether. If arguing for socialism risks one’s scholarly ‘objectivity’ in general, to argue for socialism in the contemporary Chinese context risks the further danger of being accused of complicity with CCP authoritarianism from the liberal or neoliberal perspectives. Still, while I refrained from calling for the need for a ‘new left’ in China, I managed to write at the end of my 1998 book: ‘[s]ince the Party is still rhetorically committed to the socialist values of justice and equality, it is vital for democratic forces to appropriate the Party’s language and struggle for a different articulation of this language’ (Zhao 1998: 186).

The unfinished struggle for socialism in China: the eruption of the social and the return of the suppressed Testifying to the relevance of Amin’s radical perspective in understanding the Chinese case, what I had wished for in the above-cited call for the radical democratic rearticulation of socialism had indeed found its clear manifestations by the early 2000s. Moreover, as I will discuss shortly, a ‘new left’ has indeed emerged in China and I found myself being part of this new intellectual ferment. At the same time, even though my initial critique of the anti-democratic aspects of the fusion of party-state power and market power in the Chinese media may have pioneered this line of critique in the field, it had become clear to me that any top-down and institutionalist take on Chinese media that depicts a complete dystopian fusion between party-state and market power in a bureaucratic capitalist formation or a project of ‘marketing dictatorship’ (Brady 2008) had taken my initial insight to a libertarian or anti-socialist extreme. To be sure, along with the acceleration of China’s reform and openness process, especially in the aftermath of China’s 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the party-state’s targeting of the media and cultural sector as new sites for capitalistic development, there has indeed been a 17

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deepening process of bureaucratic capitalist formation in the Chinese media and the larger cultural industries. I documented these developments in the first half of my 2008 book, Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict, which represents a new effort to shoot the moving target of China’s media transformation, or telling the story of China’s social transformation through the prism of media and communication. Rather than limit my analysis to media-centric and institutionalist perspectives, I attempted to offer a more explicit mixture of Marxian and Foucauldian perspectives by analysing the role of media and communication in the reconstitution of class and other dimensions of knowledge–power relations in Chinese society. Furthermore, I explicitly moved beyond a nation-centric framework by building upon the earlier ‘Dances with wolves’ article and other pieces to develop an analysis of the role of transnational capital, the issue of Chinese nationalism, and the terms of the Chinese media and communication industries’ global reintegration. For example, as early as 2003 I had noted how ‘a newly constituted power bloc – consisting of the bureaucratic capitalists of a reform Party state, transnational corporate capital, and an emerging urban middle class, whose members are the favored consumers of both domestic and transnational capital – has assumed hegemonic dominance of the communicative processes both in and out of China’ (Zhao 2003a: 53). However, the book’s attempt at achieving a new paradigmatic shift lies elsewhere. Even though the process of democratisation in and through communication was the central concern of my book, democracy was no longer the book’s explicit keyword. Rather, ‘capitalism versus socialism’ had emerged as the central conceptual issue that I was engaging with. Specifically, two developments had compelled me to refocus and expand my intellectual horizons in understanding the Chinese media in Communication in China (Zhao 2008). The first is the eruption of the social. To the extent that China’s post-1992 processes of accelerated marketisation and global reintegration have engendered staggering social inequalities and profound cultural contradictions, it was only a matter of time before the social question would come to the fore, as members of China’s lower social classes, especially workers and farmers, protested against the negative social and cultural consequences of the economic reforms. To be sure, the social and cultural issues were not entirely new. Despite the western media’s framing of the 1989 movement as a pro-democracy movement and it was eventually cast in a simplistic ‘man versus tank’ Cold War ideology and the ‘end of history’ framework, the demand for social equality and justice was a central component of the movement. As Hui Wang put it, the multiplicity of the 1989 movement lies in that ‘it was (for students and intellectuals) an appeal for democracy and freedom, even as it was (for workers and other urban dwellers) a demand for social equality and justice’ (Wang 2003: 62). For this reason, Hui Wang argued that the demands of the 1989 movement have affinities with the anti-WTO and International Monetary Fund (IMF) protests that took place in Seattle in November 1999 and Washington, DC, in 2000, as these movements all ‘exemplify a close unity between the values of democracy and freedom and a movement to protect social security’ in the context of the neoliberal expansion of a comprehensive market society (2003: 64). However, the Chinese social field was highly uneven and profound divisions existed within the movement. Thus, even though violent state repression was the direct cause of the failure of the 1989 movement, ‘the indirect cause lay in the movement’s own inability to bridge the gap between its demands for political democracy and the demands for social equality that had been its mobilising force’ (Wang 2003: 64). With the post-1992 enfranchisement of a new capitalist and urban middle-class strata through market-oriented development and the state’s systematic effort at ‘buying off’ the intellectuals and knowledge workers as the most vocal segment of the urban middle class (Zhao 2012a), social struggles exploded in more diffused and variegated forms throughout Chinese society, with those at the lower social strata emerging as the main protagonists. Moreover, as ‘the processes 18

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of social stratification, class polarisation, and cultural displacement in a rapidly globalising context . . . the frequency and velocity, as well as the breadth and scope, of these hydra-headed conflicts and resistance have also intensified’ (Zhao 2008: 9). While western liberal democracy-inspired intellectuals continued to champion the end of one-party rule and the installation of electoral politics, it was the ordinary people’s struggles for the necessities of daily life and their inner sense of justice, including the very meaning of life – be it the laid-off workers’ protest against unfair compensations in the illegal privatisation of state-owned enterprises, migrant workers’ demand for unpaid salaries, farmers’ protest against the unauthorised seizure of lands, or the ordinary Falun Gong practitioners’ quest for health, community and meaning in life. Indeed, as a testimony to the relevance of Amin’s above-cited analysis about how a confused population, disillusioned with failed democracy struggles, ended up turning to religion and the past, it was perhaps not coincidental that the first massive post-1989 social protest would erupt in the form of the Falun Gong movement in 1999. Literally meaning ‘Dharma Wheel Practices’, Falun Gong narrowly refers to a series of five stretching and meditation exercises aiming at channelling and harmonising the qi or vital energy that in traditional Chinese qigong thinking supposedly circulates through the body. Started in 1992 as a particular form of qigong exercise and moral cultivation that draws elements from Taoist and folk Buddhist discourses, Falun Gong attracted millions of followers, generated a massive body of media products, developed an elaborate organisational structure, and ended up being banned by the Chinese government as a cult movement in 1999 when tens of thousands of its members gathered in Beijing to protest against what they perceived to be biased official media representation of the group. Like many others, this movement caught me by surprise, and I found myself studying this phenomenon out of a Chinese media scholar’s sense of responsibility to what needs to be done in the field: Nick Couldry and James Curran had invited me to contribute a chapter to their book, Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World (2003), and it had become very clear to me that, like it or not, the most visible and influential form of alternative media in China in the 1990s was Falun Gong media and its internet-based transnational communication system. As I concluded, Falun Gong, with its initial depoliticised focus on self-cultivation and individual moral salvation, started as a ‘complete reversal’ of the 1989 outpouring of desires for political participation for, as a social movement, it is ‘reactive, defensive, and politically conservative’ (Zhao 2003b: 212). Thus, like many forms of religious fundamentalism, it is not a purveyor of what Castells would call a ‘social project’ (Castells 1997: 106). Nevertheless, in the end, Falun Gong did not just posit a challenge against the Chinese state; as a symptom of the malaise of Chinese modernity it also posited a fundamental challenge against the ‘new enlightenment’ intellectuals’ self-confidence in their project of modernisation. As I wrote: ‘[t]he fastest and most spectacular program of modernization involving the world’s largest population over the past two decades has produced an unprecedented, if contradictory, backlash against modernity’ (Zhao 2003b: 221). Thus, despite western-centric optimistic writings about the potentials of the internet in perhaps finally uniting the global working class, I found myself first being compelled to make sense of the powerful internet-enabled transnational Falun Gong communication network, while later deploring the ‘short-circuiting’ of working-class communication in China (Zhao and Duffy 2007). Is this simply a sign of Chinese ‘backwardness’? Or is such a question itself implying a dogmatic and western-centric bias? In short, whether it was the more substantive notion of socialist democracy as expressed by some Democracy Wall activists, or the social equality and justice dimension of the 1989 movement, or the complex articulations of the social and cultural in the Falun Gong movement, the social dimension of democracy had always been there in China; it was not a premature importation from some western-inspired radical notions of democracy. Moreover, the demands 19

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for social progress would not go away even though some liberal and neoliberal intellectuals, caught in transitology and a linear view of history, would like to prioritise the political. As an overseas Chinese scholar who is very much detached from ongoing social struggles in China, this social dimension became most vivid for me when I encountered Feng Xiuju, the handicapped Beijing newspaper vendor from whom I had purchased newspapers for yet another of my ‘reactive’ research projects: reading the street tabloids to find out whether they – as the most commercialised segment of the Chinese press – would pose a challenge to official ideology. Feng’s struggles to sustain her newsstand against repeated attempts to displace her by the family of a local official in the context of Beijing’s bid for hosting the 2008 Olympics engrossed me, and she ended up being the cover woman of Communication in China (Zhao 2008). Moreover, what was most remarkable was not just her persistence and audacity, but also her moral outrage and her predisposition in framing her struggles not in terms of democracy, but in terms of socialism and her normative claims to sustain her livelihood and maintain her dignity, as well as her sense of what a ‘socialist country of ours’ ought to be (Zhao 2008: 3). It is with the story of Feng Xiuju in the background that I now must turn to a discussion of the second key development that had informed my 2008 book, that is, the revival of a heterogeneous discourse on Chinese socialism, the return of the suppressed ‘capitalism versus socialism’ debate or, perhaps, more broadly, the emergence of a broad anti-neoliberal intellectual ferment in China in the early 2000s. Again, just like the social dimension of democracy, the ‘socialism versus capitalism’ question had never disappeared despite Deng Xiaoping’s famous ‘cat theory’ and his post-1992 imposition of the ‘no debate’ curse – that is, there should be no debate of the socialist or capitalist nature of the reforms. Of course, this is an ideological directive that the post-1992 liberal and neoliberal intellectual and media elite who had come to dominate the market-oriented urban media and internet discourses (sometimes because of and sometimes despite the party-state’s controlling position) have been only too happy to support. As I have described, even though they had long lost their political power, ‘old leftists’ (i.e. ‘old’ revolutionaries who stick to ‘old’ Marxist and Maoist rhetoric) had persistently voiced their critique against the CCP’s ‘capitalist restoration’ through marginal publications and the so-called ‘one thousand character essays’ that aimed to persuade those in power to stick to the socialist path. Within Chinese society, the yearning for socialism was expressed in ‘Mao fever’ in many vernacular forms. Furthermore, there were apparently more politicised grassroots leftist attempts at reviving the ‘capitalism versus socialism’ debate. Just as newspaper vendor Feng had made the ‘eruption of the social’ strikingly vivid for me, this return of the ideologically suppressed became real when I serendipitously encountered an underground ‘small character poster’ proclaiming itself as a ‘Communism Manifesto’ on 18 August 1999 on an official newspaper reading window hosting the Beijing Daily against the outer wall of the Central People’s Radio tower in central Beijing. Among other things, the poster debunked the ‘plan’ versus ‘market’ dichotomy, spoke of workers’ employment, a crisis of overproduction, and how the capitalist road had reached a dead end and how communism was not an obsolete idea. As I wrote: ‘the irony is hard to miss. Against the backdrop of the party’s broadcast and print mouthpieces, this poster sent two powerful messages at once. Communism has gone underground (again) in China, and China’s market reforms . . . have generated its antithesis’ (Zhao 2008: 53). This powerful anomaly demanded my attention and compelled me to engage with it as a matter of some urgency, so much so that I ended up giving up a well-in-progress book project on China’s telecommunication reform to focus once more on the moving target of Chinese media; and I found myself doing so in a more explicit radical left perspective by foregrounding class analysis, and bringing back the ‘capitalism versus socialism’ debate. And I was certainly not alone in this intellectual endeavour for, like it or not, as the intellectual manifestation of the 20

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‘dialectic of the Chinese reform’ launched in 1978, whereby a historically leftist CCP led a capitalistic-oriented programme of development, a radical democratic socialist discursive formation, espoused by the so-called ‘new left’, had gained force in the Chinese intellectual and media scene by the late 1990s. This discourse is ‘new’ in relation to what is left of the CCP, that is, the ‘old left’ generation of Marxist-Leninist and Maoist revolutionaries who fought the 1949 Communist revolution and continued to voice their critique of the party’s capitalistic transformation in the reform era. It is ‘left’ in relation to the prevailing liberal and neoliberal intellectual discourses that have presented themselves as the only alternative to the dominant formation of market authoritarianism. Given the negative connotation of the term ‘left’ in postMao China, which as a political orientation was blamed for the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the ‘new left’ label, as a term of abuse, was meant to discredit re-emergent radical socialist ideas by their liberal opponents. Still, the term has gained wide currency and these ideas have gained strength. Inspired by western Marxist, postmodernist and post-colonial perspectives, the ‘new left’ has offered a critique of contemporary Chinese social formation within the context of global capitalism and has become interested in more substantive and participatory notions of democracy. Instead of waiting for the market to create a mythical middle class, which in turn will bring democracy to China, ‘new left’ intellectuals are fully aware of the mutually constitutive relationship between the state and the market in the formation of reform-era Chinese political economy. Rather than simply repudiate the Chinese Communist revolution, they have engaged with China’s revolutionary legacies and tried to reimagine a democratised Chinese socialist state that would enable substantive political economic and cultural democracy. Instead of applying the boilerplate of capitalist liberal democracy to China or clinging to a Maoist past, ‘new left’ intellectuals are arguing for the democratic renewal of Chinese socialism as part of a contemporary, worldwide and open movement, drawing lessons not only from indigenous Chinese socialist experiments with economic democracy and people’s democracy, but also from socialist thoughts and movements abroad. In this way, they have not only made a decisive break with the ‘new enlightenment’ intellectual consciousness of the 1980s, but also are attempting to make socialism a pursuable political objective rather than just a ruling ideology. As I have noted elsewhere (Zhao 2012a: 110), to the extent that ‘new left’ intellectuals do not negate China’s Communist revolution and base their analysis on a critique of global capitalism and the unequal power relations it has engendered, they gave voice to concerns that, in the first half of the twentieth century, had been central to the public appeal of the CCP. However, some of the ‘new left’ critique of contemporary Chinese political economy went beyond the CCP’s historical critique of capitalism by questioning the modernisation project not only of the liberal intelligentsia and technocracy but also of the CCP itself (Barme 2001: 249). In fact, the ‘new left’ critique of capitalist modernity and its notion of radical democratic politics are fundamentally at odds with the CCP’s paternalist and authoritarian ideology. Thus, the ‘new left’ intellectual formation at once challenged both the ‘new enlightenment’ intellectual consciousness of the 1980s and the Dengist official ‘reform consensus’. In this way, the ‘new left’ has not only re-injected a radical democratic component into oppositional discourses against the party’s market authoritarian orientation, but also threatened to undermine the self-confidence of the liberal democratic discourse as the only desirable ideological alternative for China by bringing into sharp focus the class character and the hegemonic aspirations of the liberal democratic discourse as a universalising alternative discourse in a capitalistic and globally reintegrated China. The re-articulation of a broader and more substantive notion of democracy echoes urgent demands for political participation, economic justice, social inclusion and cultural enfranchisement by China’s lower social classes in whose name the Chinese Communist revolution was won in 1949. 21

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‘New left’ ideas were initially confined to intellectual journals such as Dushu and Tianya, with Tianya’s publication of Hui Wang’s essay ‘Contemporary Chinese thought and the question of modernity’ in 1997 (see Wang 2003) as a formative event. By 2000, however, ‘new left’ ideas had started to find more popular forms of expression, including theatre and the internet. The production and popularity of Che Guevara, a theatrical drama anchored in the ideals and revolutionary struggles of Che Guevara, symbolised the first step towards the popularisation of a ‘new left’ perspective outside a small intellectual circle in reform-era China. Like many other media productions based on historical subjects, Che was a vehicle for critiquing contemporary Chinese and global politics. Specifically, the play articulated the long suppressed ideals of justice and equality, a class-based critique of exploitation and oppression, and revolutionary internationalism. The play debuted in April 2000 in Beijing and became an instant hit in many Chinese cities. In the following years, as China’s internet communication started to explode and led to the emergence of a vast literature in communication studies on the potentials of this new technology in bringing about the liberal democratic transition that somehow still evaded China in the aftermath of the market reforms, leftist voices – ‘old’ and ‘new’ alike – had emerged online by ‘swimming against the tide’, and websites such as Mao Zedong Flag and Utopia had quickly gained influence (Hu 2007). The intersection of the social question, China’s socialist legacies and the return of the suppressed debate of ‘socialism versus capitalism’ figured prominently in Communication in China (Zhao 2008). As I described in detail in the book’s last two chapters, by late 2004 a large-scale debate on the future direction of China’s reform process had broken out to challenge ‘no debate’ curse. To be sure, not all those who challenged the neoliberal orientation of the Chinese reform process can be labelled as ‘leftists’, let alone concerning themselves with the ‘socialist versus capitalist’ question. For example, Lang Xianping, the Hong Kong economist who spearheaded the debate on state enterprise reform, famously proclaimed that if even he was considered too left-leaning, then everybody who was more right-leaning than him was ‘definitely wrong’ (cited in Zhao 2008: 293). Still, by early 2006 even the party’s tightly controlled media regime and official venues could no longer contain the explosive power of a broad anti-neoliberal discursive formation, leading the New York Times to observe that even the March 2006 National People’s Congress meeting was ‘consumed with an ideological debate over socialism and capitalism that many assumed had been buried by China’s long streak of fast economic growth’ (cited in Zhao 2008: 323). By late 2006, when I had the opportunity to witness the debut of Huang Jisu’s play We Walk on a Broad Path (Women zouzai dalushang) in Beijing, I was struck by how it had managed to take the ongoing media and internet-based debate on the future direction of China’s reform to a new high with both its devastating critique of the manifestations of what David Harvey (2005) had described as ‘neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics’ and its faith in a non-capitalist alternative Chinese modernity. Thus, if I alone had called for the re-articulation of the language of socialism in my 1998 book, I was able to draw upon both fellow critical Chinese scholars and the inspirations of the anti-neoliberal social forces I had studied to make the following observation in my 2008 book: ‘perhaps not only the party’s official socialist slogans per se, but also their re-appropriation by various Chinese social forces and the unfolding societal processes of subordinating both state and market to the social needs of the working people, are what the struggle for socialism in China is about’ (Zhao 2008: 343).

No sense of a conclusion: more thrillers in studying the Chinese media It was the counterintuitive and complex intersection of party-state and market power in the Chinese media that led me to publish Media, Market and Democracy in China in 1998. It was 22

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the surprising sighting of an underground ‘Communism Manifesto’ in a Communist Party-led China that compelled me to write Communication in China in 2008. Now, writing this chapter just five years after 2008, I feel I have been caught by too many surprises to even be capable of focusing on my subject, let alone conceive a coherent single new book on the Chinese media – a subject matter that has grown too large and too nebulous. Globally, the dual crises of capitalism and liberal democracy that my co-author and I had wrote about in 1998 (Hackett and Zhao 1998) had dramatically intensified and deepened in the aftermath of the 2008 Wall Street financial meltdown, the British tabloid press hacking scandal and Edward Snowden’s revelations about the US state’s massive surveillance operations. Meanwhile, countries in the former ‘Third World’ have re-emerged prominently both as important geopolitical forces and as compelling theoretical and methodological reference points for Chinese media studies. Within this context, the disappointing results of the Arab Spring and unyielding American imperial power in the Middle East and, in particular, the bloodshed and ominous turn of events in post ‘Twitter revolution’ Egypt in the summer of 2013 have all lent further credence to Samir Amin’s insight about the importance of democratisation with social progress. In short, the post-Cold War unipolar world dominated by the USA as the sole global hegemonic power is being replaced by an increasingly multi-polar global order and the worldwide backlashes against neoliberalism have further brought the social question to the fore. As part of the process of an ongoing global power shift along the nation-state axis, the Chinese state’s effort in projecting its soft power through its media and communication systems has meant that analysis of the Chinese media’s foreign influence, rather than foreign media’s influence on China, has quickly emerged as the new focus of research. I have joined many others in this endeavour (Zhao 2013), even though I have conceived this research to be part of a larger intellectual effort aiming at understanding the dynamics of ‘communication, crisis, and global power shifts’ (Zhao 2014). Meanwhile, locally, the small Chinese natural village where I grew up is at risk of disappearing – following the footsteps of the tens of thousands of other Chinese villages that already disappeared in the past decade – in the new wave of urbanisation; and, paradoxically, in the particular case of my own village, in the name of preserving rural cultural heritage. Among China’s multifaceted social issues, the urban–rural divide is of central importance and with the new push for urbanisation and new attempts at capitalistic accumulation through the dispossession of the rural population, social and environmental conflicts resulting from land seizures and ecological destruction, not to mention cultural dislocations resulting from the end of an entire rural way of life, will likely intensify. As Xinyu Lu and I have argued, a Chinese media study that neglects Chinese rural society is doomed to be partial and inadequate (Zhao 2010a, 2010b), and it was with this in mind that I have attempted to pursue a research programme under the rubric of ‘communication, culture and China’s urban–rural divide’. While these two research programmes pulled me away from a nation-centric focus on the Chinese media, new surprises in the field have continued to challenge received wisdoms, demand urgent attention and call for sharper focus. As I wrote in the opening paragraph of my introduction to the June 2012 Javnost special issue entitled ‘Communication and Class Divide in China’, even though I have tried my best to capture the magnitude of political, social and intellectual conflicts resulting from China’s ‘neoliberal strategies’ and ‘socialist legacies’ in and through China’s media and communication system, ‘I could not have imagined just how challenging it is in trying to be “as radical as reality itself” in this intellectual endeavour’ (Zhao 2012b: 6). In April 2010, I was shocked by the Southern (Nanfang) Weekend-led media campaign against leading ‘new left’ scholar Hui Wang for alleged plagiarism and the extent to which China’s most prominent liberal newspaper had abandoned any pretence of journalistic professionalism in favour of blatant forms of media instrumentalism and sensationalism (also see Chen, Chapter 23

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5 in this volume). After having paid persistent attention to the agency of Chinese journalists and intellectuals with articles such as ‘Watchdogs on party leashes: contexts and limitations of investigative reporting in post-Deng China’ (Zhao 2000) and ‘Underdogs, lapdogs and watchdogs: journalists and the public sphere problematic in China’ (Zhao 2004), I was tempted to carry on the metaphorical line by writing about ‘mad dogs’ and the extent to which China’s public discourses had denigrated into symbolic violence, rumour-mongering and fist fights in a new form of partisanism that serves narrow sectarian and dogmatic objectives. But I had no time to amuse myself because, by April 2012, the whole world had been busy watching the transnationalised and highly mediated political thriller surrounding the downfall of the CCP’s former Chongqing head and Politburo member Bo Xilai. The rise and fall of the so-called ‘Chongqing Model’ and the Bo Xilai saga have offered a fascinating extended case study – or a super text – for the exploration of scores of significant topics: the resilience of China’s socialist legacies and the role of media in suppressing or mobilising these legacies for various political and ideological agendas; the prominence of the social welfare agenda and the popular appeal of ‘common prosperity’; the degree of elite division and the brutal nature of ideological and power struggles within the CCP; the extent to which the party-state’s censorship regime continues to ‘guard against the right, but mainly the left’; and, in particular, the ongoing suppression of grassroots leftist voices as a condition of China’s capitalistic development, the global dimension of Chinese domestic politics and the pivotal participant role of transnational media, especially elite Anglo-American press outlets and overseas Chinese websites in the ongoing Chinese transformation; and, in the end, the highly counterintuitive ‘law and order’ spectacle of the micro-blogged trial of Bo Xilai: isn’t micro-blogging supposed to be the most democratising form of communication? Isn’t the whole world supposed to wait for a micro-blogged Chinesestyle liberal democratic revolution in the aftermath of the Arab Spring? Or, as I posited it in an October 2012 article, ‘Will the removal of Bo as a contender for national power and the concomitant suppression of leftist communication make China safe at last for the kind of “political reform” that will secure China as a haven for global capitalism?’ (Zhao 2012c: 16; for the discussion of the Bo Xilai case, also see Rawnsley and Feng, Chapter 18 in this volume). The answer to this last question appears to be negative as of this writing, as the Xi Jinping leadership steals Bo Xilai’s thunder by reviving Mao-era mass line practices and pursuing related media control and ideological initiatives in an attempt to re-establish the CCP’s credibility and prevent a Soviet-style regime collapse. Meanwhile, as ethnic conflicts continue to erupt in Xinjiang and as I made my first trip to Urumqi for an academic conference in September 2013, I have come to realise that it has become more urgent than ever to correct the Han-Chinese centric bias in Chinese media studies and seriously locate our endeavour with a view of China as a multi-ethnic and multi-nationality entity. Thus, just one year after I had the confidence to edit a special journal issue entitled ‘Communication and Class Divide in China’ (Zhao with Lu 2012), I realised the limits of focusing the subject through the class lens and the imperative to refocus it through the complex intersection of class and nation. And the temptation of working on one more exciting project relating to the Chinese media did not stop: in October 2013, I found myself writing long and urgent emails to Chinese and international collaborators in an effort to finalise the text of a China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) Special Policy Study entitled ‘Media and Communication Policies for Improving Public Participation in China’s Green Development’. Along with the explosion of the social, the ecological has pushed itself to the fore, as mounting environmental crisis drove home the ‘unsavoury process of modernisation’ for the Chinese population and led to a massive increase in mass incidents relating to the environment in the past few years. The environment has truly become a life-and-death issue, and the Chinese media and blogging sphere are key 24

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drivers of China’s nascent environmental movement. A Chinese media study field that does not have an ecological dimension is certainly no longer adequate, and when I was approached by the CCICED to be a member of the study’s international expert team, I found the invitation irresistible. The study’s recommendations were presented to the Chinese State Council for possible policy formation and implementation in November 2013. Will they have any impact? I do not know. However I decided to participate in the study as if it matters.

Note 1

I would like to thank Yingfen Huang and a member of the Editorial Board for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

References Amin, S. (2011) ‘The implosion of global capitalism: the challenge for the radical left’, International Development Economics Associates. Available online www.networkideas.org/alt/apr2013/alt25_ Samir_Amin.htm (retrieved 15 April 2012). Barme, R.G. (2001) ‘Times arrows: imaginative pasts and nostalgic futures’, in G. Davies (ed.), Voicing Concerns: Contemporary Chinese Critical Inquiry, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 226–57. Brady, A.M. (2008) Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Castells, M. (1997) The Power of Identity, Malden, MA: Blackwell. Couldry, N. and Curran, J. (2003) Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Desai, R. (2013) Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalisation and Empire, London: Pluto. Guang, L. (1996) ‘Elusive democracy: conceptual change and the Chinese democracy movement, 1978/79–1989’, Modern China 22(4): 417–47. Hackett, R.A. and Zhao, Y.Z. (1998) Sustaining Democracy? Journalism and the Politics of Objectivity, Toronto: Garamond Press. Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. He, G.M. (2010) A Knowledge Archive of the New Enlightenment (Xinqimeng zhisi dang’an), Beijing: Peking University Press (in Chinese). Hu, Y.N. (2007) ‘The revival of Chinese leftism online’, Global Media and Communication 3(2): 233–8. Hung, H.F. (2009) ‘Introduction: the three transformations of global capitalism’, in H.F. Hung (ed.), China and the Transformation of Global Capitalism, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1–21. Polanyi, K. (1944/1957) The Great Transformation, New York: Beacon. Prashad, V. (2008) The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, New York: New Press. Schiller, D. (2008) How to Think about Information, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Splichal, S. (1994) Media Beyond Socialism: Theory and Practice in East-Central Europe, Boulder, CO: Westview. Wang, H. (2003) China’s New Order (written by Hui Wang and ed. by Theodore Huters), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wang, J. (1996) High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China, Berkeley: University of California Press. Yu, K.P. (2006) ‘Democracy is a good thing’ (Minzhu shige haodongxi), People.com. Available online http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/49150/49152/5224247.html (retrieved 25 October 2013, in Chinese). Zhao, Y.Z. (1998) Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. –––– (2000) ‘Watchdogs on party leashes? Contexts and limitations of investigative reporting in post-Deng China’, Journalism Studies 1(4): 577–97. –––– (2001) ‘Media and elusive democracy in China’, Javnost 8(2): 21–44. –––– (2003a) ‘Transnational capital, the Chinese state, and China’s communication industries in a fractured society’, Javnost 10(4): 53–74. 25

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–––– (2003b) ‘Falun Gong, identity, and the struggle for meaning inside and outside China’, in J. Curran and N. Couldry (eds), Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked Society, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 209–24. –––– (2004) ‘Underdogs, lapdogs, and watchdogs: journalists and the public sphere problematic in China’, in X. Gu and M. Goldman (eds), Chinese Intellectuals between State and Market, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 43–74. –––– (2005) ‘Who wants democracy and does it deliver food? The evolving politics of media globalisation and democratisation in China’, in R.A. Hackett and Y.Z. Zhao (eds), Democratizing Global Media: One World, Many Struggles, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 45–67. –––– (2008) Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. –––– (2009) ‘Communication, the nexus of class and nation, and global divides: reflections on China’s post-revolutionary experiences’, Nordicom Review, Jubilee Issue 30: 91–104. –––– (2010a) ‘For a critical study of communication and China: challenges and opportunities’, International Journal of Communication 4(2010): 544–51. –––– (2010b) ‘Chinese modernity, media, and democracy: an interview with Lu Xinyu’, Global Media and Communication, 6: 1. –––– (2012a) ‘Your show’s been cut: the politics of intellectual publicity in China’s brave new media world’, Javnost 19(2): 101–17. –––– (2012b) ‘Introduction to “Communication and Class Divide China”’, Javnost 19(2): 5–21. –––– (2012c) ‘The struggle for socialism in China: the Bo Xilai saga and beyond’, Monthly Review 64(5): 1–22. –––– (2013) ‘China’s quest for “soft power”: imperatives, impediments and irreconcilable tensions’, Javnost 20(4): 17–30. –––– (2014) ‘Communication, crisis, and global power shifts: an introduction’, International Journal of Communication 8: 275–300. Zhao, Y.Z. and Duffy, R. (2007) ‘Short-circuited? The communication of labor struggles in China’, in C. McKercher and V. Mosco (eds), Knowledge Workers in the Information Society, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 229–47. Zhao, Y.Z. and Guo, Z.Z. (2005) ‘Television in China: history, political economy, and culture’, in J. Wasko (ed.), A Companion to Television, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 521–39. Zhao, Y.Z. and Hackett, R.A. (eds) (2005) Democratizing Global Media: One World, Many Struggles, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Zhao, Y.Z. and Hackett, R.A. (2005) ‘Media globalisation, media democratisation: challenges, paradoxes, issues’, in R.A. Hackett and Y.Z. Zhao (eds), Democratizing Global Media: One World, Many Struggles, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1–28. Zhao, Y.Z. and Schiller, D. (2001) ‘Dances with wolves? China’s integration into digital capitalism’, Info 3(2): 137–51. Zhao, Y.Z. with Lu, X.Y. (eds) (2012) ‘Communication and Class Divide in China’, special issue of Javnost 19(2).

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2 China, soft power and imperialism Colin Sparks

Introduction The development of China has not only altered the balance of global power economically but also politically, militarily and culturally (Rudd 2013). Alongside the second largest economy in the world, China has the second largest military budget in the world, and it is in the middle of a substantial drive, launched at the seventeenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2007, to promote its media and culture internationally (Wang 2011: 2; Li and Sligo 2012). Most recently the new President, Xi Jinping, has popularised the notion of the ‘Chinese Dream’ as a way of increasing China’s international influence and considerable efforts are being devoted to developing this both internally and internationally (Li 2013; Keane 2007). All of these changes are related, and all have been the subject of an enormous amount of political, journalistic and scholarly attention. This chapter, however, is primarily concerned with developing an approach that facilitates the understanding of the international cultural impact consequent upon China’s rise. The dominant discourse on this issue is that advanced by Joseph Nye under the label ‘soft power’. This concept has provided the starting point for many western commentaries about China and it has been argued that it is even more influential inside China, where: ‘soft power has become one of the most frequently used phrases among political leaders, leading academics, and journalists’ (Li 2009: 1). Nye’s account, derived from his work on international relations, has the great merit of seeing cultural activities not as some separate field of human activity but as an aspect of power. It thus provides an excellent starting point for discussion of the Chinese case. Much of the debate in China takes place within discussions of ‘comprehensive national strength’, including not only soft power in all its aspects but also hard power (Ding 2008: 28). From this perspective, the integration of different aspects of power under government control means that ‘soft power has already become the key component of the comprehensive power of a nation’ (Li and Hong 2012). The current success of this ‘going-out’ policy, and its possible long-term consequences, are a matter of debate. Estimates made in the United States tend to be sceptical of the likely value of this huge investment, while Chinese views are much more positive (Pan 2006; Glaser and Murphy 2009; Zhao 2009). The concept of soft power is not, however, the only way in which the relationship between the economic, military and cultural power of a nation can be considered. The concept of cultural 27

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imperialism addresses the same issues, albeit from a rather different normative perspective. This concept was once fashionable in debates about international communication and still commands considerable resonance inside China both among scholars and more broadly. It is often argued that China, along with the rest of the developing world, is subject to US cultural imperialism. Senior media figures have suggested policies to rectify that situation taken directly from earlier discussions about constructing a New World Information and Communication Order as a counter to media and cultural imperialism (Li 2011). Occasionally it is even suggested that too aggressive a promotion of soft power might result in China itself being accused of such imperialism (Li 2009: 4). This chapter compares these two approaches from the point of view of their utility in helping us understand current developments. It begins with a brief statement of the two positions and makes some comparisons between their claims. It then considers them from the point of view of their ability to illuminate a number of key problems raised by the role of culture in international relations. These approaches, both developed with the US experience very much in mind, are shown to be lacking in some important dimensions necessary to explain current developments. Neither on its own is sufficiently developed as to provide an adequate theoretical framework to study the contemporary situation. In response to these shortcomings, an attempt is made to use these insights to develop a theoretical framework that is adequate to solve the problems presented by the distinctive features of the Chinese case.

Soft power Nye introduced the concept of soft power as long ago as 1990 and has continued to deploy and develop it up to the present, most recently arguing that it is a component of the more general category of smart power (Nye 2011). Over this long history, the emphasis of the concept has changed in a number of important ways, not least in terms of the specific problems towards which its critical edge has been directed. In its original formulation, promulgated in the last years of the Cold War, the idea was a general one, involving a wide range of resources which were held up as evidence that the USA, far from entering terminal decline, would likely remain the world’s major power over the foreseeable future (Nye 1990: 31–2). If military and economic strength provided the resources of hard, ‘command’ power, endowing the USA with the ability to force or bribe potential opponents to accede to its wishes, culture provided those of soft power. This soft, ‘indirect or co-optive’ power permitted the USA to achieve its objective through its powers of definition and attraction: other countries do what the USA wishes because they can be persuaded that they want the same things (Nye 1990: 31). In Nye’s view, while the overwhelming preponderance of the USA as an economic and military power might be reduced in the future, it would retain a broad range of cultural advantages over any competitors that would ensure its continued overall dominance. In stressing the importance of cultural power, Nye was certainly not attempting to discard the use of economic or military power, which he agreed remained central mechanisms in realising the national interest. His concern was to supplement the classical ‘realist’ view that regarded coercion and bribery as the only effective means of achieving state objectives in international relations with a recognition that ‘soft, cooptive power is just as important as hard, command power’ (Nye 1990: 32). Just over a decade later, Nye gave the idea perhaps its most influential articulation in the course of a critique of the foreign policy of the Bush administration, and in particular its invasion of Iraq (Nye 2004). In this formulation, Nye stressed the reciprocal links between hard and soft power, and was particularly concerned with the way in which, he believed, the Bush administration’s profligate use of hard power was damaging US soft power and thus leading to 28

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an overall decline in the international influence of the USA. While the USA was able to invade and conquer small countries almost at will, it did so at the cost of serious damage to its ability to persuade others, both inside the conquered countries and more generally in the world, of the benefits of its prescriptions. The military adventures of the first Bush presidency and their disastrous outcomes had, he noted, transformed the USA from a state that had been admired, and perhaps even loved, all around the world into one that was perceived, particularly in the Muslim world, as embodying a ruthless and brutal arrogance towards others. As the limits of US military power became evident and its economic dominance was increasingly fragile, its actions had made it harder and harder to achieve its foreign policy objectives through the third leg of cultural influence. Rebuilding US soft power, particularly in the Muslim world, was and remains a major preoccupation of Nye’s work. Up until very recently, this dimension of US soft power concerned him more than any other possible challenges to US influence (Nye 2011: 231–3). It is only relatively recently (perhaps as a result of changes to US foreign and military policy) that China has begun to emerge in his writing as a major contender with the USA. An earlier phase of US and Chinese policy sought to build a common approach to contentious issues and this found one expression in a degree of scholarly cooperation, involving Joseph Nye himself, dedicated to exploring areas of possible collaboration (Rosecrance and Gu 2009; Nye and Wang 2009). This overall situation is currently changing, and some US journalists and scholars are quite vocal in expressing concern at the ‘rise of China’ (Landler 2012; Friedberg 2012). At their most alarmist, US scholars are raising the question: ‘Will China’s rise lead to war?’ (Glaser 2011). Nye is certainly following the Obama administration’s ‘pivot towards Asia’ and devoting more critical attention to China. His recent work displays a marked change of tone from his writing of only two or three years previously. He is convinced that, whatever other challenges it may offer, China does not offer any serious challenge to US soft power for the familiar reason of its internal authoritarian policies (Nye 2010a, 2010b, 2012). The USA, by contrast, is able to enjoy considerable advantages since ‘the values of democracy, personal freedom, upward mobility, and openness that are often expressed in popular culture, higher education, and foreign policy contribute to American power in many areas’ (Nye 2002: 11).

Cultural imperialism The concept of cultural imperialism had a dominant role in discussions of international communication in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was eclipsed in the 1990s in scholarly debate by theories of globalisation. More recently, the same political developments as made soft power a fashionable concept, notably the increased use of military force by the USA (exemplified in the invasion of Iraq), have provoked a renewed scholarly interest in the general theory of imperialism, and provide the opportunity to reconsider its cultural dimensions (Callinicos 2009; Fuchs 2010). Cultural imperialism comes from a much more critical tradition than does the notion of soft power. Although writers using the term have adopted a range of different positions, the dominant current has been a version of Marxism. The most influential theorist was unquestionably the US scholar Herbert Schiller who, like Nye, was mainly concerned with the impact of US culture on other countries. Schiller began by contrasting US world domination in the 1970s with the domination exercised by earlier imperial powers, notably the United Kingdom. In that earlier phase, military force had been the key determinant of power, and the subordination of huge territories and populations was achieved by the establishment of direct imperial rule. Schiller argued that in the post-1945 world, the USA had replaced the UK as the dominant power, but its characteristic 29

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form of domination was not through building an extensive colonial empire. US rule was much more dependent upon the exercise of economic power and the domination of international communication: ‘What lends sophistication to the still-youthful American imperial structure is its dependence upon a marriage of economics and electronics, which substitutes in part, though not entirely, for the earlier, “blood and iron” foundations of more primitive conquerors’ (Schiller 1970: 5). Schiller thus operates with a very similar tripartite structure of power as Nye: military power, economic power, cultural power. Like Nye, he also believed that the three operated together to establish the power and influence of the USA on the world stage. Unlike Nye, however, Schiller did not have a wholly positive view either of US power or of US culture. He believed that US culture was complex and diverse, but its representation, both domestically and internationally, was filtered through the needs of the commercial companies, primarily broadcasters, that dominated its production and distribution. These were dependent upon revenues from advertisers seeking to reach large audiences and thus: ‘whether at the beginning of the “creative” process or at its conclusion, the advertiser’s influence in American programming is paramount’ (Schiller 1970: 101). It was what he saw as an homogenised and conformist version of US culture, rather than its diverse reality, that was dominant nationally and was being exported internationally, at the expense of the rich local cultures of smaller and poorer nations: ‘What is involved is the cultural integrity of weak societies whose national, regional, local, or tribal heritages are beginning to be menaced with extinction by the expansion of modern electronic communications, television in particular, emanating from a few power centers in the industrialized world’ (Schiller 1970: 109). The spread of modern means of mass communication, and notably television broadcasting, facilitated the spread of programmes made in the USA. This was part of a more general process which involved a combination of economic influence, military power and cultural persuasion. This had the effect of influencing the attitudes and behaviour of the ruling classes of the developing world and effectively subordinating them to the will of the USA. It was this combination of factors that, in a much-quoted passage, he labelled ‘cultural imperialism’: the concept of cultural imperialism today best describes the sum of the processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating center of the system. (Schiller 1976: 9) Schiller was overwhelmingly concerned with the cultural and economic power of the USA. To the extent he considered other cultural centres, he saw them as in a cycle of decline, like the UK, or as relatively weak and defensive, as with the Soviet Union (Schiller 1970: 5). Unlike Nye, however, Schiller did not operate with an unquestioned category of national interest. Alongside the dominant commercial culture, he identified a range of cultures of resistance embodied in ‘the forces of enlightenment’ that provided an alternative and, in his view, preferable, vision of America (Schiller 1970: 158).

Common strengths, common weaknesses The most striking feature of any comparison between these two approaches is how much they have in common. Nye’s formal definition of soft power, which is that ‘soft power is the ability 30

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to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes’. This could very easily be inserted into Schiller’s claim that the USA achieved its ends through means by which foreign elites were ‘attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed’ (Nye 2011: 20–1). Both of these writers are, in practice, exclusively concerned with the USA. Nye’s concept of soft power could in principle be applied to any country but, while there are some passing references to other cases – for example, the soft power wielded by the Soviet Union in the days when communism commanded a substantial international following – there is no detailed examination of the general conditions for the possession of such influence. Similarly, despite mentioning Western Europe more or less in passing, nowhere in a long career did Schiller devote significant attention to the cultural activities of any state other than the USA. Both seek to explain the distinct nature of US domination of the international scene and neither really has any conception of it facing a serious challenge from another state in the realm of culture. Both make a clear distinction between military and economic power on the one hand and cultural influence on the other, and both hold that the latter is of unique importance for understanding the international influence of the USA. Both see the exercise of US domination as arising from a combination of these different forms of power, although Schiller’s analysis is more concerned with economic domination while Nye’s gives relatively more weight to military force. The most obvious difference between the two positions is, of course, normative. Whereas Nye sees his own country as in every way superior to others, Schiller effectively argues the opposite. Nye, particularly in his elaboration of a foreign policy based on ‘liberal realism’ remains unquestioningly committed to the pursuit of what he sees as the US national interest (Nye 2011: 231). Schiller, on the other hand, argued that the pursuit of the US national interest, at least as defined by the US elite, had served to advance a situation in which the cultural life, first of the USA and then increasingly of the world, had been subordinated to the narrow commercial ends of large communication companies: ‘It is, after all, the global market imperative of the US- and West European-controlled multinational corporations that energise and organise the world system. It is the imagery and cultural perspectives of this ruling sector in the center that shape and structure consciousness throughout the system at large’ (Schiller 1976: 17). The result of the spread of what he termed ‘cultural mush’ was the destruction of distinct local cultures and the distortion of the economies of poorer nations away from urgent developmental priorities like education into satisfying elite personal consumption modelled on that of the USA (Schiller 1970: 110–15). Examined more closely, however, these wildly divergent normative judgements demonstrate a similar structure. Both offer a very one-sided view of US culture, albeit they evaluate that culture very differently. For Schiller, there is a constant emphasis upon the ways in which US commercial culture is imposed upon other countries. There is little or no recognition that there might be aspects of the dominant US culture that others find seductive, although there has long been evidence that such artefacts can be popular precisely because they articulate issues that are invisible or repressed in the national culture (Miller 1995). More generally, Schiller was apparently blind to the appeal that the profusion of commodities characterising US life and celebrated in the dominant version of US culture might have for those from cultures poorer in material goods. Edward Luce caught this point very well when he wrote: ‘When my British mother spent several months in the US in the 1950s, it was dazzlingly futuristic. There was airconditioning, an icebox in every fridge, ubiquitous neon lights and an open road on which even the working class could afford to drive’ (Luce 2012). For his part, Nye (2002: xi) dwells only upon what he sees as the attractive elements in US culture: ‘There is no escaping the influence of Hollywood, CNN, and the Internet. American 31

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films and television express freedom, individualism, and change (as well as sex and violence).’ While he is clear that other countries, and notably China, have aspects of their culture that are unattractive, he does not consider whether this might also be the case for the USA – unless he supposes that ‘sex and violence’ do not attract a certain audience. Certainly, he seems unaware that a culture obsessed with gun ownership, that legitimises the death penalty, and in which religious fundamentalists have enormous and intrusive political and intellectual influence, might not be universally attractive. Neither writer is willing fully to accept that every culture has both positive and negative aspects. Indeed, some commentators on soft power have argued that this selective assessment is a necessary part of the exercise of international cultural influence since states attempt to filter their culture so that only the attractive elements are visible: ‘A state only attempts to display the good part of its culture that the outside world believes is enjoyable or agreeable and hides those elements that may cause uneasiness or misgivings in other states’ (Li 2009: 8). In reality, all cultures, even that of the USA, are contradictory: positive elements are attractive and the negative ones are repellent. The international influence, or otherwise, of a culture is the result of the balance between the two. Any adequate theory of cultural power, and its ability to influence other aspects of international relations, would require an assessment of both the positive and negative aspects of a national culture. There would not, of course, be general agreement upon what is positive and what is negative about US culture, and neither would these judgements necessarily be constant terms: something that makes a particular country’s culture unappealing in one context might have a positive valuation in another. As Nye (2011: 84) puts it: ‘Soft power is a dance that requires partners.’ More generally, the international impact of the culture of any particular country might, at one and the same time, display elements which are attractive to one group and repellent to another, and might be perceived by one group of people as having both positive and negative aspects at the same time.

The complexities of international cultural influence While there is this surprising degree of overlap between two positions that might be thought to be completely antithetical, there are several issues, all central to understanding contemporary Chinese cultural activities, upon which there is no such implicit agreement, and to some of which neither writer gives serious attention. The first and simplest is the scope of the activities that can be considered under this heading. Schiller does not spell out in any detail the exact scope of cultural imperialism, although the burden of his overall work is to concentrate upon the electronic technologies of communication and the ways in which they have promoted an increasingly commoditised form of culture that could be traded internationally. Nye certainly includes such material, but he argues for a very broad definition of soft power. It includes popular culture and higher education, as well as diplomacy (Nye 2002: 11). In proposing a broader definition of the potential influence of culture, Nye offers a better starting point than Schiller. Not all international cultural influence is the result of the sale of television programmes or the control of information sources; diverse other factors also need to be considered in judging the extent to which a state can wield such power effectively. Adopting this broader perspective, however, leads to a second and more intractable issue: the broader approach covers quite different social phenomena and finding a way of assessing their impact that can account for such diversity poses very great problems. Diplomacy, even public diplomacy, upon which much of Nye’s writing concentrates, operates in a quite different way to Hollywood or Harvard. Different institutions, even within the mass media, have 32

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different potential for realising cultural power and should not be judged by a single standard. It is therefore very hard to find a simple way to measure international cultural influence. For example, Nye notes quite correctly that the 24-hour news channels upon which China Central Television (Zhongyang dianshi tai, CCTV) and Xinhua have devoted so much time, effort and resources have attracted only very small audiences (Nye 2012). However, the broadcasters he holds up as alternatives and important elements in soft power – CNN and the BBC – also attract very small audiences. In its UK home BBC News 24 attracts around a 1 per cent audience share and CNN’s audience share of less than 0.1 per cent is so small it cannot be measured accurately (BARB 2012). In its home market, CNN attracted a median prime time viewership of around 626,000 out of a total US 18+ population of 228 million, or less than 0.3 per cent of the potential audience in 2012, while the BBC’s audience is unmeasured but presumably tiny (Nielsen 2011: 12; Holcomb and Mitchell 2013). These are hardly mass audiences even at home, and internationally even the news channels produced by relatively proximate cultures have very few viewers indeed. Any claim to their international cultural influence can therefore hardly be based on the relative size of their audiences. Hollywood blockbusters, on the other hand, attract very large audiences, both in their US home and abroad, including China: in the first half of 2012, 9 out of 10 top-grossing movies in China were from Hollywood (Cain 2012; Coonan 2012). It is certainly the case that the cultural power exerted by an international news channel differs in scale, and probably in social composition, from that of a mass-market cinema film. The difference between the influence of each of these and that of the reputation of higher education institutions is certainly even greater, and there is no obvious way in which they can be added together to create a composite category of international cultural influence. This problem is compounded by the fact that it is also likely that the nature and degree of influence will differ between such widely different experiences as watching a Hollywood movie and spending a year on a scholarship at Harvard. While Hollywood movies may have some influence on widespread popular images of the USA, immersion in an elite academic environment is aimed at a small group who are assumed either already to be, or to be on the road to becoming, power holders in their country of origin. These are important differences in terms of both the cultural influence and the forms of behaviour that they are intended to produce. A popular taste for Hollywood movies may or may not be generalised into a more favourable attitude towards US trade policy, and even if the majority of ordinary people hold such an attitude it is by no means certain that they will influence elite decisions, since governmental indifference to popular sentiment is a commonplace in all existing political systems. Training actual or potential members of those elites, on the other hand, whether soldiers at Fort Benning, economists at the University of Chicago, or politicians and bureaucrats at the Kennedy School of Government, is intended profoundly to shape the intellectual culture of the elite, and thus, at least indirectly, to influence what they do. While it is unclear whether movies have significantly influenced attitudes towards US policy, there seems to be some evidence that these latter institutions have been successful in this aspect of their mission and to have resulted in policies which, however advantageous or deleterious they may have been to the general population of the countries in question, fitted well with US foreign policy objectives. The problem of measuring the impact of cultural power is further complicated by the fact that these different aspects of cultural power operate on different timescales and in different ways. A religious or philosophical position – say Buddhism or possessive individualism – may have a very great influence over very wide areas, but its effect is likely to be measured in decades if not in centuries. A news item – a report of an earthquake, for example – on the other hand, 33

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may have a very great influence over very wide areas but its effect is unlikely to be measured in weeks, let alone months. Similarly, an imaginative work, whether poem, painting, novel or film, may have an effect on the emotional life of an individual or group, but a course in quantitative social science will probably produce a different and less emotionally charged response. Overall, it seems difficult to conceive of any way in which this range of different impacts, operating at different levels over different timescales on different groups of people, can simply be aggregated into one single ‘effect’ that we might term soft power and which permits that state to exercise international cultural influence. The likelihood is that the international cultural influence of any country will be contradictory and shifting, with some aspects appealing strongly to some people at some times, and others proving similarly repellent. Just because of the very wide range of items that are, quite correctly, gathered under this heading, attempts to sum these positive and negative dimensions into a single balance of soft power are doomed to failure.

Articulations of power Another major issue concerns the relationships between different aspects of power. Both writers stress the need to see cultural power as part of the overall power of a state, but they differ significantly in their assessment of the links between the three domains. Schiller’s analysis tended to stress their mutual interdependence as different aspects of what he termed the ‘power complex’ (Schiller 1970: 16). In his account, there were close institutional and organic links between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Defense, on the one hand, and the development of communication technology on the other, notably as embodied in the development of satellite communications. Similarly, the stress placed by the government upon the ‘free flow of information’ was, he argued, a powerful factor in allowing US entertainment companies to establish their domination over the world market. This interdependence was embodied at the level of personnel by individuals like Frank Stanton, then president of the Columbia Broadcasting System who was also ‘Chairman of the United States Advisory Commission on Information . . . which . . . assesses the operation of the United States Information Agency (USIA), the propaganda arm of the American Government overseas’ (Schiller 1970: 55). Nye, on the other hand, stresses the relative autonomy of the different aspects of power, arguing that ‘soft power does not belong to the government in the same way as hard power does . . . many soft power resources are separate from American government and only partly responsive to its purposes’ (Nye 2002: 11). Some important aspects of what Nye includes in this category, notably public diplomacy, do in fact belong to the government, and others, for example academic exchanges, are largely funded by the government and follow its priorities, but core aspects of what he identifies as the sources of US soft power like films, television programmes and popular music are indeed produced by commercial organisations that are relatively distant from the government. It is true that the links between Hollywood, Harvard and the White House are present – Nye is a living embodiment of at least two-thirds of that reality – but they are relatively weak. For example, during the period when the USA was undertaking the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Hollywood made a number of movies that were either directly or indirectly highly critical of that policy. Neither is the US higher education system entirely linked to US government policy. After all, while there are well-known figures like Nye who flit between Washington and Boston, the most famous living member of the US academic community, at least in terms of online visibility, is Noam Chomsky, who can hardly be considered a promoter of US soft power. 34

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All of this evidence of the distance between the institutions of soft power and those of hard power is certainly persuasive, and the substantive products of those institutions are not necessarily such as to promote US soft power. It is, however, possible to overstate the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the organs of soft power. There is a degree of interchange between the leadership of governmental institutions and that of commercial organisations even in the USA that fits quite well with Schiller’s notion of a power complex. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) provides a good example of the interpenetration of institutions producing soft power and the government that disposes of hard power. The MPAA is a body organised and financed by the six major film and television studios and it most certainly is not an arm of the US government. On the other hand, it has always had very close relations with US politics. At one time, it described itself as the ‘little State Department’ and devoted the majority of its efforts to supporting the establishment of free trade agreements between the US government and other states. More recently, its focus has shifted to the protection of intellectual property, and it lobbies the US government to take firmer action against piracy and copyright theft. In pursuing these aims, it has always been led by individuals with good links to the US government: its first chairman was a former US Post-master General under President Harding; its second served in government posts under presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower; its third was a former special adviser to President Johnson; the fourth was agriculture secretary under President Clinton; the current, fifth, incumbent was a US Congressman for thirty-six years, served as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and in 2007 ran unsuccessfully for the post of Democratic nominee in the upcoming presidential election. At the highest levels, at least, talk of a plurality of competing elites seems a little off-key. The analysis of the international cultural influence of a country requires, among other tasks, the investigation of the precise links between the different institutions that wield the different dimensions of power, and of the two considered here the one advanced by Schiller offers a much better starting point. The positions of Schiller and Nye, and the evidence concerning the degree of autonomy or interdependence between the institutions of the state and those of cultural power can best be seen as points upon a spectrum between an extreme of integration, perhaps most clearly embodied in an earlier period of China’s modern history, and an extreme of autonomy, of which perhaps the Nordic countries are the best modern examples.

Filling the gaps Overall, we may say that while the approaches advocated by Nye and Schiller both provide valuable starting points for a comprehensive assessment of the cultural consequences of China’s development, neither separately nor in combination do they provide a completely adequate guide. While we can accept the contention of both writers as to the importance of cultural power, and its linkage with economic and military power; and while we can accept Nye’s broad definition of cultural power as well as Schiller’s greater willingness to analyse the links between soft power and hard power, there are six points at which we need to diverge from both of them, or at least to clarify the issues at stake, if we are to understand both the overall nature of the problem and the precise ways in which it is developing in the Chinese case: •

No culture can be seen in terms that are wholly positive or wholly negative. Any really existing culture will have elements that certain groups find attractive and others that they find repellent. Analysing the cultural influence of a state requires specifying which others 35

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•

•

•

•

•

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are supposed to be subject to this influence, and accepting that in most situations there will be ambivalence, if not contradiction, present in their attitude. We cannot arrive at an estimate of the cultural influence of any given state simply by adding up the positive and negative aspects of this or that dimension of culture. Different dimensions of culture have different audiences, different potential influences and operate over different timescales. These dimensions may act to reinforce one another or they may contradict one another, and their overall effect is unlikely to be the simple sum of their discrete elements. The complexity of the different kinds of activities and possible influences grouped together under the term ‘soft power’ means that the concept is an inappropriate starting point for serious analysis, whatever its popular currency. It would be better to begin from the cultural resources of a state, to analyse the different ways by which such cultural resources are projected, and to measure, if at all possible, the influences that these projections have in particular contexts. Only this latter is a measure of something we might term ‘soft power’. The articulation of different dimensions of power and influence is not a given. In some contexts the three dimensions of economics, culture and coercion are only loosely connected, but in others they are tightly packed together, invariably under the direction of the state machine. It is likely that the nature of these linkages will have some influence on the ways in which different aspects of culture are received. The close linkages that Schiller analysed between the state and the electronic industries were the reason that he used the term ‘imperialism’ in discussing the international dimension of US culture; where cultural activity is not linked to state organisations and policy, the term is inappropriate. Later attempts, including those by Schiller himself, to extend the term to cover the entire gamut of international cultural exchange significantly reduce the analytic power of the concept. Only in circumstances where it can be demonstrated that the use of state power is a significant element in cultural projection can we legitimately speak of ‘cultural imperialism’. While recent experience has indeed been of one dominant culture, that of the USA, having much more international exposure than any of its possible competitors, such a situation can best be seen as exceptional. During most of the Cold War, for example, the USA faced not only a military challenge from the Soviet Union but also an ideological one. A more accurate picture of the record of at least the last century is that just as there has been economic and military competition and conflict between major power centres, so too there has been ideological and cultural conflict. Any analysis of cultural influence must place it within the field of international competition rather than considering it in isolation and entirely in terms of its own self-image. Although Schiller recognised, as Nye does not, that there were important counter-currents that provided an alternative to the dominant commercial culture of the USA, the stress in his analysis is upon that dominant culture. So, too, in his estimation of the alternatives to cultural imperialism, he tended to stress the defence of national cultures, although it should be remembered that he also recognised that these could be contested from within (Schiller 1976: 95–6). An adequate account of international cultural influence would give greater prominence to a recognition that ‘national cultures’ are much more contradictory, contested and changeable than either Schiller or Nye is prepared to acknowledge. While almost by definition those aspects that are most likely to be promoted by both the political and commercial elites of any society will be examples of the dominant culture, it might be that alternative or oppositional cultural forms are also internationally influential – the example of Black music in the USA immediately springs to mind.

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If neither soft power nor cultural imperialism, at least in their canonical forms, provides a wholly satisfactory theoretical framework within which to analyse the present and future international cultural impact of China, they both provide valuable starting points for a more adequate approach. The two writers share a surprising amount of their analyses in common, and the insights of each writer overcome some of the weaknesses and gaps in the other’s work: Nye’s stress upon the broad range of factors that contribute to cultural influence usefully extends Schiller’s concentration upon electronic media, while the latter’s attention to the links between state action and cultural influences improves upon Nye’s vague statements about the relative autonomy of soft power institutions.

China’s cultural resources If we begin our assessment of the current cultural influence along these lines, we obtain a quite different picture from the easy dismissal of China’s soft power that Nye has repeated so often. Rather than following his lead and generalising from the reaction of this or that group in one particular country to one particular aspect of Chinese culture, a more convincing picture would accept that China’s international cultural influence will be contradictory. Alongside the negative assessment of its political regime, for example, there might be more positive responses to other aspects of Chinese culture. Tracking the different ways in which aspects of contemporary China are received by different social groups around the world is a much more challenging, but also much more productive, response than simply sneering at the allegedly repulsive features of this or that particular facet of the whole. It is true that there are many egregiously unattractive features of contemporary Chinese society, economically, politically and culturally. These are, of course, important in shaping the international image of China and giving it a distinctively negative twist, certainly among western intellectuals, but to focus exclusively on these is to take a ludicrously narrow and short-sighted view of the issues at stake. Considered in the broader perspective that we have argued is a more realistic starting point for assessing international cultural influence, the resources available to China are clearly very considerable; indeed they may well be more substantial than those available to any other state, with the possible exception of India (Thussu 2013). The enormous scale and long histories of these two countries means that they both have well-developed philosophical systems, strong literary traditions, robust linguistic resources, distinctive musical forms and vibrant popular cultures that owe little or nothing to western models. No one would ever imagine that the cultures of these countries were in danger of being ‘swamped’ by that of the USA, although they might welcome and absorb many of its artefacts. Irrespective of political system, neither of them is likely to be a short-term competitor with the USA across the full spectrum of cultural production, and particularly not in the audiovisual field, since they both currently lack the material abundance that is both the material and symbolic foundation for much of the attraction of those aspects of US culture. The scale of their cultural and creative industries is constrained by this relative poverty, but economic growth will, if it continues, eventually level that particular playing field. With equal material resources at their disposal, it is difficult to see why Chinese or Indian cultural influence should not be able, at the very least, to provide a viable alternative to many aspects of US soft power, as indeed Indian film production already does for some markets. In the meantime, other aspects of their cultures, less dependent upon the size of their internal markets than film and television, are more strongly placed to exercise international influence. In the case of China, these abundant cultural resources have in fact proved themselves historically to be extremely influential, certainly in the immediate ‘sinosphere’ and arguably 37

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much more widely, for example in important aspects of European poetry and visual culture. ‘Chinoiserie’ was certainly never an accurate copy of its original inspiration, but the different imaginary renderings that embodied it are a recurrent theme in many aspects of European culture over the last 500 years. This cultural influence, however, has operated over relatively long timescales and it may be argued that its major impact is now in the past, although it is in fact still possible to purchase contemporary Chinoiserie from John Lewis (tableware) and Macy’s (bed linen). The undoubted historical influence of Chinese culture in general exists alongside the immediate impact of aspects of the contemporary society and any rounded assessment of China’s potential cultural influence must analyse the interaction of these disparate elements. We can explore this dynamic interaction if we consider political philosophy, which is one of the aspects of Chinese culture that proved attractive to particular foreign social groups in the past. Historically, a world-view that stressed continuity, embedded in a culture that displayed remarkable stability in the face of severe historical shocks like invasion and conquest, and embodied in what was then the most advanced extant civilisation, had an understandable attraction to the ruling elites of other similarly un-dynamic but less sophisticated societies. Those conditions, however, no longer apply either in terms of China itself or of potential emulators. What does remain is the persistence of a cultural framework that provides an alternative to the dominant western models and which can have a very real, if diffuse, international influence (Ding 2008: 73). While a full-blown Confucian philosophy might not give much purchase on the contemporary world, the core idea of a society in which the common lot can best be advanced through the recognition of mutual interdependence and collective responsibility is far from alien even in the west. The ideology of the state as the expression of the collective will required for necessary social and economic projects retains a powerful appeal in quite surprising places, for example the US House of Representatives, where some of the prescriptions of neoliberal deregulation are increasingly viewed as outdated and inadequate to solve contemporary problems of infrastructure (Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 2013). On the other hand, there are more immediate and short-term aspects of contemporary Chinese society that offer a quite different perspective to the stability of the historical model. This is the China that has lifted more than 600 million people out of abject poverty; the China where a politically quiescent middle class happily squander fortunes on luxury brands; the China that has opened itself economically to the world but at the same time retains a state monopoly of symbolic production. Today, a political philosophy that justifies authoritarian rule, embedded in a culture that is undergoing rapid transformation, and embodied in the most dynamic economy on earth, has an understandable attraction to the ruling elites of other relatively impoverished societies seeking to stimulate social change while retaining their own unquestioned power and privileges. After all, China provides what appears to be a triumphantly successful developmental alternative to the notorious prescriptions of the Washington Consensus and for this audience its cultural influence certainly challenges that of the USA. At the same time, these features of contemporary China will have no attraction whatsoever to those concerned with resisting the ruthless exploitation and savage repression that are always and everywhere the hallmarks of this kind of primitive accumulation, whether they happen to be living in impoverished or wealthy societies. The enormous economic achievements have come at a colossal price. China is a society rife with social unrest, with ‘mass incidents’ involving peasants and workers running at around 200,000 a year and often boiling over into full-scale local uprisings. It is a society in which the oppression of national minorities has driven more than 100 Tibetans to public self-immolation in the year prior to this writing and resulted in 38

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the virtual occupation of the cities of the Muslim west by armed police. It is a society ravaged by ecological disasters in which polluted rivers and poisoned food are mundane items of news. The undoubted economic success of China over the last three decades, and the ideological and political models that have accompanied it, can be and are interpreted in quite different and contradictory ways. The gleaming, modern, albeit sometimes dangerously unreliable infrastructure that China is constructing so expeditiously without doubt holds a powerful appeal for other national elites seeking to improve their competitive position in the world market. It took China seven years to build the 2,200-kilometre high-speed rail line from Beijing to Shenzhen. It is taking ten years to build the last 25 kilometres from there to the West Kowloon terminal in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The latter is no democracy, but it does enjoy many democratic liberties that do not exist in mainland China. These permit popular opposition to schemes that destroy people’s homes and livelihoods and which make it much harder and slower to railroad through developmental projects irrespective of social cost. Depending upon the relative weight accorded to development and democracy, so the cultural influence of China will be judged differently. Just because of these different and quite contradictory cultural resources, we would expect to find that contemporary China wields different and equally contradictory cultural influences around the world. We cannot dismiss the whole of the ‘going-out’ strategy, as one prominent Chinese scholar privately does, as ‘mission impossible’ – an expensive exercise in national vanity that can achieve nothing in the way of positive results. There is certainly some element of that involved: despite the huge investment, it is unlikely that, at least in the short term, either of the two international news channels will supplant CNN as a source of information for the global elite. On the other hand, the longer-term influence of Chinese culture, in both its elite and popular forms, is already a reality: the Confucius Institute and Classrooms programme, with nearly 700 locations around the world, has undoubtedly increased the number of people who are learning something of the Chinese language and thus of Chinese culture; contemporary Chinese visual art enjoys a high reputation, and high prices, in art centres throughout the developed world; at a more popular level, various elements of wuxia (i.e. martial arts) have influenced cinema and potentially provide an alternative mythological resource for computer gaming (Blum 2013).

The mass media A similarly uneven influence can be expected in terms of efforts to expand the influence of China’s mass media, and in particular its substantial investment in international news outlets. As we saw above, the audiences for all international news channels are small in size. Only Al Jazeera’s Arabic service really has a substantial viewership, particularly in moments of great crisis in the Middle East. At such times, it provides an alternative to the sterile propaganda of the state broadcasters and is eagerly watched by large audiences. The other international channels have many fewer viewers, even in moments of international crisis, but these will tend to be from elite groups and thus these channels do have a significant international political influence. While it is improbable that either CCTV News or Xinhua’s CNC World will replace CNN as the dominant global news channel in the foreseeable future, it is possible that one or both might join Al Jazeera English as a serious source of alternative perspectives that do not share the essentially imperialistic assumptions that underlie so much of the reporting on the main international channels. Similarly, while none of the cinematic or broadcast organisations that China is trying to develop are likely, in the short term at least, to replace Hollywood as the 39

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capital of the world’s imagination, it is certainly feasible to move from being an importer (and sometimes thief) of foreign films, programmes and formats towards developing markets for products that originate in China and are produced by Chinese organisations. To identify such relatively modest, but more realistic, objectives, however, is to confront directly the issue of the articulation of cultural, political and economic power. It is certainly the case that in China these three moments of power are very closely intertwined and Nye and other critics are quite correct to point to the ways in which that close relationship can damage the prospects of Chinese international cultural influence. In China, the gamut of soft power is much more firmly under government control than in the USA, although perhaps in the nature of things this control cannot be as tight and direct as is party control of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Nevertheless, it remains the case that, unlike the current situation in the USA, ‘the Chinese government can centrally coordinate Chinese TV stations at all levels – by command or coercion – to work together and expand public diplomacy activities abroad’ (Zhang 2011). Even though some commentators have noted that organisations like universities and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) have increasingly become players in China’s soft power projection, it still true that ‘China’s authoritarian regime lies at the root of both China’s successes and shortcoming in public diplomacy’ (D’Hooge 2011: 29). The contradictions that this close articulation raises can be seen most clearly in the case of international news. The condition for the recently expanded Chinese international news channels to exist is that they receive, now and for the foreseeable future, massive subsidies from the Chinese state. Whether in the direct form of payments from the state budget or in terms of payments for ‘advertisements’ placed by provincial governments and state-owned corporations, the budgets of these channels are overwhelmingly the result of political decisions. On the other hand, the condition for them to achieve a serious international audience is that they are able to provide a credible news service which demonstrates some political autonomy and does not simply repeat official statements from Beijing. If they continue to be perceived by their potential audiences as propaganda instruments, pure and simple, then they will never be able to win even the modest audiences of a CNN or a BBC (also see Gary D. Rawnsley, Chapter 28 in this volume). The perception of credibility will only be a possibility if the Chinese international news channels are able to operate with at least the same degree of independence from Beijing as Al Jazeera does from Doha. The independence of the latter is, of course, very far from complete, but it is nevertheless real enough for its Code of Ethics, which stresses the need for accuracy, transparency and diversity, to be considered a serious guide to its operations (Al Jazeera 2013). Such a code of ethics, particularly with regard to the stress upon the presentation of the diversity of opinion, is not even a remote approximation to the rules governing the domestic output of China’s media. Whether, as many of the journalists employed by the new channels desire, these rules can be sufficiently different for the international output of these media as to make them credible remains very uncertain, although recruiting experienced western journalists to work alongside young and enthusiastic Chinese citizens in the overseas offices has already increased pressure for more than mere presentational changes (Liang 2013). A similar contradiction faces attempts to export Chinese entertainment programming. A number of provincial TV stations, most notably Hunan TV, have in the past begun to develop very successful domestic entertainment shows and to explore the possibilities of international collaboration and export. In autumn 2011, however, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) ordered them to shift their programming towards more serious material and to drop some of their most popular shows (Branigan 2011). This decision was justified in terms of the need for television to do more to build a harmonious society, but at 40

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least in part it was designed to limit competition with CCTV. Examples like this demonstrate how political influence can still be used to gain economic advantage at the expense of commercial factors, in cultural production as much as in other areas of business. Unless China can adopt cultural policies that allow an entertainment-oriented broadcasting sector to develop and mature according to its own dynamics, then the chances of producing material that can be a success on the international market are seriously reduced. The close relationship between political, economic and cultural power that prevails in China is both the condition for China’s international effort in broadcasting and an obstacle to achieving success. It does not prevent the country from developing international cultural influence but it does make it very much more difficult. A large and increasingly wealthy industry contains enough diverse talent, both journalistic and creative, to ensure that new and attractive ideas and methods of working will be developed. As things stand, some of these innovations will find favour with the party censors, some will be blunted or sidetracked into safer channels, and some will be stopped by the authorities, while still others will simply be adapted to the prevailing conditions. This is not the atmosphere in which an irresistible challenge to Hollywood is likely to develop.

Cultures in competition Alongside the recognition of the likelihood that China’s international cultural influence will differ depending upon which aspect we consider, and which country, region or social class we analyse, we need to remember that this effort will take place not in a vacuum but in an environment of competition, primarily with the USA. The latter is the incumbent power, economically, politically and militarily, and it undoubtedly enjoys very considerable advantages in terms of international cultural influence, particularly at the popular level. As we have seen, in some important respects the close relationship between culture and power in China, which generally produces some difficulties, brings important advantages. The international spread of culture requires interstate agreements at least as much as the trade in any other commodity, and the economic growth of China has involved an increasing number of such international agreements. In the field of culture, China has been perceived as adopting protectionist policies restricting both imports of production and ownership of media outlets while at the same time failing adequately to police the trade in stolen cultural goods. The former policy is undoubtedly a reality. While there is some confusion as to who actually owns the mass media in China, there is little doubt as to the extent to which foreign participation is limited (Zhao 2008: 105). Protecting creative and cultural industries is not, of course, something unique to China; it has been recognised as a legitimate exception to the free trade logic since the founding of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, now the World Trade Organization or WTO). Numerous states of various kinds, most famously France, have used this exception to support indigenous production in one way or another. While the motivation of Chinese control of ownership and content is no doubt largely political in nature, the fact that it leads to a relatively closed environment for the creative and cultural industries has permitted them to benefit from the increasing wealth of the internal market in which they would otherwise have faced very strong competition from foreign companies. In these industries as much as any other, protection of an infant indigenous producer allows it to grow and develop the potential, if not the actual ability, to become an international player in its own terms. This ‘mercantilist’ calculus is clearly present in the history of the various relaxations of the restrictions upon foreign films and broadcasters. The slow relaxation of the number of permitted foreign films allowed into China per year has been accompanied by efforts, not necessarily successful, to produce 41

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Chinese films that are capable of finding reciprocal international markets. Similarly, the agreements allowing foreign broadcasters limited access for their satellite services has contained clauses guaranteeing CCTV access to their home markets (Chin 2011: 197). With regard to the protection of intellectual property rights, China is frequently perceived internationally as one of the states failing most egregiously to take vigorous action against offenders. In its 2012 filing to the Intellectual Property and Innovation Office of the US Trade Representative, the MPAA identified a number of notorious offenders around the world. In China, it specified Xunlei.com and Paipai.com, both hosted by state-controlled China Unicom, as major providers of illegal online content, and the Hailong mall and the San Li Tun district in Beijing as major sources of illegal physical items. The latter, shockingly, ‘is especially popular with foreign tourists’ (Motion Picture Association of America 2012).1 None of these outlets are obscure or beyond the easy reach of Chinese law enforcement agencies, which in other respects demonstrate high levels of activity in the surveillance and control of illegal activity, so the suspicion of the MPAA appears to be that they are officially tolerated. More generally, Chinese television has long used foreign programmes as, at the very least, ‘inspiration’ for its entertainment programming. Many successful dramas and game shows bear unmistakable evidence of their foreign originals (Keane et al. 2007). Only relatively recently, and still very unevenly, have these borrowings been sanctioned by the legal purchase of a format. Both of these examples, one in which the state acts to protect Chinese concerns and the other in which it more or less consciously fails to act to protect foreign companies, demonstrate the importance of state policies in the international trade in cultural commodities. They have in common, however, the fact that they are both predicated upon the Chinese industry’s ‘weakness’ compared to its competitors. This situation will certainly change as the Chinese economy develops and matures. The export of Chinese films and television programmes is still very modest in scope, but as the home market grows richer and the quality of local productions increases so that situation will change and China can expect to become a substantial exporter of such goods. The ambitions of its media companies will also change as they grow larger, richer and more experienced. If today they worry about the threats posed by foreign competition, in due course they are likely to want to acquire overseas assets themselves. Already one of the motivations for the shift from the theft to the purchase of TV formats is because some broadcasters in China now have the ambition to sell their own products internationally and see the need legally to protect their own property, which is difficult to do if one is notorious for the abuse of the rights of others (Keane 2008). Greater cultural ambitions will undoubtedly develop with the increasing wealth and selfconfidence of Chinese media, but they will also then encounter the reality that China is not the only state that acts to protect its cultural and creative industries. Other states besides China place obstacles in the way of foreign companies selling goods and acquiring assets. Given its size and importance, the US broadcasting market will eventually become a target for Chinese media companies just as it is a market for other Chinese exporters and investors. The US audience is notoriously insular, and the US industry is rich enough to supply that market with indigenous products, so there is unlikely to be a significant direct market for Chinese programmes. There is, however, a thriving market for foreign formats, even in the USA, which Chinese companies might hope to enter without too many problems (Moran 2009). The next logical step, the move to vertical integration through acquiring broadcasting outlets, is a much more difficult question. US law prevents non-citizens from owning a controlling interest in a radio or television broadcaster, which is why previous entrants in the market, like Rupert Murdoch, have had to go native in order to build their empires. Such a passport-switching exercise would not be so easy for the Shanghai Media Group or the Hunan Broadcasting System. Allowing a Chinese 42

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company to acquire control of a US television station would require an amendment to the Federal Communications Act. Given the furore that has surrounded other Chinese acquisitions and attempted acquisitions, this would be likely to be strongly resisted. The close relationship between culture and power in China would at that point be an important asset in the diplomatic pressure and international bargaining necessary to resolve such an issue. Today the US State Department works closely with the US media industry to prise open markets around the world, including China. In the longer term, we can expect the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs will work closely with the Chinese media industry to prise open markets around the world, including the USA.

Conclusions Throughout this chapter we have made two assumptions about the near future: first, the Chinese economy will continue to expand, not perhaps as rapidly as in the last decade but at least fast enough to ensure that China plays an increasingly important role in the world. Second, the current political system will remain, perhaps experiencing some important modifications but not any fundamental changes. Both of these assumptions can be challenged, and if either or both of these prove to be wrong it will be necessary to conduct a fresh analysis of the prospects for China’s international cultural influence. The rate of growth of the economy is certainly slowing from the dizzying pace of the early years of the century, but at the time of writing it remains at an annualised rate of 7.5 per cent and is not, apparently, a cause for concern among the Chinese leadership (Rabinovitch 2013). Growth rates are closely tied to the prospects for political stability, since a rapidly expanding economy and rising living standards are powerful arguments for the status quo among those who have benefited so conspicuously from widening social inequality. Currently, the drive for political change comes from mass movements of workers and peasants, like those in the Guangdong village of Wukan, whose determination won them genuinely democratic village elections in 2012. The only kinds of mass protests that involve a broad spectrum of society are those over environmental issues: as in Victorian London, pollution and poisoned food kill the middle classes just as much as they kill workers and peasants. It is commonly noted that ‘getting rich’ is the dominant popular ideology in contemporary China and, with rapid economic expansion, it has been an ideology that works for millions of people. If the economy suffers big problems and can no longer deliver these material goods, then some sections of the middle class might also turn to political action with unpredictable consequences. With those caveats in mind, however, we can draw a number of conclusions about this influence. In the first place, China has substantial cultural resources and its international influence is likely to increase. This will confound some of it harshest critics who are not prepared to allow for the complexity both of the different cultural resources available and for the variety of responses that the intended audiences may have. At the same time, however, there are very important impediments to success which will also confound some of the more enthusiastic proponents of the going-out strategy and limit the appeal of the Chinese Dream. The longterm influence of Chinese language and culture is likely to grow but the attempt to win influence in the world’s media may prove much more difficult to achieve even over an extended timescale. In terms of the relatively recent past, China is a newcomer to the role of contender for international influence – economically, politically and culturally – and it confronts an established system which is dominated by a powerful incumbent. To a large extent, that incumbent sets the rules of engagement, in the nature and form of news reporting as much as in the rules of international trade, and it will use all of its power to hang on to its existing position. Rapid 43

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transformations of the patterns of international regulation, of the trade in cultural artefacts or in the world’s lingua franca, are unlikely to occur. As noted above, the abundance embedded in the artefacts of US culture retain a powerful and understandable attraction to those in less fortunate material circumstances and the scale of its internal market means that it is able to deploy vastly greater resources in the production of cultural commodities than any other country. China’s per capita income today is a small fraction of that of the USA, and it will be a very long time before a similar level of individual, as opposed to aggregate, abundance prevails in China as a whole. The reality of the American Dream may be fading with static living standards and much lower social mobility, but it is likely to remain significantly more attractive than Xi Jinping’s rather nebulous Chinese Dream for some time to come (Patience 2013). In the longer term, however, it is probable that in the cultural realm, as much as anywhere else, China’s international influence will increase substantially, and this will involve the seductive power of Chinese culture. To the extent that this occurs it will represent not a new global order but a reassertion of the cultural realities that have dominated most of human history. Up until the nineteenth century, China could claim to be the world’s largest economy and its most advanced civilisation. Its culture was, correspondingly, extremely influential internationally. It will not, however, be a simple process of cultural osmosis. In both the history of China and in the contemporary world, soft power does not exist in isolation. Chinese culture’s increased influence will also rely upon the strength of the Chinese state to, as Nye would put it, bribe or coerce other nations into accepting a different world order.

Note 1

In fairness, it should be noted that the MPAA commends Taobao, the largest Chinese e-commerce site, for its increasing efforts to stamp out piracy.

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3 Evaluating Chinese media policy Objectives and contradictions Rogier Creemers

Introduction In recent years, there have been great changes in the Chinese media environment which have been mainly driven by technological and commercial developments. Social media have flourished, the film sector has expanded and commercial television stations have grown ever more successful. However, in China’s particular political–legal environment, these developments pose challenges to government and policy making, as the media administration aims to reconcile political objectives, such as maintaining legitimacy, social objectives, such as youth protection, and economic objectives. Furthermore, the party’s supremacy in political and legal matters has created a situation where overarching constitutional notions, which can underpin the structure of governance, are absent. At the same time, it is clear that there is a strong institutional structure to govern the sphere of public communication which has its own underpinnings and dynamics. How then can we make sense of the content and structure of this Chinese media governance apparat? Simply arguing that policy outcomes are a reflection of the politics of the day would be too simplistic. First, Chinese political actors are constrained by various institutional characteristics. They need to demonstrate loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and manage complex relationships with other institutions and individuals. In other words, they need to be able to refer to a shared normative framework to justify their actions. Second, these structures are highly influenced by past political practice, reaching back to the early days of Chinese civilisation. Certain expectations and concepts have been handed down through the ages, being reinterpreted as political circumstances changed, particularly in the nineteenth century. Media governance is officially considered to be a part of an organic political and social whole with a teleological mission. However, many observers only start their analysis of Chinese media regulation with the beginning of the reform era in 1978 or the Communist takeover in 1949 (Shirk 2011; Zhang 2011; Zhao 2008). Other studies concentrate on specific issues in contemporary China (Donald et al. 2002; Lee 2003). Also, there is a tendency to concentrate on political matters and censorship at the expense of a broader analysis of public communication writ large (Brady 2010). It is important to provide a grounded explanation for the development of the guiding concepts, practices and structures governing public communication in China. Given the fact that these developed largely separately from western concepts of law or society, 47

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it is necessary to understand them on their own terms and against the background of Chinese society and politics. Consequently, a contextual analysis of media governance in the light of the objectives that media are deemed to pursue is more useful than a deductive approach based on western rights-based legal concepts. This chapter will therefore answer a double question. First, it will analyse the central philosophical underpinnings of the current Chinese communication order as well as their historical origins. Second, it will illustrate how the current governance structure – both in terms of institutional structuring and content of media rules – is set up in order to implement these objectives. Finally, it will briefly analyse the severe problems the government faces implementing media regulation in the rapidly shifting Chinese environment.

The philosophical background of Chinese media regulation In order to understand the concrete rules that govern the production and distribution of ideas in the Chinese marketplace, it is necessary to understand the background against which they are made. Certain aspects of the media regulation framework seem puzzling to western observers. First, media regulation consists of hundreds of disparate rules and documents published by different administrative bodies. It also extends into the sphere of criminal law, but few civil statutes directly relate to the media. Certainly, the doctrines of privacy and defamation remain underdeveloped in Chinese practice.1 Second, some fundamental and substantive principles that a western lawyer would expect are lacking. Although the Chinese constitution provides for freedom of expression (People’s Republic of China 1997a), it is not enforceable in court. As such, there is no presumption of free expression or protection against state intervention to limit public expression, which means that the concomitant expectation of robust tolerance and harm (Keller 2011: 40) is not present either. At the same time, there are rules that a western observer would not expect, such as very specific provisions determining, for example, that time travel is not permitted in television programmes (SARFT 2011; also see Guo, Chapter 23 in this volume), the choice of songs in popular talent shows (SARFT 2007) and the specific maladies for which cures cannot be advertised during mealtimes (SARFT 2009). Third, the regulatory framework explicitly claims that the media have a political role in disseminating correct public opinion, ensuring that development is ‘healthy’ and morality is maintained, while at the same time little substantive content is given to these principles. Lastly, a foreign observer would be astounded by the high number of administrative procedures and licensing obligations that Chinese media enterprises need to negotiate.2 From the point of view of liberal democracy, these rules fundamentally conflict with the role that the media should play in society (Freedom House 2012). However, the Chinese leadership explicitly rejects many of the values of liberal democracy, such as pluralism, regulatory impartiality and free expression. Conversely, it espouses a complex and layered view of the role of the media and its governance which developed over time and contains elements that go back to pre-imperial political philosophy, Leninist tools of governance and neoliberal market instruments. To understand this complex framework, it is instructive to analyse the goals and beliefs as officially proclaimed by the CCP, with the Central Committee’s most recent resolution (Central Committee 2011) concerning reform of the cultural sector as an example.3 This document was promulgated in November 2011 after a special plenary meeting of the Politburo had been convened to address the issue of culture and ideology. This has quickly risen to the top of the leadership’s agenda in the wake of increasing dissent on the internet, the expanding economic importance of the media sector, a perceived moral vacuum in Chinese society and a perceived onslaught of foreign cultural influences. This document is significant for a number 48

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of reasons. First, it is a confirmation of the Central Committee’s increased focus on culture as a source for legitimacy, social control and economic development, as decided upon by the central leadership. Second, it contains a blueprint of measures to be developed in the next few years, as well as a focus area for investment. Third, the media campaign surrounding the publication of this document placed security chief Zhou Yongkang in the spotlight, next to propaganda chief Li Changchun, further underlining the link between culture and social stability. In its first paragraph the Central Committee’s resolution states that the objective of cultural construction is to ‘construct a relatively well-off society, initiate a new dimension for the socialist undertaking and realise the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’. The latter objective has been at the core of Chinese politics since the second half of the nineteenth century. China’s millennia-old imperial system collapsed after conflicts with emerging industrial powers such as Britain and Japan, as well as a series of internal conflicts and uprisings in which millions were killed. As a result, saving the nation (jiuguo) and building it into a strong power which would be able to resist foreign invasion became the core objective of successive Republican and Communist rulers. Modernisation had internal goals as well. Echoing the Confucian notion of the idealised past, self-strengthening has combined with a utopian, eschatological vision in which at the end of history complete harmony would be achieved. The intermediary step to this is the ‘relatively well-off society’ (xiaokang shehui) which has become the current objective of modernisation and self-strengthening (for example Central Committee 2012). This harks back to notions developed by the philosopher Mencius in the third century BC and describes a society in which there is relative material comfort for the absolute majority.4 This indicates that Chinese political philosophy prioritises socio-economic issues over political participation and individual liberty (Perry 2008: 37–50). Although we may accept that strengthening the nation and ensuring material well-being are the main political objectives and bases of legitimacy, the question remains how these goals are to be achieved. The answer to this at present remains socialism under the leadership of the CCP, although the definition of what socialism means has varied greatly during different phases of the party’s rule. The present consensus about politics and the role that media play in this is embodied in a number of policy formulations outlining the guiding ideology of cultural work. Most important media documents, including the Central Committee Resolution, but also the eleventh and twelfth five-year plans for media and culture development, include a section called ‘guiding ideology’ which lists the different slogans that are supposed to provide a clear direction for the document’s implementation. These slogans, in turn, reflect a political consensus that has been forged through the decades of CCP leadership. There are four important building blocks in this consensus: (1) integrating a spiritual civilisation with a material civilisation, (2) liberating thoughts, letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend, (3) seeking truth from facts and (4) guiding the people with correct public opinion and moulding them with a noble spirit. All of these crystallised during the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the post-Cultural Revolution party leadership hammered out a new model for development and growth. They point towards a complex background of political imperatives and choices which strongly influences media policy.

Integrating a spiritual civilisation with a material civilisation The modernising reforms of the late 1970s were aimed at technological development and economic expansion, reflected in the Four Modernisations of agriculture, industry, defence and science. Hence, Deng Xiaoping tried to shift the political emphasis away from the ideological focus and towards pragmatism (Vogel 2011). However, he was faced with the difficulty that 49

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the conservative side of the party centre was concerned with the deleterious impact of material welfare on social morality. These ideologues, headed by official party historian Hu Qiaomu and Propaganda Department director Deng Liqun, pushed for a campaign against spiritual pollution which started at the end of 1983 (Gold 1984: 947–74). The campaign fizzled out after a few weeks, as it aroused fears of a return to the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution and threatened to nip the resurgence of science in the bud. Nonetheless, Hu and Deng were not removed from their positions and the notion of a socialist spiritual civilisation, which complemented material development, remains present in the most important policy documents on media and culture issues. While it lacked a detailed substantive meaning, it signalled the party’s continuing claim to a leading moral position. Morality gained new traction in the mid2000s, as continuing corruption and increasing inequality were deemed to erode social coherence. As a new exhortation, the Hu–Wen administration launched a new moral concept, the eight honours and eight disgraces (barong bachi) in 2006.5 These, in turn, serve as the central notion for the ‘socialist core value system’ (shehuizhuyi hexin jiazhiguan tixi), a term that is equally empty but with an equally important signalling function (Von Senger 2012: 399–414). The function of the media is to provide, among other things, an environment conducive to the realisation of this morality. This is realised through big-budget government-sponsored main melody (zhu xuanlü) films, online campaigns with themes such as ‘surfing the web in a civilised manner’ (wenming shangwang), and television programmes extolling the glory of Chinese culture and history. Nonetheless, an intractable tension remains between idealised notions of moral behaviour and a perceived crisis of social conduct, particularly in relation to official corruption and privilege. Also, the concept is opposed to tendencies that are defined as ‘excessive entertainmentisation’. This pushed the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) to come down strongly against popular television programmes including dating shows or talent competitions, as these are deemed to exert a negative influence on public morality.

Liberating thoughts, letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend This term directly harks back to the pre-Qin era when the Chinese territory was taken up by small feudal states that were locked in continuous warfare. Philosophers were often retained in courts to advise on matters related to internal ordering, diplomacy and warfare. The resulting flourishing of political philosophy became known as the ‘Hundred Schools’, and counted Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, Laozi and Hanfeizi among its luminaries. However, this period came to an abrupt end as the First Emperor ruthlessly suppressed dissenting opinions. Philosophers were buried alive and all books, with the exception of those relating to legalism, agriculture, medicine and divination, were burned (Lai 2008). In the mid-1950s, the confident new CCP regime relaunched this notion as it started to encourage differing views on, and criticism of, the regime. The party had gained control over the Chinese mainland, implemented land reform, succeeded in drawing western forces to a stalemate in Korea and completed campaigns aimed at eliminating anti-Communism and capitalism. It seems that the leadership believed that criticism would either relate to specific problems in bureaucracy that could be resolved, or come from misunderstanding the superiority of party rule, which could be countered through argument and persuasion (Cheek 1997). However, the ensuing torrent of criticism took the party by surprise. Millions of letters were posted to government institutions, newspapers published critical articles and street rallies were organised. Hundreds of public postings criticised the privileged position of party members, the party’s intervention into private life and the relationship with the Soviet Union, among other 50

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matters. Retaliation was swift. In July 1957, Mao ordered the end of the campaign and cracked down heavily on those who had expressed criticism (Hua 1990: 234–56). By the end of the year, 300,000 had been purged or punished in this Anti-Rightist Movement. Mao himself openly referred to the First Emperor: ‘He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried 46,000 scholars alive . . . You call us Qin Shihuangs. Wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shihuang a hundredfold’ (Sun 2012). This crackdown heralded the hardening of ideological positions, and the disasters of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. After Deng Xiaoping gained control over the party at the end of 1978, his ally Hu Yaobang reinstated the ‘Two Hundreds’ and called upon the party to liberate its thoughts (Hu 1979). This was a reaction against the ideological purism of the Cultural Revolution and aimed to support scientific and technological expertise, as well as limit ideological ossification through enhancing debate. Again, this open space invited critical voices, with the public posters on a wall in Beijing that become known as Democracy Wall (minzhu qiang) arguably the best-known example. At first, criticism was aimed at the excesses of the past decade, which Deng tolerated because it supported his reform efforts. Very rapidly, however, the posters started criticising the leadership of the party and Deng Xiaoping himself. On 5 December 1978, a young electrician working in the Beijing Zoo, Wei Jingsheng, posted a call for a fifth modernisation, democracy. This was beyond the limits of what Deng could tolerate (Hua 1990: 234–56). Democracy Wall was torn down, Wei and other activists were imprisoned, and Deng instituted four cardinal principles which would be beyond argument: persisting in the socialist path, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the party and Marxism-Leninism–Maoism. Nonetheless, the ‘Two Hundreds’ principle still appears in most media policy documents. It does not aim to foster political pluralism, ideological liberalisation or a loyal opposition. Deng Xiaoping himself indicated that the party’s mistakes were always corrected by the party itself, and that no one should use party mistakes as an excuse to resist party leadership (Lin 1990: 272). Rather, it serves to provide a space for debate on technical issues in support of overall political objectives, differentiate the correct political messages for different target groups, and generate feedback on policy implementation and local issues. As such, it is perhaps the clearest boundary for the different discourse registers that are permitted within the Chinese media: it permits the publication of different opinions on certain aspects of policy within a clear and carefully defined space where no criticism of fundamental principles is countenanced.

Seeking truth from facts This phrase originated in the Han Dynasty when it referred to a scholarly attitude of not passing judgement before grasping facts to the fullest extent. It was at the core of a reform movement which started in the Qing Dynasty which aimed to return to the core texts of classical learning, rather than late commentaries. In turn, it became the motto of the Yuelu Academy in Nanchang, where Mao Zedong studied (Chen 2005). Mao later adopted it into CCP doctrine (Mao 1940), referring to the need to pragmatically learn from reality. After Mao’s death in 1976, the term reappeared in the power struggle that erupted between Hua Guofeng, Mao’s appointed successor, and Deng Xiaoping. The rally for public opinion was primarily fought through newspapers. Hua had sponsored a People’s Daily editorial outlining the ‘Two Whatevers’ policy, upholding all Mao’s policy decisions and following all his instructions. Countering this, Deng sponsored an editorial in the Guangming Daily entitled ‘Practice is the sole criterion of truth’, which was followed up by a speech for the military. Both texts exhorted the need to seek truth from facts (Vogel 2011: 211–13). It has been a key part of Chinese policy since. 51

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In brief, this phrase requires the integration of practice and theory, and the integration of universal Marxist principles with the concrete experience of the Chinese revolution. The new policy also aimed to reinvigorate science, echoing nineteenth-century reformers who already identified science as the key necessity for saving the nation. This policy has been very successful in rapidly transforming China’s industrial structure. More relevant to understanding media policy is that this tenet is applied in philosophy and social science as well (Central Committee 2004). Again, pluralism is not the objective of scholarly activity. Rather, its role is to explore how fundamental theories of socialism materialise on the assumption that society, like the natural world, operates according to objective laws that can be deduced through scientific study. This impacts on the media in two ways. First, in terms of context, the role of the media is to spread the excellent results of philosophy and social science in order to educate the population and illuminate the ‘historical development laws of humankind and society’ (Central Committee 2004: para. II(5)), while debate is limited to the specific technical method that is used, rather than fundamental assumptions or observations. Second, in terms of governance the assumption seems to be that media operations can be improved by specific scientific means. In other words, as part of society, public communications also works on the basis of objective laws, and discovering these is deemed to enable the ‘perfection’ (wanshan) of regulatory frameworks. This in turn results in popular, high-quality and commercially successful media products.

Guiding the people with correct public opinion One of the core notions of traditional Chinese philosophy is the role of self-cultivation and education. A human being is born as a blank canvas and should attain morality through diligent study and the emulation of models from the past. Again, this paternalist requirement to follow predetermined moral imperatives differs from the liberal notion that proposes individuals should primarily pursue moral notions as they see fit. Furthermore, the substantive rules of ethics are determined externally. In imperial times, morality was determined by the Confucian classics. In the 1930s the Nationalist (i.e. Kuomintang or KMT) government aimed to mould the population through the purist, austere New Life Movement (Dirlik 1975). Throughout the Communist era, there have been ample model citizens and normative behavioural codes, including Lei Feng6 and the above-mentioned core socialist value system. Politically speaking, however, there was also a strong moral obligation on rulers. Philosophically, their legitimacy was derived from the notion of the Heavenly Mandate, an entrustment from Heaven to govern. In contrast with the divine right of kings, the mandate was dependent on the behaviour of rulers. If they would not be able to ensure the livelihood of the people, which they would do by acting morally, Heaven would withdraw its mandate and the dynasty would be overthrown. This doctrine justified popular scrutiny of the action of rulers, although not the content of the moral rules themselves. This is echoed by the notion of the masses monitoring acts of individual officials and government departments, which was a core function of CCP press from the very early beginnings of the People’s Republic (Central Committee 1950). In current Chinese politics, this is embodied in the notion of ‘public opinion supervision’ (yulun jiandu), introduced at the thirteenth party congress in 1987. Former Premier Zhao Ziyang stated that in order to establish social dialogue and consultation, the masses must know major issues, and these must be discussed with the people (Zhao 1987: para. V(5)). This mood changed very rapidly after the 1989 riots when the leadership – from which Zhao had been ousted because of his conciliatory efforts to reach a compromise with the student demonstrators – asserted strict control over public communications because maintaining stability became the CCP’s overarching 52

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imperative. A number of media outlets had supported protesters’ demands, and this was deemed to have exacerbated the problems for the leadership which nearly caused the overthrow of the party regime. Consequently, public opinion supervision was counterbalanced with public opinion guidance (yulun daoxiang). In a speech at the end of the year, new propaganda chief Li Ruihuan laid down the components of this policy (Li 1989). Newspaper reports should mainly report and propagate positive matters, criticism should be concentrated on problems that can be resolved and critical reporting should include information on the resolution of the problem. At the same time, Li called for structural reform: propaganda art should be improved, and news and propaganda personnel should be better trained in how to perform their duties in accordance with the guidelines of the centre. Since then, the party has established a considerable public opinion monitoring and guidance structure, including traditional media outlets, presence on the internet, education, culture and tourism, aimed at ensuring that reality is presented correctly to, and perceived correctly by, the population. One last important notion is the militaristic language often used in these documents. While after 1989, the party ratcheted down the classical Communist notions of class struggle and collective ownership, party documents are still written in a strident tone echoing military campaigns. The 2011 Central Committee Resolution states that ‘consolidating the common ideology and morality for united struggle of the entire party, country and all ethnicities’ is necessary, and that the party and people must be armed with socialist and scientific theory to develop along the correct path. It seems to be part of the political culture of the CCP that some form of antagonism is indispensable as a justification for mobilising the masses in pursuit of common objectives. Throughout its history, the party has done so by opposing external enemies, such as the Japanese, imperialist nations, the Soviet Union or Vietnam, but also the KMT. After 1949, the CCP externalised certain classes of persons to struggle against, most recently with the anti-bourgeois liberalisation campaign of 1987. While the CCP’s stability-oriented method of leadership realised after the Tiananmen uprising largely refrained from such ideological campaigns – apart from the occasional anti-Japanese or anti-US riot – the culture bureaucracy seems to be reluctant to shift its tone of regulation away from mobilisation. Another important consequence of this is the perception of the role of public communication in the public sphere. In policy documents, this is described as the ‘ideological battlefield’ (sixiang zhendi) which must be occupied and dominated by the voice of the party. In short, in contrast to the liberal notion which holds that governments are not entitled to limit the liberty of expression unless compelled to do so to prevent harm to other individuals, the Chinese view is teleological. In this conception, public communications are purposive means to an end, the rejuvenation of China, and individual liberty is subordinate to that end. Morality and social truth are determined by the leadership, not through pluralist debate, but are preestablished by the CCP. Not everyone should be able to access the sphere of public opinion, but only those representing sufficiently advanced levels of insight and education, and vigilance against threats from inside and outside must be maintained. The next question then is how institutions and rules are structured in such a way as to realise these objectives.

Design and reform of the media regulatory framework Structures The regulatory structure established to implement the above philosophy took its definitive form after 1989, as the CCP reasserted control over media and aimed to regain control over the ideological battlefield. Unsurprisingly, both institutions and rules are designed in such a way as 53

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to maintain control over the content of publicly available expression, as well as the actors who can produce or distribute them. Hence, the aim is not to create a framework of rules and principles that clarify the rights and obligations of all concerned parties, within which individual actors can pursue their own objectives, but to manage the sphere of public communications in support of a specific set of political objectives and to do so in a flexible way and with a high degree of discretion (Keller 2000: 151–80). The institutional aspects of China’s media governance include party organs, state departments, state-owned enterprises and industrial associations.7 Confirming its Leninist identity, this structure is divided along functional lines, and the different organisations within it do not have a mutually balancing or safeguarding function. At the top level of this structure are informal discussion groups within the Standing Committee. These feed general objectives to the Central Propaganda Department (CPD), a party organ that is in charge of all matters related to thought and culture in China, including newspapers, radio, television and the internet, but also the education system. In turn, the CPD formulates general policies and guidelines to the ministry-level state institutions: the Ministry of Culture, State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT),8 the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the State Council Information Office (SCIO). These formulate concrete rules for media enterprises, with particular stress on procedural aspects, such as registration and licensing procedures, as well as administrative punishment for violations. Where necessary, other ministries cooperate in rule making in cross-jurisdictional cases. For example, the General Administration of Customs assists in drafting and implementing rules on the import and export of cultural products. Less conspicuous in terms of rule making, but therefore not less important in implementing policy, are the media enterprises. In principle, the party has maintained complete state ownership or majority state control in all significant parts of media distribution. All television stations, newspapers and distributors of foreign films must be state owned. Furthermore, in activities where private companies are permitted, state-owned enterprises remain in the dominant position. The Xinhua press agency, for instance, is the most important source of online news, as government instructions often oblige news outlets to only use Xinhua copy. Similarly, while there are a number of private film distributors, China Film Group remains the most powerful in this field, partly due to its shared monopoly on the lucrative distribution of foreign films. Only in the field of social media is state ownership absent. However, this may make them more susceptible to strict state control as they are less well connected through party channels than state-owned enterprises. Lastly, there are a number of sector and professional organisations. Some of these, such as the All-China Federation of Literary and Artistic Circles, the Chinese Writer’s Association and the All-China Journalists Association, have been part of China’s media structure for decades. The function of these associations is to provide a space for interaction between the party and these professional groups, as well as providing feedback for policy making and a targeted platform for new policy. Following the expansion of the internet, the leadership has actively supported the establishment of new sector associations and self-regulatory initiatives in the online world. These organisations officially fall under the supervision of the relevant ministry, but are also controlled through party means. In fact, true to its Leninist origins the CCP maintains considerable direct power over this entire structure through direct intervention as well, creating effectively a double command structure. There are mandatory party organisations inside all state regulators and media enterprises. Furthermore, many private internet enterprises, such as Sina9 and Tencent (SZNS News 2011), have established party groups as well. The role of these groups is to ensure policy implementation and provide ideological education and professional training. They also ensure that all levels of 54

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media governance and commerce are linked to the party. For example, the head of a ministry will often be the secretary of the party committee as well, as in the case of Minister of Culture Cai Wu (Xinhua undated) and SAPPRFT director Cai Fuchao (Xinhua 2011). Also, party members may hold different party committee positions, such as Hu Zhanfan, who is the director and party committee chair of China Central Television (CCTV) and a member of the SARFT Party Committee. This control through individual staff is further enhanced through the nomenklatura appointments system, through which the party controls all significant leading positions in the media structure (Burns 1994). This power was used to appoint the conservative Yang Jian as party secretary of the Southern (Nanfang) Media Group, which is well known for its relatively independent political stance (Bandurski 2012). At the same time, the requirement for media entities to have a sponsoring government unit creates a strong incentive against straying too far from the line, as few officials would welcome closer scrutiny from higher levels. Also, news outlets, particularly People’s Daily and Xinhua, are not only responsible for openly reporting news, but also for composing ‘internal reference’ (neican) reports for the leadership. These are regularly published briefing documents containing news that might create disturbances if posted publicly, such as reports on policy implementation or corruption (He 2008: 73).

Rules The structure of regulatory documents echoes the institutional structure, and the power of rules varies in scope and application, depending on who formulates them and for what purpose. The Central Committee and the ministries regularly publish policy documents, outlining shifts in priorities for the media following economic development and technological evolution, but these contain few binding provisions. Rather, they are the prism through which the state institutions and media enterprises are supposed to lay down, interpret and apply the rules. The State Council, which groups all ministries, drafts the top-level rules for different media sectors, such as the Radio and Television Management Regulations, the Film Management Regulations and the Internet Information Service Management Rules. In turn these are substantiated through subsidiary ministry-level rules. Generally, these rules cover three major areas (Creemers 2012). The first area, content control, is usually worded in vague terms with a standard list of prohibited categories that returns in most documents. These categories include content violating the constitution, endangering national security, insulting others, propagating obscenity, gambling or violence, or endangering public morals. It also contains an open-ended category of other content prohibited by law or regulation. This vagueness is intentional, as it allows the administrative body significant discretion in applying these standards during the mandatory licensing processes of products and businesses. The second area covers licensing procedures, which are often the most elaborated parts. Licensing requirements are imposed for most activities relating to public communications and provide a convenient method for managing the number of businesses active in this area, as well as their products and services. The third area comprises the punitive provisions that apply when the rules are broken. With a few exceptions, these are either administrative punishments imposed by the regulatory authority or criminal punishments. Below these general rules there is a continuing stream of notices, circulars and orders that impose new rules, clarify or reiterate older provisions, and inform about specific campaigns related to law enforcement, celebrating politically significant activities or supporting special events, such as the Beijing Olympics. Furthermore, where news media are concerned, the CPD and the SCIO send daily instructions to editorial departments on whether and how to report certain developments (Brady 2010). As the spread of news has speeded up through the internet, they 55

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may even directly contact news outlets with orders that must be implemented at extremely short notice, often minutes (China Copyright and Media 2010). Generally, the strictness and acuity of media regulations vary with the perceived impact and speed of the platform at issue. Books are regulated more lightly than newspapers which are read more broadly. Television and the internet, being mass media able to spread news at high speed, are under even closer watch. In order to control better the mercurial internet operators and social networks, some rule-making work has been outsourced to sector organisations or, under the name of self-regulation, to the enterprises themselves. One of these is the Weibo Community Pact through which Weibo users are contractually liable for any objectionable content they post.10 Nonetheless, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that if this is not implemented sufficiently well, Weibo will itself come under fire. There are few civil laws that directly influence the content of public communication. One important exception to this is the Advertising Law (People’s Republic of China 1994), which regulates the content of advertising, which is limited further by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law (Supreme People’s Court 2003). Furthermore, some headway has been made in certain private aspects of media content. For example, Article 101 of the General Principles of Civil Law provides for a right of reputation and prohibits insult and slander. Article 120 provides that in cases where this right is harmed, citizens may demand redress before the courts. Two Judicial Interpretations of the Supreme Court added details on how to implement these provisions (Supreme People’s Court 1986, 1993 and 1998). Further provisions regarding the right to reputation were present in drafts of the 2009 Tort Law, but were removed (Liebman 2006: 43). The Tort Law does include the protection of civil rights on the internet, and defines user and internet service provider (ISP) liability for internet-related infringement of rights. Furthermore, at the time of writing, a research project into a potential Human Dignity Law (renge quan fa) is under way, and a draft implementation manual for dealing with media-related torts is being tested in a pilot court in the Haidian People’s Court.11 Defamation is also included in the Criminal Law (People’s Republic of China 1997b: Article 246). Conversely, the Criminal Law also contains very broad provisions for dealing with offensive content. Some of these provisions are shared with western restrictions on the freedom of expression, such as the prohibition of ethnic discrimination present in Articles 149 and 150. However, some provisions provide a legal basis to restrict messages that offend the powers that be, especially in cases of political dissent. While the crime of counter-revolutionary activism was removed from Criminal Law in 1997, it was replaced with the crime of endangering state security in Part Two, Chapter I, and little substantive change resulted (Clarke 1998). For example, Article 105 of Criminal Law prohibits subversion of state power. This was the legal basis for the conviction of the activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. In other words, criminal suits are an effective way for the party-state to silence dissent through legal procedure. Economic transactions of cultural and media products are protected by the Copyright Law. However, other legal frameworks, such as competition, have relatively little impact on traditional media outlets. This is largely the case because they are differentiated regionally and functionally, but also because, as party institutions, they are part of the administrative structure outlined above. Hence, they are not free operators in a competitive marketplace. This is different for private enterprises which are mostly found on the internet. In February 2012, there was a high-profile spat between video websites Youku and Tudou (Xinhua 2012). This case was never brought to a conclusion as a few months later the two websites announced their merger, which created some issues of competition and market dominance in itself (China IP Lawyer 2012). Consequently, it remains to be seen how media competition and other economic issues would develop, especially as private enterprises increasingly compete with the state media entities. 56

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Structural reform: reconciling ideals and realities The guiding philosophy of media governance has changed little since 1989. However, there have been significant shifts in the context in which this philosophy is implemented. China has become the second economy in the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), it became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and raised its international profile, among others through the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Its economic policies are under readjustment, as continued development requires that China moves higher up the value chain. At the same time, there are a number of destabilising factors. Social unrest is increasing due to corruption, abuse of power and privilege and a perceived moral vacuum in society. Moreover, technological development has enabled new modes of public communication and interaction. Due to internet and mobile technology individual Chinese citizens now have access to low-threshold means of communication that extend beyond the immediate scope of the workplace, the family or local community. These shifts have driven an evolution of media policy and regulation starting in the mid1950s aiming at commercialising the media sector and turning it into a location of economic growth, but also for media to become a more effective tool for propaganda, ‘public opinion guidance’ and social control. The most important reforms have taken place in the economic environment of media operators. Recognising that financial input is needed to develop media services and products, investment channels into the cultural industries were widened to certain party or state institutions at first, and subsequently to private and foreign investors. Furthermore, corporate structures were reshaped as most media outlets transformed from politically oriented public service entities (shiye) to commercial enterprises (chanye) (Guo 2004). Commercialisation, however, does not mean liberalisation. As indicated before, the objective of structural reform was to make the media system a more effective political tool. Consequently, the opening of economic and investment channels, especially where foreign activity is concerned, is structured in such a way as to maintain final political control. Private capital, for example, may only hold minority participation positions in publishing, distribution of lifestyle television programmes and cable operators. It is prohibited from entering any news-related area, radio or television stations and certain infrastructure activities (China Copyright and Media 2005a). Foreign capital may participate in production and sales of media products, as well as media-related venues such as cinemas and theatres. It may not invest in radio and television stations, news companies, film production, internet culture enterprises, media distribution, and audiovisual publishing (China Copyright and Media 2005b). In early 2012, a Sino-US agreement raised the quantitative film import quota, but it did not expand business operation channels. Furthermore, party influence over the media has been strengthened in some areas as well. For example, party-run study programmes for media officials and professionals have been expanded. The highly supported professional and technical training programmes for young media talents invariably contain courses related to the political role of media and public communication. The emerging copyright collection societies12 and media sector associations are also closely related with the party media departments, and many private media enterprises have now established party committees.

Evaluating media governance in practice In terms of achieving its primary goal, monopolising the public debate within the Chinese territory, the party-state has so far been successful. There are a number of opposing voices, particularly in online social media, but this may indicate the sophistication of the control regime in allowing a safety valve for discontent rather than a failure to control these messages. Certainly, 57

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these spheres are managed in such a way that dissent remains individualised and unorganised. However, the price of this external achievement is internal weakness and fragmentation. The structuring of media governance through administrative regulation has created an environment in which the rules can change rapidly and unpredictably. The prioritisation of political objectives over other interests, combined with a lack of checks, balances and accountability, resulted in a number of intractable tensions and what Keller (2003) calls a crisis of governance which has, if anything, deepened after the expansion of social media. This crisis manifests itself in the corpus of media rules which is mostly present in administrative regulations and orders, not in law. Since 1979, hundreds of documents with regulatory effect have been released13 by all the regulatory authorities involved, which are often contradictory. Also, it is often not clear which rules are still in force, or through which process they are enforced. As a result, it is very difficult for media operators and investors to gauge the present state of the rules. However, even if this was clear, the administration enjoys a wide discretionary space for intervention and discretion which is not limited by general provisions concerning basic rights of media outlets or consumers, robust tolerance or strong institutional checks. This has a number of consequences inhibiting development in the media sphere. First, official media outlets, being party institutions, have close relationships with the institutions supposed to manage them, leading to local protectionism and departmentalism. Second, promotion of management-level staff in both media outlets and regulatory bodies depends on party evaluation criteria which are often related to quantitative achievements. Consequently, media regulators are under pressure to pass regulatory documents as proof of their activity, even where they only reiterate existing rules or duplicate them in a more narrowly defined sphere. As a result, there are many documents related to the delivery of audiovisual services through television or the internet which all contain the same basic provisions on market access, content and punishment. Third, the media sphere is constantly in flux. When new rules are introduced, media operators often find creative ways to bypass their spirit, be they related to matters of content or commercial activity. One very visible example of this are film co-productions. Films that are officially classed as co-productions between foreign and Chinese enterprises are not subject to a number of limitations that foreign films are subjected to, and neither do they count towards the foreign film quota. The policy objective for co-productions is to provide opportunities for Chinese film companies to learn more about advanced filmmaking techniques, to support their export drive. However, from the Hollywood side, much more interest is aimed towards the booming Chinese cinema market. As a result of this, many ‘co-productions’ only feature token Chinese participation or content, while at the same time being very lucrative for the Chinese film studio (Burkitt 2013). Technological evolution also challenges the implementation of earlier rules. The party is constantly moving to deal with emerging political and social trends. In the absence of a framework of legal principles, this means that the administration continually needs to issue new documents to paper over the cracks left in earlier documents, confront strategic behaviour or to deal with new challenges that arise. The party also seems to display a naive trust in the content of its message. While it professes to support the creation of media products ‘that the people love to see and hear’, it has also prohibited the use of audience research and viewing rates to inform programme decision by television channels. The party seems to assume that audiences automatically embrace the content it wants to send as long as it is packaged well. However, many official productions with high production values and strong government support have not met with success in the marketplace. Conversely, many popular media products, including television programmes and online services, have been banned or strongly curtailed. For instance, although foreign films 58

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generally tend to bring in vastly larger box-office incomes than domestic films, the state-owned duopoly distributors China Film and Huaxia are required to support the screening of main melody productions, removing commercially more profitable works from circulation. This imposes a high cost on cinema owners. In addition, the poor product variety offered through official channels has provided strong incentive for piracy, exacerbating China’s poor reputation in the field of intellectual property protection. Lawlessness is not limited to the infringement of, often foreign, intellectual property rights. Corruption and other improper practices are rife at all levels of the media structure. There are repeated instances of journalists manufacturing news for payment or accepting bribes to keep certain stories from becoming public knowledge (Liu 2004). While there have been a number of high-profile convictions, such as that of Guangzhou media baron Li Yuanjiang in 2004 (Zhao 2008: 114), the problem remains serious enough for the party centre to dedicate a specific campaign against journalistic corruption in the run-up to the eighteenth party congress. Moreover, the administration’s licensing monopolies create further opportunities for rent-seeking behaviour. Apart from the above-mentioned internal cracks in the system, China’s media governance creates problems on the international stage as well. Apart from the well-known and high-profile concern about the state of human rights in China, the limitations on foreign participation in the Chinese media sector and the import of foreign media products have led to trade disputes, for example in the WTO. In one case, China-Audiovisuals, it was found that a number of Chinese restrictions on foreign products and businesses infringed WTO rules. Another case, China-Financial Information Services, was settled after it became clear that the restrictions on the information trading services of foreign operators were a clear violation of China’s WTO provisions. However, the impact of both cases on the domestic communication order is negligible. In the audiovisuals case, China updated a few legal provisions related to the import of media products, but the core matter – the right of foreign enterprises to distribute their own products on the Chinese market – is not a part of China’s WTO commitments and therefore out of the scope of this case. Further pressure was avoided through an agreement that provided for an increase in the number of foreign films permitted on the Chinese market, and an increase in the profit share of the foreign rights holders. As for financial information services, new regulations were passed which again do not significantly change the business environment for foreign service providers.

Conclusion China’s governance of its public communication sphere is closely related to philosophical concepts that have helped to shape structures, processes and expectations. There is no objective to create a pluralist forum with democratic representation, but an incentive to monopolise the sphere of public discourse. The party proclaims to be the evident and irreplaceable ruling group, led by scientific and infallible principles, and legitimised by its ability to deliver economic growth and national strengthening. As a result, the media are mainly governed through administrative fiat and kept on close watch by party organs. The role of civil law is limited, while criminal law is mainly used as a tool to combat dissent. Similarly, private media are heavily circumscribed but play an increasingly important role on the internet. Nonetheless, this structure is coming under increasing strain through corruption, fragmentation and the inevitable complexity of a modernising, industrialising society, as well as the loss of trust that the CCP faces. While the party’s grasp on power is still absolute and organised dissent has been mostly silenced, a deep 59

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malaise has taken hold in Chinese society and media. It will therefore fall to the successors of the Hu–Wen administration to tackle political and media reform head-on, or face an increasing delegitimation of their positions.

Notes 1 This is not to argue that these doctrines do not exist at all (Fu and Cullen 1998: 9; Liebman 2006: 33–177). However, they seem to have taken secondary importance to content control and market access. This is understandable given the fact that most mainstream media outlets are either party or state controlled, but it has created significant issues in the internet era. 2 A full list of licensing procedures can be found in Creemers (2012). 3 While this chapter centres on the 2011 Central Committee Resolution, it draws upon an extensive study of the corpus of media policy documents. A comprehensive selection of these is available in the English language on the author’s website: http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com. 4 While this resembles Benthamite ideas of utilitarianism, the Chinese definition is strongly aimed at collective or communitarian values, rather than the subsequent debates on justice and the individual in Enlightenment Europe. 5 As translated by David Bandurski, they are: ‘Loving the Mother Country is honorable, harming the Mother Country is disgraceful; Serving the People is honorable, neglecting the People is disgraceful; Upholding science is honorable, blindness and ignorance are disgraceful; Hard work is honorable, idleness disgraceful; Unity and cooperation are honorable, using others for profit is disgraceful; Honesty and keeping one’s word are honorable, seeing personal gain and forgetting justice is disgraceful; Respecting laws and regulations is honorable, disobeying laws and regulations is disgraceful; Suffering for the struggle is honorable, conceit and lasciviousness are disgraceful’ (China Media Project 2007). 6 Lei Feng is a model soldier, who allegedly came from a poor peasant background, and did many good deeds: sending money to the parents of a fellow soldier after they became victims of flooding, darning socks of comrades and, most of all, diligently studying Chairman Mao. He is reputed to have been killed in an ordinary accident in 1962. Afterwards, his diaries were published as he was venerated as an example of the selfless revolutionary. There are questions whether or not Lei Feng and/or his diaries are fictional. See also Landsberger (2010). 7 For a more in-depth overview of these structures, see Creemers (2012). 8 SARFT and the General Administration of Press and Publications were merged in early 2013. 9 Sina’s organisation includes seven party branches and more than 190 party members (Changjun 2012). 10 In May 2012, Sina published three interrelated self-regulatory documents. The Community Management Regulations provide the substantive base, the Community Pact is the contract with users and the Community Committee System outlines the internal enforcement structure. Translations of these documents are available on the author’s website: http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/ ?s=sina+weibo#. Also see China Copyright and Media (2012). 11 The author has participated in projects supporting these two initiatives. 12 Copyright collection societies are organisations that receive payments for the use of, among others, film, television and music works on behalf of their copyright holders. 13 The author’s website, http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com, contains translations of nearly 400 regulatory documents.

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Guo, Z. (2004) ‘WTO, “chanye hua” of the media and Chinese television’, working paper, Institut für Rundfunkökonomie, Universität zu Köln. Available online www.rundfunk-institut.uni-koeln.de/ institut/pdfs/18904.pdf (retrieved 6 May 2014). He, Q. (2008) The Fog of Censorship: Media Control in China, Hong Kong: Human Rights in China (HRIC). Hu, Y. (1979) ‘Introduction at the conference on theory work principles’ (Lilun gongzuo wuxu yinyan), China Copyright and Media, 18 January. Available online http://chinacopyrightandmedia. wordpress.com/1979/01/18/introduction-at-the-conference-on-theory-work-principles/ (retrieved 25 August 2012, in English and in Chinese). Hua, S. (1990) ‘Big character posters in China: a historical survey’, Journal of Chinese Law 4: 234–56. Keller, P. (2000) ‘Rules without law: media regulation in China’, in E. Barendt et al. (eds), The Yearbook of Copyright and Media Law 2000, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 151–80. –––– (2003) ‘Privilege and punishment: press governance in China’, Yeshiva University Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Journal 21: 87–138. –––– (2011) European and International Media Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lai, K. (2008) An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Landsberger, S. (2010) ‘Learning by what example? Educational propaganda in twenty-first century China’, Critical Asian Studies 33(4): 541–71. Lee, C.C. (ed.) (2003) Chinese Media, Global Contexts, Abingdon: Routledge. Li, R. (1989) ‘Persisting in the principle of giving first place to positive propaganda’, China Copyright and Media, 25 November. Available online http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/1989/ 11/25/persisting-in-the-principle-of-giving-first-place-to-positive-propaganda/ (retrieved 6 May 2014). Liebman, B. (2006) ‘Innovation through intimidation: an empirical account of defamation litigation in China,’ Harvard International Law Journal 47(1): 33–177. Lin, P. (1990) ‘Between theory and practice: the possibility of a right to free speech in the People’s Republic of China’, Journal of Chinese Law 4: 257–76. Liu, X. (2004) ‘Corruption lingers in the shadows of the Chinese media’, China Perspectives 54: 45–8. Mao, Z. (1940) ‘On new democracy’, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Maoist Documentation Project. Available online www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_26.htm (retrieved 18 August 2012). People’s Republic of China (1994) ‘Advertising Law of the People’s Republic of China’, Invest in China. Available online www.fdi.gov.cn/pub/FDI_EN/Laws/law_en_info.jsp?docid = 50868 (retrieved 9 August 2012). –––– (1997a) ‘Constitution of the People’s Republic of China’, People’s Daily Online. Available online http://english.people.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html (retrieved 20 August 2012). –––– (1997b) ‘Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China’, China.org.cn. Available online www.china.org.cn/english/government/207320.htm (retrieved 9 August 2012). Perry, E. (2008) ‘The Chinese conceptions of “rights”: from Mencius to Mao and now’, Perspectives on Politics 6(1): 37–50. SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and Television) (2007) ‘Notice concerning strengthening mass-participation selection-type radio and television activity management’, China Copyright and Media, 20 September. Available online https://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/ management-regulations-concerning-further-standardizing-mass-participation-selection-type-radio-andtelevision-activities-and-programmes/ (retrieved 6 May 2014). –––– (2009) ‘Radio and television advertising broadcast management rules’ China Copyright and Media, 10 September. Available online https://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/radio-andtelevision-advertising-broadcast-management-rules/ (retrieved 6 May 2014). –––– (2011) ‘Notice concerning the nationwide television drama production filing announcement for March 2011’, China Copyright and Media, 29 March. Available online https://chinacopyrightand media.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/notice-concerning-the-nationwide-television-drama-shootingfiling-announcement-for-march-2011/ (retrieved 6 May 2014). Shirk, S. (ed.) (2011) Changing Media, Changing China, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sun, Y. (2012) ‘Chairman Mao laughed loudly in 1958: when we are reviled for being Qin Shihuangs, we acknowledge categorically’ (1958 nian Mao zhuxhi daxiao: Ma women shi Qinshihuang, women yigai chengren), People.com.cn, 5 March. Available online http://history.people.com.cn/GB/205396/ 17294309.html (retrieved 9 August 2012, in Chinese). Supreme People’s Court of the PRC (1986) ‘General principles of the Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China’, Supreme People’s Court of the PRC. Available online http://en.chinacourt.org/public/ detail.php?id=2696 (retrieved 9 August 2012). 62

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–––– (1993) ‘Supreme People’s Court explanation concerning some questions in the trial of cases involving the right of reputation’, China Copyright and Media, 7 August. Available online https://china copyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/1993/08/07/interpretation-concerning-some-questions-in-hearingreputation-rights-cases/ (retrieved 6 May 2014). –––– (1998) ‘Supreme People’s Court interpretation concerning some questions in the trial of cases involving the right to reputation’ (Zuigao renmin fayuan guanyu shenli mingyuquan anjian ruogan wenti de jieshi), official document (in Chinese). –––– (2003) ‘Laws and regulations: Anti Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China’, Supreme People’s Court of the PRC, 22 September. Available online http://en.chinacourt.org/public/ detail.php?id=3306 (retrieved 9 August 2012). SZNS News (2011) ‘The party committee of Tencent Corporation is established’ (Tengxun gongsi dangwei chengli), Shenzhen Nanshan, 18 July. Available online www.sznsnews.com/content/2011–07/18/ content_5849316.htm (retrieved 24 August 2012, in Chinese). Vogel, E. (2011) Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Von Senger, H. (2012) ‘Wert in China’, in Ivo de Gennaro (ed.), Value: Sources and Readings on a Key Concept of the Globalised World, Leiden: Brill: 399–414. Xinhua (undated) ‘CV of Cai Wu’ (Cai Wu jianli), Xinhua News. Available online http://news.xinhuanet. com/ziliao/2005–8/19/content_3374695.htm (retrieved 10 October 2011, in Chinese). –––– (2011) ‘CV of Cai Fuchao’ (Cai Fuchao jianli), Xinhua News, 31 March. Available online http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2011–03/31/c_121253787.htm (retrieved 10 October 2011, in Chinese). –––– (2012) ‘Youku files unfair competition lawsuit against Tudou’, Xinhua English News, 2 February. Available online http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012–02/02/c_131388705.htm (retrieved 27 July 2012). Zhang, X. (2011) The Transformation of Political Communication in China: From Propaganda to Hegemony, Abingdon: World Scientific. Zhao, Y.Z. (2008) Communication in China: Political Economy, Power and Conflict, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Zhao, Z. (1987) ‘Report at the thirteenth congress of the Chinese Communist Party’ (Zai Zhongguo gongchandang dishisanci quanguo daibiao dahui de baogao’, CCP People’s Congress Database, 25 October. Available online http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/64168/64566/65447/4526368.html (retrieved 6 May 2014, in Chinese).

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Part II

Journalism, press freedom and social mobilisation

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4 Western missionaries and origins of the modern Chinese press Yuntao Zhang

China can lay claim to being the oldest print civilisation in the world. However a modern culture of journalism and publishing was in fact a relatively late arrival, coinciding with the import of modern printing technology from the west. For over a thousand years, Chinese journalism was dominated by the official gazette called DiBao (Peking Gazette). This organ of the imperial state comprised edicts, news of government appointments and court affairs, and served a small privileged readership. It was not until 1815 that what could be considered the first modern periodical (though not strictly speaking a Chinese publication) was to appear in China (Zhang 2007: 12). This was the work of two British missionaries, Robert Morrison and William Milne, and it marked the beginnings of a process, spanning the nineteenth century, in which a group of predominantly British and American Protestant missionaries pursued a strategy of evangelism centred on the development of journalism, publishing and printing enterprises in China. This chapter aims to provide a short outline of this process and some reflections on its wider cultural consequences. The work of the Protestant ‘missionary journalists’ quickly grew from an exclusive focus on religious affairs to embrace some of the key ideas and themes of what would now be understood as western secular modernity; and indeed this was a key feature of their strategy. The missionaries understood scientific–technical progress, along with liberal civic culture, to be the gifts of Christian enlightenment, and promoted these in the attempt to convince the Chinese of the wider virtues of conversion to the Christian faith. Though, in the short term at least, this indirect evangelical strategy was to have limited success,1 the missionaries can be seen as the agents of the cultural transmission of western modernity across a wider front. At the same time as introducing the techniques and practices of modern western journalism, the missionary press was to stimulate ‘indigenous’ Chinese journalism. The longer term consequence of this press was helping to promote political reform which fundamentally altered the face of Chinese society. This was part of a wider and complicated story of the impact of missionary activity in China, and in the space available here a number of restrictions must be imposed on the discussion.2 First, I will focus almost exclusively on the activities of the Protestant missionaries. Catholic missionaries, particularly Jesuits, had been a dominant presence in China for over 200 years before the arrival of the Protestants.3 But over the course of the nineteenth century the Protestants’ China mission was to outperform the Catholic one in several respects. One of 67

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the most significant of these was in respect of their deployment and development of journalism as a tool of evangelism. Moreover, even among the Protestants, my focus will be on a relatively small group. The earliest Protestants involved in printing and publishing enterprises – Robert Morrison, Walter Medhurst and others – maintained a fairly narrow traditional programme of evangelisation through religious publications. The influential Protestant journalists of the late nineteenth century whose publications we explore here (figures such as Young Allen, Timothy Richard and Calvin Mateer) were by contrast in the main from the more ‘liberal wing’ of the Protestant mission in the sense of being less driven by the desire simply to convert (Varg 1965).4 Rather, they were devoted to the wider aim of building modern education in China and enlightening the educated Chinese through the increasingly secular content of their publications. This was a small group: in Cohen’s words, Protestant journalists concerned with broader social change constituted only a ‘tiny fraction of the Protestant missionary community’ (Cohen 1995: 555–6). Nevertheless, this ‘tiny fraction’, expressing their spirituality via a progressive rational–intellectual and social–developmental mission, had an enormous social, political and cultural impact towards the end of the nineteenth century. This chapter traces this influence by focusing on the case of the Chinese Global Magazine and Review of the Times (Wanguo Gongbao),5 the most influential Protestant periodical in the nineteenth century, and assesses its considerable impact on Chinese scholars and how it gave rise to modern Chinese ‘elite’ journalism.6 Finally, by way of qualification, it is worth mentioning the significance of what Paul Cohen (1974: 197) has called, ‘the polarity between littoral and hinterland’ in nineteenth-century China. Increased western influence, and missionary influence in particular, reached the east and south coastal treaty ports after 1842 following China’s defeat by the British in the Opium War, and it was thus Canton, Ningbo, Xiamen, Hong Kong and, after 1860, Shanghai that became the centres of the missionary publication in China. All this is in fairly stark contrast with the much slower pace of change in the hinterland. Indeed, Cohen (1974: 198–9) does not exaggerate in stating that modern Chinese history consisted of ‘two largely separate and distinct cultural environments’. The pioneering Chinese reform journalists, such as Wang Tao, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, were very much influenced by the missionary publications, in other words by the ‘littoral’ cultural environment. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, and especially after China’s disastrous defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, Chinese reform journalists, no longer restricted to the treaty ports, came to embrace western learning in earnest. This is the period on which the discussion chiefly focuses: the time at which the influence of missionary newspapers such as Wanguo Gongbao (1874–83) reached its peak. Chinese scholar-journalists across the country became most vigorous, first in their emulation and then in their distinctive appropriation of the legacy of the missionaries.

The development of Wanguo Gongbao Chinese missionary publishing may be traced to 1815, the year in which Robert Morrison7 and William Milne from the London Missionary Society established the China Monthly Magazine. This, at least, is the standard view, first proposed by Gongzhen Ge in his early account of the history of Chinese journalism (Ge 1935: 67), and thereafter frequently endorsed (Fang 1997; H. Huang 2001; T. Huang 1930; Zeng 1977). However, since China Monthly Magazine was actually published in Malacca, it may be more strictly correct to cite the journal East West Monthly Magazine edited by Karl Friedrich August Gutzlaff in Canton in 1833. However, these origins are of less consequence than the period of expansion from the 1840s to the 1890s, during which western missionaries established around 170 newspapers and periodicals, accounting for 95 per 68

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cent of the total press in China (Fang 1991: 18). Among all these publications, Wanguo Gongbao stood out as the most influential (Zhu 1998: 2). Its dynamic founder and editor, the American Methodist Young Allen,8 presided over its transformation from a predominantly religious organ with the appropriate title Church News to a much broader interest journal bearing the titles Global Magazine and Review of the Times, from the amalgam of which the Chinese title Wanguo Gongbao eventually derived. In 1868, Church News was established in Shanghai as an unofficial organ serving the Protestant churches in China, but within six years it was transformed into a general news magazine. In 1874 it was renamed the Chinese Global Magazine, with the self-conscious aim of reaching out to the Chinese literati. Following a period of suspension between 1883 and 1889, it reappeared as the official organ of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (SDK)9 and with the new title, A Review of the Times. This publishing history might seem to reflect a gradual shift in editorial policy from an orientation towards religious affairs to a policy of more oblique evangelism through general education. In fact the shift of focus was much more rapid. Like most of the liberal Protestant missionaries of that time, Allen regarded the propagation of western science and material progress as intrinsic to the project of Christian evangelism. So, as Adrian Bennett notes, even in the early days of Church News there had begun a shift in the balance of content in favour of news, scientific material and commentary. By volume three, religious coverage had already declined from 48 per cent to a mere 18 per cent and secular news coverage and criticism and commentary had risen proportionately. As Bennett says, it had become, in effect ‘a weekly newsmagazine covering a variety of subjects with only a comparatively small percentage dealing with religion’ (Bennett 1983: 112). So the trajectory for Wanguo Gongbao was clear from its inception. After 1889 Wanguo Gongbao carried not only growing amounts of news, both domestic and international, but a comprehensive body of western knowledge designed to enlighten the Chinese, in the first instance through the educated elite (Xiong 1995: 395). In the following section we explore this secular–modern content in more detail.

An emphasis on science and technology According to Cohen (1995: 578), during the nineteenth century ‘Protestants produced more books on science and mathematics than on all other non-religious subjects combined’. Western science indeed had a presence in the missionary journals from the early days of the China Monthly Magazine, in which knowledge of western astronomy was advocated by the missionaries in order to counter Chinese superstition. This was greatly expanded in Church News, and following this in Wanguo Gongbao whose first pages were often devoted to scientific articles and/or illustrations covering a wide range of subjects from practical knowledge to disciplines such as chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, botany, geography, medicine and agriculture (Bennett 1983: 189–94). The articles generally had a clear practical and educational function: ‘advice was given on how to purify water; prescriptions for some diseases were offered such as those dealing with intestinal parasites’ (Bennett 1983: 193). In addition, many of the fashionable inventions and technological developments at that time were introduced. For instance in 1874, Wanguo Gongbao published a seven-part essay on the telegraph covering its history and commercial and industrial applications, along with more technical aspects (Bennett 1983: 190). More significantly, beyond offering basic scientific knowledge Wanguo Gongbao advocated a set of strategies – the development of railways, coal mines, the telegraph and so on – needed to industrialise China. For instance, it tirelessly promoted the way in which railway transport would benefit China. In 1889, a series of essays appeared to introduce how the railway works 69

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and to demonstrate its benefits, such as reducing travel costs, boosting travel and business, with figures drawn from British and American sources. Thus modern science and technology was packaged together with religion as representing the fruits of western civilisation.

The move towards social and political criticism In addition to the promotion of western science and technology, Wanguo Gongbao addressed social and political problems in China and offered opinions as to their solution. During the 1870s and 1880s, Wanguo Gongbao gradually but decisively moved to becoming an organ of social and political discussion and critique. At the core of its concerns during this time were the traditional education and examination systems. In volumes 653–6 (1881), Calvin Wilson Mateer wrote a celebrated article, ‘On school reform’. He pointed out three serious problems of Chinese education: first, that an unquestioning respect for the classics was stifling progressive scholarship; second, that the sole purpose of schooling – to gain an official position – undermined the profound significance of learning; and third, that a psychological resistance to western learning, for example of machine manufacturing, still prevented the educated Chinese from broadening their outlook (S. Wang 1998: 20–1). Young Allen had also written articles criticising the Chinese educational system. As early as 1875, Allen accused the practice of the ‘eight-legged essay’10 of blinding Chinese scholars to new knowledge and world progress, thus contributing to the stagnation of society (Wanguo Gongbao, vol. 358, 1875). In a later article (Wanguo Gongbao, vol. 704, 1882), Allen accused the classicsdominated Chinese curriculum of jeopardising social development. He suggested that schools should adopt western-style curricula, and include subjects such as astronomy, geography, physics, agriculture, mathematics, chemistry and medical studies (S. Wang 1998: 19–20). In 1881, Young Allen took the more radical step of setting up the Sino-Anglo College in Shanghai to teach this western curriculum, with Chinese learning playing only a minor role. This established a trend that proved to be increasingly popular with the Chinese. By 1890 there were 16,836 Chinese attending the growing number of missionary-run schools across the country (Xiong 1995: 290–1). Several of today’s prominent Chinese universities, such as Peking University (i.e. Beijing University) and Nanjing University, originated from the missionary colleges of that time. Thus the missionaries undoubtedly played a crucial role in modernising the Chinese educational system, and campaigning through journals like Wanguo Gongbao was a significant aspect of this. Following China’s disastrous failure in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, the issue of educational reform was overtaken by the ensuing political crisis. In Wanguo Gongbao Timothy Richard, Gilbert Reid and Young Allen all wrote pieces condemning the corrupt imperial bureaucracy. Among them, Allen’s was the most vehement (vols. 82–7, 1895–96). He accused the authorities of being totally irresponsible and leaving the people in misery. Levels of corruption were so severe, Allen noted, that the military expenditure went into the private pockets of officers dealing with the arms trade. He pointed out that China’s shattering defeat was unavoidable given such ridiculous tactics as the use of coal powder for explosives or soy beans as bullets, but he stated that the politicians who conducted these outrageous crimes were the ones who appeared in the official DiBao and were given public acclaim. Allen went so far as to use the words ‘arrogant, ignorant, untrustworthy, brutal, greedy and passive’ to describe the weaknesses of the educated Chinese and the ruling class. These criticisms struck a deep chord with the leading reform-oriented scholars like Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Tan Shitong, who used them to arouse public concern about the national crisis and to appeal for political reform. 70

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Building on this criticism, the missionaries began to suggest a programme of comprehensive political reform. Rather than revolution, the missionaries were in favour of evolutionary reform strategies.11 Timothy Richard was personally involved in the Reform Movement of 1895–98. In his autobiography, Richard records his frequent meetings with reformist political figures in Peking (i.e. Beijing) including the Chinese Prime Minister, Weng Tonghe, who even invited him to write a brief statement of what was most needed in China in the way of reform. Richard (1916: 256) laid out a scheme with four vital requirements: ‘educational reform, economic reform, internal and international peace, and spiritual regeneration’. In the event, Prime Minister Weng did not mention the proposal in his diary, implying his possible disagreement and the suppression of the proposal in the imperial court. However, Richard’s reform scheme was published in Wanguo Gongbao with the title of ‘New policy’ in vol. 87 (1896). Reading Kang Youwei’s policy proposal to the emperor during the Reform Movement, Richard noted the remarkable similarity with his own plan (Zhu and Long 2000: 190). To fully grasp the strategy of the missionaries in their increasing engagement with social and political issues, it is useful to emphasise the target readership of SDK publishing, particularly under the leadership of Timothy Richard. Richard was convinced that promoting western learning through publications was the most effective way of influencing the Chinese. In his account, two groups of readership were the main target: first, participants in the civil examination across the country who had reached one million in total by the 1890s. The local missionaries could attend the examination centres to hand out free copies of SDK publications. Second, the potential regular readership could reach 44,000 if all levels of officials, gentry scholars and a small number of their family members are included (Jiang 1988: 34). As the 1894 seventh annual report of SDK (Chuban Shiliao 1989) claims, to influence these educated Chinese also meant influencing the rest of the Chinese population who respected and followed the leading class. As the SDK had such a specific focus on inspiring the Chinese literati, it is not surprising to see its organ Wanguo Gongbao organising writing contests to encourage Chinese scholars to understand and absorb western solutions to China’s problems. In these contests prizes were offered for the best essays on specified titles, such as ‘The comparison of science in the west and in China’ or ‘The advantages which would accrue if China would introduce machinery for the preparation of tea and the reeling of silk, so as better to compete with foreign countries’. These titles obviously mirrored the missionaries’ solution to China’s problems, i.e. industrialisation, modernisation and westernisation. Chinese scholars were encouraged to learn from the west, think like the west and speak like the west. One of the prize-winners was Kang Youwei who as we shall see was to become one of the leading scholars in the later Reform Movement. In the context of the growing national crisis, namely China’s disastrous defeat by the Japanese navy in 1895, Wanguo Gonbao’s influence was also marked by its publication, in serialised form, of two historical works: a translation of the British historian Robert Mackenzie’s History of the Nineteenth Century and A History of the Sino-Japanese War, a compilation of foreign-language news reports and comments edited by Young Allen (Xiong 1995: 56; Zhou 1995: 5). Though neither of these would have been considered particularly distinguished works for a western readership – for example, R.G. Collingwood described Mackenzie’s history as ‘among the most unsavoury relics of third rate historical work’ (Collingwood 1967: 145) – the bold narrative of progress they contained proved enormously popular with the educated Chinese seeking a way forward. This indeed represented the peak of Wanguo Gongbao’s influence, with its readership including the emperor himself along with ministers and ordinary gentry scholars. In one month in 1895, demand was so great that a second edition had to be printed, and by 1898 its print run had increased from 1,000 to 40,000, ahead of all other periodicals of the time (Ye 1996). 71

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The income of the SDK increased 20 times from 1893 to 1898. As Wanguo Gongbao penetrated throughout China, Young Allen’s Chinese name, Lin Lezhi, became extremely well known. It was during this time of national crisis and the increasing political influence of Wanguo Gongbao that the contributions of the Chinese scholars themselves began to increase. According to Xiong (1995: 415), in addition to the missionaries, over 500 Chinese writers from over 50 cities contributed to Wanguo Gongbao, among whom were leading politicians, diplomats and scholars, such as Guo Songtao, Wang Tao, Zheng Guanying, Sun Wen (i.e. Sun Zhongshan or Sun Yat-sen), Xue Fucheng and Kang Youwei. Many of these Chinese contributors soon began to set up their own publications to promote social and political reform. It is to this pivotal point for the emergence of Chinese elite journalism in the late nineteenth century, bearing the unmistakable influences of Wanguo Gongbao in both practical and intellectual perspectives, that we now turn.

Wang Tao and the XunHuan Daily Wang Tao was among the most celebrated Chinese scholars of the nineteenth century. An accomplished classical scholar, in 1849 he joined the London Missionary Society Press as a translator and amanuensis. It was this experience of the Protestant missionary circle and his involvement with missionary publishing that equipped Wang Tao, ahead of most of his fellow Chinese, with an alternative set of values and views of the world to traditional Chinese ones. Under the influence of western missionaries, but with his own particular sense of social responsibility, Wang Tao transformed himself from a classical scholar into a modern intellectual and in 1874 founded The XunHuan Daily which was to become the leading newspaper in the first wave of Chinese-run press (Huang 2001: 38). Despite being a baptised Christian Wang Tao did not use the newspaper to promote religious ideas. Rather, he declared that the purpose of the XunHuan Daily was to help solve the problems of China by learning from the west. The newspaper rapidly built a reputation for its incisive editorials which appeared in almost every issue (Ding 1997: 245). One of the most insightful and radical Chinese scholars of the time, Wang Tao criticised the Qing government’s ‘Self-strengthening Movement’ (Ziqiang yundong) as a superficial response to the crisis: adopting western military technology but failing to engage with the necessary training to independently master the technology. For Wang Tao, the only solution to rescue China from its national crisis was to reform its core institutions, specifically the civil examination system, the army, schools and the law. Wang Tao condemned the ‘eight-legged essay’ that formed the basis of civil service examinations and suggested its replacement by a combination of Chinese and western subjects which would be linked to curricular reform in schools (W. Wang 1958: 41–5). Here the influence of the western missionaries was evident, as it was in Wang Tao’s promotion of industrialisation and foreign trade. Apart from his comments on international relations concerning China, Wang Tao also wrote in XunHuan Daily about social issues such as flooding, famine and gambling (Ding 1997: 245–8). On the basis of this work, historians of Chinese journalism have often named Wang Tao as the first leading modern Chinese political columnist (Fang 1997: 473–9).

The new generation of reformers and the emergence of independent Chinese elite journalism Although individual reformers close to the missionary circle around Wanguo Gongbao remained active past the turn of the century, it was a younger generation of reformers beginning in the 72

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1890s that were to constitute the most important group in the establishment of an independent press. Among these, Kang Youwei (1858–1927) and Liang Qichao (1873–1929) were perhaps the most significant figures. Unlike Wang Tao who mixed with the missionaries from an early stage, Kang began as an isolated reader of Wanguo Gongbao, maintaining that ‘he owed his conversion to reform chiefly to the writings of two missionaries, Rev. Timothy Richard and Dr Young Allen’ (Candler 1931: 174–5). Chen (1962: 75–6) also suggests that Wanguo Gongbao played an important role in transforming Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao from ‘old-style scholar-literati’ to political activists who promoted reform through journalism. In March 1895, Kang and Liang left Canton for Peking to attend the triennial metropolitan examinations. In April, the disastrous news of China’s defeat by Japan and the Treaty of Shimonoseki arrived in Peking. As Japan had long been despised by the Chinese as an inferior culture, this defeat naturally aroused the patriotic fury of the literati assembled at Peking for the examination. Kang and Liang drew up a 10,000-word petition and collected the signatures of 1,200 provincial graduates to protest against the peace treaty and request institutional reform. This event has generally been regarded as the first ‘mass political movement’ in modern China (Hsu 1990: 367). Following this demonstration, Kang Youwei and other leading reformists began work to influence imperial officialdom and win the support of the gentry literati at large. They adopted a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, they began to organise study societies among the educated elite across the country. On the other, they published newspapers to promote their reform schemes and to lobby ‘for greater communication between the throne and the literati’ (Liu 1968: 177). Newspapers and periodicals were considered as vitally important in the creation of informed opinion and an atmosphere of reform. This was, as Chang (1971: 149) suggests, perhaps ‘the most important institutional innovation’ in the late Qing Dynasty. Indeed, if Wang Tao’s XunHuan Daily represents the first formal break with the official gazette the DiBao, Kang and Liang’s journalistic practice arguably produced a more profound institutional break. In August 1895, the first reformist newspaper was set up in Peking. Significantly, though for the historian rather confusingly, for the first three months of its life it shared the same name as the periodical operated by the missionaries in Shanghai, Wanguo Gongbao. Kang Youwei personally contributed funds towards its publication. Timothy Richard (1916: 54) wrote the following about the newspaper: The Peking Gazette [DiBao], the organ of the Government, had been for a thousand years the sole publication in the capital, but now, for the first time in China’s history, there appeared a new paper, independent of the Government, though having its secret support. This was issued by the Reform Society.12 Richard considered that the Chinese had adopted the name of Wanguo Gongbao because of ‘the timidity of the Reform Society at this period’ (1916: 54). They knew that the Wanguo Gongbao of the SDK ‘had been in circulation for many years amongst the leading officials without any opposition’ (Richard 1916: 54). Richard also pointed out that the Chinese Wanguo Gongbao first consisted mainly of reprints from the western Wanguo Gongbao. In his view, the only difference was that the western Wanguo Gongbao was printed in metallic type in Shanghai, whilst the Chinese one was printed from the wooden type used in the publication of the government official gazette. Thus Richard claimed that in outward appearance the Chinese Wanguo Gongbao 73

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resembled the government’s official organ, ‘whilst in contents it was introducing western ideas propagated by the SDK’ (1916: 54). Indeed, many of the contents of Wanguo Gongbao under the editorship of Liang Qichao and Mai Menghua were simply reprints of those originally published in the SDK’s Wanguo Gongbao, for example articles ‘On western schools’, ‘On western newspapers’, ‘On railways’, ‘The importance of the postal system’, ‘On modern agriculture’ and ‘On currency’ (Fang 1997: 543). Following the formal establishment of the study society Qingxue Hui in November 1895, the Chinese changed the periodical’s name to World Report (Zhongwai Jiwen), but the influence of the SDK’s Wanguo Gongbao continued, as it did in other reformist newspapers. Despite a hesitant start and the short life of some titles,13 new Chinese newspapers and periodicals began to flourish throughout the country during the Reform Movement years of 1895–98. Among these, Shiwu Bao was one of the earliest and most important. Established in August 1896 in the British settlement of Shanghai, it was published every ten days and each issue contained between 20 and 30 pages of miscellaneous content. The similarities with Wanguo Gongbao are worth noting. Shiwu Bao modelled its format on the SDK’s Wanguo Gongbao. Starting with comment on current affairs and reform campaigns, the news section followed. This, like the SDK publication, consisted of domestic news (mostly a selection from the official Peking Gazette) and international news translated from foreign newspapers and classified in relation to the main western powers. However the similarities were not simply a matter of layout; Shiwu Bao demonstrated the same focus of political concerns. The considerable amount of international news in Shiwu Bao reflected the eagerness of the Chinese scholars to understand the international world dominated by western powers. Not only the form, but also the themes of Shiwu Bao’s editorial comments, such as the urging of economic reform and school modernisation, resembled those of Wanguo Gongbao. For example, Shiwu Bao treated the issue of railways particularly seriously. It serialised the translation of the London Railway Company Regulations over 12 issues from 19 August to 15 December 1896. In this it was clearly influenced by the tireless advocacy of railways by Wanguo Gongbao throughout its campaign for industrialisation in China. In another example, Wanguo Gongbao’s anti-foot binding campaign was also taken up in Shiwu Bao (vols. 38 and 40, 1897). However despite its many debts to Wanguo Gongbao, Shiwu Bao was distinguished by its original editorials, chiefly written by Liang Qichao. Liang’s writings on the reform campaign echoed the opinions and attitudes of many Chinese scholars and so attracted a large readership. After half a year, the circulation of Shiwu Bao had reached 7,000. A year later, a circulation of 17,000 copies at one point made Shiwu Bao the best-selling periodical in China (Fang 1997: 559). As a principal organ of the Reform Movement, Shiwu Bao set a trend, stimulating more Chinese scholars into organisational and subsequently publishing activities. According to Fang (1997: 539), from 1895 to 1898 there appeared at least 100 Chinese newspapers and magazines, most of which were established by the reform-oriented scholars and gentry officials. These publications now extended to many centres outside of the south-eastern coastal areas. For example, Yu Bao (1897) in Chongqing, Shuxue Bao (1898) in Chengdu, Guowen Bao (1897) in Tianjing and Xiangxue Xin Bao (1897) in Changsha. They reflected the whole range of political attitudes to reform and even included the first women’s newspaper in Chinese history, Nüxue Bao (1898), which advocated broad social reform alongside women’s emancipation. This remarkable increase continued into the twentieth century, so by 1911, 700–800 Chinese newspapers and periodicals had emerged (Britton 1933: 81).14 With the rise of independent newspapers and periodicals, study societies also saw a rapid growth. From 1895 to 1900, 73 study societies were organised by gentry scholars (E. Wang 2003: 31). The reform scholars thus established themselves as the leading force for social and cultural transformation in early modern China. 74

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Conclusion In just under 30 years from the publication of the SDK’s Wanguo Gongbao to Shiwu Bao, the Chinese press had entered fully into the modern era of journalism. However an important qualification must be added. Many of the early independent Chinese periodicals, while having far-reaching social and political impact, were in fact short-lived. This was undoubtedly because of a hostile political environment in which the institution of a free press had failed to be constitutionalised. The missionaries had the advantage of publishing independently of control by the Qing government. In fact, many missionary publications, such as Wanguo Gongbao, were published inside the foreign settlement in Shanghai which had its own independent governing council called the Shanghai Municipal Council (Hawks Pott 1928: 64).15 It was partly due to this that the missionary publications such as Wanguo Gongbao were able to become an arena for social and political criticism. Nevertheless, the press freedom enjoyed by the missionaries was highly conditional and not, in fact, legally constitutionalised. The missionary press were tolerated and allowed to develop in China only because the Qing government had been defeated in the war against the Anglo-French invasion and forced to recognise the treaties of Tianjing in the 1860s. The western missionaries were thereafter allowed to travel throughout China. In this sense, it might be said that the missionary press flourished on the back of western gunboat diplomacy: without the success of the western military invasion, its enormous impact in China would have been quite difficult to achieve. Living in the Shanghai foreign settlement qualified the missionaries even more as a privileged social group in China. So the freedom the missionary press had achieved, to some extent, was given rather than struggled for, imported rather than driven by an inner force. It is not only these historical circumstances that explain the peculiar and frail nature of this free press, but also the cultural agenda of the missionaries. Their ultimate religious purpose and the package of instrumental modernity that contained it did not cherish the essential idea of liberty of the press at its core. As the case study of Wanguo Gongbao has demonstrated, this periodical carried a great deal of social and political criticism and propagated the democratic policies of western nations. It did little, however, to stress the key liberal concepts that were formative in the idea of the press as the Fourth Estate (Briggs and Burke 2002: 192). Although the constitutional democracy and freedom of the press were formally legalised in the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China in 1911, it was short-lived. As the Republic fell into the control of warlords, censorship quickly returned, in some cases with the application of extreme force. In 1926, two well-known journalists, Shao Piaoping and Lin Baishui, were executed without trial in Peking by the warlord government. Both the Nationalist Party (i.e. Kuomintang or KMT) in the 1930s and 1940s, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after 1949 established autocratic or totalitarian systems; but, of course, the most severe political control and censorship of journalism was during the era of Communist China. Chu Anping, the ‘Fabian Confucianist’, was an eminent journalist under both the Nationalist and Communist regimes. Unfortunately, his prediction, made in 1947 before the Communists took power, proved to be true: To be honest, under the Nationalists our fight for freedom is really over the question of ‘how much freedom’. If the Communists come to power, the question is going to be ‘will we have freedom at all?’. (Lee 2001: 240) 75

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According to an estimate by Chang and Halliday (2005), well over 70 million Chinese, including Chu Anping, perished under Mao’s rule during peacetime after 1949. This still fails to appear in any Chinese journalistic publication. In other words, from this study we have learned that Chinese intellectuals have been seeking a free press in turbulent times for over 100 years. However for Chinese journalists the liberty of the press has so far remained an unrealised aspiration.

Notes 1 Although the number of Chinese Protestant converts remained limited in the nineteenth century, the long-term influence of the Protestants cannot, of course, be dismissed in accounting for an estimated 35 million practising Protestants in China today. The Christian revival in China has been remarkable after the repression of Mao’s era (Lim 2004). 2 I explore these issues in more detail in my book The Origins of the Modern Chinese Press (Zhang 2007). 3 Catholic (Jesuit) missionaries had been in China from the end of the sixteenth century and dominated the Christian presence up to the end of the eighteenth century (Mungello 1999). Although the Jesuits, including famous figures like Matteo Ricci, established the first cultural links between China and Europe (Gallagher 1953; Spence 1985), there is no evidence to suggest that they published periodicals in China using European printing techniques. Their limited number of publications of Christian reading and scientific works were printed with traditional Chinese woodblock or wood types (Su 2000: 79). 4 Wylie (1967) lists 31 Protestant missionary societies engaged in publishing in China up to 1867. These publications were dominated by Christian content with a small proportion of general knowledge. Among them the London Missionary Society Press was the most productive due to the provision of printing machines by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1847 (Su 2000: 231). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (SDK), though not exclusively a missionary organisation, as we shall see became one of the most influential publishing enterprises in China (see n. 9 below). 5 Wanguo Gongbao (1874–83) was later compiled and edited by Taiwan Huawen Press in 1968. 6 We may distinguish two lines of development in journalism in nineteenth-century China: one led by the missionaries that later inspired the Chinese educated elite; the other, a commercial-oriented enterprise established by the western business circle. The term ‘elite’ is used here to distinguish the former, serious, politically oriented press from the latter popular, commercial press. 7 Landing in Canton in 1807, Robert Morrison was the first Protestant missionary to arrive in China. 8 Young Allen was funded by the American Methodist Church (South), but this was interrupted for nearly five years due to the American Civil War (Bennett 1983: 22). As a result, Allen was obliged to take a number of jobs simply to support himself. He taught in Shanghai Tongwen Guan, a staterun language training college with a mathematics and science programme; worked as a translator for Shanghai Municipal Council, joined the Translation Bureau of the Kiangnan Arsenal and worked as editor of Shanghai Xinbao, a commercial newspaper. All these experiences brought him into close contact not only with the Qing government but also with wider Chinese society and were undoubtedly influential in shaping his pragmatic missionary strategy, expressed in the stress on education and journalism (Liang 1978: 10–11). 9 The SDK was established in 1887 by a group of western expatriates including missionaries, businessmen and councillors in Shanghai. Its name was changed to the Christian Literature Society at the beginning of the twentieth century (Liang 1978: 89–90). 10 The ‘eight-legged essay’ (Bagu wen) was a formalised but increasingly meaningless exercise at the core of much of the mid- and late-Qing prose writing; but mastering its form was essential to success in the government examinations (Lee 2002: 147). 11 Young Allen wrote in Wanguo Gongbao vol. 84 (1895) criticising the emergent revolution in south China led by Sun Zhongshan (i.e. Sun Yat-sen) who went on to found the Republic of China in 1911. This stands in notable contrast to his and other missionaries’ support for the Reform Movement by Kang and Liang during 1895–98. 12 Reform Society here refers to the Qingxue Hui (Study Society for National Strengthening) which was formally established in November 1895. 76

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13 The journal Qiangxue Bao, set up in Shanghai by Kang Youwei and other reformists, only lasted for two weeks (three issues) due to a hostile political environment, and World Report was closed down after just one month (18 issues). 14 The original copies of the majority of the early modern newspapers can be accessed in the Chinese National Library in Beijing, Beijing University Library, Beijing Normal University Library, Fudan University Library in Shanghai and Shanghai Library. Wanguo Gonbao cited in this chapter was edited and compiled by Taiwan Huawen Press in 1968. 15 After the Nanjing Treaty was signed in 1842, the British government built the first foreign settlement in Shanghai. Soon the French and American governments followed suit. The majority of the Protestants involved in journalism and publishing lived in the British and American settlement which was called the International Settlement (Hawks Pott 1928: 10–13 and 64–6).

References Bennett, A. (1983) Missionary Journalism in China: Young J. Allen and His Magazine 1860–1883, Athens: University of Georgia Press. Briggs, A. and Burke, P. (2002) A Social History of the Media, Cambridge: Polity. Britton, R.S. (1933) The Chinese Periodical Press 1800–1912, Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Candler, W. (1931) Young J. Allen: The Man Who Seeded China, Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press. Chang, H. (1971) Liang Qichao and Intellectual Transition in China 1890–1907, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chang, J. and Halliday, J. (2005) Mao: The Unknown Story, London: Vintage Books. Chen, C.Y. (1962) ‘Liang Chi-chao’s “missionary education”: a case study of missionary influence on the reformers’, Papers on China vol. 16, Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Centre, Harvard University (informal collection of papers). Chuban Shiliao (1989) ‘The society for the diffusion of Christian and general knowledge among the Chinese, seventh annual report 1894’, Studies in Publishing History (February): 72–6. Cohen, P. (1974) ‘Littoral and hinterland in nineteenth century China: the “Christian” reformers’, in J.K. Fairbank (ed.), The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 197–225. –––– (1995) ‘Christian missions and their impact to 1900’, in J.K. Fairbank (ed.), The Cambridge History of China vol. 10, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 543–90. Collingwood, R.G. (1967) The Idea of History, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ding, F. (ed.) (1997) The Development of Chinese News Editorials (Xinwen pinglun xue), Shanghai: Fudan University Press (in Chinese). Fang, H. (1991) A History of Early Modern Chinese Journalism (Zhongguo jindai baokan shi), Taiyuan: Shanxi Education Press (in Chinese). –––– (1997) A History of Chinese Journalism (Zhongguo xinwen shiye tongshi), Beijing: Renmin University Press (in Chinese). Gallagher, L. (1953) China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci 1595–1610, New York: Random House. Ge, G. (1935) A History of Chinese Newspapers (Zhongguo baoxue shi), Shanghai: Commercial Press (in Chinese). Hawks Pott, F.L. (1928) A Short History of Shanghai, Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Hsu, I. (1990) The Rise of Modern China, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huang, H. (2001) A History of Chinese Journalism (Zhongguo xinwen shiye fazhan shi), Shanghai: Fudan University Press (in Chinese). Huang, T. (1930) A History of Chinese Journalism (Zhongguo xinwen shiye), Shanghai: Lianhe Press (in Chinese). Jiang, W. (1988) ‘What is SDK as an organisation?’ (Guangxuehui shi zhenyang de yige jigou?), Studies in Publishing History (Chuban Shiliao) February: 32–7 (in Chinese). Lee, C.C. (2001) ‘Servants of the state or the market? Media and journalists in China’, in J. Tunstall (ed.), Media Occupations and Professions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 240–61. Lee, L.O.F. (2002) ‘Literary trends: the quest for modernity 1895–1927’, in M. Goldman and L.O.F. Lee (eds), An Intellectual History of Modern China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 142–95. Liang, Y. (1978) Young Allen and Wanguo Gongbao (Linlezhi zaihua shiye yu wanguo gongbao), Hong Kong: Chinese University Press (in Chinese). 77

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Lim, L. (2004) ‘Three Chinese Christians jailed’, BBC News, 6 August. Available online www.bbc.co.uk/ world/asia-pacific/3541932.stm (retrieved 31 July 2006). Liu, K. (1968) ‘Nineteenth-century China: the disintegration of the old order and the impact of the west’, in P.T. Ho and T. Tsou (eds), China in Crisis vol. 1, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 93–178. Mungello, D. (1999) The Great Encounter of China and the West 1500–1800, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Richard, T. (1916) Forty-Five Years in China, London: T. Fisher Unwin. Spence, J. (1985) The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Su, J. (2000) Robert Morrison and Chinese Printing and Publication (Malixun yu zhongwen yinshua chuban), Taipei: Xuesheng Press (in Chinese). Varg, P. (1965) ‘A survey of changing mission goals and methods’, in J.G. Lutz (ed.), Christian Missions in China: Evangelists of What? Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1–10. Wang, E. (2003) Studies on the History of Modern Chinese Thought (Zhongguo jindai shixiangshi lun), Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Press (in Chinese). Wang, S. (1998) The Westerners and the Hundred Day Reform Movement (Wairen yu wuxu bianfa), Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian Press (in Chinese). Wang, W. (1958) ‘Wang Tao’s thought’ (Wang Tao de shixiang), in Y. Feng (ed.), Essays on the History of Modern Chinese Thought (Zhongguo jindai sixiangshi lunwen ji), Shanghai: Jin-min Press, 36–50 (in Chinese). Wylie, A. (1967) Memorials of Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese, Taipei: Ch’eng-wen Publishing (original edition published by Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867). Xiong, Y. (1995) The Dissemination of Western Learning and the Late Qing Society (Xixue dongjian yu wanqin shehui), Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Press (in Chinese). Ye, Z. (1996) ‘A study of SDK’ (Guangxuehui chutan), Studies in Publishing History (Chubanshi yanjiu) vol. 4: 91–126 (in Chinese). Zeng, X.B. (1977) A History of Chinese Journalism (Zhongguo xinwen shi), Taipei: School of Journalism, National Chengchi University (in Chinese). Zhang, X.T. (2007) The Origins of the Modern Chinese Press: The Influence of the Protestant Missionary Press in Late Qing China, London: Routledge. Zhao, Y. (1998) Media, Market and Democracy in China, Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Zhou, Z. (1995) ‘The translation of western works and its cultural influence in late Qing China’ (Wanqing xishu zhongyi jidui zhongguo wenhua de yingxiang), Studies in Publishing History (Chubanshi Yanjiu) vol. 3: 1–29 (in Chinese). Zhu, W. (ed.) (1998) Anthology of Wanguo Gongbao (Wanguo gongbao wenxuan), Beijing: Sanlian Shudian (in Chinese). Zhu, W. and Long, Y.T. (eds) (2000) Anthology of Reformist Literature in the late Qing (Weixing jiumenglu), Beijing: Sanlian Shudian (in Chinese).

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5 Setting the press boundaries The case of the Southern (Nanfang) Media Group Chujie Chen

‘Nanfang’ is not merely a geographical concept, but also a spiritual concept, a word full of warmth and power. X.F. Yang (2012: 31) We don’t have a press law, and the lines are very unclear. If you don’t test them you have no way of knowing where they are. Moreover, the line’s scope has been increasingly narrowed these years . . . Chang Ping, quoted in Ming Pao Daily (2011: P07)

No news media would exceed the boundaries of autonomy permissible to the media owners (Altschull 1995). While the legitimate sphere for media deviance is usually clear in democratic societies (Hallin 1986), the tolerated lines for media supervision are essentially vague in contemporary China. In the Maoist era, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) monolithically fed the news media and predominantly dictated media content. However, with accelerated media commercialisation, the intertwining of ideology, capital and underdeveloped professionalism has complicated the determinants of the press boundaries in post-Maoist China. Under ambiguous official lines and assertive political control, the Chinese press has experienced progress and setbacks. On the one hand, the propaganda apparatus has generally relied on guidelines, shifting instructions and ad-hoc punishment to manage the news media. On the other hand, Chinese journalists have constantly tried to test and push the boundaries of the permissible, as Chang Ping – a former renowned journalist of the Southern (Nanfang) Media Group – said in an interview quoted above. Among the 39 Chinese press groups, the Nanfang Media Group (Nanfang baoye chuanmei jituan) has been deemed the most progressive. It was originally named the Nanfang Daily Press Group in 1998 and later the Nanfang Media Group in 2005 since the group ran a multimedia business. Overall, until 2012 the Nanfang Media Group (or Nanfang for short) owned 12 newspapers, 9 magazines, 5 websites and 1 publishing house (see Table 5.1 for details).1 Among Nanfang’s subsidiary papers, Nanfang Weekend (shortened to NW, Nanfang zhoumo in Chinese pinyin and Southern Weekend in English) and Nanfang Metropolis Daily (shortened to NMD, Nanfang dushi bao in Chinese pinyin or Southern Metropolis Daily in English) are the most outspoken. 79

Chujie Chen Table 5.1 Constituents of the Nanfang Media Group, 20122 Year established

Note

Nanfang Daily

1949

Provincial Party organ

Nanfang Rural Daily

1963

Daily subsidiary specialising in rural issues

Nanfang Weekend

1984

Weekly subsidiary specialising in investigative reporting, commentary, etc.

Nanfang Metropolis Daily

1997

Metropolitan subsidiary well known for investigative reporting, commentary, entertainment news, etc.

Before conglomeration

After conglomeration (18 May 1998) By Nanfang Daily City Pictorial

1999

Magazine, targeting middle-class readers

Nanfang Monthly

2007

Magazine, collaborating with the Guangdong provincial government

Nanfang Legal Daily

2011

Collaborating with Guangdong Public Security Bureau, and distributed within the public security system

ManGazine (Mingpai)

2003

Fashion magazine, targeting middle-class male audiences

Nanfang People’s Weekly

2004

Targeting white-collar workers and university students

2003

Cross-regional joint venture with the Guangming Daily Press Group, transferred to Beijing municipal government in 2011

By Nanfang Weekend

By Nanfang Metropolis Daily New Beijing News (Xin jing bao) NMD Weekly (Nandu zhoukan)

2006

Weekly subsidiary targeting middle-class readers

Trend Weekly (Fengshang zhoubao)

2006

Weekly subsidiary targeting readers interested in fashion

Yunnan Information Daily

2007

Cross-regional joint venture with Yunnan Publishing Group, market-oriented metropolitan paper

Jianghuai Morning Post

2012

Cross-regional joint venture with Hefei Press Group, market-oriented metropolitan paper

21st Century Global Herald

2002

Targeting readers interested in international topics and political affairs until 2003

21st Century Business Review

2004

Magazine, targeting commercial elites

Money Weekly (Licai zhoubao)

2007

Subsidiary weekly targeting readers interested in economic investments, the stock market, etc.

By 21st Century Business Herald

Note: For simplicity, other unimportant publications, the websites, the publishing house and other non-news business affiliated with Nanfang are not presented.

80

Setting the press boundaries

Why does this research focus on the Nanfang newspapers? First, Nanfang has stood at the national forefront of news commentary and investigative reporting, exposing official malfeasance and advocating liberal ideas since the 1990s (Cho 2007; de Burgh 2003; Lee et al. 2007; Zhang 2006). Second, journalists consider NW and NMD inspiring and as setting the trend for progressive journalism. A survey conducted in the early 2000s showed that the young, reformminded Chinese journalists looked up to the NW for journalistic models (Pan and Chan 2003: 649–82). Coming after NW, NMD has led the rise of Chinese metropolitan newspapers, with its investigative reporting and critical commentaries followed by local rivals and national peers.3 Third, the progress and setbacks experienced by Nanfang journalists provides a valuable research site for examining how news media and external power holders relate to each other.4 This research is concerned with the dialectic relationship between political–economic constraints and journalistic agency that contribute to the transformation of journalism. We should ask what kind of factors gave rise to the outspokenness of the Nanfang subsidiary papers and how their journalists pushed the limits of the permissible. Though much attention has been paid to the Nanfang newspapers such as NW and NMD, relatively few consider Nanfang as a whole and the intra-organisational relations within the group. This chapter will synthesise existing studies on journalistic practices at Nanfang and its maverick subsidiary papers (i.e. NW and NMD) in particular. Overall, this chapter attempts to examine: (1) the political–economic settings where Nanfang is located; (2) the relationship between the parent newspaper Nanfang Daily and its subsidiaries in terms of organisational culture, division of labour and the flow of human resources; (3) the strategic rituals used by the press to cope with or even bypass the severe restrictions imposed by power holders; and (4) the implications of strategic rituals for media autonomy.

Local political economy and press diversity Media performance is subject not only to national but also local economic and political power. In the reform era, press competition in Guangzhou has been the fiercest in China, portrayed as a ‘Three Kingdoms War’ (Liu 2002: 22–7; Yuan 2009). Scholars usually attribute diverse and progressive press performance in Guangzhou to the city being China’s front for ‘reformand-opening’ and also to the impact of Hong Kong (Latham 2000; Y. Yang 2008). Hong Kong’s impact on Guangzhou’s reform-and-opening should not be ignored, but we should note that geographically Shenzhen is much closer than Guangzhou to Hong Kong. However, Shenzhen’s press is not as progressive as the Guangzhou press. The singular power structure and the monopoly of a singular press group have tended to dominate the Shenzhen press, with its journalists being economically privileged and increasingly apolitical (Lee et al. 2006: 600). The power structure of society fundamentally determines the press boundaries. In Guangzhou, plurality of power originates from the discrepancies between the centre and the province, and between the province and the municipality. This plurality, in turn, enhances media autonomy (Lee et al. 2007). In retrospect Guangdong’s native reformists and open-minded officials enjoyed remarkable autonomy in policy making and implementation from the 1980s to the 1990s. The Guangdong provincial government and Nanfang coexisted symbiotically. On the one hand, the existence of a strong native leadership committed to reform-and-opening, and the abundant resources Guangdong had accumulated amidst the reform processes made it a heavyweight in China’s political economy (see Cheung 1994). This set of circumstances provided the general political–economic context for Nanfang. On the other hand, the reformist officials also needed the provincial party organ Nanfang Daily to articulate their reformist discourse and to promote ‘thought emancipation’ to defend the province’s interests. Huang Hao, the 81

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former propaganda chief of Guangdong (1989–93) and a former member of Nanfang Daily’s editorial board, publicly defended Guangdong’s flexible leadership style (more details in Huang 2008: 40–1). It was in the late 1980s and the early 1990s that NW began to rise as a nationally influential newspaper. As a strategy, the NW seldom published critical reports against Guangdong’s provincial officials or power holders (Zuo 2008: 63). Guangdong provincial officials perceived NW as such a cultural landmark that they would make it even more influential rather than hinder its expansion (Zuo 2008: 71). In fact, some former reform-minded officials of Guangdong such as Lin Ruo, Ding Xiling, Chen Yueping, Huang Hao, among others, used to be key leaders of Nanfang Daily (see Fan 2005: 329). Until the early 2000s, the Guangdong Provincial Propaganda Department (GPPD) rarely pressured Nanfang’s newspapers directly or strictly executed commands from the Central Propaganda Department (CPD); rather, the GPPD usually softened the pressure from the centre (Zuo 2008: 74). One example of the NW in crisis in 1993 is illustrative. On 30 July 1993, the NW published a murder story concerning the public security force in what was called ‘B city’ for anonymity (Nanfang Weekend 1993a: 05), but it was later proved that the story, contributed by an external writer, was fabricated. After verification with the NW editors, the National Public Security Ministry complained to the CPD. The central propaganda officials used this incident as a pretext to shut down the NW, since previously the propaganda officials had been irritated by the NW but found no justified reason to punish it. Fortunately, old and high-ranking officials in Guangdong defended the NW and supported the then incumbent provincial party chief Xie Fei in his bargaining with the CPD. The Guangdong officials indignantly claimed that ‘when we better our economy, they [i.e. the central officials] mocked us Guangdong as cultural dessert. Now we have a national renowned newspaper, but they turned to terminate its life. We must not compromise any longer!’ (Zuo 2012). Finally the NW published an apology and a selfcriticism on the cover page (Nanfang Weekend 1993b: 01). Yet, the support of the Guangdong officials for Nanfang was hardly institutionalised and was vulnerable to the changing central–local power relations as embodied in the appointment of top provincial officials. The situation has significantly changed since the centrally appointed, non-local conservative Li Changchun assumed the post of Guangdong’s party secretary in 1998. The power of proNanfang officials has been further weakened after Lin Ruo and Wu Nansheng retreated from all official position in 2004. Fan Yijin, former head of Nanfang (2002–6), frankly stated that during his term the support from provincial officials was relatively less and weaker than it was during his predecessors’ terms (Xu and Zhang 2009: 26–9). The local power seems to be increasingly subdued to the central party-state and hardly defends local media autonomy which might easily be interpreted as opposing the centre’s ideological line. These changing central–local5 and state–press relations demonstrate that although marketdriven press competition in an open-minded locality serves to free the press from ossified party doctrine and to cultivate news professionalism, once the newspapers driven by market logic may ‘threaten to deviate from the state’s orbit, the state is determined to pull it back to its fold’ (Lee et al. 2007: 24). Lee et al. (2007) coined the term ‘party–market corporatism’ to ‘explain the interlocking of the state and capital in China on the one hand and the management of the state–media–capital tripartite relationship on the other’ (p. 24). It is the mechanisms of party–market corporatism that set the general framework within which the news media can behave. The political and economic goals of party-state (and perhaps the news organisation) override the journalists’ professional pursuit (Lee et al. 2007). As long as consensus within the power structure is high, the autonomy of local news media, whose legitimacy rely on market recognition, will be substantially suppressed. 82

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However, in identical external political–economic circumstances, the Guangzhou press display significant variations. Comparatively speaking, each of the three press conglomerates has a competitive advantage over the other; to wit, the Guangzhou Daily Press Group is the major outlet of local affairs that native Guangzhou residents prefer while the Yangcheng Evening News Press Group is considered a supplier of cultural information for people in Guangdong (Lee et al. 2007). By comparison, the Nanfang Media Group plays a leading role in investigative and critical reporting of local and national issues. Each group’s party organ and subsidiary newspapers face cut-throat competition not only in the headquarter city Guangzhou, but also in other wealthy Pearl River Delta cities. To win readers and advertisers, each media group’s daily papers compete for news sources by rewarding people who provide leads for news (Huang 2004: 73–4). They also compete in news reporting by monitoring other Guangzhou-based dailies and then organising internal meetings every day to summarise each other’s strengths and shortcomings (Y. Yang 2008: 87).

Organisational culture of Nanfang: being innovative, inclusive, conscientious, and excellent Compared with the other two press groups in Guangzhou catering to soft news, the Nanfang newspapers display a more progressive style of news operation, particularly when it comes to its politically peripheral subsidiaries. Other than differences in hierarchical positions and market identification, this is mainly due to the organisational culture of Nanfang as a whole and the sub-organisational culture of NW and NMD in particular that emphasises journalistic professionalism and provides institutional space for professional autonomy. Organisational culture refers to a composite of values, beliefs, norms, history, heroes, models, ceremonies, etc. that provide a collective identity and defines appropriate journalism behaviours for journalists (Bantz 1985; Manzella 1996: 287–307). It is ‘powerfully reinforced by the professionalisation of key operators in the organisation’ who set norms of appropriate behaviour and create incentives for organisations to conform to a common ideal (Allison and Zelikow 1999: 155). Fan Yijin (2005: 314 and 2009: 12) generalised Nanfang’s culture as deeply rooted and inherited from generation to generation. Zuo Fang, a founding editor of NW, acknowledged that former editor-in-chief Huang Wenyu6 significantly influenced how he chose to manage the newspaper: ‘We may leave some truths untold, but never will we tell lies’ (Zuo 2008: 56). Nanfang journalists have inherited this legacy and reiterate its principles (seen especially in the work of Jiang Yiping, Cheng Yizhong and Zhuang Shenzhi). The organisational culture of Nanfang is described as ‘innovation, inclusiveness, conscientiousness, and excellence’ (chuangxin, baorong, dandang, zhuoyue) (C. Wang 2009: 31–8; X. Yang 2009); and a popular perception within the Guangzhou press circle illustrates the culture of the three media groups: The Guangzhou Daily Media Group is run by businesspeople (shangren banbao), Yangcheng Evening News Group by intellectuals (wenren banbao) and Nanfang by news professionals (baoren banbao). Some of our interviewees, who worked at a subsidiary paper of Yangcheng Evening News before they moved to Nanfang, said that news professionalism and social responsibility received more emphasis at the latter. Moreover, Nanfang provided a broader platform for young journalists to put their ideas into practice (personal communications, 15 June 2013 and 17 September 2013). In the late 1990s, both NW and NMD recruited a number of liberal freelance reporters and provided them with institutional support. Many of these journalists later became leaders or renowned journalists on China’s market-oriented publications. As a result, Nanfang earned the nickname the Huangpu Military Academy7 for the Chinese press.8 83

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The Nanfang leadership’s solid support to its young, ambitious, and marketisation-savvy newsworkers was partly the by-product of Nanfang Daily’s multi-business investment failure in the 1980s to mid-1990s, and fierce competition with the two other press groups in Guangzhou. In the early to mid-1990s, Nanfang Daily became trapped by severe financial losses (c. US$16.3 million) because of unsuccessful investment in non-news businesses such as real estate and manufacturing (Yuan 2009: 8–12). These investment decisions were made and exercised solely by the parent newspaper. Learning its lesson, Nanfang’s leadership finally decided to focus on the core news business and granted its subsidiary papers more autonomy, thus making the subsidiary newspapers competitive and influential. By contrast, the leadership of the Guangzhou Daily and the Yangcheng Evening News exercised a firm grasp, and their subsidiary papers were just a minor component of the operation. As described by its journalists, leaders of the Nanfang newspapers did not look like media ‘bureaucrats’ but like professional newspapermen respecting rank-and-file journalists (X.Q. Li 2005; Times Messenger Daily 2005; Zhu 2009: 160–6); and this style of leadership has been praised (Fu 2009: 88–91; B. Yang 2009: 143–7; Zhou 2009: 155–9). Journalists in media groups in Shanghai and Shenzhen were highly constrained due to the economic and political contexts in which they worked, and their bureaucratic organisational arrangements (e.g. Lee et al. 2006 and 2007). While media conglomeration in these two cities has actually consolidated the media monopoly rather than promoted diverse competition, ‘Guangzhou’s media offer contending perspectives, within limits, through intense market competition and role differentiation’ (Lee et al. 2007: 38). To some extent, the Nanfang organisational atmosphere is relatively antibureaucratic when compared with other media groups in China. The most highlighted of Nanfang’s organisational norms focuses on how the leaders tried their best to soften political pressure from the party-state, particularly when Li Mengyu and Fan Yijin served as head (Cho 2007: 253; Fan 2005; X.Q. Li 2005). The Nanfang subsidiaries, first NW and then NMD, frequently published sensitive stories that other newspapers would not touch at all. By boldly exposing HIV/AIDS problems in the Henan Province, and the abuse of power by, and corruption of, governmental officials among others, NW received high praise among Chinese journalists as a ‘media exemplar’ (Pan and Chan 2003). NMD’s exposure of the Sun Zhigang incident (which will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter) and its adherence to the truth during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 made it the benchmark of the newly established metropolitan papers (P. Pan 2008: 235–68).This compelling coverage could not be made without support from Nanfang’s leadership vis-à-vis the propaganda department. This organisational level of breathing space for media autonomy, in turn, empowers the subordinate journalists to focus on professional practice and strengthens their professional sense of accomplishment. Each subsidiary newspaper also has specific characteristics amid everyday practices. As a daily paper employing more than 6,000 staff, NMD operates like a ‘news factory’ and its journalists work under the pressure of daily deadlines (Zhang 2007). By comparison, as a weekly paper employing around 170 staff (Y.B. Zhong 2009), NW values small-team work and its journalists work like freelancers. The NW and NMD also have something in common, i.e. a liberal and democratic newsroom culture structured around offline/online debates about news operations during editorial meetings and regular special workshops (Zuo 2012; Y.B. Zhong 2009: 30; Zhang 2006). Most of the subsidiary papers’ journalists were young, from rural areas of central or west China and driven by journalism ideals (Qian 2008: 233; Times Messenger Daily 2005; Tong 2011). Moreover, they emphasise news professionalism, as represented through their learning from foreign models, especially CBS’s 60 Minutes, the New York Times and the Washington Post (Qian 2008; Shen and Zhang 2009; Zhang 2007). 84

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Organisational division of labour for setting the press boundaries Like other Chinese press groups, Nanfang’s parent newspaper is politically central but often financially marginal, whereas the subsidiary papers are politically peripheral yet financially lucrative (Lee 2000: 288–336; 2010: 29–46). Li Mengyu – Nanfang Daily’s former president (1996–2001) in charge of establishing the Nanfang Daily Press Group – claimed that the relationship between the parent paper and its subsidiaries must be addressed appropriately in order to effectively run a press group (Li 2001: 278–81). In essence, it is the problem of how to resolve the tension between the party-state’s demands, the market’s needs, and the logic of the news organisation. Such tensions are reconciled by ideological and economic divisions of labour, and the management of human resources within the group.

Economy of the editorial division of labour Driven by market competition, the party organ developed offspring publications matching market segmentation, which in turn stimulated media conglomeration. Media conglomeration further necessitated the editorial division of labour corresponding to each newspaper’s market position. Overall, Nanfang Daily is defined as the Guangdong provincial government’s mouthpiece and assumes the obligation of guiding public opinion and supervising its subsidiary papers. Nanfang Daily claims itself as Guangdong’s mainstream political and economic paper for civil servants, government leaders, managers, intellectuals and commercial elites, i.e. a group of elites impacting on or making policies (X. Yang 2004). In addition to hidden subsidies such as subscriptions from government offices (Lee et al. 2006: 581–602), Nanfang Daily’s revenue relies mainly on advertisements from the local government and from the commercial sector (personal communication, 12 December 2012). The second-level of Nanfang newspapers mainly include NW, NMD and 21st Century Business Herald. These newspapers and their affiliated publications target differentiated audiences, i.e. NW for the intellectual elites nationwide, NMD for young, educated urban residents in the Pearl River Delta cities and 21st Century Business Herald for national white-collar workers and economic elites. This structural arrangement serves to simultaneously absorb political pressure and maximise economic interests (Lee et al. 2006: 581–602). Admittedly, this pattern should not be viewed as an intentional outcome driven by the media professionals, nor as a natural outcome of commercialisation and marketisation. Rather, it was an unintended consequence through the evolving party–press interaction. The NMD and 21st Century Business Herald were established not only because Nanfang journalists were sensitive to changes in the media market, but also because NW was so greatly constrained that the Nanfang journalists had to shift to other emerging fields to broaden the media space. Consciously or unconsciously, the Nanfang journalists grasped the opportunities provided by media marketisation and conglomeration to create more specialised subsidiary publications to expand their ‘territory’, enlarge their economic interests and promote media professionalism. The editorial division of labour has become diffused and has reduced the economic risks associated with a single parent newspaper. After the investment in businesses other than news failed, Nanfang Daily gave more autonomy to its subsidiary newspapers to run marketisation operations. By establishing multiple newspapers targeting different markets, the group began to earn substantial income. The business revenue of Nanfang increased from a low level of profits in 1998 (Fan 2005: 237) to RMB 3.66 billion (c. US$60 million) in 2010 (X. Yang 2012: 17–32). Economic success in turn makes it possible for Nanfang to invest more in serious news production. 85

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The flow of human resources We must also consider the flow of human resources between the parent newspaper and its subsidiaries, and among the subsidiary papers. Given different markets and different sources of organisational legitimacy, the Nanfang leadership assigned its more open-minded, adventurous journalists to operate the highly marketised subsidiaries (Fan 2005). Thus, there is a vertical flow of work from the media group and the parent newspaper to the subsidiaries (Yin and Wang 2007: 123–33). For example, experienced editors and journalists Zuo Fang, Guan Zhendong, Guan Jian, Cheng Yizhong, Shen Hao, Zhu Defu and many others all moved from Nanfang Daily to NW or NMD. There is also horizontal movement, with reporters and editors moving between different subsidiary papers. For example, the NW’s former editors Shen Hao, Liu Zhouwei and others left NW to establish 21st Century Business Herald in 2001; Xu Lie, Yang Zi and Wan Jingbo left NW to create Nanfang People’s Weekly in 2004; Yu Huafeng, Chen Zhaohua, Nan Xianghong, etc. moved from NW to NMD; Fu Jianfeng, Bao Xiaodong, etc. shifted from NMD to NW. The horizontal flow of journalists among Nanfang’s subsidiary papers seems to have strengthened a collective identity that is committed to news professionalism and morale. In a protest against the GPPD’s censorship of NW’s New Year special issue in 2013, many former and current Nanfang journalists gathered online and offline to support their NW colleagues (South China Morning Post, 11 and 12 January 2013).

Politics of the editorial division of labour The second aspect is the division of power relations as demonstrated through the personnel management structure. Nanfang’s managing body was a 17-member management committee, which was appointed by the Provincial Organisation Department of Guangdong. These members were identical to those of Nanfang’s party committee, and overlapped with those of Nanfang’s editorial committee.9 According to the principle of ‘rigidly holding the power of personnel appointment’ (X. Yang 2012: 17–32), none of these committee members was selected from the subsidiary newspapers; rather, all of them came from the parent newspaper or the media group and were privileged over the management of the subsidiary papers. Yet, this power structure does not mean the media group can either completely subdue or arbitrarily intervene in the subsidiary newspapers’ everyday operation. In Fan Yijin’s accounts, the relationship between the group and the subsidiaries should be as emotionally close as an ‘interest community’ (Fan 2005: 275). Moreover, the media group should help the subsidiary papers survive particularly during the early stages of their operation (Fan 2005: 136). Yang Xingfeng, successor to Fan Yijin, deemed the parent newspaper a ‘huge umbrella’, claiming that ‘some offspring newspapers would have died more than one-hundred times without the shield of the group’ (A. Shi 2004: 9). Following Soloski (1989: 217), we should argue that by offering political protection to subordinate papers, the media group succeeded in maintaining the loyalty of its professionals without having to share power with them. However, the space for Nanfang to negotiate with the party-state depends on the level of power holders who issue instructions, and the degree to which the subsidiary papers transgress the official boundaries of acceptability. If commands come from higher-level power holders, such as the CPD or provincial leaders, and the newspaper touches a highly sensitive topic, the media group will not have sufficient room to negotiate with the party-state. One example is the closure of 21st Century Global Herald (21CGH hereafter). The 21CGH, initially focusing on international journalism, was established by 21st Century Business Herald on 31 May 2002. 86

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Around the time of the sixteenth national congress of the CCP, a period of power transition between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, many Chinese journalists and intellectuals anticipated a round of substantive political reform and tried to press the new national leadership for change. The 21CGH shifted from international reporting to national politics as its slogan ‘witness the political civilisation of China’ illustrated (F. Shi 2008). On 3 March 2003, the 21CGH interviewed Li Rui, a former personal secretary to Mao Zedong, and published three articles that criticised Mao Zedong for building a cult of personality and Deng Xiaoping for failing to promote further political reforms. Li Rui’s identical opinions had been published in Yanhuang Chunqiu, an outspoken magazine and received no punishment. However, in contrast, the 21CGH was forced to shut down ten days after publication (Pomfret 2003; F. Shi 2008). The reason for this difference is that the 21CGH’s interview touched a very sensitive issue concerning political system reform and the newspaper was not influential enough to bear the pressure from above.

The periphery-to-centre back-nurture Organisational studies show that innovation usually occurs at the periphery rather than at the centre of an organisation (Turow 1982: 107–29). This means the politically marginal news organisations or units are faster in implementing unconventional reforms than the established ones (Liang 2012: 450–66). In the course of media commercialisation, Nanfang Daily has learned a lot from its subsidiaries about marketisation operation, organisational reconstitution and news processing and editing (X. Yang 2004). The NW and NMD were initially defined as an extension of Nanfang Daily to improve communication between the party and the mass. In 1997, Nanfang Daily claimed that NMD must undertake the ‘family mission’ of accumulating valuable experience in advertising competition in Guangzhou (Nanfang Metropolis Daily 2004: 14–16). Nanfang’s leadership acknowledged that the party organ was unfamiliar with marketisation and should learn from its subsidiary newspapers’ successful practices (X. Yang 2004). To cultivate ‘effective target markets’ Nanfang Daily, from 2002 to 2012, initiated a series of projects ‘to remake the party organ’ based on the NMD’s successful experience (C. Wang, 2007: 14–21; X. Yang 2004). These ongoing projects included setting up a new multimedia desk and a news desk to connect journalists’ work with each other, creating a special Pearl River Delta segment in order to obtain urban advertising revenue, opening six market-driven supplements in areas of investment (i.e. IT, tourism, automobiles, health, career, and the computer, communications and consumer electronics (3C) industry), adding a commentary page, as well as launching an in-depth news page and online news page. Because of these projects, Nanfang Daily has become more financially independent and profitable: its circulation grew from 750,000 to 950,000, and its advertising revenue from less than RMB 80 million (c. US$12.97 million) to more than RMB 300 million (c. US$48.65 million) (X. Yang 2012: 17–32). As a result, the parent newspaper has been less dependent on its highly lucrative subsidiary papers. Partly due to external pressure and partly due to changing internal political–economic relationships, the media group has since 2008 exerted increasingly stronger control over its subsidiaries.

Setting the press boundaries from the periphery It is common for the market-oriented Chinese press to show more aggressiveness in pushing and testing the boundaries. The subsidiary newspapers, being politically marginal, have greater leeway and take less risk to test new ideas by ways of developing strategic rituals. This section concentrates on journalistic deviance by the NW and NMD. 87

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We should note that journalists on neither NW nor NMD were particularly outspoken or critical, but in their early phase acted more like tabloids. Designated as a weekend supplement to Nanfang Daily, NW was dedicated to capturing readers through publishing news about celebrities, literary works and social problems. Similarly, NMD concentrated on social and human interest news stories (e.g. crimes, murder, sex, etc.) and entertainment. Gradually, these two papers have cultivated a professional culture and a liberal editorial orientation, playing leading roles in setting the boundaries of what is politically permissible (Hong 2005; Zhang 2006; Zuo 2008). From the perspective of both Nanfang’s management and its journalists, investigative reporting and commentaries are vital and competitive products (W. Li 2005: 59–60; X. Yang 2004 and 2009; Zhang 2006).We should argue that the processes of setting the press boundaries have followed an ad hoc, incremental, contested and even unintended pattern.

Strategic rituals We use the term ‘strategic rituals’ (Tuchman 1972: 660–79) in a positive tone in the Chinese media contexts. Strategic rituals refer to preventive tactics and peculiar ways that ‘media organisations routinize their news work in order to credibly meet extraordinary political pressure and to uphold their own limited legitimacy’ (Lee 2000: 317). We do not mean to exaggerate the power of strategic rituals. However deviant or aggressive, the Chinese press have to behave within the system of party–market corporatism. Zuo Fang divides ‘telling the truth’ into two categories: truth of the hard taboo (e.g. issue of political democracy, the party’s ideology and rule, religion, etc.); and truth of the soft taboo (Zuo 2008: 64). In this way Zuo indicates the bounded rationality of pushing press boundaries in China. ‘Regarding the soft taboo, we also need to grasp the limits. It doesn’t mean the more you push the limits the better it is for your newspaper’ (Zuo 2008: 63). Zuo Fang’s pragmatic approach towards media supervision by government is not uncommon among Chinese journalists. Drawing on completed research and published materials, we summarise the most common strategic rituals used by the Nanfang journalists. It should be noted that these strategic rituals might change in tandem with external social and political changes. •

Cross-regional supervision: The first strategy refers to the so-called ‘cross-regional supervision’ (Y. Wang 2009: 137–86), that is, the practice of news media from one locality exposing negative stories about a remote jurisdiction. As Zuo Fang (2008: 63) stated, ‘We conducted “cross-regional” supervision rather than local investigation, i.e. we seldom criticised the Guangdong provincial officials.’ The NW won its national fame because of its commitment to cross-regional supervision in the 1990s when other newspapers still paid primary attention to local issues.

One example of the NW’s cross-regional reporting was a series of news stories in 2001 about the Hunan criminal gang leader Zhang Jun who killed 22 people, wounded 20 more and robbed banks and jewellery stores across central China. Rather than simply describing his crimes, NW reporters travelled to Zhang’s home village to investigate the social and economic settings in which the Zhang Jun crime gang lived. The NW’s reports suggested poverty and the lack of economic opportunities due to local corruption, and concluded that these factors contributed to the crimes – that there was a causal link between Zhang Jun’s criminal activities and social problems. The two reports, i.e. ‘Reflection on the Zhang Jun case’ (Nanfang Weekend 20 April 2001) and ‘Re-reflection on the Zhang Jun case’ (Nanfang Weekend 27 April 2001), criticised the conditions inside labour camps which only further incited crimes. Not surprisingly the Hunan 88

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Provincial Party chief accused NW of painting a ‘negative portrait of China’s socialist campaign’ and ‘completely wiping out all the hard work by the Hunan government to raise the people’s living standards’ (Ming Pao Daily 2001: A12). In addition, propaganda officials from other provinces joined together and asked the CPD to punish the NW. Subsequently in May 2001, the NW’s deputy editor-in-chief Chen Mingyang, executive deputy editor-in-chief Qian Gang, news desk director Chang Ping and the cover page editor Shen Hao were all pressured to leave the newspapers (Chen 2013; Ming Pao Daily 2011: P07). •

Strategic placement of words in headlines and pages: The second strategy is that journalists can play tricks with news headlines and page placement to soften the blow of exposés and sensitive stories. Although a sensational title might attract readers, it risks irritating power holders and might incur political trouble.

Zuo Fang’s remarks vividly demonstrate this commonly adopted strategy: ‘In terms of the arrangement of title, we assign an ordinary title to sensitive topics and a sensational title to a non-sensitive topic. If you assign a sensational title to a sensitive topic, then you will probably make trouble. With respect to the placement of pages, we arrange sensitive topics on the obscure pages rather than on the front page’ (Zuo 2008: 64). Also, research has found that NMD’s journalists frequently ruminated over the equivocal phrases and words that appeared in rules and regulations issued by the party-state, and tried to spot useful loopholes (Shen and Zhang 2009). Wang Jun, a senior editor of NMD, said that ‘a ban does not mean the media cannot touch the news event at all. It only means we should be cautious about reporting it . . . Even when the propaganda department has issued a ban on a news event, we can still find a way to report on it through tricky means’ (quoted in Tong 2011: 151). However, the space for journalists to bypass the news ban is in flux, determined predominantly by the socio-political situation, and the degree of organisational self-censorship. Wang Jun would have to modify her words in 2013 when official control of media became more subtle and tight. During my field research at the NMD in the summer of 2013, the NMD simply avoided touching sensitive issues before or when there was a news ban. •

Objectivity and professionalism: The third strategy adopted by NW and NMD refers to objectivity and media professionalism – in the sense of objective and balanced reporting. Jiang and Xu (2008: 157–64) observed that, from 2002 to 2007, the percentage of NW’s negative reports dropped significantly, and the topics covered shifted from social problems and official corruption to news about politics and the economy. In addition, the news stories appeared to be more professional rather than sensational, using balanced sources and objective description.

In fact, the more sensitive the issue, the more objective and balanced the news story. One example is the NMD’s exposure of Sun Zhigang’s death. Sun Zhigang, a new college graduate in Guangzhou, was hired by a graphic design company in early 2003. On 17 March 2003, Sun was arrested on the street by the Guangzhou police because he had forgotten to carry his identity card and a temporal residence permit. He was taken to a detention centre and was declared dead three days later. The story was first revealed online by an internet forum user and the NMD reporter happened to read it, and two NMD reporters investigated Sun’s death. After collecting evidence, the two reporters confirmed that Sun was beaten to death, but because Sun’s story was connected to Guangzhou’s public security enforcement system, NMD was very cautious about covering the story, following the norms of factual accuracy and objectivity. 89

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The two reporters were required by their editor to get every detail verified and complete the story before the news ban. They moved quickly to interview Sun’s friends, employers and relatives as well as medical and legal experts. As a final step, they contacted the officials and the police because the latter might call the provincial propaganda department and squash the story (P. Pan 2004). The report delivered two clear facts – Sun was dead and was beaten to death – and asked two simple questions: (1) should Sun Zhigang have been detained? and (2) who beat Sun Zhigang to death? There was no sensational, subjective judgement throughout the narrative, even though the reporters were personally indignant at Sun’s tragedy (Nanfang Metropolis Daily 2004: 185). This evidence-based and balanced exposé provoked national shock online and offline and finally, when legal scholars and intellectuals appealed to the national congress, the story promoted the abolition of forced detention and the repatriation system (P. Pan 2008: 238–47). •

Use of columnist opinions: The fourth strategy adopted by the Nanfang subsidiary papers is to use opinion columns as alternatives to editorials to express concern about public issues. As this is associated with the editorial division of labour, the risk coefficient is lower for opinion columns than for editorials when articulating a newspaper’s position on the same subject, particularly when the journalists are uncertain about the potential risk.

One NMD column about China’s AIDS activist, Gao Yaojie, illustrates the detour from opinion column to editorial to articulate the newspaper’s position. The mainland Chinese media did not cover Gao Yaojie’s release from house arrest in Henan Province in February 2007, nor her preparation for a trip to the United States to accept the Vital Voices Global Women’s Leadership Award. The NMD’s editorial desk discussed the story and decided to test the government’s limit and encourage further media coverage by first publishing a column (it was too risky to carry an editorial on this event without formal media coverage) (J. Zhao 2008: 42–3). Entitled ‘Gao Yaojie’s being obstructed in reaching the USA to receive prize causes worry’, the column criticised Henan’s local officials and called for greater openness of information about AIDS and other public issues. As a strategy, the NMD editorial praised two top-ranking health officials who visited Gao Yaojie before her departure to the USA. Moreover, the commentary ended with an abstraction of the party’s top policy of constructing a ‘harmonious society’: If our local and regional leaders could, like Deputy Minister [of Ministry of Health] Wang, benefit from the true words of Gao Yaojie and make relevant policies based on real information through investigation and research, we will be able not only to prevent disasters arising from AIDS and other forms of epidemic disease, but also will have greater hope of building an ideally harmonious society. (Nanfang Metropolis Daily 2007: A02) Two weeks later, the NMD Weekly covered Gao Yaojie’s story, making it a hot public subject online. So the NMD editorial desk quickly grasped this opportunity to compose an editorial titled ‘Gao Yaojie, honour belongs to people who speak the truth’ on 20 March 2007 (J. Zhao, 2008: 42–3). •

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Appropriation of official discourse to frame the media’s discourse: Due to hierarchical gaps among different government positions, particularly with respect to central–local governmental relations, the news media enjoy a certain leeway in appropriating statements by national leaders or contained in national documents to pressure local government and officials. The media may ‘selectively quote paramount leaders of China as a framework within which to

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chastise the current policy’ (Lee 2000: 320). In February 2007, the fifteenth anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour (nanxun) that relaunched China’s economic reform in 1992, the majority of the Chinese press kept silent while NMD decided not to. From 18 January to 29 January 2007, under the heading ‘The Chinese road’ (zhongguo daolu), NMD published a series of bold editorials and commentaries to commemorate Deng’s talk. A commentary contributed by historian Yuan Weishi called for political reform by praising Deng Xiaoping’s vision and courage: The greatest task Xiaoping left to subsequent generations is the political system reform. As early as in 1986 he said: ‘Now each time we take a step forward in our economic reform, we feel deeply the necessity of political system reform’ . . . Reform calls for studying the vision and courage of Deng Xiaoping in those years. The heart of reform is pushing forward with a system of constitutional governance. (Nanfang Metropolis Daily, 29 January 2007: A02) By quoting Deng’s original words, this column appeals to the leadership to suppress leftist elements within their ranks and to further propel political reform. This strategy of editorial practice, summarised as ‘anti the flag by waving the flag’ (dazhe hongqi fan hongqi), is commonly deployed by Chinese journalists. The NW identified the collapse of a middle school in the Sichuan earthquake as a construction problem and used remarks of an expert in the Ministry of Construction as a justification (Nanfang Weekend 2008), thus providing another example of this strategic ritual. •

Situational use of different narrative forms: Last but not least, journalists set the press boundaries through using different narrative forms (i.e. general news, investigative reporting, feature stories, commentaries, etc.) to shift emphasis and report viewpoints. Different topics fit different narrative forms. This is partly if not completely because of the way propaganda directives vary their treatment of news. Some bans apply solely to news, whereas others apply to commentary, and vice versa; still others command all kinds of news and commentary to keep silent.

In addition to the appropriation of official discourse, the Nanfang journalists also utilised different narrative forms to cope with sensitive issues under shifting political situations. An illustrative example is the NMD’s coverage of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In the early days after the catastrophe, all NMD’s news stories focused on the disaster, the national leaders’ response and the rescue. NMD’s report was the first – on the second day – to reveal the problems of the collapsed school buildings, criticising them as examples of shabby work. After around ten days, more in-depth reporting was published, including the effects of the official rescue, the reasons why schools collapsed, the distribution of disaster relief materials, and the interaction between government and non-government organisations (see Nan 2009). A special series published from 21 May to 22 May 2008, under the title ‘The student martyr’ (xue shang), presented the stories in a neutral, fact-based and case-by-case style rather than providing a panoramic review of the disaster which might irritate the party-state. However, on 24 May NMD journalists were ordered to terminate their investigative-style coverage of the earthquake. As a result, the reporters turned to writing feature stories that focused on the social and emotional effects of the earthquake (see Nan 2009: 197–221); that is, they shifted their focus to the soft aspects of the disaster. Although it was too difficult for investigative reporting to touch issues about the quality of the collapsed school buildings, on 27 May 2008 the NMD editorial page continued to articulate its concerns. 91

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Organisational control and negotiation in flux The degree to which the subsidiary newspapers transgress the press boundaries is subject to the external power structure and internal organisational negotiation. Given the changing nature of external pressure and internal negotiation, the processes of setting the press boundaries are bound to be contested, uneven and uncertain. The media group’s leadership has to manage and balance both external and internal pressure at all times. Undoubtedly, the propaganda officials keep a close watch on the press group and command the group’s management team to toe the official line. In 2000, for instance, the GPPD urged Nanfang to ‘rectify’ its journalistic operations and to keep in mind the orthodox principles of Marxist journalism, largely because both NW and NMD published a number of negative reports about food safety, official corruption and public security, and were accused of having wrongly guided public opinion. Responding to the political situation, Nanfang organised seven workshops on Marxist journalism for senior editors and reporters, stressing that the news workers should abide by the party’s propaganda discipline and correctly direct public opinion (Fan 2001). Both NW and NMD promised that they would allocate more space to positive reporting and make political performance an essential criterion of assessing on an annual basis each subsidiary paper’s leadership (Y.S. Zhong 2001: 112). It followed that when external political pressure intensified, the media group would have to let its subsidiary newspapers reduce temporarily its negative reporting, keep a low profile and seek an appropriate opportunity to stage a comeback. The external political situation has worsened for Nanfang since the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the Beijing Olympic Games (Hou 2012). Leftists have accused Nanfang, and NW and NMD in particular, of being ‘traitor media’ (hanjian meiti) servicing western anti-Chinese forces. This ideological encounter has posed a dilemma for the Nanfang leadership and has restricted the newspapers’ liberal position. In other words, the organisational legitimacy of the Nanfang press has been threatened in the context of China’s ideological cleavages. In addition, the central and provincial propaganda departments have tried to send propaganda officials such as Wang Chunfu, Zhang Dongming, Yang Jian and Mo Gaoyi to act as the head of Nanfang or to directly supervise the group’s subsidiary papers. In Fan Yijin’s and Yang Xingfang’s early terms as editors, the majority of Nanfang’s managers were journalists, enabling them to encourage a sense of professionalism throughout their reporting staff. The convention that Nanfang’s leaders are selected from within the media group has been subverted since Yang Jian was appointed the group’s party chief (in May 2012),10 and Zhang Dongming as editor-in-chief (in 2011) and as Nanfang Daily’s president (in 2013). Yang concurrently held the post of deputy chief of the GPPD, and Zhang was previously the GPPD news bureau director. In short, the newly appointed heads of Nanfang are propaganda officials and the majority within Nanfang’s leadership are not drawn from inside the group.11 Consequently, the autonomy of Nanfang’s subsidiary newspapers has been steadily restricted. Since 2008, the Nanfang management committee has (wittingly or unwittingly) intervened in the operation of its subsidiary papers, primarily through assigning its relatively conservative committee members to lead NMD in late 2008 and NW in 2010. Since the committee members are selected and appointed by the provincial party-state, it goes without saying that the propaganda department can more easily and efficiently control Nanfang and its maverick subsidiaries. Outspoken journalists such as Chang Ping and Xiao Shu resigned in early 2011 and this was seen as a symbol that the Nanfang leaders would no longer protect news workers in the subordinate press (Chen 2013; Hou 2012). In addition to changes in external political pressure, we should also observe the culture of self-censorship at Nanfang. After the Sichuan earthquake Nanfang set up a review group to 92

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censor pages in its newspapers that may cause trouble (e.g. the investigative reporting page and the editorial page) (Guan 2013; Hou 2012; Zou 2012: 177–84). Zeng Li, Nanfang’s censor in charge of reviewing NW’s news stories, revealed that after Tuo Zhen was assigned the post of Guangdong’s propaganda chief, news bans arrived more frequently and some were even specific to the Nanfang newspapers (Guan 2013). The GPPD ordered NW journalists to submit their proposals for stories for pre-publication review. At least 1,034 NW stories were amended or killed in 2012 (Guan 2013; Qian 2013). After the Beijing 21 July rainstorm disaster in 2011, an eight-page special issue of NW was withdrawn, while stories about officials who died amidst fighting the flood remained. Four pages of NMD’s investigative reporting were also killed. By contrast, the New Beijing News delivered a 22-page special issue containing commentary and investigative reporting on the seventh day of the disaster. The Nanfang journalists suspected that they had been isolated for special treatment by the CPD, and that censorship throughout the organisation had been reinforced (Hou 2012). Hard-line political interference in the news production of Nanfang’s subsidiary papers might trigger unexpected protests from rank-and-file journalists. In January 2013, the NW’s New Year special issue had to undergo five rounds of official censorship before publication. Moreover, NW was forced to publish an approved lead commentary, and its original editorial entitled ‘Chinese dream, constitutionalist dream’ was modified as ‘We are closer than ever before to our dream’, with no mention of constitutionalism. The most unbearable aspect for the NW journalists was that the lead commentary contained a factual error which was discovered by readers online. Believing this censored special issue and its mistaken lead commentary humiliated their professional dignity, the NW’s journalists threatened to go on strike. The protest soon became a national event and provoked the publication online and offline of a petition in support. The crisis ended when propaganda officials agreed to stop pre-publication censorship, and the NW journalists returned to regular work (Qian 2013; J. Shi 2013: EDT4; Wong and Ansfield 2013).12

Conclusion and discussion It is possible to argue that Nanfang, driven by intensified press competition in Guangzhou, has created an institutional space within which its subsidiary newspapers can develop and innovate to deviate from the orthodox party news paradigm. The political and economic division of labour amid media conglomeration served to reconcile the tensions between the party line, market logic and media professionalism. The organisational division of labour in turn gave rise to diversified practices among Nanfang’s maverick subsidiaries. As market-oriented newspapers, the NW and NMD have to push the permissible limits within structural constraints as a way to establish media credibility, thus securing their economic interests. These newspapers’ outspokenness stems not only from severe press competition, but also from the journalistic legacy and culture of Nanfang, as well as aspirations to professionalism. However, given the structural and ideological ambiguities, setting the press boundaries is inevitably opportunistic, situational, non-linear and in flux. We should term this phenomenon ‘established media boundaryspanning’. Under authoritarian control, the news media can by no means publicly challenge the political establishment, although they might have latent effects on society. The enabling (and disabling) factors affecting Nanfang’s maverick subordinate papers to span media boundaries can be analysed as follows: first, the gaps between political hierarchies and centre–local power elites offer a sphere of legitimate controversy. A group of strong reformist officials once helped shape Nanfang’s aggressive style of reporting to voice opinions about market 93

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economy, political liberalisation and social pluralisation. When Nanfang’s subsidiary newspapers ran into political trouble, these open-minded officials were able to defend Nanfang. Yet, once these officials all retired from the political stage, such opportunities disappeared. As the political climate changes, so does Nanfang’s journalistic performance. Second, the role of the media group’s leadership also matters. Although the external social–political climate fundamentally determines media boundaries, how the media group leadership responds to external pressures structures how well the subsidiary papers play the watchdog role. Holding other variables constant, the more conservative the media group leadership, the less likely can the subsidiary papers push the permissible limits, and vice versa. The limited space for media to span boundaries will decrease as the conservative media group leadership hold strict control over the subsidiary papers’ leaders, damaging the morale of journalists. Third, the symbolic and implicit power of organisational norms committed to telling the truth and media professionalism is a persistent imperative motivating the Nanfang journalists to push the limits. The journalistic ethos internalised by Nanfang journalists cannot be easily suppressed and eliminated, but can be reactivated when political pressure is relaxed. Last, but not least, we must consider a group of journalists who, although fragile, value professional autonomy over bureaucratic goals and constitute the dominant force in embedding progressive practices. Groups of Nanfang journalists come and go, with the fluctuation in morale. Morale can be high when the leaders dare to undertake risk and support journalists to employ strategic rituals that successfully lead to an expanding media space. By contrast, organisational moods will be low when journalists have to compromise to follow strict control, but crude control will only provide open conflicts, as demonstrated by the NW journalists’ struggle against pre-publication censorship. While many view Nanfang as the liberal–progressive camp of the Chinese media, scholars from the critical left assert that Nanfang have a class bias that is dominated by the logic of capital and the interests of the rising middle class, and thus transforms the social relations in Chinese society (e.g. Zhao and Xing 2012). However their critical analysis tends to overestimate the power of Nanfang and simplify the complexity of the state–market–press tripartite relationship that can be collaborative or oppositional. Without romanticising nor underestimating the influence of Nanfang, we can conclude that the dominant power restricting the Chinese media such as Nanfang from working according to professional practices is the party-state rather than the market. In short, the party-state defines media boundaries, and the market–capital complex is secondary. The variety of political and economic pressures – some of which are uneven and contradictory – trigger different media reactions. At different times the Chinese press will be bold or tame, public-spirited or self-serving, but when a journalist or a news organisation breaches the boundary of the permissible at a particular moment, ‘other competitors are bound to pick it up and expand it’ (Lee 2000: 323). Viewing the interaction between journalist agency and party–market structure in a broader sense, it is arguable that political pressure can be negotiated and compromised on a post hoc and case-by-case basis. Journalist autonomy depends on the agency–structure interaction. For individual journalists, the newspaper is the structure; for subsidiary newspapers, the media group is the structure, while the party–market corporatist institution is the larger structure for media groups. Control over media can be strengthened or softened as gaps between agency and structure widen. Thus, the meso-level structure play a significant moderating role. From this perspective, it remains uncertain to what extent the Nanfang press will become docile to the power centre, or resume its once outspoken status. 94

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Notes 1 Available online at the Nanfang Media Group website, www.nfmedia.com/ (accessed 15 November 2012, in Chinese). 2 Please note that Nanfang Media Group and the Hefei Press Group terminated their cooperation of jointly running Jianghuai Morning Post in January 2014. Therefore the Jianghuai Morning Post no longer belongs to the Nanfang Media Group. 3 In Guangdong, Guangzhou Daily, Information Times, New Express Daily, Sunshine Daily, etc. are the examples that followed the NMD to set up pages for in-depth news and commentaries (H. Li 2006: 40–2; W. Li 2006). Outside Guangdong, newspapers such as Chengdu Commercial Daily, Huashang Morning Post and Xiaoxiang Morning Post all consulted directors of the in-depth journalism desk of NMD in 2006 before running their own investigative reporting teams. See H. Lu (2007: 34), Qian (2008: 121) and Tong (2011). 4 Because it publishes sensitive news stories or commentaries, a number of Nanfang’s chief editors, senior editors and veteran journalists (including Jiang Yiping, Qian Gang, Chen Mingyang, Cheng Yizhong, Chang Ping, Xiang Xi, Yu Chen, etc.) were pressured to resign, dismissed by government or even set up by officials (also see Hugo de Burgh, Chapter 6 in this volume). 5 For control and request for autonomy between central and local governments, see Chung (2003: 46–75). 6 Huang Wenyu was former editor-in-chief of Nanfang Daily in the 1950s to 1960s and deputy chief of the GPPD in the 1980s. In 1957, amid the peak of the anti-rightist movement, Huang Wenyu received instruction to establish Yangcheng Evening News following the journalistic principles different from the orthodox party organ paradigm. See Zuo Fang (2008 and 2012). 7 Huangpu Military Academy was the Kuomintang (i.e. the Nationalists) Army Officer Academy, launched by Sun Yat-sen in 1924. It produced many prestigious commanders who fought in many of China’s conflicts in the twentieth century, notably the Northern Expedition, the second Sino-Japanese war and the Chinese civil war. 8 For instance, Zhu Defu was reporter of NW and later was editor-in-chief of a Beijing metropolitan daily Jinghua Times (Jinghua Shibao); Lu Hui previously was head of the in-depth news desk of NMD and currently deputy editor-in-chief of a news weekly Vista (Kan Tianxia); Yang Bin was NMD’s senior editor and later became vice-chief executive officer of a Chinese portal website Netease; Gong Xiaoyue was editor of NMD and later became editor-in-chief of Xiaoxiang Morning Post (Xiaoxiang Chenbao), and so forth. See http://media.sohu.com/s2013/jyptx_zt/index.shtml for more information (accessed 30 September 2013, in Chinese). 9 Available online at the Nanfang Media Group website: http://news.nfmedia.com/jtjj/jtjj.htm (accessed 15 December 2012, in Chinese). 10 Yang Jian was succeeded by Mo Gaoyi in May 2013. 11 Jiang Yiping’s retirement in advance before the legal due date was regarded as a further symbol of Nanfang’s increasingly limited media autonomy, see http://media.sohu.com/s2013/jyptx_zt/ index.shtml (accessed 30 September 2013, in Chinese). 12 On 2 January 2013, editors of NW were off from work after finishing the proof-reading of the New Year greeting editorial to be published the next day. However, Tuo Zhen, the head of GPPD, called up the NW’s editor-in-chief and instructed him to revise the editorial. The printed editorial fundamentally differed from the original one compiled by the NW journalist. On 4 January, the NW journalists exposed the incident through Sina Weibo which shocked the national public. In subsequent days, the NW journalists’ struggle was supported by Chinese liberal scholars, university students and even celebrities in the Greater China area. In order to calm down the protests, the Guangdong propaganda officials agreed to loosen controls over the NW. The NW returned to regular publication on 10 January 2013. See Qian (2013); Wong and Ansfield (2013); and J. Shi (2013: EDT4).

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6 Chinese investigative journalism in the twenty-first century Hugo de Burgh

Characteristics and techniques The term investigative journalism was originally applied to a phenomenon of particularly detailed, sometimes revelatory and perhaps subversive reports by English and American journalists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the expression ‘muckrakers’ was also used. There was a largely unspoken assumption that this category of journalism was not necessarily covering events and activities on the generally recognised agenda, but finding out that which was hidden from the public. It was an epiphenomenon of relatively open societies and in particular of the Anglo-American societies, in which journalists were expected to challenge authority and its definitions of what mattered. Thus the early heroes of investigative journalism are William Cobbett, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair and W.T. Stead, for example, and the iconic examples are William Russell’s Crimean War dispatches, Winston Churchill’s 1930s exposure of German rearmament, the Sunday Times’s nailing of responsibility for the Thalidomide scandal, the uncovering of the corruption of urban planning in 1970s England, Seymour Hersh’s reports of atrocities in Vietnam and his exposure of torture in Iraq in 2003.1 Since then, there have been many more examples, with perhaps Politkovskaya’s reports from Chechnya, Saviano’s examination of Naples gangsters, and the Daily Telegraph’s revelation of corruption in the British parliament standing out as particularly notable (Hope 2009). China, too, in the first half of the twentieth century had its investigators, of whom the best known are Shao Piaoping and Liu Binyan, although the latter was obliged to disguise much of his work as literature.2 Much investigative journalism today is prosaic – because there is so much of it. Hardly a day goes by without the UK’s Daily Mail carrying out an investigation (de Burgh 2008), but not many will be on a large scale. Chinese equivalents are equally variable. Rather than trying to define investigative journalism by its motivations and heroics, it is therefore reasonable to define investigative journalism in China according to its method of approach and by the techniques associated with it, techniques that are not necessarily peculiar to investigative journalism, but which are characteristic of them. Some investigative journalists reject the very category, claiming that all journalism is or ought to be investigative, in the sense that checking and digging are intrinsic to good journalism. In general, however, Chinese investigative 100

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journalists are expected to display specific characteristics. They should be revelatory (provide new information, i.e. qishi xing, and expose hidden things, that is, jiefa xing); accusatory of bad people/organisations (qianze xing), and moralistic (implying that journalists apply higher moral standards, i.e. shuojiao xing); and, finally, willing to take risks (fengxian xing). The particular skills and techniques employed vary enormously. They include: routine deskwork and the examination of official documents and files; identifying, analysing and evaluating evidence; and research conducted through impersonation or infiltration. Techniques for demonstrating the nefarious activity under investigation include: sting, dramatisation, reconstruction, secret filming and door-stepping. In China today, as in anglophone countries, a great deal of this has existed since the 1990s.

China in the twenty-first century3 I have identified elsewhere, for a western audience, the re-emergence of investigative journalism in China (de Burgh 2003a: 801–20). By 2003, the scope was already wide and the techniques were sophisticated. It attracted huge audiences because the phenomenon was still exciting, but China changes very quickly. Today the investigative approach is mainstream in all branches of the media and has been stimulated, challenged and ruffled by revelation and criticism on the internet. Audiences for the leading television shows of this kind are smaller because the number of vehicles is so great. In the 1980s, the first post-1978 investigations were published by newspapers in the south. By the late 1990s, not only was China Central Television (CCTV), then China’s most influential medium, launching several programmes with the authority to be critical and investigative, but there were now many regional vehicles for this kind of journalism. Well-established national newspapers such as China Youth Daily (Zhongguo qingnian bao) and China Economic Times (Zhongguo jingji shibao), magazines such as Sanlian Life Weekly (Sanlian shenghuo zhoukan) and Finance (Caijing), and provincial newspapers with national reach such as Southern Weekend (Nanfang zhoumo), Southern Metropolis Daily (Nanfang dushi bao) and Yangcheng Evening News (Yangcheng wanbao), were all in the business. A study conducted in 2002 found that: Across the generations and regardless of the medium within which they work, Chinese journalists do at present have a passion for that journalism which scrutinises authority and delves into the failings of society. They call it ‘investigative journalism’ and they admire it even if they themselves do not practise it. Asked to describe the journalism they most admired, all of 39 interviewees cited an investigative programme, or a print publication best known for its investigations, as their ‘models’. They believe in ‘reports that put things right’, programmes that ‘reflect what people really think and care about’ and are ‘controversial’. As to those famous vehicles of investigative journalism, Southern Weekend, Tell It Like It Is and Focal Point, ‘every journalist wants to work with them, every journalist wants to be like their journalists’. (de Burgh 2003b: 183) A later article examined CCTV’s News Probe (Xinwen diaocha): The audience, says Editor Zhang Jie, was originally expected to consist of intellectuals, but he and his team rapidly realised that they had a huge following among the peasants and migrant workers. Large numbers of them call in with harrowing tales of exploitation, 101

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expropriation and corruption. All the calls are logged and the tales told are poured over for possible programme stories. Brutality by policemen; a lottery scam; ‘special’ taxes imposed by officials; the cutting down of trees belonging to the local community by officials; miscarriages of justice in the local courts; malpractice among registration officials, leading to speculation in connection with residency and marriage procedures; overcharging by public utilities; underpayment of peasants for use of their assets; expropriation of public buildings in Peking [Beijing]; substitution at court when the accused are powerful people; theft of burial plots and arable land – these are just a few of the reports received and carefully recorded by News Probe’s telephonists . . . They literally come from all over the country, from Xinjiang in the northwest to Shenzhen in the south, Heilongjiang in the northeast to Hainan at the southernmost tip of China. (de Burgh and Xin 2006: 1027) To assist in assessing in professional terms what was being produced, two established British commissioning editors of investigative journalism were asked to comment on several of News Probe’s productions, translated into English especially for them. The reactions of the then editor of BBC Panorama and the then commissioning editor for C4 Dispatches were reported thus: The ability of the Chinese journalists to probe in the way they do in the programmes selected filled the UK editors with admiration. Chinese journalists may be avoiding the biggest sharks of all, but they are putting terror into the hearts of some powerful local despots in ways of which the cynosures of Anglophone investigative journalism, such as Ida Tarbell, W. T. Stead, Seymour Hersh or Paul Foot, would be proud, thought the UK editors. There is a fundamental difference in approach between News Probe and Dispatches, according to Kevin Sutcliffe [Senior Commissioning Editor, Channel 4 Television]. Whereas Dispatches journalists usually start with an issue – poor nursing in the health service, the quality of meat used in restaurants and cafeterias, let’s say – and then seek out particular instances of the points they want to make, the News Probe stories seen by him concentrate entirely on the dissection of a specific instance of abuse or corruption or management failure. The British journalists will have in their sights those ultimately responsible, high officials, business leaders or politicians, and will attempt to nail them, whereas the Chinese will content themselves with exposing the instance and, aside from summaries at the end in which they urge government departments to pay attention to the findings and not make mistakes in future, will not generalise out. (de Burgh and Xin 2006: 1029) Ten years later timeblogging and social media have emerged. According to Zhan Jiang, China’s best known observer of investigative journalism, ‘more and more reporters’ have been engaged in the writing of exposés (jiehei baodao); ‘more and more media’ have been engaged in the publishing of exposés; more and more first-rate reports and regular columns on investigative reporting have appeared; investigative reports in China are showing an increasing degree of professionalism; investigative reporters are receiving more attention and respect by general society.4 They reveal wrong, especially by those in positions of responsibility, create examples of good or bad practice, and may instigate legislation. According to Haiying Wang (2010), a former practitioner, there are eight leading vehicles of investigative journalism (see Table 6.1). What do these vehicles investigate? The answer is most things. The environment gets special prominence, but malfeasance by local authorities 102

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Table 6.1 Main vehicles of investigative journalism in China and their mottoes Vehicle

Parent company

Launch

Slogan

Southern Weekend (Nanfang zhoumo)

Nanfang Group

1984

The best investigation is in-depth!

Focal Point (Jiaodian fangtan)

CCTV

1994

Truth speaks out

Freezing Point (Bing dian)

China Youth Daily

1995

Speak for the disadvantaged

News Probe (Xinwen diaocha)

CCTV

1996

In pursuit of justice

Southern Metropolis Daily (Nanfang dushi bao)

Nanfang Group

1997

Voice of the citizenry

Finance (Caijing)

Stock Exchange Executive Council

1998

Independent standpoint, exclusive coverage, and unique perspective

China News Weekly (Xinwen zhoukan)

Chinese News Agency

2000

Progress with China

Beijing News (Beijing xinwen bao)

Guangming Group

2003

Responsible reporting

Source: Adapted, with kind permission of the Reuters Institute, from Haiyan Wang (2010) Investigative Journalism and Political Power in China (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press).

and businesses, social injustice and health issues probably top the list. Examination cheating, student suicide, hospital failures, police brutality, tallymen (loan sharks), extortion and polluted food are staples, just as they are in the UK. Before assessing what this might indicate about Chinese society or Chinese journalists, the type of reports being produced as investigative journalism in China today will first be examined. A group of Chinese journalism students in the UK were asked informally to state which investigations had most impressed them (or which they remembered), and synopses are provided in the note5 of those to which they referred in order to illustrate the kind of material now being produced. Three specific investigations are mentioned here because they are particularly notable for various reasons. 1 Shanxi vaccines After many months of often difficult research Wang Keqin reported in the China Economic Times of March 2010, how negligently stored and distributed vaccines had resulted in the deaths of at least four children and damage to at least 74 others. The vaccines had been left unrefrigerated. The Shanxi Center for Disease Control entrusted vaccine manufacture and distribution throughout the province to a businessman who . . . paid 3.8 million Yuan to the Center for Disease Control in exchange for exclusive rights to the sale and distribution of vaccines in Shanxi Province. The businessman made a great deal of money from the project, yet during this time many vaccine stocks in Shanxi were damaged by heat exposure. Vaccines that were harmful and should have been immediately destroyed were instead administered to children throughout the province. (Qian 2010) 103

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Wang Keqin’s investigative report comprehensively documented the terrible effects of the vaccines, and the report provoked widespread concern and anger (Garnaut 2010). Shortly afterwards, the editor of China Economic Times, Bao Yueyang, was relieved of his post. Although official sources stated that his dismissal was an unrelated coincidence, this was not generally believed. The main outcome of the report was the curtailment of an editor’s career. 2 Anyuanding’s black jails Although petitioning central government is a frequently exercised Chinese right, it is one which infuriates some local officials because they are disciplined if too many petitioners register complaints against them. According to reporters from Caijing magazine and the Southern Metropolis Daily, published in September 2010, the Anyuanding Security Company ran illegal detention centres in Beijing, which were very profitable and employed 3,000 ‘interceptors’ who kidnapped petitioners arriving in the capital to register grievances. These unfortunate people were incarcerated for up to a month until shipped back home, often suffering abuse or worse in the meantime. The company was paid up to RMB 300 (c. US$48.10) per person per day for ‘taking care’ of petitioners until they could be escorted home by police. In an immediate response to the publication, Beijing City Public Security Bureau arrested two of Anyuanding’s executives and charged them with ‘illegally detaining people and illegally operating a business’ (Southern City Daily September 2010). 3 Red Cross in the pillory On 6 August 2011 a report for CCTV’s News Probe began: Guo Meimei, a 20-year-old girl, posted pictures of herself on Sina Weibo showing off her expensive car and handbags and claiming to be the Commercial General Manager of the Red Cross, the country’s largest charity. The pictures circulated widely and triggered public accusations against the Red Cross. The key question to be answered by this charity was: did Guo’s wealth have any connection to the Red Cross and was the charity funding her lavish lifestyle? This programme is a retroactive investigation, in which the reporters try to find out what really happened after netizens had claimed to have uncovered wicked doings at the Red Cross, China’s largest charity. The Red Cross had come under ferocious attack and been plunged into an unprecedented crisis of trust in 2011 after Guo Meimei claimed to work at the charity, while posting pictures of herself on Sina Weibo and boasting about her wealth and the expensive goods she owned. But was the assumption that Guo had got this money dishonestly from her supposed employers true? On 3 July 2011 shortly after Guo advertised herself, Weng Tao, the head of China Red Cross Bo’ai Asset Management Ltd, a commercial company with a cooperative relationship with the Red Cross which also organises charity activities on its behalf, blogged on Sina Weibo that Guo was Wang Jun’s new girlfriend. Wang Jun was a director of the Bo’ai company and blogs claimed that Guo’s expensive goods were presents from him. However, two days later Guo claimed on Weibo that her boyfriend was not Wang Jun but another. News Probe interviewed Weng Tao in order to discover whether Guo had any connection to the Red Cross. Weng insisted that Guo was neither on staff at Bo’ai nor at the Red Cross, that her luxuries had been personal gifts from her lover Wang Jun, and that there was no link between the companies and Guo. 104

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Thereafter Guo revealed to the reporter that Wang Jun was in fact her foster father and she did own both of the expensive cars with which she had been photographed, one of which was a present from her foster father and the other from her mother. Guo admitted that everything that had happened was a consequence of her showing off and she now denied any link to the Red Cross. A police investigation thereafter confirmed Guo’s statement to the reporter as true. At the end of the investigation, the reporter established the following: (a) Wang Jun had resigned from his job, but not because he himself had been accused of peculation – the accusations on social media were unfounded – but because his relationship with Guo and her behaviour had brought into disrepute both the Red Cross and Bo’ai company. (b) The veracity and details of Guo Meimei’s supposed connections to the Red Cross had been largely ignored by the netizen public, for which her self-promotion was a catalyst triggering a vicious campaign against the Red Cross, accusing it of corruption and supposed misspent donations in the past. (c) Although relevant matters had been ignored, Guo Meimei suffered a massive ‘human flesh search’ (Renrou sousuo),6 in attempts to dig out any sensational details about her and the sources of her wealth. The programme defined this as a violation of privacy. (d) The scandal has had an impact on donations for the Red Cross. Many potential donors now fear that their donated money will be misused and have cancelled their giving. This programme was not an investigation of the Red Cross, but of the way netizens, stimulated by Guo’s exhibitionism, attacked the Red Cross and destroyed its reputation unjustifiably, through smears and accusations without evidence. There have been other post-hoc investigations in recent years on News Probe, notably one about the corruption scandals in football which had, prior to the programme, been dealt with in a high-profile trial which resulted in several football officials going to prison.

Ups and downs A close watcher of investigative journalism in China, Zhan Jiang, has identified seven movements or stages in investigative journalism so far in the twenty-first century.7 The fortunes of Zhan’s object of study change almost from year to year according, it would seem, to the political situation. Up to 2002 there was a ‘brilliant’ period: for example, Focus Reports revealed a coalmine disaster in Guangxi, and the collusion between mine owners and local officials; Caijing revealed ‘shady deals’ in the stock market; and China Economic Times disclosed the monopoly and corruption of Beijing’s taxi industry. During 2003–4, three Southern City Daily editors were imprisoned, and yet the authorities allowed themselves to be influenced by the reporting of the Sun Zhigang case. Sun Zhigang was a young migrant who died in custody and whose case was taken up posthumously but with such fervour and general outcry that the government abolished the Custody and Repatriation Ordinance under which the police had been required to detain persons unable to show a valid residence permit, something which they often did, in unacceptable conditions. The Ordinance was replaced by the Measures for Assisting Vagrants with No Means of Support, a considerably more humane response to the problem (also see Chen, Chapter 5 in this volume). Xinhua News Agency, the authorities’ approved conduit of information, revealed a series of accidents in the manufacture of traditional medicine. Yet, in 2004, the Central Propaganda 105

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Department (CPD) prohibited the media from undertaking investigations in regions other than their own. The ability to do this had heretofore been essential to journalists’ ability to investigate at all, as it was generally regarded as problematic to report on home-town issues. To get round this, journalists had operated a swap system, by which they took tips from colleagues in distant provinces, and in return helped those same colleagues to publish locally. That year saw serious difficulties for several leading journalists. Two editors from Beijing News were sacked, as was an associate editor of Southern City Daily (de Burgh 2011: 35). It was the year of the Freezing Point closure8 and the dismissal of its editor and associate editor.9 During 2005, there were some high-profile investigations of corrupt officials, and celebrated reporter Wang Keqin exposed violent clashes between peasants and factory management in Hebei, as well as the extent of the AIDS scandal in a Hebei city. Nevertheless, according to Zhan, it was becoming much more dangerous to investigate and much more difficult to report. By 2006, only Caijing continued to investigate, and Southern Weekend compensated for its lack of investigations by expanding its opinion pages. However, by 2007–8 the situation had improved, both because the regulations on crossprovincial reporting were not enforced, and also because the Freedom of Information Act had been passed.10 Moreover, the internet was starting to function as a constant reproach to the mainstream media and as a stimulus to them to report on what was becoming impossible to ignore. Caijing continued to produce good stories, hiding behind its identity as an economics and finance magazine. Its report, ‘To whom does Shandong Energy Group belong?’, revealed a huge case of corruption, while Fu Zhenzhong of Henan TV’s City Channel exposed The evil road of ‘the Black Men’ (see note 5 for further details). In 2008 investigative journalism was overshadowed by the major events of that year – the Olympics, the Tibetan riots and the Sichuan earthquake – but in December 2009 the editor of Southern Weekend was demoted, soon after he had obtained an exclusive interview with US President Obama. The following year saw editors revitalised. In March 2010, 13 Chinese newspapers published a joint editorial, calling for reform and the eventual abolition of the household registration system. It was removed from websites, and authorities reportedly issued stern warnings to the paper which had initiated the project. Two months later the editor-in-chief of China Economic Times was demoted to a lesser role after defending Wang Keqin’s report linking wrongly stored vaccines to children’s deaths. Caijing.com revealed that the governor of Hubei had snatched away a digital recording pen from a Beijing Times journalist when she was trying to note what he was saying during a session of the National People’s Congress. Li Chengpeng published a book exposing corruption in the soccer establishment (Li 2011). The biggest development, however, was that the internet, and Weibo in particular, were now driving investigative journalism. More and more revelations of official corruption and incompetence were emerging; the journalist’s job was to try to keep abreast of the sources which were now multitudinous.

Investigative journalism and the China Project Although the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had insisted from the start that the media were to be its mouthpiece, and that there was no room in China for media workers to exercise their own judgements in selecting or interpreting events, even in the desperate years of the 1950s and 1960s this view was not completely without challenge. Liu Binyan disguised investigative or critical journalism as literary essays (baogao wenxue) and, in the aftermath of the Great Leap 106

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Forward, President Liu Shaoqi lent his prestige to the calls for the media to be sufficiently independent to give warning when matters were going wrong (de Burgh 2003b: 47–8). In the 1980s, as China reacted against the Cultural Revolution, journalists were emboldened to speak up for the media which would provide genuine information and positive criticism. This found favour with those leaders in the CCP who regarded the lack of media freedom to report truth, rather than repeat propaganda, as a factor in the disastrous Mao years. The media in Guangdong were particularly vigorous, but arguably have not yet recovered their 1980s sprightliness since being suppressed in 1989. Deng Xiaoping’s reforms of the economy and opening up to the outside world were understood to require or include an opening up of minds too, and journalists seized the opportunities provided by tolerant local officials, notably in Shenzhen. In 1987 Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang, in his report to party congress, made much of the expression ‘supervision by public opinion’ (yulun jiandu). By this, he meant that the media should exercise oversight over public officials; keep the people informed of what is going on; and reflect debates among the citizenry. Although Zhao was dismissed on account of his behaviour over the student demonstrations of 1989, subsequent leaders have continued to use the expression, while somewhat backtracking on Zhao’s rather radical assumption that most of the supervision by public opinion was to be focused on government misdemeanours, and that the initiative lay with journalists. Jiang Zemin thought that supervision by public opinion should only be exercised under the leadership of the party, although his prime minister, Zhu Rongji, seemed to go even further than Zhao and see the news media as a ‘mouthpiece of the people’. In 1996, CCTV launched investigative programmes that very rapidly attracted huge audiences and provided the model for other media throughout China, widely disseminating a long-unseen kind of journalism. Their introduction was initiated, or at least approved, by the then head of the Central Propaganda Department, Ding Guangen. In the early years of its life, the most vigorous vehicle for investigative journalism, News Probe, was regularly visited by national leaders and received their endorsement, encouragement and imprimatur (de Burgh 2003b: 25). Also in the 1990s, the government introduced ‘open government’ programmes and had officials examine foreign examples, with a view to China creating its own equivalent of Freedom of Information legislation, something which it indeed did in 2007. In his first live public address after acceding to the leading government and party positions in 2002, Hu Jintao inaugurated his ‘Scientific Development Perspective’. This manifesto differed from previous ones by Jiang Zemin and Deng Xiaoping in two respects: it mentioned the word ‘democracy’ many times, and it particularly emphasised social justice and fairness. President Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao were breaking with recent preoccupations by acknowledging the concerns about the expanding gap between rich and poor, and the fact that the welfare of the citizenry had been placed low down on the list of priorities during the preceding period, when economic development and marketisation had mattered above all. In time, accountability, transparency and the roles of the media in improving government would become constant themes. The first practical step was taken in 2002, when the government introduced a briefing and spokesperson system, by which all government departments at all levels were expected to appoint, from their career officials, people who would become specialists in dealing with the media and with public requests for information and comment from their organisations. The system of public spokespersons is now well organised, and they receive extensive training in their domestic responsibilities and functions by Tsinghua University School of Communications, and in their understanding of and skills for dealing with the international media by the University of Westminster’s China Media Centre (CMC). In 2003 Hu Jintao called on the media to be more realistic, to find out what was really happening (Tian 2003; Salmon 2011). However, while investigative reports into social issues 107

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and corruption might be encouraged, there was to be no further discussion of political reform. In 2004 a spate of officially inspired articles reaffirmed the government’s commitment to supervision by public opinion as a tool for weeding out corruption, but by 2007 Hu Jintao’s work report to the seventeenth party congress would stress that supervision by public opinion was part of the official apparatus for monitoring society, and is not independent. In an editorial in 2009 the People’s Daily Online stated: ‘[The] Government must lead the way in establishing respect for the media’s right to investigate and [the] right to conduct interviews’ (2 August 2009). Local propaganda officials, supervising the local media, pay close attention to the latest formulations of their leaders. According to a senior decision maker in the Hangzhou Press Office, interviewed in 2010, he and his colleagues were struck by the emphasis placed upon accountability and transparency at the seventeenth party conference of 2007. President Hu wanted ‘to guarantee that the powers vested in us by the people be used to the benefit of the people; to guarantee that powers are exercised correctly, authority should be exercised in the open’. Because the people have ‘the right to be informed, the right to take part, the right to express opinion and the right to supervise, we need decision-making and implementation to be public, accountable and credible’ (de Burgh and Mi 2012: 1017). It was important to have efficacious mechanisms of discipline and inspection able to deliver. Our informant’s understanding was that investigative journalism was just such a mechanism. In summary, while the principle of supervision by public opinion has become well established, its meaning is interpreted differently by different people at different times. Moreover, what seems like casuistry or even malevolence to anglophone observers, does not seem even remotely inconsistent in China: In the eyes of the régime, there is no contradiction between asserting those rights and maintaining that it is the duty of journalists to serve the party, to obey the instructions of the Party Propaganda Department. All in all, the concept of ‘rights’ [that] the Chinese government is using is one that perfectly well allows them to have an action plan to improve the protection of these rights, without intending in any way to weaken the party’s monopolistic grip on power. (Earp 2012) The project on which the country is engaged, in the view of its leaders and probably a very great proportion of the population, is making of China a relatively wealthy and influential nation once again; all institutions and operations in China are judged by their contribution to this ambition. Implicitly, investigative journalism is a tool of those leading it. Journalists do not strike out on a limb or claim unique status; they too serve the project.

Troubles The perennial problem is that while the most senior leaders declare support for journalism in their speeches, and legislation even puts right on their side, the endeavours of journalists can conflict with the interests, or dignity, of important people. There are some excellent cases in English that illustrate these matters well. For example, Investigative Journalism in China: Eight Cases in Chinese Watchdog Journalism (Bandurski and Hala 2010) details the struggle of several journalists to reveal the true scale of the Henan blood-selling scandal. While national leaders’ pronouncements frame journalists as allies in the battle against corruption, this comes up against local interests claimed to be those of the party; and, after all, Chinese officials and journalists 108

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have been brought up to believe over several generations that journalists are either the mouthpiece of the party or its enemy, that there is no such thing as impartiality. In his novel about an investigative journalist who uncovers official corruption, author Gao He has the journalist at one point deny the very idea of professional independence, in terms reminiscent of Noam Chomsky’s scepticism: Editor: Don’t for the life of you bring up press freedom, I want to vomit when I hear those words, they’re so fraudulent. You tell me, where is there such a thing as press freedom? The USA? Reporter: Screw US press freedom. The US media just take their cue from big business. Big business is their daddy and mummy and sustenance, they are just the throat and tongue of different corporates, just spokesmen. Americans themselves know their press freedom’s a fraud. (Gao 2006: 47) In the novel The Woman in the Government Office, the author has been realistic about the journalist’s family and network (Gao 2006). The protagonist is closely related to several locally important officials and is dating the estranged wife of the very official he is investigating for peculation and worse. The close interrelationships between journalists, officials of the propaganda system and local government are also brought out very clearly in the popular fictional Notes from the Civil Service, volume 3 (Xiaoqiao Laoshu 2010). The power of networks and personal relationships to stymie investigation is not the only trouble besetting Chinese investigators. Journalists today rarely suffer violence in AngloAmerica, but that is certainly not the case in many, if not most, other countries. Politkovskaya was murdered and Saviano lives in hiding. Chinese journalists risk being roughed up, or worse.11 They have no independent professional organisations to defend them, and no press law to give them rights; the very definition of ‘journalist’ is problematic, since for the party the press are officials, while for others they are subversives who, if not to be bought off by bribery, are fair game.

What has investigative journalism done for China? In a number of cases, a clear connection between investigative journalism and policy has been traceable, the best known of which is the Sun Zhigang case.12 As a result of critical reporting, ministers have resigned or been dismissed (e.g. the Minister of Health during the SARS revelations),13 though many would claim too few. It can be argued, however, that investigative journalists have had a certain profound influence on society, though not always directly on policy. They have brought into the public sphere a sceptical, revelatory approach, exposing to public view not only evils of which they could only guess, but how society works; subjected powerful people to criticism and accusation; used a rational, evidential style, rather than a literary one; and espoused impartiality (pingheng baodao), or at least detachment; and they have introduced techniques previously only associated with police officers, in order to write their stories and excite interest. The effects specific to the profession may have been equally far-reaching. It is now possible to be a journalist ‘outside the system’, and understandably people with an investigative yen find ‘outside the system’ more attractive than ‘inside the system’, even though they will lack the job security and perks of being in effect a civil servant. The approach taken by investigative journalism 109

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has highlighted the contradictions between the media as CCP mouthpiece and the media professionals who exercise their own judgement. Journalists required to consider evidence eschew ideology and polemic, and consider that they are writing for people of different interests, formation and prejudices, and should be encouraging them to think for themselves, not telling them what to think.

What does investigative journalism tell us about society? In the anglophone world journalism became professionalised in the nineteenth century, and over the twentieth century specialists were increasingly differentiated into categories. With more media, the number of different specialities of journalism has increased, although many nevertheless continue to try to work over a variety of topics, from industry to environment, to education to science, medicine and military, and they work in multiple media as a matter of course. Investigations were initially thought of as reports in depth, such as the remarkable revelations by Tarbell, Sinclair and Stead, referred to previously, or those requiring particular expertise, such as those by Churchill in the 1930s or members of the Thalidomide team in the 1960s. It would appear that the rather exciting idea of the investigative journalist, of someone really very special, a kind of crusader, became fashionable after the Watergate investigation was made into a film, All the President’s Men, in 1976, one of many literary or filmic portrayals of investigative journalists as a (frequently lone) hero, driven by the urge to right wrong and generally be the scourge of the powerful. Because of the adversarial approach favoured by anglophone journalists, there has been an assumption that the only proper investigative journalism is that carried out in a spirit of hostility to the establishment and of scepticism towards government and all its works. It appears that a similar process may be taking place in China, only faster, of course, because of the rapidity with which China has jumped from Maoism into the modern world, and which is complicated by the far more varied media scene of the twenty-first century. To some extent this may be occurring because foreign models have become more easily accessible as members of all professions scour the world for ideas that may help China to innovate and progress. It is not only Chinese businesspeople, students and officials who have gone out in possibly the greatest exercise in learning ever undertaken by one society, but also many media workers, decision makers and journalists, at all levels. Central government has driven this, with a central government office, the Waizhuanju, enabling the process. In 2007 the CPD began to promote understanding of the western media in order to prepare for the 2008 Olympics, and authorised the training of media handlers and public spokespersons to this effect. Soon afterwards, China was extending the reach of its media abroad, and continued very much the same policy of learning how journalism was conducted elsewhere. Not only have teams of media people gone abroad to study, but seminars and workshops specifically aimed at developing investigative journalism have been held in China.14 Specialisation is occurring and those most avid to develop their specialism are possibly now the environment correspondents, a recent phenomenon (de Burgh 2011: 37–9). In the UK, the CMC of the University of Westminster has been commissioned by the Chinese government to teach journalists and officials about western journalism, and has been introducing broadcast producers and production specialists to light entertainment and reality show production. This has led several Chinese broadcasters to buy and adapt UK-originated formats for transmission in China, a process impacting on the professional knowledge and skills of many in television production in China. The consequences of this process are not yet fully understood. All in all, media workers are being introduced not only to new skills and techniques, but also to new concepts of their work and roles. 110

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In each of these instances it is the Chinese government or the CCP that has promoted investigative journalism,15 and this is not surprising in a country where most media are ultimately owned by the state, yet it stands in contrast with other countries where politicians customarily loathe investigative journalism even if they pay lip service to its social role. How can we explain this? Possibly by interpreting political encouragement as the accommodation to pressure, or the desire to develop tools in the political struggle. However, it seems that the more likely explanation is that public-spirited officials actually do see investigative journalism as a responsibility at least as important as the party’s Discipline and Inspection Commission or other agents of surveillance. In other words, investigative journalism is an arm of the establishment that can be used to keep those with power under scrutiny, and perhaps scare others into honesty. Thus the relationship between investigative journalists and the ‘good’ officials will be a close one; there will doubtless also be the kind of unhealthy relationships that were exposed in the UK during the hacking scandal.16 However, those journalists who concur in the party’s job description for them are likely to have a more cooperative relationship with their employers, based on common ideals and the belief that journalists are valued colleagues of the leadership. Another powerful influence upon the trajectory of investigative journalism is the internet, and more specifically blogs and social media. Investigative journalists have usually, in launching investigations, sourced from leads provided by other media. In the 1980s, as a young reporter on an investigative television show, my fellow reporter and I would scour the newspapers for leads and longed for tips by telephone. When in 2005 I attended an editorial meeting at News Probe, although the programme received thousands of calls and emails, the team still scoured the newspapers and magazines for ideas (de Burgh and Xin 2006). Today all conventional media very much take account of the bloggers and tweeters who thus help to set the media agenda. During the Xiamen Paraxylene Plant Case, netizens mobilised public opinion against a proposed development and stopped it.17 The conventional media picked up the story only when it was clear that it could not be hidden. Familiar around the world is the Chongqing Nailhouse Case, in which a family of victims of urban development held out over three years for greater compensation for the loss of their home. A picture of their house, sticking up like a nail in a cleared building site, was posted on the Web and moved millions of netizens before becoming an icon all over the world (also see Hsiao-wen Lee, Chapter 7 in this volume). In the Shanxi Brick Kilns Case, netizens exposed the collusion of civil servants and police with employers to exploit and enslave child workers in brick-making (see note 5 in this chapter).

Conclusions Investigative journalism in China is an established part of public life, but its role appears to have changed over the first decade of the twenty-first century. For the most interesting revelations, people look to the internet, but for careful dissection of issues and problems, it is the investigative programmes, articles and books that do the topics justice. Journalists in many countries are part of the establishment, even when they think they are not, but also have the role of keeping a check on members of the political class. This sometimes brings about conflict, because political leaders do not like the interference they advocate for their rivals. There are investigative journalists in many countries who pit themselves against the consensus and the desires of the powerful; they are few, and they get into trouble. The trouble for such investigators as the American Seymour Hersh or Australia’s John Pilger is not as rough as it can be for a Chinese journalist, but then the societies are different. 111

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In China the relationship between investigative journalism and authority suffers from mood swings, so that in one year an editor may be disciplined for what in another year he might be praised. This is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon; the relationships between politicians and journalists are subject to instability in many countries, with transformations that may seem erratic when the politics, personalities and interests behind them are not understood. Advocates of revolution in China have tended to interpret the differing periods as ‘open’ or ‘repressive’ and see them as skirmishes in some long battle between the forces of ‘progress’ (good) and ‘reaction’ (evil), although the evidence for this is thin. It is equally possible that they simply reflect the normal condition of the relationship between people whose function in society is to govern and build, and people whose function is to examine and evaluate. Those journalists who perceive that anglophone journalists have more scope and more power than those in their home country feel badly treated, and want the working conditions that they admire abroad. New media have provided investigators, both professional and amateur, with new tools for research and dissemination, which makes it easier for journalists to do their research, but also offers them the power to circumvent the limitations intended by authority. They can pressure their editors to publish what is already on the Web and their editors must make the case to those in authority over them. Clashes are inevitable as authority comes to terms with the limitations on its power to suppress. A student keen to work as an investigative journalist in China once asked the British journalist who had just won the Orwell Prize how she could work as one in her home country, the presumption being that the barriers were too great. He replied: You know here looking at what people don’t want you to see can cause you trouble too, but you do the best you can in the circumstances of your culture and politics. There are many good journalists in China, be one of them. Never sacrifice your professional standards, but adapt, do what you can.18 The risks are greater in China, but innumerable people are practising investigative journalism and some in authority are finding ways of supporting them.

Notes 1 William Cobbett (1763–1835), the earliest English investigative journalist, exposed peculation in the army in America; Ida Tarbell (1857–1944) investigated the Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company; Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) is particularly remembered for exposing the US meat packing industry; W.T. Stead (1849–1912) was editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and first reported underage prostitution. William Russell (1820–1907) wrote Crimean War dispatches which changed war reporting forever by showing the ordinary soldiers’ side of the story; Winston Churchill (1874–1965) exposed the 1930s German rearmament which earned him the grudging admiration of his political colleagues who eventually realised that only he could lead world resistance to Hitler; the Sunday Times in the 1970s nailed responsibility for the Thalidomide scandal on the Distillers Company whose drug had caused thousands of babies to be born with often terrible defects; Ray Fitzwalter uncovered the corruption of urban planning in 1970s England and the responsibility of an architect called Poulson who was imprisoned as a result; Seymour Hersh’s reports of atrocities in Vietnam and his exposure of torture in Iraq in 2003 place him (born 1937) as one of the most distinguished as well as longest lasting of investigative journalists. These cases are described in greater detail in de Burgh (2008). 2 Shao Piaoping (1884–1926), an enterprising publisher and journalist, was eventually executed following his constant criticism of corruption in government; and Liu Binyan (1925–2005) was a much persecuted journalist greatly admired during the transitory periods of the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s when he was able to publish his coruscating exposes of corruption. For further details, please see de Burgh (2003b). 3 An abbreviated version of this section is included in de Burgh’s China’s Media (2014). 112

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4 Zhan Jiang, discussions with the author, January 2013 in Beijing. 5 Synopses of selected recent investigations: (1) Demolition in the public interest? Residents in a suburb of Changshu, Jiangsu Province, have just discovered that their right to the land on which their houses are built will be revoked within 15 days and their properties will be demolished. Yet the 800 or more houses have not been up for longer than ten years. The reason? So-called ‘public interest’, or rather the creation of a commercial and leisure centre (Southern Weekend 2010a; New Probe 28 August 2010; Xinhua 2010). (2) A new generation of peasants An in-depth examination of new forces at work in peasant society. Unlike traditional city immigrants, the present generation of young peasants has been keen to get into the city. And they will not return, because they lack many of the skills required of traditional peasants. Over the Spring Festival of 2011, over half of Foxconn employees (overwhelmingly from the rural areas) chose to stay away from their homes in the countryside. Their attitudes are very different from traditional city immigrants (News Probe 12 February 2011). (3) The pain of Poyang Lake The water level of China’s largest freshwater lake, Poyang, has dropped to the lowest point in history, triggering a drought warning. This poses a threat to the water supply of Duchang County’s 120,000 residents. Visitors find a parched lake-bed, dead snails and clams, and fishing ships that had run aground (News Probe 25 June 2011; CCTV English 2012). (4) Local officials whose demolition caused death all still hold their positions According to the writer, local officials privately boasted at the time about the forced evictions and even about self-immolation. Neither this nor the deaths consequent on their actions will have the slightest impact on their careers. An extensive investigation in Southern Weekend confirms this (Southern Weekend 2010a). (5) Journalists lurk in Foxconn, exposing the puzzle of suicide of employees In May 2010, seven young Chinese workers producing Apple iPads for consumers across the globe took their own lives, prompting an investigation into working conditions at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. A Southern Weekend intern took a job in Foxconn for 28 days in order to investigate (Southern Weekend 2010b; Chamberlain 2011). (6) Who is in charge of the Henan Soong Ching-ling Foundation? A scandal-ridden regional charity organisation, the Henan Soong Ching-ling Foundation, is accused of spending a huge amount of money on illegal lending and other investments. In memory of Soong Ching-ling (i.e. Mandame Sun Yat-sen, 1893–1981), a non-governmental institution bearing her name was established on 29 May 1982 to promote the welfare of children in poor areas (Southern Weekend 2011). (7) An investigation of eight uncharitable lies by Lu Junqing and World Eminent Chinese Business Associations (WECBA) In 2011 China was hit by a second charity-related scandal, as questions swirled around the China–Africa Project ‘Hope’, founded jointly by the China Youth Development Foundation of the Chinese Communist Youth League and the WECBA, a group linked to billionaire Lu Junqing, and registered only as a private company in Hong Kong. Reporters from Southern Metropolis Daily carried out an investigation and discovered much evidence of fraudulent practice in the association’s everyday operations (Southern Metropolis Daily 2011; Bandurski 2011). (8) Evil road of ‘The Black Men’ In May 2007, 400 parents in Henan started an online campaign appealing for public help to find their missing children. In the same month, Henan TV’s Metro Channel journalist Fu Zhenzhong began to investigate at train and bus stations with a secret camera. He found that as many as 1,000 children had been kidnapped in Henan and sold as slaves to work in the brickworks of neighbouring Shanxi province. On 19 May Henan Television broadcast this news story, and then the illegal brick kiln scandal hit the headlines and attracted the attention of the country’s leaders. The government finally stepped in to rescue the enslaved labourers and arrested the illegal kiln bosses (Beijing Review 2007; Chen 2007). 6 ‘Flesh search’ describes a process by which netizens hound an individual, searching for and sharing any information they can glean, crowd sourcing often with the intention of destroying the target’s standing. 7 The examples cited here are taken from Zhan Jiang, with whom the author had an extensive discussion on 12 January 2013, and who subsequently sent me his lecture notes. 113

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8 Bing dian (Freezing Point), the weekly supplement of Zhongguo Qingnianbao (China Youth Daily) was closed down after it featured a reinterpretation of nineteenth-century Anglo-Chinese history (Tsai 2010: 224–33). 9 Y. Lu’s personal communication to Hugo de Burgh and Xin Xin in Beijing 2004. Lu Yuegang is a leading investigative journalist who is widely remembered for a very remarkable investigation of how political power was mobilised to cover up an appalling case of maltreatment of a wife. This is effectively retold in Bandurski and Hala (2010). 10 For a fuller description of how China came to develop and implement freedom of information, or the legal enablement by which government bodies are obliged to provide information and which is often referred to as ‘open government’, see Mair (2012). 11 Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a distinguished Russian reporter who exposed the savagery of the Russian pacification of Chechnya (BBC News 2006). Roberto Saviano wrote an exposure of organised crime in Naples, made into a film, called Gomorrah. He lives in hiding under police protection. See: The Independent (2006), ‘Man who took on the mafia: the truth about Italy’s gangsters’ (www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/man-who-took-on-the-mafia-the-truth-about-italysgangsters-420427.html [Accessed 3 March 2013]). 12 The best known example of posts on the Web mobilising opinion is that of Sun Zhigang, a young migrant who died in custody and whose case was taken up posthumously, but with such fervour and general outcry that the government abolished the Custody and Repatriation Ordinance. This case is often interpreted as an example of government’s rapid reaction to issues broached on the internet, as well as of its relationship with editors (see de Burgh 2014 and Chen, Chapter 5 in this volume). 13 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is an acute form of pneumonia that was thought by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be spreading in China in 2003. The first cases of SARS were seemingly detected in China as early as November 2002, but the government failed to inform the WHO. When SARS spread to other countries, the WHO was furious. In late April 2003, the government admitted that the number of SARS cases had been greatly under-reported and apologised, although many believed it had only done so after a Chinese doctor had acted as whistleblower and revealed the extent of the disease through the Hong Kong media. Later, relatively full coverage of both an avian flu outbreak and the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 suggested to observers that the government had learned from the experience of handling SARS that suppressing such reports is selfdefeating, because the information eventually emerges anyway, and the failure to report it adequately from the start earned widespread disapprobation for China (de Burgh 2014: 24). 14 Workshops have been held at Fudan University, Shanghai. The CMC of the University of Westminster, UK, has held them at Dahe Daily and Henan TV, in Zhengzhou, with The Guardian’s Nick Davies and BBC’s Paul Kenyon; CMC has also held them at CCTV, with BBC’s Steve Hewlett and Channel 4’s Kevin Sutcliffe. 15 The promotion of investigative journalism on television and the creation of the leading television vehicles in the 1990s is usually attributed to Ding Guang’gen, the head of the CPD. 16 The revelation, over 2011–12, that British journalists had hacked into private phone messages, bribed police and manipulated politicians, became a major scandal leading to calls for more regulation of the media (Mair 2012). 17 With the ‘Xiamen Paraxylene Plant’ case, netizens used social media to mobilise public opinion against a proposed development and stopped it. Because of their success it is possible that people affected by such proposals in future may be consulted and their permission sought (de Burgh and Zeng 2012: 1004–23). 18 Peter Hitchens, winner of the 2010 Orwell Prize for Journalism, at the reception following the awards ceremony, in conversation with a group of Westminster MA Journalism students.

References Bandurski, D. (2011) ‘Eight uncharitable lies by the WECBA’, China Media Project, 22 August. Available online http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/08/22/15082/ (retrieved 3 March 2013). Bandurski, D. and Hala, M. (2010) Investigative Journalism in China: Eight Cases in Chinese Watchdog Journalism, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. BBC News (2006) ‘Chechen War reporter found dead’, BBC News, 7 October. Available online http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5416218.stm (retrieved 3 March 2013). 114

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Beijing Review (2007) ‘Child labour disgrace’, Beijing Review.com, 6 July. Available online www.bjreview.com.cn/quotes/txt/2007–07/06/content_68382.htm (retrieved 20 February 2013). CCTV English (2012) ‘Poyang Lake water level hits record low’, CCTV.com, 9 January. Available online http://english.cntv.cn/20120109/116464.shtml (retrieved 3 March 2013). Chamberlain, G. (2011) ‘Apple factories accused of exploiting Chinese workers’, The Observer, 30 April. Available online www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/30/apple-chinese-factory-workerssuicides-humiliation (retrieved 3 March 2013). Chen, L. (2007) ‘Fu Zhenzhong: a hero’ (Fu Zhenzhong: danpo zhi mei), Sina News Centre, 21 December. Available online http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-12-21/172514575230.shtml (retrieved 20 February 2013, in Chinese). de Burgh, H. (2003a) ‘Kings without crowns? The re-emergence of investigative journalism in China’, Media, Culture and Society 25(6): 801–20. –––– (2003b) The Chinese Journalist, London: Routledge. –––– (2008) Investigative Journalism, London: Routledge. –––– (2011) ‘Nuevos medios y periodismo de investigación en China: el dragón se mueve’, Infoamérica: Iberoamerican Communication Review 6: 53–60. –––– (2014) China’s Media, New York: Polity. de Burgh, H. and Mi, M. (2012) ‘Responding to an activist public: reconfiguring relationships between authority and media in a Chinese city’, Media Culture & Society 34(8): 1013–27. de Burgh, H. and Xin, X. (2006) ‘News Probe: What does it tell us about Chinese journalism today?’, Medien Journal 30(2–3): 52–66. de Burgh, H. and Zeng R. (2012) ‘Environment correspondents in China in their own words: their perceptions of their role and the possible consequences of their journalism’, Journalism 13(8): 1004–23. Earp, M. (2012) ‘In China, press rights equal press control’, Committee to Protect Journalists, 11 June. Available online http://cpj.org/blog/2012/06/in-china-press-rights-equal-press-control.php (retrieved 27 March 2013). Gao, H. (2006) The Woman in the Government Office (Changwei dayuan li de nüren), Beijing: Zhongguo Youyi (in Chinese). Garnaut, J. (2010) ‘Chinese editor damned for publishing deadly vaccine report’, Sunday Morning Herald, 12 May. Available online www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-editor-damned-for-publishing-deadlyvaccine-report-20100512-uwt5.html#ixzz2MB0Q0qkf (retrieved 11 May 2013). Hope, C. (2009) ‘Britain slips to new low in ranking of most corrupt countries after MPs’ expenses scandal’, The Telegraph, 17 November. Available online www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/ 6589686/Britain-slips-to-new-low-in-ranking-of-most-corrupt-countries-after-MPs-expensesscandal.html (retrieved 3 March 2013). Li, C.P. (2011) Chinese Soccer: The Inside Story, Beijing: Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House (in Chinese). Mair, J. (ed.) (2012) After Leveson? The Future of British Journalism, London: Abramis Academic. News Probe [television] (21 November 2010) ‘Blood shortage’, CCTV. –––– (17 July 2010) ‘Crazy usury’, CCTV. –––– (28 August 2010) ‘Demolition in the public interest?’, CCTV. –––– (20 March 2010) ‘Do we need a law to protect cats?’, CCTV. –––– (25 September 2010) ‘The 277 fake identities’, CCTV. –––– (12 February 2011) ‘A new generation of peasants’, CCTV. –––– (25 June 2011) ‘The pain of Poyang Lake’, CCTV. Qian, G. (2010) ‘We must know more about the Shanxi vaccine scandal’, China Media Project, 26 March. Available online http://cmp.hku.hk/2010/03/26/5270/ (retrieved 11 May 2013). Salmon, N. (2011) ‘Investigating China: what it means to be a journalist in a socialist market economy’, La Vie des idées, 13 December. Available online www.booksandideas.net/IMG/pdf/20111213_ investigating-China.pdf (retrieved 16 July 2013). Southern Metropolis Daily (2011) ‘An investigation of eight lies by Lu Junqing and WECBA’ (Lu junqing ji shijie jiechu huashang xiehui ba da huangyan diaocha), Southern Metropolis Daily, 20 August. Available online http://news.nfmedia.com/nfdsb/content/2011–08/20/content_28626178_2.htm (retrieved 3 March 2013, in Chinese). Southern Weekend (2010a) ‘Local officials whose demolition caused death all still hold their positions’ (Chaichu renming de defang, guanyuan guoran gege haizai), Nanfangdaily.com, 8 April. Available online http://news. nfmedia.com/nfzm/content/2010–04/08/content_10865999.htm (retrieved 3 March 2013, in Chinese). 115

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–––– (2010b) ‘Journalists lurk in Foxconn, exposing the puzzle of suicide of employees’ (Nanfang zhoumo jizhe qianfu fushikang, tanxun baliantiao zisha zhi mi), Nanfangdaily.com, 13 May. Available online http://news.nfmedia.com/nfzm/content/2010–05/13/content_11883979.htm (retrieved 3 March 2013, in Chinese). –––– (2011) ‘Who is charging Henan Soong Ching Ling Foundation?’ (Shui zai kongzhi henan song qingling jijinhui), Infzm.com, 2 September. Available online www.infzm.com/content/62743/ (retrieved 3 March 2013, in Chinese). Tian, H.M. (2003) ‘President Hu encourage reporting to be more realistic’ (Hu Jintao haozhao zhichi xinwen baodao, zhongguo xinwen gaige chunchao lailin), Sina News, 8 April. Available online http://news.sina. com.cn/c/2003-04-08/1730986521.shtml (retrieved 3 March 2013, in Chinese). Tong, J. (2011) Investigative Journalism in China: Journalism, Power, and Society, London: Continuum International. Tsai, M.Y. (2010) Little Study, Big Universe (Xiao shufang, da tiandi), Taipei: Lixu Publishing (in Chinese). Wang, H. (2010) ‘Investigative journalism and political power in China’, RISJ Working Paper Series, University of Oxford. Xiaoqiao Laoshu (2010) Notes from the Civil Service (Guanchang biji), Beijing: Phoenix (in Chinese). Xinhua (2010) ‘Changshu residents learned demolition from a notice on the local official paper’ (Jiangsu changshu jian shangwuqu dengbao chaiqian, beichai xiaoqu jumin buzhiqing), News.cn, 30 August. Available online http://news.xinhuanet.com/house/2010–08/30/c_12496972.htm (retrieved 3 March 2013, in Chinese).

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7 From control to competition A comparative study of the party press and popular press Hsiao-wen Lee

Introduction: transitions of the party press to popular press The media reforms of the mid-1980s through to the 1990s caused Chinese news media to become increasingly more diverse in their function and structure, including a boom in the evening, city and metropolitan newspaper sectors, the expansion of the number of pages and weekend editions, press annexation and conglomeration, and joint-venture press growth (Huang 2001: 435–50). These developments fundamentally changed the face of the newspaper industry in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Generally speaking, newspapers in the PRC act as the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By guiding the direction, principle, policy and mission the party organ is a very important platform for the CCP. Various newspapers, in addition to their official propaganda missions, also serve different purposes and audience groups such as labourers, women, youth and the elderly. This chapter looks at how the newspaper industry has changed from being a party and government-led propaganda tool to become a more commercially market-oriented product. This will be achieved by first looking at four key influencing factors: (1) circulation, (2) advertising revenue, (3) distribution and (4) organisation of press groups. Second, the chapter explores how different variables impact on the news media: political control, market competition and professional performance. Then finally through the analysis of four news events during the period between 2005 and 2007, the discussions identify the various ways news coverage has been influenced. This chapter will argue that the popular market-oriented newspapers not only try to touch the party line when doing their reports, but also surrender themselves to wider commercial considerations.

Four influencing factors Circulation Since 1949 the total number of newspapers and their circulation figures have fluctuated. The variations in China’s political and economic environment can be charted in accordance with the 117

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fluctuations in newspaper publication. The lowest figures of newspaper publication occurred during the anti-Rightist movement of 1957, during the economic depression of the early 1960s and again in the Cultural Revolution. The popular press expanded in the post-Cultural Revolution environment of the 1980s when economic reform was the paramount strategy. For example from 1980 to 1985, there were 1,008 newspapers being published in the PRC, but by 1986 that figure increased to nearly 2,200; and these newspapers were offering a far greater diversity in content than had previously been experienced by Chinese readers. By 1986 the combined circulation of the popular press and the party press numbered more than 200 million (Lull 1991: 19). After 2000, there were more than 2,100 newspapers in the Chinese market (Hu 2005). According to official statistics from the General Administration of Press and Publication (2013), there were 1,918 newspapers published in 2012 with an average circulation of 227.62 million.

Advertising revenue When newspapers were seen as predominately propaganda tools, there was no advertising in the newspapers. This situation prevailed until the 1980s when advertising revenue gradually became the most important source of income for newspapers. In the early 1990s, the number of evening newspapers in China increased (Hu 2005). Evening newspapers with their focus on local news, business news, entertainment and sports news were particularly popular (Huang 2001: 435–50; Hu 2005). In 2001, among more than 2,000 newspapers in China, 145 were evening newspapers of which five were in the top ten advertising revenue generators. The total circulation figure from all over the country was around 21 million copies. The other publishing growth area in the 1990s was city or metropolitan newspapers, whose format and target audience are similar to the evening newspapers. For example, the Huaxi Metropolitan enjoyed a good market share in 1995 and acquired advertising revenue of RMB 10 million (c. US$1.6 million) in its first year of operation; by 1999 its revenue had reached RMB 200 million (c. US$32.25 million) (Hu 2005). The commercial success of the Huaxi Metropolitan inspired many cities to also produce a variety of city or metropolitan newspapers. In 1998, there were only 30 city newspapers with a market share of advertising revenue of more than RMB 100 million (c. US$16.12 million). By 2005 the number of city newspapers with similar formats had risen to approximately 500. Due to the highly competitive market seeking the same sources of revenue the problems of product placement and advertising news were increasing. There were too many similar popular newspapers in the same city or province which, according to statistics from Meihua,1 had caused newspaper advertising revenue to decline by 19.20 per cent in 2012 compared to the previous year.

Distribution Since the 1950s newspapers have traditionally been delivered by the post office which allows the Chinese government to control the delivery of information and to ensure that all propaganda is circulated as widely as possible. This system caused many distribution companies of private newspapers a number of problems, and in some cases even failure. Such a system does not work well in the commercial market where morning delivery by postmen cannot be guaranteed, even on the date of publication. Additionally the post office did not have sufficient flexibility to distribute newspapers, as their overriding priority is to deliver the post. In 1985 this led to the Luoyang Daily starting to distribute newspapers through its own system (Hu 2005), allowing for efficiency and a means to keep in touch with their readers. The Luoyang Daily was supported 118

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by the propaganda department of the local government, which allowed a rise in circulation figures. This then prompted many other newspapers to follow the Luoyang Daily’s example and establish their own distribution networks. In 1995 the Huaxi Metropolitan became the first city newspaper to be established and handle its own distribution (Huang 2001: 435–50). This gave every subscriber the possibility of getting their newspaper on time. This system of self-distribution has made the Huaxi Metropolitan a big success in the Sichuan Province newspaper market. From then on, commercial activities and self-distribution became increasingly important tools in market competition. For example, subscribers to newspapers were now rewarded with presents, vouchers or entry to lottery prize draws. The main purpose of these gimmicks was to attract more regular subscribers and readers, and therefore gain a larger percentage of advertising revenue.

Organisation of press groups Since 1949, all media in China have depended on a subsidy or government subscription helping them to serve as party organs. Due to growing financial constraints state subsidies have significantly decreased causing most party newspapers to look for other income from the market. Press or media groups began forming in the late 1990s after the marketisation of China’s media system. The creation of these press groups was primarily financial since the popular press could no longer depend on public money to support their financial needs. In fact the profits of the popular press have now become an important financial resource for the newspaper groups. The popular newspapers focus on articles relating to people’s everyday lives, their leisure and business activities, and differ openly from the party newspapers. Their tone of news coverage tends to take a sentimental approach, a form of popular expression which appeals to readers (Levy 2002: 39–56; Zhao 2002: 111–35). Popular newspapers embrace many formats, including Sunday editions, weekly, evening and metropolitan newspapers, and business, fashion and consumer news, which reflect the economic boom of the 1980s and the 1990s (Hu 2005). As the popular press outsold the party press at newsstands, many party newspapers and official organs began extending the scope of their publications in very different directions (Zha 1995: 107). In other words, they began to also publish these market-oriented popular newspapers. In order to accommodate this phenomenon newspaper groups were established in the late 1990s. On 15 January 1996 the Guangzhou Daily Press Group became the first established newspaper group. Other groups including the Yangcheng Evening Press Group, the Southern (Nanfang) Media Group and the Guangming Daily Press Group were also established soon after. By the end of 2004 there were 43 newspaper groups throughout China; of these 2 belonged to the central government, 23 to provincial governments and 13 to local city governments. These press groups were primarily based on a parent (party) newspaper, which then developed or merged with others. For example, the Guangzhou Daily was the party organ of the Guangzhou city government, but it also collaborated with other official departments and merged with other newspapers to create various publications, such as the Guangzhou Teenager News, Football News, Guangzhou Business News, Guangzhou Daily Weekend and the Guangzhou Daily Sunday News. In short, the structure and function of the newspaper industry have moved towards a very diverse, commercial and competitive landscape after the media reforms of the mid-1980s. Meanwhile the government authorities still maintain ideological control using many different methods. In order to appeal to the largest number of readers, the popular newspapers try to publish political and economic news from a rather personal angle and ‘soften’ hard news reports (Zhao 1998). In other words, the popular newspapers face challenges from both political control and market competition. 119

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Control, competition and professional performance in the popular press Although the market-oriented popular newspapers are a big success, commercialisation can be seen as another tool for the authorities to exercise their influences under the political and media structures of the PRC. Therefore political control, market competition and professional performance are the three main considerations which have an impact on the coverage of the popular press (Zhou 2009: 129–36). In order to gain insight into how these three elements intervene in news coverage and the news media institution, four themes will be discussed: (1) strict censorship in sensitive news, (2) ‘normal gap’ competition, (3) political intervention in sensitive news and (4) ‘disaster’s paradox’.

Strict censorship in sensitive news ‘Censorship’ is not an official term used in China. Instead, there are many different layers of political power and administration to achieve the same aim. To understand how this is achieved it is necessary to study a variety of different cases. It is difficult to draw a single general conclusion which applies under all conditions, such as public opinion supervision or supervision by the press. Only by deep investigation into specific cases can an observer see how the political power exercises censorship. However, because of increasing competition and the shrinking share of advertising revenue, the newspaper market has already compromised and become much more market driven. This section discusses the role of the regulatory body and the tools of management. The most important political authority in the context of the press is the Central Propaganda Department (CPD) which controls the media system. The CPD is in turn overseen by the party’s Political Bureau and its standing committee, the principal coordinator of the media. The CPD’s primary function is to mobilise public opinion behind party policies and to promote the party’s legitimacy and its official ideologies (also see Creemers, Chapter 3 in this volume). Under the CPD, there are two main regulatory bodies: the General Administration of Press and Publication of China, and the Ministry of Information Industry of China. These bodies manage their regulatory functions using a variety of management tools. Examples include control of ownership, the registration of all publications, the area and method of distribution, and control of editorial staff. Moreover, there are three main approaches to manage content: prohibition in advance of publication, self-censorship and punishment after publication. These approaches can result in journalists or editors being sent to prison, editorial staff being rotated, the closure of newspapers, the taking over of ownership or simply deleting and changing content. When a critical report exposes the problems of a national enterprise, company or a public official without permission, the journalist or newspaper may face threats or intimidation.

‘Normal gap’ competition Normal gap competition means that the party press and popular press have different target audiences and editing policies. In other words, there is a difference in the news coverage offered by each type. The party newspapers serve as the mouthpiece of the government while the popular newspapers are more reader-oriented and contain more diverse content. For example, the ‘city newspaper paid close attention to different service-oriented news and information regarding urban residents’ everyday life’ (Huang 2001: 439). But the ‘evening newspaper is the supplement of the morning party organs by providing readers with soft news and entertainment’ (Huang 2001: 439). 120

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However, some newspapers also publish watchdog reports to attract more readers and practise journalistic professionalism. Watchdog reporting in China is referred to as ‘supervision by public opinion’ or ‘media supervision’ (yulun jiandu, also see de Burgh, Chapter 6 in this volume). The purpose of media supervision is to ‘constitute one of a number of mechanisms by which the central government can monitor local government corruption and abuse of power’ (Cho 2010: 169). Nevertheless, due to protectionism, local newspapers cannot perform as watchdogs of the local administration. This very often results in cross-regional media supervision (yidi jiandu) (inter-regional supervision or extra-regional media supervision) driving an expansion of watchdog reporting (Cho 2010; also see Chen, Chapter 5 in this volume). Hence some important but sensitive local news events cannot appear in the local newspaper. However, cross-regional media can still report sensitive news events, an important professional function of the news media which allows popular newspapers to conduct supervised investigative reporting.

Political intervention in sensitive news The government plays three roles in the media industry: owner, administrator and news subject. Once a sensitive news event occurs in an area that is under the administration of the owner, intervention is quick. The ownership of newspapers is quite complicated since every level of government has its own official organs. The Chinese system of government is divided into four levels: national or central (zhongyang), provincial and autonomous regions (sheng), prefectural cities (shi) and county-level cities (xian) (also see Rawnsley and Feng, Chapter 18 in this volume). Different organisations within the party also have their own mouthpiece. There are three types of ownership: the official organ (official mouthpiece), the cross-regional ownership and independent ownership. Traditionally, most newspapers are official organs used mainly for propaganda, but because they now need to be largely self-financing, they also develop offspring newspapers to include more community and entertainment news, as well as advertising. Cross-regional ownership means different press groups collaborate to create a new newspaper, such as the Beijing News, a tabloid co-created by the Southern Media Group and the Guangming Daily Press Group in 2003. However, in 2011, the Beijing Municipal Administration of Propaganda took over the Beijing News. The Yunnan Information Daily, an example of an independent newspaper, was relaunched in 2007 as a lifestyle publication by the Southern Media Group and the Yunnan Publishing Company. The Yunnan Publishing Company originally belonged to the propaganda department of the Yunnan Provincial Government, but is now classed as an independent enterprise. Another example is a city newspaper in Kunming, the Living News, that is owned by the Yunnan Disabled People’s Association and enjoys wide circulation around Yunnan Province. Additionally different categories of newspapers can also have different ownership. The main categories are national, specialised professional and industry newspapers (devoted to a particular sector of economic production), evening or metropolitan, digest, interest-group, lifestyle and military papers (Latham 2007).These are under the ownership of the central government, local government or different party organisations ranging from various labour unions to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). However, the government still maintains ideological control, hence the description ‘one head with many mouths’ (Wu 2000: 61).

‘Disaster’s paradox’ China’s media system is moving from political totalitarianism to a market authoritarianism system (Winfield and Peng 2005: 255–70); but while the economic system has changed, the political 121

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system remains essentially intact. The above discussion of political intervention in popular newspapers is also joined by commercial considerations. The main function of popular newspapers in China is to generate more profits for the press group. However, the popular newspaper can be part of the same press group as a party newspaper that is controlled by the government. The popular newspapers face the dilemma of how to fulfil the expectations of the government while also keeping their readers happy so they come back to buy another paper the next day (Latham 2007). Hence, news coverage of sensitive or disaster news events can be challenging as sometimes the obstruction is from political prohibition, but might also be linked to commercial considerations. Therefore I term the dilemma ‘disaster’s paradox’ – while sensationalism may appeal to readers, how far will the journalists be allowed to push the political, social and cultural boundaries by the newspapers and the authorities before it is deemed unacceptable? Moreover, why do certain disasters receive little media attention? Market-driven journalism finds or creates the readers’ demand (Denton 1993). From creation to market, there are four important considerations, namely product, price, promotion and place. When a story becomes news product, considerations of professionalism and ethics are relegated to a lower position. However, commercialism and professionalism are not always in opposition. Market-driven newspapers always look to maximise profits and, if professionalism can attract more readers and therefore make profits, market-driven newspapers can also follow professionalism principles (So 1997: 215–33). The situation for popular newspapers in China is particularly complicated, as they face demands from three areas: political intervention, market competition and professional performance. The next section will focus on a number of case studies to illustrate this complexity and how these differing demands are resolved. I select four news events during the period between 2005 and 2007. The comparative case studies will offer us an insight into how the party press and popular press may perform differently in their news coverage under different circumstances. I will then cross-reference the four case studies with the four variables discussed in this section – strict censorship in sensitive news, normal gap competition, political intervention in sensitive news and disaster’s paradox – in the conclusion.

Case studies from newspapers in Beijing The media market in Beijing is competitive, with dozens of newspapers vying for readers. Almost every administrative institution – central government, local governments, and the central and local units of the CCP – has its own newspapers or press group. Therefore, an analysis of news coverage in Beijing provides a broad view of national, local and cross-regional media events.

Selected newspapers In 2012, there were seven popular newspapers in Beijing, namely the Beijing Evening, Beijing Times, Beijing News, Legal Evening, Beijing Youth Newspaper, The First and Beijing Entertaining Information. These popular newspapers are operating in the most competitive market in China, although there is frequent political interference whenever there are sensitive news stories. The ten selected newspapers included the party newspapers and popular newspapers in the Beijing media market. Five newspapers belonged to the category of the official party press. The other five were categorised as popular press because they appeal to either mass or to fringe audiences. In terms of ownership, People’s Daily is the parent newspaper of Beijing Times, while the parent of Beijing News is Guangming Daily. These four newspapers belong to the central 122

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Table 7.1 Ownership of Beijing newspapers selected for coverage comparison Ownership

Party press People’s Daily Guangming Daily Beijing Daily China Youth Daily Legal Daily Popular press Beijing Times Beijing News Beijing Evening Beijing Youth Daily Legal Evening

CCP

CPD

Beijing government

Beijing Municipal Party Committee’s Communist Youth League

Central Ministry of Justice

Communist Youth League

X X X X X X X X X X

government. Beijing Daily is the parent newspaper of Beijing Evening, and they both belong to the local government of Beijing. Beijing Youth Daily is the parent of Legal Evening, though Beijing Youth Daily is also considered a popular newspaper as it enjoys the biggest adverting revenue in Beijing and was listed on the Hong Kong stock market at the end of 2004. The content of Beijing Youth Daily is very reader-driven and thus extremely popular (Rosen 2000: 152–78). China Youth Daily and Legal Daily are both party newspapers with national influence.

Textual analysis of case studies Four news events from 2005 to 2007 have different significant meanings and were chosen to represent the specific political and economic interests within the party and popular newspapers. The four news events selected will demonstrate how long the life of a news story can last. They will also illustrate different patterns of news reporting strategies and indicate where the political intervention, market competition and professional performance exist. Textual analysis presents the news resources, types and timing of coverage in these ten newspapers. If news resources come from Xinhua News Agency, then that means either the government only allows news media using official press releases to cover this event, or that the newspapers did not investigate this particular news event. The purpose of the textual analysis is not only to compare of the news coverage of the party and the popular newspapers, but also to examine the influences on news coverage under different conditions.

Four selected news stories Case study 1: The Dingzhou incident The central government, in line with the National Policy of Economic Development, planned to build a power station in Hebei Province. Believing that the compensation payments for the 123

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land were too low, the villagers of Dingzhou staged a mass protest over several days at the site where the power station was to be built. On the morning of 11 June 2005, the villagers were attacked by 200–300 masked and armed vigilantes who were intent on removing them. Six villagers died and dozens were injured. The Beijing News broke the story on 13 June with exclusive coverage and dramatic photographs. During the first four days this was the only newspaper to report the event. On 13 June, journalists from the Beijing News interviewed the injured villagers who had also provided the photographs the paper published. During these interviews it transpired that an earlier assault by 20 vigilantes had occurred on 20 April. The villagers had captured and imprisoned one of the attackers in a cave. On 14 June, the Beijing News reported that the Dingzhou mayor and party secretary had been removed from office, and a new mayor had visited the injured villagers in the hospital. The Dingzhou residents refused police requests to evacuate their farmland until they had received reasonable compensation. They also refused to hand over their hostage to the police. The Beijing News reported that the villagers realised that this behaviour was improper, but stressed the villagers did not have any choice and had treated the hostage well, giving him rice and meat at every meal. Once the Beijing News had reported the incident, the local officials were determined to settle the issue quickly. On 15 June, the new local party secretary visited the injured villagers. He said he was willing to help them and also thanked the Beijing News for maintaining its daily coverage. On 16 June, the government sent coroners to Dingzhou. The government promised to help villagers with the wheat harvest and also with financial aid. The government’s response inferred that because of the coverage by the Beijing News, all the villagers’ requests had been fulfilled. Xinhua released the official news story on 19 June, eight days after the incident occurred. Subsequently the Beijing News only published the official reports until November. With the exception of the Beijing News, the popular press either avoided the event altogether (Beijing Times, Beijing Evening) or waited until Xinhua released the official story (Beijing Youth Daily, Legal Evening). The Legal Daily was the only party newspaper to report this event before Xinhua released the official story. The Legal Daily is good at judiciary news and often discusses legal precedents. It was the third paper to report the news and did conduct some interviews in the village. The People’s Daily is the main party newspaper and also released news of this incident, using official sources, namely Xinhua and the law courts. People’s Daily makes no attempt to write reviews or solicit opinion, remaining instead straight, hard and formal. Six months later, the local officials were sentenced and the construction of the electronics factory was suspended. In the meantime, the CPD removed the editor-in-chief and two other senior editors from the Beijing News resulting in several hundred of the paper’s journalists walking out in protest. Soon after, journalists placed in the newspaper a cryptic indication of their feelings: a photograph of a flock of birds flying through a dark sky above the newspaper’s office, with one bird out in front. The image was accompanied by a pointed message: ‘The sky may not be very clear, but they will still fly into the distance with their mission close to their hearts’ (Tryhorn 2005). This case study shows how the popular press use tabloid tactics, such as emotion and drama, to report hard and sensitive news to appeal to the general public; they often eschew critical or rational discourse and analysis. This is a strategy that is inherently provocative to the Chinese authorities as the coverage by the Beijing News focused on the authorities’ use of intimidation and violence against citizens to achieve economic development. 124

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Case study 2: The hardest nail house The phrase ‘nail house’ was reputedly coined by Chinese land developers to refer to properties of owners who for one reason or another do not agree to accept the compensation offered by land developers for vacating their properties. The house is called a ‘nail house’, which is a pun on the Chinese phrase for troublemakers who stand up like nails and refuse to bow down. The controversy of the ‘hardest nail house’ happened in 2004 but was not noticed until 2007. The owner of the nail house is Yang Wu. In early March 2007, a curious netizen (i.e. a person actively involved in online communities) photographed Yang Wu’s house, which is in Chongqing of south-west China, and circulated the picture on the internet. The image soon ignited heated debate. Netizens called it ‘the hardest nail house’ in China and with great rapidity Yang’s house became the most famous ‘nail house’ in the country when South Metropolitan published this photo. Other newspapers followed, and so the story quickly attracted nationwide attention and became front-page news in the popular press. In fact, Yang’s house was scheduled to be removed in 2004. Although the other 280 residents in the neighbourhood agreed to either the cash or relocation compensation offered by the land developer, Yang Wu and his wife, Wu Ping, refused to move because they thought neither offer was acceptable. Despite having their water and electricity cut off the pair continued to live in their two-storey home for a further two years. Land developers in previous disputes only had to wait to wear down the resistance of the nail house owners since few owners have the resources or the stubbornness to resist as long as Yang Wu and Wu Ping. The timing of the story was also fortunate. On 19 March 2007, the National People’s Congress passed a new property law which was seen as a historic breakthrough. For the first time in modern China, the law now protects private, public and collective property equally. As a result ‘the hardest nail house’ was seen as an early test for the new property law which became effective in October 2007. Finally the house was demolished on 2 April because Wang Yu and Wu Ping had agreed to move into another apartment elsewhere in Chongqing after reportedly reaching a deal with the authorities. On 18 March 2007, Beijing Youth Daily was the first of the two popular papers to report this news in Beijing. On 23 March 2007, as the news spread quickly, Beijing Youth Daily’s journalists investigated and reported the more critical points: for example, there had been 40 attempts to reach a settlement between the owner and the land developer. Moreover, Yang Wu had announced that he would die with the demolition of the nail house. This coverage, in comparison with other demonstrations of resistance against land developers, placed emphasis on the rational debates between the owner and the developer, particularly the laws protecting the owners’ rights. The Beijing News also started reporting the ‘nail house’ story on 18 March and, like Beijing Youth Daily, acquired the story from the Chongqing Morning. However, Beijing News chose to focus on Wu Ping’s arguments with the authorities and the land developer and her claim that the authorities did not give her a chance to state her rights until she protested. On 22 March, Beijing News interviewed Wu Ping with the headline: ‘There are too few people like me!’ to indicate Wu Ping did not have a powerful network of backers. Beijing Evening began its coverage on 22 March, five days after Beijing Youth Daily and Beijing News, and maintained coverage for three days. The paper promoted Yang Wu and Wu Ping as famous celebrities and popular heroes of the internet and mass media. At the same time, Beijing Evening managed a fine balancing act as they also promoted the responsible actions by the government and the land developer (i.e. they had respected the owners’ wishes and not demolished the house) in compliance with the new property law. Legal Evening began its coverage on the same day as Beijing Evening and used almost exactly the same strategy for the same duration, 125

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switching from on-the-spot news to the formal Xinhua news to report on the demolition. Beijing Times produced the least coverage, for only two days, and started almost a week after the first coverage by the Beijing Youth Daily and Beijing News. The coverage of this event shows not only the high degree of competition in Beijing’s media market (in the context of the popular press), but also the power of commercial media to appeal to the mass audience through emotive and sensitive strategies when there is no political interference. The tabloids also paid attention to the mass audience by providing daily updates of the fight between the owners, the land developer and the local officials. Initially the owners were anonymous until the general public, through the efforts of the popular press, began to view them as heroes. Beijing Daily did not provide any coverage of the event, instead only publishing an article in which the mayor of Chongqing said the authorities had the ability to manage the situation. The only party press to approach the level of coverage in popular newspapers was the China Youth Daily, which deliberately used its weekly supplementary, the Freezing Point, as a platform to report this news comprehensively over five days. A key difference in the ‘nail house’ coverage compared to the other incidents is that Xinhua did not provide information to the newspapers which reported the incident. A comparison of the level of coverage between the party and the popular press shows a clear and significant line between them. Most of the popular press sided with the ‘nail house’ owners and viewed them as heroes protecting private property against land developers and local authorities. By contrast, the party press used official news to highlight how the authorities would deal with this protest carefully.

Case study 3: Beijing subway line 10 disaster A Beijing subway tunnel being built for the 2008 Olympics collapsed in the morning of 28 March 2007, burying and killing six workers. According to rescuers the contractor tried to conceal the collapse from the authorities by sealing off the site and confiscating the workers’ mobile phones so that nobody could report the disaster. The construction company locked the gate, sealed off the site and ordered everyone to keep quiet. When the police noticed a crowd gathering, they were told that nothing was wrong. For almost eight hours, the Beijing subway disaster was concealed, until finally a labourer managed to call a relative of one of the victims in distant Henan Province, who told the local police. They then notified the Beijing police force. The cover-up was so extensive that it delayed the rescue effort. Rescuers recovered the first body after 50 hours of digging. The last body was found eventually on 10 May. The balance of coverage in this case study between the party and popular press is reversed (the popular press coverage is usually more extensive). Both the Beijing Daily (party press) and Beijing Evening (popular press), representing a local government-owned press group, sourced most of their news from Xinhua. The Beijing Youth Daily (party press) and Legal Evening (popular press), both owned by the local Communist Party, also provide limited coverage. By contrast the central government-owned popular press, Beijing News (belonging to the CPD) and Beijing Times (owned by the CCP) were given ‘free rein’ to compete with each other in their coverage of the disaster. Beijing Times had on-the-spot news for four days from 29 March to 2 April, reporting the event via details provided by workers and witnesses. This coverage included reports about the contractor’s failed attempt to seal off the disaster. There was neither analysis nor any statement from officials or the authorities. Compared with the emotive coverage of Beijing Times, Beijing News chose to report relevant information, such as the visit to the site on 29 March by the mayor of Beijing to take command 126

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of the rescue operation of the buried workers. Beijing News also reported the workers’ accounts of their escape from the tunnel and their opinions as to the cause of the collapse. The following day, Beijing News focused on the plan for the rescue operation rather than criticising the construction company or the authorities. A journalist even went to the tunnel with a rescuer to look at the scene of the collapse. In a review published on 10 May when the last body was found, Beijing News suggested that similar disasters would not be concealed in the future if the media supervised public affairs. In this way the paper emphasised the function of media on the effectiveness of the rescue operation. Beijing Youth Daily, Beijing Evening and Legal Evening all basically followed the official line by using Xinhua news and refraining from the tactics of the popular press. Both the People’s Daily and Beijing Daily were required to follow the official line on a daily basis. Guangming Daily, in providing a steady stream of official news, seemed to be going through the motions, whereas China Youth Daily (one article) and Legal Daily (no articles) provided as little as possible although the disaster happened in Beijing and caused multiple deaths. The disaster of the Beijing subway line 10 happened in a highly visible location in northwest Beijing next to the large industrial and computer technology site of Zhongguan. Thousands of people worked nearby or passed the construction site every day. However, the coverage of this event by the party papers belonging to Beijing governmental organisations was far less than any other newspapers in either category. This case shows that strict censorship wielded by the government and institutions with political power is still effective on all levels of media strata.

Case study 4: Mine disasters Shanxi Province, located in north-eastern China and quite close to Beijing, is colloquially known as the ‘kingdom of coal’ with reputed reserves of 261 billion tons or one-third of the nation’s total. There is a direct correlation between the number of mines and the number of accidents, and Shanxi Province has the most coal mines (counted in hundreds) in China. Shanxi is also gaining a reputation for the increasing frequency of coal mine explosions. On 30 April 2006 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) described China’s coal mines as ‘among the most dangerous in the world – more than 5,000 deaths are reported every year in fires, floods and explosions’ (BBC News 2006). The Chinese government responded by closing down small privately owned coal mines in a concerted attempt to improve safety. Nevertheless the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety (SACMS)2 reported 167 mine disasters with 1,270 fatalities in the PRC in 2007. In this case study two mine disasters in Shanxi, the Linfen and Pu County mine disasters, were selected for analysis. The Linfen mine disaster happened on 28 March 2006 and Pu County (also located in Linfen) occurred on 5 May 2006, and they caused a total of 54 fatalities. Comparing these coal mine disasters with the Dinghzou incident and the Beijing subway disasters, the scale and the number of fatalities are more serious but the media coverage they attracted was very sparse even in the popular press. Mining operations at the Linfen mine were illegal because their safety certifications had expired. When the gas explosion occurred on 28 March 2006, there were 106 miners at the pithead. The safety certificates stipulated that 29 miners could work safely at any one time. According to Xinhua, mining operations at the Pu County coal mine had been formally suspended by SACMS on 29 April 2006 in order to improve the working conditions. The manager of the mine disobeyed the suspension and, on 4 May, asked miners entering the site to work at the pithead. The mine’s safety certificates stipulated a maximum of 44 miners could work safely in the pit at any one time. When the gas explosion occurred there were 125 workers underground. Over the next two days 28 bodies were found, but 61 remained unaccounted 127

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for. According to Xinhua, the main cause of the gas explosion was long working shifts in an unventilated pit leading to a mass accumulation of gas. This ultimately led to the explosion. The Legal Evening was the only popular newspaper not to provide any coverage of the Linfen disaster, whereas the other four publications in the popular press category reported the event, but relied purely on Xinhua-sourced news. There were no further reports or interviews in the popular press, and instead a dependence on straight news and information. Because all the popular newspapers used the same source, Xinhua, the contents of their reports mention the same basic information, instead of offering on-the-spot and investigative journalism that could have provided further analysis. The popular press did not question the local officials, the owners of the mine, safety regulations, the working environment or indeed how the owners of the mines and the relatives coped with the fatalities.

Conclusion This research presents four types of conditions of news coverage of particular events: the case study of Dingzhou showed strict censorship of sensitive news; the ‘hardest nail house’ presented the normal gap competition between the party and the popular newspapers; the Beijing subway disaster reflected political intervention through ownership; and the mine disasters in Shanxi did not receive much coverage by newspapers compared with other news events, although mine disasters are very frequent and used to be reported quite extensively. This reveals a paradox in the news coverage. Strict censorship in sensitive news: Strict censorship was applied to the coverage of the Dingzhou incident of 11 June 2005, and Beijing News was punished by the government for having conducted its own investigation prior to Xinhua’s official coverage. Once Xinhua, the mouthpiece of the government, has expressed the official line, all the newspapers have to follow and use the same news resources. While the Beijing News enjoyed a level of credibility because of its coverage, the official view was that the paper contravened government ‘guidelines’. Normal gap competition: A gap exists between the coverage in the popular and the party press. The key aspect of the gap is ‘competition’ based on two key, interrelated, factors, that is, representing the voice of the public and maintaining audience credibility. The ‘hardest nail house’ is representative of coverage in the popular press which avoided censorship because it was framed by the passing of China’s landmark property act. Coverage in the popular press was highly competitive and brought into the arena all the major players, including the public and local officials. Political intervention in sensitive news: Political intervention, unlike centrally controlled censorship, depends on patterns of press ownership. Political intervention means that sensitive news stories do not receive coverage in popular newspapers as demonstrated by the Beijing subway disaster. Newspapers owned by local governments and local party institutions did not provide

Table 7.2 Different conditions of news coverage and their influential factors

Strict censorship in sensitive news Normal gap competition Political intervention in sensitive news Disaster’s paradox

128

Political intervention

Market competition

Professional performance

Strong Weak Strong Strong

Weak Strong Weak Strong

Strong Strong Weak Weak

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full coverage because of a clear political agenda (the subway was being built for the 2008 Olympic Games). If reported in detail, a disaster of this scale would have sent negative messages about the Beijing municipal government’s capacity at a sensitive time. The two newspapers that provided fuller coverage are both owned by central government institutions, and thus their reportage distanced the central government from the local authorities while enhancing the perception of the former’s credibility. Disaster’s paradox: There is an extreme paradox concerning news coverage of mine disasters in China. Although they cause the deaths of thousands of China’s miners every year, newspapers only go through the motions of providing officially sourced details. This reaction by the papers is a prime example of ‘news fatigue’ about a tragic event that occurs on a daily basis. The ‘news fatigue’ applies not only to the editorial offices, but also to readers. Consequently, unless the numbers of miners killed is counted in hundreds, most newspapers (including the popular press) will use Xinhua’s version, which only requires a small space. The existence of the popular press relies on their ability to balance the opposing ideologies of the ‘free’ market economy on one hand, and abiding by the party line on the other. For commercial reasons, the popular press test the party line to attract more consumer attention, but they will also ignore an event that will not increase sales or is not permitted by political constraints. Therefore, the popular in ‘popular press’ is ambiguous depending on political calculation and commercial necessities. While the Chinese popular press may not go as far as viewing themselves as the mouthpiece of citizens, readers are indeed a much more important factor in their considerations than the party press.

Notes 1 2

Meihua is an information company which undertakes surveys of advertising, rating and news for news media marketing. The website of Meihua is: www.meihua.info/ (in Chinese). The website of the SACMS is: www.chinasafety.gov.cn/newpage/ (in Chinese).

References BBC News (2006) ‘Blast at China coal mine kills 27’, BBC News, 30 April. Available online http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4959254.stm (retrieved 17 May 2014). Cho, L.F. (2010) ‘The origins of investigative journalism: the emergence of China’s watchdog reporting’, in D. Bandurski and M. Hala (eds), Investigative Journalism in China: Eight Cases in Chinese Watchdog Journalism, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Denton, F. (1993) Reinventing the Newspaper: Old Newspaper and New Realities: The Promise of the Marketing of Journalism, Washington, DC: Brookings Institute. General Administration of Press and Publication (2013) ‘Basic situation of the national news publishing industry in 2012’ (2012 nian quanguo xinwen chubanye jiben qingkuang), Press and Publication Information Public Search System, 31 July. Available online www.gapp.gov.cn/govpublic/80/684_2.shtml (retrieved 13 May 2014, in Chinese). Hu, X.R. (2005) The Age of Big Newspapers: The Revolution of the Party Press in 80 Years, 1925–2005 (Da baozhi shidai, dangbao gaige bashi nian), Guangzhou: Southern Press Group (in Chinese). Huang, C. (2001) ‘China’s state-run tabloids: the rise of city newspapers’, International Communication Gazette 63(5): 435–50. Latham, K. (2007) Pop Culture China! Media, Arts and Lifestyle, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Levy, R. (2002) ‘Corruption in popular culture’, in P. Link, R.P. Madsen and P.G. Pickowicz (eds), Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalisation Society, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 39–56. Lull, J. (1991) China Turn On: Television, Reform, and Resistance, London: Routledge. Rosen, S. (2000) ‘Seeking appropriate behaviour under a socialist market economy: an analysis of debates and controversies reported’, in C.C. Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 152–78. 129

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So, C.Y.K. (1997) ‘Absolutely market-driving journalism: a case study of Apple Daily’, in J.M. Chan, L. Chu and Z. Pan (eds), Mass Communication and Market Economics, Hong Kong: Lo Fung Learning Society, 215–33. Tryhorn, C. (2005) ‘Beijing journalist stage walkout’, The Guardian, 30 December. Available online www.theguardian.com/media/2005/dec/30/pressandpublishing.china (retrieved 17 May 2014). Winfield, B.H. and Peng, Z. (2005) ‘Market or party control? Chinese media in transition’, International Communication Gazette 67(3): 255–70. Wu, G. (2000) ‘One head, many mouths: diversifying press structures in reform China’, in C.C. Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 45–67. Zha, J. (1995) China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids, and Bestsellers Are Transforming a Culture, New York: New Press. Zhao, Y.Z. (1998) Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line, Chicago: University of Illinois Press. –––– (2002) ‘The rich, the laid-off, and the criminal in tabloid tales: read all about it!’, in P. Link, R.P. Madsen and P.G. Pickowicz (eds), Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalisation Society, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 111–35. Zhou, Y.H. (2009) ‘From hard control to soft control: the involution of China’s temporary state–journalism relationship’ (Kangzheng yu rulong: Zhongguo xinwenye de shichang hua beilun), Mass Communication Research 100: 101–36 (in Chinese).

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8 Press freedom in Hong Kong Interactions between state, media and society Francis L.F. Lee

Introduction Globalisation, commercialisation and the popularity of social media have made it far more difficult for autocratic regimes to maintain control of communication. How can an authoritarian state control the press under such challenging and transformative conditions? How can the state contain the society’s aspirations for political and communication freedom without resorting to violence and coercion? From the perspective of civil society, how can political and communication freedoms be protected or promoted? These questions are pertinent for media scholars researching political communications in East Asia, particularly China (e.g. Lee et al. 2007: 21–42; Zhao 2008), Singapore (e.g. George 2012) and the focus of this chapter, Hong Kong. Yet Hong Kong is unique in that it does not involve a hitherto docile media system or society struggling for more freedom (as in China and Singapore). Rather, Hong Kong is characterised by a largely free and somewhat daring media system and society being ‘returned’ to an authoritarian regime. The Hong Kong case thus has the potential to add significantly to our understanding of the politics of communication freedom and control. This chapter reviews the politics of press freedom in Hong Kong by focusing on the interaction between the state, the local media and civil society. Without dismissing the importance of structural constraints, the interactional perspective emphasises the capability of actors to influence outcomes – the quality and quantity of press freedom in the present case – through negotiating, contesting and/or collaborating with each other. Each player in the state–media–society triad has its own basic concerns and goals. The state is interested in gaining and exercising political control, but it is also interested in maintaining the city’s vibrant economy and society. The state must also be concerned with the public’s perception of its legitimacy. The news media are concerned with protecting press freedom and preserving their professional integrity. As most media organisations in Hong Kong are commercial entities, they also need to avoid alienating the audience. However, media organisations, through ownership structures and because of their dependence on advertising, also have intricate relationships with political and economic power. Hence some media organisations may have strong incentives to appease the power holders. Civil society is interested in defending, maximising and, if possible, expanding, its own freedom and rights. Hence it can be an important ally for the media in the struggle for press freedom. 131

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But society also values prosperity and social stability, making it an object of possible co-optation by the state. Given their respective goals, the players develop strategies to interact with each other. At the same time, the players also need to respond to changing social and political contexts. In particular, major political events may lead to changing perceptions of reality, and the players may alter their strategies as a result. Consistent with recent research on political developments in Hong Kong, this chapter treats the 1 July (‘7/1’ hereafter) protest in 2003, in which 500,000 people protested against the Special Administrative Region (SAR) government, as a critical event that had significant repercussions on the China–Hong Kong relationship (Lee and Chan 2011; So 2011: 99–116; Tai 2009: 220–45). Before 2003, China was largely willing to grant an ‘exceptional’ degree of press freedom to the city’s media. It relied on an informal system of politics marked by self-censorship and inducement to contain the Hong Kong press. While these elements persisted after 2003, the state developed new strategies to control and co-opt the Hong Kong press as the government began to intervene more openly in Hong Kong society. Yet civil society has also become more active in monitoring press performance, so that by 2013, Hong Kong’s press was more polarised and more proactive in voicing its concerns.

Politics of self-censorship under ‘one country, two systems’ Hong Kong has long been granted the status of being an ‘exception’ by the Chinese government. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) did not take Hong Kong back in 1949, swallowing the humiliation of having a British colony on its doorstep in order to retain a contact point with the capitalist world. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a confluence of social and political factors – the colonial government’s determination to avoid provoking China, Hong Kong’s development into a refugee society where people were largely politically apathetic, and the focus of local newspapers on Chinese politics rather than local matters – contributed to what Kuan and Lau (1988) called a minimally integrated media political system. The local media did not challenge the authority of the colonial government, whereas the government refrained from controlling the press. A tradition of ‘de facto press freedom’ therefore developed (Chan and Lee 1991). Press freedom took up more substantive meanings in Hong Kong when China and Britain began to negotiate about the future of the territory. The signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 marked the beginning of the transition period during which the political influence of Britain and China roughly balanced each other. At this historical juncture, the local media took up the liberal conception of journalistic professionalism as its legitimating creed. This meant that journalists began to see themselves as autonomous professionals working independently from political and economic power. The press began to value the notions of objectivity and neutrality and see itself as a watchdog. It began to offer a critique of both China and Britain on behalf of the local public (Lee and Chan 2009a: 9–42). Certainly, China’s influence increased as the handover approached. In the early 1990s, China began exercising influence on the Hong Kong press by co-opting media owners (Fung and Lee 1994: 127–33), defining the taboo areas that the media cannot discuss (Lee and Chu 1998: 59–77) and, in the most notorious case in 1994, firing a warning shot to the media by sentencing Hong Kong journalist Xi Yang to 12 years in prison for ‘stealing state secrets’ (Sciutto 1996: 131–43). Nevertheless, China has promised that Hong Kong would be governed under the principles of ‘one country, two systems’ and a ‘high degree of autonomy’. Determined to show the world, and especially Taiwan, that the formula of ‘one country, two systems’ can work, China has 132

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indeed largely refrained from openly intervening in Hong Kong affairs after the handover. Hong Kong has thus enjoyed a degree of civil liberty which, though by no means unlimited, is nonetheless truly exceptional within the PRC. For example, Hong Kong people have continued to commemorate annually the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. China has also refrained from forcing the Hong Kong SAR government to outlaw the religious sect Falun Gong. Within this broader context, China’s approach to controlling the Hong Kong press was mainly by encouraging self-censorship. First, China continued to co-opt the city’s media owners by allocating political appointments. Some media owners, such as Charles Ho of the Singtao Group, Peter Woo of Wharf (which owns Cable TV) and Ma Ching-Kwun of Oriental Daily, were members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee, a political advisory body within the PRC. Besides, many media owners, with or without political appointments, have extensive business interests in mainland China. As a result, media ownership in Hong Kong is largely concentrated in the hands of a small group of political–economic elites sharing the same fundamental interest of appeasing the Chinese government (Fung 2007: 159–71; Ma 2007: 949–70). Second, Chinese officials would occasionally criticise the Hong Kong media when the latter reported on politically sensitive matters in ways that China regarded as inappropriate. The most notable cases in the early years after the handover included criticism by Chinese officials of Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) and Cable TV for their coverage of the pro-Taiwan independence view (Lau and To 2002: 322–42). Although the Hong Kong media typically responded to such criticisms by emphasising the importance of press freedom and their own professionalism when covering this issue, the media found it difficult to completely ignore the signals. The essence of self-censorship inducement is that through its actions and strategies the Chinese state has attempted to shape the incentive structure and political atmosphere in which Hong Kong media must work. This is designed to make sure that self-censorship becomes the most likely course of action in a given range of situations. It is difficult to establish a direct link between the individual strategies and specific instances of media self-censorship, but it is reasonable to argue that media self-censorship would have been less serious without the state’s inducement. In any case, the majority of professional journalists do regard self-censorship as a major problem in the media. In a survey conducted in 2001, 13.2 per cent of journalists reported that selfcensorship was serious, whereas 57.4 per cent saw self-censorship as ‘existent but not serious’; only 2.9 per cent considered it non-existent. In a similar survey in 2006, the percentage regarding self-censorship as serious increased to 26.6 per cent, while another 47.2 per cent saw selfcensorship as ‘existent but not serious’.1 Notably, awareness of the seriousness of self-censorship varied by subject and by practices. In the 2006 survey, respondents were asked to indicate, by means of a five-point scale ranging from 1 = none at all to 5 = frequently, whether the media have engaged in self-censorship practices. The results show that 34.9 per cent of the respondents opted for 4 or 5 on the scale when ‘toning down negative news about the SAR government’ was concerned, while the corresponding percentage was 46.0 per cent for ‘toning down negative news about the Chinese government’. In other words, journalists perceived the media as being more likely to exercise self-censorship when dealing with China than when dealing with local matters. In addition, the percentages of respondents reporting that the media would at least quite frequently ‘omit negative news’ about the SAR government and the Chinese government were 19.7 per cent and 29.6 per cent respectively. The figures are lower than those for ‘toning down negative news’. The difference is understandable: Although toning down a negative news story about the government may invite criticism, it can be explained in terms of one’s 133

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news judgement regarding how prominent the story should be. In contrast, omitting a piece of negative news altogether represents a much more inexcusable form of self-censorship. The findings thus point to the ‘measured’ character of self-censorship in the Hong Kong media, i.e. if self-censorship is needed to avoid political trouble, it nonetheless has to be practised in relatively less conspicuous ways. As Chan and Lee (2008: 43–55) explained, the Hong Kong media cannot completely succumb to political pressure from the state due to a mix of considerations. The commercial orientation of many news organisations compels them to maintain their market credibility. Journalists continued to exhibit a significant degree of professionalism as they continued to believe that the media should provide the audience with accurate information, serve as a marketplace of ideas and monitor the government to prevent abuse of power (So and Chan 2007: 148–58). Moreover, Hong Kong journalists also exhibit a significant degree of ‘local orientation’ (Chan and Lee 2011: 89–105), which means they see themselves as serving the interests of the local public. When the interests of the local society are threatened, many journalists believe that the Hong Kong media should stand by the local society even if doing so may require them to confront the state. The presence of such counteracting forces thus explains why the manifestations of selfcensorship in the Hong Kong media tend to be measured, subtle and hence elusive. Critics often found it easy to raise the concern of self-censorship, but difficult to prove that it has occurred in a specific case. Beyond self-censorship, the presence of counteracting forces also led different media organisations to develop various strategies to handle the political situation. A number of media outlets, most notably Apple Daily and several populist radio phone-in talk shows (Lee 2002: 57–79), have positioned themselves as critics of the government and the mouthpiece of citizens. They were willing to bear higher levels of political risks in return for profitability in the market. In one sense, they constituted ‘test balloons’ in the Hong Kong media system, signifying the boundaries of free speech in the mainstream media arena. While these media outlets are sometimes criticised for being sensational and unprofessional, their presence has been highly important for the maintenance of press freedom. With such critical media outlets pushing the limits, a larger breathing space was created for other media organisations. When sensitive stories emerged, the ‘test balloon outlets’ could also serve as the leaders in the reporting cycle, i.e., after the critical outlets break the sensitive stories, other media outlets can, and must, follow. Meanwhile, some elite- and professional-oriented news organisations – news media that target the educated middle class in terms of market positioning and emphasise professional norms such as objectivity and fairness in terms of their approach to news coverage – have developed strategies that help them simultaneously deal with political pressure and maintain their professional integrity. Writing just after the handover, Lee (2000: 317) appropriated Tuchman’s (1978) concept of strategic ritual to describe ‘the peculiar and twisted ways that media organisations routinise their news work in order to credibly meet extraordinary political pressure and to uphold their own limited legitimacy’. According to Lee (2007: 138), examples of strategic rituals ‘include the increasing use of juxtapositions between positive and negative views towards the power holders, the use of more factual narrative forms, the increasing reliance on opinion polls as “objective” indicators of public opinions, and the increasing use of academics as “non-political authorities” on public affairs’. Considered together, such strategic rituals illustrate the approach adopted by professionaloriented newspapers in the first few years after the handover, namely ‘intensified objectivity’. That is, by appealing to the norm of objectivity the professional-oriented media outlets maintained a space for the expression and communication of critical views. However, the 134

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intensified objective stance also required them to refrain from criticising the power holders. As a result, the report may be criticised for being self-censorship in disguise (Lee and Lin 2006: 331–58). The above has analysed the politics of self-censorship inducement and the strategic responses from the local media after the handover. As long as the Chinese government refrained from openly suppressing press freedom in Hong Kong by coercive means, the local media have to a significant degree succeeded in protecting the basic freedom of reporting. Self-censorship does constitute a problem though, especially when the reporting of sensitive matters is concerned. It is worth noting that the system-level negotiation between political control and professional autonomy also existed at the micro-level within news organisations. Lee and Chan (2009b: 112–33) showed that within news organisations, self-censorship was the result of both the structural positioning of journalists and the interactive dynamics in news production. Top-level newsroom managers tended to hold more conservative political views, and journalists working on China-related news also exhibited higher levels of national identification. These constituted the structural basis for the production of relatively less critical news coverage. In addition, frontline journalists described how they could observe and understand the tacit rules that exist in the newsrooms. Occasionally, they would receive questionable instructions about how to handle specific pieces of sensitive news, though such orders were mostly either highly ambiguous or framed in technical or professional terms. For example, a news manager may justify an instruction to downplay certain critical views in a news story by the need to maintain objectivity, or one may justify the deletion of certain materials from a news article because of space constraints. Professional journalists did try to resist pressure to self-censor by occasionally arguing with their supervisors and by developing operational tactics to protect their work. Some interviewees stressed that the discourse of professionalism remained dominant within newsrooms. However, resistance had its limitations. Arguing against the superior may not be an option when the questionable orders were given in highly ambiguous terms or in the midst of a hectic work flow. Some journalists also acknowledged that they might have unintentionally stopped working on politically sensitive topics simply because of a tendency to avoid the unpleasant experience of workplace conflicts. Lee and Chan (2009b: 112–33) thus illustrated how self-censorship is an ‘organisational product’ despite journalistic professionalism and resistance.

Critical events and China’s new strategies The previous section focused mainly on the interaction between the media and the state. In the first few years following the handover, Hong Kong’s civil society was a minor player in the politics of press freedom. However, in the broader process of political development social mobilisation has become increasingly prominent as Hong Kong was embroiled in a serious economic downturn after the Asian financial turmoil. Repeated government mistakes and occasional political controversies and scandals further damaged the legitimacy of the SAR government. With grievances accumulating, debates about national security legislation2 and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in early 20033 finally led to the explosion of public discontent in the 7/1 protest in 2003. This civil society mobilisation succeeded in forcing the SAR government to postpone indefinitely the national security legislation, and led to the resignation of two top government officials in mid-July. Lee and Chan (2011) argued that the 7/1 protest constituted a ‘critical event’ in the sense that it altered how political actors perceived the situation in Hong Kong, and once perceptions changed, the actors also adjusted their goals and strategies. In particular the Chinese government seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that its non-interventionist approach from 1997 to 135

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2003 failed to achieve the desired outcome. As legal scholar Benny Tai (2009: 220–45) put it, there was a shift after 2003 from ‘one country in passive voice’ to ‘one country in active voice’. China’s intention to regain control was apparent in the debates about democratic reform in 2004 when the Chinese government insisted that Hong Kong’s political reform is not purely a local matter. In February, Xinhua News Agency republished a speech by late national leader Deng Xiaoping in which Deng stated that Hong Kong should be governed by ‘patriots’.4 The republication of this speech provoked a controversial ‘patriotism debate’. In April 2004, the National People’s Congress ruled out the possibility of direct elections of the chief executive in Hong Kong in 2007. In addition to democratisation, freedom of speech was another casualty. The patriotism debate, in which pro-China politicians sometimes accused oppositional leaders of being ‘traitors’, created a suffocating political atmosphere. Albert Cheng, Yuk-man Wong and Allen Li, prominent public figures and among the most popular radio talk show hosts at the time, resigned in quick succession. Their successive resignations signified the beginning of the demise of critical radio phone-in talk shows (Lee and Tang 2013: 23–60). Beyond the events in 2004, there are indeed signs that there have been more direct and indirect contacts between Chinese officials and news organisations in Hong Kong. In May 2010, Vice Director of the Chinese Liaison Office (CLO) Li Gong agreed to meet up with three representatives of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong to discuss political reform. The CLO is the official representative organ of the Chinese central government in Hong Kong. The meeting is special in that Chinese officials have in the past refused to enter into direct dialogue with the democrats (or at least have not done so publicly). But according to a media columnist, Li called a number of ‘friendly newspapers’ before the meeting, indicating that the reporters from those newspapers would have the chance to raise questions in the press conference after the meeting. Then, when the reporters from those organisations arrived at the press conference, CLO officers gave them a number of questions to ask (Lam 2010: P18). The second example occurred during the election for chief executive in early 2012, an event which resembled a political soap opera, with the media uncovering one scandal involving candidates after another. The campaign led many citizens to wish for an ‘abortive result’ of the vote, meaning that if no candidate could win more than half of the votes from the 1,200-member election committee, then no candidate would be declared as winner and the whole electoral process would have to begin anew. An abortive election would greatly damage the credibility of the electoral system. In the week before the voting took place, the media reported that the CLO and the central government directly mobilised the election committee members to vote for C.Y. Leung (who did finally win) in order to prevent an abortive result. The news created a public uproar criticising China’s direct intervention in the election. Then, three days before the election, a pro-democracy politician, quoting an unnamed newspaper owner, claimed that the CLO called the newspaper complaining about its coverage of ‘CLO’s mobilisation’. Media reports later identified the newspaper as the Hong Kong Economic Journal, a prestigious financial paper in the city. Of course, these stories about direct contacts and pressure are difficult to prove. Many cases could have remained secret and never publicised, though it is reasonable to argue that the Chinese government would exercise such ‘direct persuasion’ only in the most important and sensitive events. But such stories do show that the Chinese government has already gone beyond the informal politics of self-censorship inducement when handling the Hong Kong press. In addition to direct pressure on top management, we can discern two other new strategies adopted by the state in the post-2003 era. The first can be called front-line operational harassment, which refers to the increasing level of direct control that journalists have to face in 136

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the front line. For example, many journalists have complained that the government has been setting up more and more closed-door news briefings, dubbed ‘wind-blowing sessions’ by local journalists, in which government information is provided to the reporters on condition that reporters would cover the information without naming the government source (Chong 2011). The result is the proliferation of news stories with anonymous sources, a phenomenon not conducive to holding the government to public account. More controversially, many journalists criticised the police for suppressing their freedom of reporting during social protests. In major political events where social protests are likely to occur, the ‘reporting area’ is often set up quite far away from the likely scene of action. Some journalists even complained that the police would use physical violence against reporters. For example, in the 2011 7/1 protest, conflict between protesters and the police occurred after the main march, during which at least 19 journalists were hurt by the police’s use of pepper spray. Several journalists claimed that the police continued to use pepper spray on them even after they clarified their identity as reporters (Lui 2011). Operational harassment also exists when Hong Kong reporters work in mainland China. It should be noted that working on sensitive stories in the mainland – stories that mainland journalists are often forbidden to pursue and write about – has long been a major contribution of the Hong Kong news media to the pursuit of freedom of information in China. However, Hong Kong journalists worked on these topics in mainland China only by bearing a significant and apparently increasing degree of personal risks. In August 2009, for instance, a Hong Kong reporter and her cameraman were accused by the Chengdu police for ‘possessing drugs’. The two journalists were planning to cover the trial of a famous dissident (Tan Zouren) at the time. Although the police did not arrest them, the journalists were effectively prevented from covering the trial as the police kept them in their hotel rooms for six hours (Hong Kong Journalist Association 2010). Over time, front-line operational harassment has implications on what Hong Kong reporters choose to work on in the mainland. As RTHK’s China news reporter Miu-ling Chan (2011) said, since there is no guarantee of personal safety Hong Kong journalists have covered fewer and fewer groundbreaking stories in the mainland. Instead, pack journalism has become the norm. By acting together and covering what each other are covering, individual journalists do not need to face political risks by themselves. Yet the practice of pack journalism led to the homogenisation of content. The second new strategy that China employed after 2003 was the use of soft power. The concept of soft power has been the focus of much discussion in foreign relations and international communications since 2000 (e.g. Kurlantzick 2008), but the concept may also apply to China’s promotion of nationalism in Hong Kong since 2003. The Hong Kong public’s negative reactions toward national security legislation have led the Chinese government to be concerned about the population’s weak national identification. Nevertheless, China understood that nationalism cannot be imposed on Hong Kong, and a ‘hard sell’ approach would only backfire. Therefore, China has opted to promote nationalism in the territory largely through the ‘soft power approach’, sending to Hong Kong astronauts, Olympic gold medallists, award-winning musicians and pandas to showcase the achievement and treasure of the nation. While the ultimate target of soft power is the general public, the Hong Kong news media became part of the strategy as China proactively invited the Hong Kong press to cover related events and stories. The arrival of two pandas in Hong Kong in 2007 is an illustrative case. The Chinese government deliberately framed the event as a case of China sending its national treasure to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong press spent a significant amount of news space, spanning nearly two months, to cover the lives of the two selected pandas in their original habitat in Sichuan 137

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Province, the competition organised for naming the two pandas, the transportation of the two pandas to Hong Kong, etc. The amount of attention given to the story was arguably disproportional: the arrival of two pandas was after all a relatively trivial human interest story, and it was not even the first time pandas were sent to the city from the mainland (the first two pandas arrived in Hong Kong in 1998 largely without the ‘nationalistic fuss’). But the important point here is that the coverage was possible only with the Chinese government’s facilitation, which gave Hong Kong media access to relevant places, people and institutions. Compared to direct contact with management and front-line operational harassment, the use of soft power may appear less ominous. However it is directly relevant to a discussion of press freedom because it shows the Chinese government’s attempt and ability to set the news agenda. When the media devote attention and resources to the stories preferred by the state, less attention and resources are given to other topics, including stories that might expose the dark sides of Chinese politics and society. Moreover, the use of soft power also illustrates how China’s media management has become more sophisticated. The range of strategies has broadened from suppressing the coverage of negative and sensitive news to include ways to direct media attention to positive news.

Pressure from civil society: the decline of news objectivity? Did the strategies of front-line operational harassment, direct contact with management and the continuing politics of self-censorship inducement succeed in gagging the Hong Kong media? Did soft power have its presumed influence on the general public? For a period of time, the mix of strategies did seem to achieve, to a certain extent, the goals of political control and legitimacy building. Opinion polls have shown that Hong Kong people’s trust in the Chinese government and national identification was on the rise. According to surveys conducted by the Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong, the percentage of Hong Kong people who trust the Chinese government rose from 43.3 per cent in August 2003 to 55.5 per cent in December 2008. Hong Kong people’s national identification, when measured on a 0–10 scale, also rose from 7.32 in June 2003 to 7.79 in December 2008.5 Writing on the tenth anniversary of the handover, Lee (2007: 134–47) developed the concept of cultural co-orientation to describe the possibility that continuous social and cultural integration between Hong Kong and the mainland has narrowed the differences between the values and beliefs of the two societies. The implication on press freedom is that the conflict between the Hong Kong media and the Chinese government might reduce when the perspectives held by the two sides converge. There would be less need for China to influence the Hong Kong press if the beliefs and values of the Hong Kong journalists themselves were synchronised with the views of the Chinese government. For example, if the Hong Kong journalists themselves start to view Taiwan independence as wrong, then China does not need to do anything to prevent the Hong Kong media from advocating Taiwan independence. However, while cultural co-orientation might have occurred on certain issues such as attitudes toward Taiwan independence, and though it is possible that most Hong Kong people are willing to rejoice in China’s achievement in scientific and cultural arenas, certain fundamental differences in political values between the mainland and Hong Kong have proven to be much more enduring. If political differences have stayed dormant for a short period of time between 2004 and 2007, numerous events since 2008 have foregrounded the differences again. Problems uncovered through tragedies such as the Sichuan earthquake and the Wenzhou high-speed train crash,6 repeated scandals related to corruption, food safety and other matters, and China’s handling of 138

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dissidents have reminded Hong Kong people about the importance of liberty, the rule of law, a transparent political system and free media. In addition, Hong Kong has suffered from a high and rising level of income inequality despite the end of economic decline since 2005, and there is little sign that the problem of ineffective governance could be resolved (Zhang 2009: 312–32). As a result, instead of being pacified, grievances in and resistance from the civil society have persisted and arguably have grown after 2008. The aforementioned surveys by the University of Hong Kong show that the percentage of Hong Kong people who trust the Chinese government declined from above 50 per cent in December 2008 to 41.7 per cent in June 2010, and then fell to as low as 25.9 per cent in September 2012. National identification also went down to only 6.99 in June 2012 – the lowest mean score registered by the survey series since 2000.7 This reversal in public opinion was also evident through the collective actions of citizens. On 4 June 2009, 150,000 Hong Kong people participated in the commemoration rally for the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. The figure surpassed the numbers of participants registered since the early 1990s. The size of successive June 4th (hereafter ‘6/4’) rallies remained high, as around 100,000 people joined in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Meanwhile, citizens have also become more active in staging protests on a wide range of local issues, making social mobilisation a core feature of the city’s political process (see Chan and Lee, Chapter 9 in this volume). The significance of the continual growth of social mobilisation resides in how it strengthens the counteracting force exerted by civil society on the mass media. As explained earlier when discussing the politics of self-censorship, the Hong Kong media should find it problematic to completely succumb to political pressure because they have to maintain credibility. However, as journalism scholars have long pointed out, ‘the public’ is mostly an abstract and imagined entity for journalists. In their day-to-day practices journalists are much more likely to take note of the reactions from their ‘inner public’, namely colleagues, supervisors and news sources. It follows that civil society would become a more powerful influence on the media only if citizens become more proactive and vocal in expressing their views. In fact, Hong Kong citizens not only used collective actions to voice their opinions on social and political issues, but also targeted the mainstream media. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Hong Kong public had long been regarded as ‘attentive spectators’ in politics, i.e. they paid close attention to the news media without being active in political participation (Lau and Kuan 1995: 3–24). In their research on the participants of the 7/1 protests, Lee and Chan (2011: 173–83) further argued that the protesters were also ‘attentive analysts’ of news, meaning they were able to analyse news coverage and identify signs of self-censorship. What happened in the most recent years is that some citizens have also become active critics who expressed their dissatisfaction with media performance through action. One prominent incident of citizen protest against the news media was undertaken by an individual nicknamed ‘Lousy Boy’ during the 6/4 commemoration rally in 2009. Targeting the Television Broadcasting Ltd (TVB), the dominant player in Hong Kong’s television market, ‘Lousy Boy’ sneaked behind a TVB reporter and raised a cardboard sign when the reporter was doing a live stand-up piece to camera. The sign showed a slogan accusing TVB news for being si-dan, a Cantonese phrase that can be translated as lousy in this context (and hence the nickname). Unaware of the protester, the reporter continued the live feed. The protest was shown on television, causing huge embarrassment to the broadcaster. Rather than being a one-off event, the protest by ‘Lousy Boy’ became a catalyst for further and more collective protests against the news media. Media self-censorship became a hot topic in some online discussion sites. Netizens mocked TVB and Asia Television (ATV), the other 139

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free-to-air broadcaster in Hong Kong; they renamed these stations CCTVB and CCATV, associating them with the official Chinese Central Television (CCTV) in the mainland. In the 7/1 protest in 2009, about a hundred protesters surrounded a TVB reporting team on Victoria Park, the starting point of the march route, chanting slogans and raising banners lamenting the death of press freedom. The protests against TVB and ATV since 2009 can be considered as part of a movement against the domination of political power over the mainstream media in Hong Kong that gathered force after 2003. In fact, the 7/1 protest in 2003 also led to the proliferation of online citizen journalism platforms and movement groups concerned with media performance (Ip 2009: 221–39), though few online alternative media survived for long due to lack of resources. Inmedia Hong Kong constituted a relatively successful case. It was established in 2004 by a group of concerned academics and social activists as a social movement organisation that aimed at generating a public sphere not dominated by political power and big corporations.8 Inmedia succeeded in maintaining its operation by relying mainly on citizen donations. In 2009, they even established their own team of ‘special correspondents’. Their website became a platform for the expression of pro-social movement viewpoints on various issues, and frequently published critical commentaries of the mainstream media. In other words, the news media have become sandwiched between increasing pressure from the state and increasing criticism from civil society. Local researchers have yet to assess systematically the impact of such a situation on media performance. But we can suggest that increased pressure from both the state and society apparently accompanied the decline of intensified objectivity. The case of Ming Pao is illustrative here. The elite-oriented newspaper has been the exemplar when local scholars discussed the strategy of intensified objectivity (Lee and Lin 2006: 331–58). But an objective approach to news would still necessitate the reporting of sensitive issues and critical views, and Ming Pao was banned in China – Chinese netizens could not access the newspaper’s website. At the same time, even the newspaper’s own journalists have become increasingly dissatisfied with its unwillingness to be more proactive in criticising the power holders and in standing for pro-democracy values. In other words, objectivity has gradually lost its power as a weapon that the news media could use to straddle between political pressure and professional integrity. Polarisation between the state and society meant that objectivity could appease neither side. The situation also meant that the Hong Kong news media have arguably become more polarised themselves. Some media organisations have fallen in line with the power holders to an even larger extent, in the process abandoning even the most basic professional norms. An extreme example occurred during the election for chief executive in March 2012 when a newspaper substantially revised a columnist’s article to turn it from being a critique of the electoral process into a supportive statement for C.Y. Leung, the eventual winner who was reportedly favoured by Beijing. At the other end, news organisations which did not want to further compromise their own professional integrity and credibility, such as Ming Pao, might opt to move in the opposite direction, becoming more critical and daring in their coverage of sensitive matters. Besides news organisations, the tendency to move away from an insistence on strict objectivity is also evident in the increasingly active role played by the Hong Kong Journalist Association (HKJA) in social protests. The HKJA has long been a staunch defender of press freedom, but historically the association has largely refrained from participating in social protests because of the journalistic ideology of objectivity and detachment. Nevertheless, the HKJA joined the 7/1 protest in 2003 because its members saw the national security legislation controversy as directly pertinent to press freedom. Since then, the increased pressure from the state, especially through 140

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the strategy of front-line operational harassment, provoked the HKJA into becoming more active in joining or staging protests to protect press freedom. At the more individual level, journalists also became more active in sharing their views on issues related to professionalism and press freedom through new media platforms such as Facebook and blogs (Chu 2012: 371–87). On the whole, journalism has become more vocal, and a closer relationship between the profession and civil society has emerged. This alliance between civil society and journalists has become a crucial force in the struggle for press freedom in Hong Kong.

Concluding discussion This chapter has analysed the evolution of press freedom in Hong Kong through tracing the strategic interaction between the state, the media and civil society. The Chinese state has broadened its repertoire of control strategies over time. Rather than mainly trying to induce self-censorship, the state has in recent years intervened more directly in the news production process. Of course, this does not mean that the Hong Kong media are nowadays subject to the same type and degree of press control that exists in the mainland. But from a critical perspective the rise of front-line operational harassment and direct management interference do constitute worrying signs. China has seemingly become less and less interested in maintaining the ‘exceptional’ status of Hong Kong. Yet this chapter’s analysis also shows how a significant degree of press freedom is maintained in Hong Kong through the continual efforts of the professional journalists and resistance from the civil society. The professionalism of journalists cannot be easily suppressed, especially as journalism education in the territory’s major universities is still organised around the liberal democratic press theory. More broadly, the fundamental differences in political values upheld by the two societies are too substantial to be eliminated in a short period of time. It should be noted that Hong Kong journalists are part of the local citizenry, hence they share the generally liberal and pro-democracy worldview of the population at large.9 Under this condition, when the pressure applied by the state becomes stronger, the resistance from the media and the society might also strengthen. Social mobilisation is today playing an important role in the politics of press freedom in Hong Kong. In fact, one may even argue that there has been a reverse in the relationship between civil society and press freedom in Hong Kong since 1997. In the early post-handover years, critics generally opined that press freedom is crucial for the protection of civil society. In more recent years, it seems that a vibrant and vocal civil society is crucial for protecting press freedom. Overall the analysis suggests that the struggle for press freedom will persist, and that silencing the press is by no means easy. The key worry of those concerned with press freedom in Hong Kong is whether the state will adopt a more hard-line approach in the future and use coercive means to suppress the media and civil society. To conclude the chapter, it would be useful to discuss a couple of issues that have more general theoretical implications and point out one limitation of the analysis. The first theoretical issue worth discussing is objectivity. It is a well-established argument in journalism studies that the rise of objectivity as a professional ideology can have its own social and political conditions. In the case of the USA, Schudson (1978) has famously interpreted the rise of objectivity as a result of the growth of the democratic market society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Similarly, there are specific historical conditions for the rise of objectivity in Hong Kong: the Sino-British negotiations in the early 1980s led to the Hong Kong media needing to find a legitimating creed which would allow them to critique both the Chinese and British sides. At that historical juncture, a specific conception of ‘local interests’ served as the foundation 141

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of the objective stance, namely whether Hong Kong could continue to enjoy its liberty, prosperity and stability. Meanwhile this chapter shows how historical and political conditions may lead to the decline of objectivity. In the immediate years after the handover, objectivity as a core professional norm was utilised by some professional-oriented media – media organisations that were concerned about their professional integrity – as a ‘weapon of the weak’ (Scott 1985). The objective stance, however, also became a constraint undermining the media’s capability to criticise the power holders. As time went on, the limitations of objectivity as a weapon have become clearer. Finally, when the conflict between society and the state became more apparent, there is no longer a conception of ‘local interests’ or a set of enduring values independent from society and the state that can serve as the foundation of the objective stance. Therefore the case of Hong Kong can enrich our understanding about the dynamic relationships between socio-political conditions and professional norms. Second, the strategic interactional approach to analyse the politics of press freedom should have generalised value beyond Hong Kong. More specifically, the interactional perspective seems to be particularly useful in analysing media politics in what is often called ‘transitional society’. In a transitional society, old institutions and values often coexist with new and emerging institutions and values; and rules and norms are often more ambiguous than they are in a society with a more established and stable system. In such contexts, structural constraints are likely to be less determining, leaving more room for various actors to engage in negotiations and contests regarding how social and political changes will proceed. Actors are also more willing to engage in strategic innovations and practical experiments. In fact, much research and discussion regarding the politics of news media in mainland China since the 1990s has focused on how media actors develop various strategies to expand the space of freedom of reporting. Finally, the limitation of the analysis presented in this chapter is the lack of a more comprehensive examination of how Hong Kong features in the larger politics of social and political reform in China itself. Ultimately, the future of press freedom and democratisation in the SAR is closely related to the broader transformation of China. The country is currently facing a wide range of social problems – corruption, business fraud that could affect the everyday life of ordinary citizens, serious inequality in wealth and the impoverished living condition of the lower strata of the society, etc. – that threaten to undermine social and political stability. The situation arguably led to both the call for political reform to resolve the problems and the tendency to heighten the force of suppression to prevent the problems from getting out of control. In any case, the politics of press freedom in Hong Kong would take another important turn if China embarks on political reform (no matter how gradual and tortuous that process will be) or decides to tighten its grip on both the mainland and Hong Kong. At the same time, it should be noted that the Hong Kong press may also influence the politics of press freedom in China as it may serve as an outlet for the publicisation of sensitive information and viewpoints (Cheung 2011: 713–38). In the early 1990s, Chan and Lee (1991) subtitled their book-length study of the changes in the journalistic paradigm in the territory, ‘the Hong Kong press in China’s orbit’. Inevitably, this description of the Hong Kong press remains appropriate.

Notes 1

The two surveys were conducted by a team of researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Professor Clement So and Professor Joseph Chan were involved in conducting both the 2001 and 2006 surveys, and the present author was involved in the 2006 survey.

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2

3

4

5 6

7 8 9

According to the Basic Law, the mini-constitution of the SAR, the Hong Kong government has to establish laws against treason and secession. Moreover, the press and society are highly suspicious of any attempt to enact national security laws because of the fear that such laws could be used to suppress civil liberties. In 2002, the SAR government began the consultation process for national security legislation, leading to a highly charged public debate. The SARS epidemic struck Hong Kong in early 2003, resulting in 299 deaths. The government was severely criticised for apparently attempting to conceal the fact of the epidemic’s outbreak at the early stages (also see de Burgh, Chapter 6 in this volume). In Deng’s speech, a patriot was defined as a person who ‘respects one’s own nation, sincerely and whole-heartedly supports the motherland’s resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong, and does not damage Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability’. Deng did not explicitly state that the patriot should wholeheartedly support the communist regime, but it could be regarded as being assumed. In fact, a core issue in debates surrounding patriotism in Hong Kong is whether ‘loving the country’ entails ‘loving the Communist party-state’. The data are available at: http://hkupop.hku.hk. In the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, mainland Chinese media were forbidden from reporting on the fragility of school buildings, which was probably the result of corruption. In the Wenzhou high-speed train crash in July 2011, which led to 40 deaths, the rescue effort was concluded and the train buried at the site within 24 hours. The Hong Kong media and public severely criticised the Chinese government for prematurely ending the search for survivors and destroying evidence before a thorough investigation of the crash. The data are available at: http://hkupop.hku.hk. The stated aim is taken from the group’s website: www.inmediahk.net. For polling data regarding Hong Kong people’s views towards democratisation and other political matters, see the website of Hong Kong University’s Public Opinion Programme (hkupop.edu.hk). For information about the political views of journalists working in Hong Kong, see Lee and Chan (2009b: 112–33).

References Chan, J.M. and Lee, C.C. (1991) Mass Media and Political Transition, New York: Guilford Press. Chan, J.M. and Lee, F.L.F. (2008) ‘Renationalisation, internationalisation and localisation: media and politics in Hong Kong’ (Zai guozuhua, guojihua yu bentuhua de jiaoli: Xianggang de chuanmei he zhengzhi), 21st Century 101: 43–55 (in Chinese). Chan, J.M. and Lee, F.L.F. (2011) ‘The primacy of local interest and press freedom in Hong Kong: a survey study of journalists’, Journalism 12: 89–105. Chan, M.L. (2011) ‘What it means to be a Beijing correspondent’ (Zhu jing jizhe suowei heshi), The Journalist, April. Available online http://hkthejournalist.blogspot.hk/2011/04/c10.html (retrieved 18 December 2012, in Chinese). Cheung, P.T.Y. (2011) ‘Who’s influencing whom? Exploring the influence of Hong Kong on politics and governance in China’, Asian Survey 51(4): 713–38. Chong, H.Y. (2011) ‘Government’s off-the-record briefings continue to flourish’ (Yue chui yue lan, chui dao chui feng hui), The Journalist, April. Available online http://hkthejournalist.blogspot.hk/2011/ 04/c12.html (retrieved 18 December 2012, in Chinese). Chu, D. (2012) ‘Interpreting news values in j-blogs: case studies of journalist bloggers in post-1997 Hong Kong’, Journalism 13: 371–87. Fung, A.Y.H. (2007) ‘Political economy of Hong Kong media: producing a hegemonic voice’, Asian Journal of Communication 17(2): 159–71. Fung, A.Y.H. and Lee, C.C. (1994) ‘Hong Kong’s changing media ownership: uncertainty and dilemma’, Gazette 53: 127–33. George, C. (2012) Freedom from the Press, Singapore: National University of Singapore Press. Hong Kong Journalist Association (2010) Freedom of Expression Annual Report: The Vice Tightens: Pressure Grows on Free Expression in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Journalist Association. Ip, Y.C. (2009) ‘New political force: the development of independent media in Hong Kong’ (Xin zhengzhi liliang: Xianggang duli meiti de fazhan), Mass Communication Research 99: 221–39 (in Chinese). 143

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Kuan, H.C. and Lau, S.K. (1988) Mass Media and Politics in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Center for Hong Kong Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kurlantzick, J. (2008) Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lam, T.N. (2010) ‘The deep-rooted contradictions in using reporters as “match-makers”’, Hong Kong Economic Journal, 31 May: P18. Lau, S.K. and Kuan, H.C. (1995) ‘The attentive spectators: political participation of the Hong Kong Chinese’, Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 14: 3–24. Lau, T.Y. and To, Y.M. (2002) ‘Walking a tight rope: Hong Kong’s media facing political and economic challenges since sovereignty transfer’, in M.K. Chan and A. So (eds), Crisis and Transformation in China’s Hong Kong, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 322–42. Lee, C.C. (2000) ‘The paradox of political economy: media structure, press freedom, and regime change in Hong Kong’, in C.C. Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 288–336. Lee, C.C., He, Z. and Huang, Y. (2007) ‘Party-market corporatism, clientelism, and media in Shanghai’, International Journal of Press/Politics 12: 21–42. Lee, F.L.F. (2002) ‘Radio phone-in talk shows as politically significant infotainment in Hong Kong’, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 7(4): 57–79. –––– (2007) ‘Strategic interaction, cultural co-orientation, and press freedom in Hong Kong’, Asian Journal of Communication 17(2): 134–47. Lee, F.L.F. and Chan, J.M. (2009a) ‘Making sense of political transition: a review of political communication research in Hong Kong’, in L. Willnat and A. Aw (eds), Political Communication in Asia, London: Routledge, 9–42. Lee, F.L.F. and Chan, J.M. (2009b) ‘The organisational production of self-censorship in the Hong Kong media’, International Journal of Press/Politics 14: 112–33. Lee, F.L.F. and Chan, J.M. (2011) Media, Social Mobilisation, and the Pro-Democracy Protest Movement in PostHandover Hong Kong, London: Routledge. Lee, F.L.F. and Lin, A.M.Y. (2006) ‘Newspaper editorial discourse and the politics of self-censorship in Hong Kong’, Discourse & Society 17(2): 331–58. Lee, F.L.F. and Tang, G. (2013) ‘Social change, media interaction, and the transformation of radio phonein talk shows in Hong Kong’ (Shehui bianqian, meiti hudong, he diantai tingzhong canyu jiemu zai xianggang de yanbian), Chinese Journal of Communication & Society 24: 23–60 (in Chinese). Lee, P.S.N. and Chu, L. (1998) ‘Inherent dependence on power: the Hong Kong press in political transition’, Media, Culture & Society 20: 59–77. Lui, T.L. (2011) ‘Police abandon Police General Orders for 7/1 confrontation’ (Jingfang buyi ‘jingcha tongli’ xingshi, chuanmei qi yi ye caifang zaoyang), The Journalist, August. Available online http://hkthe journalist.blogspot.hk/2011/08/c01.html (accessed 18 December 2012, in Chinese). Ma, N. (2007) ‘State–press relationship in post-1997 Hong Kong: constant negotiation amidst selfrestraint’, China Quarterly 192: 949–70. Schudson, M. (1978) Discovering the News, New York: Free Press. Sciutto, J.E. (1996) ‘China’s muffling of the Hong Kong media’, in M.J. Skidmore (ed.), Hong Kong and China Pursuing a New Destiny, Singapore: Toppan, 131–43. Scott, J. (1985) Weapons of the Weak, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. So, A.Y. (2011) ‘“One country, two systems” and Hong Kong–China national integration: a crisistransformation perspective’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 41(1): 99–116. So, C.Y.K. and Chan, J.M. (2007) ‘Professionalism, politics, and market force: survey studies of Hong Kong journalists 1996–2006’, Asian Journal of Communication 17(2): 148–58. Tai, B.Y.T. (2009) ‘An unexpected chapter two of Hong Kong’s constitution: new players and new strategies’, in M. Sing (ed.), Challenges to Governance for China and Hong Kong, London: Routledge, 220–45. Tuchman, G. (1978) Making News, New York: Free Press. Zhang, B.H. (2009) ‘Political paralysis of the Basic Law regime and the politics of institutional reform in Hong Kong’, Asian Survey 49(2): 312–32. Zhao, Y.Z. (2008) Communication in China, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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9 Media and social mobilisation in Hong Kong Joseph M. Chan and Francis L.F. Lee

Introduction The rise of collective actions by citizens has constituted one of the most important aspects of social and political developments in Hong Kong. Since the handover in 1997, the economic downturn triggered by the Asian financial turmoil, policy mistakes by government and occasional political scandals have led to widespread public discontent (Chan and So 2002). Many social groups and citizens have taken to the street to express their grievances. On 1 July 2003, 500,000 people protested against the imminent national security legislation1 and government incompetence in general. This protest was a ‘critical event’ in the sense that it changed the way the government and political actors perceived the reality, leading them to adopt new strategies when interacting with society and with each other (Lee and Chan 2011). The protest also illustrated the potential efficacy of ‘people power’ as it successfully forced the government to postpone the national security legislation. The event thus became a catalyst for the further growth of collective actions in Hong Kong. In the years after 2003, civic associations, political parties, professional groups and ordinary people continued to organise and participate in various types of collective actions to make a wide range of claims. Local academics have tried to make sense of such developments in different ways. Some sociologists described these social movements and collective actions as ‘postmodernist’ (K.M. Chan 2005: 67–83; So 2011: 365–78), in the sense that they address societywide public interests, attract participants coming from all walks of life, lack strong organisational bases, emphasise spontaneous actions, and rely heavily on the mass media and new media technologies for mobilisation. Others may argue that the contemporary protests and social movements in Hong Kong are quite typical of the ‘new social movements’ commonly found in advanced capitalist societies (Faulks 1999). Lee and Chan (2013), meanwhile, cast the development of social mobilisation in Hong Kong against the perspective of a ‘movement society’ (Meyer and Tarrow 1998), that is, a society where social movements and contentious collective actions have become normalised and routinised. Despite the somewhat different characterisations, most scholars would agree that media communications have played a crucial role in the rise of protest politics. Lee and Chan (2013) in particular have argued that conventional mass media and new media technologies have combined to constitute the communication infrastructure for social mobilisation in the city. This chapter provides a conceptual overview of the roles played by the mass media and new 145

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media platforms in the formation of social movements and specific instances of collective actions in Hong Kong. Certain important issues in the relationship between media and social mobilisation, such as how the professional news media cover social protests, are also discussed. But to provide the broader background against which the roles of media communications can be understood, the next section will further discuss the characteristics and development of contentious collective actions in contemporary Hong Kong (also see Francis L.F. Lee, Chapter 8 in this volume).

Contentious collective actions in contemporary Hong Kong It is important to begin with some basic definitions. Throughout this chapter, contentious collective actions refer to people acting in concert to make contentious claims on behalf of themselves and/or a social group. Contentious claims are claims that go against the interests and/or desires of another entity, such as another social group, a business corporation or the government. Although all social groups are likely to make contentious claims in some instances and on certain matters, they do not always do so through organising collective actions; at the same time, not all collective actions involve the making of contentious claims. Contentious collective actions can take different forms. People can select a method in a well-established ‘repertoire of contention’ (Tarrow 1998: 30–42) including demonstrations, sit-ins, strikes and so on. Of course, protesters can also innovate and improvise when they engage in collective actions. To avoid verbosity, this chapter will use ‘contentious collective action’ and ‘protest action’ interchangeably. More importantly, a contentious collective action or protest action does not constitute a social movement by itself. Following Tilly (2004: 7–8), we define a social movement as a campaign which makes collective and contentious claims on target authorities through an array of claim-making performances that involve the public representations of the worthiness of the cause and the unity, numbers and commitments of the claimants. A social movement thus involves a continual interaction between the social forces behind the movement and its main targets (Tarrow 1998). Notably, Tilly’s definition does not emphasise the presence of movement organisations. This characteristic makes the definition particularly suitable for studying contemporary social movements in Hong Kong, as we will see later. Given the conceptual clarifications, the following subsections will further discuss the characteristics and development of contentious collective actions in Hong Kong by focusing on three sets of issues: (1) size and diversity of protest actions, (2) public opinion towards contentious collective actions and (3) routinisation of protest actions.

Size and diversity of protest actions When discussing the rise of protest actions in Hong Kong, several large-scale demonstrations and rallies are the most eye-catching. Besides the aforementioned July 1st (hereafter ‘7/1’) protest in 2003, the 7/1 demonstrations in subsequent years continued to attract tens of thousands of participants. The annual June 4th (hereafter ‘6/4’) rally commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen incident in China also had tens of thousands of participants each year throughout the 2000s.2 From 2009 to 2012, the number of participants even reached 100,000 and beyond. Of course, few contentious collective actions in Hong Kong have such scale. Yet a simple search on the electronic news archive Wise News would find that, other than the 6/4 rally and 7/1 protest, there were at least 12 different protest actions in the year 2011 which had more than 1,000 participants. They included four protests directed at the government. The others 146

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included a protest staged by a tourist guide union against the new regulations set up by the Travel Industry Council, a protest in support of the mainland dissident artist Ai Weiwei, the labour day demonstration, a rally organised by a political party calling for the building of more public housing, a candlelight vigil held at a local university ‘commemorating the death of freedom’ on campus and a protest against a local political party in relation to the issue of the right of abode of foreign domestic helpers. This list of the sizable protests in 2011 is illustrative of the fact that major protests are nowadays organised not only by the conventionally oppositional and/or marginal groups, but also by professional associations, student organisations and political parties. If we included small-scale protests, the range of groups having undertaken protest actions would certainly be much wider. In fact, a content analysis of newspaper coverage of protests found that the proportion of collective actions organised by commercial or occupational associations has increased from 3.7 per cent in 2002 to 7.5 per cent in 2009. The proportion of protests organised by professional associations has increased from 1.6 per cent to 5.7 per cent in the same period (Lee and Chan 2013: 243–69). Unlike labour unions and non-governmental organisations, occupational groups and professional associations traditionally seldom engage in social mobilisation. Their increasing presence in the protest scene is illustrative of the diversification of protest actions.

Public opinion towards protests How ordinary citizens view contentious collective actions is an important question when one analyses the development of protest politics in a society. Understanding public opinion toward protests could predict whether the general public is likely to support or even participate in specific instances of contentious collective actions and social movements in general. There is a lack of longitudinal data about how Hong Kong citizens perceived protests and social movements over the years, but survey evidence has indeed pointed toward citizen receptiveness toward protests. In two surveys conducted by the Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in early 2010 and 2012, we included a list of questions asking the respondents whether they thought a list of organisations and entities are ‘representative

Table 9.1 Perceived representativeness of political actors, media and social institutions

Political actors HK government Political parties Legislators Media News commentators Newspapers Television news Radio phone-in Other social institutions Polling agencies Social movements

2010

2012

4.94 4.54

4.62 4.44

4.67

4.64

5.74 5.52 6.11 5.62

5.57 5.43 6.06 5.54

5.64 5.21

5.54 5.24

Note: The entries are mean scores based on a 0–10 scale (10 = absolutely can represent public opinion, 0 = absolutely cannot represent public opinion).

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of public opinion’. As Table 9.1 shows, ‘social movements’ obtained an average score of 5.21 in 2010, which is above the mid-point of the scale. Admittedly, the respondents saw the news media and polling agencies as substantially more representative, but social movements did fare much better than the government, political parties and legislators. The findings remain the same in 2012. The same surveys also asked the respondents if they would agree with the statement ‘you may participate in a demonstration in the future to fight for your rights’. In 2010, 43.7 per cent of the respondents disagreed with the statement and 32.1 per cent agreed (the others answered ‘don’t know’ or opted for the neutral category). Although respondents agreeing with the statement did not constitute the majority, the figures are still indicative of a substantial amount of ‘protest potential’ within the population. In 2012, the percentage of respondents agreeing with the same statement rose to 41.1 per cent, while only 27.2 per cent disagreed. The difference between the two years is statistically significant (␹2 = 60.1, df = 2, p < .001). In other words, the protest potential of the Hong Kong public has increased further between 2010 and 2012. It should be noted that there were no major social and political events occurring right before the 2012 survey. The increase in protest potential does not seem to be the result of any specific and idiosyncratic events. Moreover, past research has shown that the Hong Kong public has a high level of collective efficacy, i.e. they believe that the collective actions of Hong Kong people can change society and influence the government (Lee 2006: 297–317; 2010: 392–411). The surveys in 2010 and 2012 show the same phenomenon. In 2010, 45.9 per cent of the respondents agreed with the statement ‘Hong Kong people’s collective actions, such as demonstrations, have huge influence on public affairs’. Only 22.7 per cent disagreed. In 2012, the percentage of people agreeing with the statement had risen further to 52.9 per cent, and only 15.8 per cent disagreed.

Routinisation of protests Social movement scholars in western democracies have pointed out that protest actions have become more routinised and, by implication, less disruptive over the years. Concomitant with the trend is the development toward a more congenial police–protester relationship. Several researchers have noted a shift in police strategy from an emphasis on control in the 1960s and 1970s to an emphasis on negotiation and management in the 1980s and 1990s (Della Porta 1999: 66–96; McCarthy and McPhail 1998: 83–110). In Hong Kong, many activists acknowledged that the police–protester relationship is generally ‘cooperative’. It does not mean that activists would completely trust the police, but they are willing to negotiate with the police on practical matters such as determining the protest route and area. They are willing to provide the police with basic information, such as the estimated size of an upcoming protest, so that the collective action can be managed. They even maintain some contact during large-scale protest actions in order to respond to emergency situations (Lee and Chan 2011). This willingness to cooperate with the police arguably signifies the concerns of conventional movement activists with maintaining the ‘order’ of protests. That is, many traditional activists in Hong Kong would not want the collective actions to result in uncontrolled violence, destruction and arrests. However, the police–protester relationship and interaction have seemingly become more conflictive and confrontational in recent years. In 2011, official statistics show that the Hong Kong police arrested a total of 440 protesters and charged 46 of them. The numbers represent a substantial increase from the figures in year 2010, when there were only 57 arrests and 15 charges.3 While critics questioned if the police are increasingly prone to abuse their power, the increase in arrests is also undeniably related to the emergence 148

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of more radical protest tactics. In fact, among the 440 arrests in 2011, 397 came from the 7/1 rally, the 6/4 commemoration and a large-scale protest against the government budget in March. These arrests came after a group of protesters lay down on the streets to block the traffic. The police claimed that they had warned the protesters without effect and hence could only take action. In other words, the most current Hong Kong situation differs from the ideal typical movement society in that the city is witnessing both the routinisation and radicalisation of protests simultaneously. On the one hand, contentious collective actions are conducted regularly, and most of the protest actions remain peaceful and non-disruptive. In Lee and Chan’s (2013) content analysis, only 5.7 per cent of the protest events in 2009 reported in the news involved protesters using physical force, and only 6.5 per cent involved the police using physical force. But, on the other hand, specific groups of protesters have seemingly taken a radical turn. Given the media, especially television’s appetite for sensational visuals, images of conflicts between protesters and police can become highly prominent in the news. It is difficult to ascertain whether the trend towards a more conflictive protester–police relationship would continue, but the above suggests that the development of protest politics in Hong Kong does not always move in a linear direction. New social and political developments may lead contentious politics to diverge from its existing developmental path.

Mass communication and social mobilisation The previous section has reviewed the key developments of social movements and contentious collective actions in Hong Kong. The rise of protest politics can be explained from several angles. Political scientist Peter Cheung (2011: 113–21) argued that the existing mechanisms the Hong Kong government use to engage public opinion have become outdated and ineffective. The public thus finds the need to voice their views through more direct means. Similarly, sociologist Agnes Ku (2009: 505–27) argued that the Special Administrative Region (SAR) government failed to develop a notion of democratic citizenship that would help absorb public demands in the policy-making process more effectively. Political scientist Ngok Ma (2011: 683–712) tied the rise of protest politics to changes in political and cultural values. While Hong Kong people used to hold an instrumental view of democracy and a belief in the efficiency and fairness of a low-intervention economic system, post-handover developments have led to disenchantment with the neoliberal myth. Citizens developed stronger support for democracy and postmaterialist values, which are then expressed through social protests. A thorough discussion of the systemic and cultural bases of protest politics is out of the scope of this chapter. Suffice it to say that no matter what political and cultural bases are there, social mobilisation would not arise automatically. We contend that media communications have played important roles in social mobilisation in Hong Kong, especially due to the weaknesses of local movement organisations and civic associations. In resource mobilisation theory, the rise of social movements is explained in terms of how movement organisations recruit activists, frame issues, pool together resources and mobilise supporters for actions (McCarthy and Zald 1973 and 1977: 1212–41). In Hong Kong, however, the development of civil society is hindered by ‘the lack of resources and manpower, internal divisions, the prevalence of a depoliticised culture, and the marginalisation of its role in politics’ (Lam and Tong 2007: 146). In this situation, the presence of a communication infrastructure becomes crucial as it can partly compensate for the absence of a strong organisational basis for mobilisation. Indeed, the weak organisation-based mobilisation and the heavy reliance on communication channels for mobilisation have resulted in what may be called self-mobilisation – mobilisation initiated and conducted by ordinary citizens themselves 149

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in a largely diffuse, decentralised and horizontal manner. This is a form of spontaneous mobilisation commonly found in Hong Kong (Lee and Chan 2011). The communication infrastructure for social mobilisation is composed of both the mass media and new media technologies. We consider the two as intertwined to form a holistic mediascape. However, for presentational clarity, we will first discuss the roles of the mass media and then turn to new media technologies in the next section.

Direct mobilisation and action facilitation On 1 July 2003, Apple Daily, a mass-oriented newspaper highly critical of the government, printed ‘Take to the street and see you there’ as its front-page headline. In the month prior to the 7/1 protest in 2003, mobilisation messages were also widely circulated through the mass media. After the protest, Chinese officials have reportedly pinpointed ‘one newspaper, one magazine, and two mouths’ – referring to the Apple Daily, Next Magazine and two famous talk show hosts – as major mobilisers. The question of whether certain media outlets have mobilised citizens to protest was hotly debated. Indeed, empirical research has shown that readers of Apple Daily and listeners of populist talk radio were more likely to have participated in various kinds of protests (Lee 2007: 78–96; Lee and Chan 2011). These findings suggest that media outlets could indeed mobilise people to act when they explicitly play the role of mobilising agents. However, other empirical findings suggest that media can also facilitate protest participation even if they do not explicitly mobilise their audience. In the case of the 7/1 protest in 2003, readers of the elite-oriented newspaper Ming Pao were also more likely than readers of other newspapers to have participated, even though Ming Pao had taken a largely neutral approach when reporting the national security legislation controversy (Lee and Chan 2011). Besides, Chan and Lee (2005) also showed that, while there is no relationship between general news consumption and participation in the 7/1 protest in 2003, there is a positive relationship between news consumption and participation in other protests. These latter findings point to the more fundamental ‘facilitating role’ of the mass media. Citizens cannot participate in a protest unless they know that there is one. Therefore, merely by reporting on the time and place of an upcoming protest, i.e. by providing people with what Lemert (1981) called ‘mobilising information’, the media is already facilitating citizen participation. Moreover, when the news media report on a protest action, they may maintain their neutrality by juxtaposing the views of people who support the protest against those who oppose it. Despite the balancing act, this kind of coverage does provide the audience with views supportive of the protest action. People who selectively accept only the pro-protest views may then decide to take action. Moreover, when the pro-protest views came from authoritative social leaders, the views may help ‘certify’ (McAdam et al. 2001) the legitimacy of the protest action and thus heighten people’s intention to participate. The mass media, therefore, constitute an important platform for mobilisation and specific outlets may even serve as mobilising agents. The media can also act simply as messengers for protest organisers and/or activists; and, as pointed out earlier, having the mass media serving as messenger can be particularly important for movement organisations in Hong Kong because the latter do not have strong membership bases and networks.

Status conferral For movement organisations and activists, media access is important not only for the purpose of mobilisation, but also because regular media appearances could signify their status as legitimate 150

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spokespersons on social and political matters. More than 60 years ago, Lazarsfeld and Merton (1948) called this the status conferral function of the mass media. In Hong Kong, Chan (1992: 106–29) argued that the news media did confer status on social movements in the 1970s by starting to report their actions and use them as sources. There is a lack of systematic research in the past decade documenting the media appearances of social movement organisations. But for illustration, we constructed Table 9.2 by searching through the electronic news archive Wise News for the numbers of articles published in five major newspapers in Hong Kong between 2002 and 2011 mentioning the names of three selected movement organisations. We chose the three organisations because their characteristics would allow us to make a few key points. Specifically, the first two columns show the frequencies of media appearances of two environmental organisations. Founded in 1968, the Conservancy Association is currently managed by a group of social elites, with the chairperson being a Justice of Peace and the vice-chairperson being a professor in environmental engineering. But, as Table 9.2 shows, while the association did get some media attention in 2002 and 2003, media attention substantially increased after 2004. In contrast to the Conservancy Association, Green Sense was established in 2004 by a 24year-old, but it caught up very quickly in terms of media access. Into the latter half of the 2000s, the organisation’s frequencies of media appearance have already matched that of the Conservancy Association. Whether the organisation has any specific media strategies is an issue for further research. But the figures in Table 9.2 do suggest that it is nowadays not necessarily difficult for even a new civic association to attract the media spotlight. Certainly, it may be relatively easy for environmental organisations to gain media access because the claims they make are usually consonant with public opinion at large. The case of Zi Teng, an organisation established in 1996 working for the rights of sex workers, is therefore useful to illustrate how a movement organisation working for a marginalised group in the society would fare in terms of media access. As Table 9.2 shows, Zi Teng was almost totally invisible in the media before 2003. Yet, similar to the Conservancy Association, Zi Teng’s frequencies of media appearance increased afterwards and soared suddenly in 2008 and 2009. The surge was due to a series of serious crimes against sex workers, which provided important discursive opportunities

Table 9.2 Media presence of selected movement organisations

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Total

The Conservancy Association

Green Sense

Zi Teng

58 49 100 104 103 207 151 120 249 192 1,226

n/a n/a 8 39 80 188 117 182 152 199 965

2 14 29 32 40 53 138 104 37 24 457

Note: n/a = not applicable because the organisation was not yet established. The entries are number of articles mentioning the name of the organisation on the main news and Hong Kong news pages of Ming Pao, Apple Daily, Oriental Daily, Sing Tao Daily and Wen Wei Pao.

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for the organisation. As the issue subsided, Zi Teng’s media appearances declined, but it is still featured in the news occasionally. This appears to indicate that it has assumed the status of a legitimate association from the perspective of the journalists. On the whole, although the organisations in Table 9.2 are not representative of all movement organisations in Hong Kong, the table does illustrate the news media’s willingness to use movement organisations as sources when relevant events occur or when the claims made by the movements are in tune with public opinion. Such media appearances should help movements achieve status as legitimate speakers on social matters. They should also contribute to popular perceptions of movements as representative of public opinion.

Cultural codification When trying to mobilise public support, social movements need to develop ways of talking about their ideas so that people will find them persuasive. Meaning construction is an important task facing social movements (e.g. Gamson 1992; Gamson and Modigliani 1989: 1–37). Besides, citizens also need ways to make sense of contentious collective actions in general. Therefore, the rise of protest politics in Hong Kong in the past decade was partly facilitated by the growth of a range of discursive resources with which people can make claims and make sense of protest actions. An example of discursive resources for the articulation of issues and demands is the notion of ‘property hegemony’, a phrase popularised in the city after the publication of a book with the same title in 2009. The phrase highlights the huge influence of the biggest property developers in Hong Kong on the government, the policy-making process and society at large. It provides a term for people to articulate together various social problems and trace their root cause to the overwhelming influence of the property tycoons. Since 2009, the phrase has become a prominent focus of criticism in various large- and small-scale protests in the city. By employing the phrase, protesters can articulate their demands in a way that would more easily strike a chord among the general public. Regarding discourses about protests in general, Chan and Lee’s (2006: 71–96) analysis of public discourses surrounding the 7/1 protest in 2003 has shown how commentators converged to praise the ‘peaceful and rational’ quality of the protest and the civic quality of the protesters. Commentators highlighted the lack of violence during the protest and attributed it to the characteristics of ‘the people’. The image of ‘high quality Hong Kong people’ and the emphasis on peacefulness and rationality made it possible to describe protest actions in very positive terms; and since 2003, the theme of ‘peacefulness and rationality’ has reappeared in media discourses surrounding many other protest actions. It became a yardstick for evaluating the ‘quality’ of various protests. Notably, an overwhelming emphasis on rationality has its downside, as it arguably fails to challenge the hegemony of the ‘order imagery’ in public culture (Ku 2007: 186–200). It can easily be appropriated by conservative politicians to undermine specific forms and instances of ‘irrational’ protest actions. But it does help define a specific form of contentious collective actions as appropriate and legitimate. The news media did not invent all the discursive resources. What the media provide is a platform for such discursive resources to be generated and circulated. However, we should not exaggerate the capability of movements to control whether and how the media would take up their discourses. Other social and political actors can generate their own ways of talking about social problems that may undermine social mobilisation, and sometimes power holders can also appropriate social movements’ discourses. The heritage protection movement is a case in point. During the movement to oppose the dismantling of the Star Ferry Pier in 2005, the media 152

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largely framed the issue in terms of Hong Kong people’s collective memory. Activists found the frame problematic, though, since it tended to lead to sheer nostalgia. Over time, some activists abandoned the notion of collective memory and even the phrase ‘heritage protection’ and turned to emphasise the idea of ‘public space’ (Ku 2012: 5–22). In sum, new discursive resources have appeared in Hong Kong which constituted the cultural code through which protest actions can be legitimised. Yet cultural codification is an ongoing struggle. The media is the platform for such discursive contestation, while they also play the roles of circulators and sometimes generators of discourses.

Media portrayal of protests and Hong Kong media’s political parallelism The three previous sections have highlighted how the media have arguably helped the development of social movements. But with or without benefiting movements, another fundamental role of the media is to report on the occurrence of collective actions. Critical scholars have long identified the mainstream media as agents of social control. Hence the media often have the tendency to portray social movements in negative ways (Chan and Lee 1984: 183–202; Gitlin 1980). The contemporary media scene in Hong Kong, however, is more complicated. On the one hand, the local media tend to cover protests in a negative light when the protests involve violence (even if the violence is largely symbolic, such as when protesters overturn a police car when there is no police officer in it) (e.g. Ku 2007: 186–200; Lee 2008: 57–78). This may be explained by an emphasis on rationality, order and peacefulness of protest actions. Commercialised media tend to attract audiences through the use of sensational visuals, so they may be inclined towards exaggerating the violent aspects of a collective action. This inclination has strained the relationship between the media and the more radical wings of the local social movements because the latter are often perceived to be given unfair or distorted treatment in the news (Leung 2010). On the other hand, our previous discussion on cultural codification also implies that the Hong Kong media may also cover many contentious collective actions in a neutral or even positive manner. This would be the case when the protest action is largely ‘peaceful and rational’ in its form and style of expression and the claims being made, though contentious in the sense that they go against the interests of another group or entity, are nonetheless seen as representing the view of the public at large. The most prominent examples of this type of collective actions include the 7/1 protest and the 6/4 commemoration rally. Notably, the media system in Hong Kong exhibits a substantial degree of political parallelism – there are news organisations that adopt a more explicitly pro-democracy perspective, and there are also pro-government and conservative newspapers. But as Chan and Lee (2006: 71–96) illustrated, in the case of the 7/1 protest in 2003 newspapers representing different political perspectives converged to stand by the general public when ‘energised public opinion’ was powerfully expressed through the demonstration. Over time, the political differences among the newspapers did re-emerge. But instead of dismissing or criticising the 6/4 rallies or 7/1 protests, the conservative newspapers typically opted to either downplay the prominence of such actions or develop their own discursive strategies to dampen the social influence of these protests. For example, instead of treating the 7/1 protests as a series of pro-democracy demonstrations, conservative newspapers tended to emphasise the plurality of the claims being expressed and the ‘carnivalesque’ atmosphere surrounding the collective action. The example of the 7/1 protests thus suggests that Hong Kong media organisations of varying political predilections have developed their own discursive strategies in covering different types 153

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of protest actions. Some media organisations, because of their connections with the political establishment, are definitely still playing the role of agents of social control. But nowadays they have to play this role within a public arena where much more sympathetic portrayals of collective actions also exist. This results in a more complicated mix of news reports and discourses surrounding social movements and collective actions.

New media and social mobilisation While citizens remain largely reliant on the mass media for information about the political world, the advance of new media technologies has had substantial impact on how people connect with each other. Not surprisingly, the role of new media in social mobilisation has also attracted much scholarly attention. In Hong Kong, a few studies have demonstrated the mobilisation potential of new media technologies. We can highlight three major implications of new media on social mobilisation in the city: new media as channels for action mobilisation, new media as channels for attitudinal support activation and new media as platforms for new forms of contentious collective actions.

New media as channels for mobilisation The earliest study of the role of new media in social mobilisation in Hong Kong was concerned about the mobilisation processes behind large-scale protests. Drawing upon onsite surveys conducted at the 7/1 protests in 2003 and 2004, Chan and Lee (2005) showed that participatory leaders and participatory followers, i.e. those who have called upon others to participate in the protests and those who heeded the calls of others to participate in the protests, differed in the extent to which they used the internet for sharing information about public affairs and sharing information about the 7/1 demonstrations. More generally, Chan and Lee (2005) argued that the mobilisation processes behind the 7/1 protests in 2003 and 2004 were consistent with the two-step flow model – the participatory leaders were more likely than the participatory followers to see the mass media as influential on their decision to participate, whereas followers were more likely than the leaders to see interpersonal influences as important. New media technologies constituted a channel through which the participating leaders and followers could communicate with each other. Lee and Chan’s (2010) analysis of the 6/4 commemoration rally in 2010 partly replicated such findings and partly provided insights into some new developments since the emergence of social media. Their onsite survey shows that 29.4 per cent of the rally participants frequently shared with other people information and messages related to public affairs online, while only 7.8 per cent indicated that they never shared such information and messages online. At the same time, 20.0 per cent of the participants reported that they frequently participated in Facebook groups addressing public issues, while only 21.4 per cent reported that they never did so. Rally participants who were active in online political communication, when compared to their inactive counterparts, were more likely to have called upon their friends and acquaintances to participate in the 6/4 rally and more likely to have made an earlier participatory decision. In other words, these people were more likely to have played a leading role in the process of social mobilisation behind the 6/4 rally. Beyond the large-scale protests, social media have also played a role in generating among young people higher levels of political participation in a wide range of activities. A survey on university students conducted in late 2011 showed that 46.0 per cent of the respondents reported 154

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‘sometimes’ talking about politics or current affairs on social networking sites, and 27.0 per cent reported that they have joined a Facebook group addressing a topic related to politics or public affairs. These figures show that a substantial proportion of young people are politically connected through social media. In addition, a multiple regression analysis shows that both belonging to a Facebook political group and frequency of political discussion through social networking sites are positively related to offline political participation (Lee 2014).

New media as channels for attitudinal support activation Besides mobilisation for action, new media may also help garner broader public support for social movements and their causes as they provide channels for communication and persuasion. Nevertheless, it is questionable if movement organisations and activists can easily persuade all citizens through new media. Rather, what is likely to happen is that specific movements and collective actions can activate the support from people who are already predisposed toward supporting social movements in general. This support activation role of the new media has to be understood in relation to how people engage in political communications. As many scholars in the USA have pointed out, the advance of new media and the concomitant proliferation of media outlets have led to heightened degrees of audience selectivity (Bennett and Iyengar 2008: 707–31; Stroud 2010). Although the phenomenon of selective exposure has been examined for decades, the proliferation of media choices and the interactivity of the new media environment mean that it has become substantially easier for citizens to actually exercise selectivity. Therefore, people are increasingly likely to be exposed mainly or even only to likeminded views. Whether this is normatively desirable is a matter of debate, but it does imply that new media-based communications are particularly likely to reinforce people’s existing views rather than changing their views (Bennett and Iyengar 2008: 707–31). Following this line of argument, we may expect pro-movement messages on the internet to reach mainly people who are already holding positive attitudes toward social movements. This support activation hypothesis was tested by Lee and Chan’s (2012: 1–23) analysis of the anti-express rail movement in Hong Kong in early 2010. They found that people who named the internet as an important source of information about the express rail controversy were more likely to oppose the government’s plan to build a railroad to connect to China’s express rail system. In other words, reliance on the internet for information is related to support for the cause of the anti-express rail movement. More importantly, this relationship is stronger among people who treated social movements as generally representative of public opinion. This latter finding lends support to the activation thesis. Moreover, if people mainly encounter consonant information and interact with likeminded people on the internet, online political communication may lead to more extreme political attitudes and hence stronger support for radical actions. Lee and Chan (2012: 1–23) tested this opinion radicalisation hypothesis by examining if people who relied on the internet for movement-related information were more likely to support a couple of relatively radical actions undertaken by the activists. The finding indeed supported the hypothesis, but in line with the argument of support activation the positive relationship between reliance on the internet for information and support for radical actions was applicable only to people who held positive attitudes toward social movements in general. On the whole, Lee and Chan’s (2012: 1–23) findings point to the capability of new media to help social movements to solidify and activate, though not necessarily expand, their support base. 155

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New media, new forms of collective actions In addition to being channels for mobilisation and communication, new media also constitute platforms for action. The aforementioned survey study of university students found that 12.0 per cent of the respondents have signed an online petition on some public matters (Lee 2014). The onsite survey conducted during the 6/4 rally in 2010 also found that 14.2 per cent of the participants had frequently or very frequently signed online petitions, whereas only 24.3 per cent reported having never signed an online petition (Lee and Chan 2010). Petition campaigns are a long-established form of collective action. The online arena simply provides a platform on which the circulation of the petition can be quicker and easier. More interestingly, new media can also be a platform for the emergence of new forms of collective actions (Earl and Kimport 2011). One major form involves the collective creation and circulation of symbols as a way of online protest. An illustration in this connection is the online satire-fest in Hong Kong. In a satire-fest, some individuals kick-start the process by producing satirical videos or pictures, expressing a criticism or a contentious claim against certain organisations, individuals or policies. As the satirical products catch the imagination of others, some people respond by producing their own entries following the templates of the earlier products. The result is an accumulating and widely circulating body of satirical materials expressing the same underlying claim. One actual case of such an online satire-fest occurred in February and March 2012 amidst the election for chief executive in Hong Kong. Since the chief executive was elected only by a 1,200-member committee, the election was criticised by pro-democracy citizens and politicians as being a ‘small-circle game’. Furthermore, two of the major candidates in the election were embroiled in various scandals. In February 2012, some newspapers charged Henry Tang, a major candidate who was also the former chief secretary of the government, for having an illegally built basement in his home. When it became clear that the news was true, and Tang apparently ran out of excuses, some citizens produced satirical posters based on the Batman movies, joking that ‘I am actually Batman’ is the last excuse Tang could use. The Batman posters were circulated widely through Facebook, and new ‘movie posters’ quickly proliferated as other citizens made their own based on a wide range of popular films. In the online satire-fest, there is no fixed time and place for people to act together. People sharing the same sentiments underlying the satirical materials are simply drawn into the process of creative accumulation. But the process taken as a whole can be regarded as a collective action as individuals are responding to and adding on to what each other has produced. More importantly, the satirical products are often circulated collectively or linked with each other in cyberspace. Many people, therefore, would encounter the satirical products in the form of a collection or as an intertextual chain, as exposure to one satirical article leads them to another similar satirical article and so on. The voice expressed through the creative production is ultimately a collective one. The example of online satire-fest thus illustrates how new media are facilitating new forms of collective actions, enriching the repertoire of contention in contemporary societies.

Concluding remarks This chapter has discussed the major roles played by the mass media and new media technologies in social mobilisation in Hong Kong. To recapitulate, while a number of news outlets have occasionally served as mobilising agents, the mass media have mainly played a facilitating role in the formation of social protests through providing information and amplifying the messages 156

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of activists. On a more day-to-day basis, the mass media also helped legitimise social movements as important actors and speakers in the political communication process by using movement activists and organisations as news sources. Moreover, the mass media served as the platform for the process of cultural codification – the generation, articulation and circulation of discursive resources that movements and citizens can use to make issue-specific claims and legitimise protest actions. New media technologies, meanwhile, are important channels for citizens to mobilise people around them for collective actions. At the same time, movement-related information and persuasive messages are widely circulated through new media, and the heightened levels of selective exposure in the new media environment means that communication through new media can activate support for a specific movement among people who hold positive views toward social movements in general. Finally, new media technologies also serve as the platforms for both old and new types of collective actions. New media thus extend the space for protest actions to be conducted and enrich the repertoire of contention. All these functions not only point to how mass media and new media can facilitate the formation of specific contentious collective actions, they also point to the role played by the media in the normalisation of social movements and protest actions in Hong Kong. As pointed out earlier, this chapter has separated the discussions of mass media and new media only for the sake of clarity. In reality, communications through mass media and new media are often intertwined through processes of remediation and recreation. For example, much new mediabased mobilisation involves people circulating contents from the mass media. Besides, what we have called online satire-fest often involves people working on materials provided by the mass media (such as movie posters in the case discussed in this chapter). Therefore, we can argue that one additional role of mass media in social mobilisation in contemporary Hong Kong is to serve as a provider of symbolic resources for citizens engaging in online social mobilisation or new-media based collective actions. From the other way round, social mobilisation and collective actions on new media can also become materials for the mass media to report. When a Facebook political group gains the support of a huge number of citizens, it may become a news story in itself. Given the status conferral function of the mass media, such media reports can legitimise and encourage more people to engage in the new-media based mobilisation and actions. Even more fundamentally, one might argue that the boundary separating mass communication and new media communication is actually blurred. When a Facebook political group is set up and a collection of people’s creative protest materials is exhibited, the Facebook group can also be regarded as engaging in mass communication – the communication of messages to a large unknown and undifferentiated audience. The close relationship between new media and mass media and the blurred boundary between the two constitute the reason why they are considered as forming an integrated communication infrastructure underlying the rise of social protests in Hong Kong. It should be noted that, when compared to many other countries, the literature on media and social protests in Hong Kong is relatively uneven. In fact, readers may recognise that not all the arguments in this chapter are validated by evidence. Therefore, research in some of the areas discussed in this chapter is very much in need. The media coverage of protest is an example. While some studies based on qualitative textual analysis of media coverage of and public discourses surrounding individual cases of protests do exist (e.g. Chan and Lee 2006: 71–96; Ku 2007: 186–200; Lee 2008: 57–78), we lack a systematic analysis of media coverage of contentious collective actions in general. For example, do the news media cover protests differently based on the topics and organisers of the protests? How do the news media portray different forms 157

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of contentious collective actions? Did the tone of media coverage of protests change over time? Answering these questions can enrich our understanding of the media–protest relationship in the city. Another area where research is needed is the development of new forms of online contentious collective actions. We have discussed the example of how the satirical videos and pictures produced by individual citizens can be considered as constituting a collective action. Yet further research should be done to examine how frequently and in response to what topics this type of protest is staged. There is also the need to examine in more detail the characteristics of the satirical videos and pictures in order to discern how contentious claims are made through such practices. Certainly, attention should be paid to other emerging forms of collective actions in the new media environment. For instance, in a digitised environment it becomes much easier for people to express their concern about a given issue on the internet. Where do we draw a line between the mere focusing of online discourses on a given topic and an online collective action in this regard? The next question that follows is about how online collective action is connected to offline collective actions in real life. These are all questions that deserve the attention of researchers. Moreover, it should be acknowledged that this chapter’s discussion may have left out certain issues. For instance, we have not discussed whether and how social movement organisations have utilised new media technologies to communicate their views and recruit activists. This is partly due to the lack of existing research in this area in Hong Kong, and partly related to the fact that organisations of social movements in Hong Kong are relatively weak and arguably do not play as important a role in social mobilisation as their counterparts in other countries. In fact, we have argued that the importance of the communication infrastructure for social mobilisation in Hong Kong resides partly in its capability to compensate for the absence of strong movement organisations. This explains why we have characterised the typical mode of social mobilisation in Hong Kong as self-mobilisation. We trust that the self-mobilisation model is especially applicable in places where the communication infrastructure grows at a faster rate than social organisations. Nevertheless, we have to conclude by stating that we do not treat the communication infrastructure as capable of completely replacing movement organisations or networks. There are certain roles and functions of social movement organisations that the communication infrastructure, no matter how well developed, may not be able to take up. Most notably, local sociologists and political scientists have pointed out that social movements in Hong Kong often adopt a coalitional model when addressing specific issues. That is, they often join forces to form ad hoc coalitions when facing important matters. Yet such ad hoc coalitions tend to disband once the imminent issue is resolved (Ma 2009: 9–23; Lee and Chan 2011). Social movements in Hong Kong, therefore, tend to address various issues on a case-by-case basis, resulting in a lack of movements that can provide a sustained challenge to the status quo from the vantage of a coherent ideology. An implication is that the civil society in Hong Kong is, according to Ma (2005: 456–82), good at defending existing rights but not at fighting for new rights. In our view, the communication infrastructure does not seem to be capable of resolving this limitation either. In the end, having a strong communication infrastructure does not obliterate the need for continual development of social movement organisations and civil society associations in Hong Kong.

Notes 1

According to article 23 of the Basic Law, the mini-constitution of Hong Kong, the Special Administrative Region government had the responsibility to enact laws protecting national security

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2

3

and integrity. In late 2002, the Hong Kong government started the consultation and legislation processes. The proposed law aroused huge public opposition, however, because of its possible implications on a wide range of civil liberties. The government was also criticised for not allowing enough time for public discussions. The commemoration rally is an instance of contentious collective action because it invariably involves the participants calling for the Chinese government to reverse its verdict of the events in 1989. It has also become a platform, in recent years, for people to protest against China’s suppression of human rights and failure to democratise. ‘Police arrests of protesters increased six-fold; denial of abuse of power’, Ming Pao, 18 January 2012, p. A08.

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10 Citizen journalists as an empowering community for change A case study of a Taiwanese online platform ‘PeoPo’ Chen-ling Hung

One woman sobbed in tears as she said, ‘I fell to my knees in front of the excavators begging them not to destroy my farmland, but they just wouldn’t listen to me.’ Excavators drove all over the fields, completely destroying the rice that was ready for harvesting, leaving only a pile of muck in their wake. Farmers could only look on in bewilderment at the destroyed rice fields, speechlessly looking to the heavens for the reason why. – subtitles in online news clip, ‘When the excavators came to the rice fields’ (Jieli 2010)

In mid-June 2010, an online video of excavators driving into farmland shocked many Taiwanese viewers (see Figure 10.1). They were angered by the violence of excavators, felt sympathy for those powerless farmers and started to ask what happened. This happened on 9 June 2010 when the Miaoli County Government in western Taiwan planned to expropriate a total of 28 hectares in Dapu Borough and sent in excavators to dig up rice paddies despite the opposition of farmers. Farmers and local protestors asked for a citizen journalist’s help to videotape and edit the scene ‘When the excavators came to the rice fields’ (Jieli 2010). Photographs and video clips of the demolitions spread quickly on the internet and in the media, turning the Dapu land controversy from a local issue into a national debate. On 17 July 2010, around 1,000 farmers and activists staged an overnight sit-in on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the presidential office to protest land seizures in Miaoli County. Facing media and public criticism, President Ma Ying-jeou held an urgent meeting with the cabinet and instructed Premier Wu Den-yih to help settle the disputed expropriation of farmland from farmers and negotiate with the Miaoli County Government (Huang 2010). As a result, the Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung apologised publicly for his failure to supervise his subordinates who destroyed the farmland (Wang 2010: 1). This case suggests the power of citizen journalism in Taiwan. While the aforementioned events are random examples, the network and influence of citizen journalists is not. Instead, 161

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Figure 10.1 The image ‘When the excavators came to the rice fields’ which was posted online and broadcast on media, causing a national debate on land policy Source: PeoPo platform (www.peopo.org/portal.php?op=viewPost&articleId=58748)

this network is cultivated by a citizen journalism platform PeoPo, the abbreviation of ‘People Post’ which was created by Taiwan’s Public Television Service (PTS).

Introduction to the case study of PeoPo In April 2007, PTS established the PeoPo Citizen Journalism Platform to encourage public participation in news production. As a friendly Web 2.0 platform, PeoPo was designed for citizens to report and share news stories online. In addition, training curricula and courses are provided to empower Taiwanese citizens and organisations so that they are capable of reporting on important environmental, socio-economic and cultural issues. By September 2012, PeoPo had recruited more than 5,000 citizen reporters and 200 non-profit organisations. Together they have generated over 76,000 articles, and half of them are original multimedia works of great topical interest conveying a grassroots perspective.1 PeoPo’s efforts attracted attention from the mainstream media and international news organisations. Since the creation of PeoPo, PTS has been invited to share its experience of developing citizen journalism with media-related organisations, including the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA), Public Broadcasters International (PBI), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Japanese public service broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) and the International Institute of Communications 162

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(IIC). The International Press Institute (IPI) annual conference in 2011 tabled PeoPo as a focus session for discussion (PeoPo Webcast 2011). Philipe Harding of BBC World News has commented that PeoPo could be a model for citizen journalism and ‘one of the best strategies for extending public media service in the digital era’. Harding believes that following PeoPo’s design, citizen journalism will be incorporated into public television, facilitating coverage of grassroots stories through the viewpoints of citizens, and reaching new levels of news reporting which will reach beyond the scope of traditional media (Harding 2010). Why can PeoPo be influential? What is so unique about it? What can we learn from this case? Furthermore, how is the platform designed and operated? What are PeoPo’s achievements? What are the impacts on participants from the viewpoint of empowerment? What implications does it have on our understanding of the media, online journalism and citizen participation? To answer these questions, this chapter applies the concepts of participatory communication and citizen journalism to examine the development and influences of PeoPo. The discussion includes a brief analysis of this platform and interviews with the platform manager and its citizen reporters. This chapter thus aims to analyse the practice and influences of PeoPo and how this model would advance our understanding of citizen journalism.

Citizen journalism under debate Citizen journalism is a popular label2 used to describe ‘people without professional journalism training’ who ‘can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others’ (Glaser 2006). Accordingly, what distinguishes citizen journalism from traditional journalism is the participation of people who are not professional full-time journalists, but who nevertheless engage in news/information production and sharing. Besides, citizen journalism represents a bottomup phenomenon in which ‘there is little or no editorial oversight or formal journalistic workflow dictating the decisions of a staff. Instead, it is the result of many simultaneous, distributed conversations that either blossom or quickly atrophy in the web’s social network’ (Bowman and Willis 2003: 9). These definitions see citizen journalism as a specific form of media used by citizens, as well as referring to user-generated content. It reveals three features: active citizens, participation and interaction. First, news making and distribution are no longer the exclusive privilege of media organisations and professional journalists. Instead, ‘every citizen is a reporter’ as the Korean online newspaper OhmyNews claimed (Gillmor 2003).3 In the traditional broadcasting pattern, communication flow is one-way and the message is transmitted from a few trained professionals to a mass of isolated audience. Now audiences are not groups of passive receivers, but are instead people who actively respond to messages and even produce and distribute their own messages (C. Chang 2013). Second, it is possible to explain why audience members are becoming participants. Amy Jo Kim (2006) mapped human’s offline needs4 to online community equivalents, assuming that people are motivated to participate in order to achieve a sense of belonging to a group, to build self-esteem through contributing, to garner recognition for participating, and to develop new skills and opportunities for ego building and self-actualisation. Based on the above assumptions, when making online news an individual may be motivated by multiple reasons: to gain status or build reputation in a given community, to create connections with others who have similar 163

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interests (online and offline), to inform and be informed, to entertain and be entertained, and to create (Bowman and Willis 2003). Participation is a founding principle on most online news sites (Allan 2006). Taking Korea’s OhmyNews as an example, when people register on the news site they are invited to participate in news production regarding whatever topic interests them. Moreover, they are encouraged to have their own perspective and writing style (Bowman and Willis 2003). Thanks to the variety of online news platforms and functions, citizens can easily find a way of participation that fits their interests. Third, citizen journalism exhibits characteristics of sharing and discussion sites because of their emphasis on interaction and the exchange of ideas (Bentley et al. 2007: 239–59). Since it offers more interaction than traditional news outlets, one can use a citizen journalism site either as a reader, as a writer or as both (Strohecker and Ananny 2002: 1128–31). Facilitated by the interactive function of Web 2.0, most news sites rely on the conversations among their participants to monitor, evaluate and give feedback to online news content. Such practices therefore form a collaborative community with a strong identity, a sense of belonging and the possibility of exercising influence. Communications undertaken by citizens within a certain community may be transformed into social actions (W. Chang 2005: 925–35). Many significant events have demonstrated the power of citizen journalism, especially during times of disaster and emergency. For example, during 9/11 many eyewitness accounts of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center came from citizen journalists (Glaser 2006). In 2004, when a huge tsunami hit Banda Aceh in Indonesia, footage shot by those who experienced the disaster was widely broadcast by mainstream news outlets. The same happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters in US history. Some 3,000 files with images and video were emailed by citizen journalists to CNN.com over the first three days of the hurricane (Allan 2006). In the London bombing attacks in July 2005, due to the inaccessibility of the underground disaster scene, media organisations requested audiences’ help to get footage from areas journalists could not access. In the event, messages made by Londoners caught up in the tragedy were extensively used by news sites and media. For Rob O’Neoll, when victims and witnesses of the major disaster recorded and distributed onsite messages to others, their actions symbolised one of the most amazing developments in media history. Until then, ‘citizen journalism was an idea. It was the future, some people said. After London, it had arrived’ (Allan 2006: 167). In authoritarian countries or countries experiencing political transformation, citizen journalists can play a role in democratic movements and political crisis. The democracy movement in Burma in which participants used mobile phones to capture scenes of protests and uploaded them on to the internet gained global attention. The Arab Spring in 2011, once simply framed as a ‘social media revolution’, witnessed the power of Facebook, Twitter and email to mobilise. Based on the survey of participants in Egypt’s Tahrir Square protests, research finds that social media facilitated social ties and provided individuals news, information and support to join the political protest. In turn participants actively documented and shared information about the protests, thus fitting the definition of citizen journalists (Tufekci and Wilson 2012: 363–79). Another study argues that these protests were the result of long-term movements cultivated by oppositional forces which made use of advanced technology for information sharing and networking, thus transforming online activism into offline action (Lim 2012: 231–48). When taking a journalistic perspective to examine the influence of citizen journalism in the Arab Spring, research finds that social media provides counter-discourses against the mainstream media. While state-controlled newspapers framed the protests as ‘a conspiracy on the Egyptian government’ which caused chaos, social media posts used a frame of ‘a revolution for freedom 164

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and social justice’ to recognise collective action. But research results warned that social media were not guided by journalistic standards because not all posts could be verified, hence rumours proliferated (Hamdy and Gomaa 2012: 195–211). While citizen journalism finds its impact on social change and in time of crisis, its quality and claims of truthfulness often becomes the target of critics (mostly in traditional media institutions). For example, the New York Times has accused proponents of public journalism of abandoning the traditional goal of objectivity. Many traditional journalists view citizen journalism with some scepticism, believing that only trained journalists can understand the art and ethics involved in reporting news (Gillmor 2006; Gant 2007). Vincent Maher, media critic from the New Media Lab at Rhodes University, outlined several weaknesses in the claims made by citizen journalists by focusing on the ‘three deadly E’s’: ethics, economics and epistemology (cited in Lievrouw 2011). Citizen journalists are not professionals, so they lack training in ethics. They lack financial support, and they also lack the equipment and skills available to professional journalists (scepticism which is also found in research on Taiwan, see Chen 2007; He 2007). In short, critics claim that unpaid bloggers who write as a hobby cannot replace trained and professional journalists. In rebuttal proponents of citizen journalism argue that citizen journalists can be more professional than traditional journalists because the former are more independent from interference by political and commercial forces (Gant 2007). When citizen journalists report issues more relevant to their profession (e.g. when a scientist covers a scientific-relevant story), they tend to be more accurate and professional. Besides, citizen journalism has gained some recognition among professionals. For example, a US independent and non-profit newsroom, ProPublica,5 won the Pulitzer Prize for its efforts in disclosing corporate scandals, and the OhmyNews was able to influence the Korean presidential election. These two online media have developed a new model of professional–amateur (‘proam’) journalism which demands the collaboration between professional and citizen journalists to advance standards and news quality (Hu 2010: 11–50; Hu 2012: 31–76). PeoPo’s practice is a form of pro-am journalism but represents a different model from the above two examples.

Participatory communication and empowerment Based on the development thesis, participatory communication is by definition the involvement of ordinary people in a development process leading to change (Tufte and Mefalopulos 2009). During the process of participation, the parties who are the target beneficiaries of development projects learn to identify their interests and make decisions on their own, which means disadvantaged people are not only passive receivers of charity, but also empowered agencies for social change. According to Anyaegbunam et al. (2004), to become empowered people need relevant skills, information and knowledge in addition to physical resources and technologies to enable them to improve their circumstances. Focusing on the means of communication technology resources, communication for empowerment is an approach that puts the information and communication needs and interests of disempowered and marginalised groups at the centre of media support. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the aim of communication for empowerment is ‘to ensure that the media has the capacity to generate and provide the information that marginalised groups want and need and to provide a channel for marginalised groups to discuss and voice their perspectives on the issues that most concern them’ (UNDP 2006: 8). To support communication for empowerment, proper strategies are 165

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necessary, including increasing access to information for marginalised groups, highlighting and amplifying marginalised voices, and creating spaces for public debate, dialogue and action (UNDP 2006: 32–5). During the past decades, people used communication technologies such as radio, television and video camera to speak for themselves and fight for better lives. Today the internet and online platforms are the popular and most useful tools for people to participate and take action for change. In this way, the idea of participatory communication finds its modern practice in citizen journalism. Furthermore, participatory communication emphasises the importance of empowerment, and participation is either a means to, or a goal of, empowerment. According to Narayan-Parker (2005: 5), participation becomes a turning point: ‘Empowerment is the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control, and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives’. Therefore, participation produces the outcomes of empowerment on three levels: (1) the individual psycho-social level, (2) the life skills level which emphasises the acquirement of competencies and (3) the institutional level or the level of community development. Tufte and Mefalopulos (2009: 4–5) further clarify the three outcomes as follows: first, psycho-social outcomes of increased feelings of ownership of a problem and a commitment to do something about it; second, improvement of competencies and capacities required to engage with the defined development problem; and third, actual influence on institutions that can affect an individual or community. In the project of citizen journalism, the empowerment of citizens can thus be defined as the strengthening of capability to define their problem, make decisions on their own, take collective action and use technology to enhance personal skills and community development. Since PeoPo values citizens’ awareness and aims to empower citizens by initiating a platform and forming a community, these outcomes of empowerment are expected to be found within the participants of PeoPo.

PeoPo: a platform for people to speak out The project of citizen journalism initiated by Taiwan’s PTS shows its uniqueness by matching Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) and online journalism. With careful design and proper resources in place, citizens have more opportunities to access media, to speak out for themselves and are empowered to serve as the agent for social change. The following remarks will provide firsthand understanding of how this project is carried out and what citizens who participate think about this project.

Initiation and objectives Taiwan’s PTS was launched in 1998 when the media market was fully liberalised. After martial law was lifted in 1987, limitations on media outlets and ownership were gradually removed (Rawnsley and Rawnsley 2001). By 2011, Taiwan had 2,196 newspapers, 8,492 magazines, 171 radio stations, 5 terrestrial TV stations, 62 cable TV operators and 107 satellite TV channels including 8 24-hour news channels among them (B.H. Chen 2012). Because of its liberalised media market and diverse media outlets, Taiwan has been rated as free in the World Press Freedom survey, second in Asia only to Japan. However, citizens are not satisfied with the performance of news media. A survey in December 2003 showed that 58.0 per cent of the Taiwanese audience complain that news reporting is not fair; 52.0 per cent do not trust newspapers and 47.4 per cent do not trust television (Hung 2006: 51–75). 166

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Two years later, a survey showed parents think that TV news does more harm than good for their children; on a scale of 0–10, parents give the credibility of TV news a score of 4.58 (Zhang 2005: C8). History reveals that while commercial media became dominant in Taiwan, they became captives of market logic. Facing severe competition, media now resort to sensational reporting to increase audience ratings, and blend news with messages preferred by advertisers – including commercial businesses and government institutions – to increase revenue (Hung 2013a: 83–93). Because advertising revenue has been declining, media have given up on their responsibility to monitor the government in order to compete for its advertising dollars (S. Chen 2007). Product placement in news has blurred the boundary between news and advertising. This kind of paid news destroys the independence of reporters and editors and in the long run destroys audience trust (Lin 2005). Faced with such widespread public distrust of commercial media, PTS has been striving hard to build a quality media outlet for the public good. Additionally, PTS has suffered from a limited audience during its short history and there was an urgency to reach a larger audience using new technology. PTS started broadcasting five years after the cable TV system was legalised in 1993, and audiences tend to view PTS as an option among 100 TV channels (Rawnsley and Rawnsley 2001). The PTS audience share was 0.16 in 2012, ranking PTS 29 of all TV channels, and it has suffered from losing the young audience. Of its viewers, 62.0 per cent are over 45 years old, 37.0 per cent over 55 and 25.0 per cent between 45 and 54. Only 38.0 per cent of the audience are below 44 while those between 15 and 24 years old comprise merely 6.0 per cent (PTS 2013). For the former director of PTS, Hu Yuan-hui, the answer to strengthening news quality and reaching the young generation was to launch a multimedia citizen journalism project called PeoPo. As the principal advocate of PeoPo, Hu wondered ‘whether there would be other possibilities in a time when news media in Taiwan were under heavy criticism, especially when our communication technologies were quickly developing’. Reflecting on the traditional idea that news media did not have to care about what their audience were thinking, and citizens could not be their own masters, Hu decided it was time to change the active–passive relationship between media professionals and citizens: ‘PeoPo would be an opportunity of change or revolution’ (Hu Yuan-hui, 22 May 2010).6 PTS allocated a budget and three full-time staff to establish the platform. The difference between traditional media and PTS can be identified by the way they treat citizen journalists. On PeoPo, reports from citizen journalists constitute news products without any further editing or amendment by PTS staff: The biggest difference between other media and PeoPo is that we don’t treat citizen journalists as sources. Rather, we establish a community of citizen journalists and let them speak for themselves. We enable citizens to speak out on a huge scale. Until now we haven’t seen anything similar among other public broadcasters. (Lin Le-qun, 13 May 2010)7 In short, PeoPo is designed to turn a passive audience into active news producers with the assistance of interactive technology. To make this platform well known and used, PeoPo enlists citizen groups and college students as major participators. According to its Team Head Yu Zhili, ‘PeoPo is defined as a platform for citizens and grassroots activists to speak. Thus we strongly combine it with local Non-Profit Organisations (NPO), Non-Government Organisations (NGO) and citizen activists’ (Yu Zhi-li, 4 December 2009).8 167

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Therefore PeoPo’s marketing strategy is to attract the attention of NPOs, NGOs and schools, instead of the masses. According to Yu, those who really care for certain topics would actively join relevant NPOs or NGOs, and thus ‘if we find a certain NPO, we find a group of people’.

Operation Citizen participation in PeoPo includes three aspects: production, dialogue and action. Participation allows citizens to spontaneously report news; citizen dialogue means online discussion via the PeoPo platform; and citizen action expects people to participate and help make changes to policy and current events. To facilitate news production, the platform allows citizens to upload their news with video or text materials. Categories and issues covered include ecology and the environment, culture, community reform, education and learning, agriculture, leisure, media, sports and technology, politics and economics (see Figure 10.2).

Figure 10.2 The website of PeoPo platform (www.peopo.org/) 168

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Reports which are uploaded to this platform will soon be searchable on Google news, therefore enhancing exposure to and accessibility by the general public. For information posted on individual blogs or websites, it may be like searching for a needle in a haystack. However, Yu Zhi-li of PeoPo believes that ‘PeoPo is different. It is defined by Google as “news”, and when you search for relevant information, it jumps up as the very first one. That’s why it enjoys such high rate of exposure’ (Yu Zhi-li, 4 December 2009).9 PTS integrates citizen journalists’ news into its programmes. When Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan in 2009, many citizen journalists made recordings and distributed them online. These videos were broadcast by PTS daily news which increased their exposure. Besides, there is a daily five-minute programme on the best stories filed that day, and at the weekend the main news bulletins carry at least four PeoPo reports. Such convergence of media outlets may attract more citizens and groups to participate in the project. In addition to the web-based platform, PeoPo provides training courses to equip participants with basic skills to produce news on their own. For example, in 2008, PTS held over 183 faceto-face training classes to cultivate each reporter’s media literacy and ability to think independently and creatively (PeoPo 2009). Furthermore, PeoPo hosts the annual Citizen Journalism Award to recognise and encourage outstanding citizen reporters. To build an autonomous community, PeoPo applies a self-management mechanism which avoids censorship from PTS (Harding 2010). Citizens must register with a copy of their identity card to post reports on the PeoPo website. Registered citizens are free to contribute whatever news stories they like without moderation or filter. If someone objects to a report, it is forwarded to the author who is invited to reconsider and amend it. The Code of Ethics states: ‘All citizen journalists should admit and correct reports containing errors, and are liable for overseeing and correcting biased news reports or erroneous information sources so that all PeoPo citizen journalists may adhere to the same high moral standards.’ The code emphasises impartial and faithful reporting on public policy issues and prohibits unethical speech such as advertising, hostile language or plagiarism (PeoPo 2010). While citizen journalism is usually criticised for being unprofessional and uncensored, which may downgrade the professionalism of journalism, PTS is very positive about this mechanism of self-management. Due to the registration system and the Code of Ethics, PeoPo never faces serious controversies and to date has never had to apply its right to remove materials from the website (Hung 2013b: 152). According to PTS’s Director of International Affairs Lin Le-qun, ‘those people with radical ideas and remarks keep a far distance from the platform. After several years, its social issue-oriented trait has become quite obvious’ (Lin Le-qun, 13 May 2010).10 Various offline activities are designed to empower citizen reporters and facilitate their interaction and dialogue. To connect with local people and to hear local opinions, PeoPo holds gatherings in different regions. During these meetings, local issues are proposed and discussed so that citizen reporters have more opportunities to meet and work together (see Figure 10.3). So far more than 300 face-to-face gatherings and workshops have been held on environmental and socio-economic issues. Many NPO and NGO groups joined PeoPo and invited the team to train citizen journalists together. PeoPo also connects with community colleges which are embedded in local neighbourhoods. In June 2011, in association with the national alliance of community colleges and media watch organisations, PeoPo held a training workshop for citizen journalism lecturers. Teachers who had an interest in, or who were already offering, citizen journalism courses in community colleges gathered to share their thoughts and experiences. The PeoPo online curriculum is also available to these teachers. In this way, PeoPo cultivates lecturers in local communities who may then help to train more citizen journalists. 169

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Figure 10.3 Citizen reporters participate in a face-to-face gathering sharing opinions on local affairs Source: PeoPo platform.

During the summer break period PeoPo holds college citizen journalism camps, establishing campus citizen journalism press centres at 14 universities island-wide, encouraging students to go out into their communities and report on local issues. Generally the camp lasts for four weeks: intensive courses are delivered in the first week, including introductions to the concept of civic journalism as well as how to produce news. Then students start doing interviews, make video clips and review their work with professional reporters. PTS anchors and reporters and PeoPo team members are dedicated to the training programme. By providing training courses to students, the platform attracts a large number of young participants, around 120 students each year. In brief, PTS has implemented its human resource and media expertise to connect with communities, making an important contribution to public service (Taiwan Broadcasting Service 2007). When citizens are trained to express themselves through new technologies, they tend to feel confident and are willing to contribute to the platform with more news reports. By participating in local meetings, citizen reporters have opportunities to share their views and form a community, which enables further action when needed.

Citizen journalists in action According to the thesis of participatory communication, when people participate in the process of news production and distribution, their voices can be heard and their capability as citizens in public life is enhanced. The empowerment of citizens can thus be conceptualised as the capability to define their own problems, make decisions on their own, take collective action 170

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and use technologies to enhance personal skills and community development (Narayan-Parker 2005; UNDP 2006; Tufte and Mefalopulos 2009). Since its launch in 2007, the PeoPo platform has continued to develop and expand in terms of scale and influence. Participation is not only about transformation of citizens from being passive audiences to active reporters, but also about the change it brings for the participants and society. Why do these people keep participating in this project? What changes are brought about by participation? What is the influence of citizen news reports? This section will provide answers based on interviews with the participants.

Motivation of participation According to the interview data, many active citizen reporters are either associated with community colleges or are members of NGOs. In other words, they are activists in their neighbourhood, tend to pay attention to things that happen around them and have strong personal networks for distribution. This finding corresponds to PeoPo’s market strategy by targeting NGOs and community organisations. Jady, a community college teacher in rural Taipei, is dedicated to citizen journalism. Jady and her 70-year-old grandma are active in community affairs and both joined PeoPo as citizen journalists. Jady’s passion, interest and willingness to volunteer are motivations for participation. A further requirement is the continuous encouragement from peers with the same goal of ‘reporting for the community’. Jady has pointed out, ‘We came here to report, to bring something back to share. How do we have this power of action? It can’t be formed in one or two days. Therefore, we encourage each other and find out what brings us a sense of achievement’ (Jady, 22 May 2010).11 Community colleges provide Jady and other senior students resources and networks for them to learn and take action together. Meanwhile PeoPo provides a platform for them to express opinions. Therefore, she introduces the training of citizen journalists to her college, hoping more teachers will participate in this field. In the long term, she plans to create a cross-district platform for collaboration by information exchange. Supported by community colleges, older people such as Jady’s grandma are able to learn digital skills and tell their stories. The practice of training citizen journalists in community colleges also helps to bridge the digital divide between different generations. While citizen journalists are motivated by their interests and concern about their neighbourhood or broader social issues, public exposure of their news reporting provides a sense of achievement, which in turn renews their interest in producing news stories. Su-su, a private tour guide, contributed her first article about her concerns with historic and cultural preservation. On a hiking tour in southern Taiwan, she found the relics of a historical building were covered with moss and full of small pools of rainwater. She recorded the scene and posted it online. PeoPo used Su-su’s report and introduced it to PTS. This exposure encouraged Su-su to continue reporting stories: ‘PTS has followed my report, and I felt that somebody really cared about it, really saw and heard it. The news was aired on TV, and I was so happy, so proud. We really received encouragement. As for the news effect, we didn’t care about it that much’ (Su-su, 27 April 2010).12 For Su-su, to tell a story and to be heard is important, and this counters the feeling of lacking power. However, there is a distance between disclosing social problems and solving them. Why doesn’t Su-su care much about the effect of her reports? There are two ways to interpret her words. First is the influence of professional objectivity and distinguishing reporting from taking action for change. Second is the attraction of vanity. Some people might only participate in 171

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this project because they like to see their name in print or their images on TV. The appeal of vanity is common among citizen journalists but it is not the end of the story. If vanity can be encouraged and transformed into further participation for the social good, then there would be more active empowerment. Community gatherings and training courses organised by PeoPo attract positive comments from participants. While they feel confident and important in the community, such participants would like to contribute more to society: What’s special about PeoPo is that somebody runs and manages the platform. They will interact with you further; they won’t leave the news you upload there and do nothing. From PeoPo you receive a sense of achievement, and you feel you play an important part. That feeling really matters. They invited me to join their citizen journalists’ gathering at the very first year, and I had a brief speech on the stage. My sense of vanity has been fulfilled. (Wind-blowing-through-trees, 27 April 2010)13 Therefore, face-to-face meetings and interaction strengthen the identity of participants and their sense of achievement which motivates them to produce more news stories for this platform. In the long term, PeoPo hopes that participation will cultivate a sense of community and social responsibility.

Empowerment Active participation empowers citizens. Interviewees find personal change after joining the PeoPo platform, either in their attitudes or their ability to do things. When they are empowered, they are able to help others by sharing their news stories and their skills. Baga, an indigenous citizen reporter who has recorded stories of his tribe for a long time, finds that his participation in PeoPo gets positive feedback for himself and the young generation of the tribe. Positive feedback from his people brings Baga a sense of responsibility. He said: ‘I feel some change personally. That is, I become responsible. I have to take responsibility for my own report. I must be responsible for whatever I have written. That’s what I’ve learned’ (Baga, 1 March 2010).14 For Raptor, a citizen reporter who has a special interest in environmental issues, joining PeoPo helped him to find a community with people who have the same interests. He started as a student in community college learning media literacy, and then started to work as a citizen reporter. After three years of participation, he became a teacher able to advise others who are interested in learning citizen journalism. His efforts help recruit more citizens to participate and also counter his feelings of loneliness. ‘I have been a citizen journalist for two years’, said Raptor. ‘It’s an extremely lonely process. You have to walk on your own path. However, I am happy to see that we all grow slowly: people have noticed citizen journalism, and more and more people are participating’ (Raptor, 22 May 2010).15 The experience of producing citizen news reports makes participants feel confident about themselves and they are able to define the problem from the angle of a macro-social structure and then tend to take action to solve the problem. As Su-su commented: I used to feel depressed when nobody stands by me, supporting what I always stand for. However, gradually I find out that this is a structural problem. The structure of society has serious problems; it makes you feel that whatever happens, it’s none of your business. Other 172

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people will take care of it, and you don’t have to be that nervous. In the end, the voices of victims can never be heard. They may become so depressed that they give up on the whole thing. (Su-su, 27 April 2010)16 As the participatory communication thesis claims, when people participate and become empowered they are able to define social problems and gain increasing feelings of commitment to do something about them. Participation in PeoPo changed Su-su in her way of thinking about society and its problems.

Influence In some cases news production by, and dialogue between, citizens brings about action and change. The case of the Dapu land controversy introduced at the beginning of this chapter is a good example. In addition, citizen reports also have an impact on environmental policy. In 2009 a project to privatise Taiwan’s eastern coast provoked anger among environmental activists and stories were uploaded to PeoPo to appeal for public attention. Related stories were followed and reported by PTS and the commercial media, so public opinion forced the government to postpone this development project (Yu Zhi-li, 4 December 2009).17 Since then, lots of protests and marches were held against the local government which unlawfully passed the project. The Taitung government was sued and the controversial Miramar Resort Village construction project has twice been ruled invalid by the Supreme Administrative Court for improper environmental impact assessment until 2013. For many citizen reporters, they sense the power of their work and the instant influence over the problems they are concerned about. For example, Raptor has participated in several environmental actions and he learned the power of recording and reporting as a tool of protest. During a campaign against removing trees for local construction, Raptor worked with environmental protection groups to keep the trees safe. I stayed around for a long time. Once the constructor said he was going to bring the tree down, I made phone calls to inform people to come to stop it. We had our cameras running here and there, which force the constructors to retreat. In the end, under everyone’s effort, it turns out that every tree on Xuzhou Road is safe and sound; not only one tree is safe, but one hundred trees. I think I did play a part in it. I participated. (Raptor, 22 May 2010)18 ‘Wind-blowing-through-trees’, a social worker, uses media to tell stories of the disadvantaged people in his community. When he saw a disabled old lady who has lived alone in conditions of appalling sanitation, he decided to help her. Knowing that the old lady cannot afford diapers, ‘Wind-blowing-through-trees’ posted news about her on PeoPo, and the PTS reported it. Public support was instant: ‘I didn’t imagine the impact would be so strong’, said the citizen journalist. ‘Money kept coming in. At the beginning, I only asked people to donate ten dollars, ten dollars for each diaper. In the end the money accumulated to over TWD 100,000 (c. US$3,437.86)’ (Wind-blowing-through-trees, 23 April 2010).19 Participants in PeoPo strongly acknowledge that they are citizen reporters with influence. The non-profit nature of PeoPo allows it to serve public interests, and the support of PTS expands its influence. Public service media and active citizens work hand in hand to make a difference. 173

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As for the influence of citizens, just like I’ve mentioned, people from all backgrounds participate. Most importantly, through PeoPo we can influence and control the perspective and tempo of news, and crucial issues can be gathered . . . Therefore a citizen journalist is no longer simply a citizen, but a person who makes a difference. (Jady, 22 May 2010)20 I record something and I know some other citizen journalists, so through me, PTS knows what’s happening out there. Thus, you can see the power of citizen journalism has started to combine with mainstream media. Moreover, we can direct the news flow of some mainstream media. Citizen journalists are no longer weak. (Raptor, 22 May 2010)21 While Taiwanese media are under commercial influence and tend to ignore serious public issues, citizen journalism can be a mirror which reflects problems and overcomes deficiencies in the mainstream media. In many cases such as environmental and land policies, citizen reports start online and through public television, leading to their role in setting the agenda in public and media discussion. The influence of citizen journalists should not be underestimated.

Conclusion In Taiwan, citizen journalism has emerged at a time of widespread distrust of the sensational and commercial media. Since martial law was lifted in 1987, civil society has expected media to serve democracy instead of being the captive of the market or political power. When media performance cannot meet citizens’ expectations, they have discovered how digital technology can help them speak for themselves and for the public good (C. Chang 2013). PeoPo has significant implications for the future of public media and citizen participation. The application of interactive digital technology in news production and diffusion is a critical means for public service broadcasters to extend their service to, and gain support from, different social groups and citizens. As Lin Le-qun, director of International Affairs at PTS has said, PTS and citizen journalism are a good match. Without the burden of making profit, public service broadcasting is able to allocate resources and train general citizens. At the same time the project helps to build a network of citizen journalists who have a strong commitment to PeoPo and PTS (Lin Le-qun, 13 May 2010).22 From the perspective of participation, the citizen journalism of PTS demonstrates its progressive value in transforming a passive audience into active producers. By participation, citizens are able to speak out for themselves and for the public issues they care about. In addition, their empowerment and the building of a community facilitate information exchange and collective action which may in the long term enable social change and reform. PeoPo’s experience allows us to identify four core features of citizen journalism: first, being active participants, citizen journalists should not only be treated as news resources of mainstream media; instead, they are news producers who are able to make quality stories if they are trained. Second, user registration and oversight allows citizen journalism to meet the ethical standards championed by critics of the poor quality professional media. Third, online and offline networking efforts may form a community of mutual interests. Fourth, citizen awareness and input from the grassroots can inform and encourage social change. This case is embedded in Taiwan’s unique social context but has undoubtedly universal implications. However, some challenges and suggestions should be identified. To advance its potential, citizen journalism needs more exposure and more networking with mainstream media, 174

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social media and other online outlets. In addition, more resources and a proper collaboration between professional journalists and citizen journalists would help enhance both quality and influence. Finally, networking with civil society can help maintain the ‘civil’ nature of citizen journalism.

Notes 1 For further information regarding PeoPo platform, please consult the website: www.peopo.org/. 2 ‘Citizen journalism’ is the latest term for the new type of journalistic practice conducted by ordinary citizens. It is also referred to as ‘participatory journalism’ (Bowman and Willis 2003) and grassroots journalism (Gillmor 2003). 3 For further information on OhmyNews in English, please consult the website: http://english. ohmynews.com/. 4 Psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed a well-known hierarchy of human needs in which he used the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualisation and SelfTranscendence needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through (Maslow 1954). 5 For further information about the ProPublica, please see its website: www.propublica.org/. 6 Interview with the author, Taipei. Hu Yuan-hui is a former director of PTS. 7 Interview with the author, Taipei. Lin Le-qun is the director of the International Department and chief of Documentary Platform, PTS. 8 Interview with the author, Taipei. 9 Interview with the author, Taipei. 10 Interview with the author, Taipei. 11 Interview with the author, Taipei. 12 Telephone interview with the author. 13 Interview with the author, Kaohsiung. 14 Interview with the author, Taipei. 15 Interview with the author, Taipei. 16 Telephone interview with the author. 17 Interview with the author, Taipei. 18 Interview with the author, Taipei. 19 Interview with the author, Kaohsiung. 20 Interview with the author, Taipei. 21 Interview with the author, Taipei. 22 Interview with the author, Taipei.

References Allan, S. (2006) Online News: Journalism and the Internet, Maidenhead: Open University Press. Anyaegbunam, C., Mefalopulos, P. and Moetsabi, T. (2004) Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal: Starting with the People, Rome: SADC Centre of Communication for Development. Available online www.fao.org/docrep/008/y5793e/y5793e00.HTM (retrieved 16 May 2014). Bentley, C., Hamman, B., Littau, J., Meyer, H., Watson, B. and Welsh, B. (2007) ‘Citizen journalism: a case study’, in M. Tremayne (ed.), Blogging, Citizenship and the Future of Media, London: Routledge, 239–59. Bowman, S. and Willis, C. (2003) We Media: How Audiences Are Shaping the Future of News and Information, Arlington, VA: American Press Institute. Chang, C. (2013) Reporter in a Rush: Citizen Journalism, Media and Society, Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press. Chang, W. (2005) ‘Online civic participation and political empowerment: online media and public opinion formation in Korea’, Media Culture and Society 27: 925–35. Chen, B.H. (2012) ‘The past and future of Taiwanese media industry’ (Jiuwen xinzhi: Taiwan meiti chanye de jinxi yu weilai), Blog Collection Room, 17 May. Available online http://content.teldap.tw/ index/blog/?p=3698 (retrieved 16 May 2014, in Chinese). 175

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Chen, S.X. (2007) Making Citizen Media (Daozao gongmin meiti: Fuda shengmingli xinwen tuandui de xingdong yanjiu), Taipei: Fu Jen Catholic University Press (in Chinese). Gant, S. (2007) We’re all Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age, New York: Free Press. Gillmor, D. (2003) ‘A new brand of journalism is taking root in South Korea’, San Jose Mercury News, 18 May. –––– (2006) We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People, Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Glaser, M. (2006) ‘Your guide to citizen journalism’, Media Shift, 27 September. Available online www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/09/your-guide-to-citizen-journalism270.html (retrieved 25 April 2010). Hamdy, N. and Gomaa, E.H. (2012) ‘Framing the Egyptian uprising in Arabic language newspapers and social media’, Journal of Communication 62: 195–211. Harding, P. (2010) ‘PeoPo helps Taiwanese public broadcaster to restore trust: Public Television’s citizen journalism project hailed a success’, The Guardian, 15 February. Available online www.theguardian. com/media/2010/feb/15/citizen-journalism-taiwan (retrieved 17 May 2014). He, G.H. (2007) ‘Traditional media face the challenge of citizen journalist’ (Gongmin xinwen dui chuantong meiti de tiaozhan), unpublished paper presented at the Annual Conference of Chinese Communication Society, Tamkang University, Taipei, July (in Chinese). Hu, Y.H. (2010) ‘Strong citizens, strong democracy: the development of citizen media in the globe and its meanings’ (Qiang gongmin, qiang minzhu: Quanqiu gongmin meiti de fazhan mailuo yu shidai yiyi), in Y.H. Hu (ed.), The Rise of Citizen Media in the Globe (Quanqiu jueqi de gongmin meiti), Taipei: Advanced Media, 11–50 (in Chinese). –––– (2012) ‘News as conversation: the development and challenges of “collaborative journalism” in Taiwan’ (Xinwen zuowei yizhong duihua), Mass Communication Research 112: 31–76 (in Chinese). Huang, S. (2010) ‘Farmers fail to meet president’, Taipei Times, 19 July. Available online www.taipeitimes. com/News/front/archives/2010/07/19/2003478294 (retrieved 20 May 2014). Hung, C. (2006) ‘The control of broadcasting and freedom of speech: starting from the controversy over changing satellite TV licences’ (Guangdian guanzhi yu yanlun ziyou), Broadcasting and Television 26: 51–75 (in Chinese). –––– (2013a) ‘Media control and democratic transition: ongoing threat to press freedom in Taiwan’, China Media Research 9(2): 83–93. –––– (2013b) ‘Minority communication rights in the digital age: a case study of the Taiwanese indigenous citizen journalism platform WATTA’, Communication and Society 25: 135–71. Jieli (2010) ‘When the excavators came to the rice fields’, PeoPo: Citizen Journalism, 24 June. Available online www.peopo.org/portal.php?op=viewPost&articleId=58748 (retrieved 16 May 2014). Kim, A.J. (2006) Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities, Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press. Lievrouw, L.A. (2011) Alternative and Activist New Media, Cambridge: Polity Press. Lim, M. (2012) ‘Clicks, cabs, and coffee houses: social media and oppositional movements in Egypt, 2004–11’, Journal of Communication 62: 231–48. Lin, Z.Z. (2005) ‘Who is buying media? Media “selling news for profit”’ (Shei zai shoumai meiti? Meiti “maixinwen zhuan daqian”), Common Wealth Magazine 361(February). Available online www.cw.com.tw/ errorWebArticle.action (retrieved 11 January 2011, in Chinese). Maslow, A. (1954) Motivation and Personality, New York: Harper. Narayan-Parker, D. (2005) Measuring Empowerment: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, Washington, DC: World Bank. PeoPo (2009) ‘About PeoPo: voicing out and building bridges’, PeoPo. Available online www.peopo.org/ events/about/english/P1–2.htm (retrieved 20 May 2014). –––– (2010) ‘People Post citizen journalists’ Code of Ethics’, PeoPo. Available online www.peopo.org/ events/about/english/P2.htm (retrieved 20 May 2014). PeoPo Webcast (2011) ‘PeoPo attracts attention at the International Press Institute annual conference’ (Guoji xinwen xiehui nianhui PeoPo shou zhumu), PeoPo, 28 September. Available online www.peopo.org/news/84539 (retrieved 20 May 2014, in Chinese). PTS (2013) ‘PTS’s report on audience rating for the first quarter of 2013’ (Gonggong dianshi 2013 nian diyiji shoushiji baogao), official document, Public Television Service, April. Available online http://info.pts.org.tw/open/data/prg/2013tv_rating_q1.pdf (retrieved 16 May 2014, in Chinese). Rawnsley, G.D. and Rawnsley, M.Y.T. (2001) Critical Security, Democratisation and Television in Taiwan, London: Ashgate. 176

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Strohecker, C. and Ananny, M. (2002) ‘Situated citizen photojournalism and a look at dilemmatic thinking’, in M. Driscoll and T. Reeves (eds), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2002, Chesapeake, VA: AACE, 1128–31. Taiwan Broadcasting Service (2007) ‘Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation annual report 2007’, official document, Taiwan Broadcasting Service. Available online http://web.pts.org.tw/php/_utility/ ehomepage/pic/2007_e.pdf (retrieved 12 January 2010). Tufekci, Z. and Wilson, C. (2012) ‘Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: observations from Tahrir Square’, Journal of Communication 62: 363–79. Tufte, T. and Mefalopulos, P. (2009) Participatory Communication: A Practical Guide, Washington, DC: World Bank. UNDP (2006) ‘Communication for empowerment: developing media strategies in support of vulnerable groups’, United Nations Development Programme, 30 October. Available online www.undp.org/ content/undp/en/home/librarypage/democratic-governance/civic_engagement/communication-forempowerment-media-strategies-for-vulnerable-groups.html (retrieved 10 May 2010). Wang F. (2010) ‘Wu offers Dapu farmers new farmland’, Taipei Times, 23 July: 1. Zhang, J.H. (2005) ‘The credibility of TV news only scores 4.58 by parents of senior high, junior high and primary schools in northern Taiwan’ (Dianshi xinwen gongxinli bei gao zhong xiao xue jiazhang pingjun zhigei 4.58 fen), United Daily News, 9 September: C8 (in Chinese).

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Part III

The internet, public sphere and media culture

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11 Politics and social media in China Lars Willnat, Lu Wei and Jason A. Martin

Introduction In December 2012, the Chinese government toughened its restrictions on social media by issuing new rules that required internet users to provide their real names to online service providers, while assigning internet companies greater responsibility for policing controversial content (Bradsher 2012). The issue of attaching real names to online posts had drawn the government’s attention due to the growing popularity of Twitter-like blogs and other internet services that allow Chinese online users to circumvent the state-sponsored flow of information in China’s traditional media. The move was the latest in the ongoing battle between state censorship of the internet and attempts at political reform through social media that has drawn much attention from the popular and academic presses. However, the degree to which that struggle has resulted in social media’s tangible effects on increased political engagement in China is not yet apparent. In the literature on the political effects of the internet in China, several studies have focused on censorship and the potential of social media to contribute to political engagement (Jiang 2010a; Lagerkvist 2006; Leibold 2011: 1023–41; MacKinnon 2008 and 2009). However, many of these analyses have been anecdotal or case-based, and have not resulted in a clear portrait of internet use in China and its potential for political participation. As Leibold (2011: 1023–41) points out, optimistic conclusions about the internet’s reformatory role in China are premature and possibly inaccurate. Moreover, the focus on online censorship and digital activism in China has limited scholarly analysis of the important social and cultural factors that may contribute to changes in Chinese society. While scholars have rightly pointed out the potential of digital media for circumventing the government’s strategies of information control and prior restraint, there is little empirical evidence that points to the internet’s contribution to systemic change. Claims that social media are altering the balance of power between the Chinese government and the public often are unsupported or tempered as a tentative step toward the development of a healthier public sphere (Esarey and Xiao 2008: 752–72; Xiao 2004). In fact, what little empirical evidence exists indicates that Chinese online and social media ecologies may have produced the same power-privileged, niche-driven, entertainment-oriented internet culture seen in many other societies (Leibold 2011: 1023–41). Chinese internet users 181

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are mostly apathetic about politics, and some studies indicate that the few who contribute are generally motivated by the opportunity to share personal opinions rather than more substantive forms of political engagement (Liang and Lu 2010: 103–20). As a result, the same incivility and superficial commentaries so prevalent in the social media of many western nations also have been found in China – a characteristic that some scholars fear will hinder social media’s broader political engagement appeal (Guo 2007). While most scholars agree that new forms of political participation in China, such as exchanging information and political views through social media, probably have had a net positive result, they have not yet been chronicled in the academic literature. In this chapter we will attempt to take stock of the current state of the internet in China by analysing what digital media are available, how they are used within China’s unique political and social environment, and what effects they might have on political engagement among ordinary Chinese. In doing so, we will try to rely on as much empirical evidence as possible, even though we realise that this is a fairly new and unexplored topic among China’s scholars. We will start our discussion with a description of internet access in China, followed by a more detailed look at the availability and use of social media and blogging. We will then discuss the growing significance of online video in China’s public sphere and how this medium has become an important tool for undermining the government’s efforts at controlling social media. Finally, we will review the current literature on the potential link between social media and political engagement in China. Because the digital landscape in China is shifting constantly and reliable data are often difficult to obtain, we would like to remind the reader that everything that is being discussed here might be quickly outdated by new developments. However, many of the trends in China’s digital media mentioned here have been observed during the past decade or so, which leaves us to hope that they remain significant in the foreseeable future.

Internet access In the quarter-century since the first email transmission from China in 1987, the internet has developed and expanded exponentially in this vast nation (Qiu 2003). Internet access in China has grown from only a few thousand users in the mid-1990s to 298 million in 2008 – the year it surpassed the United States for the most internet users in the world. By the end of 2013, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported 618 million Chinese internet users, representing 45.8 per cent of China’s total population (CNNIC 1998, 2013 and 2014). The average internet user in China spends about 25 hours per week online and is most likely to be an urban male (56.0 per cent) in his teens (24.1 per cent) or twenties (31.2 per cent). A significant number of Chinese online users also are found among those between 30 and 39 years old (23.9 per cent), while those older than 40 represent a relatively small group (19.1 per cent). However, with internet penetration approaching nearly half of China’s population, the demographics of internet users have begun to adopt a more egalitarian distribution. Less educated groups, such as middle school (36.0 per cent) and high school (31.2 per cent) graduates, now represent a larger share of all internet users than those with at least some college-level education (20.9 per cent). In addition, online users are now relatively evenly distributed among high- and low-income segments in China (CNNIC 2014). Despite this rapid growth and a more diverse online audience, a significant urban–rural digital divide still characterises internet use in China. Almost three-fourths (71.4 per cent) of Chinese online internet users are urban dwellers compared with about one-fourth (28.6 per cent) who are rural residents. Moreover, this gap has widened since 2007 (Freedom House 2012). Geographically, the eastern, coastal provinces demonstrate a much higher rate of internet use 182

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than the less economically developed central and western regions of China. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong are the top three provincial districts for internet resources. Research on what exactly Chinese ‘netizens’ (wang min) do on the internet is limited. One of the few studies that has tried to provide empirical evidence for the online activities of Chinese internet users was conducted by Pan and his colleagues in Shanghai (Pan et al. 2011: 116–32). Based on a quota sample of 2,910 residents who were interviewed in 2009, the authors analysed ‘how internet use behaviour is embedded with the structural properties of China’s social stratification system’ (Pan 2011: 111). As expected, their findings revealed fairly significant inequality in access and use of the internet among Chinese netizens. Both the likelihood of internet adoption and frequency of using it upon adoption were significantly greater among younger men with higher levels of education, income and occupations with higher levels of social prestige. Internet users also were more likely to read newspapers and magazines more regularly. Based on their findings, the authors ‘caution against drawing systemic inferences on internet’s impact in China without taking into account of social differentiation in terms of socioeconomic status, age, gender, possession of media resources, and other basic social grouping characteristics’ (Pan 2011: 111). For Chinese users who have access, various other barriers to accessing news and information online remain. The government’s strategy of content control consists mainly of automated technical filters, self-censorship by service providers and proactive government censorship (Freedom House 2012). China’s technical filtering, sometimes called the ‘Great Firewall’, includes wholesale blocking of domain names, but also incorporates approaches such as the filtering of individual internet pages within otherwise approved sites. This technique renders a subtle form of censorship, or ‘web throttling’, which slows the loading of data to render some services essentially useless (Freedom House 2012). These controls reinforce one another and have become increasingly ubiquitous and advanced as the internet has spread and more citizens have gone online. However, a growing number of Chinese internet users try to circumvent censorship and filtering controls by using either a virtual private network (VPN), alternate terms or homonyms to replace sensitive words, multiple accounts on hosting sites or peer-to-peer networks (Freedom House 2012).

Mobile internet While most Chinese access the internet from home or work, a relatively new trend in China is mobile online access. According to a report of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, there were 1.1 billion mobile phone users in China by March 2013. That figure represents 84.9 per cent of China’s population, making it the country with the most mobile phone users worldwide (MyDrivers 2013). Because many of these phones have basic internet capabilities, mobile phones have become the most popular way to access the internet in China, with about 500 million people doing so regularly (CNNIC 2014). While phone calls remain an important form of communication in China, a growing number of mobile phone users communicate primarily via short message service (SMS). In March 2013, 74.6 billion text messages were sent over the network of China Mobile, the nation’s largest telecom carrier, with an average of 2.1 messages per phone each day. The number of text messages sent each day usually surge during holidays in China, especially during the traditional Spring Festival, when millions of people text greetings to family and friends. According to official estimates, Chinese revellers sent more than 30 billion text messages during the 2012 Spring Festival (China Daily 2012). 183

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The fact that so many Chinese now have access to text messaging has prompted some scholars to argue that this form of digital communication could become a powerful tool for democracy in China. He (2008: 182–90), for example, argues that SMS has become a ‘fifth’ media channel in China that allows users to participate in a growing ‘nonofficial discourse universe’ which, in turn, could make them politically more engaged. His analysis of the political power of text messages concludes that ‘although much of the content through SMS is not directly subversive with regard to the political structure, it is subversive culturally and ideologically in that it sustains a diverse discourse’ that could undermine the control of the Chinese government (p. 188). However, the evidence for such political consequences of SMS discourse in China remains to be tested empirically. As internet access through mobile phones has grown in popularity, the boom of internet cafés in China has subsided. As recently as 2007, internet cafés were the second most popular access point for Chinese internet users, with more than one-third (37.2 per cent) of them going online at cybercafés. Five years later, only about one-quarter (25.8 per cent) relied on internet cafés for online access (CNNIC 2007 and 2012). The importance of internet cafés in China has been reduced mostly by increasingly tight government controls. Starting in 2010, internet café users across China were required to provide proof of identification before they were allowed entry (Radio Free Asia 2010). In January 2011, the Vice Minister of Culture announced that all sole-proprietor cybercafés would be replaced by chains within the next five years, a move that observers considered a means to increase the efficiency of government surveillance and censorship (Freedom House 2011).

Social media In his landmark study, The Power of the Internet in China, Guobin Yang (2009) argues that the internet has fostered the ‘emergence of a citizen’s discourse space’ in China. ‘Nowhere else’, says Yang, ‘do Chinese citizens participate more actively and directly in communication about public affairs. Nowhere else are so many social issues brought into public discussion on a daily basis’ (p. 217). Yang also argues that the internet has created Chinese netizens who are ‘fearless, informed, impassioned, and not easily deceived’ (p. 217). While the internet has allowed Chinese citizens to access more and better information with just a few clicks, the manner and speed with which people can organise into active political groups through social media has drawn special concern from the government (Zhang and Shaw 2012). What worries officials most is the fundamentally interactive character of social media that enables citizens to discuss public affairs issues with very limited opportunities for the state to control what is being said and who is participating in the discussion. It is therefore no surprise that social media are subject to special government attention in China. Access to foreign social media sites, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter has been blocked fairly consistently since 2009 (Branigan 2010). To counteract demand for such foreign services, the Chinese government has supported the development of a wide range of alternative, Chinese-language services that are run on domestic servers and therefore are under the direct control of the government (R. Martin 2011). However, unlike western-based social media services that are dominated by Facebook and Twitter, China has several networks that appeal to specific user groups. Most of these services are accessed via mobile phones and thus popular even among those who cannot afford computers. The largest and oldest social networking site in China is Qzone, which started as an extension of Tencent’s ubiquitous instant message service QQ Messenger. Qzone reached an astonishing 625 million monthly users in 2013 by targeting teens and rural users throughout 184

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the country who access the service mostly via QQ (Tencent.com 2014). Tencent also owns the mobile text and voice messaging service Weixin (known as WeChat internationally), which has become China’s second most popular social network with more than 355 million monthly users in 2013 (Tencent.com 2014). The popular social networking service Renren, which attracts about 100 million monthly users (Savitz 2012), appeals mostly to college students and features services that are very similar to Facebook with user profiles, friendships, and applications for entertainment and games (Gustin 2011). Kaixin001.com, with 130 million registered users, is a close rival of Renren but targets mostly white-collar workers in China’s larger cities (kaixin001.com 2014). Other social networking services, such as 51.com and Douban, are popular with smaller online communities throughout China, but also have between 100 and 200 million registered users each (Savitz 2012). As Wallis (2011: 406–36) notes, social media in China have become ‘an active realm for public discussion, information dissemination, and mobilisation in ways that are both sanctioned and discouraged by the government’ (p. 419). However, Chinese social media services are subject to the same content controls as other websites registered in the country. Automated keyword filters, government reminders for self-censorship consideration and direct control of content by government agents are commonly used to monitor social media in China (Freedom House 2012). A 2011 content analysis of about 1,400 different Chinese social media services, including blogs and bulletin board systems, estimated that 13.0 per cent of posts were deleted by censors, many in the first 24 hours (King et al. 2012: 1–18). Contrary to expectations, posts with negative criticism of the government and its policies were not more likely to be censored; instead, the researchers found that the censorship programme was aimed at curtailing collective action through the silencing of comments that contribute toward social mobilisation, regardless of content.

Blogging Chinese bloggers have been celebrated by scholars and journalists alike as fearless heroes who have ousted corrupt officials, exposed political scandals, undermined state control and generated greater political transparency (Gao and Martin-Kratzer 2011: 69–83; Yang 2009; Zhou 2009: 1003–22). However, relatively few studies have investigated the democratic potential of political blogs (Zhou 2009: 1003–22). Instead, most claims about the political impact of blogs in China are based on anecdotes, speculation and a few exceptional cases. What dominate are content analyses that assume rather than empirically test political power. A good example of such studies would be Zhou’s (2009: 1003–22) qualitative content analysis of 316 blog posts related to the controversial dismissal of Shanghai Communist Party chief Chen Liangyu in 2006. Despite the fact that only about one in ten posts were critical of the government’s actions, Zhou concluded that this criticism is ‘very meaningful to Chinese people, considering the heavy censorship imposed on mainstream news media’ (p. 1016). However, she also noted that ‘the main political value of blogging in China is not to be found in politician’s presentations, but in the network discussions on political events and public issues involving millions of bloggers, which must be attributed to the trend of Chinese bloggers becoming popularised and diversified’ (p. 1008). Esarey and Xiao’s (2008: 752–72) content analysis of popular political blogs in China is more sceptical in tone, but also assumes rather than tests the political power of blogs. While the authors identified ‘satirical, implicit, or otherwise guarded critiques of the party-state’ in the analysed blog posts published in 2006, they concluded that political blogs mostly influence the political process in China by creating dissent and undermining popular belief in the censored official 185

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media and by allowing citizens to gradually develop strategies for challenging the official discourse without being subjected to repression. A similar study by Esarey and Xiao (2011: 298–319) used content analysis to compare information available in nine daily newspapers and blogs, and found that blogs included almost no national or local propaganda, significantly more criticism and much more discussion of pluralism than the state-run print media. They concluded that financial independence, complete lack of editorial oversight and the low cost of restarting blogs that have been shut down by the authorities allow bloggers to include more controversial content than traditional media. For example, in 2011, more than 14,000 blog posts included the terms ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘rights’, and more than 19,000 posts included ‘democracy’ and ‘political reform’. Much of the optimism surrounding blogging in China is, of course, based on the enormous number of participants. According to estimates by CNNIC (2014), by the end of 2012, there were 437 million bloggers in China, accounting for about 70.7 per cent of all internet users. It is important to note, though, that the majority of bloggers in China are young people who write about their daily lives (MacKinnon 2008: 31–46). The most popular blogs, of course, are those run by celebrities and successful entrepreneurs (Nie and Li 2006: 746–51; Wallis 2011: 406–36). Arguably the most prominent public affairs blogger in China is the author and professional rally driver, Han Han. The 31-year-old’s aggressive personal style, which he uses in his books, on his blogs and in real life, has helped him accumulate more than 597 million hits on his blog as of April 2014 – more than any other personal blog in China and possibly the world (Hille 2010). Most of his fans come from China’s post-1980s generation, which is often characterised by its enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, consumerism and access to digital media. The success of his blog can be partly explained by the wide range of topics it focuses on, including current affairs, politics, education, art and entertainment. Many of his posts also critically discuss political issues in China and, at times, even accused Communist party officials of corruption and cronyism. Another prominent political blogger is the 44-year-old novelist and social critic Li Chengpeng. His blog, which regularly criticises the Chinese government for mishandling important public affairs issues, has received more than 324 million hits as of April 2014. Li became a celebrity blogger in the wake of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which he witnessed first-hand in Chengdu. Millions of people read his story about a group of elementary school teachers guiding their students across the mountains from a ruined school to safety. In it, he criticised local officials and construction companies for using shoddy materials in schools, an issue that became a major scandal in China (Cohen and Martin 2011). In May 2012, the fourth anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake, Li shocked the Chinese online community with the following post that recalls his feelings during the visit to Sichuan in 2008: I was a typical patriot before 2008. I believed that ‘hostile foreign forces’ were responsible for most of my peoples’ misfortunes . . . But my patriotism began to come into question as I stood in front of the ruins of Beichuan High School. It became clear that the ‘imperialists’ did not steal the reinforced-steel bars from the concrete used to make our schools. Our school children were not killed by foreign devils. Instead, they were killed by the filthy hands of my own people. (cited in Li 2012) Despite the impressive reach of China’s more popular bloggers, it would be premature to conclude that blogs have a significant impact on China’s political environment. Leibold’s (2011: 186

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1023–41) recent analysis of the Chinese blogging community concluded that it is ‘producing the same sort of shallow infotainment, pernicious misinformation, and interest-based ghettos that it creates elsewhere in the world’ (p. 1025). The author argues that Chinese internet users, like their counterparts in the west, are primarily interested in entertainment and socialisation rather than political activism and that political content only represents a very small portion of China’s online environment. As a consequence, the Chinese internet is not much more than ‘an intranet of playful self-expression and identity exhibition’ (p. 1026). Leibold also cautions against applying western-style notions of democratic discourse to China under the assumption that the internet can foster a robust public debate and engage citizens politically in many of the ways that political participation is typically measured in the academic literature.

Microblogging While traditional blogs remain popular in China, microblogging (weibo) has become the nation’s most prevalent and fastest growing Web 2.0 application in recent years. According to estimates by CNNIC (2014), the number of Chinese microbloggers has increased from just 63 million in 2010 to an astonishing 281 million in 2013, thus representing almost half of the nation’s internet users. The popularity of Chinese microblogs can be partly explained by their Twitter-like function, their ability to allow relatively free discussions online, and the way they are accessed by most people. Both Twitter and weibo have the same basic functionality, including a 140-character limit on posts and a unidirectional organisational structure of followers who choose to access other users’ posts (Q. Gao et al. 2012: 88–101). It is important to note, however, that 140 Chinese characters roughly translate into 70.0 per cent more characters when translated into English (The Economist 2012). Thus, the succinctness of the Chinese language allows users to say much more within the 140-character limit. Ai Weiwei, China’s foremost artist and political activist, noted that ‘in the Chinese language, 140 characters is a novella’ (The Economist 2011). The most common activities of weibo users include reading news and information, watching video and chatting with social contacts. However, compared to those who use Twitter, Chinese weibo users tend to engage in more interactive dialogue, using the platform more as an online forum with long chains of discussion on specific topics (King et al. 2012: 1–18). Moreover, unlike Twitter, which is primarily accessed through desktop computers and tablets in the USA (Smith and Brenner 2012), most Chinese log into their weibo accounts through their mobile phones. As a consequence, microblogs are easily accessible to China’s 420 million mobile phone users. Among more than 50 microblogging sites available in China, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo are the most popular. Sina Weibo, launched in 2010, reported more than 536 million users in 2014, of which about 54 million were active on the site every day. Sina Weibo is regarded as having an elite orientation that attracts celebrities, professionals, marketers and users of higher socio-economic status. Tencent Weibo, launched in 2009, claimed about 540 million users by the end of 2012 with a community of mostly students and other young adults. A third service aimed at computer gaming, Netease Weibo, exceeded 260 million users in 2012 (Millward 2012). The enormous growth in the number of weibo users has prompted some scholars to conclude that China is in the midst of a ‘micro-blog revolution’ (Y. Yang 2011; Hu 2010). The enthusiasm for this relatively new communication platform is due to the fact that users often post content on microblogs that is unavailable in China’s state-controlled media, which makes weibo critical for news sources and expression conduits in a media environment that is 187

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characterised by limited diversity (Sullivan 2012: 773–83). Thus, even though microblogs are monitored closely by the Chinese government, they have become an important outlet for public opinion and serve as alternative news sources that often contest the official discourse in China’s mainstream media (Hu 2010; Jiang 2010b; Yang 2009; Zheng 2008). Chinese weibo have been used to organise political protests and online campaigns in 2012 that have been credited with forcing government concessions, such as an investigation into a labour activist’s death in custody or upgrades to air-quality monitoring in Shanghai (Freedom House 2013). The aftermath of the high-speed train crash near Wenzhou in eastern China on 23 July 2011, which killed 40 people and injured another 192, provides one of the most vivid examples of the political power of social media in this nation. News about the crash first emerged on Sina Weibo, including one post from a survivor who tweeted an emotional appeal for help from the scene of the crash just minutes after the accident occurred: ‘Our train bumped into something. Our carriage has fallen onto its side. Children are screaming . . . Come to help us please! Come fast!’ According to China Daily, this post was reposted 100,000 times in just ten hours. Two hours after the accident, calls for blood donations on China’s weibo resulted in more than 1,000 people promptly donating blood (China Daily 2011). Attempts by government officials to downplay the accident and order the burial of the derailed train cars were met with public outrage. In order to control the growing anger, the government issued directives on 24 July to restrict news coverage in the state-run media. However, accounts of the restrictions soon found their way on to the internet. In the week that followed the accident, China’s online community posted more than 30 million messages about the crash on China’s two largest microblogs alone (China Daily 2011). Bloggers questioned why the accident occurred and asked whether the government was trying to protect those responsible for the crash. Videos and images of the damaged train cars being chopped up and buried went viral and further infuriated the public. One angry microblogger noted that ‘this is a country where a thunderstorm can cause a train to crash, a car can make a bridge collapse and drinking milk can lead to kidney stones. Today’s China is a bullet train racing through a thunderstorm – and we are all passengers onboard’ (cited in Y. Yang 2011). On 29 July, the Chinese government issued a second directive that banned all coverage of the accident ‘except positive news or that issued by the authorities’. Major internet portals were forced to remove links to news reports and videos related to the crash. This second directive was widely ignored by China’s state-run media and instead prompted a series of editorials that condemned the handling of the accident by the Chinese government. The editor of the notoriously independent Southern Metropolis Daily, for example, angrily responded on Sina Weibo by accusing the government of a cover-up: ‘Tonight, hundreds of papers are replacing their pages; thousands of reporters are having their stories retracted; tens of thousands of ghosts cannot rest in peace; hundreds of millions of truths are being covered up. This country is being humiliated by numerous evil hands’ (cited in LaFraniere 2011). Compared to China’s traditional media, weibo are faster, more informational and more interconnected. The succinctness of the 140-character limit encourages brief information exchanges on the internet, which many Chinese prefer due to their hectic lifestyle (Wei and Wang 2012). Instantaneous ‘status updates’ also allow citizens with mobile phones to report events they witness long before professional journalists have a chance to do so (Murthy 2011: 779–89). As mentioned earlier, news about the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the 2011 Wenzhou high-speed train accident first emerged on microblogs and only later was reported by the Chinese mainstream media. Thus, the constant flood of information that is generated and distributed by millions of Chinese online users every day can erode government censorship efforts simply through quantity and speed (Wines and LaFraniere 2011). 188

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Moreover, as Yi Yang (2011) pointed out, microblogs have not only empowered ordinary citizens, but also journalists working for mainstream media in China. Faced with a growing number of reporting constraints imposed by the government, Chinese journalists have used microblogs to conduct independent investigations and interviews, which they then post on weibo in order to avoid official pre-publication censorship. While it is true that government censors are quick to take down unwanted weibo posts, by the time this is done, the news usually has spread through the online community. Yi Yang (2011) concludes that this process established ‘a new alliance’ between citizens and journalists. However, as with other types of social media in China, multiple layers of self-censorship also characterise the various weibo services. For instance, Sina Weibo has implemented a comprehensive and proactive form of censorship in which thousands of employees use sophisticated software to monitor frequently updated lists of ‘sensitive’ words and phrases. But despite these controls, Sina Weibo has developed into a mainstream platform that has been described as a new kind of digital tabloid press in which scandals are reported, public opinion is shared and news sometimes devolves into ‘virtual mob justice’ (Sullivan 2012: 779). Thus, as a consequence of the sheer number of online users, the active personality of many Chinese citizens and the Chinese people’s deep mistrust of official information channels, weibo has become a powerful player in Chinese politics (Sullivan 2012: 773–83). The role of microblogs in shaping political discourse in China has become an important research subject in recent years. Scholars have argued that weibo can influence China’s public sphere in three major ways. First, microblogs challenge conventional notions of news production by breaking professional barriers set by traditional media and by creating free platforms that allow all citizens to express themselves and be heard. The consequence of such (theoretically) unlimited access is the potential for each citizen to set the public agenda. Empirical evidence for such a public agenda-setting process has been found in a recent study by Xie and Xu (2011: 9–14), who showed that Chinese microbloggers not only discussed most of the important events (81 per cent) that occurred in China in 2010, but also were responsible for breaking the news on a significant number (10 per cent) of these events. The study also found that many of the events that were discussed on weibo eventually forced a response from the government and subsequently had a significant impact on public affairs in China. Other scholars have pointed out that microblogs have revitalised civic participation in China by reducing the cost (e.g. required effort) of political engagement and increasing the benefits of citizen interactions. For example, weibo have been instrumental in the so-called ‘rights defence movement’ (weiquan yundong), which has united ordinary citizens, political activists, journalists and civil rights lawyers in various political and social disputes with the Chinese government. According to Biao (2012: 29–49), rights defenders have used weibo and other social media in China ‘to exert the pressure of public opinion in a way that has increased the cost of judicial injustice’. Thus, social media have empowered Chinese citizens to organise powerful interest groups that can collectively expose civil rights violations, which are then much more difficult to be ignored by the government. For example, the forced abortion of Feng Jianmei, a 22-year-old woman from a small village in China’s Shaanxi province, sparked national and international outrage and an intensive online debate in 2012 – after the family posted graphic pictures of her stillborn child on Sina Weibo. The image, which quickly became viral, prompted thousands of angry comments that were quickly deleted by government censors. But despite these efforts to limit the impact of the story, prominent lawyers and bloggers began discussing the case and demanded government action. Li Chengpeng, China’s famous activist blogger, angrily noted on Sina Weibo that ‘the purpose of family planning was to control population, but now it has become murder population’. Even 189

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Hu Xijin, chief editor of the nationalistic Global Times, criticised the forced abortion on his weibo account by writing: ‘I strongly oppose the barbarous forced abortion to this 7-monthpregnant mother. Time has changed and the intensity of enforcing family planning has changed. We should promote civilised family planning’ (cited in Gu 2012). In response, the Chinese government launched an official investigation of the incident, fired two local officials and initiated a review of local family planning offices throughout the country. Biao (2012: 32) notes that online protests by such informal ‘rights defence’ groups ‘have combined to give rise to an increasingly law-conscious and public spirited populace’. Similarly, Wei (2011: 21–2) argues that Chinese citizens might be motivated by the action of such groups once they believe that what they say and do can affect government policies and possibly their own lives. It is important to note, however, that the Chinese government has learned that microblogs can be effective instruments to gauge public opinion and advise public decision making (Yu 2010: 143–4). By monitoring the constant chatter on China’s microblogs, the government is able to gather real-time feedback on policies and keep an eye on the public mood (Reuters 2012). As a consequence, local and national governmental organisations in China have launched numerous weibo accounts to disseminate official government information (Li et al. 2010: 49–51). According to Zhao (2008), these efforts at ‘public opinion guidance’ not only set the boundaries of political discourse online, but also are clear indications that the Chinese government is using new communication technologies to maintain its legitimacy and support its official policies.

Online video and egao The growing popularity of microblogs in China has been accompanied by a surge in the number of Chinese who go online to watch videos and short films. According to CNNIC (2014), there were about 428 million online video users in China by the end of 2013, accounting for 69.3 per cent of all Chinese internet users. Recent user surveys suggest that online videos are especially popular among Chinese men (56.1 per cent) below the age of 30 (64.8 per cent) who hold college degrees (80 per cent) (iResearch.cn 2012). Youku is China’s leading video website and the second-largest online video service in the world behind YouTube. After merging with Tudou.com in March 2012, this video giant reaches about 310 million users, or more than 70.0 per cent of all online video users in China (iRearch.cn 2012). Youku offers Chinese internet users a variety of professionally produced content licensed from copyright holders, including television dramas, feature films, news programming, variety shows, music videos, animated features and sports coverage. It also has produced original online videos, such as Yang Xiao’s 43-minute film Old Boys, which had been watched by almost 51 million viewers by the end of 2012 (Youku Index 2012). In addition, Youku has provided a national platform for Chinese video bloggers (paike) who often upload and share videos straight from their mobile phones or digital video cameras. While the most popular content on these video websites is professionally produced entertainment, a growing number of users have begun posting videos to express opinions on social or political issues. For example, there were about 14,500 videos about the Diaoyu Islands posted on Youku in early 2013, about a quarter of them user-generated. The territorial row over the eight uninhabited islands in the East China Sea (known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan) has repeatedly strained international relations between China and Japan in recent years. The dispute also has led to an outpouring of patriotism among Chinese citizens and thus provides a good indication of how popular online videos have become in public discussions of political issues (also see Ma, Chapter 12 in this volume). 190

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While user-generated online videos about the Diaoyu Islands dispute might be welcomed by the Chinese government due to their nationalistic character, other topics, such as the ‘three Ts’ – Tiananmen Square, Taiwan and Tibet – are less likely to remain online. In response to the growing use of online videos for discussions of sensitive political issues, the Chinese government announced tighter regulations of online video services in July 2012. According to China’s State Administration of Radio Film and Television and the State Internet Information Office, online video sites are required to review all videos, both self-produced and user-generated, before they are posted online, or risk penalties including loss of licensing. The goal of these new measures is ostensibly to minimise vulgar, violent and pornographic videos, and to encourage the production of content that ‘reflect the spirit of the times, promote goodness and beauty, and show what people love to see and hear’ (People.com 2012). Because political criticism is usually deleted quickly from Chinese internet servers, Chinese netizens have pioneered the use of ‘egao’ to circumvent official censorship. Egao, which loosely translates to ‘reckless or malicious actions’, are audio, visual or text-based spoofs that are posted online by a grassroots subculture that takes serious issues and entertains with subversive comedic effects, often in the style of parody or satire (Huang 2006; Meng 2011: 33–51; Zhang 2010). According to Gong and Yang (2010: 16), egao ‘plays with authority, deconstructs orthodox seriousness, and offers comic criticism as well as comic relief. It provides imagined empowerment for the digital generation, exploring an alternative space for individual expression’. New egao content is created and distributed online as a form of symbolic resistance as soon as new public issues occur (Zhang 2010). These parodies often attract more attention online than mainstream media reporting, and the increasing popularity of video websites enhance the reach and power of egao by offering Chinese internet users an open space to create, publish and share their work. Thus, by appropriating official content into personal expression, citizens enter the digital conversation with entities that previously had monopolised communication channels through political and economic means (Meng 2011: 33–51). Among countless egao, two of the most popular are indicative of the format’s appeal: the ‘Steamed Bun’ and the ‘Song of the Grass Mud Horse’. In 2006, Hu Ge, a 31-year-old sound engineer and former radio show host in Shanghai, became famous for his 20-minute egao parody of The Promise (Wu ji), an epic film directed by Chen Kaige. Using a pirated DVD, Hu transformed the film’s plot into a satirical crime procedural by re-editing and re-dubbing the original scenes (Zhang 2010). As with many egao authors, Hu used popular culture touchstones to convey his disappointment in the original film and interject humorous context cues. The result lampooned the epic movie and various other societal institutions, and became a national sensation (Meng 2011: 33–51). Tens of thousands of users disseminated the ‘Steamed Bun’, and thousands more actively recreated and enriched the work through their own egao mash-ups of the original film (Meng 2011: 33–51). While the ‘Steamed Bun’ could be traced to one user and dwelled mostly on artistic and popular culture criticism, the ‘Grass Mud Horse’ story developed in a more ambiguous and decentralised fashion – and more directly involved a strike back at China’s norms of political and social censorship. In early 2009, a short animated video featuring the imaginary ‘Grass Mud Horse’ appeared on YouTube to protest growing government censorship of politically sensitive internet content in the name of removing ‘low and vulgar’ online practices (Meng 2011: 33–51; Shang 2009). Because protest videos against official censorship are removed quickly, the names of the main characters in the video were used to convey a ‘hidden’ message that could at least temporarily avoid government sanitisation. In Chinese, ‘Grass Mud Horse’ is pronounced ‘cao ni ma’, which is almost identical to the profane phrase ‘f> your mother’. In the story, the Grass Mud Horse eventually defeated the River Grab, or ‘hexie’, which resembles the 191

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pronunciation of ‘harmonious’ in the term ‘harmonious society’ (hexie shehui), Hu Jintao’s signature ideology. The song’s hidden meaning, obvious only to those familiar with Chinese language and culture, but impossible to detect by automatic internet filters, is that government attempts at political control under the guise of building a ‘harmonious society’ will be defeated (Tang and Yang 2011: 675–91). The ‘Grass Mud Horse’ video provoked widespread public support and participation. Within two months from its February 2009 posting, the imaginary horse and the culture surrounding it developed into a ‘virtual carnival’ of user-generated content that included fake online encyclopaedia entries, video spoofs, comic strips and toy manufacturing (Meng 2011: 33–51). By the time the Chinese government issued an announcement to censor the video in March 2009, it had attracted about 1.4 million viewers, and the foul-mouthed horse had become popularised as a symbol of discontent with internet censorship (Wines 2009). In summary, egao has emerged as a form of expression specific to the social–political culture in China, and a powerful way to unite people against authority. Egao uses the internet to challenge mainstream government and commercial culture with an active re-appropriation of official content for other purposes, often in the service of criticism of the original material. Unlike western versions of mash-ups, Chinese egao are usually spontaneous, grassroots products uploaded in scattered spots around the internet and social networks by anonymous users (Zhang 2010). According to Meng (2011: 33–51), egao do not necessarily lead to organised political action, but they contribute to political communication in the sense of maintaining a dialogue about issues that invoke common concerns that are beyond a citizen’s private life.

Response by China’s mainstream media The response of China’s traditional media to the challenges of digital news has evolved during the past decade. As in many western nations, younger Chinese have abandoned the official news media for the convenient – and often more critical – news available online. This process has accelerated due to the growing gap between actual events in China and the way these events were portrayed in the government-controlled media. As a result, rather than viewing digital media as an enemy, China’s mainstream media began to adapt and collaborate with online media in hopes of survival. As a result, the first digital newspaper, Guangzhou Daily Mobile Digital Edition, was launched in April 2006. Three days later, the first subscription-based digital newspaper, Wenzhou Digital Newspaper, was published online. By 2008, more than 500 Chinese newspapers had digital editions. However, many of these online newspapers were limited to the content and form of their print counterparts and did not provide multimedia content, more updated information or strong interactive functions (Gou 2008: 44–8). To better address the demands of an audience that was getting quickly used to multimedia online offerings, the Chinese government began pushing the convergence of different media industries in 2006. It also encouraged the production of multimedia content by the official print media and the development of new channels of news delivery via mobile phones and tablets. A good example is Oeeee.com, which was established by Southern Metropolitan Daily in March 2006. The goal of this website is to build a constellation of convergent media outlets. After years of effort, Oeeee.com successfully integrated the website of the newspaper, a video website, an online radio network, an online community forum, an online shopping platform and the first Chinese-language news app in Apple’s App Store (Long 2012: 23–5). By 2012, most Chinese newspapers had launched mobile news apps either on iOS or Android platforms. A recent content analysis of Chinese news apps found that, among the top 400 news 192

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apps, most (247) were offered by newly established media companies (L. Wei 2012). The study also found that media apps launched by new companies surpassed mainstream media apps in terms of content, forms, functions and number of downloads. They also were more successful with integrating user-generated content, updating content quickly and offering more and better customisation functions to their users. A final strategy of China’s mainstream media was to integrate social media into the news production process. By the end of 2012, most Chinese newspapers had launched their own microblogs as an important interactive link between them and their audience. Even People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, launched a microblog on Sina Weibo in July 2012. In the following months, the party organ surprised the public with news and information on their official weibo that was very different from the official propaganda style of the paper’s print version. Within two months of activation, the grassroots-friendly writing style of People’s Daily’s weibo attracted nearly 2 million readers. Other government organisations quickly joined the trend and, by the end of 2012, more than 60,000 verified government accounts had established microblog accounts on Sina Weibo (Chen 2012). The quick adoption of microblogs by the Chinese government clearly shows that officials have recognised the power of social media to control public opinion. Social media allow the government to monitor public opinion and, when necessary, push its own version of events through interactive media channels that provide the illusion of an open and diverse public discourse.

Digital media and political participation In this last section of the chapter, we will briefly review studies that have investigated the potential link between internet use and political participation in China. Due mostly to the controlled political environment in China, empirical studies of political participation remain the exception in this nation. Studies of digital media also are relatively uncommon in the academic literature that focuses on China’s media. A review of media studies published in English-language academic journals between 2000 and 2010, for example, found that only 24 of 159 studies about Chinese media focused on new media technologies (Li and Tang 2012: 405–27). A similar review of new media studies published in Chinese-language academic journals between 2000 and 2007 found only 69 articles that centred on digital media in China (R. Wei 2012: 116–27). While the articles covered a variety of digital media technologies, such as mobile phones, text messaging, blogs, Wikis, e-publishing, internet television (IPTV) and online games, most of the studies were descriptive and focused on technical and economic issues rather than the effects of internet use on individuals or organisations. Ran Wei (2012: 122–3) concludes that digital media research in China ‘lags behind the fast-changing media landscape in the country’ and therefore fails to ‘shed light on the processes of how millions of Chinese adopt, consume, apply, and re-invent new media technologies’. It therefore would seem premature to judge the impact of digital media on political changes in China at this point in time. In western nations, scholars often see the internet as a new information outlet that can bridge the gaps left by the shrinking mainstream media – and thus as a potential tool to stimulate political engagement in a world that is characterised by digital news (Tolbert and McNeal 2003: 175–85; Postmes and Brunsting 2002: 290–301; Shah et al. 2005: 531–65). Others suggest that the growth of social media and social networking opportunities, partnered with the lowered cost of online participation, offer new platforms for enhancing political participation strategies, links and methods of engagement (Bimber et al. 2009: 72–85; Gil de Zuniga et al. 2009: 553–74; 2010: 36–51). Still others assert that social media make politics more accessible and symbolically empower 193

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citizens to participate through interactivity and the expansion of discussion networks that might be otherwise unavailable (McClurg 2003: 448–64). Meanwhile, representative empirical data are sparse, leading to conflicting conclusions about the link between social media and political outcomes in western nations. Positive interpretations contend that social media will bolster democracy, while negative interpretations either caution against evidence of significant changes or portend harmful effects such as widening gaps based on socio-economic privilege. There also is some evidence that the self-centred nature of much of social media participation in western nations could be negative for political participation (Fenton and Barassi 2011: 179–96). Similar to the observed trend in western media research, most studies that test the link between internet use and political participation in China are based on anecdotal evidence and theoretical discussions rather than empirical tests of concrete effects. Wang (2007), for example, discusses the role of online discussion forums in promoting political participation and collective action in China. He examines the role of online forums in three cases that took place in China between 2003 and 2005, and concludes that online forums and bulletin boards have been able to provide more diverse information than traditional media sources and that online posts exerted pressures on government and officials. Evidence for such conclusions, however, is not provided. Other studies on digital media published in China focused mostly on the characteristics of online public opinion (Kuang 2008: 35–8), mechanisms through which online public opinion forms and develops (Xiang and Cao 2008: 57–60) and how online public opinion can be controlled (Liu 2008: 18–21; Cui and Shen 2008: 45–7). Probably the most convincing empirical evidence supporting a connection between internet use and political participation in China comes from a study by Shen and his colleagues (2009: 451–76). Based on interviews with more than 6,500 Chinese respondents conducted by the World Internet Project in 2003, 2005 and 2007, the findings indicate a positive association between internet use (such as use of email, bulletin boards, news, instant messaging, chat and online gaming) and online expression (frequency of posting one’s opinion online). This positive association was partially mediated by the size of the respondents’ online network as measured by the number of friends they kept in touch with online. While these findings indicate direct effects of internet use on political engagement in China, the authors note that only one-tenth of the online users in their study were active content contributors in online forums. They conclude that ‘while acknowledging the repressive nature of the state power, this study suggests the incremental structural change brought to society by the internet through expanding users’ social network could cultivate an active online opinion expression environment’ (Shen et al. 2009: 467). The few remaining studies that have analysed the link between internet use and political participation are based on student samples – and therefore are less representative. One example is Chu’s (2006) comparative survey study conducted in 2004, which tested the potential link between media use and participation among 510 university students in China and the United States. Her findings indicate that exposure to online news was positively associated with public affairs knowledge and political participation in both countries. Similarly, Wei et al. (2011: 90–6) showed that Chinese college students who engaged in more internet activities not only had higher levels of political knowledge, but also tended to be more active users of participatory internet applications such as microblogs and other social networking sites. A more detailed study conducted by Wei (2014) among 549 Chinese college students in 2011 found that those who read newspapers, received news through social media and belonged to political online groups also were more politically active offline. At the same time, those who listened to radio news, received news through social media, posted on political blogs, talked about politics on social media and belonged to political online groups were more politically 194

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active online. In addition, students who read newspapers and talked about political issues on social media knew more about political affairs. Overall, Wei’s study provides fairly convincing evidence that more internet use is indeed associated with higher levels of political engagement both offline and online. However, Wei (2014) also notes that political participation among the students featured a fairly limited range of offline and online activities. For offline engagement, the top three activities were joining a student organisation (66.5 per cent), offering volunteer work (60.3 per cent) and working for a political organisation (30.1 per cent). According to the author, a common trait of these political activities is that they are all sanctioned by the Chinese government. Various state-controlled organisations, such as political youth groups organised by the Communist Party or community-centred resident committees (juweihui) aim to socialise young Chinese citizens in ways that are consistent with China’s dominant political ideology and social values. In contrast, more independent participatory behaviours such as signing a political petition (6.4 per cent), contacting a politician or government official (3.5 per cent), attending a public rally or demonstration (3.6 per cent) or writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper (4.4 per cent), were far less common among the students. It was therefore not a surprise that similar engagement patterns were observed in the students’ online participation. The top three online activities were watching political videos (60.8 per cent), communicating with others about politics online (41.5 per cent) and forwarding links to a political video or news article (38.6 per cent). On the other hand, potentially controversial activities, such as signing an online petition (4.0 per cent), sending emails to government officials (3.6 per cent) or starting political groups online (7.5 per cent), were fairly uncommon.

Conclusion This chapter provides an overview of the digital media environment in China and what promises it might hold for those who want to actively participate in this nation’s public sphere. The growing reach of social media, mobile phones and cheap laptops in China indicates that online access is becoming quickly the norm for most citizens. Already, more than half of all Chinese citizens use social media every day, and each year about 10.0 per cent more users join popular social networking services such as Qzone or Renren. Microblogs have become important outlets for public opinion and serve as alternative news sources that often contest the official discourse in China’s mainstream media. The constant flood of information that is generated and distributed by hundreds of millions of Chinese online users every day have created conditions that make it possible to undermine people’s trust in the state-run media. While a number of content analyses have shown that political blogs contain guarded critiques of the Chinese government, most scholars agree that social media influence the political process in China mostly indirectly by providing people with a forum to discuss political issues that might not find their way into the official state-run media. Because of their size and ability to adapt quickly to any attempts at censorship, microblogs have become an important public sphere in China that should not be underestimated. On the other hand, the Chinese government is also concerned about the speed and ease with which people can organise into active political groups through social media which are difficult to monitor and censor. As political observers have pointed out, social media may produce negative political effects if the Chinese government uses them to infiltrate political groups, track down political activists and distribute propaganda online (Morozov 2011). We believe that many Chinese online users have become more sophisticated in their attempts to undermine such efforts to control and censor the internet. One good example of 195

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such sophistication is the subversive use of online videos by netizens who have learned to create and distribute satirical content online despite tight censorship rules. Despite the fact that the rapid growth of social media provides an opportunity for China’s citizens to participate in the political process more directly, empirical evidence of traditional measures of political effects remains elusive. Studies about digital media in China are still the exception and actual tests of the potential effects of internet use on political participation are exceedingly rare. Instead, most Chinese scholars have preferred theoretical discussions of online public opinion and descriptive analyses of microblogs and other social media in China. Our review identified only four major studies that have empirically tested the associations between internet usage and political engagement (Chu 2006; Shen et al. 2009: 451–76; Wei et al. 2011: 90–6; Wei 2014). The encouraging conclusion is that all four of these studies found positive associations between internet use and political engagement. Shen et al. (2009: 451–76), for example, found that people who are more active online also tend to be more likely to express their opinions online. Similarly, Wei (2014) provides fairly convincing evidence that more internet use is associated with higher levels of political engagement both offline and online. In Wei’s 2011 survey study, college students who received news through social media, read or posted on political blogs, belonged to political online groups or talked about politics on social media, were more active online and offline. Finally, we must acknowledge that is difficult to assess the true political potential of the internet in China. The political environment in this complex nation does not allow citizens to be as active politically as they might be in societies where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Many Chinese netizens are afraid to publicly express their opinions for fear of prosecution or simply because they do not want to get into trouble with the authorities. These conditions make it difficult for scholars and pollsters to measure any true effects of online usage in China. It also would be a mistake to overestimate the power of China’s online community simply because it is so large. China’s 618 million online users do represent the largest group of internet users in the world – but large numbers do not necessarily translate into political power. What is also needed are netizens who are willing to participate in the political process, who are active rather than passive consumers of information and who use digital media not only for personal entertainment and diversion but also for political activism. In addition, the political environment must be open enough for users who are highly engaged to be able to participate without fear of reprisal. Research has shown that China’s political system has created a huge number of passive online users who are mostly interested in entertainment and socialising rather than in political activism (Leibold 2011: 1023–41). China’s focus on economic growth during the past 30 years also has given rise to a generation of young consumers who participate in society primarily through like-minded friends, family and anonymous internet activities (Rosen 2010: 509–16). Damm (2007: 373–94) argues that the Chinese digital media environment has produced ‘isolated niches’ in which citizens create narrow online identities that reflect their interests and their interactions with like-minded social contacts. At the macro-social level, these niches lead to a more fragmented and localised society. It would therefore be a mistake to assume that Chinese online users are primarily driven by the desire to engage in the political process.

What needs to be done next? The question whether the internet and its various digital communication tools can significantly influence the democratisation process in China has fascinated Chinese and western scholars alike for many years. As we have pointed out repeatedly, there are plenty of studies that discuss the 196

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theoretical implications of online activity in China. However, very few studies have tested the impact of internet use on political change in China. The few studies that focus on political activism are descriptive and focus on content analyses of microblogs and other social media in China. Consequently, what is needed most are more studies that empirically test the potential links between online usage and political engagement at the individual-user level. The strongest evidence would come from public opinion polls conducted among representative samples of respondents in China. Special emphasis should be placed on avoiding samples that are drawn among college students or residents of major cities in China – such samples are convenient, but very likely overestimate the political engagement of average Chinese citizens because they contain too many respondents with higher levels of education and income. We also believe that there should be less emphasis placed on content analyses of social media. While such analyses are important, they provide descriptive information only. Instead, future studies should combine content analyses with survey research which allows more useful conclusions about what is available, how such content is consumed or used, and what effects it might have on people’s perceptions or political change in general. Moreover, because the amount and type of political content found on China’s social media is likely a function of citizens’ willingness to express themselves and the government’s effectiveness to suppress and censor information at certain points in time, content analyses only provide a limited understanding of what is going on in China’s cyberspace. Of course, none of these studies would mean much if they lack a theoretical framework. Western scholars of online media have developed a number of theories that explain the function of the internet in democracies. However, theories that can explain the function of online media in the more authoritarian context of China are sorely lacking. As Guobin Yang (2011) somewhat sarcastically points out ‘change has been under way in China for years, but in forms more subtle than most people outside the country understand’. Thus, instead of assuming direct effects of online usage on political change in China, we need to pay more attention to social and cultural factors that might interfere in such a relationship (Kluver and Banerjee 2005: 30–46). As discussed above, Chinese internet users might not be necessarily interested in political activism, and might engage in the political discourse in ways that are not readily apparent to scholars who are mostly familiar with western media systems. In short, what are needed are theories that better fit China’s specific social, cultural and political environment. Finally, we would like to encourage studies of online media that have not been explored much yet. The political use of online videos in China, for example, has not received much attention beyond the studies that have explored the impact of egao videos. The large number of user-generated videos about the Daioyu Islands, for example, shows that China’s netizens have begun to open new spaces of public discourse that support the expression of public opinion in ways that can potentially reach millions of viewers. Moreover, because most of these videos have a rather nationalistic tone, such political content can freely circulate on the Chinese internet without being censored by the government. Thus, analysing the impact of such pro-China online expressions might offer a new perspective for better understanding the political effects of online usage in China. When researchers attempt to examine the Chinese digital media environment and its effects on political engagement, they are confronted with a mixture of rapid user adoption, growing platforms of online information exchange and cultural conditions that complicate the society in which those developments are taking place. However, these same factors provide exciting opportunities for producing a better empirical understanding of these crucial relationships. We therefore encourage more studies that embrace the impressive wealth of information available to build stronger theoretical explanations for how Chinese use the online world to engage politically. 197

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12 Online Chinese nationalism and its nationalist discourses Yiben Ma

From the boycott of the French supermarket Carrefour in the time leading up to the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 to the anti-Japan demonstrations over the disputed Diaoyu Islands in 2012 and 2013, we have witnessed the scale of Chinese nationalism and its controversies. The merger of Chinese nationalism and the internet has also drawn scholarly attention to a fiercely debated topic – online Chinese nationalism. During these incidents, the internet not only facilitated the dissemination of nationalistic information and the mobilisation of people, but more noticeably produced an interactive means for shaping and reshaping nationalist discourses (also see Willnat, Wei and Martin, Chapter 11 in this volume). Online Chinese nationalism is far more complicated than a simple addition of Chinese nationalism to the internet; rather it is a fusion of modern information technology, national identity and ideology. McLuhan (2013: 20) asserts that ‘the medium is the message’ in the sense that media or technology brings ‘change of scale or pace or pattern’ to human affairs. The advent of the internet brings an interesting dimension to understanding how this timeless, interactive and decentralised communications technology could bring changes to the modality and dynamism of Chinese nationalism, the expression and discussion of nationalist ideals and actions, and the relations between different nationalist players. No matter how online Chinese nationalism is studied, whether seeing its outgrowth as a signal of an emerging civil society (e.g. Yang 2009a) or as a form of public opinion shaping Chinese foreign policies (e.g. Reilly 2012; Shirk 2011: 1–37), the phenomenon can hardly be understood without taking two perspectives into account. First, while investigating the potentials of the internet to bring changes to various aspects of Chinese nationalism, equal attention should be paid to the historical, social and institutional context out of which online Chinese nationalism comes into shape. Second, any study related to nationalism concerns two indispensable parts, namely the state, with which the masses identify their loyalty; and the masses who translate their nationalist consciousness ‘into deeds of organised action’ (Kohn 2005: 19). Taking both facts into consideration, this chapter aims to first of all embed the concept of Chinese nationalism into a historical, social and institutional context and explain how the concept has evolved and transformed over time in both official and popular discourses. Then it sheds light on the ‘Chinese internet’ per se – the immediate soil where online Chinese nationalism grows. It inspects the peculiarities of the internet that configure the production, dissemination 203

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and discussion of online Chinese nationalism. Finally, it endeavours to set up interrelations between Chinese nationalism and the internet by examining the extent to which the internet brings changes to the expression and discussion of Chinese nationalism, and challenges the relations between official and popular players over nationalism issues.

Contextualising Chinese nationalism The advent of nationalism and its concept Nationalism is a relatively new term to China, and China did not regard itself as a country until only around the turn of the twentieth century when it was forced open by western imperialists. Before that, China adopted a Sino-centric view that saw itself as the only civilisation in the world and others as uncivilised ‘barbarians’. Chineseness was defined by the acceptance of a shared pattern of cultural values; that is to say, it is the identification with the Confucian principles that distinguished Chinese from non-Chinese. From this perspective, China was not a country based on modern understandings of nation-state, but a cultural entity that was largely dominated by Confucian ideologies. China’s status as the only civilisation in the world was severely challenged and the sense of crisis rose steeply when it was defeated by the west and Japan. China’s defeats spurred its intellectuals to rethink the world order and China’s relations with other cultures, and they believed that China needed nationalism to hold all the people together to fight against the invaders. The introduction of nationalism from the west and the use of nationalism to urge reforms and revolutions ‘heavily informed by nationalist ideology’ (Feng 2007: 49–59) signalled a significant transition from ‘a culturalism to a nationalism, to the awareness of the nation-state as the ultimate goal of the community’ (Duara 1993: 2). Both Liang Qichao, an advocate of constitutional monarchy, and Sun Yat-sen, who overthrew the Qing dynasty and founded the Republic of China in 1912, shared the belief that nationalism was key to the survival of China during the time of foreign invasions. Sun’s stress on nationalism was manifest in his political philosophy the ‘Three Principles of the People’ – nationalism, democracy and people’s livelihood – which later became the ruling ideology of the Chinese Nationalist Party (i.e. Kuomintang or KMT). Under the banner of anti-imperialism and national unification, the KMT led by Chiang Kai-shek ‘reduced the extraterritorial privileges enjoyed by foreign powers’ (Chen 2005: 40) and ‘largely accomplished the goals of nationbuilding’ (Feng 2007: 49–59), though Chiang’s preoccupation with the suppression of the communists and his reluctance to fight against the Japanese undermined the KMT’s nationalist credentials. On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong used anti-Japanese nationalism to successfully rally the nationalist sentiments of the massive peasantry and fought a guerrilla war against the Japanese army in northern China. Arguably, it was not communism but largely the CCP’s nationalist appeals that consolidated the CCP’s role in the modern history of China. The CCP’s emphasis on national independence and territorial integrity was detected in the major policies after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), for example Mao’s attempt to recover Taiwan by military force and his sending troops to Korea to resist American aggression (Chen 2005: 42). Chen (2005: 53) argues that ‘even socialist internationalism could not sideline Chinese nationalism’, and Mao’s determination to protect China’s independence was also demonstrated by the Sino-Soviet border war in 1969. Mao’s militant, revolutionary and anti-imperialist style of nationalism subsided in the 1980s and the nature of Chinese nationalism changed, but this did not mean that succeeding Chinese leaders were less nationalistic than Mao. Although territorial integrity and independence remained the ultimate national interests, China abandoned the ‘ideological fervour’ and adopted 204

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‘confident nationalism’ which believed that China could regain ‘its former greatness through economic growth, based on the import of foreign technology and ideas’ (Oksenberg 1986: 503). Since nationalism was introduced to China, it has always been a matter ‘of the political renovation for nation building’ (Lin 2006: 35). Many China scholars have attempted to give a definition to Chinese nationalism. For instance, Suisheng Zhao (1998: 290) generally defines it as a ‘state-centric conception of nationalism’ which advocates political and social solidarity based on the territorial state. The notion ‘Chinese nationalism’ conveys a predominantly civic meaning, and it is interpreted in Chinese as aiguo zhuyi, which literally means ‘loving the state’ (Zhao 1998: 290), implying ‘loyalty to geographically unified and ethnically diversified China’ (Motyl 2001: 84). However, giving a precise definition of ‘Chinese nationalism’ is next to impossible because, on the one hand, ‘the nation is itself a tool of definition’ (Conversi 1995: 77), and, on the other hand, it is ‘situational’ (Zhao 2004: 19) since Chinese nationalism has different foci and agendas from time to time, and could be defined differently by different nationalist players depending on their political considerations. Instead of providing a definition, it might be fruitful to contextualise modern Chinese nationalism by examining a broader background against which it has evolved. Choosing the late 1970s as a starting point is significant because national identity is always ‘constituted by interaction’ (Triandafyllidou 1998: 599) and that period was the time when China began to normalise its relationship with the world. As nationalism cannot be adequately understood without pondering two indispensable elements – the nation and the mass – it is necessary to discuss Chinese nationalism on both official and popular levels, and see how it is perceived in each discourse over time.

Official nationalism The late 1970s witnessed a high rate of economic modernisation as a result of Deng Xiaoping’s reform policy. However, according to Zheng (1999: 17–18), this ‘was not without its cost’, because decentralisation caused by economic reforms weakened the central power to deliver Marxism or Maoism as an ideology for regulating local societies, and hence gave rise to an ideological vacuum. This gave space to such as capitalism, individualism and political liberalism. The declining faith in socialism and the subsequent student-led pro-democracy protest in 1989 taught the CCP that the official doctrine of ‘Marxism–Leninism was no longer effective in mobilising loyalty and legitimising the state’. The party also realised that it ‘should base itself firmly on Chinese nationalism’ – the only important value shared by the regime and its people (Zhao 2000: 17–18). To restore popular loyalty, the CCP launched the ‘patriotic education programme’ which was particularly intended for ‘the younger generation’ (He and Guo 2000: 26), and stipulated a patriotic curriculum be taught at school on a daily basis including attending flag-raising ceremonies and learning the CCP’s heroic history and achievements. The effect of this, as Chun (1996: 126) claims, is to transform nationalism ‘from the realm of high politics to the level of everyday routine’, but Wu (2007: 124) suspects the real effectiveness of the topdown campaign by criticising how it simply regards those young people as passive receivers of propaganda. Given that students receive such education from kindergarten to college, its effects cannot be underestimated because such education not only confers identity on them (Gellner 1983: 36), but also helps individuals ‘find their primary identification with the nation’ (Ramirez and Boli 1987: 3). The years after the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union were critical for China, and it increasingly ‘found itself at the centre of an international siege’ (Tok 2010: 24). However, this plight provided the CCP a great opportunity 205

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to gain domestic support by appealing to nationalism. In portraying China as a country embraced by ‘internal chaos’ (neiyou) and ‘foreign aggression’ (waihuan), the CCP constantly projected the idea that only a strong centralised state under its leadership could prevent China from threats both at home and abroad. Furthermore, Beijing’s failure to win the bid for the 2000 Olympic Games and extensive criticism it received on human rights and Tibet also assisted the CCP in instilling ‘an aura of victimisation and international conspiracy within the expectant nation’ (Tok 2010: 24). However, such ‘international conspiracy’ did not become vivid until the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, which provoked nationalistic sentiments among the Chinese people and underpinned their beliefs that western countries would never give up containing China. Although the CCP needs nationalism to help ‘set the national agenda to suit the party’ (He and Guo 2000: 30), nationalist sentiments are carefully manoeuvred since, as Kristof (2001) remarks, nationalism is ‘not just for conferring legitimacy on the government but also for taking it away’. The party knows well that either to suppress popular nationalism or to encourage it may backfire. That is to say, if the party uses too strong a mechanism to tame nationalism, the CCP’s nationalist rhetoric will be fiercely questioned and therefore ‘causes the party to lose face and authority before the Chinese people’ (Gries 2005a: 181). If, on the other hand, it is too soft, popular nationalism may grow out of control and have strong impact on the social stability and economic well-being that the party claims to deliver. As Zhao (2005: 131–44) observes, the official version of Chinese nationalism is ‘pragmatic’ in essence. At the domestic level, the CCP consolidates its nationalist identity by sustaining a high rate of economic growth and creating a prosperous life for the people. At the international level, it advocates ‘peaceful development’ while resorting to nationalism when China’s core interests are violated by foreign threats. As China is increasingly integrated into the world community, playing the nationalism card has become extremely difficult. As Downs and Saunders (1998: 120–1) recognise, ‘power constraints and the contradictions between domestic appeal to nationalism and a development strategy that relies heavily on foreigners mean tradeoffs exist between nationalism and economic performance’. This requires the leadership to formulate a foreign policy that can simultaneously balance both objectives (Shirk 2007: 68), but in reality such a balanced foreign policy is hard to reach. Its commitment to the world as a peaceful riser and the promise to the home audience as a defender of national honours can sometimes put the government into an ‘irreconcilable conflict’ in which it has to accept the consequences of either nationalist frustration or the impact on its opening-up policy. The Chinese government opts to block information which it thinks can ignite popular nationalism in order to reserve some room for secretive negotiation and avoid being hijacked by nationalistic public opinion; arguably, the expansion of internet usage has made it increasingly hard to do so. While, on the other hand, by reiterating the return of Hong Kong and Macau and the hosting of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the CCP promotes ‘confident nationalism’ (Oksenberg 1986: 501–23) and attempts to convince the domestic audience that under the leadership of the CCP China will restore the past glory of the Chinese nation and overcome the ‘century of humiliation’ (Gries 2004 and 2005b: 251–6).

Popular nationalism From the above, Chinese nationalism has been explained from a statist point of view. In other words, it was the Chinese political elites who introduced and interpreted the concept of nationalism and mobilised people’s nationalist sentiments. However, Chinese nationalism cannot be fully understood without taking the popular nationalists into account. The popular version 206

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of Chinese nationalism is more complicated, and Pye (1996: 90) observes that popular nationalism in China tends to ‘vacillate between the extremes of xenophobic distrust and unqualified admiration of all things foreign’. Therefore, anti-traditionalism and anti-foreignism have been two strands of popular nationalism in China since the 1980s. The anti-traditionalist nationalism was popular in the late 1980s, and these nationalists inclined to blame Chinese tradition as the fundamental cause for China’s socio-political problems and simultaneously ‘used images of the west as examples of the new civilisation summoning China’ (Zhao 1997: 728). Such a self-demeaning tendency was denounced by the government as ‘a dangerous example of “spiritual pollution” that blindly advocated total westernisation and boosted national nihilism’ (Zhao 1997: 728). Notwithstanding, in Zhao’s opinion those anti-traditionalists were ‘assertively nationalistic’ because their ideal was to summon the Chinese people to ‘rejuvenate the nation by assimilating nourishment from the west and by demanding a fundamental change in the state of the Chinese mind’ (Zhao 1997: 728). The waning of anti-traditionalism was not only attributed to the fact that it failed to find ‘a replacement for Chinese tradition that could provide a satisfactory form of identification’ (Zhao 2004: 137), but also to the official ‘patriotic education programme’ that de-romanticised western values and emphasised their incompatibility with Chinese conditions. Although people were cynical towards the official warnings of the threats from the west during the early years after the suppression of the anti-traditionalist trend, they tended to concur with the official propaganda that the west intended to prevent China from becoming a strong country. This tendency was exemplified by the popularity of a book entitled China Can Say No (Song et al. 1996). The authors of the book express resentment towards the USA for its alleged hostility and continuous criticism of China on human rights and Tibet. People tended to shared the official view not only because of the massive state propaganda and patriotic education campaign, but also because of a number of incidents. For instance, NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 19991 and the Sino-US jet collision in 2001,2 which lent credence to the suspicion that western countries were hostile to China. However, it is not correct to blame media commercialisation as the only factor fanning the flame of nationalism. Technically speaking, it was not difficult to ban the book if the government did not want it at all. Although the government’s instrumentalist flow with popular nationalism may bring short-term grassroots leverage which advantages itself in diplomatic negotiations, it can cause frustration among popular nationalists and hence harm the government’s credibility. As Lagerkvist (2010: 201) explains, popular nationalists expect ‘sincerity and long-term nationalist commitment from the government’, not ‘occasionally giving the green light for patriotic outburst and later putting out the fire of public opinion when it no longer suits policy’. The outburst of Chinese popular nationalism is also driven by a dualistic complex of victor and victim psychology. It consistently reminds people of China’s great achievements in the past and its long-suffering tragedies at the hands of imperialists since 1840. When China is depicted as a victor, its glorious past becomes a memory of supremacy; whereas, when China is depicted as a victim, it becomes a reminder of past humiliations. Although the government has been reiterating the narrative of past humiliation through education and state media, as Gries (2004: 20) explains, it is not correct to shed light only on the party propaganda while trivialising ‘the roles that the Chinese people and their emotions play in Chinese nationalism’. In fact, such a ‘pessoptimist structure of feeling’ (Callahan 2010) that interweaves China’s sense of pride and sense of humiliation is indispensable in the making of Chinese nationalism in both official and popular contexts, and both actors agree that becoming a strong nation is the only way to rejuvenate China and wipe away its past humiliations. 207

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Today the CCP worries about the rise of liberal popular nationalism. Radically different from the official nationalism which stresses a close connection between the Chinese nation and the CCP, liberal nationalists draw a clear division between the party and the nation. Although their demand for a strong state to defend China’s interest and dignity appear to be in accordance with the official nationalist rhetoric, it does not mean that they share the nationalist agenda. According to Suisheng Zhao (2005: 137), liberal nationalists claim that ‘in the arena of international competition, Chinese people should defend their national rights’, while ‘in the domestic arena, they should fight for their personal rights of participation against the authoritarian Communist State’. This argument dismisses the common interpretation that sees the CCP’s instrumental manipulation as the sole factor contributing to the rise of popular Chinese nationalism, and explains why the CCP was so cautious in coping with popular nationalist sentiments. The study of Chinese nationalism requires attention to official and popular nationalism because both contribute to the holistic image of Chinese nationalism. Although official and popular nationalists tend to share a common goal for building a better and stronger China, they have different ideals and agendas. Nationalism is used by the CCP to legitimise its leadership and unite its people, and political elites have been adjusting nationalist strategies and agendas according to their own needs and the people’s reactions. Popular nationalists attempt to seek in their own voice, but due to the government’s monopoly of nationalist politics they can be easily muted if the government thinks they exceed what is acceptable. The extent to which popular nationalists can realise their goals largely relies on how government responds to these nationalist appeals; but the government’s instrumentalist attitudes towards nationalism can hardly guarantee a consistent answer to popular nationalists. Since the internet redefines the way ordinary people can engage in the politics of nationalism, the question is how independently popular nationalists can seek their own nationalist objectives.

The landscape of the Chinese cyberspace The enormous expansion of internet usage in China and its purported decentralising properties have depicted a different landscape from traditional media in terms of ‘applications and impact’ (Sassi 2001: 89), and brings opportunities to create ‘democratic, participatory realms devoted to information and debates’ (Langman 2005: 44). By examining the peculiarities of the Chinese internet, the following section aims to explicate the question: What is the Chinese internet out of which Chinese online nationalism comes into being? The internet in China has expanded dramatically, with 457 million users by the end of 2010, but according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) the penetration rate still remains relatively low at 34.3 per cent. Moreover, there is a huge disparity between regions (Beijing has the highest penetration rate of 69.4 per cent and Guizhou the lowest with only 19.8 per cent) and between urban and rural users which is 72.7 per cent vs. 27.3 per cent. Usage is dominated by young people aged from 10 to 29, constituting up to nearly 60.0 per cent of the total internet population in China. The internet is predominantly used by well educated people, among which 58.8 per cent have senior middle school degrees and above (CNNIC 2011). As the above data suggest, the internet in China is mainly used by young, urban and highly educated people. Therefore, the online community in China is a special stratum of the public, and hence we should consider that the online population cannot fully represent the whole population. An exponential increase in internet usage does not necessarily signal an increasing interest in political discussion among users. Internet utilisation in China is noticeably personal, 208

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entertainment-oriented and apolitical, and according to the CNNIC (2011), the majority of people surf the internet to acquire information, download music, communicate with friends, play online games and for shopping. The concerns of young internet users on private life have resulted in a low level of interest in public issues; and in lieu of thinking that people are interconnected in the same virtual society, it is realistic to say that they are living in various ghettos differentiated by the lifestyles with which they identify. From this perspective, it could be said that people are less active and less politically motivated than most internet advocates have imagined. Although Chinese netizens represent only one-third of the overall Chinese population and their online behaviours are to a large extent entertainment-oriented and fun-seeking, this does not mean that their voices, ideas and thinking are not significant to the Chinese society as a whole. The interactive and anonymous internet has led to a growing interest in public affairs such as environmental protection, food security and civil rights among Chinese netizens. Moreover, Chinese netizens are increasingly using the internet to supervise the government, expose corruption and misconduct and for challenging government policies, although criticism of the central government and top leaders is still nearly impossible. China launched a ‘Government Online Project’ to enhance government efficiency and transparency; and Chinese top leaders including former President Hu Jintao and former Premier Wen Jiabao often paid visits to the ‘Strong Nation Forum’ – an online forum affiliated to the CCP’s mouthpiece newspaper the People’s Daily – to chat with netizens, to show that the central government cares about, and listens to, online opinion. Regardless of this, control is an inevitable theme of the Chinese internet. Gary D. Rawnsley (2008: 129) notes that ‘the greatest obstacle to the democratic potential of the internet remains non-technological, namely governments who consider this communications system a threat to their political power and thus seek to constrain its use’. Although Xiao (2011: 209) proclaims that total control of the internet is impossible, this does not mean that governments have lost their grip on the internet (Hachigian 2001: 118–33; Harwit and Clark 2001: 377–408; Morozov 2011; Yang 2009b: 17–33). Much attention has been paid to the government’s waning capacity to exercise ‘hard control’ while underestimating its growing power of ‘soft control’. Deutsch (1966: 82) agrees that ‘it might make sense to think of government somewhat less as a problem of power and somewhat more as a problem of steering’. In China, as Brady (2008) notes, the government invests enormous effort in the production and distribution of online propaganda in order to ‘guide’ public opinion. This tendency is particularly exemplified by the use of online commentators, known as the ‘fifty cent party’ (wumaodang) who, according to Bandurski (2008: 41–4), are a group of people hired by the government authorities mainly to offset voices that are negative to the government ‘by pushing pro-party views through chat rooms and web forums’; in return, they receive RMB 50 cents (c. US$0.08) for each message they post. From this perspective, it is true, as Morozov (2011: 117) proclaims, China has turned ‘the internet into the Spinternet – a web with little censorship but lots of spin and propaganda’. Resistance is also a significant theme of the Chinese internet. Chinese netizens have various skills such as using codes, euphemisms and symbols to circumvent, expose and even ridicule the government’s control. As Herold (2011: 1–20) and Li (2011: 71–88) both observe, the Chinese internet resembles a carnival, because it provides Chinese people some freedoms they cannot enjoy offline. According to Bakhtin (1984a and 1984b), carnival is a subversive place where hierarchy, privileges and prohibitions are temporarily suspended, and ‘carnival gesticulation’ and ‘outspoken carnivalistic word’ are not only allowed, but also celebrated. This is because the anonymity of the internet gives ‘masks’ to users and protects them from being identified. More 209

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importantly, it is the sense of belonging that empowers and legitimises carnivalistic behaviours as people realise that others are celebrating, shouting and laughing in the same way. The carnivalistic internet is where people turn official slogans, symbols and ideologies into a laughingstock as a counter-hegemonic strategy. Carnival provides a place for discontented people to unleash their anger and disappointment, but it only reconfirms the fact that they have nowhere else to get their messages through offline. Although Chinese netizens have much greater levels of freedom on the internet, their freedom does not go beyond the virtual space. The government increasingly regards the internet as a ‘safety valve’ (Xiao 2011: 203) to relieve social tension before extreme actions may arise, so they give internet users some freedom to ‘celebrate’ carnivals, as long as they do not lead to massive protests in the streets. All the features of the Chinese internet discussed above help sketch out the peculiar ecosystem out of which online Chinese nationalism emerges. On the other hand, these features not only shape but also give meanings to the online behaviours in Chinese cyberspace. Over one-third of the Chinese population have access to the internet and usage is dominated by young, urban and well-educated people. This circumscribes the likely online population to whom online Chinese nationalism appeals and who initiate the bottom-up nationalism. The generally apolitical, self-centred and individualistic nature of Chinese netizens also helps understand some distinctive characteristics of online Chinese nationalism. For instance, during the Beijing Olympic torch relay in 2008, these young netizens were the main force protesting against the perceived ‘western bias’ that tarnished China’s image. As Lagerkvist (2010: 195) finds, Chinese netizens are ‘pragmatic, materialistic and nationalist all at the same time’, but it is these characteristics that make popular nationalism often appear ‘inconsistent and ad hoc itself’ (Lagerkvist 2010: 200). Those young people appeared to be anti-west during the protests and they used strong nationalist language to condemn western hostility against China and urge people to boycott western products. Given that those young people are nationalist on the one hand, and pragmatic and concerned about personal life on the other hand, such nationalist passion does not necessarily lessen their yearnings for western lifestyle. As a result, when they realise that the nationalist waves begin to recede, they may continue to buy foreign goods and apply to study in western countries. The internet does enable ordinary people to ‘experiment with their public opinions’ (Liu 2005: 149), and create avenues for them to challenge the government. The constant tussle between the netizens and the government for de-controlling and re-controlling nonetheless establishes a dimension of thinking of online Chinese nationalism not as a purely spontaneous and bottomup movement that can challenge the official dominance of nationalist politics, but as a struggle where both official and popular players compete for narratives.

Online Chinese nationalism: a challenge to the CCP? Theorists on nationalism like Breuilly (1993), Brass (1991) and Hobsbawm (1992: 1–14) all tend to agree that nationalism is a consequence of social engineering led by state elites and it is used as a tool to authorise ‘state action’ and ‘secure the support of the masses’ (Ozkirimli 2000: 108). I do not deny the role state elitists play in the shaping of nationalism, but the topdown model which sees people as passive receivers of propaganda omits the dynamics from below. Moreover, it is clearly inadequate when nationalism is embedded into an online context, for the internet creates possibilities for ordinary users to disseminate and publicise their nationalist claims as counter-forces against the top-down manipulation. Since the internet provides opportunities for both state and users to compete, it is essential to include both top-down and bottom-up frameworks into the study of online Chinese nationalism. 210

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Memory is a key ingredient in the formation of national identities, and how memories are narrated is of great importance to the shaping of nationalism. As mentioned earlier, the CCP invests enormous energy in building itself as a true nationalist, and its heroic achievements and histories, especially its role against Japanese invasion during the Second World War, have been extensively propagandised and repeated through mass schooling and mass media. The official dominance of nationalist discourse is largely contingent upon the CCP’s ability to maintain a set of collective memories that favours its ruling. However, the prevalence of the internet and the popularity of interactive sites such as forums, blogs and microblogs (weibo)3 undermine the CCP’s control on the narration and interpretation of collective memories, as these sites provide avenues for ordinary people to tell, circulate and share different versions of memories. For instance, for decades, as the then ruling party in China which retreated to Taiwan after its defeat by the CCP in 1949, the role of the KMT in the war against the Japanese invasion has long been obscured in the official discourses of the CCP. Internet users have been retelling the history of China’s war against Japan, and the call to critically re-evaluate the KMT can been constantly heard. The CCP’s version of the war, which amplified its own role as a defender of national dignity while underplaying the KMT as a corrupt and incapable party, is under challenge, and the appeal for rehabilitating the KMT in the war can encroach upon the CCP’s nationalist histories. In contrast, as Zhang (2009: 86–102) elucidates, the influence of a different memory discourse can hardly shake the CCP’s legitimacy due to the apolitical nature of the majority of internet users and the government’s grip on memory politics. Zhang (2009: 100–1) considers further that although the internet gives some freedom to netizens to narrate different memories, such memories can only become ‘at best a subcollective memory or fragmented memory for a certain group, not the national collective memory at all’. The government can filter any memories that jeopardise its own version, and the censorship in fact helps entrench collective memories favoured by the leading political elites. Although the Chinese internet is rigorously censored, the functionality of censorship should not be overstated. It is worth noticing that censorship can backfire, and it does not always succeed in blocking people from knowing something. Internet users can learn that they have been censored, for instance from the automated system message reminding them the posts they are about to upload contain sensitive content, or from the notice sent by the web administrators warning them of the removal of their posts due to violation of some online regulations. Instead of obstructing information, censorship may result in the reverse – it tells users that there must be something that the government does not want its people to know, and hence stimulates inquisitive users to seek the ‘truth’. Moreover, frequent censorship is a reflection of the government’s incapability of managing information, and in the long term it also exhausts government’s credibility, because people may perceive that what is censored, no matter true or false, is the truth that the government intends to hide. Realising this, the CCP is increasingly using soft control methods like the ‘fifty cent party’ to neutralise rather than simply block information that deviates from the official line. By publishing and pushing comments that favour the official stance, these commentators intend to create a prevalence of pro-government online opinions as if the comments are grassroots, spontaneous and independent from political manipulation. However, as the existence of this special workforce is no longer a mystery, and the language they use to persuade other online audience is often too official and bluntly progovernment, the title ‘fifty cent party’ is increasingly used as a derogatory term to label and laugh at those who blindly share the position of the government. Many scholars have discussed the potency of communications technologies in nation building and the formation of identity. For example, Benedict Anderson (1983) points to the mass consumption of newspapers as a way of imagining community. Deutsch (1953: 72) likewise 211

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declares that ‘people are held together “from within” by communicative efficiency, the complementarity of the communicative facilities acquired by their members’. The internet not only provides an opportunity for people to imagine at ‘long-distance’, as ‘nationalism no longer depends as it once did on territorial location in a home country’ (Anderson 2001: 42), but also serves as an effective medium that interconnects and holds together more easily those who share the same nationalist ideals, agendas and courses of action. The internet creates new mechanisms for Chinese people to imagine and maintain the country, and they have been using it increasingly to publicise nationalist information, practice and reinforce nationalist identities and rally nationalist support, especially when they believe China’s national interests and dignity are under threat. This tendency was evident in 2008 as the international torch relay of the Beijing Olympics encountered massive protests in Europe, especially in Paris. Regardless of the protests about human rights issues in Tibet during the torch relay, the official Chinese media still tended to obscure the scale of protests and reporting was minimal. On the contrary, the CCP promoted national pride by showing the domestic audience how harmonious the torch relay was, and how much support and welcome China received. For China, the Beijing Olympics was considered a symbol of national pride, and how the world received the international torch relay was tied closely to the nationalism of the Chinese people. Hence the way each city received the Olympic torch was observed closely by Chinese nationalists, as they saw the quality of reception as a criterion for gauging if the receiving country was friendly to China. Knowing this, the CCP had to downplay the protests the Beijing Olympics encountered, because if the real stories of the chaotic torch relay were told, the feelings of frustrations and anger would give rise to popular nationalism. This would impair the peace-loving and friendly image China wanted to project to the world. More importantly, as the Chinese government promised its people that a glorious Olympics could showcase China’s pride and win international applause, too much attention on oppositional voices could certainly endanger its ruling legitimacy. However, the CCP’s agenda of promoting ‘confident nationalism’ and its capacity to control the flow of nationalist information was soon challenged by those overseas Chinese students who personally witnessed the torch relay events and uploaded a great quantity of texts, pictures and videos to various internet forums and social networking sites. The internet not only allowed them to imagine the community by sharing with millions of compatriots back in China what they saw and experienced in the torch relay, but also to take on some independent role in the politics of nationalism. The participation of online popular nationalists in the politics of nationalism was first of all manifested in the framing of the nationalist incidents. In contrast to the official media where the torch relay in Paris was largely represented as a welcomed and supported event by the French, popular nationalists framed it as a chaotic event, with China facing protest and criticism; China’s national pride suffered. For those who aimed to share their personal experiences of the torch relay in Paris, they often employed strong language to inform other Chinese of a hostile France that attempted to humiliate China. Online nationalists also appealed to compatriots in other countries where the Beijing Olympic torch was to be received to protect the ‘holy flame’ that represented China’s glory. Overseas nationalists shared their experiences of escorting the torch, and discussed together further plans for better protection of the relay. Many overseas Chinese, especially study abroad students, were mobilised to escort the torch in San Francisco and Canberra. The internet enhances Chinese people’s ability to imagine the nation and can mobilise nationalist audiences. Furthermore, the internet also creates chances for people to express as well as reinforce their nationalist identities. As the ‘real’ stories about the Paris leg of the torch 212

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relay reached more and more people, fierce discussion on internet forums took place. From shouting out xenophobic slogans such as ‘Down with France’ to debating the boycott of the French supermarket chain Carrefour, condemning France for its alleged hostility to China and expressing hatred towards France was a predominant theme throughout discussions. The attitudes of Chinese online discussants towards France’s hostility bifurcated dramatically and seemed to take two extreme forms, that is to say, people felt extremely anxious about France’s hostility and believed that the reason France dare humiliate China during the torch relay was because of China’s weakness. They constantly retold and reproduced the memories of past humiliations at the hands of western imperialists to elevate a sense of national crisis. On the other hand, some people felt the protests reflected China’s growing strength, and believed that France was jealous of China. No matter which explanation they favoured, online nationalists shared the belief that France was hostile to China and it was China’s enemy. Hence defaming France became a common technique in online discourse. Its colonialist past provided abundant themes to shame France, and online nationalists constantly attacked France by emphasising the crimes it had committed during the colonial age. France was described as a barbarian, savage and cruel country. The more enthusiastically they express hatred towards the enemy and the worse they defame the enemy, the more nationalist they feel. Before the torch relay incident in Paris, France in general enjoyed a favourable reputation in China. Indeed France was often seen as a role model because of its lead in various areas like technology and education. However, the objectivity and rationality of admitting France as a respectable country gave way to the emotional expression of feeling hatred. Pye (1992: 68) points out that ‘hate and hostility are not only more openly acknowledged but they are extolled as positive virtues of the political activists’. Expressing one’s hatred towards France became the passport for confirming nationalist identity. While it is important to notice that using the Beijing Olympics to promote confident nationalism at home and China’s image as a peaceful actor abroad was undermined by a prevalence of critical feelings towards France on the internet, it is also worth admitting that the online freedom of expressing nationalism indicated governmental approval. The online call to boycott the French supermarket Carrefour in response to France’s perceived hostility did not stimulate much interference from the government, and some even urged the government to take tougher measures. In addressing online popular nationalism, the Chinese government showed some level of responsiveness to the claims on the internet. For instance, when the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was asked if the Chinese government supported the internet campaign for the Carrefour boycott, she responded ‘it’s true that some Chinese people expressed their views and emotions in the past few days, but there is a reason for this. This is actually something the French side should ponder over.’4 From the early attempts of downplaying the protests in Paris for fear that the rise of popular nationalism may damage China’s international image, to the overt co-optation of the online nationalist sentiments in the official discourse, there was a shift in the nationalist attitudes of the CCP which showed that the party’s nationalist policies could change according to its political needs. The CCP’s instrumentalist co-optation of online nationalism could lever its negotiation with its French counterpart, and enhance its nationalist image among the domestic audience. More importantly, what this example shows is that the government could no longer leave the online nationalist claims unaddressed. Whether or not it agrees with the policies proposed by internet users, the government has to first of all identify with the people by affirming their nationalistic passion. As explained in the previous section, although the Chinese online population only represents approximately one-third of the overall population, the CCP has showed considerable 213

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attention to online opinion. This is because, as Shirk (2011: 241) clarifies, unlike democratic countries where politicians ‘rely on elections and on polls of scientifically selected representative samples’, politicians in authoritarian countries have to rely on ‘being attentive to the people who feel so strongly about something that they might come out on the streets to protest’. Moreover, as Zhao (2008: 174–5) observes, the outburst of popular nationalism can align with other forms of discontent. The CCP shows some tolerance of carnivalistic voices and behaviour on the internet and allows some online freedom for people to vent their discontent, but it becomes extremely cautious if online discontent is transformed into real protests on the streets. This explains why the CCP started to censor the internet when the online initiative to boycott Carrefour became a concrete plan. Fearing that the internet could quickly mobilise people to form massive demonstrations that could endanger social stability, the government called for people to remain calm and warned them to guard against extreme behaviours that external hostile parties could take advantage of. To cool down nationalist sentiments, the word ‘Carrefour’ became a sensitive word on the Chinese internet, and any online content that could possibly stir up nationalism was blocked. To conclude, what makes the internet special for the study of Chinese nationalism is that it challenges the traditional thinking of nationalism as a top-down manoeuvre, and provides a chance to look at nationalism from a bottom-up perspective. The internet not only enables popular actors to engage in the politics of nationalism but also to compete with the official actors for nationalist discourses. The intermeshing of both actors is increasingly shaping the ways online Chinese nationalism can be understood. The internet provides various opportunities for ordinary Chinese to assume an independent role in shaping nationalist discourse. However this does not mean that the official control of nationalist discourse is completely menaced; the government is consistently developing control mechanisms and attempting to minimise claims and actions that undermine its authority. The control–resistance landscape does not necessarily suggest that it is the only interactional pattern between the two actors. They have different nationalist policies and advocates, but this does not prevent the government from co-opting online popular nationalism based on some common ground. Although censorship still remains the main method of control, the government is learning to engage cautiously with the online public. By doing so, as Qian and Bandurski (2011: 39) acknowledge, ‘the CCP seeks a powermaximising balance between censorship and propaganda on the one hand and responsiveness on the other’. The increasing level of the government’s responsiveness portrays a co-optation landscape of state–public interaction. The co-optation of online nationalism provides the government some ground to mobilise popular support, but the extent to which both actors could concord on nationalism depends on their own nationalist agendas. Online popular nationalism contradicts, co-opts and integrates with the official nationalism, and in the long term will coexist and intertwine with the official nationalism.

Notes 1 2 3 4

In May 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia five US guided bombs hit the PRC embassy in Belgrade and killed three Chinese reporters (Dumbaugh undated). In April 2001, a mid-air collision occurred between a US Navy intelligence aircraft and a Chinese fighter jet over Hainan Island, resulting in the death of a Chinese pilot (Paglia 2001). Weibo is a Chinese equivalent of Twitter. It allows user to post messages up to 140 characters, and is gaining great popularity in China. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Jiang Yu’s regular press conference on 15 April 2008. Available online www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xwfw/s2510/2511/t425858.htm (retrieved 10 December 2012).

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13 A cyberconflict analysis of Chinese dissidents focusing on civil society, mass incidents and labour resistance Athina Karatzogianni and Andrew Robinson

Introduction This chapter employs the cyberconflict perspective (Karatzogianni 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012a: 52–73, 2012b: 221–46; Karatzogianni and Robinson 2010) to offer an in-depth analysis of Chinese dissidents in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) focusing particularly on the 2000s. A distinction is drawn between socio-political (or active) social movement uses of the internet – which focus on organisation, mobilisation and the networked form of the medium itself – and ethno-religious (or reactive) social movement uses, which subordinate the medium to vertical logics. These are often expressed in terms of ad hoc mobilisations and tit-for-tat defacements and cyberattacks adhering to closed and fixed identities, such as nationality, religion and ethnicity. Cyberconflict is a synthesis of three overlapping theories of social movement theory (for socio-political movements), conflict theory (for ethno-religious movements) and media theory (the intersection of cyberconflict, capitalism and the state). This theory is applied in the context of a systemic structural analysis of capitalist power, in a context in which neoliberalism and regime maintenance are both mutually reproducing and undermining. While the internet, as a networked technology, is most appropriate for networked forms of power, it exists in a dynamic field in which hierarchies and hierarchy-network hybrids also proliferate, containing and channelling its emancipatory potential through strategies of recuperation, repression, inclusion and exclusion. More specifically, cyberconflict theory examines how politico-economic reforms, the media environment and e-governance have affected dissent in China (i.e. Communist Party ideology, constructions of social and political identities, representations of and by dissidents and link to e-governance; control of information, level of censorship; alternative sources; media effects on policy; political contest). A second cluster of elements of concern includes the effect of information communication technologies (ICTs) on mobilisation structures, organisational forms, participation, recruitment, tactics and goals of dissidents, as well as changes in framing processes and the impact of the political opportunity structure on resistances in China. A third, in relation to ethnic, religious and cultural dissent, examines how the Communist Party state 217

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and dissident group identities are constructed in relation to ethnic/religious/cultural difference, and the national and competing identities construction. Also, hacktivism (or invariably termed digital activism, tech activism, cyberactivism) and information warfare in China are discussed in a variety of settings, especially in relation to social networking media and contemporary dissent. To engage with these areas, this chapter is divided into three main sections. The first discusses the political environment in China to provide the context for dissent and involves a broad stroke consideration of neoliberalism in China with a further discussion on censorship and control in this environment. The second section maps networked dissent in terms of the impact and use of ICTs in relation to civil society, mass incidents and labour resistance, and shows how it links to broader resistance in the global mediascape. The final section concentrates on nationalism and the symptomatic repression of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as nationalism, which fuels and links to cybercrime and patriotic hacking.

Hypercapitalism and its discontents Critics suggest that neoliberalism in China has led to growing inequality and corruption (Arrighi 2007: 15–16). In effect, the transnationally led growth strategy has transferred resources en masse to private capital in coastal cities, so as to provide incentives to lure transnational capital (Wei and Leung 2005: 16–40; Yusuf and Wu 2002: 1213–40), an approach known in China as ‘building nests to attract birds’ (Zweig 2002: 60). Changes in the urban landscape, for example, show the replacement of corporatist and traditional spaces with spaces of information-economy capitalism (Fu 2002: 114). Transnational capital dominates urban areas both symbolically and economically, expressing itself in orthogonal growth (Gaubatz 1999: 1495–521). The arrangement of spaces along a functional capitalist level, with clustering of economic functions, is particularly apparent (Rimmer 2002: 1–8). Finance capital and landlords, aided by technocratic political leaders, become dominant classes within local power structures (Jessop and Sum 2000: 2288; Yusuf and Wu 2002: 1224; Chen 1998: 671–88). Transnational capitalist projects are unrestricted by state power (Wu 2000: 1363). The state is able to extract rents on transnational flows (Zweig 2002: 23–4), but suffers from increased dependency, as well as from the growing power of those on whom it depends to resist rent-extraction. As in all global cities, local elites maintain rent-extraction mainly through immobile infrastructure such as real estate (Brenner 1998: 15) which function as the source of monopolistic superprofit nexuses, allowing the extraction of above-market profits through non-reproducible conditions (Taylor 2000: 157–62). In China, such rent-extraction runs against traditional rights of state tenants, who local elites dispossess at will in order to accumulate revenue from corporate rents (Zhou and Logan 2002: 141). Furthermore, there is a discontinuity in global city emergence, with connectivity but not command-and-control functions (i.e. maintaining authority but with a distributive style of decision making) spreading to peripheral locations. Beijing for instance has much higher quantitative scores for connectivity than command-and-control (Taylor et al. 2002: 231, 238), while Hong Kong scores third in the world for connectivity, but lacks global command functions (Taylor et al. 2002: 234, 237–8). Chinese global cities, as with others in the global south, differ from their northern counterparts in being focused on attracting foreign investment (Wei and Leung 2005: 19–20; Shi and Hamnett 2002: 128). It can thus be argued that (coastal urban) China has become a dependent peripheral state within neoliberal capitalism, rather than an emergent hegemonic contender. This regime of accumulation is partly sustained in classic ‘Southern fashion’ (Wolpe 1972: 425–56) by the persistence of a largely non- or semi-capitalist agrarian sector, which underpins sub-reproduction-cost wages and resultant comparative advantage. This dual 218

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economy allows the hyperexploitation of undocumented migrants from rural to urban areas, with rural areas effectively treated as an internal periphery. Like other such models, it is destabilised by its simultaneous reliance on, and accumulation-by-dispossession at the expense of, the non- or semi-capitalist sectors. In addition, cities continue to rely on rural hinterlands (Lin 2002: 302). Some scholars write of a crisis of governance, with the regime seeing the effects of neoliberalism as introducing instability that threatens to produce ‘chaos’ (luan) (Kluver 2005: 78). Along with other means such as nationalism, e-governance initiatives have been introduced as an attempt to re-stabilise Chinese society. Part of the difficulty with the position of the internet in China is that it is simultaneously useful for neoliberalism and harmful to authoritarianism (hence to the specific form of neoliberalism prevalent in China). Rawnsley (2007: 42–57) argues that the internet’s horizontal, networked structure is appropriate to economic modernisation and hence necessary for China, but clashes sharply with a centralised, hierarchical governance system. Regime integration depends on mainly vertical structures. Hence, Qiu (2009: 10–11) suggests that the path-dependency of institutional legacies is the main reason for internet censorship. However, there are also real dangers. The regime is highly fearful of ‘linking-up’ (chuanlian), the formation of horizontal connections and solidarities between different sites, which was central to the Cultural Revolution and is seen as prefiguring society-wide mobilisation. The widely observed result is a self-contradictory relationship in which China both embraces the internet and fears and seeks to control it (Taubman 1998: 255–72; Qiu 2004: 101; Kalathil and Boas 2003; Endeshaw 2004: 41–57). Less widely noted is the basis of this contradictory policy in divisions between fractions of the Chinese elite, with growth-oriented technocrats pitted against state-control interests in the army, propaganda system and security agencies. The former care more about developmentalstate concerns, the latter about keeping power and winning any emerging cyberwars (Qiu 2004: 110). The latter institute policies which are unjustifiably costly in developmentalist or neoliberal economic terms, but which also serve as job-creation and import-substitution initiatives inside China (Qiu 2004: 112). China’s attitude to global information flows is thus self-contradictory. The regime both wishes for such flows for economic reasons, and fears that they could be its downfall (Bennett 2010). In particular, the regime is afraid of pro-democracy messages coming out of the global mediascape (Appadurai 1990: 305). Moreover, it has been noted that ‘[t]he Chinese government has chosen to address through information technology, problems of corruption, transparency and local government reform, and the development of poor areas’ (Kalathil and Boas 2003: 13). In effect, a controlled internet provides the possibility for feedback mechanisms, which fall short of accountability, and therefore fall within the regime’s view of stability. In part, this is an attempt to combat the culture of dissimulation by allowing a direct connection between the centre and individual citizens, bypassing local officials and allowing their surveillance by the centre (Kluver 2005: 85). These are a recent, computer-mediated variance of a wider reliance on ‘limited bottomup citizen participation’ as an accountability mechanism to control local officials, a practice which is dangerous for the regime, as participants often take up politicised issues (Minzer 2009: 82–3). Such mobilisation is aided by the fact that many local governments have been slow to take up computer technologies (Qiu 2004: 107; Tong and Lei 2010). Further, the regime is making increasingly sophisticated use of control modalities which combine commercialisation with government restriction, co-opting private actors to reinforce control. This process is creating a type of internet openness, which is restricted to entertainment functions (Qiu 2004: 113–14). Despite the apparent softening, repression is never far below the surface and seems to be constructed to pre-empt and premediate dissent in advance through 219

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the logistical closure of space and the multiplication of both formal and informal regulations. For instance, in November 2012 the congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was accompanied by at least 130 arrests of dissidents, others were placed under house arrest or exiled from Beijing; bans on pigeons, balloons, taxi door handles, ping-pong balls; remote-control aircraft restrictions on transport; and closures of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education, which offers advice to migrant workers. At least half the sex workers in the city were reportedly arrested and expelled from Beijing. The Ministry of Information Technology expressed the need to ‘seal the network’ (fengwang) during the party congress, and it was impossible to access the New York Times’s articles exposing the financial operations of Premier Wen Jiabao (Barboza 2012; Jacobs 2012a). ‘Unlucky’ words such as ‘death’, ‘die’ and ‘down’ were even banned from TV shows (Economic Times 2012). This general climate of repression – which is typical of major events in China – creates a generalised feeling of disempowerment, an inability to protest and even an existential gap between the regime and any possible opposition. The Economic Times (2012) quotes a microblogger: ‘In the face of these absurdities, we are powerless. It’s a reminder that no matter how ridiculous and comical, this is an era that we can’t laugh in.’ Ai Weiwei, an international artist and famous dissident, who is going to be discussed more extensively below, said his police minders allowed him to engage with anything except the coming party congress. ‘To be honest, it’s O.K. because it’s just an internal meeting for those people. It has nothing to do with me. Or with anyone else, really’ (Jacobs 2012b). Jiang Shao (2012), another leading dissident, summarises in one paragraph the political climate in the country: ‘Stability maintenance’ has been bolstered as a way to strip the rights of human rights lawyers, activists, petitioners and digital activists. This is a departure from the reign of President Jiang Zemin in the 1990s, which was characterised by its suppression of members of the China Democracy Party and Falun Gong practitioners. Methods of suppression under the recent administration have become more calculating than before, with authorities making blatant and extensive use of diverse and often harsher techniques to retaliate against activists, including abduction, enforced disappearance, torture, illegal detention in ‘black jails’, soft detention, forced ‘tourism’ (a form of residential surveillance away from home) and trumped-up charges like ‘disrupting public order’ or ‘tax evasion’. Such intimidation is focused on activists, and its degree of visibility to the wider public is debatable. The regime relies on an array of ‘deliberately vague and arbitrary regulations’ to maintain control (Rawnsley 2007: 42–57; Dickie 2007). In this context, signals such as Web censorship and news bias may serve to signal the limits to tolerated dissent at a particular time. Tuinstra (2009) suggests that Chinese users now rely on the internet as their eyes and ears regarding government policy and practice, creating risks to the government in interfering too much with it. Pye (2001: 148–54) suggests that Chinese leaders rely on informal decision making to maintain control. This echoes broader patterns of ‘shadow power’ typical of the global south. China’s cyberspace censorship regime has been deemed the most extensive in the world (see, for example, Chase and Mulvenon 2002; Dowell 2006: 111–19; Zittrain and Palfrey 2010: 15–35). China seeks to control the internet by funnelling connections ‘through a small number of statecontrolled backbone networks’, which are in principle vulnerable to censorship and surveillance (Kalathil and Boas 2003: 21). This is an attempt to combat the horizontal, rhizomatic architecture of the internet. It is continuous with the Maoist ideal of vertical control of communication (Kalathil and Boas 2003: 18). Nevertheless, the viability of such strategies long term and on a wider scale is questionable in the current global communications environment. This has led to an emerging policy of ‘not trying to control too much’ (Dickie 2007). It has been suggested that China is using its censorship systems ‘sparingly since this prevents a new generation of internet users from discovering the 220

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numerous ways netizens have figured out to thwart their efforts’ (Tuinstra 2009), in effect choosing a relatively lightly censored internet over a more heavily censored, and therefore more widely resisted, control system. It has also been suggested that the ‘Great Firewall’ has been replaced or supplemented with second- and third-generation forms of control based on corporate censorship, the normalisation of surveillance and state-sponsored information campaigns (MacKinnon 2010: 27). This makes the approach of simply enabling dissidents to circumvent first-generation blocking insufficient or even dangerous (MacKinnon 2010: 30). As a result of such measures, Yang (2009a) argues that China has moved from sovereign power based on ‘hard control’ such as internet censorship, towards disciplinary and bio-political power based on ‘soft control’ through using human actors’ self-censorship and responsiveness to cues. On the other hand, the feeling of efficacy inspires online protests. Surveys also reveal that people both trust the internet as a source of information, and feel it to be an open space in which their discussions are not restricted (Yang 2009a: 132). Tuinstra (2009) suggests that the internet obtains trust as an information source in China because western media are suspected of anti-Chinese bias, and Chinese media regarded as controlled. Information continues to reach Chinese internet users through social media and other sources, leading to a credibility gap which delegitimates the government (Rawnsley 2007: 42–57). However, scepticism is necessary regarding the effects of information flows. Quantitative research suggests that the credibility of official media is a much bigger correlate of political outlook than access to alternative information (Hu and Zhou 2002). Similarly, Thornton (2009: 202–3) suggests that problems of astroturfing and difficulties assessing the scale of dissent render it difficult for online movements to gain trust. The regime is also trying to steer online discussions through the use of paid astroturfers, known in China as the ‘fifty cent party’. It has been estimated that at least 280,000 astroturfers are paid by the Chinese regime, in addition to party members who do it for free, and independent bloggers co-opted by regime patronage (Bandurski 2008; MacKinnon 2010: 23–4). There is also a system of hiring college students to work part-time as internet police and censors (Qiu 2009: 11).

Transnational digital networks of dissent and protest The struggle is worthwhile, if it provides new ways to communicate with people and society. If someone is not free, I am not free. Ai Weiwei (quoted in Elmhirst 2012) Overall we feel that every person has a right to express themselves and this right of expression is fundamentally linked to our happiness and even our existence. When a society constantly demands that everyone should abandon this right, then the society becomes a society without creativity. It can never become a happy society. Ai Weiwei video interview with Lamborn (2012) The images and words that commenced this section show the global media literacy of celebrity dissident Ai Weiwei, which extends to the appropriation of the popular ‘Gangnam Style’ internet meme. This suggests that Ai is an artist and dissident who understands social media activism and knows how to obtain and retain the attention of a global audience. Ai Weiwei here shows himself to be more attuned to the global mediascape than the Chinese regime, which persists in its scepticism towards cyberspace and global media culture. It is thus not entirely inaccurate to say that Ai has ‘escaped’ through YouTube: he is able to exist within an alternative sociopolitical community through a computer-mediated transition to a global scale. 221

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Figure 13.1 Screenshot (no. 1) of artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s parody of Psy’s Gangnam Style incorporating handcuffs in his dance routine Source: From video posted on YouTube by Triplenickel 25 October 2012 (Ai 2012).

Figure 13.2 Screenshot (no. 2) of artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s parody of Psy’s Gangnam Style incorporating handcuffs in his dance routine Source: From video posted on YouTube by Triplenickel 25 October 2012 (Ai 2012).

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Figure 13.3 Twitter screenshot: debating Chinese dissidents and western values on Twitter, 30 July 2012

This type of dissident is partly a product of immaterial labour development in China. Intellectuals and artists, involved in what has been termed immaterial affective labour (Hardt and Negri 2000; Karatzogianni and Schandorf 2012), are often expected to be dissidents, and the correlation of dissent and intellectual status are expressed in artistic and literary awards to Chinese dissidents. This expectation of dissent is transmitted from the west via global discourse, and runs against a Chinese tradition expecting intellectuals to serve the state. Intellectuals in China move within a space in which limits to government tolerance constantly shift. China also has a division between Tizhi (official system) writers and Minjian (literally ‘among the people’, i.e. unofficial) authors. Minjian intellectuals often admit to being outsiders, but deny being dissidents or activists as they seek to stay just inside the margins of regime tolerance (Zhou 2005: 779–803). The Chinese regime is enthusiastic about international recognition of intellectuals, but unhappy when they use their status to demand reforms. For instance, when Mo Yan won a Nobel Prize for Literature, party propagandist Li Changchun observed that it ‘reflects the prosperity and progress of Chinese literature, as well as the increasing influence of China’ (Tatlow 2012a), ignoring Mo’s call for the release of Liu Xiaobo, a previous prize winner from 2010. Similarly, when Liao Yiwu won the German Book Trade’s Peace Prize, he accepted his award with ‘a scorching speech whose theme was: “This empire must break apart”’ (Tatlow 2012b). The style of transnational dissent discussed here, resonates with broader cases of scale-jumping as a means to appeal to the global community to protect human rights. Wanning Sun (2010: 540) explains the usefulness for the scale-jumping concept: Chinese media within the context of two related social processes: a growing social–spatial stratification within China on the one hand, and the formation of widespread but uneven translocal linkages on the other. Additionally, it may help us gain a clearer appreciation of how communication technologies and media practices either assist or inhibit the activity of scale-fixing or scale-jumping, activities that are engaged in by various players: the state, capital, individuals, and of course, media institutions. In other cases, such a rescaling has given considerable power to local actors whose political opportunities are blocked at a national level, through appeals using global human rights discourse (Sikkink 1993: 411–41). The internet encourages such scale-jumping. As Severo et al. (2011) argued, an internet posting moves an issue from a local to a global scale. This is partially the case in China as the regime is unable to control hacktivist groups located outside China (Qiu 2004: 113). This allows dissident groups to promote what Thornton (2009: 187–8) calls a ‘boomerang’ effect, with activism curving around local repression and indifference to generate foreign pressure on local elites. For instance, Ai Weiwei stands out as particularly able to use the global mediascape, first in his use of social media to solicit funds, and second in conforming to the model of ‘explicit’ dissident which the western press understands. He uses this mediaconstructed role to engage with an international audience. Ai has also attempted to articulate 223

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transnational dissident concerns with wider social unrest in China. In particular, he has taken part in campaigns over the government’s handling of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in which 90,000 people died. Despite this repression, Ai, like many Chinese dissidents, stops short of a democratisation agenda, instead calling for liberalisation. In this, he is in continuity with many Minjian intellectuals. However, he is too explicit to be Minjian, and is rather the style of dissident that the west understands and appreciates as he is explicit and connected at the international level via social media and artist circles in major cities around the globe. For example his art is exhibited internationally and a movie made about his activism was played at many international film festivals. Kelliher (1993: 380) has argued that to understand what was termed ‘the democracy movement’ (minzhu yundong or shortened as minyun) in its various phases (1987–89, 1986–87 and 1989) means to ‘examine how Chinese intellectuals conceived of democracy; what political role . . . assigned for themselves; and what sort of elite–mass relations prevailed within the movement, between intellectuals, on the one hand, and workers and peasants, on the other’. In his analysis, Kelliher argues that mainstream activists who dominated the movement focused on liberalisation, as in the establishment of rights to protect people’s freedoms from government interference. It was only radical elements of the movement who pushed for democratisation and popular sovereignty. It is worth diverting here to add that one of the major articulators of Chinese dissidence are political exiles and the diaspora in western countries, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan (for instance see Rawnsley and Rawnsley 2012: 398–403). Yet it is the historical context that can provide the answer to the – up until now – failure of protest, dissidents and resistance groups to topple the communist regime, effectuate reform or engage in any sort of dialogue with the elites forming the hierarchies of the state apparatuses. When an opportunity seemed to present itself in the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2011, dissident calls for mobilisation seemed to meet with little popular response. This failure to construct an overarching, popular dissident project is partly a result of the authoritarian practices routinised in contemporary China, from internet surveillance to detention in labour camps to the everyday presence of street wardens and police. Another partial explanation is provided in the assertion by Kelliher (1993: 379–96) that one of the reasons has been dissidents’ demand for liberalisation, instead of democratisation. However, there are also problems in that the multitude, a thousand plateaus of dissent and rebellion – celebrity dissent, rural and labour unrest, and separatism – remains unarticulated under a common frame. This pushes dissent back into the arms of the regime. The Kelliher argument is significant also in another sense. Intellectuals monopolised the debate, creating an idea that excluded mass supporters, and were unable to talk to peasants and workers in a language they understood, while the urban–rural divide devastated prospects for a mass democratic movement (Kelliher 1993: 381). This democracy was limited in a sense to intellectuals to the extent that Kelliher argues that ‘the notion of elite democracy was a close cousin to the new authoritarianism (xin quanweizhuyi) – the hard government/soft economy variety, the notion that democracy would have to wait until the economy developed’ (Kelliher 1993: 381). Within China, moves towards contestation on the up–down axis can be seen in terms of the still more cautious emergence of a networked civil society. Guobin Yang’s voluminous work in particular makes a strong case that the internet is driving an emerging civil society or public sphere in China. Within China, tolerated civil society groups have emerged synergistically with the internet, facilitating participation (Yang 2003: 405). For example, the emergence of environmental NGOs ‘coincided with the development of the internet in China’ (Yang 2005: 58). Yang goes as far as to suggest that China is undergoing ‘a veritable associational revolution’ fuelled by the internet (Yang 2009a). The incipient, dynamic nature of local civil society has 224

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rendered it particularly prone to adopt online methods (Yang 2003: 406–7), with social uses emerging earlier than e-commerce and e-government (Yang 2003: 411). Guiheux (2009: 135–6) suggests that the internet has contributed to an increase in the number and range of political voices in China. The emergence of Chinese civil society, effectively an included stratum in negotiation with market and state, is still severely constrained by the context, though this has not prevented it from negotiating the relationship (Yang 2005: 66). Reese and Dai (2009: 221–31) observe that censorship now takes place against a background of global connectivity, with bloggers emerging as a media watchdog criticising censorship. The 2009 Panyu anti-incinerator protest in Guangdong shows the importance of modern technologies in generating pressure for protesters’ aims (Zhao 2011: 17–25). Suggesting that this is linked to the middle-class, upwardly mobile constituency of the protests, Katherine Zhao argues that the internet was used to get around regime censorship. Methods such as blocking websites, censoring newspapers and interfering with protesters’ transport arrangements proved insufficient given protesters are constantly evolving their use of ICTs. In addition, protesters were using modern technologies to disseminate live information, research and present alternative information, debunk government claims, and deter repression by filming officials (Zhao 2011: 20). New technologies create a means to challenge regime framing in such a way that the ‘rightfulness’ of protest can be articulated. She also draws attention to the post-representational nature of the protest in which, when told to select representatives for negotiation, the crowd chanted: ‘We don’t want to be represented’ (Zhao 2011: 17). However, protest leaders seem in practice to have tried to keep the movement within non-transgressive bounds (Zhao 2011: 23). The internet is crucial in allowing such environmental movements to succeed. Ma Yan, an environmentalist who won the Goldman Prize, pointed to social media as being responsible for the frequency of environmental protests in China: ‘Social media is a game changer. People can educate themselves and share information’ (Larson 2012). A recent example of how social media accelerate protest is the protest against the building of a petrochemical plant in Ningbo. According to news reports, the protest by mainly middleclass residents, organised through microblogging, smartphone apps and social media, was successful in forcing the authorities to cancel the project within two days (Larson 2012). A similar case occurred in 2007, when residents in Xiamen used the internet and text messaging to coordinate a demonstration against the building of a chemical plant (Yang 2009a: 129). Another such protest – which succeeded without much government opposition – was directed against the extension of a train line, which would reduce house values and pose a health risk (Cunningham and Wasserstrom 2011: 17). The middle-class composition of the protest perhaps explains the widespread use of social media, but this protest also prefigures possible future mobilisations as the internet spreads to working-class and rural populations. It seems likely that the Chinese regime will have increasing difficulty in its strategy of using information blocks to impede social movements. Another successful example, mainly involving students, another group of ‘internet haves’, saw online protests rapidly diffuse around a murder at Beijing University in 2000. Protests on campus and online were closely coordinated, and the issue rapidly spread from the murder itself to issues of free speech online (Yang 2003: 469–72). Yang concludes that ‘the internet facilitates if not completely satisfies the key conditions of the emergence of popular protest’, overcoming information problems and offering speedy, low-risk means of communication (Yang 2003: 472). Research on participants in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong similarly suggest that the internet was an important mobilising channel, with 54.0 per cent listing the internet or emails as important factors motivating them to join a march (Ma 2009: 59). Protest organiser Ng Genebond first discerned widespread student concern about the ‘Article 23’ reform from web forums, 225

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then set up a website to promote the march (Ma 2009: 58). Kuah-Pearce (2009: 112) terms this part of the emergence of a ‘protest ideology’ and ‘protest space’ in Hong Kong, with antiglobalisation overtones. Another recent example of this was the Occupy camp in Hong Kong, which ironically was tolerated while sites in America and Europe were suppressed. The camp lasted nearly a year before finally being suppressed, making it the last major Occupy camp to survive (Bradsher 2010).

‘Mass incidents’ and labour resistance One recent phenomenon is the ‘large-scale internet mass incident’, which is a form of online protest usually used to censure government failures and corruption. The government has been forced to react quickly to such campaigns, and ‘rush solutions to appease public opinion’, as well as to channel them into e-government (Tong and Lei 2010: i–ii). The mass unrest phenomenon in China is difficult to quantify as most incidents are unreported. According to official sources, there are around 80,000 ‘mass incidents’ each year. The term ‘mass incident’ is regime-speak for a demonstration or revolt in which police repression or negotiation is attempted. Some of these cases involve ‘serious clashes between the public and the police’ (Li 2008). Such incidents have increased sharply, from 8,700 per year in 1993 to 23,500 in 1999, 58,000 in 2003 (Keidel 2005: 1), 80,000 in 2007 and 180,000 in 2010 (The Atlantic 2012). China has apparently changed recording criteria since then to avoid further such publicity (Goldkorn 2013). Commentators refer to the ‘extraordinary scale of social unrest’ shown by such clashes (Keidel 2005: 1). The majority of incidents are almost certainly rural, with many focused on issues of land grabs, corruption, abuse by officials or police, or pollution. Reflecting internet use patterns, these campaigns tend to express the political orientations of the middle class and students, but these concerns can also focus on the mistreatment of vulnerable people by the elite. Indeed, according to Guobin Yang, the three main issues of online campaigns are nationalism, misconduct by the powerful and harm to vulnerable individuals (Yang 2009a: 127–9). The trick with such mobilisations is to catch the attention and imagination of the mass of internet users who are mostly online for entertainment purposes. ‘The more outrageous the incident, the more likely it is to arouse the virtual crowd’ (Yang 2009a: 134). Responding actively to the space opened by tolerance of localised protests, ‘internet mass incidents’ have encouraged scrutiny at a local level. Local officials are put under mass surveillance for slips of the tongue, corruption and so on (Tong and Lei 2010: 5–6). Other campaigns target police abuse. Like street protests, it has been suggested that online protests of this kind serve as a means to vent frustration against wider problems (Tong and Lei 2010: 10) and that they are at root about ‘the dark side of economic transformation’ (Yang 2009a: 130). The modalities of such protests have been hotly debated. In terms taken from new social movement theorists Poster and Melucci, Yang (2009a: 129) argues that such campaigns are ‘symbolic challenges’. Their main significance is in allowing the public to reframe issues. In contrast, Minzer (2009: 105) argues that, in a system where performance targets matter more than formal laws or legal rights, ‘disgruntled parties’ have learnt that internet campaigns and mass petitions or protests (which put local leaders in violation of targets) are more effective than formal processes. The success of such protests shows both the regime’s fear of widespread dissent and its preparedness to make partial concessions to head it off. In a cautionary analysis, Zheng (2008) warns that the most effective campaigns have been those that do not challenge the regime itself, instead dividing different factions of the regime against each other. When regime legitimacy is at stake, a repressive response it still typical. Activism is thus typically complicit with the regime’s use of the internet as a regime feedback mechanism (p. 165). Conceding on 226

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such issues can be a way to prolong CCP rule without enacting substantive reforms (MacKinnon 2010: 11). The mechanism of scale-jumping is also central to such protests, which often target local issues or problems, but bypass local power blockages by operating on a national scale. Such developments have led to hopes that democracy is slowly emerging through everyday networks. In contrast, Wang (2009: viii) has concluded that ‘the internet is unlikely to offer democratic hope for China’. This is because most users do not take part in political activities, as they participate in government-sponsored activity due to nationalism (Wang 2009: ix). He suggests that Chinese netizens are most likely to protest against foreign forces, in continuity with grassroots nationalism (Wang 2009: 39–40). The regime seems to encourage this channelling of discontent by being relatively tolerant of such protests (Wang 2009: 104). Internet use does not statistically predict protest participation (Wang 2009: 112), though this is perhaps to be expected given the correlation of internet use with high social status. Western-based websites often act as redistributors of underground dissident material (Abbott 2001: 103). For instance, the Epoch Times, a Falun Gong-linked newspaper, claims to have distributed one of its texts to 2.3 million Chinese users, and drawn 15 million into its campaign to renounce CCP membership (Thornton 2009: 179). Thornton also suggests that the Epoch Times acts as an amplifier of successful actions (2009: 184). Hence, resistance to the Great Firewall continues to take subversive forms. According to Qiu (2009: 13), ‘[t]he global networked nature of such oppositional forces is the most fundamental source of frustration’ for China. However, activists outside a closed political context have limited leverage over regimes (van Laer and van Aelst 2009: 246). In related cases within China, students use media such as bulletin board systems (BBSs) to re-post controversial material in protest at its censorship (Zhou 2006: 218). In 2009, Chinese users overran a German website called the ‘Berlin Twitter Wall’, using it to get around censorship (MacKinnon 2010: 2). In addition, the fluidity of the internet has proven useful to both sides, as in the case of the purported resignation of official Meng Weizai, in which resignations and denunciations were exchanged by the two sides (Thornton 2009: 179–81). Such contestation on the up–down axis seems particularly risky, however. There is something of an anomaly that mass workers’ protests often occur without serious repression, but visible dissidents like supporters of Charter 08 can be sentenced to a decade in jail. Much depends on whether a protest can be framed in terms drawing on the regime’s own heritage – for instance, strikes against foreign companies (Cunningham and Wasserstrom 2011: 15–16). The regime also seems harsher on protests which ‘have the potential to draw support across generations, across classes, and across the country’ than on those focused on local issues (Cunningham and Wasserstrom 2011: 18). Further, Chinese workers continue to be subject to the hegemony of the market and of the state (Blecher 2002: 287). Pun (2005: 194) argues that global capital and market mechanisms have inflicted an unprecedented wound on society and that migrant workers have not become a new working class because the state has impeded their emergence: ‘Dagongmei, as half peasants and half proletariat, are displaced subjects produced by the hybrid conjugation of state and market machines.’ Lee (2007: 71) discusses a range of protests emerging from Chinese workers, differentiating them into a number of categories: protests against wage and pension arrears; neighbourhood protests over public services; bankruptcy and redundancy protests; protests against corruption and abuse. Despite the diversity of issues, Lee suggests there is an underlying continuity beneath workers’ grievances. ‘The common denominator underlying these incidents is a pervasive working class feeling of betrayal by the state and victimisation by the market economy’ (Lee 2007: 71). In this sense, these are protests of desperation. Lee looks at how workers frame themselves in 227

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protests, including the ‘masses’ (qunzhong), ‘weak and disadvantaged groups’ (ruoshi qunti), ‘working class’ (gongren jieji) and ‘citizens’ (gongmin). He makes an argument that ‘class consciousness is muted’ because of problems arising from the identification of working-class power with state socialism. Since new workers (particularly migrants) must confront the domination of the capitalist class while also being excluded from the traditional categories of state socialism, this causes difficulties (Lee 2007: 195). Uneven development provides the driving force behind such unrest. While some are not directly economic, they are generally ‘reported as reflecting depressed economic conditions affecting the demonstrators’ (Keidel 2005: 1; Hung 2010: 336). Many protests are directly economic, focusing on issues such as pay, layoffs and water rights. Others focus on forced displacement, for instance due to desertification. Even ethnic conflicts often have an economic subtext (Keidel 2005: 2–3). Such problems arise from the shifts entailed by neoliberal reforms, and Chinese peasants and workers ‘attribute their difficulties to injustice and government incompetence’ (Keidel 2005: 6), an analysis brought to crisis point by corruption and misconduct (Keidel 2005: 7–8). The usual modality is for protests to target local injustices and demand central government support to resolve them. According to Keidel’s analysis, there are two layers to grievances. Most of their ‘basic energy’ comes from ‘dissatisfaction over the impact of economic reforms’, but this is often intensified by ‘widespread enterprise and government corruption and malfeasance’ (Keidel 2005: 1). The role of the internet is important in spreading information about such protests and making repression costly, because it may backfire and thus lead to larger protests. The Weng’an incident discussed by Li (2008) is a case in which the internet enabled a rapid spread of information, bypassing regime disinformation and denial. It was reported that 10,000 people attacked official buildings as part of a revolt resulting from a suspicious death blamed on local officials. The spread of images from the revolt required the regime to back down from its initial position of denial and to admit the existence of the revolt. Li goes as far as to argue that the Dengist strategy of using state violence against protests to prevent public demands is no longer effective, as the public has become ‘a power beyond law’. With incidents channelling bottled-up anger, and information now more accessible than before due to the internet, repression is no longer enough (Li 2008). This creates a spectre of the possible spread of revolt: the potential for revolution created by the digital materialisation of protest, theorised as the ‘revolutionary virtual’ during the Arab Spring uprisings (Karatzogianni 2013: 159–75). When this risk occurs, the regime no longer resorts mainly to the suppression of dissent, but instead channels unrest against local officials. As a result, in the case of Weng’an, ‘the primary target of official sanction was not the rioting townspeople but the local officials’ (Li 2008). According to Elizabeth Economy, protests are usually ‘local in nature and generally resolved with a combination of payoffs, arrests, and promises of future improvement’, occasionally supplemented by ‘action against local officials’ (Economy 2004). The regime relies on handling them ‘like brush fires’, treating each as an isolated case and containing any broader challenge. Economy suggests that this is being undermined by the growing scale of mobilisations, particularly against dam-building, which now cross local and provincial boundaries. Similarly, Lum (2006: 12) suggests that protests have become better organised due to internet and cellphone technologies. Ecological protests are beginning to link Beijing-based NGOs, which employ virtual communication and lobby for central government support, with militant villagers, who use tactics such as taking officials hostage. In one case, an NGO took villagers to a previous resettlement site to expose inadequate provision. In another, local students acted as bridging connectors to bring local issues onto the internet. Hence, growing connectedness is undermining the potential for control in the face of socio-political uses of the internet. If business-as-usual 228

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proves insufficient, the regime’s options seem to be more extreme repression or reform (Economy 2004). The modalities of internet use within this type of activism are mainly socio-political. Huang and Yip (2012: 201–23) examine the Panyu and Xiamen protests and suggest that the internet had four main uses: as information-disclosure platform, site of discussion, mobilisation structure and means to find external allies. This typology is typical of socio-political uses of the internet, which focus on mobilisation and network-building. Yang (2009a: 137–8) highlights three sociopolitical uses of the internet impacting on the offline world: the instantaneous advertisement of offline protests, the dissemination of online content as posters and the use of the internet as an organising space. Similarly, Cai (2008: 24–42) suggests that the pervasiveness of mobile phones and recording devices makes it more difficult for the state to resort to repression. The pattern can be traced through a number of revolts. Another example occurred in Guangxi Chuang autonomous region in 2007. Local officials launched a hard-line drive to enforce the one-child policy, including forced abortions and home demolitions, sparking local unrest in which official buildings were destroyed. This is another case in which policies were reversed due to unrest, although it is also notable that the harsh crackdown violated central instructions. Local officials were placed in an impossible position between hard targets and restricted methods, which led them to violate the latter. Similarly, in 2005 an attack by hired assailants on farmers protesting against a land grab, in which six villagers were killed, was captured on video and publicised on the internet, leading the regime to fire two local leaders and reverse the land grab (Lum 2006: 4–5). Even more spectacularly, in 2012 residents of Wukan successfully defeated a land grab by local politicians, seizing control of their village and expelling police. After five days, the government backed down and not only reversed the land grab, but also allowed villagers to elect their own local leaders (The Atlantic 2012). In 2010, a strike at the Honda Lock car parts factory by under-educated migrant workers revealed strikers to be ‘surprisingly tech-savvy’. Accounts were spread online within hours, action coordinated by website, videos of security guard brutality uploaded and stories of a previous labour victory accessed online. Strikers stopped using the QQ text messaging service after it was infiltrated by guards, but got around censorship by using code words and alternative networks such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) (Barboza and Bradsher 2010). In another case, Severo et al. (2011) study the internet spread of a ‘Bloody Map’ showing patterns of violent evictions in China. The relatively positive outcome of some such conflicts is partly due to their recuperability. Because they are focused on the left–right axis and mainly local in scope (even though they function as a synecdoche for wider discontent), they can often be defused through local concessions. Nevertheless, such protests can be seen as shifting power relations without rupturing the dominant transcript, a key modality of infrapolitics (Scott 2012: 112–17). Protests are usually theorised through the model of ‘rightful resistance’ using dominant rhetoric and demands for realisation of existing rights and policies (O’Brien and Li 2006). Hung (2010) suggests that the growth of ‘mass incidents’ in China indicates that people fighting for their rights – known as the weiquan movement in Chinese – pose a greater threat to the regime than before, and that modern ICTs are part of the reason for this, with ‘at least some coordination of action/ movement’ (p. 331). He suggests that citizens ‘are now being awakened and empowered to set their own policy agendas both in cyberspace and physical life’ (p. 337). However, he also notes that such movements typically do not question regime legitimacy, instead pursuing rights within the dominant frame (p. 333). Furthermore, the fact that even western observers cannot establish the sites, causes, casualties or outcomes of most ‘mass incidents’ points to a continuing information problem. 229

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The impact of the internet extends to labour movements, despite their arising mainly among the information ‘have-less’. As Qiu (2009) observes, knowledge of ICTs is spreading ‘to a greater portion of society’, leading to ‘the formation of grassroots urban networks among have-less youth’. This has an amplifying effect on dissent, partially overcoming information problems: ‘The problems triggered by for-profit reform force angry youth to roar together – not only in Zhengzhou and Dalian but also online and in the blogosphere – to protest the unfair situations that they are thrown into. This time, their voices are heard’ (p. 140). Another example discussed by Qiu (2009: 194) about the power of blogs in the pre-social media period was the example of Uniden employees in a Japanese electronics plant in Shenzhen, where the workers used blogs to broadcast the progress of their collective action in 2004. Nevertheless, Qiu (2009) does not view working-class access to ICTs as constituting a sufficient condition for cultural and political empowerment: ‘Given the early formative stage of the technosocial emergence, it still has to involve larger segments of the urban society, including elite members, mass media, and institutionalised forces, especially the state’ (p. 243). However, a couple of limits have appeared to this type of dissent. There is substantial dissent among rural and labour groups, but their dissent does not overlap substantially with international celebrity dissidents. In general, popular groups are nostalgic for the Maoist period, and hence not necessarily critical of state authoritarianism. However, they tend to be sceptical of neoliberal economic reform and concerned about the problems (such as corruption and instability) which it has brought in its wake (Tang 2001: 890–909). Opinion surveys show declining satisfaction with neoliberal reforms, particularly among rural and working-class groups (Tang 2001: 896–904). In terms of the political compass, this locates them in the top left quadrant. Their grievance with the government runs mainly along the left–right axis, which places them diametrically opposite the celebrity dissidents. In Hu and Zhou’s (2002) values mapping, communism shares with post-materialism a spiritual rather than physical needs focus, which places both at odds with individualistic materialism, but differentiates them along an individualism–collectivism axis. Public opinion research in China suggests that there is no significant critical mass for change. Pro-regime attitudes are strongest on issues of social control with majority support for state authoritarianism, but weaker support for neoliberalism. However, people also report feeling increasingly disempowered, more so than during the Maoist or Dengist eras, as survey results have indicated a declining sense of political efficacy (Tang 2001: 890–909). Another limit is the relative inaccessibility of new technologies. Chinese internet use has been historically concentrated in the areas (coastal cities) and strata (urban educated middle class) that benefited from neoliberalism (Abbott 2001: 106). This stratification has been undermined as usage has spread, but nevertheless rural and labour strata remain relative ‘information haveless’. Today, around 29.0 per cent of the Chinese population has internet access (Tong and Lei 2010: i). However, 28.8 per cent of users are students, 28.5 per cent white-collar and professional workers, and 7.5 per cent government staff. Only 2.8 per cent are farmers, 4.4 per cent documented workers, 2.4 per cent migrant workers and 9.8 per cent unemployed (Tong and Lei 2010: 3). Hence, ‘those who may benefit the most from counter-hegemonic uses of the net may be precisely those who have least access to it’ (Warf and Grimes 1997: 270). People in these groups tend to be digital ‘have-nots’ or ‘have-less’. However, Qiu (2009: 243) documents the spread of the internet to the ‘have-less’, leading to a working-class network society used both for self-betterment and labour control. He also suggests that the spread of the internet today is insufficient for labour empowerment, with internet use still relying on alliances with other forces. Finally it is important to note that migrants are excluded from protest. A large portion of the population is migrants from rural areas who, lacking an urban hukou (i.e. registered residency) and corresponding right to live in the cities, are equivalent to undocumented 230

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migrants in other areas. Local migrants rarely develop a sense of community in their locality as they lack rights, and they are often blamed for social problems by other residents.

Nationalism, ethnic, religious minorities and the cybercrime frame Since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, the Chinese regime has constructed a new ideological basis in a nationalist narrative aggressively promoted through media, propaganda and education (S.S. Zhao 1998). Key aspects of this narrative include a golden age of national greatness, the ‘Century of Humiliation’ when greatness was destroyed by imperialists and internal division, and a current re-emergence as a major power. Emergence is articulated somewhat anomalously with economic growth, and seen as dependent on national unity and the prevention of chaos. National division and disorder are seen as sources of misery and weakness, usually caused by foreigners (Zheng 1999: 13–15). Nationalism in China includes elements of pride about economic growth, and a narrative blaming state weakness for earlier humiliations (Zheng 1999: 2, 17; also see Ma, Chapter 12 in this volume). The promotion of nationalism has allowed a relatively free cyberspace to nevertheless remain firmly under regime control. Nationalism is a powerful force in Chinese cyberspace, which includes the aggressive promotion of nationalist discourse throughout the Chinese diaspora, and the crowdsourced reproduction of a narrative of stolen greatness and revival (Wu 2007). Chinese survey respondents were almost twice as likely to protest over foreign compared to domestic threats (Wang 2009: 179). Nationalism is often seen as counteracting the tendency for cyberspace and indeed protest more broadly to become sites of dissent, with nationalistic netizens and protesters prone to follow the government line even when they have the power to counteract it. Indeed, there are recurring rumours that the regime encourages protests targeting foreign countries as a safety valve (Sinclair 2002: 26). Nationalism is used to encourage passivity and compliance in the face of unpopular reforms (Tang 2001: 908). Indeed, authoritarian beliefs seem to be actually increasing in response to the apparent success of Chinese development (Tang 2001: 899–900). Although this is usually seen as reinforcing regime control of the internet, it also creates spaces for autonomous political discussions through which users ‘challenge the state monopoly over domestic nationalist discursive production’ (Liu 2006: 144) and in which the nationalism stoked by the regime spills over outside its control (Hughes 2002: 205–24). Wang’s research suggests that nationalists are no less likely to protest against the Chinese government than others – the loyalty derived from nationalism seems to be offset by greater online political activity, with the internet effectively weakening the ‘taming effect’ of nationalist discourse (Wang 2009: 189–91). Hence, the internet can function as a route around ideological blockages. On the whole, however, it seems that the power of nationalism as a form of reactive networkformation allows the emancipatory potential of the internet to be countered. Networked power emerges, but takes increasingly reactive forms and is thereby plugged into dominant hierarchical power apparatuses. It is this pervasive nationalism that allows the regime and its supporters to discredit transnational dissidents by portraying them as pro-western and anti-Chinese. In the Global Times, which reflects the Chinese government’s views, Renping Shan (2012) asks dissidents to overcome their hatred, portraying them as irrationally hostile to the regime. He claims that dissidents are ‘closing themselves off’ to Chinese reform, that ‘Chinese are used to westerners using dissidents’, and that prizes for dissidents will fail to undermine relations between China and the west, as he assumes they intend. The logic here is that dissidents are dangerous, because of their potential to use the global mediascape to pressure for reforms. 231

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The major impact of the violence of nationalist discourses has been the repression of ethnic and religious minorities. The most extreme instances of repression have without a doubt occurred in Tibet and Xinjiang, which are the locations of strong separatist movements. The Chinese media have framed conflicts in Tibet and Xinjiang as ethnic conflicts, and have drawn on a powerful nationalist discourse in countering them. The repression of these protests and revolts has been particularly fierce, with hundreds rounded up and some protesters sentenced to death. Both movements, however, are highly active online, with networked online movements providing a context in which digital nationalisms are sustained in the face of repression. The Tibetan cause is particularly well situated. Powers (2004) conducted a Web search on Tibet and found that, of the first 230 uniform resource locators (URLs), all but three were proTibetan, the three being Chinese government sites (p. viii). He observes that ‘modern technology, including the advent of affordable desktop publishing and the internet, allows a people that has lost the war militarily to continue the ideological struggle through the production and reproduction of its version of events’ (pp. 3–4). The Tibetan exile leadership, including the Dalai Lama, use the internet to disseminate speeches and other material, and have generated worldwide movements such as the commemorative demonstrations on 10 March (p. 143). This strategy is at once socio-political, using the internet mainly to promote a particular view, and ethno-religious, establishing a conflict frame between two contending accounts. However, the regime has managed to mobilise nationalist counter-protesters to target Tibetan protests abroad, particularly during the Olympic torch relay protests of 2008 (Wang 2009: 158–9). In Australia, Chinese officials have also been caught sneaking copies of pro-regime works into bookshops (Powers 2004: vii). A similar process of survival through the internet is observed in the persistence of various suppressed spiritual groups such as Falun Gong and qigong groups. Exiled leaders were able to continue to issue directives to followers. Aided by public relations professionals in the west, such sects converted into ‘cybersects’ able to maintain a network of believers while remaining anonymous (Thornton 2009: 186). In the case of Falun Gong, Yuezhi Zhao refers to the group’s media as ‘rhizomatic’, ‘global’, ‘multilayered’, ‘interactive’ and increasingly computer-mediated, to the extent that ‘the internet has been instrumental to its more prominent emergence as a transnational global community’ (Zhao 1998 cited in Yang 2009b). Furthermore, they are even able, through an exemplary case of scale-jumping, to organise protests around the world whenever Chinese leaders visit (Tai 2006: 106). In one case, they were even able to hack into and broadcast on a local radio station in China (Thornton 2009: 198). Uighur nationalism in Xinjiang, in common with similar movements worldwide, is a historical construct arising from the educational activities of intellectuals, and took place prior to the rise of the CCP (Schluessel 2009: 383–402). Today, the internet continues such educative activity. Indeed, research suggests that the modern mediascape and related consumption are causing Uighur culture to thrive and expand (Erkin 2009: 417–28). In this context, Uighur are turning to the internet to construct narratives of national identity, a phenomenon referred to as cyber-separatism (Gladney 2004: 229–59). Compared to Tibet, the Uighur cause has proven unattractive in the west due to associations with Islamism, but has powerful resonance in Muslim countries, especially Turkey (Shan and Chen 2009: 15–16). Chinese commentators, reluctant to admit a national dimension, chalk the conflicts down to economic inequalities which persist in spite of affirmative action (Shan and Chen 2009: 14). In particular, minorities face disadvantages from lack of contacts in the Han-dominated national market, and tend to be outside the ‘modern’ capitalist economy. Local handicrafts and commerce are often decimated by Hanled modern industries, and Uighurs therefore believe that economic growth benefits only Hans (Shan and Chen 2009: 18–19). It has been suggested that the 2009 ‘Urumqi Riots’ in Xinjiang 232

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were spread by a ‘ripple effect’ arising from ‘the power of modern communications, such as cell-phones and internet’, which explains for instance why an initial fight in Guandong was so quickly translated into conflict in Xinjiang (Shan and Chen 2009: 15). Shan and Chen (2009: 15) suggest that the regime had learnt from the Tibet unrest of 2008, rapidly shutting off cell phones and the internet, but allowing access by foreign media. Nationalism also leads to emerging forms of cyberconflict. Nationalist hacktivists react intensely to international conflicts, emerging quickly to coordinate mobilisations. Their ‘collectivist tendencies and links to state and corporate establishments’ set them aside from western hacktivists (Qiu 2004: 116), and also clearly mark them as an ethno-religious cyberconflict group. It takes the form of a recurring ‘short-term political spasm’, which emerges quickly and aggressively, and disperses quickly under state pressure (Qiu 2004: 116). In short, China is managing to contain the internet not only through repression, but also through the constrained flourishing of forms of online self-activity which are marked by mimicry and conformity to the dominant discourse. This model is unstable, requiring both the continuation of Chinese economic growth (the absence of which would cause a legitimacy crisis), and a failure to obtain its goal (the achievement of which would lead to a post-materialist culture and resultant antiauthoritarian movements similar to the 1960s in the global north). The successful use of nationalism allows China to rely on hackers to take part in cyberconflict from a pro-government perspective in the event of conflicts with America, Taiwan, Japan and so on. This is considerably different from the basically hostile relationship between western regimes and locally based hacker communities. China has taken part in crackdowns on piracy and hacking, but in an unenthusiastic way, reflecting the ‘killing the chicken to scare the monkeys’ principle. In 2010, China responded to international criticism by arresting three hackers, but the move was denounced as ‘window dressing’ by Canadian cybersecurity expert Ronald J. Deibert (Bradsher 2010). China also claims to have arrested hundreds of domestic hackers, but focused this crackdown on hacking of Chinese victims. There is an exception for anti-regime hacking, which on occasion has even been met with death sentences (Abbott 2001: 103). Compared to most western countries, however, China continues to be a relatively welcoming environment for hacking, and also for commercial cybercrime activities. In effect, China seems to be adopting an approach of predominantly seeking to tolerate and recuperate hackers, in contrast to the western response of seeking suppression. This situation potentially serves to locate China at the cutting edge of technological development, as well as providing military advantages. It allows China to draw on local hackers to gain advantages in asymmetrical warfare and to carry out interstate cyberconflict. It also serves to keep hackers out of the dissident milieu, keeping them focused on ethnoreligious forms of cyberconflict which are useful to the regime. Hacking as a form of asymmetrical warfare is encouraged by Chinese military strategists (Qiao and Wang 2002; Karatzogianni 2010: 4). The Chinese government uses hackers to attack the records and accounts of dissidents based outside China (Chase and Mulvenon 2002: 71). For instance, after the 1999 organisation of a demonstration online by Falun Gong, the regime engaged in cyberattacks against related websites abroad, ‘transform[ing] cyberspace into something of an electronic battlefield’ (Wacker 2003: 66). The best-known incident, announced in January 2010, was massive hacking of Google from inside China targeting both dissident gmail accounts and Google’s source code (Karatzogianni 2010: 1). China also appears to be using hackers to ‘steal’ American software (Karatzogianni 2010: 5), aiding technological leapfrogging and breaking superprofit monopolies. If China has an emerging sector to power its rise to hegemonic status, it may well turn out to be the quasi-black market mass production of virtual and real-world goods in an environment 233

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of loose enforcement of copyright laws – an environment that is already allowing Chinese companies to leapfrog technological and immaterial gaps and undercut monopolistic western prices with generic versions of consumer goods. Similarly, despite crackdowns China remains particularly prone to piracy, which was crucial to the transfer of internet technologies to China in a context of global quasi-monopolies (Qiu 2004: 107–8). China reportedly has one of the highest piracy rates in the world, with a 95.0 per cent piracy rate for movies far exceeding US and EU levels, and the USA claiming significant trade losses as a result (Eschenfelder et al. 2005: 317–31). Another example of overlaps between illicit internet activities and the regime was the story revealed in 2011 that prisoners in labour camps were being forced to play online games as part of the vast ‘gold farming’ industry run out of China (users play online games in a repetitive way so as to generate in-game currency, which companies sell for real-world money). If China is able to emerge from dependency, it may be that it takes the form of a particularly large, and correspondingly difficult to control, ‘island in the net’, ironically creating a climate for the new forms of virtual productivity which have long been theorised by cyber-libertarians, under the nose of one of the most authoritarian censorship regimes in the world.

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14 Workers and peasants as historical subjects The formation of working-class media cultures in China Wanning Sun

Economic reforms, industrialisation, urbanisation and migration since the 1980s have given rise to what is now often described as the ‘new working class’ in China (Tong 2012; Qiu 2009; Qiu and Wang 2012: 159–92; Leung and So 2012: 84–104). But is there such a thing as a working-class media culture and, if so, what shape and form does a working-class media culture take? What are the political, social and economic contexts in which a working-class media culture comes to exist? And finally, if there is such a thing as the working-class media culture, then what is the relationship between class analysis and media studies in China, and indeed how should future research agendas be shaped by these concerns? This chapter addresses these questions: in the first section, I discuss the master-to-subaltern transformation in the cultural politics of identity construction and provide an outline of the main media and cultural forms and practices that are associated with the new working classes in contemporary China. In the second section, I consider the empirical, methodological and analytical implications of adopting a class analysis perspective and, in so doing, provide some thoughts on the shaping of media and communication studies as a field. I argue that, for the same reason that labour sociologists cannot agree on the level of class consciousness among China’s workers (Chan and Siu 2012: 105–32; Leung and So 2012: 84–104), it is difficult to generalise about the connection between new media and communication technologies and the level of workers’ class consciousness. At the same time, I suggest that although the development of a working-class media culture is uneven and its contour somewhat unclear, its impact could be far-reaching and its social–political implication is not to be dismissed. This discussion cautions us against, on the one hand, an essentialist idea of a pure and authentic working-class media culture and, on the other hand, a dismissive view about the long-term political, social and cultural impact of working-class media practices.

From proletarian to subaltern: working-class media practices It is now widely agreed that three decades of economic reforms have transformed China from one of the most egalitarian societies in the world to one of the most unequal societies in Asia 239

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and the world (Sun and Guo 2013: 1–11; Whyte 2010; Lee and Selden 2009; Zang 2008: 53–70; Davis and Wang 2009). The impact of socio-economic stratification has been extensively documented in the work of sociologists, economists and political economists. The main beneficiaries and agents of the social– economic growth in the decades of economic reforms since the early 1980s are ‘cadres, managers, and entrepreneurs’, or what have come to be described as China’s ‘new middle class’ (Goodman 2008: 24). In contrast, workers and peasants, once members of the ‘most progressive forces of history’, representing the ‘most advanced forces of production’, have lost their status as the most favoured social groups. ‘There is no denying that large sections of the working class have lost their privilege and joined the new poor since losing their “iron rice bowl” and becoming detached from the CCP’s historical mission’ (Guo 2008: 40). The consequences of this process of class restructuring are indeed far-reaching. Workers and peasants are now described as members of the ‘disadvantaged groups’ (ruoshi qunti). Profound social changes have forced the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to make necessary adjustments to its rhetoric on class discourses. Surveying the analyses of social restructuring by China’s social scientists, Yingjie Guo identifies two crucial processes by which social classes are categorised and explained. The first is the deliberate evasion of class struggle discourse. This strategy resorts to acknowledging the reality of socio-economic stratification in reform-era China but proposes the doctrine of social harmony as a strategy of managing class conflict. The second is the process by which intellectual work circumvents rather than raises class consciousness. With the class struggle discourse made inoperable, the entire society is now urged to look up to the middle classes as exemplary of preferred values, lifestyles and behaviours (Guo 2008: 51). The Chinese workers in the neoliberal era of capital accumulation are not a monolithic entity. Noticeable differences exist in terms of grievances, pattern of mobilisation and collective action, and subjective identity between rural migrant workers and state-enterprise workers, and between workers in private and joint-venture factories in south China, and rust-belt state workers in north China (Lee 2007; Leung and So 2012: 84–104). However, across the board, in terms of media representations of the Chinese worker, we have witnessed dramatic shifts in narrative strategies, discursive positions and ideological agendas. The identity of the worker has changed, along with the political, social and economic meaning of work. ‘Workers’, which once denoted dignity and ownership of the means of production, are now widely described as dagong individuals, denoting casual labourers for hire in the capitalist labour market. In the socialist era, workers engaged in labour (laodong), which gave them dignity, pride and moral legitimacy; now they are rural migrant workers (nong min gong, meaning peasant worker), who exist as cheap labour, which is either in excess or short supply, and who are in constant need of selfimprovement in order to make themselves qualified for capitalist production (Yan 2008; Pun 2005; Sun 2009). Whereas in the socialist era they were the proletariat vanguards in possession of supreme moral leadership, they have become the object of urban and middle-class sympathy and compassion. We now are confronted with a most uncomfortable and, to the CCP, inconvenient truth: the workers and peasants may have become the masters of socialism, but are now occupying the bottom of the social hierarchy. Workers, particularly rural migrants, are now often described as people from diceng (literally meaning ‘the very bottom of the rung’) and this description evokes a spatial metaphor of a vertically arranged social hierarchy. Thus, in reality if not in rhetoric, and truer about some individuals than others, we can say that workers’ socioeconomic status has regressed to where it was before their historical fanshen. Literally meaning ‘turning over the body’, the term fanshen evokes a corporeal metaphor to connote the complete change of political identity, whereby the downtrodden have finally stood up to become speaking subjects. Fanshen therefore has the ‘extended meaning of casting off economic and political oppression and assuming full citizenship’ (Hershatter 2007: 87). Made 240

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familiar to western scholars through William Hinton’s influential book of the same title, a documentary account of the revolution in a single Chinese village (Hinton 1997), the notion of fanshen draws on Mao’s famous logic that ‘where there is oppression, there will be rebellion’, and is essential to the successful mobilisation of class consciousness, a crucial dimension of the revolutionary cause (Cai 2010). What is noteworthy is that while the ‘position reversal’ (fanshen) discourse was widely resonant with and widely used by workers and peasants in the socialist era, diceng, in contrast, is a term mostly used by urban middle-class academic and cultural elites to describe those below them. For instance, novels and poetry about rural migrants, often written by migrants themselves, are described as diceng writings (diceng xiezuo) and diceng culture (diceng wenhua). In addition, those at the bottom rung are perceived to be morally inferior, lacking in civility and ill-equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary for China’s modernisation and integration into the global economy. In the grand narrative of modernisation, the worker is no longer cast in the role of moral leadership; instead, the worker is often found wanting in ‘intellectual capability and personal quality’ (suzhi). In contrast to the discourse of dignity, the discourse of suzhi functions in the narrative of ‘elite modernist technologies’ (Jacka 2006: 56) as both an instrument of neoliberal governmentality and a technology of the self (Yan 2008; Anagnost 2004: 189–208). Eschewing the Marxist notion of class in terms of the relations of production, suzhi codes the class-based difference between rural migrants and the urban middle class. Furthermore, suzhi ‘works ideologically as a regime of representation through which subjects recognise their positions within the larger social order’ (Anagnost 2004: 193). Given that migrants construct their identities and understand their experience in reaction to and within the framework of state and popular discourses (Jacka 2006; Sun 2009; Yan 2008), the experience of migrants and the formation of migrants’ subject positions must be understood within the context of their differentiated levels of acceptance of and identification with dominant discourses, which have inevitably cast the rural migrant as being in need of suzhi development (Yan 2008). The worker is no longer a morally righteous proletarian; instead, the worker is a shadowy figure who moves across the increasingly ‘polysemic and hybrid’ discursive universe of post-Mao China, where ‘official propaganda, middle-class social reformist sensibilities, and popular concerns for hot social issues all jostle to be heard’ (Zhao 2008). As a social identity that is increasingly subject to myriad discursively and visually mediated configurations, the migrant worker exists in the contested and fraught space between the government’s tokenistic representation, market-driven urban tales inundating the popular culture sector, independent, alternative or underground documentaries on the transnational art circuits, and various forms of cultural activism engaged in by nongovernmental organisation (NGO) workers and their intellectual allies. In addition, all these ideological sites must decide on the extent to which they draw on a socialist cultural politics of the working class. Widespread socio-economic stratification has not only led to the marginalisation of the workers in a material sense, it has also given rise to the ‘culture of inequality’ (Sun 2014: 168–85), evidenced in the hegemonic language of the urban, consumer-oriented middle class, along with the marginalisation of workers’ and peasants’ voices. In other words, if the proletariat cultural practices shifted from the tactics of the resistance of the weak to assume the position of the powerful in the revolutionary narratives (Cai 2010), such power dynamics have largely been reversed in the reform era. However, this does not mean that workers and peasants in the revolutionary discourse spoke their own language; in fact, they were using the vocabulary provided by the state, and their proletariat speech acts were sponsored and organised by the state. Rather than seeing this state–people relationship as that of top-down indoctrination, Hershatter points to a mutually appropriative dynamic, whereby the people were able to borrow 241

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the official language to make sense of their own past experience of exploitation and subjugation. For Hershatter, as well as literary critic Xiang Cai, the real failure of a socialist proletariat culture is due not so much to the imposition of an official language of class domination and class struggle onto the people. Rather, it is the tendency of the official language, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, to become increasingly ‘homogenising’, ‘unilinear’, caricaturised, falsified and ‘overblown’ (Hershatter 1993: 108). Nor does this mean that Chinese workers in the neoliberal labour regime are resigned to returning to their position prior to the revolution. In a wide range of ideological spaces and discursive sites, and in different shapes and forms, workers again assume the pre-revolutionary position of resistance and rebellion, albeit in a much more technologised and mediatised form. Workers’ media practices demonstrate wildly varied levels of agency and political consciousness. They range from opportunistic engagement with the mainstream media for purposes of protecting or defending workers’ rights and interests, to active participation in media activism aimed at productive alternative, even oppositional, discourses. For instance, staring at the hegemonic power of the mainstream media, aggrieved migrant workers often make the ‘choiceless choice’ of threatening to jump from tall buildings on construction sites in order to force management to pay wages owed to them. Workers’ decisions to insert themselves into media spectacles by staging ‘extreme actions’ testifies to workers’ understanding of how to exploit media logic, but at the same time they are acutely aware that the effectiveness of their tactics are subject to the vagaries of politics (Sun 2012a: 864–79). These media spectacles, as well as workers’ involvement in them, highlight the David-versus-Goliath power imbalance that marks worker versus state/capital relations, as well as the complexity of the structure-versus-agency dialectic. Workers’ media practice also takes the form of adopting new media and communication technologies to produce alternative materials as testimonials to work conditions, labour disputes and the everyday reality of marginalisation (Xing 2012: 63–82). For instance, migrant workers have become increasingly savvy with the use of new media technologies to protect their rights and publicise individual experiences of injustice, including workplace injuries, failure to receive wages and unacceptable working and living standards (Tong 2012). Qiu (2009) refers to these incidents as ‘new media events’. Contrasting them with televised events, rituals and ceremonies, which are sleek in presentation, grand in scale and often take place in important spaces, Qiu argues that these media practices, enabled by the internet and new media technologies, nevertheless have the capacity to raise public awareness and effect real social change, even though they are small in scale. Worker activists also engage in various forms of creative practice, such as dagong poetry and fiction. Whereas one could be forgiven for thinking that dagong life in the industrial heartland, notorious for its low pay, high levels of alienation and punishing effects on the body and soul, is hardly the ideal stuff for poetry, the truth is that long work hours and lack of tertiary education has not stopped many literary-minded workers from creating poetry for self-expression. For many worker-poets, writing poems is no longer an idle pursuit. It is about finding meaning and purpose in an otherwise meaningless existence (Sun 2012b: 67–88). Many lines from dagong poetry, for instance, have been transformed into lyrics by activist songwriters and performers, enabling them to be ‘read’ and performed in a variety of formats. Sun Heng, a well-known worker-singer and songwriter from the New Worker Art and Cultural Festival in Picun, rural Beijing, regularly puts music to dagong poems and performs them for migrant worker audiences. Also, lines from dagong poetry are often chosen to accompany the visual presentations, installations and exhibitions showcasing the work and living conditions of workers, leading to a range of highly dispersed and unpredictable modes of distribution, available to both workers and urban 242

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consumers. Finally, most worker-poets utilise online spaces, particularly blogs, to publish their work and engage in dialogue with readers (Sun 2012c: 993–1010). This approach allows these writers to bypass the conventional institution of publishing. At the same time, the online reputation of some of these writers has led to book contracts with more traditional publishers (Sun 2013: 27–42). Both dagong poetry and dagong literature seek to create alternative spaces where workers’ suffering and experiences with social and economic injustice and exploitation can be narrated. In doing so, they effectively create a new space – albeit much more mediatised and in many cases virtual – to act out the new proletariat speech act of ‘speaking bitterness’. The noticeable difference with its socialist antecedent is that rather than ‘speaking bitterness of the past and savouring the current sweetness’ (yiku sitian), these new, mediatised and technologically enabled genres of speaking bitterness are records of the bitterness and suffering here and now. Although many worker-poets and worker-novelists have left the assembly line in the factory to work in ‘white-collar’ jobs, some – especially those connected with labour NGOs – make a point of identifying themselves as dagong writers, and see it as their mission to advocate for workers’ interests and class positions. Migrant workers write blogs on dagong lives, and activists and leaders from the worker community effectively use weibo (a microblogging platform similar to Twitter) to inform, mobilise, organise and coordinate collective actions against capitalist management (Qiu 2012: 173–89; also see Willnat, Wei and Martin, Chapter 11 in this volume). Other activists produce visual materials, including videos, documentaries and photography for the primary purpose of raising awareness among the wider community, as well as class consciousness among the workers. Although these grassroots media practices can hardly compete with mainstream media in terms of the scale of production and level of exposure, they nevertheless represent some nascent media forms and practices that have been made possible by the advent of digital visual technologies and online spaces (Sun 2012d: 83–100; 2012e: 135–44). It has been observed that with the exceptionally high level of uptake of mobile phones and social media platforms such as QQ (Chinese version of Skype) by rural migrant workers, engagement in new media practices has become an integral aspect of the very fabric of the everyday experience of the worker, especially workers that belong to the younger generation (Qiu 2009). In other words, workers’ media practices should no longer be considered as external to workers’ socio-economic experience as industrial labourers. They are part of the same experience. This account of the media practices favoured by workers is admittedly sketchy. Qiu and Wang’s comparison (2012: 159–92) between the workers’ cultural spaces of rural migrants in Beijing and state workers in Anshan points to divergence between rural migrant workers and state workers in terms of cultural practices and media strategies. At one end of the spectrum, witnessing media practices favoured by migrant workers which do not prima facie present themselves as active acts of opposition, one can be forgiven for thinking that mobile technologies, online technologies and social media function more as ‘opium’, diverting workers’ attention to mundane pursuits instead of making commitments to political and social causes of ‘liberation’ (Tong 2012). In some cases, rather than a tool of empowerment, the mobile phones belonging to rural migrant workers can be used by their employers for purposes of control and microsurveillance (Wallis 2013). Like their urban consumer counterparts, migrant workers spend much time in internet cafés and on their personal computers and mobile phones playing games and reading fantasy novels or ‘how to succeed’ self-help books. They also, like their urban counterparts, enthusiastically use camera phones to create a digital form of ‘autobiography’ and ‘self-portraiture’ (or ‘selfie’), with meticulous attention to and reflection on the body (Gai 2009: 199–202). Rural migrant women working in the service sector in Beijing have been found to 243

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use their phone-cameras to produce images that make sense of their displacement and to document the transformations in their lives (Wallis 2013). At the other end of the spectrum, citing the examples of factory workers using mobile phones, blogging and social media in successful organisation of strikes, collective actions and other interests-protecting activities, one is tempted to subscribe to a more hopeful view of empowerment of the worker afforded by new media technologies (Qiu 2012: 173–89).

Working-class media cultures: implications for future research So far, this discussion has traced the disappearance of the master-of-the-nation discourse and the subjectification of proletariat subjectivity in media and cultural expressions. It has also outlined a range of media and cultural forms, practices and content which bear the trademark of the oppressed, marginal and subaltern. It shows that workers, formerly the rulers and masters of the nation, have once again taken up the ‘weapons of the weak’. At the same time, the discussion also illuminates a number of themes that are worth bearing in mind in future research. First, working-class media forms and practices exist only in response to and in juxtaposition with mainstream media, including both official and commercial media. Second, the cultural politics of identity construction engaged in by both the ideological mainstream and the working classes in contemporary China are necessarily played out by referencing – critically, appropriatively and even ironically – its socialist antecedents. Third, the media forms and practices favoured by the working classes in the state-sanctioned neoliberal market economy are shaped by new media and communication technologies. In so far as the construction of the worker’s identity is concerned, this is a shift from a proletarian to subaltern identity. While the former aims to reinforce the idea of workers as members of the most progressive social forces whose values, beliefs and behaviours are to be emulated by the less progressive social classes, such as the intellectuals, the technocrats and the bourgeoisie, the latter has the main purpose of resisting hegemony and creating alternative spaces to the mainstream, while simultaneously gaining voice, visibility and recognition. As Xinyu Lü, a Marxist scholar at Fudan University, Shanghai, observes sharply, Chinese workers and peasants, who used to be the political and moral backbone of socialist China, so large in number and so indispensable to its revolutionary history, have well and truly become the ‘subaltern’ class in the Chinese contemporary polity (quoted in Zhao 2010a: 9). This reallocation of discursive resources to accommodate the interests of the urban middle class is reflected in the media practices of the ideological mainstream, which in turn predetermines the research focus of media and communication studies. For instance, there is a surfeit of research interest in China’s transnational, urban middle class as producers, intended consumers, subject matter and beneficiaries of economic reform. These include, for instance, media’s role in perpetuating the values and lifestyles of urban, middle-class consumers, discussions on the prospect of a bourgeois public sphere or civic society brought about by the use of digital, social media among the urban middle class and, of course, China’s going-out ambitions and its soft power agenda. Furthermore, there seems to be a tendency to engage in research in these areas as if they were discrete and unconnected with the pressing issue of socio-economic stratification in China. Yet, to demonstrate the hidden connection between these lines of enquiry and the issue of class inequality is precisely what makes research in Chinese media studies empirically significant. As Chinese media and communication scholar Zhengrong Hu observes, one has to wonder, as China goes full-steam ahead with its efforts to present its voice and image to the world, how this unified and positive voice and image – as a correction to the excessively western portrayals 244

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of China – can possibly incorporate the diverse interests of various social classes (Hu and Ji 2012: 32–7). Similarly, Yuezhi Zhao argues that class analysis is central to our understanding of the media and cultural sector, since this sector is not only the site of production and economic exchange, it is also the means of social organisation and the site of subjectivity formation (Zhao 2008: 76). For this reason, she argues that media and communication scholars must explore the ways in which transnational capital and domestic forces intersect to shape China’s communication sector (Zhao 2008: 18). At the same time, she also stresses the importance of studying how the media and communication sector shapes the subjectivity and class consciousness of China’s highly segmented working class, arguing forcefully that the ‘rise of China’ cannot possibly be sustained in the long run without the rise of China’s lower social classes (Zhao 2010b: 544–51). Despite the fundamental difference in the ways in which workers and peasants are represented in the two historical eras, there is little attempt to show how a retrospective review of the socialist period can be productively informed by and benefit from the hindsight of the ensuing era, which has witnessed economic reforms, market liberalisation, the reappearance of class conflicts in social life and the disappearance of the theme of class struggle in official discourses. Xiang Cai’s groundbreaking book, Revolution/Narrative (2010), a deconstructive reading of major literary works in the period 1949–66, is a conspicuous exception. In this book, Cai examines in especially fine-grained manner the discursive construction of the worker identity, the meaning of labour and purposes of the industrial modernisation in the socialist regime of truth. But such attempts have been limited to literature. In the field of media and communication studies, in comparison with the emerging body of work on the media’s coverage of workers in the reform era and workers’ activist media practices (both of which inform the discussion of this chapter so far), there is little work on the question of how workers, labour and industrial work are represented in mass media in the three decades prior to the start of the economic reforms. For instance, although we now have some knowledge of how urban commercial cinema constructs marginal social identities such as rural migrant workers (Sun 2012f: 6–20), in comparison, we know little of how films set in factories in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s (and there are quite a few) negotiate the relationship between workers, party leaders and technical experts. In addition, while we have witnessed a flourishing of scholarship on the New Documentary Movement in China which focuses on rural migrants, industrial workers, gays and lesbians and other marginal identities such as HIV victims (e.g. Berry et al. 2010; also see Cao, Chapter 22 in this volume), how its predecessor, the ‘special topic’ documentary (Lü 2003), constructs workers and the significance of their labour against the background of national self-reliance and socialist modernity is relatively unclear. Similarly, we know that some young technology-savvy workers, equipped with digital camera phones, have taken up amateur photography as a way to document their work and their lives, and in doing so generate an invaluable visual source from which to understand the class experience of this social group which is large in size yet seriously underrepresented in mainstream visual culture (Sun 2012e: 135–44). Interestingly, this research also indicates that in terms of aesthetics and style of representation, some of these self-representations seem either reminiscent of, or consciously evoking, the visual idiom from the revolutionary representations. Yet to establish the historical continuity and disjuncture between the two eras calls for a more systematic analysis of news photos as a historically specific signifying practice. How, for instance, did news values in socialist journalism, including photojournalism, inform news media’s coverage of workers’ activities and achievements in publications such as the People’s Daily and the Worker’s Daily? Knowing answers to these empirical questions is a matter of urgent intellectual and political concern for a number of reasons. First, socialist media relied heavily on visual technologies, particularly in the form of news photos, propaganda documentaries and films for purposes of 245

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mass mobilisation, moral education and political propaganda. In comparison with literature, which required some levels of literacy, or art, which was accessible to only the more cultured echelon of society, visual media representations such as the newspapers, special topic newsreels and films offered more direct ways of reaching mass audiences. Screening propaganda films, documentaries and special newsreels was a crucial means of political socialisation through the organisational mechanism of the workplace and the school. For this reason, leaving a vast discursive site largely unexamined means not knowing how visual media contributed to the socialist legacy of proletariat culture. Second, many of the contemporary cultural practices engaged in by subaltern groups adopt or appropriate the language of earlier socialist cultural forms and practices. They look to socialist cultural expressions as sources of political, moral and cultural repertoires (Xing 2012: 63–82). Hence in order to understand fully both the cultural politics of the workers’ current cultural struggles and the prospect of their cultural struggle, it is important to revisit historical practices by situating them in their particular historical context, as well as through the retrospective lens of the radically transformed social, economic and political reality of today. It is precisely for this reason that Yuezhi Zhao issues a clarion call for media and communication scholars to ‘re-root the area in history’, so that we become more ‘mindful of China’s revolutionary history and the ways this history casts a long shadow over today’s reality’ (Zhao 2009: 177). Finally, but not least importantly, a long-range prospect of the working classes’ social destiny is unlikely to emerge unless we consider the metamorphosis of the social construction of class experience from the socialist to the current neoliberal era of capital accumulation. In the introduction to his book The Long Revolution, Raymond Williams (1971) speaks of a ‘cultural revolution’ as the revolution of the third kind, following the democratic and industrial revolutions. The cultural revolution, argues Williams, is a particularly ‘long revolution’, and is the ‘most difficult to interpret’. In the same way that, as Williams (1971: 12) argues, ‘we cannot understand the process of change in which we are involved if we limit ourselves to thinking of the democratic, industrial, and cultural revolutions as separate processes’, we cannot understand the process of change in the long revolution if we limit ourselves to thinking of workers’ media and cultural practices in historically discrete or isolated terms. Sociologists of labour also caution against taking an ahistorical perspective, given that the formation of class, the emergence of class consciousness, labour movements and social movements are believed to take a much longer time span than two or three decades to take full shape (Chan and Siu 2012: 105–32). There are of course conceptual and methodological implications for pursuing this line of enquiry regarding the relationship between class analysis and media studies. It requires us to go beyond the framework of propaganda, which so far has dominated our understanding of the socialist mass media, with its preoccupation with the issue of political control, censorship and ideological indoctrination. Also, this requires us to reconsider the role of the Chinese state in the formation of proletariat cultural legacies. As Zhao (2009: 177) explains, this calls for a ‘recognition of the Chinese state as one forged in the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist social revolution, with a historically grounded popular base of legitimacy, not as an absolutist state which the European bourgeois fought against historically’. It requires media scholars to take a cultural–political approach to address a specific concern with questions of media forms and media practices, including delving into the cultural politics of the proletariat worker identity, in a range of media forms whose discursive and visual mediation of the worker identity has so far largely eluded scholarship. It involves asking important questions, such as who has access to the means of producing, shaping and perpetuating the political lingua franca; what signifying practices are dominant in a given space and time; and what are the origins of the discursive power to name, label and define working-class identities? It also explores the common narrative forms, tropes 246

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and strategies adopted to transform a group’s perspectives into common knowledge that ‘we’ all share, as well as the process by which private and personal longings, dreams and desires become ‘public allegories’, making certain social groups’ desires and longings more legitimate than others (Rofel 2007). Given the master-to-subaltern identity transformation of the working classes, the question of how media and communication research can productively engage with the notion of subalternity must be put on the agenda. Developed most prominently in Indian and Latin American societies, and mostly in the contexts of race and ethnicity, subaltern analysis is concerned with making the invisible visible and giving voice to subalterns ‘who cannot speak’. It is becoming an increasingly attractive approach among those concerned with issues of agency, voice and identity in China, albeit in radically different social contexts (Pun 2005; Yan 2008). In her research on prostitution in Shanghai in the early twentieth century, China historian Gail Hershatter observes that the theorisation of subalternity, although developed in the colonial history of South Asia, can be productively engaged to explore relations of subjugation of the oppressed people at the intersection of gender, class and the Chinese state. Hershatter rightly cautions us, however, that any attempt to engage with the concept of subalternity must start by appreciating its ‘multiple’ and ‘relational’ nature. For the same reason that the Indian nationalist elites and subaltern politics were intertwined and hence the question of who is a ‘subaltern’ is relational (Guha and Spivak 1988), tracing the shift from what Paul Clark (2008: 142) calls the ‘proletarian nobility’ to subalternity in the Chinese context must also take into account a wide range of complicating factors, including the sometimes convergent and other times divergent interests of the state, NGOs, the urban middle class, transnational intellectuals and Chinese workers. Rather than take the presence or existence of subalternity as given, we must ‘take seriously the categories through which historical subjects make meaning of their own experience, the degree to which subalterns both legitimate and subvert hegemonic categories’ (Hershatter 1993: 106). In the case of the Chinese rural migrant worker as a subaltern figure, two things are particularly worthy of note and further enquiry. The first relates to the issue of subaltern position. Comparing various cohorts of factory workers in China convinces Rofel (1999: 98) that the identity of the subaltern selves is not ‘intrinsic in the relations of production’. For this reason, rather than accepting claims of subalternity as given, we must ask questions about how subalternity is ‘culturally produced, embraced, performed, challenged, and denied’ (Rofel 1999: 98). This, argues Rofel, does not mean marginalised social groups such as China’s workers and peasants stand outside of and against power. Instead, one must ask how subaltern practices are ‘lodged within fields of power and knowledge’ (p.168). This caution is particularly worth heeding, given that the migrant labouring body, useful to the market for its capacity to produce surplus value, has also become a field of intense symbolic struggle between various class positions. The state, capital, international NGOs and transnational cultural elites all want to speak on behalf of China’s rural migrant workers. Yet, at the same time we cannot assume that all rural migrants identify with the position of subalternity. In fact, the issue of position in these diverse constructions is necessarily couched in ambiguous, complex and contradictory terms. Given this, it is essential to identify ways in which rural migrants position themselves in relation to state propaganda, middle-class consumers, media professionals and cultural elites, as well as the ways migrant worker positions are expressed and managed in relation to one another within the worker cohort, including urban workers in state enterprises, currently laid-off factory workers now subsisting on welfare and rural migrant workers as dagong individuals. The second relates to the issue of subaltern movement and activism. As this discussion has delineated, the shift from the master to the subaltern position is by no means merely rhetorical and its impact cannot be overestimated. As the Marxist discourses of the proletarian class were 247

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abandoned in favour of neoliberal discourse of individual improvement, workers have been robbed of the power to effectively transform their own situation (Carrillo and Goodman 2012: 10–26). In other words, while some scholars and journalists outside China invest their hope for political change in China’s newly emerging working class, they may to some extent have overlooked the fact that this class has been so disempowered that their class position has more or less reverted back to the pre-revolutionary status quo. If this is a case of history repeating itself, we are indeed compelled to consider yet again the politics and the tactics of the weak, and subaltern’s strategies of ‘talking back’ to the ‘colonial master’. In the workers’ efforts to talk back to and negotiate relationships with such ‘colonial masters’, various types of media and cultural activism have arisen, and distinct working-class media cultures are formed in this process of negotiation and struggle. To media studies scholars interested in the relationship between class and media, these no doubt present themselves as the most pertinent lines of enquiry.

References Anagnost, A. (2004) ‘The corporeal politics of quality (suzhi)’, Public Culture 16(2): 189–208. Berry, C., Lu, X. and Rofel, L. (eds) (2010) The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement: For the Public Record, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Cai, X. (2010) Revolution/Narrative: The Socialist Imagination in Chinese Literature and Culture (1949–1966), Beijing: Peking University Press. Carrillo, B. and Goodman, D.S.G. (2012) ‘The socio-political challenge of economic change: peasants and workers in transformation’, in B. Carrillo and D.S.G. Goodman (eds), China’s Peasants and Workers: Changing Class Identities, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 10–26. Chan, A. and Siu, K. (2012) ‘Chinese migrant workers: factors constraining the emergence of class consciousness’, in B. Carrillo and D.S.G. Goodman (eds), China’s Peasants and Workers: Changing Class Identities, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 105–32. Clark, P. (2008) The Chinese Cultural Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, D.S. and Wang, F. (eds) (2009) Creating Wealth and Poverty in Postsocialist China, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gai, B. (2009) ‘A world through the camera phone lens: a case study of Beijing camera phone use’, Knowledge, Technology, Policy 22: 195–204. Goodman, D.S.G. (2008) ‘Why China has no new middle class: cadres, managers and entrepreneurs’, in D.S.G. Goodman (ed.), The New Rich in China: Future Rulers, Present Lives, London: Routledge, 23–37. Guha, R. and Spivak, G.C. (eds) (1988) Selected Subaltern Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guo, Y. (2008) ‘Class, stratum and group: the politics of description and prescription’, in D.S.G. Goodman (ed.), The New Rich in China: Future Rulers, Present Lives, London: Routledge, 38–52. Hershatter, G. (1993) ‘The subaltern talks back: reflections on subaltern theory and Chinese history’, Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 1(1): 103–30. –––– (2007) ‘Forget remembering: rural women’s narratives of China’s collective past’, in C.K. Lee and G. Yang (eds), Re-envisioning the Chinese Revolution, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 69–92. Hinton, W. (1997) Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village, Berkeley: University of California Press. Hu, Z. and Ji, D. (2012) ‘Ambiguities in communicating with the world: the “going out” policy of China’s media and its multilayered contexts’, Chinese Journal of Communication 5(1): 32–7. Jacka, T. (2006) Rural Women in Urban China: Gender, Migration and Social Change, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Lee, C.K. (2007) Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt, Berkeley: University of California Press. Lee, C.K. and Selden, M. (2009) ‘Inequality and its enemies in revolutionary and reform China’, Economic and Political Weekly 43(52). Available online http://epw.in/epw/user/loginArticleError.jsp?hid_artid = 13014 (retrieved 17 February 2011). Leung, P. and So, A. (2012) ‘The making and re-making of the working class in south China’, in B. Carrillo and D.S.G. Goodman (eds), China’s Peasants and Workers: Changing Class Identities, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 84–104. 248

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Lü, X. (2003) Documenting China: The New Documentary Movement in China (Jilu Zhongguo: Dangdai zhongguo xin jilu yundong), Beijing: Sanlian Shudian (in Chinese). Pun, N. (2005) Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Qiu, J.L. (2009) Working-Class Network Society: Communication Technology and the Information Have-Less in Urban China, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. –––– (2012) ‘Network labor: beyond the shadow of Foxconn’, in L. Hjorth, J. Burgess and I. Richardson (eds), Studying Mobile Media Cultural Technologies, Mobile Communication, and the iPhone, New York: Routledge, 173–89. Qiu, J.L. and Wang, H. (2012) ‘Working-class cultural spaces: comparing the old and the new’, in B. Carrillo and D.S.G. Goodman (eds), China’s Peasants and Workers: Changing Class Identities, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 159–92. Rofel, L. (1999) Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism, Berkeley: University of California Press. –––– (2007) Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality and Public Culture, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Sun, W. (2009) Maid in China: Media, Morality, and the Cultural Politics of Boundaries, London: Routledge. –––– (2012a) ‘Desperately seeking my wages: justice, media logic, and the politics of voice in urban China’, Media, Culture, and Society 34(7): 864–79. –––– (2012b) ‘The poetry of spiritual homelessness: a creative practice of coping with industrial alienation’, in A. Kipnis (ed.), Chinese Modernity and the Individual Psyche, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 67–88. –––– (2012c) ‘Poetry of labour and (dis)articulation of class: China’s worker-poets and the cultural politics of boundaries’, Journal of Contemporary China 21(78): 993–1010. –––– (2012d) ‘Subalternity with Chinese characteristics: rural migrants, cultural activism and digital filmmaking’, Javnost – the Public 19(2): 83–100. –––– (2012e) ‘Amateur photography as self-ethnography: China’s rural migrant workers and the question of digital–political literacy’, Media International Australia 145: 135–44. –––– (2012f) ‘Screening inequality: injustices, class identities and rural migrants in Chinese cinema’, Berliner China-Hefte: Chinese History and Society 41: 6–20. –––– (2013) ‘Inequality and culture: a new pathway to understanding social inequality’, in W. Sun and Y. Guo (eds), Unequal China: Political Economy and Cultural Politics of Inequality, London: Routledge, 27–42. –––– (2014) ‘“Northern girls”: cultural politics of agency and south China’s migrant literature’, Asian Studies Review 38(2): 168–85. Sun, W. and Guo, Y. (2013) ‘Introduction’, in W. Sun and Y. Guo (eds), Unequal China: The Political Economy and Cultural Politics of Inequality, London: Routledge, 1–11. Tong, F. (2012) ‘The networked society and the making of the new working class’ (Wangluo shehui yu xing gongren jieji de xingcheng), unpublished MA thesis, Beijing University (in Chinese). Wallis, C. (2013) Technomobility in China: Young Migrant Women and Mobile Phones, New York: New York University Press. Whyte, M.K. (2010) Myth of the Social Volcano: Perceptions of Inequality and Distributive Injustice in Contemporary China, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Williams, R. (1971, rpt. 2011) The Long Revolution, Cardigan: Parthian Books. Xing, G. (2012) ‘Online activism and counter-public spheres: a case study of migrant labour resistance’, Javnost – the Public 19(2): 63–82. Yan, H. (2008) New Masters, New Servants: Development, Migration, and Women Workers, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Zang, X. (2008) ‘Market transition, wealth and status claims’, in D.S.G. Goodman (ed.), The New Rich in China: Future Rulers, Present Lives, London: Routledge, 53–70. Zhao, Y. (2008) Communication in China: Political Economy, Power and Conflict, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. –––– (2009) ‘Rethinking Chinese media studies: history, political economy and culture’, in D.K. Thussu (ed.), Internationalising Media Studies, London: Routledge, 175–95. –––– (2010a) ‘Chinese modernity, media, and democracy: an interview with Lu Xinyu’, Global Media and Communication 6(1): 5–32. –––– (2010b) ‘For a critical study of communication and China: challenges and opportunities’, International Journal of Communication 4: 544–51. 249

15 An emerging middle-class public sphere in China? Analysis of news media representation of ‘Self Tax Declaration’ Qian (Sarah) Gong

Introduction This chapter draws on the concept of the public sphere to analyse the democratic potential of the news media in China. It emphasises that in addition to media autonomy, public deliberation based on plural social interests is another major dimension of media democracy. It analyses three news media that represent diverse social interests as well as the ‘journalism domain’ and ‘civic forum’ sectors of the public sphere. Through analysing their representation of a recent tax policy which aims to reduce income inequality, this chapter examines their autonomous civic deliberative function as well as their representative function of plural social interests, drawn from the revisited public sphere concept. It then critically discusses the potential of an emerging middleclass media public sphere in China, which falls short in its inclusion of a wider range of diverse and pluralistic social interests.

The public sphere and its usage in China Habermas’s seminal public sphere concept has been widely applied in media and communication research since his book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere was made available in English in 1989 (Butsch 2009; Dahlgren 1996; Dahlgren and Sparks 1991). Since 2000, the development of new media (the internet and online activism in particular) has further revitalised the use of the concept in search for participatory democratic politics in an age of ‘destabilisation of political communication’ marked by social fragmentation, mediatisation, decentralisation and political cynicism (Blumler and Gurevitch 1995; Brant and Voltmer 2011; Dahlgren 2001: 33–55; 2005: 147–62; Downey and Fenton 2003: 185–202; Trenz 2009: 33–46). Despite its popularity among media and communication scholars in the west, the public sphere concept seems to have limited direct usage in the study of democratic functions of the media in China, a country that still exercises control of and censorship over its media system. Much research investigating media and their democratic functions seems to have steered clear of the term ‘public sphere’, mainly because media censorship imposed by the Chinese government directly contradicts a fundamental 250

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condition of the public sphere – media autonomy – which is closely associated with liberal democratic media normative theories such as free press theory. Here I would like to propose that the revisited public sphere concept is a useful conceptual tool to study the democratic potential of the media in China. Much of previous research on media democratisation in China draws on western normative media theories such as press freedom and media autonomy which are the cornerstones of liberal democratic thought. While enquiries in press freedom and autonomy are important in the Chinese authoritarian context, other aspects of democratic public communication including pluralism, participation and deliberation are insufficiently addressed. In addition, the assessment of media autonomy in earlier studies (Chan 2002: 35–51; Huang 2001: 435–50; Zhao 1998) is often based on a dichotomisation of political control and market liberalisation, with an emphasis on the liberal potential of commercial forces. The above dichotomisation and conceptualisation provided an important analytical framework for studying post-reform media which had gained a high level of diversity throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but are insufficient in their own right for the current social condition – market forces and global neoliberalism have significantly transformed the state–society interface; rising middle-class and economic interests groups nurtured by consumer practices pose significant challenges to the ‘top-down model of public information dissemination’ (Donald and Keane 2002: 12). As real social power increasingly drifts away from the state towards the private corporate sector, the monolithic control of the state disperses and decreases simultaneously (Chen 2003: 143). This has given rise to an ‘interest-based social order’ in which power contestation has become multidimensional, multilayered and interwoven among different political, economic and cultural interest groups (Zheng 2004). The multiple sets of power relations in flux is the rationale behind the application of the public sphere concept to China, for it suggests a more plural and multidimensional approach towards media and democracy by looking at the autonomy of media practices and the pluralism of the expression of diverse socio-economic interests. Habermas (1989: 27) described his original idea of the public sphere as follows: The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor. The medium of this political confrontation was peculiar and without historical precedent: people’s public use of their reason (öffentliches Räsonnement). The institutional basis of the public sphere that Habermas describes includes ‘an array of milieu and media such as clubs, salons, coffee houses, newspapers, books and pamphlets’, many of which manifest ‘Enlightenment ideals of the human pursuit of knowledge and freedom’ (Dahlgren 2001: 34). Today many of the media still function as a virtual public space to sustain mediated communication for an ever growing population. The public sphere which is situated within civil society, provides an interface where the ‘citizen confronts the state in his or her own terms, the place of publicity in privacy’, thus mediating ‘between the modern realms of the public and the private’ (McKeon 2004: 274). In his later writing, Habermas (1991: 398) provides more detailed explanation of the conditions of his public sphere concept: It is a ‘domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed. Access to the public sphere is open in principle to all citizens . . . Citizens act as a public when they deal with matters of general interest without being subject to coercion; thus with the guarantee that they may assemble and unite freely, and express and publicize their opinion freely’. These conditions 251

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including free assembly and expression and participatory parity have become normative ideals for democracies in the west. The original concept of the ‘bourgeois public sphere’ has been criticised from sociological, historical and feminist perspectives (Calhoun 1996; Fraser 1996: 109–42; Negt and Kluge 1993; Ryan 1996: 259–88). One of the main critiques of the bourgeois public sphere is that the singular form in Habermas’s original conceptualisation operates on a model of exclusion based on class, education, gender and race (Fraser 1996: 109–42; Negt and Kluge 1993; Ryan 1996: 259–88). According to Habermas, the idealised public sphere is an arena which does not discriminate against people of different social backgrounds or status, and which provides free access to the public. Critics argue that the participants in Habermas’s historical review are very small segments of the educated and middle bourgeois, or, to be more precise, bourgeois males (Fraser 1996: 109–42). The class character – bourgeois and educated interlocutors – of the public sphere gave rise to the problem of ‘universalism’ (Dahlgren 1991: 3) and excluded participation from other social classes. For instance, those who are illiterate and proletariats are excluded from the classic public sphere. In particular, Fraser (1996: 109–42) argues that different socio-economic conditions of the ‘interlocutors’ can determine if they can deliberate common issues as if they were social equals. Without participatory parity, the subordinate and under-presented groups tend to be ‘further disadvantaged in their encounter with dominant modes of communication’ (Goode 2005: 39). Other theorists support the view that equal socio-economic conditions constitute an important aspect of political equality, as ‘minimal economic security and welfare’ form basic dimensions of citizenship, and have great influence on the political dimension of citizenship (Dahlgren 1996: 137). In his later publications Habermas (1991: 438; 1998) responded to the critiques and embraced plural public spheres that include diverse social interests, identities and needs, acknowledging the ‘pluralistic, internally much differentiated mass public’. Such revision received positive responses from critical scholars (Dahlgren 2005: 147–62; Downey and Fenton 2003: 185–202; Lunt and Livingstone 2013: 87–96; Rasmussen 2013: 97–104), as late modernity has generated much socio-cultural diversities that require their own public spheres (Rasmussen 2013: 97–104). Meanwhile neoliberal reforms that swept across the world (including China) at the end of the last century have produced unprecedented levels of exclusion based on economic power and domination. For instance, neoliberalism in the UK and USA has led to a ‘power alignment’ that favours conglomerated economic elites over fragmented citizens (Dahlgren 2009: 50–1). The wider inclusion of diversity and pluralism has thus become an ever more crucial aspect in maintaining healthy public communication that provides access to marginalised and fragmented citizens. Many argue that the developments in the media system such as online activism can potentially enhance a wider inclusion and pluralism, and provide platforms for ‘alternative’ and ‘counter’ public spheres (Downey and Fenton 2003: 185–202; Kahn and Kellner 2004: 87–95). The wider inclusion of plural social interests in Habermas’s revisited public sphere concept is pertinent to China where neoliberal (with Chinese characteristics) reform has produced social inequalities between the east and the west, and urban and rural areas since economic reforms were introduced in 1978 (Baum 2004: 222; He 2000: 68–99).1 Social inequality and domination of the rich and powerful have marginalised the voice of the Chinese underclass that included peasants, rural migrant workers, urban low-earning families and urban retirees (Zhang 2005; Sun 2012: 864–79).2 In the meantime, with increasing social inequality, grassroots protests against deteriorating living conditions of the underprivileged social classes became an alarming signal to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) legitimacy (Derleth and Koldyk 2004: 748–9). To reduce income inequality,3 a tax policy, Self Tax Declaration, was introduced in 2006. 252

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According to this policy, people with a personal income of more than RMB 120,000 yuan (c. US$19,605) per year are considered ‘high income’ earners and are required to declare their incomes to local taxation bureaus and use higher tax rates. This policy is considered ineffective as grey incomes4 of the privileged social groups cannot be traced or taxed, and the tax policy has limited effectiveness with its main impact falling on the salaried Chinese public (OECD 2004: 35–6). This tax policy and its related everyday socio-economic concerns are selected as the prism through which media representation and discussion are analysed. The growing social inequality widens the gap between socio-economic groups in society and opens up conflicts of interests, and the problematic tax policy may have different impacts on people from different economic backgrounds. Issues explored include: whether the media can provide any kind of autonomous platform to facilitate public discussion of this policy as an issue of common concern; how the interests of different social groups are expressed and negotiated in the public space; and whether there is adequate pluralism in terms of interest expression. All of these questions are relevant to the analysis of whether the news media as the ‘journalism domain’ and ‘civic forum’ sectors of the public sphere can play any positive role in China (Dahlgren 2005: 153).

Analysis of media representation This chapter analyses three news media that represent diverse social interests. People’s Daily (Renmin ribao),5 West China Metro News (Huaxi dushi bao)6 and Southern Weekend (Nanfang zhoumo)7 are chosen to represent official discourse, semi-official discourse (tabloid) and semi-official discourse (broadsheet) respectively.8 As these media are under different degrees of state control and therefore have different degrees of autonomy and target different reader groups, I attempt to highlight the differences in their coverage of the Self Tax Declaration, with a particular emphasis on how these differences can be analysed against the conditions of the revisited public sphere concept. The empirical analysis takes a socio-linguistic approach and uses textual analysis to analyse the form and meaning, rhetoric, logic and word selection of news articles regarding the Self Tax Declaration collected from the three media from 2006 to 2007. The textual analysis is combined with interviews with journalists and editors conducted between 2007 and 2008. The dual-method approach reveals values and interests of the journalists which cannot be easily found in the media texts.

Urging Self Tax Declaration The deadline for the Self Tax Declaration was initially set for 31 March 2007 and later extended to 2 April 2007 because the outcome of the policy was not satisfactory – only 1.62 million people declared their tax in contrast to the anticipated 6 million high-income earners (People’s Daily 2007a). From October 2006 to April 2007, the People’s Daily and West China Metro News carried 9 and 40 news articles respectively urging the public to declare their income and tax. Early news articles from People’s Daily concerning the tax declaration contained information on who should declare tax, how to calculate taxable incomes and how to declare. The primary concern of the coverage by the People’s Daily was to make sure the tax declaration work was smoothly carried out by the local tax bureaus with the help of media. As the official newspaper of the CCP, it is unsurprising that the People’s Daily incorporated the political objectives of the government into its news agenda. On 23 March 2007, a news report titled ‘Declare incomes according to law, construct harmonious society’ from the People’s Daily begins with the following opening paragraph: 253

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Recently, Mr. Zhao, a manager from a foreign owned enterprise in Beijing received a special letter. ‘Dear taxpayer, If you receive annual income of more than RMB 120,000 yuan, please make sure you declare your tax in local taxation bureaus. Failure to do this may incur a violation of law [emphasis added].’ This is the letter sent by the taxation bureau in Beijing municipality to people with an annual income near or over RMB 120,000 yuan, reminding their duty of tax declaration. (People’s Daily 2007b) The revealed part of the letter from the Beijing municipality taxation bureau contains a message of urging and warning, as indicated by the emphasised make sure and violation of laws. The ‘make sure’ added in the sentence stresses a tone of urgency. The ‘failure to do this may incur a violation of law’ contains a warning. Little autonomy can be identified in the People’s Daily’s coverage of the issue as there is a lack of objective and critical investigation of the implication of the tax policy – why under one-third of the taxpayers anticipated have actually declared. It is evident that reports like this carry an agenda to help the taxation work of the relevant government department. A journalist from the People’s Daily explained to me about the guidelines for covering income inequality including the Self Tax Declaration: Our stories can talk about income inequality, but they cannot be ‘systematic’. For issues which are already having very negative influences among the public, such as house prices, we have to consider the degree to which we can report. There are no written rules or regulations for reporting the income disparity, but there is common sense – the perspective of the report has to be constructively critical. Otherwise there are only negative influences.9 The West China Metro News has a similar approach in its coverage of the Self Tax Declaration, namely to urge declaration. From March 2007 to April 2007, 34 articles were published on this issue with 3 on the analysis of the tax issue while the rest are on ‘how many people have declared tax’, ‘who has not declared tax’ and ‘the punishment of not declaring tax’. Only in a few news reports did West China Metro News play a limited role in investigating the inequality between underprivileged and privileged social groups in regard to taxation. The discrepancy between the reality (cleaners being taxed) and the intention of the tax policy (lower the exorbitant high incomes) was exposed in a story titled ‘Monthly income RMB 450 – cleaners pay taxes every month’ on 23 October 2006.10 Following the deadline of the Self Tax Declaration, the People’s Daily carried a report entitled ‘Embarrassed Self Tax Declaration’ on 4 April 2007. The report identifies salary earners as the mainstay of those who have declared tax, and private entrepreneurs, celebrities, freelancers and self-employees as high-income earners who failed to declare tax (People’s Daily 2007c). These latter groups have become officially framed as the ‘missing’ rich people in tax declaration, and the frame is widely used by other media outlets including the West China Metro News in the following story: Logically, the rationale behind the awareness of paying taxes is taxpayers get good public services and tax evaders get punishment. As far as the former is concerned, more tax money means better public services such as a welfare system that everyone can benefit from. Obviously, it is not the case in China. Regarding the latter, tax evasion prevails and the supervision is very difficult due to the grey income system . . . Why have salary earners become the mainstay of the taxpayers? Because their incomes are clearly stated on the payslips and 254

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it is easy to trace, while it is not so easy with the incomes of the private entrepreneurs and celebrities [emphasis added]. (West China Metro News 2007a) This frame has not mentioned high-ranking government officials and employees at managerial level in state-owned monopoly enterprises whose incomes are commonly considered high. The total omission of the two categories indicates that People’s Daily and West China Metro News are unable to act in an autonomous way as watchdogs because the collusion and corruption between government officials and business entrepreneurs for economic benefits is well documented (Chen 2003: 148; Transparency International 2013). Instead of probing into why tax declaration is resisted, which is reflected in the fact that only 1.62 out of 6 million people declared tax, both media have framed tax declaration as duties of citizenship, sidelining the discussion of the flawed payment system in which the rich rely on untraceable grey incomes.

Tax declaration, economic rights and political rights In the story ‘Embarrassed Self Tax Declaration’, the People’s Daily also identified four reasons for the undesirable outcomes of the tax policy: (1) taxpayers are unclear about the starting and finishing date of the financial year; (2) it is difficult to summarise the total annual income based on the variable forms of income; (3) enterprise taxation systems are not properly set up; and (4) there is a low degree of awareness of paying tax. The West China Metro News reprinted this part and combined it with another report from the People’s Daily and published it as a commentary on the same day with the title ‘Four main reasons for undesirable outcomes of tax declaration’ (West China Metro News 2007a). The four main reasons identified are the same technical issues while the other major deficiencies, such as the under-regulated payment system and grey income discussed above are absent. The reasons for the undesirable outcomes of the tax policy were covered from a different angle by the Southern Weekend on 19 April 2007. It listed four concerns that the public had in regard to the Self Tax Declaration: The meaning of the tax declaration . . . indicates transparency of personal incomes and properties and this should start from government officials. A significant number of government officials and their relatives have annual incomes of more than RMB 120,000 yuan and they should be an important group for tax declaration . . . [emphasis added] The netizens also doubt the legitimacy of the regulation which only went through discussion of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the State Council instead of the discussion of NPC and public discussion . . . the tax bureaus are still used to the old style of governing and supervising. They should provide service-based management . . . [emphasis added] The gross tax revenue in 2006 was RMB 3763.6 billion yuan. It is a huge amount of public wealth which the taxpayers entrusted to the public servants. However, the rights of speech, information, decision-making and participation are far from being adequate . . . [emphasis added] Facing the ‘illegal situation’ (people do not declare taxes), tax bureaus need to change the old mentality based on punishment to a new one that is based on guidance, and supervise the good thing of declaring personal taxes on the basis of adequate public discussion. (Southern Weekend 2007a) Unlike the coverage by the People’s Daily and the West China Metro News, the Southern Weekend made a clear reference to government officials and their relatives who should be the first ones 255

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to declare taxes. The article also refers to ‘government officials’ as ‘civil servants’, which indicates the difference between the associated roles, i.e. governing and serving. In addition, the legitimacy of the policy-making processes is questioned. As a result, the inverted commas in paragraph four indicate that taxpayers are not engaged in illegal behaviour because without the approval of the NPC, the legitimacy of the tax policy itself is questionable. This concern challenges the Chinese political system in which rule of law is still limited – government regulations and rules are made without being discussed and approved by the NPC. It is evident that these remarks go beyond the tax policy itself and discuss the democratic process of policy making. The Southern Weekend further discusses the processes of democratisation and citizens’ rights in social issues. The governance style envisaged in the article shows that a shift is needed from authoritarian government to a modern democratic government mainly providing public services. According to this idea, taxpayers as the sources of public revenue expect to enact their rights in being informed, expressing opinions and participating in decision-making processes. The political rights are thus associated with the issue of tax declaration. The demand for civic rights is based on economic contribution (public revenue) made by the citizens. The article also criticises the existing opaque policy making and heavy-handed governance style. The requests made in the report (rule of law, free speech, participation, policy making based on public opinion) are largely citizens’ democratic political rights. The newspaper made a clear connection between economic rights and political rights, and the elevation of the problems to the political institutional level makes the Southern Weekend an autonomous space for critical discussions of public policy.11

Contending the ‘rich’ The definition of the ‘rich’ is crucial for the implementation of the Self Tax Declaration as it provides justification for the policy in the first place. The media published a debate over who should be considered rich and therefore included in the ‘rich’ category in the income redistribution reform. The West China Metro News covered an interview between a middleclass person and the journalist on 9 April 2007 with the title of ‘Why I feel lost in the first year of Self Tax Declaration’;12 the interviewee expressed his confusion as follows: Am I rich? I earn a little more than RMB 120,000 per year, but my wife is unemployed and my child is in school. The money after tax needs to cover mortgage, car finance payments, expenses for my child and my parents . . . The new tax declaration does not differentiate family income or individual income, which is unfair to people like me . . . And where are the real rich people? Among the 1.6 million people who have declared their taxes, salary earners consists the major part. The rich people who declared their taxes such as private entrepreneurs, self-employed, freelancers and celebrities are very few . . . This makes me feel that the taxation bureaus can’t do anything to the real rich people whose income comes in various forms . . . (Interviewee) Experts believe that the personal income system has little transparency as income comes in different forms: cash, gifts and welfare. Those ‘grey incomes’ have for sure obscured the situation (Journalist). (West China Metro News 2007b) The ‘grey incomes’ identified by the journalist in the interview are related to the underregulated payment system in China. Various forms of income such as cash, gifts and welfare are considered as grey incomes particularly available to people vested with power. However, the 256

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real rich people referred to by the interviewee only include private entrepreneurs, the selfemployed, freelancers and celebrities, groups officially framed by the People’s Daily as rich people ‘missing’ from the tax declarations. It is important to note a rather contradictory role of the newspaper in the sense that on the one hand it fulfils its political ideological function, framing scapegoat tax-evaders as private entrepreneurs, self-employed, freelancers and celebrities. On the other hand, it questions the efficacy of the tax declaration by interviewing a middle-class person and calls for better public services to be provided through taxation. In my interview with a deputy editor of the newspaper in charge of advertising, I asked whether the economic conditions of the journalists would have any impact on their professionalism, in particular on their sense of social responsibility in reporting income inequality. He said: Social moral standards are changing. It is fair to say that new journalists (those who became journalist after newspaper commercialisation in the late 1990s, and have no experience working in the former party newspaper, i.e. papers within the institution) have less sense of social responsibility . . . But generally speaking journalists are under economic pressure because of institutional changes (from part-subsidised newspaper to self-sustained newspaper). For them absolute individual incomes have increased, but the expectations for life have also increased, for example, buying a car, a flat, etc.13 The pressures that the editor described for journalists such as buying a car and a flat largely coincide with the problem reflected in the interview with the middle-class interviewee covered in the previous excerpt. The reason that journalists focus on such economic concerns is associated with their own economic interest. Later in the interview, the deputy chief editor said that he considered himself as middle class, a view supported by a journalist from the same newspaper.14 Based on journalists’ own assessment, here we could probably make a connection between the way that journalists from the West China Metro News report the issue of Self Tax Declaration and the economic conditions of the journalists themselves. The West China Metro News as a supplement of flagship party newspapers enjoys some editorial autonomy in nonfront page news stories which may not be the standard version supplied by the Xinhua news agency or the People’s Daily. These non-front page stories are where the journalists can smuggle in their own economic concerns with stories that reflect middle-class interest. The newspaper mainly targets urban residents who are very likely to face similar problems including paying for various family living expenses. It is in the interest of the newspaper to provide a forum where issues of common concern by its readers can be raised and discussed. On 16 August 2007, an article entitled ‘The thrift life of a journalist from the Southern Weekend’ further documented the living conditions of a middle-class family: For a middle class family, I thought a few yuan’s price rise does not matter . . . As a ‘whitecollar’, I have to economise my way of living. We used to make freshly ground coffee that I brought back from Hainan in the evening while we watch TV. But now I make a big cup of bitter tea which is RMB 4.2 yuan cheap stuff. (Southern Weekend 2007b) Using journalists’ own experiences as news resources is rare as it can infuse the news with a personal bias, and journalistic professional standards such as objectivity and impartiality can be undermined as a result. Indeed here it seems that the personal agenda of the journalist – concerns about tax declaration and discontent about the rise of commodity prices – has been 257

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turned into a public agenda. Another journalist from the Southern Weekend also acknowledged that he would pay attention to income inequality based on his own economic conditions: This kind of report (on income inequality) would draw my attention, because I would anticipate the financial position which I am at in the society and consider whether I am a beneficiary or a victim.15 However, when asked about his understanding of the personal agenda of journalists in relation to the overall agenda of the newspaper, he said: For sure there is agenda-setting which varies depending on the nature of the newspaper and individual journalists. But the agenda of the journalist should be compatible with the general values of the newspaper. As far as the Southern Weekend is concerned, we attempt to objectively and truthfully reflect the present Chinese society. Writing articles to reflect moral values is the tradition (of Chinese intellectuals). The Southern Weekend is renowned for its professionalism and objectivity among all Chinese media. This comment shows that the previous report on commodity price rises is not an example of personal agenda and experiences taking over the editorial agenda. The fact that the particular journalist associates herself with middle class, and that the Southern Weekend journalists and editors I interviewed define themselves as middle class indicate that this report is very likely an expression of general middle-class interest represented by the Southern Weekend that published several other reports on the tax policy.16 There are altogether 8 news reports advocating middle-class interests, accounting for 36 per cent of the total number (22) of articles sampled from the Southern Weekend.

Campaigning against Self Tax Declaration In addition to criticising the Self Tax Declaration policy and the premise on which it is based, the Southern Weekend launched a campaign against it by collecting views on the policy from the public. On 27 June 2007 with the title of ‘Taxpayer says: My annoyance’, the Southern Weekend published a ‘call for news stories’ in a section usually reserved for letters to the editors. The call which contains the word ‘annoyance’ substantially limits the scope of public responses as the focus is primarily on ‘annoyance’. The call further explained its purpose: It is about the extension of ideas – in the sense that in the new people-oriented era, news should be made for citizens, especially for taxpayers [emphasis added]. The progress of a country is made by taxpayers. The livelihood of the people is essentially about the rights of the taxpayers – except the rights on the superstructural level such as freedom of speech and election. These rights are the basic socioeconomic rights such as food safety, medical care, housing and pension and welfare . . . the Southern Weekend will devote this section (Taxpayer says: My annoyance) to a space for public discussion. The annoyance which have important news values will become a focus on the societal level because of the wide influence of the Southern Weekend. (Southern Weekend 2007c) It is important to note that ‘citizen’ is emphasised in the first sentence of this call. Citizenship as a notion closely related to political, economic and cultural rights is different from public or people. As argued by Dahlgren (1996: x), it is fundamental for people to ‘discuss social and 258

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political issues’ based on their roles as ‘citizens’. Instead of using ‘people’ or ‘public’, the call’s choice of word clearly demonstrates the aspect of rights. However, under the current political structure, complete freedom of speech and direct elections still seem remote. As a concession, public debate like this stresses the economic rights of the citizens as taxpayers. In this call, the Southern Weekend avoids directly challenging the superstructure to which it refers as freedom of speech and election. However, the so-called social and economic rights such as medical care and pension can hardly be separated from political rights, the lack of which resulted in economic monopolies and unaccountable public power. The discussions of the social and economic rights will inevitably lead to discussions of political rights. This newspaper practice has been embedded in a gradualist approach towards opening public debate which is an essential element of the public sphere. The connection between economic and political rights, and the goal of the newspaper to advocate changes in the political system are confirmed by my interview with an editor from the Southern Weekend who emphasised the role of media in changing society in an incremental and piecemeal fashion. Every single article I wrote, every book I edited and I wrote can be considered as an ‘edging ball’ (ca bian qiu).17 I cannot change the framework (media censorship) overnight because it seems stable and invincible, but I can gradually shift the boundary by crossing the line slightly. I will try to bend the rule as long as I have a chance.18 More importantly, the newspaper has a clear view of its influence, providing a space for public discussion and highlighting the focus of debate at a societal level. The section, according to the call, is devoted to public discussion. However, the examples of ‘annoyance’ provided by the newspaper are overcharged mobile bills, queuing at the banks, monopoly enterprise such as railway, airlines, banks and telecommunication companies, education, medical care and housing. People who use these services are largely middle class (and above) who do not worry about basic living requirements such as food and clothes. Underprivileged social classes such as rural migrant workers and retirees from state-owned enterprises may also face such annoyance,19 but their primary concerns are more likely to be basic living expenses. These aspects are less featured by the newspaper – only 3 out of 27 articles sampled addressed the interests of the underprivileged. The following fictional article, which synthesises all ‘agonising’ (Southern Weekend replaced ‘annoyance’ with ‘agony’ from hereon) experiences from the answers to the call for news stories, further demonstrates the paper’s ‘middle-class’ identity by using this title: ‘How much tax money a Chinese “middle class” has to pay . . . Investigating the agony of Chinese taxpayers; happy or unhappy, please see this true story’ (Southern Weekend 2007d). The fictional story is based on a variety of taxes that the main character has to pay: personal income tax, value-added tax, city construction tax, copyright tax, stamp duty and interest tax. The inverted commas added here are used to negate the connotation of middle class who should be having a rather comfortable life. Instead, after being taxed and charged so many times, the Chinese middle class does not seem to be that well-off. The actual incomes of the middle classes are greatly reduced after paying these taxes and fees. Higher tax rates mean further reduction of the incomes, which is one of the reasons that the middle class represented by the Southern Weekend feel so strongly about the Self Tax Declaration; in effect it may only redistribute wealth between the underclass and the middle class. The two sentences presented here set the tone for the whole article. The word ‘agony’ shows the gravity of the issue as much more painful connotations are associated with this word than ‘complaint’ and ‘dissatisfaction’. The experience of the main character may have been fictional, but the way the story is presented has given an intense impression on overtaxation in China. The middle class described in the story as the main group 259

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for tax declaration are overburdened with taxes and fees, whereas the ‘rich’ who may get a lot of commodities free as gifts or welfare are unaffected.

Discussion and conclusion In this chapter I have analysed three news media which represent ‘civic forum’ sectors of the public sphere (Dahlgren 2005: 153), and their discussions of the Self Tax Declaration, looking particularly at their autonomous civic deliberative function, as well as their representative function of plural social interests. Both functions are important dimensions of the revisited public sphere concept which emphasises equal and free participation as well as wider inclusion of diversified social interests (Habermas 1991: 398–404; 1996; 1998: 239–52; 2006). The autonomous civic deliberative function of the public sphere holds dear to the democratic potential of the Chinese media, as there is a lack of ‘institutionalized channels for articulating and advancing class interests’ in the Chinese political system (Chen 2003: 141). The analysis in this chapter shows that the People’s Daily and the West China Metro News have rather uncritical positions in their coverage of the tax policy in that much of their coverage contains messages urging taxpayers to declare their incomes and taxes. Even though the latter has published a few stories (e.g. overtaxed cleaners) that cast doubts on the implementation of the tax policy, it has failed to provide a space for rigorous criticism of the under-regulated payment and under-supervised political systems that render the tax policy problematic. The framing of the ‘tax-evaders’ by these two newspapers constitute a construction of social reality that fulfils the ‘instrumental rationality’ of the partystate, largely ring-fencing the interests of the powerful rich. It is unsurprising that the partyrun newspapers still largely fulfil their political ideological functions, essentially representing the interest of the ruling power in the interest-based social order and allowing no space for autonomous discussion. On the other hand, the Southern Weekend has provided a platform where experiences and perspectives of, and opinions on the tax policy can be heard and discussed in public. Explicit criticism of government corruption and the illegal policy-making process was expressed in a manner relatively free from coercion, which demonstrates an increasingly equal position of the Chinese public vis-à-vis the party state. The Southern Weekend has openly made requests for political rights for tax-paying citizens including the rule of law, free speech, participating in policy making based on public discussions,20 demonstrating the paper’s dedication to influencing government policy making based on public opinion. This is an important role of the public sphere as an ‘intermediary between the public realm and the private interests’ (Edgar 2006: 124). Such dedication gradually shifts the power relations between the Chinese public and the monolith state that has rendered the public voiceless in the face of controversial policies in the past.21 In addition, it has demonstrated a distinctive alternative as the middle-class interests do not align with the priorities of personal income tax of the party-state that favour the entrepreneurs and the underprivileged (Chen 2003: 141–62; Shue 2004: 24–49). The autonomous expression of middle-class interests in the public domain, coupled with active citizenship manifest in the desire for participating in the public policy-making process, has demonstrated some essential features of the contemporary public sphere including ‘representative publicness’ and ‘alternativeness’ (Dahlgren 1991: 8; Dahlberg 2001; Young 2002). Meanwhile, many argue that the contemporary ‘post-bourgeois’ public sphere should be compatible with institutional configuration including media development, changing the social order and declining civil participation (Dalhgren 1991: 8; Garnham 1996). The same applies to China. The ‘interest-based social order’ characterised by diverse political, economic and cultural interests (Zheng 2004) in the present Chinese society suggests that to explore the democratic 260

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potential of the media one also needs to examine the pluralism of the expression of diverse socio-economic interests by various media outlets. While the Southern Weekend has made a clear attempt to campaign against the tax policy based on ‘public opinion’ (i.e. taxpayers’ agonies), its representation of middle-class interest as a primary goal is evident. As discussed previously, the tax policy that aims to reduce income inequality on the societal level is unlikely to be able to levy taxes from the ‘powerful rich’ people whose vested interest is protected by the political system. Therefore many perceive that in reality the redistribution of wealth will only take place between the middle class and underclass, which is against the interests of the middle-class readers of the Southern Weekend. Comments made by journalists and editors from the West China Metro News and the Southern Weekend have provided some further insights into the connection between the economic interests of the salaried journalists and their criticism of the tax policy, supporting Zhao’s (2004: 45) claim that deteriorating economic conditions of journalists serve as impetus for their political actions. The expression of diverse social interests is limited partly because of the readership/participant composition of the two media, and partly because of the nature of the zero-sum game between the middle class and underclass in the income redistribution, as the CCP is now experiencing a ‘legitimacy crisis’ (Derleth and Koldyk 2004: 747–77; Shue 2004: 24–49), dealing with discontent over, and protest against, unemployment, expensive health care and income inequality of the underprivileged. The government is more likely to prioritise the interests of the underclass who are perceived as destabilising social forces.22 The middle class, perceived as the would-be victims of the income-redistribution reform, dominate the discussions in the Southern Weekend in a more organised way (e.g. campaign).23 On the other hand, the expression and representation of the underclass is underwhelming in this middleclass-dominated medium, even though one could argue that the interests of the underclass are even more urgent in the period of income reform. The critical and autonomous space provided by the Southern Weekend for public discussions of the tax policy seems to have been dominated by middle-class concerns.24 The fact that underclass interests are marginalised in the media problematises the inter-class equality and the role of the media as a condition of the public sphere, which creates vacuums for equal participation for all social classes. Previous research has identified mainstream media representations of the underclass’s (e.g. rural migrant workers) interests on an issue to issue basis, but argued that the expression of interests should be viewed ‘in a diverse range of settings, sometimes within social structures and sometimes in opposition to them, with varying degrees of effectiveness’ (Sun 2012: 877). In this study, the People’s Daily and West China Metro News had a higher number of stories about the income of rural migrant workers, but were mostly reported as a single issue focusing on unpaid wages during the Chinese New Year period. Other research has also found exclusion of the Chinese lower classes such as peasants, workers and rural migrant workers in online political discussions based on their disadvantageous economic positions (Sullivan 2012: 773–83).25 This study supports this view: while there is some evidence from the Southern Weekend to suggest an emerging middle-class public sphere demonstrating autonomy and representative publicness vis-à-vis the party state, there is a lack of systemic and consistent representation of the underclass in the public domain, undermining what Dahlgren (2001: 35) termed ‘universality’, a necessary structure of the public sphere to allow accessibility for all citizens (Dahlgren 2001: 35). The structural necessity of universalism which shares concerns with the condition of pluralism is challenging in China as well as elsewhere as the sweeping neoliberal market force configured and fragmented the media market to serve the interest of the urban elites (Sparks 1991; Zhao 2004: 43–74). Such institutional constraints on the inclusion of diverse socio-economic interests is yet another underlying issue that needs to be considered in connection with the emerging democratic potential of the middle-class public sphere in China. 261

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Notes 1 Baum (2004: 222) observes that the Gini-coefficient as a major indicator of income disparity increased from 0.24 to 0.44 in the 1980s and 1990s in China, making China one of the most unequal countries in the world. He points out that the social structure in China has become pyramid-shaped – 16 per cent of the powerful and rich population owns 80 per cent of all social wealth. Another more conservative estimate by the World Bank and Forbes indicates that the wealthiest 20 per cent of the population owns 47 per cent of all the income in China. See Chen (2003: 146), Baum (2004: 222) and He (2000: 68–99). 2 It is important to note that the boundaries between these categories are not clear-cut, for example there is a fuzzy boundary between peasants and rural migrant workers as the latter are largely former peasants who abandon their land and seek jobs in the city. 3 Comment made by an official from the State Administration of Taxation, the original report can be found at http://news.people.com.cn/GB/37454/37459/4938615.html (accessed 29 September 2013) and http://finance.sina.com.cn/g/20050824/18561914170.shtml (accessed 29 September 2013). 4 Grey income is usually defined as hidden sources of income that are not on record. Examples of grey income include ‘a secondary, part-time profession, and commission or expensive gifts given in return for the convenience one provides in commercial activities through his/her position’ (Ye cited in Cheng 2011: 69). 5 People’s Daily is examined as the government discourse because it is the official newspaper of the CCP and it represents the position of the party. It is not the most widely read newspaper by the public, but it is the newspaper with the largest subscription by governments at different levels, state-owned enterprises and public service sectors. 6 West China Metro News is a local mid-market daily city newspaper that has both party propaganda and tabloid features. It mainly targets reader groups of urban middle class and lower classes. 7 Southern Weekend is a weekly broadsheet that mainly targets reader groups of upper/middle classes. 8 Both the ‘broadsheet’ and ‘tabloid’ in the Chinese context are state-run newspapers whose ownership remains in the hands of the party, although both have experienced a certain degree of economic liberalisation and are now partially or wholly funded by advertising revenue. The former includes more hard news and in-depth investigations while the latter, also known as ‘city newspapers’, focus more on everyday life stories (vis-à-vis party propaganda and policies) presented in a sensationalised style (Huang 2001: 435–50). The state-run tabloid-like commercial newspapers remain the ‘authoritarian voice of the ruling power’, though one could argue that their existence (together with other commercial newspapers such as state-run broadsheet-like papers) signifies the end of the age of pure party propaganda (Huang 2001: 435). The complexities in these papers’ funding and regulation inevitably affect their roles in representing and engaging political debate, and admittedly categorising them as official, semi-official (tabloid) and semi-official (broadsheet) discourses is a simplified approach used here for analytical purpose. 9 My interview with a People’s Daily journalist, June 2007, Beijing. 10 The minimum taxable salary is RMB 1,600 yuan (c. US$261) per month in China in 2007. The story (West China Metro News 2006) reveals that because the cleaners are not on the payroll, they are not treated as company employees. Instead, they are treated as self-employed and are put in the self-employed taxation category in which a much higher tax rate is applied. At the end of the report, a promise is made by the employer of the cleaners and local tax bureau that all over-deducted taxes are to be returned. 11 However, it is also interesting to note the adjective ‘good’ in paragraph four despite the overall critical comments. This should be understood in the context of media censorship and the way the media regulatory bodies enact censorship. We can speculate that the adjective ‘good’ is used to manifest the ‘good intentions’ to bypass media censorship. The need for ‘labelling’ however still demonstrates the media censorship imposed by the regulatory bodies and self-censorship enacted by journalists themselves. 12 Many have pointed out that the definition of Chinese ‘middle class’ is vague and loose (Chen 2003: 146; Guo 2008). Guo (2008: 47–50) discussed several criteria (e.g. criterion based on income) and definitions for the middle class, used by academics in China. This chapter does not seek to provide an agreeable definition for the Chinese ‘middle class’; here the ‘middle class’ is based on selfidentification and it mainly refers to salaried people with a well-do-to economic background. It is to be differentiated from the ‘entrepreneurial class’ and the ‘bourgeoisie’ discussed by Chen (2003: 141–62), or the ‘new rich’ discussed by Guo (2008: 42), many of whom rely heavily on government patronage for their economic success, or ‘got rich dishonestly or unscrupulously’. 262

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13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20

21

22 23

24 25

My interview with the deputy chief editor of the West China Metro News, August 2007, Chengdu. My interview with a West China Metro News journalist, August 2007, Chengdu. My interview with a Southern Weekend journalist, July 2007, Guangzhou. All journalists and editors interviewed in the study identified themselves as ‘middle class’ when they were invited to self-assess their socio-economic background. Other reports carried by the Southern Weekend include ‘The worries of the taxpayers’, ‘Why can’t we feel the pay rise?’ and ‘Income inequality between the rich and poor plus inflation equals the economic insecurity’. A term originating from a table tennis rule. It refers to a situation in which someone can get away with marginally breaking the rule. My interview with a Southern Weekend editor, July 2007, Guangzhou. Rural migrant workers refer to an emerging social group in China. It is composed of 150 million peasants who left their land and homes in rural areas and sought for jobs, mainly in the construction industry in the city. They work and live in the city, and most of them go home once a year during the Chinese Spring Festival. However, such a critical stance has to be interpreted in connection with the wider context of the officially sanctioned anti-corruption discourse in China. Even with such an officially sanctioned discourse, boundary-pushing practices observed in previous research (Tong 2007: 530–5) are also identifiable in this study. For example, the Southern Weekend launched its criticism from the realm of economic rights and then elevated this criticism to the political system in a gradual approach to challenging media censorship. These are still considered useful by critical media practitioners. For instance, suppressed women’s voice against China’s one-child-policy and suppressed opinion of farmers and laid-off workers against the 1992 policy of economic reform. See Von der Putten (2008) and Zhao (2004: 46). A series of laws and policies have been made to offer migrant workers employment security and income protection. See Wang et al. (2009: 485–501). The analysis of autonomous and alternative middle-class media is different from Chen’s (2003: 141–62) analysis of class politics and democracy. He argues that ‘the escalation of class antagonism, interdependence and shared interests between the communist regime and China’s affluent social classes (the new bourgeoisie and middle classes) are leading to the formation of a de facto anti-democratic alliance’ (Chen 2003: 143). Here the personal income tax policy mostly targeting the (salaried) middle class may challenge the ‘alliance’ formed between them. It seems that class politics is more nuanced, sometimes contingent on the nature of the inter-class conflict; for instance, the general alliance between the communist party and the middle class may be temporarily broken because in the incomeredistribution reform, the former facing its ‘legitimate crisis’ may prioritise the interest of the underprivileged to that of the latter. The paper has a small number of feature stories about the underclass, e.g. trade union membership of factory workers. Over the years, internet users in China have expanded to lower-income social groups thanks to the technological development and reduced costs. The users of many civic and parapolitical forums are still dominated by highly educated and highly paid middle-class males (Sullivan 2012: 773–83).

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Rasmussen, T. (2013) ‘Internet-based media, Europe and the political public sphere’, Media, Culture and Society 35(1): 97–104. Ryan, M.P. (1996) ‘Gender and public access: women’s politics in nineteenth-century America’, in C. Calhoun (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 259–88. Shue, V. (2004) ‘Legitimacy crisis in China?’, in P. Hays and S. Rosen (eds), State and Society in 21st Century China, London: Routledge, 24–49. Southern Weekend (2007a) ‘Why does Self Tax Declaration become a public topic?’ (Geshui shenbao heyi chengwei gonggong huati), Southern Weekend, 19 April. –––– (2007b) ‘The thrift life of a journalist from the Southern Weekend’ (Nanfang zhoumo jizhe de jieyue shenghuo), Southern Weekend, 16 August. –––– (2007c) ‘Taxpayer says: My agonies (annoyance)’ (Nashuizhe shuo wode fannao), Southern Weekend, 26 July. –––– (2007d) ‘How much tax money a Chinese “middle class” has to pay?’ (Yige zhongguo “zhongchan” yao jiao duoshao shui), Southern Weekend, 30 July. Sparks, C. (1991) ‘Goodbye, Hildy Johnson: the vanishing “serious press”’, in P. Dahlgren and C. Sparks (eds), Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere, London: Routledge, 57–72. Sullivan, J. (2012) ‘A tale of two microblogs in China’, Media, Culture and Society 34(6): 773–83. Sun, W. (2012) ‘Desperately seeking my wages: justice, media logic, and the politics of voice in urban China’, Media, Culture and Society 34(7): 864–79. Tong, J.R. (2007) ‘Guerrilla tactics of investigative journalists in China’, Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism 8(5): 530–5. Transparency International (2013) ‘Corruption perception index 2012’, Transparency International. Available online http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/ (accessed 10 May 2013). Trenz, H. (2009) ‘Digital media and the return of the representative public sphere’, Javnost – the Public 16(1): 33–46. Von der Putten, J. (2008) Moral Issues and Concerns about China’s One-Child Policy, Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag. Wang, H., Appelbaum, R., Degiuli, F. and Lichtenstein, N. (2009) ‘China’s new labour contract law: is China moving towards increased power for workers?’, Third World Quarterly 30(3): 485–501. West China Metro News (2006) ‘Monthly income RMB 450 – cleaners pay taxes every month’ (Gongzi 450 yuan qingjiegong yueyue jiaoshui), West China Metro News, 23 October. –––– (2007a) ‘Self Tax Declaration unsatisfied, experts explain four reasons’ (Quanguo geshui shenbao buruyi, zhuanjia jiedu sida yuanyin), West China Metro News, 4 April. –––– (2007b) ‘Why I feel lost in the first year of Self Tax Declaration?’ (Geshui shenbao yuannian zen rangwo ruci mangran), West China Metro News, 9 April. Young, I.M. (2002) Inclusion and Democracy, New York: Oxford University Press. Zhang, W. (2005) Chong Tu Yu Bian Shu: Zhong-Guo She Hui Zhong Jian Jie Ceng Zheng Zhi Fen Xi (Conflict and Variables: Political Analysis of China’s Middle Class Society), Beijing: Social Science Academic Press. Zhao Y.Z. (1998) Media, Market and Democracy in China, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. –––– (2004) ‘Underdogs, lapdogs and watchdogs: journalists and the public sphere problematic in China’, in M. Goldman and E. Gu (eds), Chinese Intellectuals between State and Market, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 43–74. Zheng, Y.N. (2004) Will China Become Democratic? Elite, Class and Regime Transition, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International.

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16 Expressing myself, connecting with you Young Taiwanese females’ photographic self-portraiture on Wretch Album Yin-han Wang

Introduction Children and young people coming of age in the digital era incorporate digital and social media into their everyday lives. As access to computers and the internet reach near universal level (above 99 per cent) for children and youth aged 12–20 in Taiwan (Research Development and Evaluation Commission, RDEC 2011), content creation on Web 2.0 media platforms, such as social networking sites (SNS), increasingly afford opportunities for them to express, explore themselves and to connect with others. A study of Taiwanese teenagers’ media use by Fubon (2008)1 reveals that as teenagers age and develop verbal and computer literacies, their new media activities change gradually from seeking entertainment (computer or online games) to emphasising various forms of social communication enabled by the internet, such as instant messaging (IM) chat, blogging and sharing audiovisual content. In 2011, 64 per cent of Taiwanese aged 12–20 reported to have used SNS in the previous month (only second to the 21–30 age cohort), and 54 per cent of the 12–20 group had updated their personal blogs or home pages in the previous month (the highest proportion among all age groups) (RDEC 2011). Communicating with the peer group plays a fundamental role in the identity development of teenagers (Subrahmanyam et al. 2006: 395–406). As teenagers ‘reorient’ themselves from family to peer group in this digital age, computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as mobile telephony and the internet, become important in this task of ‘emancipation’, for they serve interpersonal function in relationships (Tong and Walther 2011). This chapter will focus on the phenomenon known as internet self-portraiture (wanglu zipai or ‘selfie’),2 a popular visual communication in the age of social media. The literal translation of ‘zi’ is ‘oneself’, and ‘pai’ means ‘to photograph or to film’; when combined the term means ‘to photograph or to film oneself’. The prefix ‘internet’ is used to specify where these self-portraits could be viewed – online, in the ‘virtual world’. ‘Zipai’ in Mandarin is an umbrella word referring to mediated self-representation – any still image or video footage taken by oneself of oneself. Unlike the English term self-portraiture, which has a long history in art of representations of artists’ identities, most famously exemplified by Rembrandt’s self-portraits, the Mandarin term ‘zipai’ was only 266

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popularised in the beginning of the new millennium or so by the rise of camera and digital technologies. Internet self-portraiture first gained currency in Taiwan in the early 2000s when self-portraits of young females were posted on photo-sharing websites such as the now extinct TaipeiLink, Wretch (www.wretch.cc/album) and the ‘beauty board’ of the largest Taiwanese bulletin board system (BBS), ‘PTT.cc’, by collectors of beauties’ photographs and/or girls themselves. Terms such as ‘internet beautiful chicks’ (wanglu zhengmei) and ‘internet self-portraiture’ entered the public lexicon. Some of these so-called ‘internet beautiful chicks’, such as the nicknamed ‘Cherry’, ‘Little fox’3 and ‘Dumplings’, became micro-celebrities online because of their self-portraits. Their self-portraits were characterised by accentuations of physical beauty and revelations of the self in everyday moments, as if offering the spectators ‘voyeuristic pleasure’ (Mulvey 1975: 6–18). Many ‘internet beautiful chicks’ were very aware of their status and made conscious efforts to maintain the appeal of their albums. However, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the lowering of digital camera prices led to the mass adoption of digital cameras and their ‘domestication’ to suit personal photographic practices (Silverstone and Haddon 1996: 44–74). Photographic self-portraiture was no longer the exclusive practice of the ‘spectacular girls’ referred to above, but became more widely practised by ordinary people – females and males, young and old – and integrated into their everyday lives. However, the public limelight in Taiwan continues to be fixated upon young females’ self-portraiture, as exemplified by variety shows running episodes such as ‘the mind-boggling act of self-portraiture’ in the TV programme, Here is Kangxi (Kangxi laile, episode broadcast on 7 July 2012) and ‘the national self-portraiture beauty’ in the programme Guess, Guess, Guess (cai cai cai, episode broadcast on 31 July 2004). Wretch, the website well known for its collection of zhengmei (i.e. beautiful chicks) self-portraits, also plays an active role in the promotion of various online activities centred around photographs of zhengmei, launching pages such as ‘Wretch loves beauty’4 and services such as ‘Wretch beauty clock’5 to boost its popularity. One may wonder whether self-portraiture is unique to Taiwanese culture, or more broadly, East Asian cultures. Conducting a casual search online using English terms such as ‘selfportraits’, ‘self-portrait photos’ or ‘self-snapshots’, one encounters self-portrait photographs taken by people around the world, pages giving advice on how to take good self-portraits and even interest groups sharing self-portraits.6 However, what may be peculiar to East Asian countries like Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China, is the mainstream aesthetic of young women’s self-portraits, namely the ‘girlish’ or ‘cute’ (ke ai) look, a favourable trait related to East Asian societies’ ideals of femininity (Chuang 2005: 21–8). A content analysis of 2,000 self-portraits of Taiwanese girls and boys aged 12–18 found that 30 per cent of self-portraits depicted the subjects as looking childlike – appearing cute, vulnerable or innocent by pouting the lips and/or raising the eyebrows to intentionally widen the eyes – and 70 per cent of these photographs belong to girls (Wang 2013). While the sampled self-portraits were not representative, the results highlight the dominant beauty standard of ‘ke ai’ as reflected in self-portraits, a phenomenon not found in similar European and American studies of teenager’s profile photographs posted on SNS (Elm 2009: 241–64; Kapidzic and Herring 2011: 39–59). We can thus see how different cultural contexts shape the popular styles of self-representation in self-portraits. However, the broader reasons as to why and how girls’ self-portraits, as personal photographs, are used to communicate visually about oneself may be found in theories of interpersonal communication. This chapter is part of a broader research project that examines Taiwanese girls’ identity through internet self-portraiture. The empirical data presented later in this chapter are based on interviews with 42 girls aged 13–20 who post self-portraits on Wretch, the most popular social networking site in Taiwan when this project commenced. Interviews were conducted between February 267

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and November 2010, mostly through online instant messaging but also a few conducted faceto-face in southern Taiwan. While self-portraiture can be explored from many perspectives, and is sometimes hastily dismissed as pure narcissism, this chapter takes an approach that seeks to understand online self-portraiture as a form of mediated interpersonal communication. In what follows I bring together perspectives on personal photography, mobile communication and personal relationships in offline and online contexts, and examine the role of self-portraiture – as a kind of visual self-disclosure – in girls’ online and offline interpersonal communication.

Communicating through self-disclosure Self-disclosure is defined as ‘a person revealing his or her important thoughts, self-evaluations, intense feelings, or significant past experiences’ through verbal or non-verbal communication (Rotenberg 1995: 1). It is particularly important in the development and maintenance of relationships. Of course, the kind of information we disclose about ourselves depends on the relational partner and the objective of the relationship. In order to cultivate trust and closeness in a relationship, it is necessary to reveal to the relationship partner more than is known publicly and aspects of self that are rarely publicly expressed and presented, such as the ‘real me’, or ‘true self’ (McKenna et al. 2002: 9–31). While the traditional definition of self-disclosure refers only to the face-to-face contexts with direct message recipients, the concept of self-disclosure has been expanded to include online environments (Joinson 2001: 177–92; Kim and Dindia 2011: 156–80; Barak and Gluck-Ofri 2007: 407–17; Dominick 1999: 646–58; Stern 2002: 265–86), and also non-directed self-disclosure, such as in blogs (Stefanone and Lackaff 2009: 964–87; Jang and Stefanone 2011: 1039–59; Ko and Kuo 2009: 75–9; Qian and Scott 2007: 1428–51). Photographs are also acknowledged as another form of self-disclosure, for the visual cues in photographs can reveal as much rich information about the self as verbal communications (Donoso and Ribbens 2010: 435–50). As Suler (2009: 341) puts it, ‘the image is a way to represent memories of what is important in one’s life, to shape personal meaning, and to express ideas, experiences and emotions that may not be easily verbalized’. When girls share self-portraits in personal albums, these two traits are demonstrated: the photographs show the ‘facts’, such as school sports day or outings, and serve as archives of experiences; while self-portrait photographs show their feelings at a particular moment. The online environments provide several distinctive opportunities for controlled self-disclosure and self-presentation (Walther 1996: 3–44). First, the information presented can be edited – it is possible to go back and to revise or remove what is considered less-than-ideal information about the self. Second, the asynchronous nature of some CMC, such as posting photographs or blogs, means that there is more time to deliberate over what information to reveal. Third, one can focus the cognitive resources on the design of information without having simultaneously to attend to other unrelated tasks, which is unavoidable in a face-to-face setting. Taking a functional perspective toward self-disclosure, Derlega and Grzelak (1979: 154–62) summarise the role of self-disclosure in relationships as: (1) to gain social validation; (2) to achieve social control; (3) to achieve self-clarification; (4) to exercise self-expression; and (5) to enhance relationship development. The content of the self-disclosure may be descriptive (factual information about oneself) or evaluative (personal judgments and thoughts). If the information disclosed is about oneself only, then it is personal self-disclosure; if it is about interactions or relationships with others, it is relational self-disclosure. These functions are elaborated later in the chapter where the appeal of self-portraiture is examined through the lens of self-disclosure. All these functions of self-disclosure seem applicable to teenagers’ identity work of seeking answers to the question of who they are (Erikson 1968). 268

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Online photo-sharing as visual communication Photo-sharing online has become popular among internet users in Taiwan. According to market research (IX Survey 2011),7 more than half (53 per cent) of internet users aged 10–79 reported sharing photographs on social networking sites, 16 per cent reported sharing on personal blogs and 7 per cent reported sharing on online albums,8 suggesting that SNS may be replacing online albums in Taiwan if users mainly post photographs to share and communicate with personal networks. Although it might seem that snapping and sharing mundane experiences is the result of technological advances, it is not new behaviour. Tong and Walther (2011: 98–118) show that the sharing of ordinary experiences and unremarkable everyday life events has always been important for maintaining relationships: ‘Debriefing’ about what happened during the time apart is a useful strategy for both parties to maintain continuity in the relationship (Tardy and Dindia 2006: 229–66). The sharing is less about the quality of the content than about keeping absent relational partners updated. Thus, it would be more accurate to argue that digital cameras are increasingly affordable and afford immediate viewing and endless re-takes; they have increased the capture of the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, and computer-mediated environments enhance the salience and prevalence of such mundaneness, leading users increasingly to adapt the already existing offline mundane self-disclosure to their online communication. So why post all these personal photographs online? In a study of why young people share photographs online, Oeldorf-Hirsch and Sundar (2010) found that increasingly it is done for social communication purposes, such as ‘seeking and showcasing experiences’ and ‘social connection/bonding’. The participants of this study in Taiwan agreed with these explanations. When asked why they started using Wretch Album, four key factors recurred: peers, sharing, self-expression and memory. Comments such as ‘because everyone uses it, I seem out-of-date if I don’t use it’ (Dee, age 17) demonstrate that the popularity of Wretch among peers is an important factor in the decision to have an online presence on this, rather than on some other social networking site. Most girls opened their Wretch accounts when they moved to a new school – either middle school, high school or college. Entering a new social environment seems to prompt the establishment of an online presence, either to continue to participate in the social network at the previous school, or to start building a new one. For example, Rosie (age 19) started using Yam/Sky Blog on moving to high school, but changed to Wretch when she went to college because of its relative popularity. Pinpin (age 13) started posting photographs and self-portraits on her Wretch Album as she entered middle school ‘because the senior girls were all posting self-portraits on Wretch’. In fact, Pinpin admires the senior girls so much that, in the beginning of our interviews, she was only willing to give me links to those senior girls’ Wretch albums, but not her own ‘because I’m too ugly, and my self-portraits are ugly too’. The other phrases relating to individuality – self-expression and memory – are important but less frequently cited reasons for using Wretch. Alison (age 17) said she wanted to ‘record life process and photographs’ through Wretch; Rosie said that ‘[I can] post some pictures, write some trashy posts; express myself, it’s like wearing clothes, and it’s really great to have this freedom of expression’. The advantage of posting content on Wretch or other digital media is that selfexpression is automatically archived and serves as a kind of memory. Many participants stated that what really mattered was their record of self, and that they did ‘not care so much about what others think about the photographs’. While participants’ later accounts show that this is not entirely true in practice – impression management is important for deciding which selfportraits to share – such statements show that, at the perception level at least, Wretch is considered to be a space for collecting and communicating all things personal. Wretch’s significance to these girls is in being a photo-sharing site where memory can be collected and in acting as a personal online space that one can freely use. It enables a sense of 269

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control and a space for digital biographical work to be constructed. If Wretch were used only to showcase photographs, then when albums are ‘past their shelf life’, that is, have been displayed for a long enough time online, they would be deleted. However, many participants choose not to remove their albums, but to change the privacy setting so that older albums are hidden from public view while remaining in the space (even though their authors may seldom look at them). To the audience, a hidden album is the same as a deleted album: it cannot be seen, but the girls can maintain an affective relation with the albums and photographs. Deleting albums erases their place in girls’ photo-worlds online (even though they might have offline copies), and erases visitor counts, an important digital footprint of the online album. For instance, Jie (age 15) has several hidden albums that contained photographs of outings with friends, and also some hidden albums that contained no photographs at all – she has removed the older photographs – but kept the albums as a ‘shell’ so next time when she adds more photographs to them, the visitor counts can be accumulated. This reluctance to remove albums or photographs that are not in use may be similar to what Slater (1995: 129–46) described as the ‘existential loss’ we feel when we find old photographs have been destroyed or lost. Interestingly, for a few girls their Wretch albums are the only place where their photographs are stored for a variety of reasons. Their mobile phones do not have enough storage space, their home computer is not always for their sole use or they simply do not want to keep the photographs on the computer’s hard disk for long. Although using Wretch as the sole data storage place may seem unwise, it underlines the importance for teenagers of having a private space which can be claimed as their own, used freely and shared with friends if desired, and this is of particular importance for these girls in Taiwan who may not have autonomy and space in other realms of life that remain strictly supervised by adults. In examining the reasons why participants use Wretch, we see that two tasks central to the construction of identity are conflated in the acts of photography and online photo-sharing. The self-oriented motivations correspond to the developmental needs of adolescents to construct a biographical project of the self through self-expression and reflexive contemplation of the past; the social-oriented motivations highlight the importance of being able to connect and communicate with peers (Donoso and Ribbens 2010: 435–50).

Self-disclosure through the use of Wretch Albums While social networking sites facilitate social connections online, they are usually highly integrated with participants’ offline networks (Ellison et al. 2007: 1143–68). Indeed, sociality and self-disclosure, or being able to communicate visually about oneself to peers, are the two main reasons why participants share personal photographs, especially but not limited to self-portraits, on Wretch. As Valkenburg et al.’s (2011: 253–69) study shows, the degree of self-disclosure, both offline and online (in IM conversations) escalates for boys and girls as they enter puberty, which is a time of tremendous physical and emotional change. Self-disclosure online is popular among teenagers because the online environment is perceived as being ‘safer’, allowing even the shyest and most self-conscious to connect with peers without feeling inhibited. In the next section, I conceptualise self-portraiture as an act of self-disclosure and examine how it serves as a means to communicate visually with specific relational partners and also a non-directed audience.

Social validation In teenagers’ experimentation and exploration of different aspects of self, feedback is important to validate their thoughts and actions. Buhrmester and Prager (1995: 32) argue that social validation 270

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is important for gauging whether one is accepted and approved of by others (social approval), and whether one is ‘normal’ compared to others (self-evaluation). The reason why children will disclose more to peers than to parents in early adolescence is because the horizontal structure of friendship makes peers ideal and important ‘points of reference’ for self-worth and acceptance. Teenagers who are particularly insecure and unsure of others’ perceptions of their self are likely to seek feedback from peers to provide reassurance and to encourage social relations (Miura and Yamashita 2007: 1452–71). Taking self-portraits is a way of presenting themselves out there in the social world, and representing themselves through images that allow the audience to evaluate physical appearance, style and performance as well as internal qualities, such as character and personality, embodied and enacted by the subject. Given the cultural significance of ‘ke ai’ and ‘zhengmei’ related to the Taiwanese ideals of femininity, it is not surprising that most of the girls’ interviewed have attempted to ‘pose cute’ in their experiences of self-portraiture, and think that appearance is the first and foremost factor to judge whether a self-portrait can be put online. While some participants thought of the cute look as just one among many poses, others unquestionably saw it as a ‘natural’ style of self-portraiture. Of course the participants’ styles of self-portraiture spans beyond the ‘ke ai’ look, but the fact that most girls felt compelled to at least try out this style in self-portraits confirms how girls may wish to use self-portraiture to make a favourable impression on the audience by aligning oneself with their perceived mainstream beauty ideal in Taiwan. In online self-portraiture, social validation is achieved in various ways: visitor counts, comments left on the Wretch Guestbook and comments provided directly to participants in private conversations. Visitor counts represent non-differentiating validation because they show that the Wretch space or particular album has received a certain number of clicks, but gives no indication of why the audience was attracted – whether due to liking (the preferred validation), out of curiosity or simply stumbling upon the space while browsing. However, a high visitor count is generally assumed to indicate interest, attention and popularity, validating the worth of the self-portraits and, by association, of the subject. Most girls admitted to paying attention to visitor counts in their early days of using Wretch. They were keen to connect with peers, to gain recognition and to gauge audience reaction to their online presence, but once they become more certain of the value of Wretch to them through prolonged usage, visitor counts cease to bear much meaning in judging popularity and social validation. Some participants had decided that the purpose of self-portraiture was to share and communicate with a small circle of friends, in which case visitor counts did not matter. For example, Mia (age 18) talked of ‘feeling relieved’ because she no longer was concerned about visitor counts: She once assumed that a low count, such as 50 visitors a day, was an indication that people no longer liked her. However, once she realised that the personal significance of Wretch was that it constituted a diary, and she was writing to and for herself (the most important audience) and to a small group of friends, she valued qualitative validations rather than quantitative visitor counts. Daphne (age 17) emphasised that ‘my photographs are for my own memory. I don’t quite care how many people have viewed them’. However, she admitted that if her album made it into the popular album list on the Wretch home page, she would be pleased. Lizzy (age 18) concurred that ‘I feel that when my album is on Wretch popularity list, it means my album is very unique, and it gives me great confidence’. This suggests that, among those girls who do not actively seek quantitative validation, occasionally being considered popular is still a confidence booster. Another kind of social validation comes from comments from friends and unknown visitors. Contrary to my assumption, participants do not often exchange opinions on self-portraits with friends; if they do, the comments are usually benign. It is not usual for girls to receive comments 271

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on photographs from unknown visitors, but the few comments that have been received are generally positive (cases of Dana, Lizzy, Milk, Faye). This overwhelmingly positive feedback was also observed by Donoso and Ribbens (2010: 435–50) in their study of teenagers’ use of Fotolog where they argue that it may be due to the strategic presentation of an idealised self.

Social control In deciding when to disclose how much private information and to whom, the girls exercise strategic control over their social image and hope to elicit the desired social response. This focus on self-presentational concerns is akin to Goffman’s (1959) impression management. In the practice of online self-portraiture, teenagers have to make multiple decisions such as what aspects of self they want to present, how personal or intimate their self-portraits should be, what styles of representation to employ, how long the self-portraits will remain in their Wretch space and who should be allowed to access them. Being the photographer allows ultimate control over the self-image, which is especially important for teenage girls who have heightened concerns about their body image which is often a source of insecurity. Additionally, in Wretch’s commercial ‘zhengmei culture’ and the normative cultural climate on ideal femininity in Taiwan, being able to exercise control of one’s self-portrait and, by extension, self-image, appears particularly important. Daphne (age 17) spoke of how much she appreciated self-portraiture after her experience of modelling for amateur photographers: ‘I realised how much I preferred self-portraiture because I can control the camera angle and I feel more at ease. When others point their camera at me, I feel quite uncomfortable.’ The control applies not just to the self-image, but also to the type of content shared, the communication channel and personal privacy. Having control of these elements allows the messages disclosed to certain audiences to be tailored, in turn allowing control over social relationships. Back in middle school, Daphne’s friends saw her taking self-portraits and teased her ‘as if you think you’re good-looking’, and Daphne has since kept those selfportraits in a locked album titled ‘the embarrassing past’ so her (current) friends would not see her past look, about which she was not confident. On the contrary, Huei (age 18) does not mind making any of her albums public, but she likes to lock all albums with passwords so when friends ask for the password, she can ‘play hard to get’ and jokingly ask for a drink in exchange. In this way, she ensures that the social interactions on her Wretch space are under her control. Ling (age 19) is a slightly different case. As a girl who felt unconfident about the pre-college self who did not know makeup, she locks albums selectively although she does not mind sharing, because ‘it looks as if I have some secrets, that I am not so transparent’. Her decision to selfdisclose selectively projects an image of ‘a girl with stories’ so that she appears more complex and more interesting to her peers.

Self-clarification In the self-disclosure process, one is motivated to ponder on fundamental self-related questions such as ‘Who am I’, which Erikson (1968: 75) suggests teenagers explore in the psycho-social moratorium period, ‘a period of sexual and cognitive maturation and yet a sanctioned postponement of definitive commitment’. Through self-disclosure, one may then gain further self-clarification. In communicating personal thoughts, feelings and experiences to others, one is engaging in formulating, organising, reflecting, revising and reordering various strands of thinking to allow them to be articulated clearly. This reflexive awareness helps towards a deeper understanding and clarification, which in turn contributes to the construction of a series of 272

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coherent biographical narratives about the self which are crucial to the ‘reflexive project of the self’ (Giddens 1991: 32). In the visual self-disclosure practice of self-portraiture, taking photographs of the self from various angles, showing different expressions and poses allows one to explore the self and literally to see oneself from other angles. Stella (age 19) explained this in some detail: self-portraiture is addictive . . . When I notice that I look different in self-portraits, I want to continue taking more photos . . . The everyday me can only be seen by other people, I don’t particularly think anything when I look at myself . . . but when I look at the selfportraits, I realise I can also be so pretty in photos! Stella’s account illustrates that when she self-portrays, she discovers different aspects of herself and sees herself from a third-person perspective, allowing her subjective self (how she feels from the inside) to merge with her objective self (how others see from the outside) enabling a clearer understanding of what she actually looks like. In portraying the self, one does more than create a self-image. Suler (2007) describes it thus: ‘the process of creating the self-portrait might be an unconscious attempt to draw that underlying aspect of self to a higher level of awareness’. In presenting and representing the self, one is simultaneously engaged in giving shape/form to the dynamic and emerging aspects of identity (Suler 2009: 339–44) making it clearer to the self and others what one is. Moreover, in viewing, editing, captioning and commenting on originally random photographs, they are made ‘unrandom’ (Son 2009: 177) through organisation in photo albums and titles. What the photographs mean to the self-as-photographer becomes clearer. Over time, one can see how internal dynamics evolve and change as they are embodied in every detail of the self-portrait. This is concurred by Aurelia (age 17) and Lizzy (age 18) who both talked about how they cherished self-portraits for the memories of changes in different life stages, allowing them to look back and see a clear trajectory of the self in transition.

Self-expression Emotional release It is particularly important for adolescents to have opportunities and space to communicate their intense emotions as they explore different roles, manage physical changes, navigate a web of relationships with family, peers and romantic partners, and resolve inner conflicts (Erikson 1968). Such ‘emotional or cathartic release of pent-up feelings’ is defined by Buhrmester and Prager (1995: 38) as ‘self-expression’. Personal home pages can serve such purposes as ‘emotional sounding boards’ for teenage girls (Stern 2002: 265–86), and so can photo-sharing on Wretch. Making self-portraits, or any personal illustrations such as writing, can be examples of selfexpression, both because of the control over camera or keyboard and, as Suler (2009: 339–44) argues, that image-creation process can be therapeutic because it is ‘a process of self-insight, emotional catharsis, the working through of conflicts, and the affirmation of identity’ (p. 341), and sharing photographs online is an act of ‘making the intrapersonal interpersonal’ (p. 341). Daphne (age 17) was the only participant who consciously used self-portraits as cathartic release, perhaps because doing so could reveal deeper feeling and vulnerability to the viewers of photographs, although Daphne managed to use self-portraiture in this way without appearing vulnerable. She often takes self-portraits when unhappy because having to pose and smile for the camera forces her to ‘appear joyful’, and repeatedly doing so is a cathartic experience because her negative emotions are released in the act. On the other hand, Milk (age 18), who is reserved 273

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in her everyday social life, talked at length about self-portraiture as a way of expressing suppressed emotions and the diverse sides of her that are not revealed in her day-to-day interactions with people other than close friends: [Self-portraiture] is a kind of self-expression and self-introduction . . . because it’s new, fun, and unique. . . . I can do a lot of facial expressions . . . and use eyes to express my emotions. Usually I’m like . . . expressionless = horrible, cold-blooded; smile faintly = no eyes, eyes narrowed; angry = glare at people . . . I don’t like it, and don’t feel comfortable, can’t relax . . . can’t fully express what I want to say. . . . Self-portraiture is kind of like a vent for facial expressions . . . I’d make those faces that people don’t usually see. From these two girls’ accounts, we see that cameras and Wretch constitute private spaces that allow intimate revelations and relations with an unspecified audience. Although Daphne and Milk did not talk about these expressions as directed toward a specific relational partner, the camera and the Wretch space seem to function as a silent audience whose simple presence permits the girls to release pent-up emotions in the self-therapeutic experience of photography. Status update Self-portraiture is also used as another kind of self-expression with a clearer communicative motivation in relation to the expected audience. The adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is one of the main reasons why people post personal photographs on social networking sites – to provide a visual statement of who they are and a rapid update of recent events, actions, thoughts and status. On the US social networking site MySpace, photographs were the most frequent status updates for teenagers (Greenhow and Robelia 2009: 1130–61). Even though the act of posting a picture is not a two-way communication, ‘simply having access to one another’s updates on an SNS may facilitate a sense of connection’ (Baym 2010: 135), not to mention the followup communicative exchange that photographs could potentially generate. Many participants referred to ‘posting self-portraits and personal photographs as status updates for peers’ as the reason why they had first decided to use Wretch. Millie (age 18) said that Wretch Album was ‘just to let friends see how I’m doing recently’. Lizzy (age 18) also imagined her main audience as friends, and said ‘it’s my Wretch, of course I post my self-portraits, and to show my life and world . . . On the one hand, I document my changes; on the other hand, I want to share with others, haha’. Most girls include the URL of their most recent Wretch Album (or blog post) on their IM status, so that friends will realise there is an update and can visit with a single click. Some participants, such as Alicia (age 18), Millie (age 18) and Yaya (age 16), change the album cover image or album title whenever there is an update. This is a signal to the audience and gives the girls the feeling that their album is ‘refreshed’, giving it a longer ‘shelf-life’ on Wretch. Faye (age 18) updates her status very frequently and takes new pictures on a weekly basis. She talked about ‘a feeling [of it being] compulsory’ to see the ‘NEW’ icon blinking in the album (the ‘NEW’ icon disappears after seven days of album inactivity). Changes to album titles are also used as status update to express the ‘latest’ feelings and thoughts even when the photographs remain the same. For example, Holly (age 16) changes her album title almost daily, examples being from ‘avocado milk’, to ‘the horoscope always shatters my heart’, to ‘I look forward to, look forward to’. Sometimes she even syncs the album titles to match her IM status messages, showing just how much she cares for her online presence to reflect her most up-to-date mood. Dee (age 17) also changes her album titles ‘almost all the time’. On the day of the interview, her self-portrait album was titled ‘big head monster’, which she explained as being ‘because on that day my head appeared very big in self-portraits’. 274

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Apart from using self-portraits to communicate news about oneself, updating activity (or the lack of it) may also be used to gauge the responsiveness of audiences or relational partners. Holly (age 16) said the meaning of her Wretch is ‘to let everyone know what I’m up to, that I’m fine’. Once she closed down her Wretch Album and blog, a friend immediately messaged her to ask if she was upset. Qian (age 19) said that her past frequent updating allowed her to see how much attention her friends were paying her. But she has become ‘too lazy’ to post selfportraits on Wretch recently because her friends are mostly using BBS. This ‘laziness’ highlights the social nature of online photo-sharing: girls are more willing to invest effort in maintaining their Wretch presence if the photo-sharing appears to be beneficial for relationships with friends. This was also observed in Miura and Yamashita’s (2007: 1452–71) study of bloggers, in which they found that bloggers were more likely to continue posting if they could clearly identify their ‘social existence’ via established relationships with their blog readers.

Relationship development While revealing intimate or sensitive information about oneself helps to foster new and close relationships because it promotes intimacy with relational partners (Greene et al. 2006: 409–27), disclosing information about the state of one’s relationship with someone else, and ‘how they are communicating and interacting with [the other]’ (Delerga et al. 1993: 5) is also important in the development of relationships. Self-portraiture can serve as ‘meta-communication’ with relational partners and also a wider audience about the closeness of the relationships. Sense of belonging

There are several functional ways that personal photographs, such as self-portraits, can cultivate a sense of belonging among relational partners. For example, personal photographs posted on Wretch Album are meant to be shared with a vaguely conceived group of audience members. Some, considered ‘more private’ photographs may be reserved to a smaller audience of friends through privacy settings that reflect ‘gradations of intimacy’ (Livingstone 2008: 393–411). The act of including certain people, but not others, in the ‘trust circle’ is a gesture marking the boundary to the relationship, making some people insiders and others outsiders. Another way of securing close relationships is by taking joint self-portraits, because the act of taking a photograph with others, as Tinkler (2008: 255–66) argues, is a means of establishing a connection, such as parents who photograph their children creating the ‘family unit’. This was observed in several cases. For example, Jessica (age 16) has only two albums on her Wretch: her self-portrait album and an album of self-portraits taken with her best friend, Huei (age 18), entitled ‘the pair’. Lizzy (age 18) also declared that self-portraiture had become a hobby for both her and her friends: I take with close girl friends, and afterwards we discuss what angle and outfit best suit me. Posting our self-portraits feels like we are very good friends, ha! And we can also document our time together as a shared memory. Another girl, Dee, has an album entitled ‘it’s so good to be able to love you’, in which she posts self-portraits taken with her boyfriend. She said ‘we want to document every moment together, the way we are so happy and content’. These three cases show that taking self-portraits together is seen as strengthening internal feelings of bonding, and also serves to publicly showcase friendship to the relational partners and others. 275

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Some participants go beyond simply posting self-portraits taken with friends to collecting and posting friends’ self-portraits on their very own Wretch Album. This exchange and reciprocal display of self-portraits on each other’s Wretch albums is an articulation and performance of the sense of belonging. As Lizzy (age 18) explained, ‘I only exchange self-portraits with good friends; for friends who are not close I’d tell them to just go to my Wretch Album = =.’9 For the relational partner, finding that a friend has posted one’s self-portraits is an indication of one’s importance to the person (van House et al. 2005), because the friend has taken the time to upload the picture and used space for its inclusion in her Wretch Album. There were many such examples among participants. For example, Holly (age 16) started self-portraiture when her older girl friends wanted to have self-portraits of Holly, ‘because we were close friends’. Holly has an album called ‘I miss you a lot’, in which she posts self-portraits of a friend who is like a sister to her, but because of their different timetables at school and work they cannot meet up very often. They had known each other for about five years and both have occupied a place in each other’s Wretch albums since that time. Similarly, Jie (age 15) regularly exchanges self-portraits with her cousin who is her best friend. Sometimes they exchange files when they meet in person, sometimes she tells her cousin that she is posting new photographs to prompt her cousin to send her some self-portraits. Another girl, Yuan (age 16), had an album entitled ‘the beauties are all here’ that collects self-portraits of friends she thinks are pretty, and another album entitled ‘don’t know why, I just really like her’ that displays collection of self-portraits of one girl of whom she said: ‘I think she’s really cute, and we’re quite a good match!’ This reciprocal exchange of self-portraits may be understood in the context of Marcel Mauss’s (1925, rpt. 2002: 10) gift exchange theory, which argues that ‘[T]his bond created by things is in fact a bond between persons, since the thing itself is a person or pertains to a person. Hence it follows that to give something is to give a part of oneself . . . while to receive something is to receive a part of someone’s spiritual essence’. Mauss’s observation fits with the case of self-portraits, which are physical objects embodying the person who is the giver. Through the act of exchanging personal photographs like selfportraits, these girls confirm and further reinforce their bonds with one another; the public display of friends’ self-portraits – or as Donath and Boyd (2004: 71–82) describe it, ‘public displays of connection’ – is also a symbolic gesture announcing the friendship bond to the broader social circle. Also, perhaps, ‘one is known by the company that one keeps’ and displaying connection may be an indirect way of establishing one’s identity, or verifying the ‘face’ on SNS (Papacharissi 2009: 199–220). Recall Yuan’s (age 16) case, collecting the ‘really cute’ girl’s self-portraits in one separate album may be an act delineating the degree of closeness of their friendship, but it may also be her way of identifying and associating herself with the girl, thus indirectly establishing Yuan’s belonging also to the beautiful clique. Shared memory Bourdieu (1990: 26–7) perceives photography as ‘a technology for the reiteration of the party. . . . It is experienced as it will later be looked at, and the good moment will look even better for being revealed to itself as a “good memory” by the photograph’. This applies to girls’ albums which often show them engaging in mundane activities with no obvious theme or purpose. In some cases, taking the photo is the activity that generates fun and laughter for the girls. Despite their lack of aesthetic or archival purpose, these photographs carry important messages; when posted online, the joy of the moment is both prolonged and repeated. The photographs serve the affective-social purpose of enhancing mutual experience (Kindberg et al. 2005: 42–50). Their subsequent viewing and exchange, and commenting on them, is collective memory work through which the joy of the ‘party’ is then replayed. Huei (age 18) said that she likes to take photographs 276

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of friends in every stage of school life: ‘In the first year, there was a choral competition, and we all photographed ourselves. In the second year, there was the camping trip, and we photographed us being cooperative. In the third year, we photographed one another looking delicate and pretty.’ Photographs with friends are very emotionally significant to her, so Huei never removes older albums completely, but rather chooses to ‘hide’ these albums from public view after a while, explaining ‘because I might want to reopen these albums in the future. For memory, we can all be reminiscing together’. There are also times when an interesting event is not experienced co-presently with friends, and online albums are used to share the experience with absent others, creating a sense of ‘connected presence’ enabled by mediated communication (Licoppe 2004: 135–56) or ‘intimate, visual co-presence’ (Ito 2005) which image-texting enables. Doing so allows continuation in a friendship that otherwise might become disconnected. For instance, Jessica (age 16) talks of sharing photographs on Wretch so her middle school friends can feel that ‘there is no distance between them . . . so in the future when we see one another, we don’t run out of topics to say’. The sense of belonging to the same clique is then preserved and carried on even though they have graduated. Yuan (age 16) has an album entitled ‘I really want to share this, come take a look please~’10 that collects images of fun things in her life. One is a screenshot of her IM contact window that shows both her and her girl friend’s status message as ‘if possible, please let me orgasm!’ with a caption added by her that said ‘horny women’. Their IM conversation became so hilarious that she wanted to record it and share it with other friends who were not part of the conversation. Collections of images like this serve an affective-social purpose allowing friends to be updated about her experience through this shared archive. This resonates with Baym’s (2010: 136) findings that using SNS to connect with already close friends allows people to further ‘exchange bonding resources, such as affection, advice, and support’, which are important for maintaining relationships. Wretch albums are also used by a few participants to communicate indirectly with past relational partners, most notably ex-romantic partners, to commemorate their time together. For instance, Huei (age 18), whose communications with friends are usually jokey, has a selfportrait album with the melancholy title ‘is the sky blue?’ in which she posts self-portraits to remember her time with an ex-boyfriend. The title hints at what they enjoyed together – just watching the sky. She does not know whether he views her album now, but for her this selfcontemplation serves the dual, almost imperceptible, purpose of affective communication with the remote invisible someone. This is her private monologue expressing her feeling of breaking up with her ex, and also articulating her longing to reconnect with him. Another participant, Hailey (age 17), had an album entitled ‘say the breakup you wanted to say’ which collects all the photographs of her taken by her ex-girlfriend, and another one called ‘colourful moments’ showing photographs of them together. Hailey said she uses these albums and her blog to communicate with this girlfriend since she knows that the ex still checks her Wretch space despite the breakup.

Conclusion With the popularisation of mobile camera technologies, photography is increasingly being integrated into everyday life of Taiwanese as an expressive and communicative practice. Photographs, no matter how ordinary or meaningless they may appear to the uninvolved viewer, are an individual’s attempt to capture sensation and effects as they are experienced, in the moment. It is by capturing and relating details about one’s life that a biographical story is constructed and presented. This phenomenon of internet self-portraiture is not exclusive to Taiwanese/ 277

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teenagers/girls, but their practices seem to receive more public attention in Taiwan due to societal normative concerns such as narcissism and ‘indecent’ self-exposure. This chapter has focused on the photographic aspect of self-portraiture practised by teenage girls in Taiwan and addressed how we might understand the appeal of self-portraiture from the perspective of self-disclosure, an act that has significance at the personal as well as the social level. The hands-on experience with cameras and the construction of the online album space provide opportunities for selfexpression and communication, allowing the capture of even the most mundane experience and the sharing with peers in order to maintain a sense of connection. While public attention to Taiwanese girls’ self-portraiture usually focuses on the more spectacular aspects, namely the hyper-feminine poses such as ‘ke ai’, we should not limit our understanding of self-portraiture to be just stylised self-presentations that are nothing more than narcissism. Societal normative ideals of beauty may be reflected in girls’ self-portraits, but underneath the styles of self-presentations lie their desires to occupy an online presence and to communicate with an audience that they consider important. Through the stories and explanations that participants share, and observation of their Wretch Album, we see that in the practice of self-portraiture online the personal and the social coexist in a single frame, although one may be in the foreground and one in the background. Self-portraiture and photo-sharing on Wretch appear to be practices over which Taiwanese girls can exercise control of their selfimage, privacy and social relations, and have agency and freedom about the ways they express themselves. Such opportunities are of utmost importance especially in Taiwanese society where children and young people are generally under the tight scrutiny of adults in highly structured everyday life routines. It is argued that despite the overt emphasis on self, internet selfportraiture, as a photographic practice that is subsequently mediated and communicated through computers and the internet, is a vehicle for self-disclosure that facilitates relationship development and maintenance, allowing oneself to exercise control over self-work and to stay connected with one’s imagined audience online.

Notes 1 Based on a national representative sample of 1,980 teenagers attending middle school and high school. 2 ‘Selfie’ became the Oxford Dictionaries word of the year in 2013 (see http://blog.oxford dictionaries.com/2013/11/word-of-the-year-2013-winner/). However as my empirical research was conducted prior to 2013, a different term, ‘self-portraiture’, is used throughout this chapter. 3 ‘Little fox’ is an example of an ‘internet beautiful chick’ whose fame extended into the offline world. She became a news anchor for a TV channel in Taiwan, and did some acting. Her Wretch Album continues to be active, although many of the earlier self-portraits have been removed. See www.wretch.cc/album/sugarjocelyn. 4 www.wretch.cc/blog/wretchbeauty/ 5 http://promo.wretch.cc/wretchbeautyclock/Activity/activity.php 6 www.flickr.com/photos/tags/selfportrait/ 7 Data collected in November 2011 through an online survey administered to 2,972 Taiwanese internet users aged 10–79. 8 According to Fubon (2008: 85–7), in 2008 almost half (49 per cent) of online teenagers used online albums. There are significant age and gender differences: 55 per cent of teenagers aged 16–18 use online albums compared with 44 per cent of teenagers aged 13–15. Twice as many girls (65 per cent) as boys (33 per cent) used online albums. 9 = = is an emoticon expressing speechless in the face of a nonsensical comment or situation. 10 The ~ sign (tilde) is a punctuation mark commonly used in informal writing. It indicates the end of sentences like the full stop sign does, but it conveys some positive ‘emotion’ such as enthusiasm, friendliness or lightheartedness. 278

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17 Against the grain The battle for public service broadcasting in Taiwan Chun-wei Daniel Lin

Introduction This chapter engages with the debate around the expansion of Taiwanese Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) in three main areas of enquiry and conceptualisation: (1) the role of PSB from the perspective of critical political economy, (2) the media in transitional societies with specific reference to Taiwan and (3) the politics of media representation in the Taiwanese context. There have always been high expectations for an ‘ideal’ PSB. For instance, Keane (1991) argues that PSB is driven by higher aspirations than solely to provide entertainment. Garnham (1997: 56–73) also argues that the essence of PSB is provision to all citizens on equal terms. One strand in the classic arguments in favour of PSB is particularly addressed in this chapter, that is, the question of what role (if any) PSB can and should play in a televisual environment where consumer choice has been extended by the proliferation of cable and satellite channels. This chapter examines if channel plurality addresses market failures and what distinctive role PSB can play in a multi-channel age. Golding and Murdock note that critical political economy differs from mainstream economics as the perspective of critical political economy is holistic and historical. Moreover, it is centrally concerned with ‘the balance between capitalist enterprise and public intervention’. Most importantly, it goes beyond technical issues of efficiency to engage with ‘basic moral questions of justice, equity and public good’ (Golding and Murdock 2000: 61). Work within this tradition has paid particular attention to the shifting relations between states and markets in structuring the operating environment for media in democratic societies, referencing the limitations of commercial media in providing full resources for citizenship and the role of government in addressing ‘market failures’ through regulation and financial support for public communications initiatives. In recent years the balance of the post-war period has been substantially tipped in favour of private enterprise by the processes of marketisation. Taiwan offers an important example of this process in action. In common with a number of countries in the ‘third wave’ of democracy (Huntington 1991), Taiwan has experienced a double transition, namely in economics (from state management to market) and in politics (from authoritarian rule to multi-party democracy). Since broadcasting is simultaneously a key industry and the major source of symbolic resources for political citizenship, 281

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its constitution and future is central to understanding the wider politics of transition. Thus, Taiwan’s transition offers a valuable addition to the contemporary debate. While political and market forces threaten ‘the cultural citizenship’ which stands for citizens’ rights of ‘access to the information and social participation’ (Murdock 1999: 17–18), one important focus of this study is on the alliances and networks formed by civil society groups or by business interests, and the ways these formations attempt to intervene in the policy-making process by building public and media support and influencing legislators. The competing claims of various groups about the expansion of PSB are the central focus of this chapter.

Public service broadcasting: a contested concept The concept of public service broadcasting emerged in western Europe after the Second World War (Blumler 1992a: 7–21) and found its most influential early institutional expression when the British Broadcasting Company was established in 1922 (becoming a Corporation in 1927) and started regular television broadcasting in 1936 albeit with limited reach and audience. Although it is well known that broadcasting in Britain is based on the principle of public service, defining exactly what that means can on close inspection prove ‘elusive’ (Scannell 1990: 11). When the 1986 Peacock Committee in Britain turned to the broadcasters for their interpretations of public service they remained unenlightened. Their report observed, ‘we had some difficulty in obtaining an operational definition from broadcasters’ (Peacock 1986: 130, cited in Scannell 1989: 135). Market competitors have seized on the fuzziness of the concept to offer a revisionist definition that perfectly fits their own interests. Rupert Murdoch, for example, states that ‘anybody who, within the law of the land, provides a service which the public wants at a price it can afford is providing a public service’ (quoted in Ellis 1994: 1, cited in Raboy 1996: 8). At the same time, if we look at the way the concept has been championed by its supporters we can identify some consistent and enduring themes. As supporters of commercial options have become more confident and vocal, one question is voiced with increasing urgency: How far can PSB as currently organised embody the ideals of the public sphere and serve as ‘a means of the realisation of the public sphere’ (Dahlgren 1995: 13)? In identifying how far PSB is able to create a forum of public consensus, Price (1992: 36) argues we need to pay particular attention to the various ways in which public service entities are ‘governed, financed, regulated and perceived’. These factors ‘help determine, though hardly conclude, whether furthering the public sphere is an internalised civic and spiritual quest, or left to the margin, a hoped-for product of market interaction’. According to Price, the first key condition for the effective operation of PSB is how far it is able to achieve relative autonomy from the state. The function of this independence is ‘to encourage and nourish the formation of a “public” that is the quintessential aspect of the public sphere’ (Price 1992: 32). As Raboy (1996: 9) argues, ‘the role of the state is to design and facilitate the functioning of a multifaceted national broadcasting system, rather than as the directive patron of a dedicated national broadcaster’. Thus, the question of how to minimise government influence has been a key issue for policy makers and academics. Second, the mode of financing public broadcasting organisations is also a crucial determinant of PSB’s ability to identify and nourish a public sphere (Price 1992: 34). Tracey (1998: 18) breaks this point down in a simple way: ‘in a public system, television producers acquire money to make programmes while in a commercial system they make programmes to acquire money’. The third and arguably most important condition that allows PSB to nurture a mediated public sphere is the culture of the organisation since ‘the way the ambitious goals of a 282

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broadcasting origination are stated and implanted in those who create its identity’ has a significant impact on the way staff view their role (Price 1992: 35). The defining identity of PSB has been viewed in various ways by different players in the PSB debate. For example, Rupert Murdoch argues that ‘populist television should be left to commercial stations and that public television should plug the gaps, delivering programmes that the market system does not’ (Tracey 1996: 159). In reply, defenders maintain that ‘PSB should be seen as an instrument of social and cultural development, rather than as a marginal alternative service on the periphery of a vast cultural industry’ (Raboy 1996: 9). The three determinants mentioned above all interact in complex ways with political and market forces. However, as Graham Murdock (1992: 18) argues: [T]he crucial choice is not, as many commentators suppose, between state licensing and control on the one side and minimally regulated market mechanisms on the other. It is between policies designed to reinvigorate the public communication system which are relatively independent of both the state and the market, and policies which aim to marginalise or eradicate them. Critics of ‘actually existing’ public service broadcasting and enthusiasts of ‘free’ markets both often ask ‘why the future should be modelled on an institutional ideal that has so often failed to live up to its promises in the past?’ Murdock (1999: 16) answers that ‘restructured and reimagined, public service broadcasting offers the most open, flexible and inclusive solution to the problem of underwriting the cultural rights of citizenship’. He elaborated on this by outlining ‘four basic sets of cultural rights’, which can be summarised as follows: (1) Rights to information: citizens have rights of access to the relevant information about the conditions that structure their range of choices, and about the actions of significant social, political and economic actors, such as state agencies, the government, corporations, opposition parties and social movements. (2) Rights to experience: citizens have rights of access to the diversity of representations of personal and social experience. (3) Rights to knowledge: citizens have rights of access to frameworks of interpretation that point to links, patterns and processes of change, and which suggest explanations that might translate information and experience into knowledge. (4) Rights to participation: citizens have rights to speak about their own lives and aspirations in their own voice, and to picture the things that matter to them in ways they have chosen (Murdock 1999: 11–12). John Reith, the first director-general of the BBC, indicated in his foundational definition of public service broadcasting that it should have four facets: ‘First, it ought to be protected from commercial pressures. Second, it aims to serve the whole nation. Third, it should have a monopoly position. And, finally, it aims to provide a high standard of programmes’ (McDonnell 1991: 1). Reith also famously summarised the core purposes of the BBC, as to ‘inform, educate and entertain’. The key term here is ‘educate’, in the original sense taken from the Latin, ‘educare’, meaning to provide a lead. Reith considered that ‘only a few viewers knew what programmes they need and want, so the public service broadcasters should produce good programmes for the audiences and play an edifying role’ (Congdon 1992: x–xxii). In Reith’s brief and trenchant manifesto for a public service broadcasting system there was ‘an overriding concern for the maintenance of high standards and a unified policy towards the 283

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whole of the service supplied’ (Scannell 1990: 13). This initial conception of PSB was not only based on Reith’s own beliefs, but was also rooted in technological constraints: ‘The scarcity of the spectrum frequencies is considered the main justification for the monopoly position’ (Seaton 2003: 367). Although Reith’s formulation has been consistently challenged by critics, and dismissed and derided by advocates of commercial solutions as unacceptably paternalistic, his ideas, revised and updated, have continued to inform debate down to the present (Hearst 1992: 61–78). After reviewing conceptions of PSB over time, Collins (1998: 54–78) concluded that although its proponents offered definitions based on different approaches, they shared common ground in viewing PSB and the market as oppositional categories. In an attempt to devise a definition of PSB that fits contemporary conditions, Scannell (1990: 25) has argued that the core objective is to provide ‘mixed programming on national channels available to all’. There are two essential elements in this argument: a mix of programming and universality. Since Scannell believes that PSB still has cultural and democratic missions, he sees its essential role as guaranteeing ‘equal access for all to a wide range of common informational, entertainment, and cultural programmes carried on channels that can be an important citizenship right in mass democratic societies’ (Scannell 1990: 26). In response to commercial television’s threat to PSB, many scholars intended to draw clear definitions and essential characteristics for PSB from different dimensions. These include programme quality, universal accessibility, diversity of programmes, distribution of information, provision of education, promotion of culture, development of democracy, cultural identity, independence of programme sources from commercial influences, the integrity of civic communication, welfare of children and juveniles, and the maintenance of standards (Blumler 1992b: 30–9; Van Dijk et al. 2006: 254; Heap 2005: 116; Hujanen 2005: 58; Papathanassopoulos 2002: 11). Despite a core agreement on the basic principles, various definitions and conceptions of PSB remain contested and fluid. So there is no easy answer to the question of what principles public service broadcasting should follow, but a reasonably thorough attempt at consolidation and synthesis was made in the mid-1980s by the UK’s Broadcasting Research Unit (BRU). The main principles of the BRU document can be summarised as follows: (1) Universality of availability (geographic); (2) Universality of appeal (general tastes and interests); (3) Particular attention on minorities (especially disadvantaged minorities who should receive particular provision); (4) Sensitivity to national identity and community; (5) Broadcasting should be distanced from all vested interests, and in particular from those of the government of the day; (6) Direct funding and universality of payment; (7) Broadcasting should be structured to encourage competition in good programming rather than for ratings; and (8) The public guidelines for broadcasting should be designed to liberate rather than restrict the programme makers (BRU 1985). While some of these principles, such as ‘universal availability’, ‘good programming’ and ‘direct funding’ follow Reith’s ideas, the other characteristics have been developed in response to social and cultural changes. For instance, the concept of ‘particular attention to minorities’ is mentioned because against a background of increasing migration and the assertion of minority rights there is a growing sense that ‘general and national programmes could not satisfy the needs of minorities’ (Tracey 1998: 28). At first glance these general principles as listed by the BRU seem to be both comprehensive and clear, but they may well provoke arguments when translated into concrete practice. For example, while the aim of making ‘good programmes’ and serving ‘the interests of minorities’ might command wide support as principles, their operationalisation is problematic. Is ‘good’ to be defined by professional or by aesthetic and ethical criteria? Which minorities merit particular 284

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attention? A further problem is posed by the ambiguity of key principles such as ‘national identity’. The question of nationhood is not fully resolved in many countries, including the UK (Raboy 1996: 7), and it is even more controversial in Taiwan which is caught in the cultural and political crossfire between China, the USA and Japan. The various definitions and principles outlined above clearly show that the concept of PSB is dynamic and unfolding as commentators and government and intergovernmental agencies respond to changing conditions and contexts. However, as Raboy (1996: 7) has pointed out, the main challenge is not ‘how to perfect the list’ but ‘how to apply such a set of concepts and principles’. There is no shortage of good will or good ideas for PSB, but the realisation of the ideas is ‘rendered problematic by a series of political, economic, technological, ideological, and developmental constraints’ (Raboy 1996: 2). In many parts of the ‘transnational’ world PSB is a distant ideal because of the constraints of working realities. The main reason is that even when the leaders in these countries have embraced the ideal of PSB, ‘the lack of a receptive political and professional culture is often the next hurdle’ (Raboy 1996: 2). In Raboy’s view, problems of financing, mandate and interpretations of purpose are ‘all indications of a more fundamental problem of political will’ (Raboy 1996: 2). The Taiwan case we discuss here offers an important example of the challenges to PSB in a transitional society. From his experience of being the director-general of the BBC from 2004 to 2012, Mark Thompson has argued that PSB has to be a ‘conscious civic choice’ and that ‘any country that wants to develop a PSB tradition’ needs to begin to think about how to develop ‘widespread public support’ (Thompson 2006: 4). It was precisely the level of public debate necessary to foster public support that was conspicuously absent in Taiwan.

Taiwan: a transitional society Critics have long been disappointed by the performance of Taiwan’s media. Prior to the lifting of martial law in 1987, the major concern was political interference (Rawnsley and Rawnsley 2001: 26–62). After the process of political democratisation and media liberalisation in the 1980s and the 1990s, the market-driven media environment has triggered different kinds of alarm bells. As Rawnsley and Rawnsley (2012: 405–6) have stated: ‘liberalisation and democracy have not necessarily resulted in more voices and consumer choice . . . All too often, transitional systems sacrifice the democratic ideal for profit and commercial growth, as demonstrated in Taiwan, where competition between media for ratings and advertising revenue has transformed the landscape of journalism.’ For example, in March 2011 a devastating earthquake struck Japan and caused a massive tsunami and a nuclear power plant’s meltdown. The disasters immediately attracted extensive media attention across the world, including Taiwan. While media outlets across the globe reported the earthquake and its aftermath, the dramatic ways Taiwanese television represented the disasters soon triggered a series of criticisms about unnecessary sensationalism and exaggeration. For instance, the word ‘doomsday’ flashed across TV screens; ‘flee’ was used in screaming headlines, instead of ‘evacuate’ to describe how Japanese moved away from the damaged areas (Taipei Times 2011a: 8). Another example was a rumour that a Japanese pornography actress was caught in the tsunami which became a prominent breaking news item (Je 2011: A23). Other dramatic features included the mixed editing of actuality footage with devastating scenes from Hollywood films, and frantic voiceovers from reporters and news anchors. Critics complained that the media frenzy brought ‘nothing but unnecessary agitation to viewers’ (Taipei Times 2011b: 8). 285

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Since Japan’s public service broadcaster, Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), is also accessible in Taiwan, many viewers there soon discovered that NHK projected a much less sensationalist coverage of the disasters and provided more useful information to help viewers understand the crisis. As one press editorial pointed out, in contrast to the performance of NHK, ‘the screaming catastrophic disaster show’ orchestrated by Taiwan’s media attracted sneers (United Evening News 2011: A2). Another editorial noted that ‘we surely have a thing or two to learn from Japan when NHK provided better quality to serve their audience and to gain the respect the media deserves as the fourth estate’ (Taipei Times 2011b: 8). Similar sentiments expressed by the general public were also published as Letters to the Editor. For example, ‘Even though I speak no Japanese, I prefer watching NHK rather than Taiwan’s local channel’ (Hong 2011: A15; Young 2011: A15). The above example not only exposed the way commercialisation has trivialised and sensationalised media content in Taiwan, but also the extent to which commercial pressures have shaped a television system driven by viewer ratings and the power of advertisers. Under pressure from uncertain funding as audiences and advertising fragment, the system relegates fundamental principles of media professionalism a long way behind commercial considerations and consumer choice. By doing so, it fails to address public affairs and the full range of contemporary issues. To tackle the consequences of media commercialisation, a number of media professionals pointed to the potential capacity of the fledgling PSB in Taiwan, but they also indicated the challenges preventing PSB from providing a corrective influence in the media landscape. Drawing comparisons with the BBC in the UK and NHK in Japan, veteran journalist He Rong-xing raised the key question of whether Taiwan’s PSB could raise its standard to match that of NHK. He argued that ‘the main reason why the PSB group in Taiwan have no power to balance the twisted commercial market is mainly because of the lack of a long-term and deliberate media policy’ (R.X. He 2011: A15). Echoing this view He Guo-hua, a public broadcaster and the manager of the news division of PTS (Public Television Service), indicated that ‘different extents of financial supports to the two public service broadcasters in Japan and Taiwan led to different results in their influences’ (G.H. He 2011: A23). Both views underline the political and economic difficulties facing PSB and its uncertain future in Taiwan.

From Public Television Service to Taiwan Broadcasting System The introduction of PSB in Taiwan dates back to 1998 when the PTS, a free-to-air television station was established. Its finance mainly relied on government subsidies. Unlike many western contexts, where established PSB systems have declined due to the impact of market forces, the plan to introduce a similar service in Taiwan was motivated by a wish to ameliorate the effects of media commercialisation. Hence Chin (1997: 90) has viewed the birth of Taiwan’s PSB as pushed by ‘the concern over overwhelming market forces’. Table 17.1 illustrates a chronological overview signposting key moments in the development of Taiwanese PSB. Two waves of demand for PSB can be identified. The first wave emerged in the mid-1990s and created a single channel PTS. However, charged with a mission to introduce quality television programming PTS never managed to achieve more than a small audience (see Figure 17.1. Before 2003 PTS never managed to achieve an average rating of over 1 per cent) in the highly commercialised media landscape and it was clear that ‘the private media will continue to dominate’ (Chin 1997: 91). The second wave accompanied a policy window opened by the 2000 presidential election when the main opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), defeated the 286

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Table 17.1 Chronological overview of public service broadcasting in Taiwan, 1983–2007 Wave 1 Year

Events

1983

The Government Information Office (GIO) drafted an outline for a centre for public television programmes.

1984

The Public TV Programme Production and Broadcasting Committee was established under the GIO. Time slots were requisitioned from three main terrestrial TV stations to broadcast programmes.

1991

The Public Television Preparatory Committee was established after the Executive Yuan approved guidelines for installation. Seven specialists and scholars were enlisted to formulate draft legislation for the Public Television Act.

1996

Social activists from media academia formed the Public Media Lobbying Alliance.

1997

The Legislative Yuan passed the Public Television Act.

1998

The Public Television Service Foundation was established and officially launched broadcasting services.

Wave 2 Year

Events

2003

The Legislative Yuan passed amendments to the Broadcasting and Television Act, Cable Television Act, and Satellite Broadcasting Act. These amended laws prohibit the government, political parties, party affair personnel, appointed government officials and elected public officials from investing in the broadcasting and television industries.

2006

(3 January) The Legislative Yuan passed the Statute Regarding the Disposition of Government Shareholdings in the Terrestrial Television Industry ushering in a new era of media free from control by political parties, government and military.

2006

(16 January) Liming Foundation donated Chinese Television System (CTS) shares to the PTS Foundation.

2006

(31 March) The first meeting of the new board of directors and supervisors was convened. During the meeting the appointments of Yuan Li as CTS president and other executives were also approved. CTS became a public entity in due process. The establishment of the Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS), composed of PTS and CTS, was set into motion.

2006

(1 July) The CTS officially went into the PSB umbrella structure. The TBS was formed.

2007

(1 January) Hakka TV, Taiwan Indigenous TV and Taiwan Macroview TV merge with TBS to become a PSB television family.

Source: Summarised from Public Television Service (2010: 4–6).

Kuomintang (KMT, i.e. the Nationalist Party) for the first time. Alongside political struggles, social movements and academic debates, the direction of PSB expansion was cemented with the passage of the Statute Regarding the Disposition of Government Shareholdings in the Terrestrial Television Industry in 2006. It outlined that government shareholdings in the terrestrial television stations – Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) and Chinese Television System (CTS) – should be freed from state control. It also suggested enlarging the scope of public television by combining the PTS with a state-owned commercial television station and several ethnic channels. In July 2006, PTS at its eighth anniversary ceremony officially merged with 287

Chun-wei Daniel Lin PTS annual average TV rating and market share Market share

Rating

1.4

0.2 Rating

Market share

0.18 1.2 0.16 1

0.14 0.12

0.8

0.1 0.6

0.08 0.06

0.4

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1998 Julo-Deco

Rating Market share

0.03 0.23

0 1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

0.05 0.45

0.09 0.69

0.08 0.62

0.08 0.67

0.1 0.79

0.1 0.73

0.11 0.8

0.12 0.91

0.11 0.82

0.14 0.97

0.18 1.28

0.17 1.26

Figure 17.1 PTS annual average television rating and market share from 1998 to 2010 Source: PTS (2010: 27) Note: Assessment was from 6:00 a.m. to 1:59 a.m. on the day after the programme and included interviews with viewers more than 4 years old.

the 35-year-old, previously state-owned CTS and formed the Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS). Furthermore, starting from 2007 three other television stations – Hakka TV, Indigenous TV and Taiwan Macroview TV – also joined the group under the administration of PTS to provide a more influential public service broadcasting environment in Taiwan (Rawnsley 2013). It can be argued that the introduction of PSB was motivated by a desire to alleviate the symptoms of the overwhelming commercialism in Taiwan’s television landscape, one of the key reasons why PSB is defended in other countries around the world. However in Taiwan’s social context, to explain the inception of the PSB solely in terms of concerns over commercialism represents only half of the picture. The challenges facing Taiwan’s young PSB must also be understood in Taiwan’s political context which situates it in an uncharacteristic PSB position. It is to these matters that the discussion now turns.

Media reform in a Blue–Green political divide1 Taiwan’s rapid industrialisation during the 1960s and 1970s, combined with the democratic revolution that began with the lifting of martial law in 1987, were of deep historical importance to this transitional society. During the KMT’s long rule over Taiwan since 1945, national terrestrial television stations were controlled predominantly by the KMT party-state despite the commercialisation of the media market. The DPP strongly protested this KMT control, as did many media academics, commentators and social activists. The huge change in the political climate created by the DPP’s electoral victory in 2000 ignited ‘a new hope for social activists and media academics to free state-run television’ from political control and establish a system 288

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that was closer to the model of ‘relative autonomy’ that characterised PSB elsewhere (Feng et al. 2002). The significance of this dispute about the degree of state control of broadcasting was also rooted in the profound differences in both political parties’ vision of the future and the autonomy of the Taiwanese nation. This conflict was between one side supporting eventual reunification with China and the other one envisaging Taiwanese independence from mainland China. We must consider this antagonistic and polarised political divide between the Blue and Green parties (Hughes 2011: 51–74; Fell 2011: 75–97; Rigger 2011: 37–50) in order to fully understand the expansion of PSB in Taiwan. On the issue of the democratisation of terrestrial television, a number of ideas had been put forward during the KMT’s tenure in power suggesting possible ways that national television could be improved, but most of them were ignored by then KMT government. Two of the most popular proposals in pursuit of the democratisation of terrestrial television resurfaced after the change of government in 2000. The first, which was very much in line with the general shift in economic policy away from the previous heavy reliance on state management and toward a more market-driven system, advocated privatising the state-owned television channels. This proposal was strongly supported by the KMT which had just lost power. The alternative, which went against the grain of the market-led thinking, proposed transforming the state-owned television asset into a new extended PSB system. This solution, which was endorsed by numerous media academics and social activists in Taiwan, had been one of the promises made by the DPP in their election campaign. After a period of debate and political struggle, this option outran the privatisation plan and became the preferred policy. In this proposal, the key concept is ‘gong gong hua’ or publicisation, which means a transformation of the state-owned terrestrial television into a corporation in the public sector under the authority of the state. Specifically, this entails all political parties, the state and the military relinquishing control over terrestrial television and ceding its administration and operation to an independent corporation in the public sector (Feng et al. 2002). This proposal was seen by its advocates as a way of creating space within the broadcasting landscape for a greater degree of freedom and independence in the pursuit of the ideals of public service. In contrast with the privatisation plan, the ‘gong gong hua’ transformation also frees the television channels from commercial pressures by providing government financial support.

Controversial PSB debates in Taiwan During its long rule prior to 2000, the KMT party-state’s actions united the various and diverse groups standing on the opposite side, including the main opposition party DPP and many social movements representing different camps. After the DPP defeated the KMT and began to govern for the first time, the redistribution of power soon became a problem. In the process of power restructuring, idealists often became the victims of realpolitik, and the ‘gong gong hua’ proposal is one example. As the DPP government’s resolve to implement PSB expansion in this form dwindled, so did the chances of establishing a healthy configuration of PSB. In 2002, media academics, like Feng Chien-san and Kuo Li-hsin, who strongly endorsed the ‘gong gong hua’, protested against the DPP government’s tardiness in implementing its promise. This conflict inside the ranks of the former alliance between the DPP and social activists attracted a lot of media attention, with headlines such as ‘Media scholars who offer endorsement for DPP now face ordeal’ (China Times 2002a: 13), ‘Media academics say goodbye to the DPP president’ (United Daily News 2002: 4), and ‘Scholars declare a return to social movements’ (China Times 2002b: 6) appearing in newspapers. 289

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Informed by different mixtures of partisan interests, commercial profits or conceptions of the public good, interpretations of ‘gong gong hua’ varied according to the positions the key players occupied in the debate. The divergent versions of ‘gong gong hua’ held by government, political actors, social activists and media academics soon led to many disagreements, especially when it came to concrete practice and policy implementation. At the beginning of 2006, debates over the ‘gong gong hua’ entered a new phase when the passage of the Statute Regarding the Disposition of Government Shareholdings in the Terrestrial Television Industry established the institutional form that PSB expansion would take. The proposal was to merge the existing PTS with CTS, Indigenous TV, Hakka TV and one overseas channel – Taiwan Macroview TV – to create an enlarged PSB sector, the TBS. This new consolidated TBS grouping held out the prospect of a public service system with sufficient critical mass to make a noticeable countervailing difference to the competitive media landscape. However, the increasing power and potential social influence of TBS made it a political target and prompted partisan competition over the leadership of this new broadcasting group. Throughout the various phases of the development of PSB, from inception to implementation and concrete experience, decisions made behind closed doors by key players caught press attention. In 2004, the appointment of Chiang Hsia as the managing-director of the CTS caused much controversy. Chiang Hsia was an actress famous for her ties with the DPP and her close friendship with the then DPP president’s family. Her appointment provoked a stir in media circles because it was believed to be motivated by partisan political expedience rather than being based on her proven ability to do the job (Taipei Times 2004: 2). One of the reasons this appointment proved so controversial was that Chiang had stated that she would ban soap operas imported from China. This could have been interpreted as a move designed to provide more opportunities for local production, but it was widely taken as evidence of her strong allegiance to the DPP’s stance on Taiwan independence. Some critics claimed that the DPP government had not been slow to learn tricks from the KMT in using state-financed broadcasting as a means of furthering its own political objectives. For instance, United Daily News published an article entitled ‘DPP’s media manipulation even worse than the old KMT’ (2004: 4). In 2008 the political struggle inside the TBS group reached a new peak when the KMT recaptured the presidency. Soon after returning to power, the KMT legislative caucus proposed a case-by-case review of PTS programme budgets by the GIO and froze half of the PTS budget for 2009, claiming the need to avoid wasting public money (Taipei Times 2008: 3). Critics claimed that these actions intended to use the budget reviews to threaten the independence of the PSB, and attracted headlines such as ‘Auditing or intervening?’ (Liberty Times 2008a: 4). Media scholars asserted that these changes would soon ‘destroy the PSB’s core value of being independent from any kind of political interference’ (Tang and Jian 2008: A8). The KMT legislative caucus whip, Lin Yi-shih, also suggested increasing the number of directors and supervisory committee members at PTS because he claimed that ‘the current number is unable to fully represent Taiwan’s diversity’ (Tang and Jian 2008: A8). This was a move that soon invited a huge amount of criticism, expressed in headlines such as ‘Do parties, state and military really withdraw their control from the media?’ (China Times 2008: 11), ‘Media scholars moan the death of democracy’ (Liberty Times 2008b: 2). Despite this vocal opposition an amendment was quickly passed by the KMT-dominated legislature in 2009 to install eight extra directors on the TBS board. A renowned political critic, Lin Cho-shui, fired a warning shot in a letter published in the Liberty Times in which he wrote: ‘President Ma’s army invades the TBS at stormy night’ (C.S. Lin 2009: A15). After the arrival of the new directors in 2009, the board soon split into two rival factions over its chairmanship. The power struggle reached another peak when the directors of both 290

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camps filed lawsuits to prevent each other from exercising the right to make decisions in the boardroom. The lawsuit paralysed the board since it meant that ‘only five out of the twentyone directors left in the board can legally execute their positions’ (Taipei Times 2010a: 3). In 2010 the chief executive officer (CEO) of TBS group, Sylvia Feng, who had been accused of being one of the ‘loyal DPP warriors’ by the KMT (United Daily News 2008: 10), was edged out in a reshuffle of personnel, a move derided by the DPP and media watchdog organisations as an example of political manoeuvring (Taipei Times 2010b: 1). Although these accelerating conflicts exposed the continuing undercurrent of political struggle behind the closed doors of the boardroom, the debates and disputes surrounding the PSB group appeared in the media only in fragments and scattered over time. As a consequence, it was hard for the general public to piece together what was really happening in the process of PSB expansion, especially when different mainstream newspapers, with their attendant political biases, produced polarised interpretations of the same incidents and offered different versions of the same events. Therefore the lack of public engagement became one of the major concerns voiced by a former CEO of the PTS and TBS, Hu Yuan-hui, when he discussed the challenges facing Taiwan’s PSB (Hu 2007: 207).

Claims competition2 While both KMT and DPP legislators agreed on the need to reform terrestrial television, the debate about PSB was framed after 2000 in terms of a political struggle (C.W. Lin 2012: 97–106). In contrast academics see the media as ‘public goods that should be independent from political interference and commercial forces’ (L.Y. Lin 2003: 148), or regard public television as the means to empower civil society (Rawnsley and Rawnsley 2005: 23–38). In other words, the PSB debate was constructed first as a political–elite campaign, later as a social movement and then finally as a long-term, bottom-up reform (C.W. Lin 2012: 107–11). The public broadcasters were concerned about claims that the PSB is an institution with serious internal tensions, insufficient funding, and which experiences political interference (C.W. Lin 2012: 112–20). This reveals how legislators defined the ‘problem’ as a struggle of political power; the media academics defined the ‘problem’ as a threat to the media ecology; and broadcasters defined the ‘problem’ at an empirical level of PSB practice. Hence there began a debate over the collusion of political organisations and media in press coverage. Following the debate about effective insulation of terrestrial television from political influence, and how to cut the strong ties between the channels and the government, the positions of the political parties soon became the core of the debate. The main concerns at this time were the competing proposals for restructuring state-owned terrestrial television stations, privatisation or ‘gong gong hua’. In September and November 2002, a pressure group, Campaign for TV Democracy (wuxian dianshi minzhu hua lianmeng), began to protest (L.Y. Lin 2003: 146–7). The Campaign for TV Democracy was so concerned with the DPP’s progress on reform that three of its members, the director of TTV, Lin Hsiao-hsin, the director of TTV, Shih Shih-hao and the director of CTS, Kuo Li-hsin, quit their posts at terrestrial TV stations (Taipei Times 2002: 3) and issued an official statement: ‘DPP must keep the promises for a better media environment’ (Campaign for TV Democracy 2002: 8). They also held a press conference to protest against President Chen’s failure to fulfil his presidential campaign promise to reform state-owned media. At this time there emerged a conflict between the advocates of PSB and the DDP, which had come into government for the first time but was seen, by PSB lobbyists, to be dragging its feet on its election promises for reform. The ensuing disagreement between the DPP government and 291

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its erstwhile academic supporters was seen as particularly newsworthy by the KMT-friendly newspapers, such as the United Daily News and China Times. In 2004 Chiang Hsia, a long-time DPP supporter and a close friend to President Chen Shuibian’s family, was appointed the managing-director of the state-controlled CTS ‘amid harsh attacks from opposition legislators on her professionalism and her political loyalties. . . . In a TV interview broadcast last night, the outspoken Chiang told the host, “My new position is indeed a reward and it makes perfect sense because I support President Chen Shui-bian.”’ (Taipei Times 2004: 2). This controversial appointment fuelled the grievances against the DDP government already mounting among PSB advocates. Their disappointment was particularly sharp as prior to 2000 the DPP as the main opposition party had strongly criticised the KMT for using its ownership of key channels to advance its own political interests. They saw Chiang’s appointment as a return to the familiar KMT tactic of exercising control by gerrymandering key appointments in media. At the beginning of 2006 legislation was passed that regulated the release of government holdings in terrestrial TV stations. This provision, ‘The Statute Regarding the Disposition of Government Shareholdings in the Terrestrial Television Industry’ (wuxian dianshi shiye gonggu chuli tiaoli), which eventually passed after eight rounds of cross-party negotiations, was designed to push forward the administration’s bid to free broadcasting from political, partisan and military influences. This legislation embodies two major changes. First, TTV was to become a private station while CTS would become a public one with the government shares (74.95 per cent) ceded to a Public Service Foundation. Second, two other government-funded ethnic television stations would join the public television transformation to form an expanded public television group (Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China 2006). In addition to selling its assets in the national terrestrial channel, China Television Company (CTV), the KMT also divested its interests in the nationwide radio network (the Broadcasting Corporation of China) and the film production company (the Central Motion Pictures Corporation) to the private company, the China Times News Group, which therefore benefited financially directly from the reforms (Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China 2006). Hence, at this time, attention shifted to legislative process and the negotiations between the two main political parties. When the KMT defeated the DPP in 2008 and returned to government, two opposed groups of actors renewed their debate on PSB: on the one hand, the KMT legislative caucus proposed a case-by-case review of PTS programme budgets by the GIO and froze half of the PTS budget for 2009 in an attempt to save public money (Taipei Times 2008: 3). This move invited much criticism from broadcasters and civil pressure groups who advocated an extended role for PSB on the other hand. This review of the main debates about PSB shows a close connection to political initiatives and arguments rather than to the performance of the PSB system. It is important to note that the debates occurred after, not before, the elections that led a change of government suggesting that despite being a focus of cross-party conflict, PSB reform did not feature as a prominent electoral issue. Moreover, we see a high level of involvement by pro-PSB pressure groups and media academics. This pattern suggests that although successive political events and interventions prompted surges in interest, the debate was primarily a discussion between ‘insiders’, dominated by broadcasters with a direct institutional stake in change, and lobby groups, including academics with a professional interest in the issues. It was these groups, rather than elected parliamentarians, that took on the role of speaking on behalf of the ‘public’. In news coverage, the ‘public’ was 292

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absent. This radical marginalisation of voices from the ‘public at large’ is particularly ironic in the context of a debate centred so forcefully on promoting changes in the name of serving the public. Given that public service television is expressly aimed at providing the full range of cultural resources people need to become informed and engaged citizens and members of a public with reciprocal obligations, rather than simply consumers making personal choices in the marketplace, the symbolic silencing of public views and aspirations is an obvious absence (Lin 2012: 141–4). This marginal presence of ‘public voices’ had the effect of reproducing a perspective of foundational paternalism that viewed public broadcasting as something best left to experts, professionals and political elites to decide on; in a highly commercialised media landscape ‘ordinary’ people could not be expected to make wise choices without proper ‘guidance’.

Conclusion PSB was originally seen as a device for protecting citizens against the twin threats of political propaganda and the crass commercialism of market-driven programming (Keane 1993: 235). The Taiwanese experience provides a prime case of both these threats. Looking at the series of setbacks that threw PSB expansion into disarray, some critics argued that it was an accident waiting to happen since the PSB-oriented group, the TBS, failed to isolate itself from political forces. For example, in 2010 a former DPP legislator, Lui Jin-xing, described the power clashes inside the boardroom between ‘the independently professional directors’ and KMT-related directors as ‘a battle between light and darkness’ (Lui 2010: 153). Former Public Television Service Foundation president and chief executive Sylvia Feng characterised her dismissal in 2010 as ‘politically motivated’ when Freedom House’s director of studies, Christopher Walker, stated ‘we encourage Taiwan’s policymakers to ensure that PTS does not become a casualty of political conflict’ (Taipei Times 2010b: 1). In 2012 in a letter to the editor entitled ‘How they trashed the PSB project together those few years’, a documentary producer, Tsai Chong-long, speaking on behalf of many programme makers, criticised the broadcasters for dancing with political forces at a dangerously close distance (Tsai 2012). As the seeds of political conflict were sown from the beginning of the PSB expansion project, it is hardly a surprise to see the continuous disarray of the TBS group since its launch. The BBC has been considered a key reference in Taiwan’s PSB expansion, being ‘the most widely admired’ and yet ‘difficult for others to copy successfully’ (Smith 1995: 80). To address the reasons why Taiwan has difficulty in copying a more ideal model, the battle for public broadcasting in Taiwan can be explained along three key dimensions: First, Taiwan was going against the grain of international trends of PSB while a number of media commentators have asked whether the PSB idea has now outlived its usefulness. These critics agree with Robert James Walker that ‘the old dreams were good dreams; they didn’t work out, but I’m glad I had them’ (quoted in Tracey 1998: xvii). Second, the argument for PSB contradicted the growing enthusiasm for privatisation and market-led solutions – not just in broadcasting but within the economy as a whole as it moved from state management; and third, the practices adopted by the PSB advocators challenged their professed claims to be representing the general public. To address the three dimensions, this chapter has explored how and by whom the expansion of PSB in Taiwan was socially defined and constructed. The triggers for mediated debate were mainly associated with battles within the general political arena rather than considerations of public interest or the concerns of media professionals. The discussion also reveals that although this contest between competing claims was being waged in the name of the ‘public’ it was, in practice, conducted within the closed circles of competing elites with the voices of viewers 293

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being largely excluded. The marginal presence of ‘public voices’ in the mainstream newspapers – amounting to only 3.6 per cent of all sampled items (C.W. Lin 2012) – demonstrates a vestige of the earliest conceptualisations of PSB in Taiwan today: a paternalistic, Reithian idea that experts, professionals and political elites decide and determine what the public interests are and how the public are catered for. Two general points can be deduced here. First, this representation suggests a dialogue of elites and no room for ordinary citizens. Second, it also highlights that Taiwanese PSB expansion is not a partisan fight about policy, but a fight between state power and civil society actors. It was a professional debate rather than a political debate. Thus this chapter argues that the representation of the PSB expansion in Taiwan is one of conceptual and structural confusion. The exact meaning of ‘public service broadcasting’ still remains contested and elusive while the key actors, in pursuit of their own sectional interests, have engaged in the debate inside closed circles rather than open dialogue. Structurally, the mediated debate has lost sight of the need to remain relevant to the general public while politicians, broadcasters, campaigners and academics are competing to define what is best for the public. When one asks a political question, one will receive a political answer. As the process of PSB expansion is overly politicised in Taiwan, the answers produced were unavoidably political ones. The core issues should have been about what PSB is, why Taiwan should have PSB and the key differences between public television and commercial television in Taiwan. However these issues have become inadequately addressed in the ensuing political tug of war. The opinions and concerns of the general public were largely missing from a debate dominated by political and academic elites. Against the grain of their own claims to be representing the public, key actors constructed PSB issues as a series of monologues, advancing their own sectional and paternalistic interpretations of the public interest. The findings point to the ironic conclusion that a process ostensibly dedicated to reconstructing broadcasting as a key element in a new, democratic, public sphere excluded the public from active participation and relegated them to the role of spectators.

Notes 1

2

On the pro-Taiwan independence side the political coalition led by the DPP came to be known as the ‘Green’ force because this is the predominant colour of the DPP flag, while the pro-Chinese reunification side, led by the KMT, came to be referred to as the ‘Blue’ force due to the political colours of the party. I conducted documentary analysis to review the major written sources relating to the PSB debate. Combined with the interview data, this study attempted to establish an understanding of the key events in the debates around the extension of PSB and its subsequent implementation. The main sources include: government reports and papers, parliamentary debates, papers produced by stakeholders in the television and media industries, papers produced by civil society groups, papers produced by groups campaigning for the institution of the PSB and comments by academic analysts. Moreover, in-depth interviews were conducted to address the various constructions of the PSB debate within different groups and the competing dynamics among them. Identified from preliminary press and documentary reviews, interviews were conducted with four main groups of key actors: parliamentarians, public broadcasters, social activists and media academics. Data from the completed interviews were analysed to identify themes and coded in such a way as to allow for quantitative analysis of both the frequency with which certain themes appear and the extent to which they are emphasised by the different parties involved.

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18 Public service television in China Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley and Chien-san Feng

Introduction This chapter aims to trace the development of public service television in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It will also unravel the endeavours by Chinese elites to reconcile competing concerns from different sections of the society in implementing Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) within the Chinese context. As Yuezhi Zhao (1998: 2) observes, Chinese media in the post-Mao era are in a paradoxical situation of being changed and unchanged at the same time. Economic reforms and an opendoor policy introduced market principles into the party-controlled media environment and produced the current combination of party logic and market logic. It is a complex system that is often confusing, inconsistent and ambiguous. Zhao’s comments are derived from her research on the news media in the PRC between the 1980s and the mid-1990s. Nevertheless the same observation can be applied to the development of public service television in China in the twenty-first century. On the one hand, the official announcement of the establishment of public television channels (gonggong dianshi or gonggong pindao) in 1999 was an attempt to remedy problems created in the Chinese television industry by the liberalisation of the market since the early 1980s. The fierce commercial competition, particularly noticeable since the mid-1990s, accompanied by the rapid growth in the number of television stations – from under 40 prior to the economic reform to more than 3,000 in 1998 (Chen and Guo 2011: 60) – has transformed Chinese television from an instrument of mass propaganda to a profit-making enterprise. On the other hand, the ownership of all television stations in China, whether they are classified as national, public or commercial channels, remains in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Moreover, both management structures and the content of programmes have also been subject to the supervision of the State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT, prior to 2013 the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television or SARFT) (Donald and Keane 2002: 11). Hence it can be argued that the Chinese television system today is ‘at once being changed and remaining the same’ (Zhao 1998: 2). Furthermore, the discourses about public service broadcasting in China reflect largely the vibrant debates on PSB in the English-language literature. For example, Changshun Shi and Jianhong Zhang (2007: 33–4) believe that public service television represents progressive public opinion and needs a legal framework to strengthen its independence from both government interference and commercial pressure. This corroborates John Keane’s (1992: 116) assertion that PSB is a device ‘for protecting citizens against the twin threats of totalitarian propaganda and 298

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the crass commercialism of market-driven programming’. Chinese economist Zhanjun Xiao (2006: 58–62) argues that government funding is not the only way to support PSB, but instead commercial revenues can be a viable source of finance for Chinese public service television. Such views are echoed in the evaluation of Channel Four (C4) in the UK by Paddy Scannell (1990: 25) when he urges us to view the establishment of this station as ‘the expression of a continuing political commitment to regulating broadcasting as a public good and in the public interest’ even though it shows commercials.1 However, in reality, the current public television channels in China are criticised by Zhenzhi Guo and Zhizhong Zhang (2011: 150) for simply being commercial channels that broadcast less entertaining programmes than ordinary commercial television. When Chongqing TV Station (Chongqing dianshi tai, CQTV) decided to transform its flagship satellite channel, Chongqing Satellite TV (Chongqing weishi, CSTV) to offer PSB in March 2011 under the leadership of Bo Xilai,2 a new term was invented, public interest television channel (gongyi dianshi or gongyi pindao), in order to differentiate it from the existing model of Chinese public television (L.W. Xiao 2011). With the coexistence of such confusing rhetoric and practices, public service television in China is indeed ‘a scene full of contradictions, tensions, and ambiguities’ (Zhao 1998: 2). CSTV prized itself for being a mainstream television channel with the public interest at heart and not showing any commercials. The sudden downfall of Bo Xilai caused serious damage to its public interest credentials as the channel resumed television advertisements immediately after Bo was removed from his post in Chongqing in March 2012 (21CN 2012). However we must ask: When CSTV was completely dependent on subsidies from the Chongqing government and emphasised ‘red culture’ (hongse wenhua), i.e. revolutionary culture, in its programming between March 2011 and March 2012, was it justified to consider the channel and its output public service? What are the similarities and differences between public interest television and public television, or between public television channels that rely on commercials for funding and commercial TV stations in the PRC? What can the debate on public interest idealism ignited by CSTV tell us about the concept of PSB and the challenges of developing public service television in China? In this chapter, we use the term public service television to include both Chinese public television channels and public interest television. We intend to understand the Chinese accounts of PSB and why the discussions are framed in specific ways. As Mark Leonard (2008: 17) has discovered, intellectual discussions in China often become ‘part of the political process, and are used to put ideas in play and expand the options available to Chinese decision-makers’. A study on the development of public service television in the PRC reveals to a certain extent how China actually functions, that is, not necessarily as a single-minded and highly efficient unit but as a fragmented entity within which lie multiple, and often self-conflicting, interests and directions. Moreover, while an examination of China’s internal debate on public service television may reaffirm a universal value of PSB in modern public life, it also raises fundamental questions: Does PSB only exist in democracies? Can a non-democratic country such as the PRC create its own version of public service television and, if so, how will the Chinese audiences benefit from it? We will address these issues by offering a historical overview of the development of Chinese public service television. We will then investigate the major discourses about PSB on the mainland and offer our concluding remarks.

The emergence of public television in China When the first TV commercials appeared on Shanghai Television (STV) in early 1979, arguably the era of television commercialisation arrived in the PRC (Zhao 1998: 53). In addition to 299

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state subsidies, television stations have been increasingly encouraged to be self-reliant by seeking funding through advertising. The percentage of television advertising revenues quickly caught up with state funding in the following decades as China enjoyed tremendous economic growth. Statistics suggested that in 1992 the Chinese government invested RMB 2.38 billion yuan (c. US$378 million) in supporting the television industry while at the same time the overall income generated by television commercials amounted to RMB 2.25 billion yuan (c. US$357 million). This means that over 50 per cent of television financing came from the state and the rest from advertising. Two years later, television advertising revenues doubled to a total of RMB 5 billion yuan (c. US$793 million) in 1994 when state funding lagged behind. In 2011, state funding only accounted for 11.56 per cent of the television budget, mainly to be used on buildings, technologies and transmission stations and equipment instead of on content production, while the remaining 88 per cent plus of television capital derived from advertising revenues and other income (such as cable and digital TV subscriptions) (SARFT Research Centre 2012: 355). In other words, commercial competition has become a prominent principle by which Chinese television operates and thrives since the mid-1990s. It is worth noting that the Chinese system of governance is divided into four levels: ‘the central (zhongyang), provincial and autonomous regions (sheng), prefectural cities (shi) and county-level cities (xian)’ (Shoesmith and Wang 2002: 179). As the Chinese government announced its media policies in 1983 to develop the broadcasting and television systems on all four levels, the 31 provinces and autonomous regions, 335 prefectural cities and 2,614 countylevel cities all quickly established their own broadcasting and television stations. Consequently the total number of television channels in China exploded from 38 in the pre-economic reform era to well over 3,000 in 1998 (Chen and Guo 2011: 60). Many of the TV stations, in particular at the prefectural and county levels, have insufficient investment, talent and resources to produce programmes of professional quality. Hence repeats, cheap imports from outside mainland China and commercials as well as inferior productions have become the mainstay of local TV programming. Commercialism has also affected China Central Television (Zhongyang dianshi tai, CCTV), the most prestigious national television institution in the PRC. CCTV has a network of 22 channels and enjoys a total of 26.50 per cent of ratings in the Chinese TV market (Wang 2012: 97). While CCTV relies on government investment in maintaining its broadcasting infrastructure, advertising revenues and commercial activities cover its programme production and management costs. Some scholars are worried that profit-orientation may minimise the public service inclination of CCTV. While the station has devoted most of its resources to making mass entertainment programmes on CCTV-1 – a channel that attracts 93 per cent of CCTV’s advertising revenues – channels with lower commercial appeal, such as CCTV-4 (the Chinese-language international channel), CCTV-7 (military and agriculture), CCTV-9 (documentary), CCTV-10 (science and education), CCTV-11 (Chinese opera) and CCTV-12 (society and law), receive only marginal attention and are often used to schedule numerous repeats produced by the more popular CCTV channels (G.C. Feng 2005). Seen as a negative result of television liberalisation, the high degree of repeats, imports, shoddy local productions and homogenisation of entertainment TV programming began to alarm social elites and government officials. For example, drama serials imported from Taiwan and Hong Kong were so popular that they began to dominate TV schedules in China in 1997. Among the 31 provincial-level television stations which can be viewed nationally via satellite signals, 18 screened the same version of a Hong Kong martial arts drama series, The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (Tianlong babu), to fight the ratings war during the Chinese New Year period in 1999 (Wang et al. 2003: 215–16). In the midst of such an increasingly intensified market competition, the government of Fujian Province proposed to create a public television channel 300

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at the provincial level in 1998 in an attempt to regulate competition, integrate resources and to raise the quality of local TV programming. The plan is that the public TV channel will make a series of generic programmes with PSB values available to all the prefectural cities and countylevel cities within Fujian Province. The local TV stations can then combine locally produced news programmes and special features with the public service output offered to them by the provincial television station in order to enhance local characteristics of local channels for local audiences (Chen and Guo 2011: 58). SARFT was convinced that the proposal by the Fujian government would help solve the chaos of the Chinese television market and decided to make the establishment of public television channels at the provincial level a national policy in 1999 (SARFT 1999). In 2001 and 2002, SARFT made further announcements to consolidate provincial, prefectural and county-level television stations and resources, and thus formally ended the 1983 broadcasting policy to develop television systems on all four administration levels (Chen and Guo 2011: 59–60).3 The number of television stations in the PRC was therefore reduced from thousands to 247 in 2010 (Wang 2011: 3). It is a substantial reduction, but it is clear that Chinese television remains a very crowded marketplace, especially as each television station may have several channels within its capacity. The new rules stipulate that prefectural and county-level cities are, in principle, not permitted to create their own television stations any longer. Meanwhile it becomes an obligation for provincial television stations to establish a public television channel which will produce and broadcast public service-oriented programming for the audiences within their respective provinces. Moreover, public television channels must not only fulfil the propaganda needs of prefectural and county-level CCP organs and local governments, but must also allocate airtime for local broadcasting organisations to screen television programmes and advertisements with local characteristics. For example, local news, commercials for local businesses and special features related to the local economy, agriculture, science and technology, law and order, large events and regional cultures, and so on (SARFT 2003: 155). SARFT does not propose additional government funding or public subsidies for public television channels, but instead making them the full responsibility of individual provincial television stations. Advertising revenues are not prohibited. In fact, the wording of the regulations can be interpreted that advertising revenues are actively promoted as a method to finance public television channels since ‘airtime for advertisements with local characteristics’ are written in the policy (SARFT 2003: 155). Therefore, many provincial television stations cram commercials and entertainment programmes into their public television channels as do their ordinary commercial channels. The major difference between the two is that the public television channel must also carry programmes produced for and by local party and government officials, as well as local broadcasting organisations as specified by SARFT. From here, we may deduce that the establishment of public television channels in the PRC does not imply that market forces have lost momentum in the country. While SARFT seems to demonstrate a political will to curtail the problems associated with the deregulation of the television market since the 1980s, its television policies suggest that the Chinese government continues to embrace market economy. Consequently Chinese public television is created within a particular framework that forces the channels to serve two masters, the party and the market, at the same time; the system where public television channels originate and exist does not allow them the means to distance themselves from either political interference or commercial pressure. It is not surprising that many observers are disappointed by the performances of provincial public television channels. With limited resources and vision from the outset, but many political and market demands imposed on them, most provincial public television channels are not able to satisfy public service 301

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functions on the one hand nor to make sufficient profit on the other (Zhao 2011: 3–6; Guo and Zhang 2011: 150–5).

Chinese discourses on PSB Academic discussions about PSB emerged in China in the 1990s when the commercialisation of the television market began to intensify. The authors of this chapter have tried to establish a timeline of Chinese discourses on PSB in order to obtain a broad overview. We searched the terms, ‘public television’ (gonggong dianshi), ‘public broadcasting’ (gonggong guangbo) and ‘public broadcasting and television’ (gonggong guangbo dianshi) in a national database of Chinese publications (Zhongguo qikan wang), and discovered that the first available Chinese-language article on the subject was published in the PRC in 1994. Minguo Tang (1994: 45) translated a short paper of 500 words to introduce the ethos of PSB and summarised four key points: (1) enhancing citizenship, (2) offering quality children’s programmes, (3) popularising high culture and (4) equal treatment of all nations and regional cultures within the country. Three years later Zhenzhi Guo (1997: 82–90) published a longer piece on the American Public Broadcasting Service and outlined its historical development.4 It is fair to say that in the earlier stage of the studies, PSB was mainly treated as a foreign concept, and thus the idealism, achievements and challenges of PSB were usually framed as broadcasting systems abroad. There were normally fewer than ten publications on the subject of PSB each year between 1994 and 2004, especially if we take into account the actual focus of the analyses.5 However it is noteworthy that the number of the publications on public television increased suddenly from 1 each year between 1994 and 1997 to 6 in 1998 when Fujian Province proposed to establish a public television channel. The number of papers increased once again from 1 in 1999 to 4 in 2000 shortly after SARFT made the establishment of public television channels at the provincial level an official policy (see Table 18.1). Moreover, as SARFT announced further directives to gradually integrate provincial, prefectural and county-level television stations and resources in 2001 and 2002, all provincial-level (including autonomous regions and municipalities) television stations were then obliged to establish a public television channel within their capacity. Correspondingly we can see from Table 18.1, after provincial public television channels became a recognisable national reality, the number of publications on PSB finally jumped into double digits in 2005 and the popularity of the subject continues to grow. This indicates that the attention to and the understanding of PSB in China was, and perhaps will always be, inevitably influenced by what happens within the country. Hence there is an observable shift of the perspectives from the international to the domestic among the works on PSB published in the twenty-first century. While many scholars continue to take reference from overseas when commenting on domestic situations, the writings generally display a solution orientation – that is, how to remedy specific problems within the context of the Chinese public television system and how different features of PSB may be shaped to suit the Chinese conditions. We can identify two major strands, realists versus idealists, within the Chinese discourses on PSB. On the one hand, realists generally wish to contain PSB and believe that limited scope and aims will be key ingredients to efficient management of PSB in the PRC. For example, Keyu Wu (2004) argues that public service television can never be adequately equipped to compete in a free market and so he thinks that PSB in China should restrict its functions to only two elements: propaganda and education. For similar reasons, Xinlin Chen and Huimin Guo (2011: 58–62) are full of praise in their assessment of existing Chinese public television channels. In particular they are pleased with two activities performed by a number of provincial public TV channels: audience participation and direct involvement in local charities. Chen and 302

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Table 18.1 The number of PSB-related papers published in Chinese journals available on Zhongguo qikan wang (www.chinaqking.com), 1994–2011 Year

Searched by the term ‘public television’ (gonggong dianshi)

Searched by the term ‘public broadcasting’ (gonggong guangbo)

Searched by the term ‘public broadcasting and television’ (gonggong guangbo dianshi)

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

1 1 1 1 6 (or 5 as one of the papers is divided into two parts) 1 4 1 2 1

1 0 0 1 5 (or 4 as one of the papers is divided into two parts) 0 2 0 1 1

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

6 14 28 24 33 30 25 50

2 1 1 3 5 (or 4 as one of the papers is divided into two parts) 1 2 0 1 4 (or 3 as one of the papers is divided into two parts) 3 19 17 20 29 22 10 39

3 9 16 13 25 21 9 26

Guo point out that Beijing Television’s public channel devised a programme, Sunshine City, DV Life (Dushi yangguang, DV shenghuo), which encourages audiences to pick up their digital video (DV) and send in their personal documentaries. Over 100,000 people submit their DV to the station each year and, as a result, Sunshine City, DV Life has become a popular cultural brand in Beijing. Meanwhile Guangdong, Henan, Ningxia and Jilin public television channels have all created their own DV programmes that directly involve audiences. Other public television channels, such as Shandong and Hunan stations, often collaborate with local charitable organisations to produce programmes profiling charities and causes, as well as to broadcast pledge events. Chen and Guo contend that the manifestation of public interest through local charities and public participation via screening DV made by the audiences should be celebrated as a model of PSB with Chinese characteristics. At the other end of the spectrum, there are idealists who wish to expand PSB and to make public service television in China an encompassing and empowering institution. For example, Xinxin Deng (2006: 390–1) believes that PSB offers the Chinese government an institutional means to balance socialist idealism with economic reform. He proposes that the Chinese authority must embed the development of PSB within the Chinese broadcasting, administration and economic systems in order to enable public service television to fulfil social responsibilities while the country actively pursues economic growth. Zhenzhi Guo et al. (2009: 18–19 and 327) argue that PSB should aim to become a representative and mainstream platform for the Chinese society, 303

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to reflect public opinion, to be freely accessible by all communities within China in order to enhance democratic communications and to realise the idealism of a harmonious society, as well as to enrich modern cultural experiences by embracing advanced technologies while preserving traditional Chinese culture. The views expressed by these Chinese writers remind us of the succinct definition of PSB offered by Nicholas Garnham (1993: 26): The essence of public service broadcasting is the provision, to all citizens on equal terms and as an enabling condition of such citizenship, of a site for the cultural expression and exchange through which social identities are formed, and of access to the information and debate upon which democratic politics is founded. In order to fulfil this role, the site should be as free as possible from the distorting effects of the exercise of economic or state power. The challenge for Chinese supporters of PSB is finding innovative ways for public service television to work within the apparatus allowed by the state. Guangchao Feng (2005) suggests two solutions. First, he proposes that the existing provincial public television channels should be united to form a national network. An independent public service television foundation should be established, which will be responsible for managing the network of public television channels. The finance for the network will come from the PSB foundation, membership fees and requisition of premiums and advertisements from individual television programmes. Provincial public television channels are allowed to participate in commercial activities by collaborating with their respective provincial governments, and the administration costs for such activities will be the responsibility of local governments. The second model advanced by Feng is to reform CCTV. He proposes that CCTV should be divided into two independent corporations. The first corporation, led by CCTV-1, can be a state-owned enterprise which accepts advertisements and commercial sponsorships, while the second corporation, a combination of CCTV-4, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12, as well as a number of educational television stations of the Ministry of Education, can be a national-level public service television which is free from commercials. He suggests licence fees and a portion of state subsidies as a method of financing Chinese PSB. Guangchao Feng’s recommendations remain hypothetical as there is little sign that the Chinese authorities will consider relinquishing their ownership of CCTV or to restructure provincial public television channels into a centralised national network. However the questions of how to finance and manage Chinese PSB have inspired much contemplation among scholars as they find the existing arrangement of provincial public television channels leaves much room for improvement (Z.J. Xiao 2006: 58–62; Deng 2006; C.S. Feng 2011a: 14–24; 2011b: 53–64). It was within this context that CQTV became the centre of attention in March 2011 when it announced the abolition of commercials from its most popular channel and repositioned itself as public interest television (Lü 2011: 66–71). As CQTV’s experiment went against the trend of television commercialisation and offered a practice-based alternative model of Chinese public service television, the overnight transformation of the station stimulated heated debate about what public service means to the Chinese and what financial strategies and television programming may be deemed appropriate for running PSB in the PRC.

The rise and fall of public interest television in Chongqing Chongqing became a municipality in 1997 when the Chinese government decided to accelerate the development of the relatively poorer western regions of the country (Song 2007). Since 304

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then, Chongqing has been urbanising rapidly and today the municipality boasts a population of over 30 million. It is not only ‘the most important industrial and commercial city in southwestern China’, but also ‘had 93 Global Fortune 500 enterprises and its utilized foreign investment jumped 56 percent to [US]$1.09 billion in 2007’ (Lammie 2009). Due to its inland location, Chongqing’s export sector is smaller than that of the coastal cities in eastern China, such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. However its manufacturing-based economy and heavy industrial infrastructure under the leadership of Bo Xilai, who became the Chongqing Communist Party secretary in 2007, was admired by commentators as an economic model to be reconciled with (Wei 2009). Meanwhile, Chongqing was notorious for organised crime and widespread corruption. Bo Xilai initiated a high-profile crackdown in 2009 and the operation won him public praise and political capital for his ‘courage in taking on the gangs, whose members colluded with police and government officials’ (Shi 2009). Bo’s record of maintaining Chongqing’s doubledigit economic growth, tackling organised crime and increasing spending on welfare programmes made him a champion of Chinese New Left, ‘a loose grouping of intellectuals that is increasingly capturing the public mood, and setting the tone for political debate. They are “new” because unlike the “old left” they support market reforms. They are Left, because unlike the “New Right” they worry about inequality’ (Leonard 2008: 33). In 2011, Bo began campaigning for a place on the Politburo Standing Committee in the 2012 leadership change and at that time it looked highly promising that he would succeed (The Economist 2011). Chongqing TV Station owns 3 digital and 12 television channels, among which Chongqing Satellite TV (CSTV) is the most prominent and profitable as its programmes can be received nationwide. In 2009, CSTV was awarded the top ten most valuable TV in China (CSTV 2009). With the support of Bo Xilai, CSTV launched a transformation process in 2010 and on 1 March 2011 formally announced that CSTV would become a mainstream, public interest television channel by fulfilling three goals: (1) the channel would abolish all commercials; (2) CSTV would reduce the number of soap operas, drama series and externally purchased programming shown during the prime time; and (3) it would increase the schedules of news programmes, internally produced special features and cultural programmes, as well as public interest advertisements. Prior to the announcement, CSTV broadcast 300 minutes of commercials each day and generated advertising revenues of RMB 300 million yuan (c. US$48.2 million) in 2010. The pledge to become public interest television in 2011 meant that CSTV would give up commercial profit and begin relying on government funding instead. The Chongqing municipal government agreed to offer RMB 150 million yuan (c. US$24.1 million) annually to fund CSTV’s operation while the other commercial channels owned by Chongqing TV Station would each give a proportion of their commercial revenues to subsidise CSTV (He 2011). The debate over the transformation of CSTV among scholars and within the media industry in China focused mainly on two issues. First, its new funding structure caused major concern. As Guo and Zhang (2011: 152) pointed out, while CSTV endeavoured to be a non-commercial channel, it was unable to be non-governmental. In fact, the transformation of CSTV was so apparently a Chongqing government-led initiative that CSTV would not be able to survive without government sponsorship as the channel lost its financial independence. Wang and Hu (2011) were even more critical of the de-commercialisation strategy of CSTV. They accused CSTV of ‘going backwards and being anti-media development. If all the TV stations in China reverting to its pre-economic reform state as did CSTV, China might as well abandon reforms and open-door policies completely’. According to their news report, one month after the transformation 20 per cent of the staff members who worked in the advertising department of Chongqing TV Station lost their jobs while other members of staff across the entire station faced a pay cut between 15 to 30 per cent (Wang and Hu 2011). 305

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Second, CSTV’s new direction of programming also provoked much discussion. Prior to the transformation, CSTV used to broadcast 450 minutes of TV dramas, 162 minutes of news programmes and 8 minutes of public interest advertisement each day. These figures were changed to 180 minutes (drama), 240 minutes (news) and 60 minutes (public interest advertisement) respectively after March 2011. Moreover, there were an extra 165 minutes daily devoted to special features and cultural programmes produced in-house since CSTV branded itself public interest television (Zhao 2011: 5). Several programmes received special attention from the management of CSTV. For example, Red Songs Concert Every Day (Tiantian hongge hui) adapts the format of a singing competition and encourages the public to sing revolutionary songs; Reading (Pin du) analyses Chinese classic literature; Good People of Chongqing (Chongqing haoren) introduces the daily lives of ordinary folks in the municipality; and Hundreds of Storyboards (Baijia gushi tai) recounts the stories of historic figures, mostly heroes of revolutionary histories. According to He Shizhong, a high-ranking official in the Chongqing Communist Party until June 2012 (DW News 2012), the above programmes were designed not only to be watched, but also to involve participation by the general public in Chongqing. In this way, he believed that CSTV would live up to its aspiration of being a public interest television channel enjoyed by the masses (He 2011). Nevertheless the statistics appeared pessimistic. According to a report by Wang and Hu (2011), the ratings of CSTV dropped dramatically within a month of its transformation and came in the bottom ten of all nationally receivable provincial-level satellite channels because the viewers, especially younger audiences, did not appreciate CSTV’s new programming. Upon closer examination, although CSTV’s new financial arrangements were considered problematic by many researchers, their concerns did not necessarily lie in the source of funding itself, but rather in the lack of mechanisms to safeguard the sustainability and independence of CSTV as public service television. For instance, C.S. Feng (2011a: 16–19) took reference from PSB around the world and conceded that all financial methods have their advantages and disadvantages. While licence fees may allow the public a greater sense of ownership and involvement with broadcasting (and vice versa), the cost of collection and the issues of fairness can undermine its justification. Moreover, licence fees alone cannot guarantee the financial independence of PSB as the size of licence fees has to be approved by the government. Thus many countries ‘abolish the licence fee and simply give the broadcast organization an annual governmental appropriation’ (Browne 1989: 19). Some countries combine a variety of sources of funding to offer PSB. For example, PSB in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA is supported by a combination of government funding and advertising revenues (including corporate sponsorship); Germany, Austria and South Korea adopt a combination of licence fees and advertising revenues (including commercial sponsorship) to finance their PSB; and the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian PSB systems favour a combination of annual governmental appropriation, licence fees and commercial revenues (C.S. Feng 2011a: 16). Yuezhi Zhao (2011: 2–5) affirmed CSTV’s approach of de-commercialisation and deemed it progressive, not regressive as viewed by Wang and Hu (2011), in attempting to solve the problems created by the intensified commercial competition in the Chinese television market. These problems, as discussed earlier in this chapter, include the increasing homogenisation of programming and scheduling, numerous repeats and cheap imports. Moreover, television stations often air commercials with exaggerated or false claims and even tread in the grey area of regulation to please corporate bosses. Consequently the needs of the vulnerable, disadvantaged and minority communities in Chinese society are neglected when the rapid commercialisation of the industry encourages television managers and producers to cater almost exclusively for audiences with substantial economic power (Guo and Zhang 2011: 151). As Sut Jhally (2000: 27–39) pointed out, capitalist consumerism has developed television as a delivery system for 306

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marketers and turned the prime function of commercial television into producing audiences for sales to advertisers. Zhao (2011: 4) believed that it is important for the Chinese media to try and find a new way to minimise the threat from advertising and the commercial culture in the twenty-first century. However Zhao questioned CSTV’s definition of ‘public’. While she recognised that there has been a resurgence of ‘red culture’ in China since the early 1990s, she thought it overly simplistic and superficial to confine public participation to singing revolutionary songs in television programmes (Zhao 2011: 7–8). She concurred with Ding (2008) and Guo and Zhang (2011: 153) that PSB must help the public engage in politics, monitor the party and government policies and benefit from national wealth by offering the audiences free and high quality programming. Zhao also pointed out further contradictions in CSTV’s claim and practice to be ‘public interest’ television. As she observed in the late 1990s when researching the reform of the Chinese media: In China, while traditional Party ideologues continue to denounce the negative impacts of commercialization and may even attempt to curb its wave, some newly commercialized media outlets are considered by reformers as the most promising in the media system. . . . Although some have argued that the Party principle and the market are not incompatible, arguments for further commercialization contain a potential challenge to Party logic. (Zhao 1998: 181) Zhao (2011: 8–12) argued that CSTV’s de-commercialisation signalled the Chongqing government’s desire to re-establish control over television to re-inform and re-educate the audiences of the CCP’s socialist values. CSTV’s emphasis on red programming revealed the Chongqing Communist Party’s ambition to vie for cultural leadership at the national level against the forces calling for further liberalisation and commercialisation. Thus in CSTV’s transformation from commercial to non-commercial television, its framework was elite-driven and reflected the CCP’s traditional claim that ‘the media are the voice of the Party and of the people’ (Zhao 1998: 152). Yet CSTV adopted the discourses of PSB to justify its transformation without venturing new ideas on how the CCP may balance economic growth with social responsibilities to satisfy the needs of the ‘public’ on a conceptual and structural level. This inevitably hindered the credibility of CSTV’s branding as ‘public interest television’ (Zhao 2011: 7). Indeed CSTV’s credibility as public interest television suffered a fundamental blow when commercials reappeared as soon as Bo Xilai was removed from his position in March 2011 on a series of corruption charges and major disciplinary violations (21CN 2012). Many special features and red cultural programmes were withdrawn and a market-oriented style of programming was swiftly reintroduced on 2 April 2012 (Wang and Gao 2012). These developments indicated that CSTV’s PSB claim was built on extremely shaky ground as it was closely intertwined with one individual’s political interest.

Conclusion From the discussion throughout this chapter, one may be tempted to conclude that perhaps PSB can only exist in democracies. Nevertheless we wish to warn against such essentialist interpretation. As Raymond Williams (1976: 130) has stated: ‘In one way the basic choice is between control and freedom, but in actual terms it is more often a choice between a measure of control and a measure of freedom, and the substantial argument is about how these can be combined.’ 307

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It is unfortunate that the failure of CSTV’s experiment was tied to Bo Xilai’s sudden downfall. However the vibrant debate over PSB in China triggered by the establishment of public television channels at the provincial level in 1999, and the experiences of CSTV between March 2011 and March 2012 have demonstrated the desire for PSB among different sections of Chinese society. In their quest for PSB that may suit Chinese realities, Guo and Zhang (2011: 154–5) summarise relevant literature and list eight elements for the Chinese leadership to consider for further improvement of Chinese public service television: (1) Geographic universality – all citizens in China should be entitled to receive PSB; (2) Universality of appeal – the programming of Chinese PSB should satisfy all interests and tastes within the country; (3) Particular attention must be paid to the vulnerable, disadvantaged and minority groups of the society; (4) PSB should reflect national cultures and the characteristics of different social communities; (5) PSB should be independent from political and commercial interests; (6) Universality and sustainability of direct payment to PSB; (7) The quality of PSB programming should be evaluated by its merit and not ratings; and (8) PSB should encourage, not restrict, innovation and creativity. The similarity between these characteristics and the eight principles of PSB identified by the British Research Unit in 1985 (McDonnell 1991: 94–5)6 reminds us of Donald Browne’s observation when he compared broadcasting systems in different industrialised countries: While social-responsibility governments have some general notion of the roles that broadcasting can and should play in serving society, specific elements of that role generally go undefined. Communist governments, however, have a more specific notion of that role and of the ways in which broadcasting can and should fulfil it. To some degree, then, the communist and social-responsibility philosophies have common roots. (Browne 1989: 14) Such common ground suggests that idealism about and for PSB may potentially benefit citizens in both democratic and non-democratic countries. Nevertheless as the operations of the existing public television channels and in particular the failed experiment of CSTV have demonstrated, distancing PSB from all vested interests, especially from those in power, remains a particularly difficult challenge for Chinese PSB today despite – or some may argue it is precisely because of – the commercialisation and liberalisation of the media since the 1980s.

Notes 1

2

When C4 was first launched in 1982, its finance was provided by Independent Television (ITV), and in return ITV was allowed to sell advertising time on C4. In this way, C4 was able to acquire financial security ‘without either public subsidy or the need to bow to the ratings’ (Seymour-Ure 1991: 105). As a result C4 has become a celebrated British institution producing many innovative television programmes and ideas, and has catered for marginalised interests of society. However due to the changes of government policy, C4 became financially independent in 1999 and must now engage in direct commercial competition. Since then, although C4 has continued to enjoy a satisfactory market share, the direction of its programming has altered (C.S. Feng, 2011a: 17–18). For example, C4 achieved 7.5 per cent of ratings in the UK in 2009, but it offered only 143 hours of documentary, which was 38.2 per cent of its 1992 documentary output. The extra airtime was replaced by entertainment programmes, especially game shows, sports and light entertainment (Channel 4 1992: 18 and 2009: 138). Critics often question whether or not market pressure has made C4 too dependent on a tired roster of celebrities and has lost its public service spirit for being an alternative and diversified broadcaster (Jeffries 2012: 6–9). Bo Xilai is a former Chinese politician. He was a member of the Politburo and secretary of the CCP’s Chongqing branch between 2007 and 2012. Bo was disgraced by a series of corruption charges and major disciplinary violations and was expelled from the CCP on 26 October 2012 (BBC News China

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3

4

5

6

2012). He was jailed for life in September 2013. The Chinese court rejected Bo’s appeal and upheld his life sentence in October 2013 (Reuters 2013). The authors wish to thank the reviewer of the chapter; to clarify the situation: SARFT tried to reiterate the original policy regulated in document No.[1983]37 in 2001 and 2002. Many local television stations did not follow the original guidelines. Once SARFT became tougher to re-implement the rules, the policy became more effective. The authors must point out one flaw of our research methodology: by searching the database through selected terms (‘public television’, ‘public broadcasting’ and ‘public broadcasting and television’), publications which do not use our predetermined keywords may be missed. For example, we later discovered that Zhenzhi Guo published a paper in 1994 on Canadian Public Service Broadcasting (Guo 1994). Yet this paper was not shown in our database because it does not use any of our selected keywords in the title. Therefore our samples are not comprehensive, but nonetheless they offer a snapshot of the development of Chinese discourses on PSB. Many of these papers focus on news analysis, technologies or the Television University (Dianshi daxue) of the Ministry of Education. For the purpose of this chapter, we do not include these articles in our discussion. The eight principles of PSB in Britain identified by the Broadcasting Research Unit in 1985 were: ‘(1) Universality: geographic – broadcast programmes should be available to the whole populations; (2) Universality of appeal – broadcast programmes should cater for all interests and tastes; (3) Minorities, especially disadvantaged minorities, should receive particular provisions; (4) Broadcasters should recognise their special relationship to the sense of national identity and community; (5) Broadcasting should be distanced from all vested interests, and in particular from those of the government of the day; (6) Universality of payment – one main instrument of broadcasting should be directly funded by the corpus of users; (7) Broadcasting should be structured so as to encouraged competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers; (8) The public guidelines for broadcasting should be designed to liberate rather than restrict the programme makers’ (McDonnell, 1991: 94–5).

References 21CN (2012) ‘Bo Xilai was fired. CQTV began showing commercials’ (Bo Xilai bei mianzhi, Chongqing weishi chuxian shangye guanggao), 21CN.com, 16 March. Available on line http://finance.21cn.com/ news/cjyw/2012/03/16/11172030_2.shtml (accessed 28 November 2012, in Chinese). BBC News China (2012) ‘Bo Xilai: China parliament expels disgraced politician’, BBC News China, 26 October. Available online www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20091588 (accessed 26 November 2012). Browne, D.R. (1989) Comparing Broadcast Systems: The Experiences of Six Industrialized Nations, Ames: Iowa State University Press. Channel 4 (1992) Report and Financial Statement, London: C4. –––– (2009) Report and Financial Statement, London: C4. Chen, X.L. and Guo, H.M. (2011) ‘An analysis of the relationship between public channel and public television’ (Gonggong pindao ji qi yu gonggong dianshi de guanxi tanxi), China Television: 58–62 (in Chinese). CSTV (2009) ‘CSTV was awarded the most valuable TV brand in China’ (Chongqing weishi bei pingwei quanguo zuiju pinpai jiazhi de dianshi meiti), NetEase, 3 December. Available online http://v.163.com/ 09/1203/16/5PKEU1GH00853MVP.html (accessed 24 January 2013, in Chinese). Deng, X.X. (2006) Motivation and Frustration: A Study on the Reform of Chinese Broadcasting System (Dongli yu kunjung: Zhongguo guangbo tizhi gaige yanjiu), Beijing: Zhongguo jingji chubanshe (in Chinese). Ding, X.L. (2008) ‘What is “public”?’ (Hua shuo renmin), The Economic Observer, 12 July. Available online www.eeo.com.cn/eeo/jjgcb/2008/07/14/106624.shtml (accessed 22 January 2013, in Chinese). Donald, S.H. and Keane, M. (2002) ‘Media in China: new convergences, new approaches’, in S.H. Donald, M. Keane and H. Yin (eds), Media in China: Consumption, Content and Crisis, London: Routledge Curzon, 3–17. DW News (2012) ‘Chongqing propaganda chief He Shizhong is removed’ (Chongqing xuanchuan buzhang yi ren, chang hong zhujiang He Shizhong huo tuishou zheng xie), DW News, 29 June. Available online http://china.dwnews.com/news/2012-06–29/58772598.html (accessed 21 January 2013, in Chinese). The Economist (2011) ‘China’s new leaders: the princelings are coming’, The Economist, 23 June. Available online www.economist.com/node/18832046 (accessed 20 January 2013). 309

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Feng, C.S. (2011a) ‘Finance, people and accountability of PSB: multiple models and the transformation of the Chinese media, part I’ (Gonggong guangbo dianshi de qian, ren yu wenze: duochong moshi, jianlun Zhongguo chuanmei gaige, shang), Journalism Quarterly 109: 14–24 (in Chinese). –––– (2011b) ‘Finance, people and accountability of PSB: multiple models and the transformation of the Chinese media, part II’ (Gonggong guangbo dianshi de qian, ren yu wenze: duochong moshi, jianlun Zhongguo chuanmei gaige, xia), Journalism Quarterly 110: 53–64 (in Chinese). Feng, G.C. (2005) ‘An appeal for PSB in the commercialized Chinese TV industry’ (Chanyehua hou huhuan Zhongguo dianshi de gonggong hua), Media Digest, April. Available online www.rthk.org.hk/ mediadigest/200504.html (accessed 26 November 2012, in Chinese). Garnham, N. (1993) ‘The future of the BBC’, Sight and Sound 3(2): 26–8. Guo, Z.Z. (1994) ‘An overview of Canadian broadcasting system’ (Jianada guangbo zhidu zonglan), Journalism and Communication 2: 79 & 88–93 (in Chinese). –––– (1997) ‘The origin of Public Broadcasting Service in the US’ (Meiguo gonggong guangbo dianshi de qiyuan), Journalism and Communication 4: 82–90 (in Chinese). Guo, Z.Z. and Zhang, Z.Z (2011) ‘Examining the reform of Chongqing TV from the perspectives of “public” and “people”’ (“Gonggong” yu “renmin” shuangchong shijiao xia de Chongqing weishi gaige), in Fudan University (ed.), The Proceedings of International Conference on Communications and Social Change from the Perspectives of Contemporary Marxism (Dangdai makesi zhuyi shiye xia de chuanbo yu shehui bianqian guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji), Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 150–5 (in Chinese). Guo, Z.Z.; Deng, L.Q. and Zhang, Z.X. et al. (2009) First Media: Chinese Television in the Context of Globalization (Diyi meijie: Quanqiuhua beijingxia de zhongguo dianshi), Beijing: Qinghua University Press (in Chinese). He, S.Z. (2011) ‘Making CQTV the most popular public interest TV channel’ (Ba Chongqing waishi dazao wei guangda shouzhong xiai de gongyi pindao), Chongqing Daily, 3 March (in Chinese). Jeffries, S. (2012) ‘Making mischief’, The Guardian, 22 November (g2): 6–9. Jhally, S. (2000) ‘Advertising at the edge of the apocalypse’, in R. Andersen and L. Strate (eds), Critical Studies in Media Commercialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 27–39. Keane, J. (1992) ‘Democracy and the media – without foundations’, Political Studies 40(s1, August): 116–29. Lammie, D. (2009) ‘Critical eye on Chongqing: pillar of the west’, Chinese Business Review: The Magazine of the US–China Business Council, January–February. Available online https://www.chinabusinessreview. com/public/0901/criticaleye.html (accessed 20 January 2013). Leonard, M. (2008) What Does China Think? London: Fourth Estate. Lü, X.Y. (2011) ‘Government subsidy, market socialism and the public-ness of Chinese television: commenting on the reform of CQTV’ (Zhengfu butie, shichang shehui zhuyi yu Zhongguo dianshi de gonggongxing: Chongqing weishi gaige dangyi), Open Times 9: 66–71 (in Chinese). McDonnell, J. (1991) Public Service Broadcasting: A Reader, London: Routledge. Reuters (2013) ‘China court upholds life sentence for Bo Xilai’, Reuters, 25 October. Available online www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/25/us-china-politics-bo-idUSBRE99O02R20131025 (accessed 1 November 2013). SARFT (1999) ‘Notification regarding views to strengthen the management of broadcasting television cable network’ (Guanyu jiaqiang guangbo dianshi youxian wanlu jianshe guanli yijian de tongzhi), China Culture.org, 19 September. Available online www.chinaculture.org/gb/cn_zgwh/2004–6/28/ content_53590.htm (accessed 23 November 2012, in Chinese). –––– (2003) Broadcasting and Television Yearbook of the PRC (Zhongguo guangbo dianshi nianjian), Beijing: SARFT (in Chinese). SARFT Research Centre (2012) The 2012 Report on the Development of Broadcasting, Films and Television in China (2012 nian Zhongguo guangbo dianying dianshi fazhan baogao), Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe (in Chinese). Scannell, P. (1990) ‘Public service broadcasting: the history of a concept’, in A. Goodwin and G. Whannel (eds), Understanding Television, London: Routledge, 11–29. Seymour-Ure, C. (1991) The British Press and Broadcasting since 1945, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Shi, C.S. and Zhang, J.H. (2007) Public Television (Gonggong dianshi), Wuhan: Wuhan University Press (in Chinese). Shi, J. (2009) ‘Is it next stop Beijing for Bo aboard the Chongqing express?’, South China Morning Post, 3 September. Available online www.scmp.com/article/691331/it-next-stop-beijing-bo-aboardchongqing-express (accessed 20 January 2013). 310

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Shoesmith, B. and Wang, H. (2002) ‘Networks and industrial community television in China: Precursors to a revolution’, in S.H. Donald, M. Keane and H. Yin (eds), Media in China: Consumption, Concept and Crisis, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 179–91. Song, S. (2007) ‘Chinese vice premier urges Chongqing to become economic engine for western regions’, Embassy of the PRC in Australia website, 19 June. Available online http://au.china-embassy.org/eng/ xw/t331343.htm (accessed 20 January 2013). Tang, M.G. (1994) ‘The missions of public broadcasting and television’ (Gonggong guangbo dianshi de shiming), TV Research (August): 45 (in Chinese). Wang, G.L. (ed.) (2011) Television Ratings Yearbook of the PRC (Zhongguo dianshi shoushi nianjian), Beijing: Communication University of China (in Chinese). Wang, L. (2012) The 2012 Yearbook of Chinese TV Ratings (Zhongguo dianshi shoushilü nianjian 2012), Beijing: Chinese Communication University Press (in Chinese). Wang, W., Hua, J.Y. and Wu, D. et al. (2003) A Report on TV Drama Market in China, 2003–2004 (Zhongguo dianshiju shichang baogao 2003–2004), Shanghai: Shanghaishi wenguang jituan (in Chinese). Wang, X.Z. and Gao, Y.M. (2012) ‘CSTV will return to commercial television on 2 April’ (Meiti cheng Chongqing weishi si yue er ri jiang gaiban huifu shangye guanggao bochu), Ifeng, 24 March. Available online http://news.ifeng.com/mainland/detail_2012_03/24/13420766_0.shtml (accessed 23 January 2013, in Chinese). Wang, X.Z. and Hu, Y. (2011) ‘Winter comes as CQTV transforms, the industry observes coldly’ (Chongqing weishi gaiban houxu, yuangong zhunbei guodong, yejie lengyan pangguan), Hua Xia Times, 23 April. Available online http://ent.sina.com.cn/v/m/2011-04-23/12453289905.shtml (accessed 21 January 2013, in Chinese). Wei, L.B. (2009) ‘Decoding Chongqing model’ (Jiedu Chongqing moshi), Southern Weekend, 29 April. Available online www.infzm.com/content/27735 (accessed 20 January 2013, in Chinese). Williams, R. (1976) Communications, 3rd edn, London: Penguin. Wu, K.Y. (2004) The Economics of Television (Dianshi meijie jingjixue), Beijing: Huaxia (in Chinese). Xiao, L.W. (2011) ‘CQTV announced not to broadcast commercials but to show public interest documentaries instead’ (Chongqing weishi xuanbu buzai bochu shangye guanggao, gaibo gongyi xuanchuan pian), North-Eastern University News (Dongda xinwen wang), 5 March. Available online http:// neunews.neu.edu.cn/campus/news/2011–03/05–1454355435.html (accessed 24 November 2012, in Chinese). Xiao, Z.J. (2006) ‘The content of media industry, the nature of media product and related policies’ (Chuanmei ye neirong chanpin de chanpin shuxing ji qi zhengce hanyi), Journal of International Communication 5: 58–62 (in Chinese). Zhao, Y.Z. (1998) Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. –––– (2011) ‘The construction of public nature and cultural autonomy of socialist media? Reflecting the reforms of CQTV’ (Goujian shehui zhuyi meiti de gonggongxing he wenhua zizhuxing? Chongqing weishi gaige yinfa de sikao), Journal Quarterly 109: 1–13 (in Chinese).

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Part IV

Market, production and the media industries

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19 The changing role of copyright in China’s emergent media economy Lucy Montgomery and Xiang Ren

Introduction Copyright, which ‘protects the rights of creators of literary and artistic works, and of those who purchase or otherwise obtain those rights’ is deeply rooted in the legal, philosophical and economic traditions of western Europe and the United States (Becker and Vlad 2002: 3). There is growing recognition among Chinese policy makers and creative practitioners that copyright has the potential to encourage growth in creative and cultural industries and to facilitate market-based reform of the media sector. In spite of this, the integration of copyright into Chinese legal, economic and social norms has often been problematic. Although China’s formal copyright law is now similar to copyright laws in any western jurisdiction, attitudes towards creativity and the regulation of copying continue to be influenced by the nation’s own unique history, as well as the transitional nature of its media and legal systems. This chapter introduces the changing role of copyright in China from a historical perspective. It begins by briefly tracing the history of copyright, from a censorship-related system associated with the emergence of the printing press in imperial China, through modernisation during the Republican period, abolition under communism and finally to the introduction of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) first copyright law in 1990 and the nation’s entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001. As this chapter discusses, copyright failed to take root in imperial China, in spite of the existence of a vibrant commercial printing industry and awareness among creative entrepreneurs of the value of being able to control copying. Copyright fell on equally hard ground in the first decades of the PRC and was simply not compatible with communist ideology that opposed all forms of private property. As a result, China remained isolated from many of the developments that gave rise to the emergence of ‘copyright industries’ in other markets during the twentieth century. Regardless of this slow start, opening and reform have been associated with strident efforts to both recognise and protect intellectual property rights. The PRC now has a comprehensive copyright law and a vast bureaucracy dedicated to its administration and enforcement. As reform processes gather pace and a new generation of media industry entrepreneurs emerges, copyright is taking on an increasingly prominent role in the growth of vibrant, commercially focused Chinese creative and cultural industries. 315

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Nonetheless, infringement remains rampant and it is taking time for the soft infrastructure needed to support a copyright-based economy to develop. Rather than evolving alongside analogue technologies for copying and distribution, China’s copyright industries are, in many ways, being born digital. There are signs that some media firms are finding it more profitable to simply develop new business models than to attempt to apply models that depend on strict enforcement, particularly in a digital environment. Tensions between black-letter law and copyright practices in China provide important insight into the complex ways in which copyright connects to wider commercial, economic, legal and technological landscapes in all markets.

Confucianism and copyright William Alford’s treatise on the history of copyright in China, To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense (1995), makes an argument for the determining role of Chinese culture in shaping modern attitudes towards copyright and its enforcement. As Alford observes, during the imperial period Chinese governments exercised a high degree of control over cultural norms and the circulation of ideas through the promotion of Confucian ideals of thought, behaviour and artistic achievement. Confucian philosophy emphasises the importance of the past and the value of established hierarchies in all aspects of life. The imperial examination (keju) system, established during the Sui Dynasty in 605 and expanded during the Song Dynasty (960–1279) examined candidates on their knowledge of a centrally selected canon of Confucian texts in order to select officials for the state’s bureaucracy. Copying from an approved artistic and intellectual canon played a key role in the exercise of power over Chinese subjects, allowing the government to ensure that Confucian texts were internalised by scholars throughout the nation. It also ensured that the moral codes, attitudes and values that these texts contained were applied at every level of the political and education system (Alford 1995: 19–20; Dimitrov 2009). Within the Confucian framework morality was defined by tradition (Oldstone-Moore 2003) and individuals were encouraged to think of themselves as transmitters rather than creators of knowledge (Confucius 1998: VII-20). People depended on a combination of knowledge of the past and guidance from leaders, teachers and superiors to instruct them on appropriate ways to conduct themselves in all aspects of their lives (Oldstone-Moore 2003). Just as concepts of ‘natural law’ formed the basis of legal principles within Judeo-Christian societies, Chinese law relied heavily on reference to the past to guide judgements about legitimacy, morality and righteousness. In contrast to western concepts of copyright informed by ideals of individual creativity and genius associated with the Enlightenment during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe, creative works were considered part of a common heritage, rather than as the property of the individual creator (Kawohl 2010: 207–40). Confucianism’s disdain for commerce and commercially motivated creative activity were also incompatible with economic theories of copyright that understood the protection of private rights as a legitimate means of creating incentives for artistic or creative endeavour.

Commercially driven creative cultures in imperial China Alford’s (1995) work provides important insight into interactions between Confucianism and attempts by international governments to impose a wholly foreign intellectual property system on an unwilling nation. However, his focus on imperial China’s official cultural system neglects important areas of commercially motivated creative and publishing activity that existed alongside the state-sponsored cultural system. Many intellectuals serving within the official system, as well as those who had failed to secure an office for themselves through the imperial examinations, 316

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were engaged in a popular creative economy that largely ignored Confucian models of artistic propriety. Less than 5 per cent of imperial examination candidates succeeded in securing a government office through the Keju system. Trained scholars sought financially rewarding opportunities to apply their education and creative skill and a significant body of writers, playwrights, choreographers, composers and painters earned both social esteem and economic reward through flourishing popular outlets throughout the imperial period. There is evidence that a vibrant commercial publishing industry, enabled by developments in print technology, appeared as early as the Song Dynasty (Zhang 1989). As developments in print technology continued to make the mass reproduction of texts easy and relatively inexpensive, a prosperous, commercially driven writing and publishing sector also emerged (McDermott 2006). In contrast to the official Confucian system described by Alford, in which successive imperial governments encouraged the separation of concepts of artistic achievement from commerce through practices of patronage, commercial publishers and literary agents presided over a much grittier world of popular creative production and consumption. Although some of the artists and authors who gained notoriety during this period were born to wealthy families,1 a significant proportion depended on popular culture for their livelihoods (Mun 2008). In China, as elsewhere in the world at around the same time, the protection of rights in individual creative works became a key element of a popular creative economy. There is evidence that publishers and authors were conscious of ‘copyright’ and its value during the Song Dynasty2 and accounts of book piracy in China can also be dated from this period (Wu 1998: 241–7). Complaints of infringement were made by authors and publishers to the imperial authorities and imperial governments issued a number of orders intended to regulate the publishing and printing industries and to address concerns over widespread piracy (Zhu 2000: 77–87). For example, the official book publication licence issued by imperial authorities during the Song Dynasty clearly stated that unauthorised printing would be severely punished (Ren 2011: 150–7). During this period channels for copyright enforcement were predominantly administrative rather than judicial. Government officials enjoyed a high degree of discretion in determining whether infringement had taken place and the severity of punishment warranted. Although commercial activities relating to cultural creation, dissemination and consumption were not officially encouraged, they remained the subject of government control and censorship. A significant overlap between systems for censoring cultural products and those for protecting rights associated with investments in creative production and publishing existed (Ren 2011: 150–7). China’s commercially focused publishing and cultural markets enjoyed a certain degree of independence from the official cultural system and the Confucian norms that drove it. Just as commercial publishers played a key role in the establishment of copyright protection for creative works in the United Kingdom and western Europe during the eighteenth century, Chinese publishers, artists and entrepreneurs also made demands for protection of their works against unauthorised copying. However, as the next sections of this chapter discuss, it was foreign rather than local pressure for protection of the right to control copying that resulted in the introduction of formal copyright legislation in the early twentieth century. Furthermore, the conditions that might have made it possible for a culture of copyright protection and business models that depended on it to crystallise were absent. Dramatic changes in government, civil war, invasion and international isolation prevented copyright from taking hold during the twentieth century.

From the Qing Dynasty to the Mao era By the beginning of the twentieth century China’s imperial government was in decline. Reluctant attempts were being made to reform the nation’s legal system in response to both 317

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an urgent need for modernisation and the demands of western powers (Alford 1995: 42). The abolition of the imperial examination system and the adoption of internationally influenced approaches to education associated with the self-strengthening movement created demand for new textbooks, most of which were circulated in pirated form. In the face of rampant piracy the Qing government issued a number of orders forbidding the use of unauthorised copies of textbooks and took measures to enforce the copyright entitlements of foreign publishers. However, international trading partners eager to ensure that the copyright owners they represented enjoyed financial rewards arising from the popularity of their content demanded formal legislation. This resulted in the promulgation of a copyright law in 1910 (Li and Ng 2009: 767–88). The 1910 copyright law accorded with the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. It contained clear definitions of periods of protection, the rights accorded to copyright owners, infringement and prescribed penalties (Min 2011). However, the 1911 revolution and the end of the imperial system of government gave this law little opportunity to take effect. Legal reforms undertaken by the Nationalist (i.e. Kuomintang or KMT) government after 1928 were slightly more successful. The development of copyright and patent controls was central to the Kuomintang’s efforts to transform China’s legal system in accordance with the European civil law model as filtered through Japan, and systematic efforts were made to introduce laws that governed all aspects of copyright, patent and trademark protection. In spite of the promulgation of formal intellectual property law, this was a tumultuous period and the social and economic stability that might have allowed new norms to take hold was absent. China’s invasion by Japan in 1931 and the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists dramatically interrupted law reform processes. In 1949 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Chairman Mao, declared the founding of the PRC. Within Mao’s Communist state the government understood the primary purpose of art as to convey the ideological messages of the regime (Kraus 2004). A limited system of ‘author’s rights’ (gaofei) – royalty payments made to authors and artists – was introduced, following a Soviet model. However, even this was all but abolished during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976 (Qu 2002: 35–9). During the Cultural Revolution the only acceptable purpose of creative works became the veneration of the Communist revolution, the PRC and the perpetuation of values sanctioned by the party. As the party-state had a vested interest in ensuring that such works were seen by as many people as possible there was little place for a copyright system aimed at conferring economic advantage on commercially oriented publishing or cultural industries. Under Mao private property rights were not recognised and legal protections for commercial investors in cultural products was unthinkable. The widest possible dissemination of creative works also accorded with socialist principles that art should be created for the enjoyment of the masses, rather than individual profit. Just as Confucianism had viewed individual artists as mere transmitters of knowledge and single points in an ancient tradition, under Mao individuals were encouraged to act as ‘small screws’ in the larger machine of Communist China.3 Originality was neither desired nor encouraged, and the media was viewed as the most powerful means of inculcating the goals of the new society in the consciousness of the masses. The CCP’s views on the role of art and the media were compounded by the fact that while the rest of the world was experiencing an explosion in the industries and technologies of mass communication, China had deliberately cut itself off from trade and contact with the outside world. It was thus isolated from international pressure to conform to commercially driven copyright practices and legal norms of the west.

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Copyright after Mao Mao’s death in 1976 paved the way for the reinstatement of the formal legal system, marketbased reform and closer ties with the international community. In 1978 Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor, announced the Open Door policy. Deng recognised that China could not afford to remain aloof from a world that was leaving it behind in both economic and technological terms and believed that if China hoped to free itself from poverty it had no choice but to become part of the international economy. Cast in primarily economic terms, the Open Door policy led to inevitable clashes between the practices and attitudes that were considered acceptable within Chinese society and those demanded by its trading partners. These differences were particularly evident in relation to intellectual property rights (Li 2010: 203). Processes of intellectual property reform overseen by Deng Xiaoping’s government were closely linked to wider efforts to strengthen China’s trading relationships. The PRC’s Trademark Law was adopted in 1982, followed by the Patent Law in 1984. The National Copyright Administration and its regional branches, tasked with regulating copyright, were founded in 1985. The Copyright Law of the PRC was adopted by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee in 1990, and came into effect on 1 June 1991. In 1992, in the midst of aggressive lobbying from the USA, threats of trade sanctions and a danger that the USA might oppose China’s entry to the WTO, China and the USA signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Intellectual Property. In accordance with this agreement, China became a signatory to the Berne Convention in 1992 and the Geneva Convention in 1993, amending the 1990 copyright law in order to ensure compliance (Newberry 2002–3: 1439). China continued to refine its copyright law and develop institutions for copyright administration and enforcement in preparation for admission to the WTO and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement in 2001 (Newberry 2002–3: 1444). In 2010 the law was revised again as a result of the findings of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body in a case brought by the USA.4 Since 2001 China’s amended copyright law has been structurally similar to that of most other countries, with some slight variations. The law provides protection for written, oral, photographic, operatic, choreographic, cinematographic, graphic works and computer software.5 Copyright owners are accorded standard entitlements, including the right to publication, the right to claim authorship, control revisions or demand that integrity is maintained, reproduction, exhibition, broadcast, communication through an information network, adaptation and translation.6 Copyright owners are entitled to authorise another party to exercise these rights and to receive remuneration according to either an agreement or, in the case of compulsory licensing, as specified in the law. Publication and economic rights accorded by the copyright law are protected for the life of the author plus 50 years, unless the author is a corporation or another entity, in which case rights are protected for 50 years only. In contrast to some other jurisdictions, such as Australia and Canada, where ‘moral rights’ (also referred to as ‘personal rights’) are protected for a limited time only, and generally last only as long as the economic rights,7 China’s copyright law protects these rights for an indefinite period. In spite of its broad compliance with international norms of copyright protection, Chinese law frames copyright as a form of statutory right granted by the state, rather than as a form of ‘natural’ right. This approach is consistent with the socialist principles that underpin the Chinese legal system, and arguably echoes Confucian views of creativity as part of a common cultural heritage.8 In attempting to find a balance between the benefits of rewarding copyright owners for their intellectual and financial investment and the potential harm to society of restricting access to works, legislators have emphasised the protection of public interests and opposed the absolute privatisation of intellectual creations (Qu 2002: 102). 319

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Limitations on copyright are thus much more extensive in China than in many other jurisdictions. For example, copyright material may be used without permission from a copyright owner in the compilation of school textbooks, provided that remuneration is paid and the name of the author and the title of the work are mentioned. Limitations on a copyright owner’s rights also exist in relation to reprinting by newspapers or periodicals, or re-broadcasting articles on current issues, use by teachers or researchers, amateur live performances, translation into minority languages and the publication of Braille versions (Copyright Law of the PRC 1990). Civil, administrative and criminal routes to enforcement have all been created. Administrative complaints can be filed with local authorities to stop the distribution of infringing material. Local branches of the National Copyright Administration, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and customs authorities have powers to seize infringing goods and in some cases to impose fines. Equipment used for the production and distribution of offending material may also be seized in order to prevent further infringement (Tang 2011: 101–2). Remedies for infringement include monetary damages, injunctions, public apology and the destruction of offending products. Statutory damages up to RMB 500,000 yuan (approximately US$79,000) are provided for and criminal penalties of up to seven years imprisonment also exist. While copyright owners now enjoy a comprehensive range of legal entitlements and avenues for remedy in China, asserting these rights remains complex, bureaucratic and often confusing. The existence of a number of channels for copyright enforcement – civil, administrative and criminal – and the growth of extensive bureaucracies around each has resulted in what Dimitrov (2009: 20) calls ‘interbureaucratic competition’. Dimitrov (2009: 16–17) observes that, for copyright owners, this has resulted in a frustrating paradox: in spite of the fact that ‘no country in the world devotes as many resources to IPR enforcement as China’ it remains ‘one of the largest IPR pirates in the world’. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to explore the reasons for this paradox in detail. However, it seems likely that many of the current difficulties associated with enforcement are a product of the transitional nature of China’s economic, political and legal systems. As the next section discusses, there is evidence to suggest that as domestic stakeholders are becoming more aware of the value of copyright, market-based reform processes gather momentum and legal infrastructure continues to develop, the conditions necessary for the formation of a more orderly copyright-based economy are emerging.

The rise of domestic pressure for copyright protection There can be little doubt that aggressive lobbying by foreign trading partners, particularly the USA, has played an important role in the rapid development of China’s copyright system since 1990. However, as processes of media reform described elsewhere in this book have gathered pace and commercially focused cultural and creative industries have gained traction, local voices have joined the chorus of international groups calling for stronger copyright protection in China. Although trade relations remain an important factor, international pressure is no longer the only driver of copyright’s development. There are signs that China’s policy makers are becoming more conscious of the value of copyright in creating legal frameworks capable of supporting domestic creative and cultural industries and promoting the interests of local stakeholders. By the end of 2012 three drafts of the proposed third amendment of the Copyright Law of the PRC had been circulated by the National Copyright Administration in advance of eventual submission to the National People’s Congress (Bridge IP Law Commentary 2012). Proposals for stronger penalties against online infringement, an expanded role for collective rights management organisations and fair use have sparked heated debate among right owners, media 320

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firms, internet service providers and the public (Hong undated; Yang 2012a). Debates on proposed amendments to the law are being played out in the state-owned media and the blogosphere, very much resembling debates on copyright reform taking place elsewhere in the world (see, for example, Andersen 2012). The consultative approach adopted by the government and its willingness to allow debates about the law’s amendment to occur so publically suggest that copyright reform is now about much more than a desire to placate international trading partners. China’s policy makers appear to be turning towards the much more complex task of managing the interests, demands and conflicts of domestic stakeholders in a media economy that is being transformed by new technologies, commercial opportunities and growing awareness of the opportunities and costs associated with expanding copyright (Xue 2012). The transformation in attitudes towards and the role of copyright within China’s creative economy that has taken place since the creation of the PRC’s first copyright law in 1990 has been remarkable. As the next section of this chapter explains, the growth in awareness of copyright and rise of domestic pressure for a stronger copyright system is closely connected with wider processes of market-driven reform across China’s media system. As the role of the market within the media system has increased so has demand for legal frameworks capable of facilitating trades in creative and cultural products. However, in China as in other markets, new technologies are challenging creative and cultural industries to re-conceptualise the value of content and the relationships between copyright owners and audiences.

Media reform and the emergence of Chinese copyright industries Deng Xiaoping’s Open Door policy ushered in a period of profound transformation from a planned economic model to a market-based system. An important element of China’s economic reform process has been the marketisation, privatisation and deregulation of large parts of the media. As government subsidies for state-run media companies have gradually been withdrawn, advertising and subscription revenues have become vital to the ability of many media organisations to survive. A growing number of both private and international actors have also been granted space to operate, particularly in the distribution and co-production of content. Although the Chinese government continues to maintain tight control over media censorship and ownership, entrepreneurial collaboration between the state and private and foreign investors has become an important element of China’s contemporary media economy (Akhavan-Majid 2004: 553–65). The film industry has been engaged in a process of commercialisation and reform since the early 1990s. There are signs that policy changes are resulting in higher levels of private investment in film production needed to compensate for the withdrawal of funding from stateowned film studios (Hui 2006: 63; Montgomery 2010). Similarly, China’s music industry has made a remarkable transformation from a system dominated by state-funded cultural troupes dedicated to writing and performing a limited repertoire of propaganda songs during the 1980s (Kraus 2004: 9) to the vibrant, digitally driven, contemporary music scene that exists today (Montgomery 2010). Reform of the publishing industry has been slower. Official approval for many of the practices widely adopted by publishers over the last 30 years remains a legal grey area. Television has experienced two fundamental reforms: the separation of broadcasting and production in 1999, which allowed private companies to produce more entertaining programmes and then sell them to state-run TV stations; and the establishment of competition within a national market between central and local TV stations through cable and satellite TV networks. Firms operating in all of these areas have been faced with the challenge of developing business models capable of monetising popular products. In this context, copyright has taken on an 321

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important role as a device capable of turning creative works into products that can be traded in a commercial market. In a post-reform era, copyright attaches property rights to creative works, allowing them to be acted on in an entrepreneurial fashion: to be bought and sold, to generate income and to form part of a wider creative economy. As Chinese entrepreneurs and creative professionals are becoming more conscious of the value of their creative assets and the intellectual property rights that help to define them, their willingness to act proactively to protect these assets has increased. This is evident in the rise in formal copyright registration that has taken place since 1995. Although copyright registration is optional in China, it can make seeking enforcement simpler. In 2010, the National Copyright Administration of the People’s Republic of China (NCAC) held records for 359,871 formally registered creative works (China News Publishing Web 2011), compared with just 2,915 in 1995 when the service was first launched (China Publishing Journal 2003: 11–12). Producing economic growth in a market–capitalist system demands much higher levels of individual freedom in relation to production and consumption than existed under a planned economy. However, media reform in China has not led to a system that is wholly based on either the freedom of the market or rule of law. In reality, copyright enforcement remains weak, government-protected monopolies persist, and state intervention and censorship remain real factors for creative producers and consumers. China’s media economy remains transitional and important differences between the ways in which cultural and creative businesses operate in this market and the strategies of their counterparts in mature markets exist. State-protected monopolies, in particular, are limiting the extent to which copyright is able to operate as a mechanism for rewarding investments in creativity and large portions of what are often regarded as ‘core copyright industries’ remain centrally controlled in China. Although impressive progress in relation to the growth of a copyright culture has been made, unauthorised use of creative content is common, both among media firms and the public. A clear example of this can be found in the publishing industry. Until very recently, international bestsellers and reference titles were regularly translated and published without authorisation from or payment to their foreign copyright owners. The Nobel Prize-winning novel One Hundred Years of Solitude has been in print in China since 1985, selling millions of copies and assuming a place as a literary classic for both Chinese readers and writers. This is remarkable, given that a Chinese publisher first acquired translation rights for the book in 2011 (Quan 2011; Jiang and Zhou 2010). Chinese textbook publishers, who preside over an enormous market, regularly fail to pass on royalties to authors (Zhejiang Daily 2012). In the music industry hit songs from Hong Kong and the USA are regularly translated and performed by Chinese artists without the authorisation of copyright owners (Du 2012) and television broadcasters air foreign films and other content without permission (Beijing Evening Post 2008; Cang 2008; News Morning Post 2005). This culture of unauthorised reuse has spilled over into the habits of media firms with access to the wealth of user-generated content now available online. Blogs, amateur video content, music and photos are all regularly published and broadcast through traditional media channels without authorisation from or payment to authors. Copyright is proving troublesome for even the largest Chinese media firms. According to Zhao Huayong, CEO of China Central Television (CCTV), his organisation ‘is one of China’s biggest victims of copyright infringement, as well as one of the biggest infringers of others’ intellectual property’ (Liu and Bates 2008: 5). A key challenge for the growth of a culture of respecting copyright in China relates to the power of copyright owners in a system where content production has largely democratised but distribution channels remain tightly controlled. Content distributors such as bookshops, cinemas, digital portals and television stations in China are often government owned, either wholly or 322

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in part, and enjoy powerful state-protected monopolies. They are thus difficult to hold to account and able to dictate their own terms to smaller players in the value chain, extracting large profits while taking few risks. In the case of the digital music industry, copyright owners receive less than 3 per cent of the revenue generated by digital music portals (Wu and Li 2012; Yang 2012b). Even the largest Chinese film studios receive only about 40 per cent of the box-office return their films generate (Sina Entertainment 2012). A widespread lack of infrastructure for reliably auditing sales also makes it difficult for copyright owners to ensure payment of negotiated shares of revenue. In this context, individual creators have very little hope of negotiating favourable terms of use or obtaining the meaningful enforcement of copyright. China’s booming market for pirated content is deeply troubling for businesses and policy makers in nations that rely on copyright as the basis upon which content can be exported, such as the USA. However, grey distribution channels have also provided Chinese consumers, artists and the next generation of media professionals with access to international films, music, literature and computer software at affordable prices much earlier than official reform processes might have allowed. The rich availability of content has helped to speed the development of the nation’s emergent hardware industries, creating domestic demand for DVD players, e-book readers, computers, smart phones and tablets. It has also helped to provide Chinese creative professionals and audiences with semiotic tools to build upon as they make the shift from propaganda machine to market-driven entertainment industry with aspirations to both reverse cultural import deficits and to begin exporting Chinese creative and cultural products.

Business model innovation The challenges of enforcing copyright in analogue contexts are colliding with the need to find business models capable of functioning profitably in open and networked digital landscapes. China is now home to the world’s largest population of internet users: 457 million people (CNNIC 2011). There are also 1.06 billion mobile users, 183.8 million of whom have 3G services.9 The International Intellectual Property Institute estimates that 99 per cent of music accessed online in China is ‘pirated’ (IIPA 2012) and local commentators estimate that the illegal online literature industry is ten times larger than its legally regulated counterpart (Ren and Montgomery 2012: 13). In addition to attempting to prevent unauthorised digital distribution, Chinese businesses are actively experimenting with business models that do not depend on copyright enforcement or user subscriptions. The absence of strongly enforced copyright in digital environments in China is also allowing new players to draw on creative investments made by others and to experiment with different ways of charging for their value, for example by offering streaming services that draw on pirated content. Although this form of activity is undoubtedly illegal, it is arguable that a lack of effective enforcement may in fact be fuelling processes of innovation and change in China’s rapidly evolving digital economy (Litman 2006; Montgomery and Potts 2009: 185–217). In the mid-2000s websites like Tudou and Youku developed very large user bases by offering free online video streaming (mostly without permission from copyright owners) and were able to monetise their services through the sale of advertising. Around 2009 both of these businesses began using their advertising revenues to invest in the acquisition of content distribution licences and removing unauthorised content from their catalogues (Chen 2012; Cai 2010; Zhou 2009). Today these sites, which continue to deliver free content to viewers and generate revenue from advertising, are major digital players and a powerful legal distribution channel for Chinese content. Distribution via Tudou and Youku produces licensing income equal to and often greater 323

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than fees paid to copyright owners by ‘mainstream’ buyers: TV stations or cinemas (Want China Times 2011). This development trajectory will not be unfamiliar to those acquainted with the history of digital distribution in other markets, where a number of services were developed and became popular as ‘pirate’ sites, before making a transition to become legal distribution portals.10 Nonetheless, it is difficult to imagine that the scale of unauthorised distribution undertaken by large, highly profitable firms in China could have occurred in more closely regulated markets. Furthermore, now that these free to end-user models have achieved a dominant market position it has become all but impossible for subscription models for online content distribution to take hold. This represents a marked difference from the development of online content markets in jurisdictions where copyright-based models were established before digital technologies became widely available, and where subscription-based services such as Netflix and iTunes have become the norm. Chinese online literature, which crowd sources ‘born digital’ fiction, is also finding ways to monetise fan bases and readerships associated with unauthorised digital distribution. Advertising and converting online popularity into products that can be sold through non-digital channels are two important elements of this model. Although authors and digital literature portals remain conscious of copyright, it is often simply more profitable for them to find ways to trade on popularity than it is to attempt to prevent digital piracy. Startled at Every Step (Bu bu jing xin) provides an example of the complex role that intellectual property rights are playing in this highly innovative area of China’s publishing industry. Startled at Every Step is a born digital, serialised novel that became a bestseller in 2005. It began life online and was available to readers at a price via an online portal, which had licensed distribution rights from the author. The book was also made available as a physical novel. Although both the physical and digital versions of Startled at Every Step were pirated heavily, its author and legitimate digital distributor were able to capitalise on the novel’s popularity by selling television adaptation rights, as well as rights to smart phone applications, the production of collectors’ edition print versions and other merchandise. The popularity of the Startled at Every Step television series in turn helped to propel the novel to bestseller status again in 2011 (DoNews 2011). These two examples suggest that Chinese firms are finding business models capable of capitalising on the public’s desire to engage with creative works in an environment in which controlling distribution and preventing copyright infringement can be very difficult. However, this is not to say the established stakeholders in China are not, like their counterparts in the USA and the UK, also attempting to prevent unauthorised copying, distribution and access to content. In 2011, Chinese courts dealt with 35,185 lawsuits on copyright, up by 42.34 per cent from the year before (Procedural Law 2012). This compared with just 7,263 cases in 2007 (Chen 2009) and 1,122 in 2002 (Lei 2010). The widespread adoption of digital rights management technologies and lobbying for stronger protection for copyright in digital environments are now major focal points for copyright owners in China, just as they are for copyright industries in other markets. The music industry is attempting to reassert control over internet-based distribution, through the establishment of a compulsory subscription model and agreement among record companies, digital portals and governmental regulators (Xinhua 2013). Unauthorised distribution has become a threat, not just to the profitability of international copyright owners, but also to Chinese content industries. Aside from direct economic losses associated with lost sales of content (which can be difficult to calculate), the scale of unauthorised distribution means that those operating within the bounds of the legitimate system are being forced to compete with free or very cheap and uncensored material for audience time, attention and spending power (Associated Press 2006). Moreover, access to affordable copies of the latest 324

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audiovisual productions from all over the world has greatly increased the media literacy of Chinese audiences, raising standards for local producers who remain bound by the censorship system. The reluctance of Chinese audiences to pay for low-quality domestic films is evident in the proportion of box-office accounted for by Chinese productions, which dropped from 53.6 per cent in 2011 to 34.8 per cent in the first half of 2012 in spite of protectionist policies and strident efforts to promote local films (Focus News undated). Chinese content producers thus have a very real interest in the better enforcement of copyright – if only because piracy is a powerful source of competition.

Conclusion As this chapter has discussed, there is evidence that commercially motivated Chinese entrepreneurs have been aware of the value of controlling copying since at least the Song Dynasty. However, the failure of copyright to take root in China until very recently highlights the extent to which copyright depends on wider economic, political and legal conditions in order to function. An economic system capable of allowing markets based on copyright to form, a desire to engage with international trades in content and culture, and recognition of copyright’s value as a tool for facilitating investment, innovation and the growth of creative industries have been key factors in the copyright’s growing prominence in China since 1990. The PRC’s copyright law is now broadly similar to copyright laws in most other jurisdictions, although enforcement remains problematic and ‘born digital’ content industries are developing innovative business models that do not depend on an ability to prevent unauthorised distribution. Chinese policy makers, creative professionals and businesses are also becoming more aware of the value of recognising and protecting intellectual property rights. While international pressure undoubtedly played an important role in the creation of China’s 1990 copyright law, pressure from domestic stakeholders is helping to embed the law within local practices and business models. Copyright entitlements that are valued by domestic stakeholders and the government’s desire to encourage the growth of internationally competitive creative industries engaged in the export of content will play a decisive role in the growth of a culture of copyright protection in China over the next decade.

Notes 1 For example, Ni Zan (1301–74) was ‘a poet, calligrapher and landscape painter. From a wealthy family in Jiangsu Province, he gave up his fortune to lead a simple life on a boat. He is famous for his dry ink brushwork executed with a slanted brush, and for his sparse dots of intense black’. Quoted from http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/east-asian-art/chinese-painters.htm#dynasties. 2 There is evidence suggesting the exercise akin to copyright in the publishing industry during the Song Dynasty. For example, in the book, Stories of the East Capital, a specific ‘copyright page’ states ‘printed by Cheng of Meishan, who applied protection from the superior, any reproduction is prohibited’ (Wu 1998: 241). 3 For a wonderful graphic example of this see: http://chineseposters.net/themes/mao-cult.php. In particular, the discussion of the ‘spirit of a screw’ (luosiding jingshen). 4 The WTO Dispute Settlement Body found that China’s failure to accord copyright protection to works that had not been submitted for censorship approval in China constituted a breach of the nation’s obligations under several international conventions, which China accepted. See: Mara (2009) and WTO Secretariat (2010). 5 Article 3, Chapter I of the copyright law explicitly protects: Written works; oral works; musical, dramatic, quyi, choreographic and acrobatic works; works of fine art and architecture; photographic works; cinematographic works and works created by a process analogous to cinematography; graphic works 325

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6

7

8

9

10

such as drawings of engineering designs and product designs; maps; sketches and model works; computer software; and other works as provided by laws and administrative regulations. Article 10 accords copyright owners the right to: publication; authorship; revision; integrity; reproduction; distribution; rental; exhibition; performance; presentation; broadcasting; communication through an information network; cinematography; adaptation; translation; compilation and annotation. This is the case in Australia. See, for example: an Act relating to copyright and the protection of certain performances, and for other purposes, 27 June 1968. Available at: http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ Details/C2006C00142/Html/Text#para2.4043 (accessed 13 June 2013). According to Qu (2002: 106): ‘Under socialist copyright law, any intellectual creation is achieved on the basis of accumulation of cultural heritage. Therefore, copyrights over intellectual works cannot be absolute or unrestricted. In order to accommodate the interests of both copyright holders and the general public, certain limitations of copyright have been provided by law for economic or cultural reasons (e.g. education) since the copyright system first emerged.’ ‘According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, mobile phone users in China reached 1.06 billion by the end of July 2012, of which 183.8 million subscribed to 3G network services.’ See Shen (2012). See, for example, James Allen Robertson’s discussion of Napster in Digital Culture Industry: A History of Digital Distribution (2013).

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Zhejiang Daily (2012) ‘People’s Education Press paid RMB 800,000 to authors via China Written Works Copyright Society’ (Renjiaoshe shandeng zuopin shou piping, weituo wenzhuxie fafang 80 wan gaofei)’, Chinanews.com, 23 May. Available online www.chinanews.com/cul/2012/05–23/3909660.shtml (retrieved 17 July 2014, in Chinese). Zhou, Y. (2009) ‘Genuine copyright dilemma for video sharing websites’, China Intellectual Property 30 (June). Available online www.chinaipmagazine.com/en/journal-show.asp?id=490 (retrieved 27 July 2014). Zhu, S. (2000) ‘The usurp edition and edition protect in Song Dynasty’ (Lun song dai de tushu daoban yu banquan baohu), Documents (Wen xian), 2000(1): 77–87 (in Chinese).

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20 Gamers, state and online games1 Anthony Y.H. Fung

Introduction Freedom of the press and plurality of ideas have been enduring issues in the study of the media. Many studies have documented the manipulative and political control of the content of media in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (e.g. Zhao 2008). Recently, attention has turned to the cultural industries, sometimes also known as creative industries. The terminology refers to industries that create, produce and distribute goods and services with a cultural nature. Broadcasting, music, film, animation, online game and other internet-platform run industries are examples of cultural industries. All these cultural industries in total have started to accumulate huge profits and achieved considerable growth. According to the Beijing Statistic Bureau, the cultural industry’s added value in the nation’s capital comprised 11.8 per cent GDP in the first nine months of 2009 (People’s Daily 2009). In view of the economic potential and market, and hence strong cultural influence, the state realises that its influence and control should be extended to these industries. This chapter will explain how the authorities attempted to extend their manipulative logic over the emerging creative or cultural industries. Specifically, this chapter focuses on the government’s effort to (re)gain control over the online game industry, a rapidly growing and highly profitable new media platform in which the state has had no experience in terms of both content production and control. The government did not attempt to control directly the private capital of gaming industries. Instead, I argue that the state has taken a stance to protect gamers’ rights in various law cases and public debates as a pretext to suppressing the rising power of game corporations – a political method used by authorities to regain the hegemonic space once lost to the capitalists. The notion hegemonic space as used in this chapter is based on Gramsci’s idea of ‘site of struggle’, which highlights the state’s ideological power to articulate a ‘common sense’ or a consensus in this space of negotiation (Fiske 1992: 284–326). This is different from the direct control of media. In this hegemonic space, we can see how the state has created new discourses for this negotiation. Thus, while the state’s approach to control traditional media such as newspapers and broadcasting is direct and top-down, its manipulation of the rising cultural industries appears more sophisticated and indirect with complicated laws and regulations. 330

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The legacy of media control In an authoritarian state, such as the PRC, a marketplace of opinion or public opinion facilitated by the media may be at odds with the state. As such China has long exercised strong control over media to make sure that their discourse aligns with the national ideology. As Wang Taihua, director of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT), stated: ‘when economic interests contradict social interests, [we] must be subordinated to social interests unconditionally’, since ‘cultural products are special commodities with distinct ideological attributes’. ‘If we pursue [only] the audience rating and the economic revenue . . . we will make political and directional mistakes [that] jeopardize the state’ (SAPPRFT 2007).2 Under such a principle, the state has strong control of media through various mechanisms such as monitoring, sanctions, direct punishment and moral criticism. To govern the cultural industries, the authorities have mainly relied on SAPPRFT which essentially controls all electronic and broadcasting media (Zhang and Fung 2011: 133–54), while the Propaganda Department of the Ministry of Culture covers the control of all media content. The Audio-Visual Office of the Ministry of Culture monitors the distribution of all audiovisual products, while SAPPRFT controls the licensing of publications and distribution rights. After 2000, gaming and other internet-based businesses were likewise allocated to these different party and governmental bodies. However, despite competition for jurisdiction, the governing authorities still more or less adopt the same principles regardless of platform: it is merely a matter of extending their hegemonic influence from traditional media to these new or redefined sectors. Yet, the strategies of controlling these cultural industries were compelled to change under global pressure. Upon China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001, there was an international expectation that China had to comply with agreements to gradually open up its media to global capital and follow the western model of capitalism. However, such openingup does not include the state-owned television and the press, and the Chinese state instead only conceded to freeing up the so-called creative or cultural industries to some degree. To accommodate the structural changes, China implemented new policies to deliver on its promise. And yet, given the perceived political impacts of these new media on society and politics, the state wanted to control the conditions under which capitalism and globalisation operated. One of the earliest strategies proposed was a compulsory collaboration between the state (or the stateowned enterprise) and global capital. This would ensure the state’s domination and maintain the ideological alignment of corporations to the national political agenda. Take the music industry for example: all the music production companies are required to publish music with record labels owned by the state; and the latter simply serves as a state censoring unit. The same rule applies to film companies (Fung 2007: 425–37). For some internet-related companies, for example game companies, the criterion for control is different. The reason is simple: there are no state-owned game companies and the state has no knowledge and experience of control in this sector. Hence the state searches for new means to control these ‘media’ by modifying existing strategies, by negotiating with the industries and by coming up with new measures. This chapter discusses and analyses the online game industries in this particular scenario in which the government has endeavoured to regain its political control through various new ways. What is new and significant for the structure of control is the introduction of legal control in this terrain. In allegedly protecting the rights of gamers and regulating the market, the government of the PRC has intervened and issued many regulations about the game industries. This chapter argues that this is presented as an issue of defending consumers’ rights when the authorities 331

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contest the interests of the game corporations. However, this reflects the very contradictions between the authorities and the capitalists, and demonstrates how the game market becomes a site of contestation between political and economic interests. While the latter would like to keep their profit intact, the former is intent on using economic interests as an indirect means to extend hegemony. In public discourse, online game players are often constructed as greedy individuals, wicked groups or mobs arising from this new economy.

The rising game industries Emerging industries, such as the new media and online gaming, are highly profitable cultural industries. Unlike other traditional media industries, the state was not centrally involved in the growth of online gaming. Multiplayer online role-playing games were non-existent in China until the late 1990s. This is a game genre with a mixture of role-playing and multiplayer functionality, which allows many users to participate and interact in the game at the same time. But the number of Chinese online gamers has increased exponentially since the early 2000s – from 1.7 million in 2001 to 56 million in 2008 and 324 million in 2012 (CNNIC 2001, 2009, 2012). The domestic market size, revenue and the online games industry also grew rapidly. According to statistics presented by the Ministry of Culture, the total annual revenue of the PRC’s online game industry in 2010 was RMB 34.9 billion yuan (c. US$5.65 billion), including RMB 32.3 billion (c. US$5.23 billion) of the revenue from internet-based games and RMB 2.6 billion yuan (c.US$0.42 billion) from mobile phone games. The rising numbers are in line with industry forecasts (Ministry of Culture 2011). The Mirae Asset Global Investments Group predicted that the growth rate of the Chinese online game market would be 28 per cent, and total revenue would reach around RMB 45 billion yuan (c. US$7.28 billion) in 2011. While it is anticipated that the growth rate of the global online game market will remain 14.8 per cent for the subsequent five years, the growth rate in China will stay at around 20 per cent (07073.com 2011). ‘Massive multiplayer online role-playing games’ (MMORPG), ‘casual games’3 and ‘web games’ are the three main types of online games in China. Up to 2010, MMORPG occupied 57.4 per cent of the market share, casual games occupied 28.6 per cent and web games 14 per cent. So far foreign games are more popular than domestic games. Crazyracing Kartrider/Popkart, Audition Dance Battle Online (AU), and World of Warcraft (WoW) are the top three online games in China (CNNIC 2009). While the former two are Korean, the latter is an American game. Still, there are numerous domestic online game companies that are catching up as key players in the industry. Examples include Tencent Games, NetEase, Shanda Interactive Games, Perfect World, and KongZhong among others. As the industry develops very quickly, and cultural forms shift at an equal pace, the authorities have very little control over organisation, distribution and ownership. Meanwhile, given the industry’s strong export power, national influence and huge financial profit, the authorities are aware of the need to regain this hegemonic space. In the case of the game industry in China, the state seeks to regain its power and control by constructing a common discourse that goes against the game companies. Ernkvist and Ström (2008: 98–126) have provided a cogent analysis of state policies, from censorship of online game content by the Cultural Bureau to monitoring the publication of games by the News and Publication Office of the SAPPRFT, as well as censorship at the provincial level. The Chinese authorities have had to identify new policies to extend their control over the industry. According to interviews with the industry leaders, the state does censor content 332

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that appears politically sensitive. For instance, some Japanese games are asked to take out the world map and any images which might refer to imperialism, militarism and the Sino-Japan war. This kind of compulsory revision also applies to western games that are often asked to remove violent images. Numerous imported western games, Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour Expansion and Hearts of Iron for example, are banned in China (Reuters 2009). While the former projected a very negative image of China and the Chinese army, the latter portrayed Tibet as an independent country (Xinhua 2004a). Authorities justify the censorship on the grounds of protecting adolescents from violent, antisocial and other inappropriate media content (Fung and Li 2010: 327–39). In enhancing national moral standards, the PRC has implemented several regulations and other policies to enforce censorship. In 2004, the General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television issued the ‘Notice on Forbidden of Broadcasting PC/Online Games Programs’, which banned traditional media programmes themed on video games. In 2007 the government introduced the ‘Regulation on Digital Publication’, the ‘Regulation on Publishing of Digital Publication’ in 2008 and the ‘Administration of Software Production’ in 2009. All these notices highlight a need to engage in censorship as part of the procedure to enter the domestic game market. There have also been other policies introduced to strengthen the state’s control on the online game industry, for example the ‘Interim Regulation for Online Game Management’ in 2010. This seeks to prevent adolescents from accessing inappropriate content, regulate the operation of game corporations, enhance the online transaction system and protect the rights of online gamers. Associated with the ‘Interim Regulation for Online Game Management’, the PRC launched the ‘Real Identity Registration Scheme’, which requires online gamers to register their real identity, including name, date of birth and identity number. To promote the culture of healthy online gaming and to monitor participation, the government introduced the ‘Online Game Parents Monitoring over Junior Project’, the ‘Online Game Advising Project’ and the ‘Junior’s Healthy Participation in Online Game Advising’. All these have strengthened the state’s dominant position in the online game industry. In fact, the government’s control of the game industry is in line with its policy towards the internet industry as a whole. After the commercialisation of the internet in 1995, the state implemented the first regulations in 1996, namely the ‘Temporary Regulation for the Management of Computer Information Network International Connection’. This regulation specifies that the spread of information that the authorities suspect is intended to incite hatred, overthrow the state or divulge state secrets will be considered an illegal act (Tsui 2003: 65–82). Hence the censorship and monitoring system is built on such legal foundations. Meanwhile, the state plays around the logic of the market economy to extend its political control. For instance, all internet cafés and internet service providers, which offer internet access to mass users, are required to register and apply for a licence from the government. Such dependency on the state forces the corporations to follow all regulations that further the state’s political interests. Still, internet control in China appears partially regulated only, and it has yet to develop a single comprehensive legal and regulatory framework (Garcia-Murillo and Maclnnes 2003: 57–67). At least five government bodies, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the State Council Information Office (SCIO), the Ministry of Culture and the State Copyright Bureau, monitor and exercise the state’s influence over the internet industry. These government bodies may have overlapping responsibilities, and the system appears somewhat chaotic (Fung and Li 2010: 327–39). However, that picture implies the government is unable to keep pace with the rapid growth of China’s internet industry, so it must rely on multiple channels to regain political control. 333

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Virtual property as a site of negotiation As the online game business develops rapidly and the virtual world becomes increasingly complex, the game developers not only generate profits from subscriptions and software, but also from virtual items that offer an in-game advantage to players or serve as vanity items to entertain dedicated players. Although these virtual items can only be used in a particular virtual world, literally the online game itself, they carry economic value in the real world. Even gamers themselves can resell the items on online platforms such as eBay or gamingopenmarket.com. Since the field of online game studies commenced in the early 2000s, scholars have emphasised the need for establishing new legislative and governance frameworks that can adequately tackle the ever-increasing complexity of virtual worlds (Balkin 2004: 63–80; Fairfield 2005: 1059–61; Lastowka and Hunter 2004: 1–73). They convincingly argue that gamers’ private property, personal rights, freedom of speech and other rights in virtual worlds are not adequately protected by similar political arrangements available for protecting these rights in the real world (Fairfield 2008: 427). And yet only a few Chinese studies address this subject. For example, Chew (2011: 722–38) investigates the social formation of virtual property in games and he focuses on the online gamers and game corporations. Despite a certain level of conflict of interest, there is ‘a partial overlap of the virtual interests’ between the two main stakeholders (Chew 2011: 729). As such, game corporations are still willing to respond to some of the online gamers’ requests, but they tend to pass the responsibility of protecting virtual property rights to the state. This ground-breaking research on the notion of virtual property rights in China does not pay enough attention to the influence of the authoritarian state. If there is a lack of scholarly interest, why is virtual property so important as it becomes a public discourse in Chinese context? Despite the absence of legislation on virtual property, the legal establishment in China has long been praised for ruling in favour of gamers and against corporations in virtual property disputes. The ‘Li Hongchen vs. Beijing North Arctic’ case in 2003 remains the most commonly cited example. Chinese gamer Li Hongchen claimed that another gamer hacked into his account and transferred several virtual items to another account. The game company Beijing North Arctic refused to offer help and claimed that account security is the responsibility of gamers, but not the company (China Court 2004). Nevertheless, the court pointed out that the security system of the game was not up to standard and that the game publisher or the corporation should assume responsibility for security. This was quite a rare ruling given that the state abhors the rights movement. As a matter of fact, the state maintains that gamers’ rights are not driven by the western idea of virtual property, but by its own political interests to regain the hegemonic space. The introduction in China of the terminology about virtual property occurred as early as 2003. In view of the absence of discussions about virtual property in the main legislative documents on the internet, namely the ‘Decision to Maintain Internet Safety’ and the ‘Regulations on the Safety Protection of Computer Information Systems’, a group of lawyers submitted a proposal for virtual property protection legislation to the National People’s Congress (NPC). This addressed the importance of protecting virtual property in the same way that the law would protect other commodities. Coinciding with the submission of this proposal, the terminology ‘virtual property’ gained popularity in public discourse, as illustrated by survey results. According to a survey from Fazhi Wanbao, 95.5 per cent of the respondents think that virtual property should be protected legally (Anon. 2004a; Chew 2011: 722–38) and that new legislation should be introduced to protect virtual property (Chew 2011: 722–38; Ma 2006). With the rising expectations on the issue of protecting gamers’ rights, official support offered 334

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to gamers and the suppression of corporations has been legitimatised and justified by the notion of virtual property rights. A year after the proposal for virtual property protection legislation and the ‘Li Hongchen vs. Beijing North Arctic’ case, the authorities issued a ‘virtual property protection ordinance’ which clarified how to settle virtual property disputes (Xu 2004). In March 2004, some members in the NPC suggested a virtual property legislature as a response to the proposal (Anon. 2004a). Kou Xiaowei, the Deputy Secretary of the Electronic and Internet Publication Section of the SAPPRFT implemented various policies to normalise this unregulated industry, including the protection of virtual property. In the same year, a roundtable on legal issues of virtual property protection took place, bringing together government officials, legal specialists and corporate representatives to explore the possible directions for virtual property legislation (Anon. 2004b). Although the multiple stakeholders were yet to reach consensus on the issue, the trajectory of jurisdiction remained consistent. There were two other cases that revealed the state’s position. In 2004, gamer Bai Lu accused game agent company Kingsoft Corporation of removing the gamer’s account without strong justification and the case was accepted by the court even though the law to protect virtual property was not yet enforced (Xinhua 2004b). In 2005, another gamer Zhao Ming sued Shanda Interactive Entertainment for refusing to restore his virtual properties that had been stolen by hackers. Shanda Interactive Entertainment excused themselves from responsibility to take care of the gamer’s personal property, but the court did not accept their argument. Rather, the court emphasised that the game company should safeguard virtual security, and that virtual property should be subject to legal protection. Shanda Interactive Entertainment was finally asked to restore the virtual properties of Zhao Ming and be liable for the court fees (Sina 2006). Since 2007, the state has been increasingly proactive in protecting virtual properties and defending gamers’ rights, and this sometimes goes against corporate interests. The first administrative instruction on rights in the virtual world was formally announced in January 2007, and deals mainly with real money trading (RMT) and the real-world impacts of virtual currencies. Meanwhile, a member of NPC in Shenzhen proposed legislation to deal with the problems related to virtual property (Yun et al. 2007). In 2008, the state announced that profit made from trading RMT on virtual property become taxable. In the same year, the Deputy Secretary of the Cultural Market Section of the Ministry of Culture, Tuo Zuhai, said that the bureau would soon formulate ‘strengthened instructions to suppress game virtual worlds that encourage virtual property accumulation and levelling’ (Quan 2008). In 2009 Wang Qian, a member of the NPC from Shanxi, advocated legislation on virtual property rights, virtual currencies and game classification (Wang 2009). In March 2010, the Ministry of Culture released the ‘Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Games’ which became effective in August. Article 23 of the ordinance specified game companies had a responsibility to protect gamers’ rights and offered guidance on handling disputes. The article also foretold that the Ministry of Culture would inaugurate a new agreement that specifies the basic right of the gamers, and that game companies are not allowed to make a contractual relationship with gamers that violates the basic right in the agreement. Comparing this ordinance with other relevant instructions from the government, the Interim Measures were the first to address the legal obligations of game companies that justified numerous judgements made in favour of gamers. Since then, the government has become increasingly proactive in defending gamers’ rights. In less than one year, the local Ministry of Culture in Chengdu applied the law to sue a game company called Dreamwork in response to protests from gamers. Comparing the state’s approach to the issue of online gaming with the way it handles other human rights cases, it seems to be making exceptional efforts to protect gamers’ rights. It was 335

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reported that, by November 2008, approximately 300,000 victims had suffered from the milk powder that was produced by a Chinese company called Sanlu Group. The scandal provoked public anger which the state perceived as a threat to political stability. Hence the Chinese media were asked to tone down their coverage of the issue, and to stop investigating the case, thereby challenging the activists (BBC News 2010). This case is very different from other legal cases touching upon the virtual property of gamers discussed above, and this inconsistency reveals that the government does not seem keen to touch upon human rights issues; instead, it seeks to achieve its political objectives through protecting consumers’ rights.

Online players: communities or mobs? Along with the rapid growth of the online game industry, the social media have contributed to remarkable changes in Chinese society. Weibo, i.e. Sina Microblog, remains one of the most popular social networking sites with more than 300 million registered users in 2012. The functionality of weibo is similar to the international social media platform, Twitter. There is a convention of using weibo for social purposes, for example, an online campaign to help parents find their missing children by taking snapshots of children begging on the street so that their parents may determine whether those beggars are their children. By 8 February 2011, more than 83,000 users had participated in the campaign and six missing children were found (People.com 2011). However, the rapid growth of weibo’s popularity and external political events such as the 2011 Arab Spring have meant the central government is increasingly sensitive to discourses in social media, meaning that censorship has extended to these channels. Whatever is considered a threat to the state’s legitimacy will be deleted. The crash in Shanghai’s Metro system in 2011 is a typical case of censorship of social media in China. This subway crash caused the injury of more than 200 people. In just two hours, the accident was the top discussion topic on weibo. The netizens associated this accident to another in Wenzhou and blamed the central government and corrupt officials. The furious posts about the accident were deleted and only the positive posts from Shanghai Metro remained. The case served as a proof of the state’s censorship of Chinese social media in order to suppress any opposition and ‘harmonise’ the online discourses. Althusser (1971) noted that the state maintains its power and domination via repressive apparatus (violence) and ideological apparatus (controlling ideology). These forms of control still exist in China, illustrated by the human rights cases mentioned above. And yet, the issue of gamers’ rights differentiates itself from others. In an unusual move, the state touches upon rights issues and borrows western terminology of ‘virtual property’ to exercise its control over the rapidly growing game industry. As the suppression and hegemonic control over the industry is justified on legal grounds, the state is no longer seen as a totalitarian state; instead, it is considered a progressive government that defends the rights of its citizens. In fact, virtual property is still a vague area that requires further clarification and a comprehensive legal framework to protect gamers’ rights. The idea of virtual property is still uncommon across the world except in South Korea, where the online game industry accounts for a significant proportion of the national GDP (Chew 2011: 722–38). Even in Europe, legislators only started urging the protection of virtual property in 2008. Most countries still rely on the end-user licence agreement to handle legal disputes between game developers and the gamers themselves. However, this legal approach puts corporations in a favourable position because the gamers are almost ‘forced’ to accept all the terms and conditions if they want to participate in the online game. The PRC is adopting a much more proactive approach. As an authoritarian state, the PRC has to extend its hegemonic space for the sake of political stability. Any rising powers or voices that might result in political unrest will be perceived as 336

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a threat to the state’s power. As such, the state has long been using a compulsory collaboration model to control different cultural industries, from media to music and publication. However, the state does not have an established model to exercise its power over the rising key players in the internet industry, such as social networking sites and games companies. So, the state seeks to control social media by censorship and the game companies by both censorship and defending gamers’ rights. This reflects the very contradictions between the authorities and the capitalists in which the game market becomes a site of contestation between the political and the economic. While the latter interests like to keep their profits intact, the former is intent on using the economy as an indirect means to extend its hegemony. More importantly, the state adopts a more sophisticated approach – using a western concept, in this case virtual property, to justify its control and hegemony on the grounds of human rights. Even though the online game industry appeared to be an exception in the early stages of its development, the authoritarian Chinese state has applied to it the same logic it uses to control the media – from censorship to regulation. In the west, media are the ‘fourth estate’ serving as an independent monitor of the government on behalf of the people. In contrast, we do not expect China’s state-owned propaganda machine, the legislature or the government to defend the people’s interests in the same way. Yet, as this chapter has suggested, the discourse battlefield in both systems share certain commonalities. Occasionally, there is a ‘sphere of consensus’ in which issues appear uncontroversial, and both journalists and social critics do not feel the need to present opposing views (Hallin 1986: 117). However, such unanticipated consensus could be detrimental to society. This chapter has demonstrated that the Chinese authorities are now able to create temporal consensus to shape the social and thereby form another indirect means of control.

Implication for the media ecology Despite the rapid growth of China’s economy, the country faces numerous social problems. Corruption is one of the most pressing issues. For example, China Daily reported that China’s Gini coefficient which measures corruption was 0.61 in 2010, which was much higher than the global average of 0.44 (Tian 2012). According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 3,603 people were investigated in 2010 for ‘the misappropriation of public funds by the Chinese procurator’s office’ and the media estimated that ‘around RMB 125 billion yuan had been stashed overseas since the mid-1990s, by at least 16,000 officials’ (Anon. 2012). As a result, a certain level of social discontent has been generated. Therefore, the state seeks to expand and strengthen its control over different cultural industries, from print media to broadcasting and entertainment media. One example is the decision to replace Ouyang Changlin, the former head of regional Hunan Satellite TV, with Lu Huanbin, who used to work for the provincial government (Zhao and Yang 2010). Since Hunan TV’s programme, Super Girl, was praised for promoting the culture of democracy, one may speculate that the early retirement of Ouyang Changlin and his replacement by someone with a government background is a gesture of political control. As the scope of government control is now extended to the institutional level, the media are supposed to expand the sphere of consensus for the state’s political interest and for social stability. The case study discussed in this chapter, the regime’s control over online gaming, shows that the cultural industries are increasingly advanced and sophisticated. The state no longer relies on a top-down approach, such as censorship. It also manipulates the industries by compulsory collaboration and complying with international standards on consumers’ rights. So there is a shift from direct suppression to an indirect approach to political management, and this occurs 337

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also in other cultural industries. For example after 2000, the state took a more active role in the animation industry. In 2004, the PRC promulgated a new policy called ‘A Number of Opinions about Developing Our Country’s Animation/Comic Industry’, and in that year initiated 18 related regulations and strategies for the industry’s development (SARFT 2004). The essence of these regulations is to protect the state’s own industry by proclaiming that, in the animation output of any TV channel, the percentage of domestically produced animation should not be less than 60 per cent, and that the ratio of the annual target for the national production to import volume should be equivalent. There are also directives that encourage the export of Chinese animation. This example illustrates that the stronger the involvement of the state in production, the higher the level of state control over the industry. In summary, while the state’s approach on traditional media such as newspapers and broadcasting is still likely to be direct (via censorship for example), its manipulation in the rising cultural industries appears increasingly sophisticated. More detailed laws and regulations are expected.

Notes 1 2 3

This work was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project No. 4001-SPPR-09). State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) and the General Administration of Press and Publications were merged in early 2013 to form SAPPRFT. ‘Casual games’ are games with simple rules which adhere to a familiar genre and are played on various platforms, including computer clients, web browsers and consoles. Playing them does not require longterm time commitment or any special skills.

References 07073.com (2011) ‘China’s online game industry may reach 6 billion’ (Weilai kanhao zhongguo ye you chanye guimo huo da 60 yi), 07073 Industry Channel, 22 September. Available online http://chanye. 07073.com/shuju/509971.html (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). Althusser, L. (1971) ‘Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes towards an investigation)’, in B. Brewster (trans.), Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, New York: Monthly Review Press, 127–86. Available online https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm (retrieved 5 August 2014). Anon. (2004a) ‘Lawyers’ discussions on the controversial topic: Should virtual property be protected by law?’ (Xuni wupin yingshou falü baohu ma?), eNet Gui Gu Gongli, 7 April (in Chinese). –––– (2004b) ‘A roundtable on legal problems of virtual item protection’ (Xuni wupin falü baohu wenti yuanzhuo huiyi), Sina Games, 8 October. Available online http://games.sina.com.cn/zt/cyfw/ chinajoy2004_xnyz/index.shtml (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). –––– (2012) ‘Canadian media: the CCP is operated by internal networks and dominated by thieves with an annual corruption of 200 billion USD’ (Jiamei Zhonggong neibu wangluo jingying daozei tongzhi niantanwu 2000 yi meiyuan), hk.abuoluowang.com, 14 July. Available online http://hk.aboluowang.com/ 2012/0714/253193.html#sthash.iyW5F0j8.dpbs (retrieved 6 August 2014, in Chinese). Balkin, J.M. (2004) ‘Law and liberty in virtual worlds’, New York Law School Law Review 49(1): 63–80. BBC News (2010) ‘Timeline: China milk scandal’, BBC News Channel, 25 January. Available online http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7720404.stm (retrieved 4 August 2014). Chew, M.M. (2011) ‘Virtual property in China: the emergence of gamer rights awareness and the reaction of game corporations’, New Media Society 13(5): 722–38. China Court (2004) ‘The second Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing Municipality of the PRC’s judgment on Li Hongchen and Beijing North Arctic case in entertainment contract dispute’ (Beijing shi di er zhongji renmin fayuan shenli li hongchen, beijibing gongsi yin yule fuwu hetong jiufenan minshi panjueshu), Chinacourt.org, 20 December. Available online http://old.chinacourt.org/public/detail.php?id=143455 (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). 338

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CNNIC (2001) ‘The 8th China internet development survey report’ (Zhongguo hulian wangluo fazhan zhuangkuang diaocha tongji baogao), China Internet Network Information Center, July. Available online www.cnnic.net.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/200906/P020120709345368965113.pdf (retrieved 5 August 2014, in Chinese) –––– (2009) ‘The 23rd China internet development survey report’ (Zhongguo hulian wangluo fazhan zhuangkuang tongji baogao), China Internet Network Information Center, January (in Chinese). –––– (2010) ‘The 26th China internet development survey report’ (Zhongguo hulian wangluo fazhan zhuangkuang tongji baogao), China Internet Network Information Center, July. Available online www.cnnic.net.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/201007/P020120709345290787849.pdf (retrieved 30 June 2014, in Chinese). –––– (2012) ‘The 29th China internet development survey report’ (Zhongguo hulian wangluo fazhan zhuangkuang tongji baogao), China Internet Network Information Center, January. Available online www.cnnic.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/201201/P020120709345264469680.pdf (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). Ernkvist, M. and Ström, P. (2008) ‘Enmeshed in games with the government: governmental policies and the development of the Chinese online game industry’, Games and Culture 3: 98–126. Fairfield, J.A.T. (2005) ‘Virtual property’, Boston University Law Review 85(1047): 1059–61. –––– (2008) ‘Anti-social contracts: the contractual governance of virtual worlds’, McGill Law Journal 53: 427. Fiske, J. (1992) ‘British cultural studies and television’, in R.C. Allen (ed.), Channel of Discourse, Reassembled, London: Routledge, 284–326. Fung, A. (2007) ‘The emerging (national) popular music culture in China’, Inter-Asian Cultural Studies 8(3): 425–37. Fung, A. and Li, L. (2010) ‘TV box on the internet: the interplay between politics and market in China’, in D.Y. Jin (ed.), Global Media Convergence and Cultural Transformation: Emerging Social Patterns and Characteristics, Hershey, PA: IGI, 327–39. Garcia-Murillo, M. and Machinnes, I. (2003) ‘The impact of technological convergence on the regulation of ICT industries’, International Journal on Media Management 5: 57–67. Hallin, D.C. (1986) The ‘Uncensored War’: The Media and Vietnam, New York: Oxford University Press. Lastowka, F.G. and Hunter, D. (2004) ‘The laws of the virtual worlds’, California Law Review 92(1): 1–73. Ma, L. (2006) ‘Laws should not be “virtual” in virtual worlds’ (Wangyou shijie falü buneng xuni), Fazhi Wanbao, 5 July (in Chinese). Ministry of Culture (2011) ‘Summary of China’s online game market annual report 2010’ (2010 nian zhongguo wangluo youxi shichang niandu baogao zhaiyao), Ministry of Culture. Available online www.gov.cn/ gzdt/att/att/site1/20110316/001aa04b3d040eea53ea01.doc (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). People.com (2011) ‘Netizens on weibo saved begging children across regions and took more than 2500 pictures’ (Weibo wangyou jiejiu gedi qitao ertong sui pai zhaopian chao 2500 zhang), People.com.cn, 9 February. Available online http://media.people.com.cn/BIG5/40606/13874790.html (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). People’s Daily (2009) ‘Beijing cultural industry added value accounts 11.8% GDP’, People’s Daily Online, 4 November. Available online http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/90873/6803373.html (accessed 4 August 2014). Quan, Z. (2008) ‘Ministry of Culture official states that the ministry will suppress the transaction of game virtual property’, (Wenhuabu guanyuan toulu jiang ezhi wangyou xuni caichan jiaoyi), Sina Technology, 27 October. Available online http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2008-10-27/02392535258.shtml (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). Reuters (2009) ‘China bans online games which glamorize gangs’, Reuters, 28 July. Available online www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/28/us-china-mafia-idUSTRE56R18T20090728 (retrieved 4 August 2014). SAPPRFT (2007) ‘Work fast and responsibly to resist the trend of vulgarity according to the political mission’ (Yi gaodu de zhengzhi shiminggan he zerengan zhuajin zhuahao dizhi disu zhifeng gongzuo), SAPPRFT, 14 June. Available online www.sarft.gov.cn/articles/2007/06/14/20070908161234410265. html (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). SARFT (2004) ‘A number of opinions about developing our country’s animation/comic industry’ (Guanyu fazhan woguo yingshi donghua chanye de ruogan yijian). Available online www.pkulaw.cn/fulltext_form. aspx?Db=chl&Gid=61556&keyword=%E5%85%B3%E4%BA%8E%E5%8F%91%E5%B1%95%E6%88 %91%E5%9B%BD%E5%BD%B1%E8%A7%86%E5%8A%A8%E7%94%BB%E4%BA%A7%E4 339

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%B8%9A%E7%9A%84%E8%8B%A5%E5%B9%B2%E6%84%8F%E8%A7%81&EncodingName=& Search_Mode=accurate (retrieved 5 August 2014, in Chinese) Sina (2006) ‘Gamer accuse Shanda of deleting his virtual properties and asking for compensation’ (Chuanqi wanjia xuni wupin zao shanchu qisu shanda suope yi yuan qian), Sina Technology, 25 July. Available online http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2006-07-25/13261054235.shtml (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). Tian, W. (2012) ‘Income gap remains high, report shows’, China Daily, 11 December. Available online www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012–12/11/content_16004398.htm (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). Tsui, L. (2003) ‘The panopticon as the antithesis of a space of freedom’, China Information 17(2): 65–82. Wang, X.L. (2009) ‘National People’s Congress member proposes and advocates legal protection of virtual property’ (Quanguo renmin daibao jianyi falü baohu xuni caichan), Chinese Business View, 2 March (in Chinese). Xinhua (2004a) ‘Swedish video game banned for harming China’s sovereignty’, China Daily, 29 May. Available online www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004–5/29/content_334845.htm (retrieved 4 August 2014). –––– (2004b) ‘Gamers force Kingsoft to change punishment instead of deleting the plug-in roles’ (Shi waigua juese bei shan zhong wanjia bigong jinshan genggai chufa), Xinhuanet.com, 20 October. Available online http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2004–10/20/content_2113575.htm (retrieved 4 August 2014, in Chinese). Xu, B.K. (2004) ‘Nineteen lawyers propose the National People’s Congress to establish legislations to protect virtual property’ (19 wei lüshi jianyi lifa baohu xuni wupin), China Youth Daily, 12 January (in Chinese). Yun, A. et al. (2007) ‘National People’s Congress member proposes banning of virtual property trade’ (Renmin daibiao jianyi jinzhi xuni supin jiaoyi), Yang Cheng Wan Bao, 8 March (in Chinese). Zhang, X.X. and Fung, A. (2011) ‘Market, politics and media competition in China: competing media discourses in TV Industries’, Journal of Oriental Society of Australia 42: 133–54. Zhao, H. and Yang, B. (2010) ‘Shake-up in Hunan media’, Caixin Online, 13 January. Available online http://english.caixin.com/2010-01-13/100107800.html (retrieved 4 August 2014). Zhao, Y.Z. (2008) Communication in China: Political Economy, Power and Conflict, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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21 The geographical clustering of Chinese media production Michael Keane

Introduction Studies of China’s media have in the main privileged the nation-state. As the home of China Central Television (CCTV), the People’s Daily and a host of national regulatory bureaus, Beijing has long symbolised the hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). At least this was the case until the late 1990s when provincial media began to exert their influence. Many media operations took their commercial opportunities when broadcasters were granted access to extend their signals nationally through designated satellite channels. By the end of the first decade of the 2000s some of these broadcasters achieved extensive geographical coverage by entering into mergers and alliances with internet businesses such as Sohu and Tudou (see below).1 This chapter examines the geography of audiovisual media production against the backdrop of China’s attempt to modernise and professionalise its media institutions. I begin with a brief summary of key changes that have transpired before asking what these changes mean for researchers of China’s media. In contrast to many accounts of China’s media that begin with the political imperative, I argue that commercial reforms of the media system are the key driver of change. I then look at examples of the realignment of regional media production in television, film and animation before focusing on how Beijing and Shanghai have competed to be media industry centres.

The changing field of production The demarcation, or more specifically the ‘tension’, between public and private models of cultural management is key to understanding the changing face of China’s media industries. Debates have ensued within policy circles and academic think tanks since the mid-1980s on how to separate the income-generating commercial functions of media from their pedagogical role. For some, the commercial imperative has the potential to lead to serious losses of control by the central government. In the period prior to 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the media were unequivocally ‘the mouthpiece’ of the CCP and the Chinese government. This is far less evident today. The mouthpiece function, the basis of a propaganda system that employs many thousands of personnel, is more obvious in national media 341

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and more conspicuous in Beijing. The centre remains the propaganda heartland, home to hardline political conservatives. Local and provincial media, which were originally intended to be supplementary mouthpieces to the national media, enjoy greater autonomy – although such autonomy is conditional and monitored by propaganda officials within the respective regional media organisations. Some like Hunan Satellite TV have utilised their distance from Beijing to offer more entertainment-focused formats (Zhang and Fung 2010: 133–54). Xiaoling Zhang provides three heuristics to show how China media scholars have characterised the tensions between central government and media institutions: these are ‘partystate vs. market’, ‘party-state vs. the internet’ and ‘party-state vs. globalisation’ (Zhang 2011). In many accounts, particularly those pertaining to media reform, the Chinese state ideological apparatus is presented as a dominant institution. Scholarship has generally focused on the political centre, a legacy of political science within the field of media studies (Keane and Sun 2013). The market is viewed from several perspectives: as a potential vehicle of personal freedom (democratisation), an institution of transnational capitalism (globalisation), a composite of consumer demographics (media sociology) and a field of intermittent disruptions (internet studies). Television in particular provides scholars with a useful lens to observe the commercialisation of China’s media. While frequently challenging the guidelines established by central regulators, commercialisation does not necessarily compromise the power of the state. Eric Ma writes: ‘The state–market complex works in and through the media to form a contingent and shifting alliance for winning popular support. The state consolidates its power by promoting a consumer culture that fosters and satisfies social desire’ (Ma 2000: 28). In order to facilitate its hegemony through popular media it has been necessary for the party-state to enact market reforms. Ruoyun Bai (2005) raises the conundrum of commercialisation by asking how the party-state fits into the picture. In fact, the shift towards the market began to take effect in the early 1980s. The terminology adopted, ‘public work units managed in an entrepreneurial manner’ (shiye danwei, qiye guanli), was the first attempt to justify reduction of government funding to media units organisations, which by the beginning of the 1980s had begun to offer a variety of advertisements within entertainment formats. By the end of the following decade production debates consolidated around two terms: noncommercial ‘undertakings’ and commercial work units. As the state continued to retract subsidies from media and cultural institutions, commercial work units began to flourish, although the diversity and quality of output remained constrained by regulations and uncertainty about how such regulations might be interpreted. In depicting the commercial imperative in China’s broadcast media Bai notes a number of key policy moments in the late 1990s, from the State Council’s Document 82 in 1999 calling for the formation of media conglomerates to the combined Document 17 issued by the State Council, Propaganda Department, General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) and State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT), the latter urging media to undergo more rapid restructuring (Bai 2005).2 As I discuss elsewhere these media reforms were underpinned by more broad-ranging reforms of the ‘cultural system’ (wenhua tizhi), which date back to the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP in 1978 (Keane 2013). The reform of the cultural system to some extent eroded the central administration of culture. If the goal of reform was to present a united force against globalisation, it could only be done by allowing more autonomy and by encouraging greater competition among regional media players. A significant change transpired as commercial work units were licensed to produce content or to provide ancillary services. Such production was previously located within television stations. The production of media content can be categorised as ‘in-house’ and ‘outsourced’. ‘In-house’ 342

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is where all aspects of production (including pre-production and post-production) are planned, monitored and executed within a state broadcasting entity (e.g. CCTV, Shanghai TV). In most instances this represents non-commercial production. ‘Outsourced’ includes two categories of production: the first is directly state-owned or with partial government ownership (such as ownership by the People’s Liberation Army); the second is completely privately owned (minying dianshi). Up until the early 2000s, Chinese media production was almost completely dominated by large broadcasters, notably CCTV. There were over 4,000 production companies in China in 2010 (SARFT 2010: 1). Many offered specialist production, post-production and ancillary services to broadcasters and many are located in designated bases. The commercialisation of culture has in turn generated tensions at central and local levels (see Chin 2011: 193–210). Wanning Sun (2010: 537–43) writes about the challenges and opportunities facing media scholarship in China as one of scale. In noting that social scientists working on China have reached a consensus about the relational and spatial nature of development, Sun questions why this has not occurred to any great extent in media studies. Social scientists have explored the nation, the region, province, municipality, county and village. In economic literature, moreover, there have been extensive studies of an even more micro-scale, that of the firm. Studies of China’s media have long been beholden to a framing of China as the recalcitrant propaganda state (Brady 2008), although as Daniel Lynch (1999) maintained a decade earlier, this model has inherent problems due to administrative fragmentation, a consequence of globalisation, commercialisation and pluralisation. Relatively few reports have emerged on regional and provincial media. Xiaoling Zhang and Zhenzhi Guo (2012: 300–15) have addressed dialect television; Yik-Chan Chin (2011: 193–210) has discussed regional policy-making processes as a form of social learning; Elaine Yuan (2008: 91–108) has discussed audience fragmentation in Guangzhou; Lee et al. (2006: 581–602) have discussed local print media in Shenzhen while Cartier et al. (2005: 9–34) have examined local use of communication technologies in southern China; Michael Keane (2011) has raised issues around the productivity of media and cultural clusters in Foshan, Zhejiang and Hangzhou; in addition there are case studies of regional media stations (Zhang and Fung 2010: 133–54) and studies of the emergence of regional media conglomerates from the late 1990s (Zhao 1998; Lee 2003). However, despite this recent concern with local media the bulk of research has focused on the national and international scale.

Re-theorising the new geography of media production The question arises: How do we theorise regional development? How do we factor in geography? How do we make sense of scalar contestation, conflicts and contradictions (Sun 2010: 537–43)? What does this coming of age of small ambitious regional media mean for our understanding of ‘big places’, in particular Beijing and Shanghai? Political economy offers some clues; for instance it is now widely acknowledged that political tensions emerge at different levels of the media, from the national to the provincial to the city level, not to mention the impacts of global media interests in China and the subsequent upscaling of media groups (Chin 2011: 193–210; Keane 2001: 791–806; Curtin 2005: 155–75). One of the more noteworthy examples of local media attempting to ‘jump scale’ concerns Rupert Murdoch’s attempts to convince political power brokers in Beijing that he was a trustworthy person. After a number of setbacks Murdoch eventually initiated a project with the assistance of former Propaganda Department head Ding Guan’gen, who was once his arch-nemesis. Ding’s son, Yuchang, had an investment interest in Qinghai Satellite TV. Qinghai is one of China’s more remote provinces situated in the nation’s underdeveloped west. Under the arrangement 343

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with Ding Yuchang, Qinghai satellite would receive content from Murdoch’s Star TV satellite channel (Xingkong weishi), which only had permission to broadcast into southern Guangdong province (Dover 2008). Under the deal Murdoch promised to pump US$40 million into a shell company run by Ding. The strategy soon fell victim to the constricting norms of Chinese media policy. As the ex-News Corp senior executive Bruce Dover notes: ‘a programming schedule that comprised game shows and reality TV not only fell short of espousing Communist Party values but failed to touch upon the widely regarded Confucian values of collective morality: love, filial piety, and redemption’ (Dover 2008: 254). Regional studies have subsequently become increasingly useful in understanding the complexity of China’s media. As the old saying reminds us: ‘Heaven is high and the Emperor is far away’ (tian gao huangdi yuan); that is, what transpires in southern Guangzhou or Hunan is very different than behaviour and business practices one observes in Beijing. However, Murdoch, like many other overseas entrants into China’s media space, came to understand that while business in China could occur in any province or region, Beijing was always watching. How then do we put the pieces together in a coherent theory of media industry development? Together with recognition of fragmentation, we need to acknowledge the importance of crossdisciplinary knowledge. As I have alluded to already, the most obvious disciplinary home for this analysis is human geography, which consists of a number of subdisciplines: physical, economic and cultural geography. The geographical field extends further to urban studies, demography and tourism. In the example of Rupert Murdoch’s ambitions just mentioned we would be remiss not to include political geography. Likewise, accounts of Hunan Satellite Television have shown how a small broadcasting entity can ‘jump scale’ by exploiting popular entertainment formats. In the main, cultural and economic geography seem to be obvious candidates to think through the geographical clustering of China’s media. In order to factor in culture and economics I will first introduce the concept of clustering as depicted in economic geography. Then I will turn to explore Michael Curtin’s notion of media capital, which has resonance with political geography (Curtin 2003: 202–28).

Clustering The ‘cluster’ is a central concept in economic geography theory, usually referring to industrial agglomerations; that is spaces where one finds technology companies, media businesses or concentrations of manufacturing. However, cluster theory can also be ‘upscaled’ to explain regional interdependencies and synergies. East Asia is a mega-cluster of media production, now enhanced by the potential growth of the Chinese media market (Chua 2012). By definition a cluster refers to a spatial co-location of activity. However, as the term has gained popularity in academic circles it has lost some of its usefulness. Writing from the standpoint of economic geography, Martin and Sunley argue that the cluster concept: ‘is being applied so widely that its explanation of causality and determination becomes overly stretched, thin and fractured’ (Martin and Sunley 2003: 28–9). Nevertheless, as social scientists have sought to analyse special economic zones, town and village enterprises and regional economies in China, the cluster has become an addition to the media and cultural research toolkit. The cluster (jijuqu; alternatively yuanqu or jidi) is a default setting for many regional media initiatives; that is regional, provincial and local governments envisage that scale economies will accrue by pooling physical and human capital resources. This view dates back at least to the People’s Communes (renmin gongshe) movement of the 1950s when agriculture was effectively collectivised and communes had local names. The media cluster of today is a catch-up strategy, just as the People’s Communes were during the Great Leap 344

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Forward (1960–61), the innovation parks during the late 1980s and the media groups a decade later (Wang 2007: 145–64). Now, the clustering model is viewed as a means to attract creative workers, a human capital attribute not sought after during Mao Zedong’s tenure as paramount leader (Keane 2011, 2013). Cluster theory has the virtue of being international and seemingly transferable across multiple regions. The Harvard University economist Michael Porter (1998: 77–90) defined a cluster as a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a specific field based on commonalities and complementarities. In making the cluster concept mainstream, Porter’s work allowed the terminology to find its way into the cultural economy, paving a way for a new generation of scholar-consultants to offer their services to urban planners. A cluster might simply be a concentration of business activity in a specific region. Such agglomerations may be large in scale, similar in focus and significant in output. For instance, Hollywood is the acknowledged global leader in film financing and production; similarly Silicon Valley is the global centre of high technology business; in China Zhongguancun aspires to be the nation’s Silicon Valley. Clusters may be small or medium-sized agglomerations with a mix of local and international linkages. Alternatively they may be concentrations of similar businesses – communities of practice brought into existence by favourable policies but which for various reasons struggle to make significant impressions on the market. Clusters can form organically and they can be initiated by policy makers and entrepreneurs. In spite of the variation in types of clusters, there is a great deal of optimism that they are a means to gain economic advantage. As I have argued, the clustering of media and cultural activity is an effect of reforms that are intended to address problems inherent to the public–private divide (Keane 2011, 2013). Commercial media practice in China has progressed through structural reforms that have sought to release a new kind of productive force, what media producers in liberal democracies might call creativity. In order to have the creativity that the west enjoys in its media, China needs to loosen control. Loosening control is no easy task and progress has been slow. Nor is it easy to fast-track innovation. In the initial commercial stage of the 1990s many participants opted to produce whatever the market (or the state) wanted; that is, they waited for others to determine the form and prescribe the content. A second stage saw producers imitating, and a ‘follow the leader’ pattern ensued. Little risk-taking was found in audiovisual content production during the 1990s. Over the past decade a number of Chinese producers and broadcasters have entered into coproduction and knowledge-sharing arrangements with foreign players. In the main collaboration has occurred more in non-sensitive media such as advertising and video games.

Media capitals In a different vein to the economic geography literature, Michael Curtin (2003: 202–28) has provided media scholars with the concept of ‘media capital’. In Curtin’s account Hollywood is the prototypical media capital. Rather than seeing global media as an extension of Hollywood, Curtin intends to show how the global media system is de-territorialised and clustered in specific regions. The capacity for media capitals to emerge is contingent on becoming hubs for a range of media flows. In a manner different from physical clusters these transfer resources and new knowledge. Curtin points out that ‘capital’ status can be won and lost at different development stages. Media capital’s application to China is problematic, and particularly to Beijing, as Curtin (2011: 1–11) has acknowledged. However, the validity of media capital is evident in showing the inherent weaknesses of China’s media clustering strategies. In setting out his argument Curtin 345

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maintains that multi-directional media flows are emanating from media capitals on the periphery of the world media system. He names these as Cairo, Bombay, Hong Kong and, more recently, Miami. He says that media capitals are places where new mass cultural forms are generated and exported as media resources and talent come together, interact and exchange; and these forms embody local specificity. In Curtin’s understanding ‘capital’ has two related meanings: first, a centre of geographical activity and, second, a concentration of resources, reputation and talent. He illustrates the temporal dynamism and spatial complexity of such media capital using three principals. The first he calls ‘logic of accumulation’. Driven by the pursuit of profit and assisted by the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and other technologies, modern enterprises are able to operate across borders of states and regions to reduce production costs, extend markets and increase speed of distribution. Elsewhere Miller et al. (2005) have applied the term the ‘new international division of cultural labour’ (NICL) to describe the movement of such capital, although the NICL depiction is not intended to describe aspirational global centres so much as account for the increase in ‘runaway’ film productions. This offshoring of production is in turn facilitated by local governments. The second principle of media capital is ‘trajectories of migration’. Along with the accumulation of resources (capital), media talent is attracted to new production centres. Creative migration stimulated by job opportunities enhances the attractiveness of the locale to other media workers, which in turn drives the growth and expansion of surrounding and ancillary services. This is consistent with the economic geography literature on clusters and resonates with Richard Florida’s optimistic but widely criticised portrayal of the rise of ‘creative classes’ (Florida 2002). As early as 2002 Florida had written about a ‘super creative core’, a composite of scientists, engineers, academics, poets, actors, novelists, entertainers, artists, architects and designers, ‘cultural worthies’, think-tank researchers, analysts and opinion formers. In his extended categorisation Florida includes ‘creative professionals’, a larger group that is essentially equivalent to knowledge-intensive workers (high tech, finance, legal, health care, business management). The third principle of media capital is ‘forces of socio-cultural variation’. For instance some media products are attuned to local traditions; they draw on local resources and tap into audience preferences. Ideology, policies and institutions may complicate production, distribution and dissemination of content but media businesses are generally driven by market forces to test out socio-cultural variations that engender market opportunities. When successful, this process may result in exportable cultural forms; that is, products can circulate at multiple geographical locales through flexible distribution operations that connect with local nodes of exhibition and marketing.

The geographical boundaries In order to understand the formation of regional clusters and its role in regional production it is helpful to look at the reorganisation of the television market in China over the past decade. This reorganisation has led to an expansion of channels (rather than broadcasters, as was the case in the previous decades) and the advent of channel specialisation. An immediate effect was pressure on CCTV from provincial channels, which were allowed to have one satellite channel with national coverage. Despite an overhaul of its programming style in the early 1990s when Yang Weiguang took up the position of president, the national broadcaster has maintained its reputation for pedagogy (Zhu 2012). Variety is more likely to be found far from Beijing. Competition from upstart provincial broadcasters such as Hunan Satellite channel and Guangzhou TV led SAFRT to increase CCTV’s spread of channels. 346

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The increase in channels has generated greater demand for content. In contrast to most international systems which syndicate programmes through affiliated networks (e.g. NBC, ABC, BBC), the Chinese system is based on regionalism, which facilitates similar but different programmes. This means cheaper production strategies, which can be provided by the ambitious new outsourcing companies. Private production entities emerged followed the restructuring of media in groups leading up to WTO accession in 2001. By 2011, a total of 4,678 companies had qualified for radio and television production licences (SARFT 2011). Initially private companies operated under the guise of advertising companies to service the extra production requirements of large broadcasting entities such as CCTV and Shanghai TV. By 1997, private TV production houses were able to trade in their own right although they persisted with the practice of accepting advertising time in lieu of direct monetary payment. The new independents were able to recoup and even make substantial profit by on-selling advertising time. Unsurprisingly, private companies have prospered in Beijing. The high density of stations in Beijing generated the biggest demand for additional services. In addition to CCTV, Beijing is home to Beijing TV (BTV), China Entertainment Television (CETV), Phoenix TV and the Star TV satellite channel. Elsewhere in China there are challenges to the centre’s dominance. Guangdong’s success owes much to its proximity to Hong Kong. Guangdong TV produced China’s first reality TV show The Great Survival Challenge (shengcun datiaozhan) in 2000, inspired by a reality show produced by Hong Kong TVB (Keane et al. 2007). The significance of Guangdong Province is growing gradually as the convenience of transportation between Guangdong Province and Hong Kong reduces commuting costs. As the two centres speak Cantonese there is a stronger sense of connection than between Hong Kong and northern China. Hong Kong television has provided a revenue stream for Guangdong broadcasters. Broadcasters in the southern province were able to free-ride on the more entertaining and informative Hong Kong programmes. Not only were Hong Kong programmes consumed by an unexpected audience but advertisements were removed in favour of local ones. Generating advertising revenue from Hong Kong television however had the effect of slowing Guangdong’s progress. Unlike its newspaper counterparts, which continued to push the boundaries for news reporting, television reform in Guangdong remained stagnant during most of the 1990s. A change transpired when China entered the WTO. The Guangdong TV market was opened on a limited, case-by-case basis beginning in that year, apparently as an experiment to see how mainland media would fare against competition from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the west. The region now has a number of foreign broadcasters including CETV, Star TV Satellite channel, Phoenix Satellite, ATV Home, ATV International, Jade, Pearl, Macau Asia Satellite TV and MTV. The internationalisation of Chinese TV together with increasing domestic competition has led to distinctive branding strategies. Liaoning Satellite channel focuses its evening programming on modern lifestyle dramas and xiaopin (skits). With unprecedented access to the archives of Zhao Benshan, China’s most popular comedy performer and a native of north-east Liaoning Province, this provides a competitive edge. Over the past decade Hunan Satellite TV (HSTV) has established a reputation for entertainment programmes, mostly clones of Taiwanese, Hong Kong and international programme formats. Borrowings from the region category include Happy Citadel (kuaile dabenying) and Rose Date (meigui zhiyue). Later offerings like Perfect Holiday (wanmei jiaqi) and the incredibly successful Super Girl (chaoji nüsheng) were clones of international programmes. Perfect Holiday was a copy of Endemol’s Big Brother, a reality show about young people living together in a large house for ten weeks, albeit the Hunan version was modified to fit local cultural mores. Hunan’s Super Girl ‘borrowed’ the (original) British Pop Idol format and gave it a local treatment, in the process breaking satellite TV viewing records and raising 347

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concerns for both CCTV and the authorities (Keane et al. 2007; Meng 2009: 257–72; also see Fung, Chapter 20 in this volume). The most successful provincial satellite TV channel in China to date is HSTV, which is owned by Hunan Media Group. In addition to HSTV, Hunan Media Group has another nine television channels including Hunan Economic channel. According to Cui (2010: 241), Hunan Satellite TV ranks first in audience, profit, growth potential and branding among all provincial TV channels in China. The entertainment-focused style of Hunan Satellite TV provides its unique brand. One of the most significant outputs of Hunan TV was a co-production with Taiwan, an adaptation of a story by novelist and dramatist Qiong Yao into a successful TV drama series, Princess Pearl (huanzhu gege). Another strong regional contender is Anhui STV, which has identified its offerings with TV drama by using the concept of ‘exclusive play’ (dubo quan) in order to buy first-run broadcasting rights. Other innovations include fashion channels and youth lifestyle programming. For instance, Shanghai Media Group’s Channel Young was launched in 2002. In 2004, Guangxi TV station introduced a Women’s Channel. However, these niche channels rely heavily on chat and low-budget productions and in the case of the Women’s Channel on repeats of TV dramas. City and provincial (i.e. non-satellite channels) also compete fiercely for audiences. Censorship for these channels’ lifestyle offerings is generally more relaxed. Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces are the two fastest developing media regions. Zhejiang’s growth is precipitated by Hengdian World Studios, a massive film and television production base. Moreover, Zhejiang has a huge pool of available private capital due to its manufacturing industry. Zhejiang Province is the second largest TV drama production centre in China. Tempted by the local tax preferential policies, many media companies have set up new offices in Zhejiang in order to reduce costs. Similarly, Jiangsu Province has had success with media industries and has attracted many businesses there due to the Wuxi Movie/TV Base in Wuxi city.

Beijing: the CBD International Media Cluster The administrative centre of audiovisual production is Beijing. The capital dominates China’s media production, its closest competitor being Shanghai, but the latter has less than half the number of large film and TV companies than Beijing (Liu 2008: 227–44). Beijing is a magnet for aspiring media companies, both large and small. Most provincial TV stations have set up offices and production facilities in Beijing, often near CCTV and BTV. By 2010, of the 129 registered TV drama production companies and organisations in China, 41 were located in Beijing, this together with over 1,000 TV programme production organisations, 23 per cent of the total number (SARFT 2010). Due to its legacy as the national propaganda centre, CCTV maintains advantages in terms of resources, mostly through access to news reports. CCTV is the most prominent international broadcasting outlet, championing the national soft power charge. CCTV-4, the International Chinese channel began operations in 1992. In the early 2000s, CCTV’s channels were reorganised to target different audience segments, including those overseas. Domestically, the strategy was aimed at attracting back viewers who had migrated to entertainment-focused satellite channels. The variety available is a direct consequence of cable TV expansion. Chinese TV reception is a package of between 30 to 100-plus channels with most satellite channels included. Internationally, CCTV-4 now reaches over 80 countries and regions in Asia, Australia, African, East Europe and the Middle East. In addition to the Chinese international channel there are international channels broadcasting in English, Spanish, French, Russian and Arabic. 348

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The reception of Chinese TV programming abroad is hard to verify and few reliable studies have been conducted. CCTV international ambitions are underlined by reciprocal landing rights, that is, it is programmed on international cable channels in return for providing landing rights in Guangdong Province. According to station propaganda, in 2010 CCTV’s International Chinese channel reached 15 million subscribing households while its English channel netted 84 million households. Similar claims are made for the French channel (10 million households), Spanish (16 million households), Arabic (6 million households) and Russian channel (1 million households). The reality is that Chinese TV reaches overseas in cable packages and these impressive figures relate to potential reception. It is doubtful whether the many subscribers to these services tune into the national broadcaster except in times of major news events. Eating into CCTV’s overseas share is the fact that most provincial TV stations are received internationally, many through the aptly titled Great Wall Platform, a consortium managed by China International Television Corporation (CITVC). In addition to being the administrative centre Beijing has the considerable advantage of scale. Most large TV production companies are located in the capital. CCTV remains a major player in TV drama production along with CITVC and Beijing Zhongbei TV Art Centre Co. Ltd. In 2010, Beijing accounted for 25 per cent of TV drama production nationwide. This is a considerable figure taking into account the competition from Zhejiang Province in particular, home of Hengdian World Studios. Beijing’s advantage is replicated in cinema: private companies including Huayi Brothers, Poly Bona, Stella Media Group (xingmei chuanmei), Beijing New Picture Film Co. (xinhuamian yingye), Orange Sky Entertainment Group (chengtian yule) and Enlight Pictures (guangxian yingye) are located in the capital along with two state-owned film companies, China Film Group and Beijing Forbidden City Film Co. (Huang 2013: 59). In addition to this agglomeration of industry, Beijing is the primary hub for media transactions and export activity. The China Film Group and the Huaxia Film Distribution Co. Ltd., the only two film companies certified by the government to import and distribute foreign films, are in Beijing. The China Radio, Film & Television International Exposition, which focuses on exhibition of international film and television programmes, has been jointly hosted by SARFT and the China Media Group in Beijing every year since 2003. In 2011, the capital initiated an annual international media showcase event, the Beijing International Film Festival, sponsored by SARFT and the Beijing Municipal Government (Huang 2013: 60). As one of Beijing’s officially recognised creative clusters, the CBD International Media Cluster is heavily promoted by the policies of Beijing’s municipal government. In addition to policies for creative industries and clusters more generally, the Beijing Municipal Government is determined to develop large media industry capacity. In the city’s Eleventh Five-year Plan (2006–10),3 the municipal government proposed to develop Beijing as the national centre for film and TV production and trade. Chaoyang District, especially the central business district (CBD), was earmarked as the key area for the development of media industries. The Beijing Municipal Government now acknowledges four media and communication clusters: the Beijing CBD International Media Industry Cluster and Huitong Times Square, both in Chaoyang District; the China Huairou Film and Media base in the north-east; and the China New Media Development Zone in southern Daxing District. Chaoyang District provides a home to the most number of media companies. Numbers are currently increasing. The clustering of media businesses accelerated after the designation of the International Media Industry Cluster in the second wave of ‘cultural and creative industries’ projects in 2008 (Keane 2011). However, this mega-project was ‘in the air’ some years before the official announcement. Companies started moving to Chaoyang in anticipation from 2004. 349

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The CBD factor offers a significant change in the management of commercial media. Beijing’s CBD is primarily located in Chaoyang District between the 3rd and 4th Ring Roads. It is the most diverse and cosmopolitan part of the capital, home to international embassies, arts colleges, major cultural infrastructure such as the National Theatre, sporting stadiums and the renowned 798 Art Zone. The CBD has 117 ‘Fortune 500’ businesses in financial, media, information technology, consulting and service industries (Sun and Yi 2008); more than 60 per cent of overseas-funded companies in Beijing are located there. In 2001, the Beijing Municipal Government established the Beijing CBD Administrative Committee under the Chaoyang District government to facilitate investment and manage development. A CBD east-extension plan was adopted in 2009, adding an additional three square kilometres of land to the east. This new area will mainly house top-level international office buildings, luxury business hotels, international exhibition and business centres, modern recreational facilities and central squares, making for a regional three-dimensional transport hub and modern skyscraper locale. The project will be completed by 2017. According to the CBD Administrative Committee, the new area will continue to shape into ‘an area leading international financial and media industry with high-end service agencies as the essential sectors’.4 As mentioned previously the CBD International Media Industry Cluster is principally positioned around CCTV’s recently completed new building. Already over 80 per cent of overseas news agencies as well as 167 international media organisations are located in the surrounding cluster. These include CNN, VOA, BBC, Viacom, Timer Warner and Disney, as well as the dominant Chinese media players CCTV, CETV, BTV and Phoenix TV. The International Media Cluster started with CCTV’s relocation plan. Because of its close relationship with the authorities, CCTV was positioned in the central-west of Beijing, in Xicheng District, the location of most central government branches. CCTV’s proximity to government administration reflects the political power behind China’s media industries. By the turn of the century, however, it had become evident that the existing CCTV centre in Xicheng District was too small. Relocation was inevitable if the national broadcaster was to continue its growth. The plan to move to the CBD represents a strategic shift from party organ towards a competitive international media enterprise. A controversial design by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas was selected, and a 234-metre high, 44-storey twin towers building has emerged. The construction, which cost RMB 10 billion yuan (c. US$1.62 billion) was considered to be a structural challenge, especially because it is situated in a seismic zone. For some observers the unusual shape of the new CCTV building epitomises CCTV’s aspiration to become a worldclass media organisation. Due to its radical architecture, the CCTV new building is often jokingly called ‘the big boxer shorts’ (da kucha). If CCTV wanted to capture the world’s attention, this is the answer. Such enthusiasm for attention was dampened by a sudden fire at the beginning of 2009 which temporarily stopped construction, drawing international attention to the building but not in a way that its designers had planned. Although CCTV’s move precipitated the formation of the media cluster, other factors are now contributing to agglomeration. Employment opportunities have increased and this has convinced more ‘creative people’ to move and take advantage of the cluster’s pooling effects. Such advantages inevitably play into the hands of Beijing’s propagandists, spruikers of its capital status and advocates of its pre-eminence. These spokespersons range from Ministry of Culture officials to district propaganda chiefs, to developers, university professors and even artists caught up in the capital’s growth frenzy. On a more cautionary level, Michael Curtin provides a necessary reality check:

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If today there is a geographic centre to Chinese media, it is within the Communist Party offices in Beijing, not because the party micromanages the day-to-day operations of television and film companies but rather because it systematically doles out favours and franchises to those that acknowledge its supremacy. (Curtin 2011: 8)

Shanghai as an emergent media capital? Beijing’s attempt to position itself as the heartland of China’s media production invites comparisons with Shanghai. Sometimes regarded as a more cosmopolitan city, Shanghai appears to be locked into perpetual competition with Beijing for world city status. In 2012 a ‘world city report’ was commissioned by the City of London. Shanghai was included in its list of 12 cities; Beijing was not (BOP 2012). Ostensibly more commercially oriented in creative industries output, Shanghai’s leaders have constructed an alternative vision going forward into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Shanghai is the birthplace of the Chinese film and recorded music industries, a city of great creative dynamism prior to the Communist Revolution. By the 1980s, however, Shanghai had lost its edge in media industries to Beijing, particularly in the TV and film sector. According to SARFT, there were only 12 TV programme production companies and 378 TV programme production companies in Shanghai in 2010 (SARFT 2010). However, despite being less competitive in TV and film Shanghai is attractive to other creative sectors, most notably design, animation and games. A recent study has observed that Shanghai exerts a stronger pull to creative talent working in animation industries than Beijing, a trend that can in part be explained by Shanghai’s more modern ethos (Dai et al. 2012: 649–70). As one of the respondents in this study remarked, ‘Beijing makes me feel oppressed; maybe it does not fit the creative class. In contrast, Shanghai culture is open and embracing.’ Whereas Beijing is a media administrative centre that churns out political stories closely vetted by SAPPRFT, Shanghai, by virtue of its proximity to national animation bases in Hangzhou, Changzhou, Suzhou and Nanjing, has superior human capital resources. Moreover, whereas Beijing’s animation workforce is drawn predominantly from within the capital itself (49.5 per cent of the sample) and from the northern cities of Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Chengde, Baoding, Jinan, Dalian, Changchun and Harbin, Shanghai draws its creative migration from Suzhou, Hefei, Hangzhou, Chongqing and Wuhan, a far wider radius (Dai et al. 2012: 649–70). While this information sounds compelling, it has yet to translate into any great outputs. Nevertheless, some interesting developments can be seen in ownership structure. In terms of large companies, Shanghai has the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), the Shanghai Film Group and Chinese Entertainment Shanghai (shanghai tangren dianying). Compared with Beijing, Shanghai has fewer film and TV businesses but there seems to be a greater willingness to collaborate with ‘foreign interests’. The White Countess (bojue furen), jointly produced by Merchant Ivory Productions, Sony Pictures Classics and the Shanghai Film Group in 2005, was the first film in which a Chinese company was able to share box-office takings with foreign companies. The Shanghai Film Group was China’s first film enterprise to co-produce a blockbuster film with a Hollywood major, Universal Pictures – The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor in 2008. Furthermore, Shanghai was the first place in China to initiate separation of production from broadcasting in a state-owned media group. In 2009, the reform plan of SMG was approved by SARFT. It was renamed Shanghai Radio and Television Station and the profitable production sector of the station was transferred into the new SMG. 351

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In addition Shanghai is China’s financial centre. People in Shanghai are considered to be entrepreneurial and more risk-taking. One such risk is of dynamic proportions. In 2013 the Xuhui District government was completing negotiations with the US media company Dreamworks to co-develop a media production and training facility within a proposed 700hectare ‘cultural district’. This media centre will face across the Huangpu River to the Disneyworld development on the site of the World Trade Centre. Could this kind of commercial development occur in Beijing? In addition, evidence shows that there are a higher proportion of foreign joint ventures in the creative industries, and a higher proportion of Macau, Taiwanese and Hong Kong media partnerships. According to Liu (2008: 227–44) this demonstrates the relative openness of China’s media and cultural industries. Of course, this relative openness needs to be put into context. Shanghai is as unlikely to be a media capital as Beijing. The hand of government remains at the controls, albeit in a more benign and entrepreneurial form.

Concluding remarks: opening the East Asian media corridor A focus on physical clustering of media production has characterised Chinese broadcasting since the mid-1990s, a time when China headed towards WTO accession, and when market imperatives began to assume critical importance. However, a development in China’s online space in 2007 changed the rationale for physical clustering. In December 2007, the ‘Administrative Provisions on Internet Audio-Visual Programme Services’ resulted in a massive shake-up of the audiovisual market, killing off Bit Torrent-based online video sites. Incumbents jostled for alliances with state-approved enterprises such as Tudou, Youku, Tencent, Baidu, Shanda, Sohu and even traditional broadcasters like Hunan TV. These new private companies began to seek out international content. The realisation that the largest consumer demographic for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) is found online convinced the more adventurous broadcasters to change their business models. The practice of investing in TV dramas and talent shows to broadcast on terrestrial and satellite channels was challenged by internet companies which began to invest in web-based TV content that would draw the attention of the under-thirties ‘social network generation’. The success of this content strategy is largely due to popular Chinese and pan-Asian celebrities as well as ‘wanna-be’ celebrities. Youku began a weekly music contest reality show I am Legend (wo si chuanqi) in May 2012 and has established cooperation with television networks and music companies. Meanwhile Sohu mounted a talent show series called Up Young (xiangshang ba, shaonian) in February 2012, directly targeting the post-1990s generation. The show is also broadcast on HSTV, the first time that an online video platform and a TV station co-own a brand. Their joint efforts also cover content promotion and artist management. HSTV subsequently licensed its successful TV series Gossip Girl, Runaway Sweetheart (Luopao tianxin) to Sohu’s online TV site. These two powerful organisations entered into a cross-platform distribution and promotion alliance. Talent was drawn from Hunan’s successful ‘idol’ talent shows, Super Girl and Super Boy (chaoji nansheng). Hunan boss Ouyang Changlin made it clear that the broadcaster needs to look for new partners in the online video market and look towards the Asian market (Zhu 2012). Ouyang is critical of how the television market works in China, the waste of resources due to the proliferation of lookalike satellite TV channels, the focus on physical clusters and the need to get approval for each programme. In conclusion, the geographical reordering of media production in China challenges researchers to connect with a broader disciplinary field. In particular insights have come from cultural and economic geography, media economics, anthropology and sociology. These insights 352

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enable us to better understand the changes that are occurring in China as its media industry attempts to deliver on the national government’s ambitions to take China’s culture to the world stage. As China’s media becomes more professionalised in the face of intense market competition we see evidence of a different mode of clustering, one that is more virtual than physical, one where content is increasingly drawn from East Asian markets, in turn complicating and challenging the cultural hegemony of the nation-state.

Notes 1

2 3 4

For instance in 2011 Sohu acquired the rights to a TV drama series, New Princess Huanzhu (Xin huanzhu gege), which was also broadcast on Hunan Satellite TV (HSTV); the rights were then onsold to Tudou and Youku (Wang 2011). SARFT and the GAPP were merged in early 2013 to form Sate Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT). The plan can be found at the website of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform: www.bjpc.gov.cn/fzgh_1/guihua/11_5/11_5_zx/11_5_zd/200612/t146098_2.htm. For more information regarding the CBD east-extension plan, see www.bjcbd.gov.cn/en/ dk/index.shtml (retrieved 15 July 2011).

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22 The politics and poetics of television documentary in China Qing Cao

Introduction The year 2011 was deemed ‘documentary channel year’ (jilupian yuan nian) in China due largely to the rising market demand for documentary films and the launch of eight documentary channels.1 Harnessing new media technology such as the internet and mobile phones, major internet companies including Sohu, Sina and China Online Television have since 2011 started to host ‘documentary sites’ (Zhang and Hu 2012, 2013). During 2012, 59,800 hours of documentary films were aired compared to 58,000 hours in 2011 whilst the revenue generated quadrupled between 2009 and 2012, reaching RMB 1.5 billion yuan (c. US$246 million). China is ranked No. 1 in the world in terms of annual production of documentaries. The China Central Television (Zhongyang dianshi tai, CCTV) documentary channel gained a staggering 660 million audience within less than two years of its 2011 launch – testimony to the rising popularity of TV documentary. This market-driven surge reflects both socio-economic transformations, and the nature and mode of mass communication. The roots of documentary film run deep in China’s political history. In 1958 documentary film in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was conceived of as a propaganda tool and became the dominant mode of TV reporting in the 1960s and 1970s. Documentary making during this period was thus predominantly a political activity, its function being first and foremost to disseminate government policies and indoctrinate socialist ideologies in the minds of the masses. Yet, documentary’s political role originated in the Republican period (1911–49), particularly when Chinese Nationalists (i.e. Kuomintang or KMT) used it to mobilise public support for the war against the Japanese invasion (1937–45). However, three and half decades of economic reform have significantly changed the mass media landscape. The commercialisation drive of the media industry in the 1990s dislodged documentary film from state monopoly. Since then it has expanded substantially in function, subject matter, style and voice. The instances of top-down, unitary, stern-faced and closed ‘voiceof-God’ (a technique to be discussed later) documentary have gradually been reduced amidst the rise of socio-cultural documentaries made by a diverse array of producers with differing perspectives. The partial de-politicisation of the media industry has released the pent-up creative energy of media professionals, in particular the younger generation who see documentary films 355

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differently from their predecessors. The current popularity of TV documentary, in contrast to the tired dogmatic propagandist films, signifies a structural change in political communication, in state–society relations and in the dynamics of socio-political transformation. Nonetheless, documentary films like all other forms of media are centrally controlled, and subject to the direct administrative supervision of the State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT, prior to 2013 the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television or SARFT). The market-driven rapid development has always had an uneasy tension with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) impulse for bureaucratic control, though such control has proved to be increasingly challenging. ‘New documentary movement (xin jilu yundong)’ producers, for example, have constantly sought to push boundaries by tackling ‘sensitive topics’ such as the AIDS pandemic and dispossessed farmers in order to reflect new social realities in China. On 7 February 2013, in an attempt to tighten its control of proliferating documentaries, the SAPPRFT issued a new regulation centralising the management of topics by publishing an officially approved list every six months. The same document also defines documentary as ‘a television programme which represents the physical world and human society in a non-fictional approach and is broadcast in an open channel’ (SAPPRFT 2013). Such a definition apparently excludes independently produced documentaries that are often shown privately or in nonconventional forums such as seminars. These developments reveal both the dynamics of change in the Chinese media and the evolving relationships between political control, market forces and socio-economic transformations. This chapter documents and discusses this development with a focus on the PRC period, through a chronological and thematic account of the history, structure and key issues of documentaries. Emphasis is given to intrinsic linkages between TV documentaries, their roles and functions and the political, historical and socio-economic context.

Documentary films: a brief overview The term ‘documentary’ was first used by the pioneer filmmaker John Grierson in 1926 for his film Moana, a film about life on a South Sea Island. Though the term documentary lacks precision and is subject to different interpretations, it is generally understood as a non-fictional film that attempts to record some aspects of ‘reality’ (Nichols 1991: 12–14; Renov 1993a: 1–11). Following the introduction of film to China in 1896, the first documentary War in Wuhan (Wuhan Zhanzheng) was produced in 1911 by the magician Zhu Liankui in association with the Meili Company to record the dramatic military uprising in Wuchang that toppled the Qing Dynasty. War in Wuhan proved immensely popular on its first showing in Shanghai on 1 December 1911. The sensation it caused was due as much to its technological novelty as to the information the audience gained on the momentous revolution that had shaken the country. The Chinese translation of ‘documentary’ is jilupian, meaning ‘record film’ and, from its earliest years, Chinese documentary filmmakers focused their attention on the major political developments of the early twentieth century, documenting such pivotal events as the 1913 ‘second revolution’2 in Shanghai Revolution (Shanghai geming) and the end of the First World War in Celebration Parade of the European War (Ou zhan zhu sheng you xin). Between 1922 and 1926, over 50 documentary films were produced, including, in 1923, the prominent National Protest on Foreign Policy Issues (Guomin waijiao youxing dahui) on the government’s weak response to the Japanese ‘twenty-one demands’. These drastic socio-political upheavals provided documentary makers with opportunities not only to document the tumultuous events with a camera, but also to make political statements on sociopolitical issues. Various political forces also discovered the power of documentary films for their political ends and both the Nationalist and Communist parties exploited them to gain political 356

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legitimacy, in particular during the post-war period (1945–49). To some extent, the perceived value of documentary films is related to moralist political legitimacy within the Confucian tradition. The Confucian doctrine of zhengming (legitimate position) asserts that the exercise of power must be seen as legitimate by the public. To achieve this legitimacy, moral authority has to be gained, recognised, circulated and secured. Moral leadership, according to Confucius, must be derived from the exemplary behaviour of a leader. In practice, however, the image of moral authority – a prerequisite for political legitimacy – must be constructed and communicated effectively to the public. Naturally, in the modern era any mass communication tool is important for such a task, particularly in a country the size of China. Given the turbulent nature of Chinese sociopolitical transformations, it is not surprising that, throughout its development, documentary film has attained a strong political colour. Documentary has become a crucial part of China’s TV programming for over 1 billion viewers. Production is under the direct control of the Department of Radio, Film and Television of each province which in turn is responsible to the central government agency SAPPRFT. Documentary films are normally grouped into four broad categories of subject matter: history and current affairs, science and nature, social issues and archival films. They have all flourished amidst the rapidly expanding airtime on documentary channels. However, despite a newly established system of commissioning to independent companies, the large majority of documentary films are either produced in house or bought overseas. With a separation of production and broadcasting within television stations, production departments have become independent and, as all television stations in China are state-owned, these ‘marketised’ production departments have formed self-supporting companies. Some, such as Central New Film Group (Zhongyang xinying jituan), remain in the state system. These companies have close ties with state broadcasters which have intimate knowledge of the official or ‘bottom lines’ of the CCP, and are therefore trusted to make major documentaries. Nonetheless, private companies with looser or no ties with broadcasters or government have also grown rapidly in recent years. Large private production companies include Beijing Shangzao Film and Television Company (Beijing Shangzao yingshi gongsi) and Sanduotang Film, Television and Advertising Company (Sanduotang yingshi guanggao gongsi) which have a total capital of nearly RMB 100 million yuan (around US$16.4 million). They have expanded their operations from producing mainly TV advertisements to full documentary films including the high-profile Sanduotang co-production TV series Rise of Great Powers (Daguo jueqi). However, many ‘new documentary movement’ (also called ‘independent documentary’) filmmakers produce films largely outside the state system by raising capital privately and therefore do not go through the official procedures of planning and production (Zhu and Mei 2004). Understandably such films are rarely disseminated through the state broadcasting system and have to be screened either abroad or in small private or academic circles. If they are broadcast on state television, their heavily censored and much shorter versions become almost unrecognisable (Wang 2010, 2011). These marginalised producers face problems of a lack of financial and policy support as well as having little prospect of commercial success. They often seek funding abroad and participate in international film festivals and therefore have a diverse audience across national boundaries.

The politics of documentary: four phases of development In the PRC, documentary films have been pivotal in mediating political, socio-economic and cultural changes. Broadly speaking, documentaries have gone through four phases of development coinciding with China’s major upheavals and transformations. The first phase (1958–77) 357

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Table 22.1 Features of television documentaries in different periods Features

1958–77 Political

1978–92 Humanistic

1993–98 Popular

1999–present Social

Context

Maoist socialism, Communist ideology

Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform and opening

Embracing global capitalism, media commercialisation

Growing social tensions

Discourse

Ideological

Intellectual

Populist

Plural

Function

State propaganda tool

Political and cultural elites’ vehicle of communication

Multiple roles including commercial profit

Multiple roles including vehicle for discussion of social issues

Power relation

State autocratic power

Elitist, top-down

Mediating between Increasing power the state and market dispersion through negotiation

Finance

State-funded

State-funded

State-owned but commercially operated

Diverse forms of financing, including private

Technology

One TV channel, few TVs

Limited TV channels, but more TVs

Diversification of TV channels; most homes have TVs

Diverse forms of channels; nearly all homes have TVs

Voice

Homogeneous

Diverse voices

Heterogeneous

Heterogeneous

Style

Indoctrinating, preaching

Less political, intellectual

Engaging, entertaining,

Diverse

was characterised by its political function of ideological indoctrination during the Maoist era. The second phase (1978–92) started with Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms and saw a flowering of ‘humanistic’ documentaries focusing on cultural traditions and national identities in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. The third phase (1993–98) can be seen as a popularisation of documentary films amidst the momentous wave of media commercialisation following Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour talks. The fourth phase (1999–present) is the more ‘plural’ period when increasing social as well as media spaces have opened up for a diverse range of producers making different types of documentaries (He 2005: 1; Xing 2010: 19–20). The broad features of the four periods of documentary are summarised in Table 22.1 (also see Xing 2010: 19).

Political phase: 1958–77 In the PRC, TV documentary shares the same birthday as television itself. On 1 May 1958 the first television station Beijing Television (changed to China Central Television on 1 May 1978) began broadcasting with a 10-minute documentary film produced by China Central News and Documentary Film Studio titled Going to the Countryside (Dao nongcun qu). When first launched, the station had only 34 staff members and there were just 500 imported Russian black and white television sets in China, all concentrated in Beijing. These TV sets were owned by public institutions such as universities, the army, factories, communes and hospitals, though a few top leaders had them at home. During the initial four-month trial period, a third of the programmes were documentaries. During the political period, or Mao Zedong era, documentary film operated 358

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purely as a political instrument for building a ‘socialist state’, the documentary topics being limited to socialist construction, achievements and heroes. However, its impact was marginal due to the limited number of TV sets China had at that time. During the political period, one primary function of documentary was external communication. Isolated in the depths of the Cold War, in what China saw as a western information blockage, the CCP regarded documentary film as an effective channel for external propaganda through news exchange with ‘moderate’ western countries like the United Kingdom and Japan. Meanwhile, there was a strong desire in the west to know what was happening behind the bamboo curtain. Seizing the opportunity, the CCP tried to project an image of a new socialist China to the world through documentary films. In 1960 China sent 61 documentary films to seven countries, and by 1965 had established a news film exchange with 27 countries, growing to 83 by 1975. The exchange was seen by the CCP as an integral part of China’s international diplomacy because it believed that these films presented a socialist image and transmitted China’s views on important international issues directly to ordinary western people. Due to their perceived importance, international reports had to be approved by Premier Zhou Enlai before overseas release. Whether for internal or external propaganda, political correctness is paramount and a san tang hui shen (a tripartite censor) censorship system was put in place for this purpose. San tang hui shen consisted of the then CCP Central Committee Radio Commission (Zhong yang guangbo shiye ju), the TV station and its news department. The system brought top censors, TV station chiefs and programme operational staff together to scrutinise pre-broadcast films. Considered as the ultimate guarantee of political safety, the system worked well for the CCP and survived the post-Mao era, despite media commercialisation during the reform period. San tang hui shen was instrumental in producing an institutional culture of ‘(political) safety first’ that filmmakers had to internalise. Such a culture impacted on the style and mode of documentary films as well as social relationships – how filmmakers see themselves and relate to their subjects. Filmmakers became part of a propaganda machine constructing patriotism, socialism and the so-called socialist heroism that had become the order of the day. Individuals filmed served merely as a symbol of a new socialist state as reflected in such documentaries as Iron Girl Guo Fenglian (Tie guniang guo fenglian), The Iron Man is Still Fighting (Tieren hai zai zhandou), Give Our Youth to the Countryside (Ba qingchun xiangei nongcun) and The Heroic Xinyang People (Yingxiong de xinyang renmin). These films project new socialist model workers in rural areas and the industrial heartland of northeast China. Many of those people shown became well-known figures like Guo Fenglian (the iron girl) and Wang Jinxi (the iron man).

Humanistic phase, 1978–92 The humanistic period was characterised by a rising interest in China’s national history and cultural heritage which, in Mao’s era, had been condemned as ‘feudal’ and therefore ‘backward’. Documentary film as a genre gained unprecedented prominence throughout the 1980s when it shifted its focus from state socialism and class struggle to economic development, national identities and ‘liberating the mind’. Deng Xiaoping’s reforms brought new impetus to documentary making as the departure from Maoist dogma led to a relaxation of political control and a more liberal leadership. Marxist orthodoxy gave way to cultural nationalism in a new wave of ‘national spirit’ building documentary series that took centre stage in the 1980s. For a number of reasons, TV documentaries became popular programmes enjoyed by millions in China. First, in the transition from a class-based struggle for revolution to an economic development-centred society, these documentaries played a central role in constructing a new 359

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vision of society, of cultural identity and of the future. Second, the artificial, crude and overtly propagandist films shown mostly in the cinema changed to a new and refreshing style that appealed to audience’s national sentiments and longing for a brighter future. Third, in the 1980s, due to a much improved national TV infrastructure and rising urban population income, television became affordable for most urban families, and watching it became a popular leisure activity. Fourth, documentary was a major type of TV programme when there were few entertainment shows and limited channels before cable and satellite TV became available and affordable to viewers in the 1990s. Cultural tradition and national identity, often embodied in landscape documentaries, became prevailing themes. These films avoided political subjects and engaged the viewers in their common cultural heritage of the Chinese civilisation which had been attacked from the 1919 May Fourth Movement to the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Deliberately shaking off the previous proselytising presentation style, filmmakers approached their viewers as ordinary people and tried to tell ‘a good story’ through engaging narratives. The 25-part documentary series Yangtze River (Huashuo Changjiang) is a typical example of this style. The series was produced in association with a Japanese company and broadcast in 1983. It became an instant hit with an audience share of 40 per cent, and CCTV received over 10,000 letters from appreciative viewers. For the first time, on-screen presenters gave an account of national geography along the longest river in China. ‘Huashuo’ means ‘talk about’ – a term often used in Chinese traditional storytelling in novels and teahouses. The novel and informal huashuo style of story-telling by onscreen presenters was followed by other documentaries. High-profile documentary series during this period included the 17-part Silk Road (Sichou zhilu, 1980), 35-part Grand Canal (Huashuo yunhe, 1986–87), 30-part Yellow River (Huang He, 1988), 6-part River Elegy (He Shang, 1988) and 12-part The Great Wall (Wangli Changcheng, 1991). Television, the newly emergent vehicle of mass communication, came to be an important medium by which the state communicated to the general public. The convergence of the reformminded CCP leaders pushing for a new developmentalist policy and a cultural elite promoting a liberal agenda created conditions for a flourishing of humanistic films culminating in the 1988 controversial River Elegy which became a defining moment in the documentary genre as well as in China’s modern intellectual history. River Elegy was blamed for stirring up the student protests for a fairer, transparent and accountable government which took place in 1986 and 1989. These films became part and parcel of the rise of ‘wenhua re’ (cultural fever) that swept across the country throughout the 1980s. Wenhua re refers to the rise of interest in Chinese culture, western culture and the future of China in the post-reform era. It includes the emergence of liberalism in academic and intellectual circles, criticising autocratic politics and advocating the protection of individual rights against the intrusion of arbitrary state power. Liberalism was the earliest and the first non-official intellectual development in post-reform China and was a response to radical Maoism. Influential intellectual leaders like Jin Guantao and Liu Fengqing not only wrote and edited books including the popular Toward the Future Series (Zuoxiang weilai congshu), but also appeared in the high-profile documentary series River Elegy.

Popular phase, 1993–98 Moving away from the grand narrative of politics, economy and nation, filmmakers in the 1990s started to be drawn to ordinary people’s lives in the ‘popular phase’, or pingmin hua (shift to the ordinary people). Individuals rather than abstract ideas were central to a series of highly innovative documentaries. Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 southern tour (nanxun) generated a fresh wave 360

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of economic growth that had a profound impact on society. Social life-based documentaries started to emerge that focused on people’s lived experiences. Mao’s Communist utopia and the 1980s high-spirited liberal idealism gave way eventually to a mundane social space wherein 1990s filmmakers engaged with stories of individuals whose pent-up energy is largely directed to opportunities open to them to improve their lives. The marketisation of documentary production amidst the commercialisation of the media industry fuelled a surge of documentary making. In 1993, a ‘producer system’ was established wherein filmmakers could sign a contract with CCTV to produce documentaries. A portion of the 5-minute advertising revenue from each episode could be retained by the producer to fund documentaries. This reform gave filmmakers considerable leverage, if not autonomy, in content, style and staffing that enabled them to cater to ‘market demands’. In the same year two documentary series became immensely popular – Shanghai Television’s Documentary Editorial Room (Jilupian bianjishi) and CCTV’s Oriental Horizon (Dongfang shikong). Both of these focused on ordinary people’s lives and largely removed political indoctrination as filmmakers began to treat their subjects as equals rather than as signs of an abstract ideology. In 1993, television replaced cinema as the dominant medium for documentary film and media marketisation produced spaces for independent documentary making, albeit in non-political spaces. One of the most important developments during this phase was the emergence of the socalled new documentary movement that started in 1992 following an informal meeting by a group of young filmmakers frustrated by the sterile style and narrow focus of the dominant state system documentaries. They called their documentaries ‘new’ in an attempt to break away from the prevailing propaganda style of zhuantipian (special topic) in documentary making and created a new way of documenting social life, in contrast to what they saw as ‘the fake, exaggerated, and empty characteristics of not only the old socialist realist documentaries but also the more recent special topic programme’ (Lu 2010: 17). Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers (Liulang Beijing: zuihou de mengxiang zhe), made in 1990 by Wu Wenguang, is seen as the first and most successful ‘new’ documentary and tells the story of five roaming artists pursuing their dreams in hardship outside the state system. For the first time, invisible, insignificant and marginalised people living in the shadow of a large metropolis became the protagonists of a documentary. This and other new movement documentaries – 1966: My Red Guard Years (1966, Wode hongweibing shidai), I Have Graduated (Wo biye le), Tiananmen, as well as The Other Side of the Bank (Bi an) – received critical acclaim in Chinese media circles (Lu 2010: 19). The new documentary films shifted the focus from previous public topics like nation, the state, culture and history to hitherto neglected private topics such as family and emotional experiences taking place in private, domestic space. Nonetheless, this new documentary movement is better understood as a pluralisation rather than a break with the previous top-down documentaries. It extended rather than replaced the subject matter, presentation style and basic assumptions of previous films. Thus, despite its prominence and impact the new documentary movement has more continuities than ruptures with the past.

Plural phase, 1999–present Toward the end of the twentieth century when capitalism had taken root with Chinese characteristics, a variety of social issues such as the widening rich–poor gap arose and intensified. Taking notice of growing social strife amidst rapid economic growth, some documentary makers assumed the role of a mediator in producing films highlighting these problems. In contrast to the 1990s tendency to recount individual lives that are at times isolated from the social environment, filmmakers in the new century have turned their attention to society as a whole 361

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and emphasise ‘social responsibility’ in documentary making. To redress the negative effects of market forces during the 1990s, filmmakers highlight the nature of TV documentary as a public space, if not a public sphere, for social intervention through open discussions and debates (Berry and Rofel 2010: 136). Social space here refers to the space wherein people can express their views on important social issues like the plight of dispossessed peasants with little openly direct political intervention or retribution. However, such a social space is different from the Habermasian ‘public sphere’ that indicates a platform for political participation in a civil society (Habermas 1992). Social issues are discussed in new documentary movement films which take an interventionist approach as in Three Gorges Dam Migration (Sanxia yimin), Fate of an AIDS Sufferer (Yige aizibing huanzhe de mingyun) and Villagers’ Choice (Cunmin de xuanzhe). These documentaries deal with critical but controversial issues that are not normally shown on television such as mass migration, the AIDS epidemic and village elections. Armed with the new technology of digital video (DV), independent documentary makers in the new century have become more self-conscious in producing social critiques. Their documentaries are characterised by a change ‘from observation to participation, from spontaneous to inspirational filmmaking, from using descriptive to evaluative language, from documenting for history to filmmaking for social mobilisation’ (Wang 2010). On the other hand, big-budget documentary series shown on CCTV that focus once again on Chinese history and nation like Road to Revival (Fuxing zhilu, 2007) and Summer Palace (Yiheyuan, 2010) have also thrived. Increasingly documentaries on international topics such as Rise of Great Powers (Daguo jueqi, 2006), The Wall Street (Huaerjie, 2010) and BRICs Countries (Jinzhuan zhiguo, 2011) have been produced as China’s international role has grown. These series return to the topics of modern history and national identity though with a rather different and more confident perspective. The radical and critical views shown in River Elegy are largely absent from these documentaries despite a wider range of interpretations being offered within the officially sanctioned boundaries. The parallel development of mainstream documentary series and independently produced documentary films shown largely outside the state system reflects the increasingly complex and diversified landscape of documentary making in China – a situation described as ‘polyphony’ compared to the previous phases (Zhu 2007: 26). The changing pattern of documentary making coincides with China’s shifting socio-political transformation. Each phase of documentary development is inherently linked to pivotal political developments: the Great Leap Forward in 1958, the launch of economic reform in 1978, Deng Xiaoping’s south tour talks in 1992 and emerging social tensions towards the end of the twentieth century. Despite the overall progressive changes made over these four phases, the media have always operated within the established perimeters of the party-state, though the situation has become much more complex in recent decades when market forces began to play an important role. The dominance of politics has gradually been weakened by a plethora of forces such as the commercialised media environment, the advance of new information technology and the transformations of the society. The contextual background has changed rapidly – from Maoist socialism to Dengist developmentalism through to the current state capitalism. Correspondingly documentary’s functions have shifted from being a pure propaganda tool to a vehicle for political persuasion by political and intellectual elites and then to a mediator of socio-political changes, though the party-state maintains a hegemonic voice. Since the Fifth Generation of the CCP leadership under the Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and the State Council Premier Li Keqiang came to power in the spring of 2013, there has been no indication that the CCP will loosen its tight control over the media. While the Chinese leaders have become more confident in dealing with international affairs, they are fully aware of domestic problems including corruption, 362

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environmental pollution and popular protests. The CCP has always believed that the mass media are at the forefront of the battle to maintain stability, so in order to control this situation they cannot afford to leave any medium uncensored.

The poetics of documentary making: evolving mode of presentation Documentary modes Lyotard (1984) distinguishes two types of knowledge, namely scientific and narrative. The major difference between them is that narrative knowledge, unlike scientific knowledge, does not give priority to its own legitimation, but certifies itself in the pragmatics of its own transmission. Television documentary as a particular narrative genre has a type of ‘metadiscourse’ (Lyotard 1984: xxiii) as a legitimating system and constructs knowledge and truth in its own way. Its legitimation lies in the way in which it is presented – legitimation is enmeshed with a specific mode of representation. This can be understood as the ‘poetics’ of documentary making – referring to ‘those principles of construction, function, and effect specific to nonfiction film and video’ (Renov 1993b: 21). Indeed, such poetics are inherently linked to the use of language in all forms of presentation as Barthes (1989: 172) argues: ‘poetics is therefore at once very old (linked to the whole rhetorical culture of our civilisation) and very new, insofar as it can today benefit from the important renewal of the sciences of language’. Thus, in a broad sense addressing the question of why, the ‘politics’ of documentary is concerned with socio-political contexts that give rise to a particular type of Chinese documentary, whereas ‘poetics’ are more concerned with the ‘how’ question: how language produces meaning in the service of interests. However, the poetics and politics are intricately linked as the former is the means through which the latter is realised. Therefore, documentaries do not simply ‘record’ social ‘realities’ through narrative, they produce discourse: stories are told not only to generate meaning, but to construct knowledge in a matrix of relations of power. Bill Nichols (1991: 32–68) summarises four dominant modes of documentary representation: expository, observational, interactive and reflexive. Each has its own distinct way of constructing authority and claiming truth. The expository mode addresses the viewer directly in advancing an argument about the historical world, often in a ‘voice-of-God’ commentary, and is considered as ‘heavy’ and the most ‘authoritarian’ type of documentary (Corner 1996: 30). The voice-ofGod commentary refers to the early direct-address style in the Grierson tradition of documentary using an authoritarian and presumptuous off-screen narration. Such an omniscient ‘voice of God’ dominates visuals that exist merely to advance the argument contained in the commentary. Using Kozloff’s term (1992: 84), this ‘heterodiegetic voice’ addresses the audience with the highest degree of omniscience in a manipulation of the mythic and leaves much of the mimetic to the visuals. This commentary insistently encourages the viewer to read the images in a specific way. The observational mode arises from dissatisfaction with the moralising quality of expository documentary, and therefore attempts to record ‘unobtrusively’ what people do. The interactive and reflexive modes assume much less authority and engage in a process of meaning negotiation through interaction or reflection. Nichols (1991: 33–4) argues: A mode of representation involves issues of authority and the credibility of speech. Rather than standing as the idiosyncratic utterance of the individual filmmaker, the text demonstrates compliance with the norms and conventions governing a particular mode and, in turn, enjoys the prestige of tradition and the authority of a socially established and institutionally legitimate voice. 363

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Expository documentary: top-down communication Many documentaries in the PRC, in particular those from the political and humanistic periods, predominantly use the classic expository mode. In the early years, the mouthpiece function required documentary film to convey the official CCP line in a straightforward fashion. Documentaries are typically presented with a heavy ‘voice-of-God’ commentary. During much of the Mao era the visuals were carefully contrived. The 1953 documentary The Great Land Reform (Weida de tudi gaige) presents land reform as the only road to prosperity for the Chinese peasantry. The film shows how poverty was created by the ruthless exploitation of poor peasants by landlords. Throughout the film striking images are extensively employed showing denunciations of landlords’ crimes, happy faces of peasants gaining new lands, new local peasant representative conferences, and machinery used in the new socialist China. A range of documentaries produced in the 1960s and 1970s portray new socialist model workers and work units such as the 1964 The Road of Dazai (Dazai zhilu), 1965 Dazai People Dare to Think and Act (Ganxiang gangan de dazai ren) and 1970 Red Flag Canal (Hongqi qu). These documentaries portray the single-minded determination of peasants and workers answering the call for a socialist cause, who meet challenges in difficult conditions. These expository documentaries deliver an unproblematic and ‘objective’ account and interpretation of various Maoist socialist campaigns. Voice-over as an extra-diegetic soundtrack acts in a similar way to the CCP newspaper editorials in a patriarchal, dominant and omniscient control over meaning. The prevalence of the expository mode reflects a Leninist tradition of seeing news reports as the visualisation of politics. Filmmakers were required to reflect socialist life through reporting ‘typical events and activities of typical characters in a typical environment’. The CCP’s political and aesthetic objective for documentary film was the so-called ‘combination of revolutionary romanticism with revolutionary heroism’. It meant filmmakers needed to come up with ingenious ways of constructing, if not fabricating, a heroic and romanticised version of socialism through portraying ‘typical individuals, events and environment’. One of the most successful documentaries Tax Collection House (Shouzu yuan), produced in 1965, was repeated for eight years (1966–74). Its class struggle theme is presented through engaging artistic forms that include clay figures, popular tunes and personal narratives. This authoritarian style is dogmatic in the sense that it is the unitary, topdown and monological voice of the official doctrine (Chu 2007: 26). Such films were often produced in the ‘special topic’ format related to the heyday of socialist cinema. Before television became the dominant medium of political communication, newsreels News Clips (Xinwen jianbao) were shown in cinema before feature movies produced by the Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio. Guided by socialist realism aesthetics, such films portray socialist achievements through bright colours, cheerful music and imposing socialist heroes. The stage-managed images are presented on the principle of representing the ‘real’ through enhanced ‘typical’ new socialist men and women. The expository mode was however softened during the 1980s humanistic phase when on-screen presenters and interviews were introduced, starting in 1983 with the 25-episode CCTV series Yangtze River. Though voice-over commentary remained the dominant style of narration, humanistic documentaries nonetheless created a presentation style, such as using more informal interviews that better engaged the audience. In particular, following the structure of well-known traditional novels and story-telling in teahouses, they presented each episode in a ‘chapter-based novel’ (zhanghui ti xiaoshuo) format. It is notable that, despite the rise of popular documentaries and multi-voice in the post-Tiananmen period, a moderate version of expository mode has persisted as an important style in major documentary series in the 2000s. To some extent, such a heavy expository style is inevitable due to the nature of mainstream documentaries that present a closed, monological, single364

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dimensional but official version of the ‘realities’. One of the primary objectives of such documentaries is still ‘guiding public opinion’ though in a more subtle fashion than previously. The ‘mouthpiece’ role fits in naturally with the expository mode of presentation that imposes an official discourse on important domestic and international issues. Notwithstanding the proliferation and diversification of films in the 2000s, expository documentaries about the state, nation and history, such as the CCTV series Forbidden City (Gugong, 2004), Rise of Great Powers (2006) and Road to Revival (2007), continue to flourish.

Observational documentary: bottom-up perspectives It was not until the 1990s that other modes of presentation arose amidst the wave of the new documentary movement that actively sought to break the prevalent sterile expository style. New documentary films focusing on ordinary people’s lives in the popular and plural phases apply a combination of observational and interactive modes. Meanwhile, filmmakers became less intrusive in their approach to filming subjects. This change of style also reflected dissatisfaction with previous moralistic documentaries (Lu 2003; Berry et al. 2010). Despite a shift to cultural and historical topics, the lecturing style in the 1980s was increasingly divorced from the changed post-reform social realities. Recognising the imperative of understanding social change in a bottom-up rather than top-down manner, independent filmmakers sought to reflect real life through experimenting with fresh modes of presentation. By emphasising the perspective of those affected by social change, the rebellious bottom-up filmmakers attempted to create a link between documentaries and the lives of ordinary people. In the new century, the composition of documentary makers has also changed. They not only come from the television sector, but from art circles, educational institutions, fine art and multimedia. Some focus on an experimental avant-garde style and an exploration of new film language. In presenting marginalised social groups like ethnic minorities, sex workers, low-income labourers and substance abusers, their documentaries are imbued with a resistant and subversive message in both form and content. The documentary Bumming in Beijing is shot by a hand-held camera with synch sound but no artificial lighting. It is part of a new spontaneous mode of filmmaking called jishi zhuyi (onthe-spot realism) that documents life as it happens with minimal intervention from the filmmaker. Independent documentary makers try to present yuan shengtai (raw, pristine reality) using a combination of the observational and reflexive modes. Yuan shengtai documentaries contrast sharply with the often exaggerated ‘voice-of-God’, moralistic, cold mainstream films. ‘New movement’ filmmakers including Wu Wenguang, Duan Jinchuan and Zhang Yuan share a common objective of showing ‘real life’ China in a way that invites the audience to interpret their meanings. In the late 1990s, the second wave of ‘new documentary movement’ arose with the introduction of mobile, unobtrusive and affordable digital video. A new generation of filmmakers growing up in a different environment started to experiment with avant-garde film techniques while continuing to focus on marginalised social groups. Other filmmakers however pursued dramatisation of engaging stories, largely to attract viewers’ attention and fuelled by a new wave of commercialisation of TV documentaries competing with imported programmes such as those from the Discovery Channel. Digital video is suited for making documentaries on private lives; it also frees filmmakers from the state system. Jishi zhuyi documentary makers are drawn to the cinéma-vérité tradition of filmmaking. They produce novel documentaries that follow both the fly-on-the-wall style of American Direct Cinema emphasising objectivity, and the participatory style that reveals the filmmakers’ presence. These observational and reflexive documentaries also 365

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use minimal voice-over narration to make the meanings of their films deliberately ambiguous in order to avoid direct criticism of the state, as in the documentary Out of Phoenix Bridge and Meishi Street.

Case studies: from cultural critique to authoritarian statism River Elegy: a liberal challenge to the authoritarian state River Elegy is a controversial CCTV documentary made in 1988 that critiques China’s entrenched state-centric tradition. It attributes the Chinese nation’s decline to an autocratic polity that resists meaningful reforms in the modern age. The Yellow River, the Great Wall and the dragon – traditional symbols of the Chinese nation – are used to signify the backwardness of this landbased civilisation which needs to embrace western maritime ‘blue civilisation’. The film caused widespread controversy with its daring declaration of the death of the mother river, Yellow River – it is like asserting the death of God in the west. However, this iconoclastic attack on traditional Confucian culture is largely symbolic and was interpreted by the audience as a thinly veiled criticism of the current political system. The relevance of traditional autocratic rule to contemporary practice is laid bare when Liu Shaoqi, the former president of China, is described as being left to die on the floor of an empty room during the Cultural Revolution. The message for urgent political reform is made crystal clear. What is remarkable about the series is that it was produced and broadcast by CCTV, the CCP’s pre-eminent mouthpiece. The bold move by CCTV epitomised the newly emerging space in the mass media for alternative voices. It also indicated the modification of the role of media professionals in the reform age when the ‘humanistic character’ (ren xing) of journalism started to expand, alongside the dominant role of the ‘party character’ (dang xing). However, the significance of this ground-breaking series goes beyond the media; it also represents the culmination of the liberal critique of the authoritarian state of the 1980s when liberal-minded intellectuals demystified the ‘holy trinity’ of the Chinese nation, state and the CCP. Locating the autocratic state as the main barrier to China’s search for a viable route to modernity, the film reflects the unprecedented intellectual freedom of the 1980s when intellectuals engaged in debates about Chinese tradition, western culture and China’s future development and, making full use of the mass media, tried to disseminate liberal knowledge in an effort to enlighten the general public. Nonetheless, River Elegy adopts a primarily expository mode of presentation with a voice-over commentary and interviews with ‘experts’, many of whom are leading cultural studies scholars. Unlike the previous construction of truth and knowledge based on ‘unassailable’ Marxist and Maoist dogmas, River Elegy presents an implicitly anti-establishment intellectual argument that derives its legitimacy and power from the authority of those intellectuals who had gained much respect in the post-reform 1980s as ‘spokesperson’ of the nation and people. Rather than being the CCP’s mouthpiece, River Elegy is the vehicle of the newly arisen intellectuals to spread the gospel of change. To some extent, these intellectuals resemble their predecessors in the May Fourth Movement in attacking Confucian tradition and advocating democracy as a remedy for China’s problems. Before its run was complete, River Elegy had proven so controversial and led to so many divided opinions among the top CCP leaders that CCTV held internal meetings to discuss if the broadcasts should be terminated. However, the series proved so popular that CCTV repeated it, though first removed ‘sensitive’ parts of the original version. Less than a year after the 1989 Tiananmen protests and the associated crackdown, River Elegy was banned and a nationwide campaign was launched attacking the film as advocating a western bourgeoisie liberalism 366

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that stirs up unrest. The political campaign silenced the intellectual debate on the provocative views the series presents. The dramatic ups and downs of this documentary largely parallel the rise and fall of Chinese liberals both within and outside the establishment. No other documentary film in PRC history has exerted such a powerful impact on political and intellectual development. Even today River Elegy is carefully avoided in open discussions, though issues raised in the film are as pertinent and controversial today as they were in the 1980s.

Rise of Great Powers: a conservative validation of an authoritarian state In contrast to River Elegy’s liberal critique, Rise of Great Powers is a conservative though conditional endorsement of the authoritarian state. However, its legitimacy is drawn from a combination of western legalism and Confucian ideology. The 12-part film, broadcast by CCTV in November 2006, details the rise since 1500 of nine world powers – Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the USA and Japan. The documentary aims, as a senior CCTV official put it, ‘to provide historical and cultural context to the discussion of China’s national development issues’ (Zhao 2006: 3). The issue raised in Rise of Great Powers nonetheless is a very different one from River Elegy as it explores what role the Chinese state needs to adopt on its road to a great power status. In the early years of the twenty-first century, following three decades of economic growth, and in contrast to the anxiety and acute awareness of its weakness in the 1980s, China became more confident. Around the mid-1990s, the post-Tiananmen political conservatism and perceived anti-China post-Cold War international environment spurred the rise of cultural nationalism. Rise of Great Powers reflects this change of mood in both the political and intellectual life of China. It presents a broad assessment of the external world upon which the current pragmatic policies are based. Ironically, however, the basic evaluations of the west made by Rise of Great Powers are similar to those of River Elegy since both portray a positive image of the west, although for different reasons. The former emphasises the progressive role of western national leaders and the legal framework within which they operate; the latter highlights the role of liberal democracy in driving western progress, not only in terms of the wealth and power of industrialist modernity but in terms of the democracy, rule of law and human liberalism of humanist modernity. In affirming the crucial role of national leaders, the rule of law and science and technology, Rise of Great Powers naturalises, legitimises and reinforces authoritarian technocratic rule. Effectively Rise of Great Powers seeks consensual support from the audience and excludes potential or sublimated oppositional discourses that are unable to gain entry to CCTV, at least not in the same radical form as River Elegy. However, Rise of Great Powers stresses the rule of law, which is understood in the matrix of Chinese politics as a reminder of the limit to which the political elite exercises its power – the ‘mandate of heaven’ has changed to ‘mandate of the people’ – though how it works is left largely to viewers’ imagination. Democracy is alluded to but carefully toned down. Nonetheless the film renounces any legitimising cloak of a Marxist class strugglebased ideology despite the implicit industrialist modernity it invokes. Rise of Great Powers has received positive reviews from mainstream commentators despite criticism from both liberals and new leftists. The term ‘Chinese liberals’ refers to those who see the Chinese future as adopting a liberal democratic polity; the new leftists are those who draw upon western New Left theories to explain China’s problems as being derived from the ‘invasion’ of global capitalism and who seek to solve these problems by returning to some Maoist practices. In criticising Rise of Great Powers, the liberals point to the documentary’s failure to highlight the role of democracy. The new leftists however accuse the series of glorifying jungle 367

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law capitalism. Nonetheless, unlike River Elegy, which enjoyed political support from the top, the liberal and new left critics of Rise of Great Powers do not have political backing, though each group has gained extensive support among different sections of society. Though their radical faction was purged in the 1989 crackdown, Chinese liberals represent a steady force pushing for democratic change. Their support for property rights, rule of law and free competition has won new constituencies within an emerging middle class. Armed with western New Left theories, China’s new leftists present themselves as defenders of people’s rights and appeal to those who see China’s problems as associated with global capitalism (Ma 2012; also see Zhao, Chapter 1 in this volume). Significantly, criticisms from the right and left turn Rise of Great Powers into a somewhat mainstream view echoing the policies of a Chinese leadership that is undemocratic but open to the world and ferociously focused on economic development. To some extent, the existence of the liberals and new left depends on the overlapping of their values with official policies. The liberals’ support for full-scale reform, a market economy and external engagement is congruent with the CCP’s embrace of the global capitalist economy. The new left’s emphasis on social justice, equality and support for disadvantaged groups resonates with the official rhetoric of former President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao’s ‘harmonious society’ and ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ (Xiao 2012). Rise of Great Powers indicates the position of a pragmatic political elite situated at the centre of a nationalist spectrum that counterbalances the liberal, pro-market right and anti-capitalist new left. Tolerance of these alternatives depends on a broad consensus at the top – a situation different from the 1980s when the CCP leadership was torn between a reformed socialist approach and a liberal market approach. Post-Deng leaderships reached a consensus that China should pursue a pragmatic developmentalist policy. Nonetheless, the political elite walk a tightrope between allowing alternative voices and containing them, so as not to undermine their dominant position and domestic stability. Despite growing diversity in non-political areas, CCTV as the primary state network maintains a tight editorial control. The domain of history, for example, remains firmly guarded by the CCP propaganda department. From River Elegy’s liberal critique to Rise of the Great Powers’s conditional endorsement of an authoritarian state, documentary film is intertwined with the political developments of the day. Despite complex and radical changes, TV documentary is still considered as an important tool of public communication and is therefore a preferred platform of the political and intellectual elites for shaping public opinion.

Conclusion: documentaries between the mouthpiece and ‘modern bard’ The development of documentary films over the last six decades in the PRC reflects the evolution of the CCP’s political power. Despite the hegemonic position of the CCP in deciding what viewers can see, since the 1990s there has been an expanding space for discursive negotiations to take place in documentaries. In a post-socialist China, the political elite’s power and legitimacy depends on their ability to provide social welfare, their capacity to change with time and their means of public communication. Change, however, is no longer brought about by a simple implementation of policies determined solely by the political elite. There is a growing tendency for various social actors to be engaged in a process of negotiation, and documentary films provide this process with a genuine, though much restricted, platform. The increased space for alternative discourses poses a growing pressure on the political elites, and this partially explains the constant effort made by the propaganda department in tightening controls. They have to use their dominant discursive position to cultivate public attitudes and knowledge that are 368

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congruent with their policies. The CCP’s authoritarian power over documentary films like Road to Revival helps achieve precisely that objective. Nonetheless, changes in documentary film have been brought about primarily by a market-oriented reform that has enabled a progressive erosion of media control. Limited deregulation has led to a widening of participation and voice in a process of change described as moving ‘from dogma to polyphony’ (Chu 2007: 26–8), ‘from control to negotiation’ (Huang 2007: 402–12) and ‘from propaganda to hegemony’ (Zhang 2011). The currently marginalised independent documentaries have taken root and are gradually permeating through society. The very existence of the new documentary movement speaks volumes for the need to produce documentaries that genuinely reflect people’s living conditions, thinking and aspirations. Three types of documentary discourse can be discerned over the last half-century – the official discourse dominating the political phase, the broadly intellectual discourse arising in the humanistic phase and the popular discourse emerging in the popular phases. However, all three strands of discourse continue to develop in the twenty-first century forming a plural picture. In a plural but official-dominated media space, documentary film has become somewhat fragmented. Amidst rising popular culture fuelled by media commercialisation, elitist documentaries no longer attract the extensive public attention they did in the 1980s, and therefore are being marginalised and pushed to narrowcasting. On the other hand, official discourse is dominant in major TV series, ranging from history such as Forbidden City (2004), Road to Revival (2007) and World History (Shijie lishi, 2008) to economy like Power of Business Corporations (Gongsi de liliang, 2009), Wall Street (2010) and BRICs Countries (2011). Vast resources and its state media status make it possible for CCTV to produce and broadcast major documentary series that highlight official discourse. Nevertheless, official discourse has been subtly blended with intellectual input by academics involved in producing series as ‘subject experts’ from research institutions and universities. Despite the increasing diversity, CCTV prioritises ‘main melody’ (zhu xuan lü) documentaries to fulfil its mouthpiece function. Yet, the mouthpiece has become keenly aware of the need to play a tune pleasant to public ears. CCTV and other state media institutions are undergoing transformations whereby media professionals try to position themselves as the ‘modern bard’ (Fiske and Hartley 1982: 595) of the people whilst simultaneously retaining the mouthpiece function. The official discourse, mediated by academics and progressive media practitioners, has created a new type of hybridity generating an innovative mode of discursive formation for producing meaning, constructing knowledge and changing power relations. Plurality is thus constituted by a media space wherein various documentaries can compete, though official hybridised discourses try to co-opt viewers to their dominant interpretations. Documentary films in their ambivalent negotiation between a CCP ‘mouthpiece’ and a ‘modern bard’ reveal the evolving roles of the mass media. It is difficult to ascertain to what extent the official documentary discourse can hold its hegemonic position, but one thing is certain: due to the changed sociopolitical environment and a better informed public in an increasingly open society, there is no going back to the old heavy propagandist route in documentary film.

Notes 1

The author wishes to thank the British Academy for its support in the production of this chapter with a grant that enables the necessary fieldwork in China. The eight documentary channels are: China Central Television Documentary Channel (CCTV-9), China Central Television Science and Education Channel (CCTV-10), China Education Television Channel 3 (Zhongguo jiaoyu dianshitai san pindao), Beijing High Definition Documentary Channel (Beijing gaoqing jishi pindao), Shanghai Documentary 369

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Channel (Shanghai jishii pindao), Chongqing Science and Education Channel (Chongqing kejiao pindao), Hunan Golden Eagle Documentary Channel (Hunan jinying jishi pindao) and Liaoning North Channel (Liaoning beifang pindao). It refers to the 1913 military campaign led by Sun Yat-sen against the Yuan Shikai government following the assassination of the KMT leader Song Jiaoren.

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23 Contemporary Chinese historical television drama as a cultural genre Production, consumption and state power George Dawei Guo

Introduction In the mid-1990s a wave of dramatic serials featuring the legendary figures of China’s bygone dynasties began to dominate dramatic programming on Chinese prime time television. The trend reached its height in the late 1990s and the early 2000s with saturation programming of palace dramas set in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), the last Chinese feudal empire. These historical dramas are characterised as a significantly different look from those of the 1980s, being more diverse in theme and style and more concerned with mass entertainment. Most importantly, they have popularised a rewriting or representing of well-known historical events and figures driven by the commercialisation process of Chinese media. For example, the 44-episode serial Yongzheng Dynasty (Yongzheng wangchao, 1998), produced by Beijing Tongdao Cultural Development Company, used more than 100 characters in more than 600 scenes to narrate the political struggles in the Qing Dynasty from the period of Emperor Kangxi (1662–1722) to Emperor Yongzheng (1723–35). It drew upon historical allegories and historical rewritings to explore the history and power relations of contemporary Chinese society. Since the early 2000s more dramas dealing with historical figures and events from a range of periods in ancient Chinese history have been produced and aired nationwide in China. The popularity of these television historical dramas has attracted the attention of both critics and audiences in China and abroad. Many scholars of Chinese culture and society explain the popularity of television historical dramas by referring to a revival of Confucianism in contemporary Chinese politics (e.g. Bell 2008; Zhang 2008; Zhu 2008a). Confucianism (rujia sixiang) is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BC). The origin of Confucianism dates back to China’s Spring and Autumn Period (771–476 BC) when an ethical socio-political teaching emerged. Following the abandonment of Legalism (fa jia)1 in China after the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), Confucianism became the official state ideology of China. It developed metaphysical and 372

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cosmological elements in the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). As it is widely accepted, the dominant strain of Confucianism stresses: avoidance of conflict, a social hierarchy that values seniority and patriarchy, a reliance on sage leadership that locates its safeguards against the abuse of power not in political situations but in the moral commitment of leaders, an anti-commercial attitude that disparages trading for profit, an emphasis on moderation in the pursuit of all forms of human pleasure that subordinates entertainment to moral enlightenment and, finally, the overarching notion of humanity. The end of the Cold War not only greatly eased the political and military stand-off between China and the western world, but it also witnessed increasing human, cultural and economic mobility at both regional and transnational levels. China, as one of the longest continuous civilisations, re-emerged into the international community after nearly a century of impotence, frustration and humiliation. The most prominent change within China’s political landscape in the post-Tiananmen era has been the revival of Confucianism. The collapse of Maoist ideologies in China marked the end of crude domestic class struggles as well as the beginning of an era of so-called ‘socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics’. Briefly speaking, ‘Chinese characteristics’ means that although the market-based mechanism was introduced to China’s economic system, the party-state still plays a dominant role in controlling and mobilising political, social and economic resources. However, as economic growth continued under this one-party authoritarian rule, rampant political corruption has become a pressing issue in Chinese society. Concerns about corruption were also behind the outbreak of student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, with calls for stricter anti-corruption (fan fubai) measures the most important demand. The Tiananmen protest was ended by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but political corruption remains a challenge to the legitimacy of the CCP’s rule. Unlike the Maoist period, where the party-state ideologies served as the moral standard in the public realm, the postTiananmen era witnessed the crisis of the Communist ideologies in ordinary people’s lives. Since the 1990s, this moral crisis has been solved in some cases by other belief systems and ideologies such as Christianity, Falun Gong and popular nationalism of all kinds. However, as Daniel Bell (2008: 8) observes, the Chinese government worries that such moral alternatives ‘threaten the hard-won peace and stability that underpins the country’s development, so it has encouraged the revival of China’s most venerable political tradition: Confucianism’. Jiang Zemin, who served as the secretary-general of the ruling CCP between 1989 and 2002, initiated a series of unprecedented actions to endorse the rise of new Confucianism. By so doing, Jiang attempted to advocate a central leadership with Confucian moral principles and thus maintain the legitimacy of the CCP’s rule. Under Jiang’s administration, for example, the China Millennium Monument (Zhonghua shiji tan) was set up in Beijing in 2000 to celebrate the coming of a new millennium. This grand monument combines the spirit of traditional Chinese culture with modern architectural art and integrates architecture, landscaping, sculpture, mural painting and various other art forms. It stands along a north–south axis in Beijing, occupying an area of 4.5 hectares and a total floor space of about 42,000 square metres. Furthermore, Jiang himself launched a large-scale research project on the history of the Qing Dynasty at Renmin University in Beijing, one of China’s top universities in humanities and social sciences. As the Qing Dynasty was the last Chinese feudal empire, it is always considered a crucial period for a critical examination of traditional Chinese culture. After Hu Jintao became secretary-general of the CCP in 2002, new Confucianism, as a state ideology, was pushed to a higher level. Along with the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, Hu advocated that the building of ‘a socialist harmonious society’ should be the new leitmotiv for Chinese society. According to the Hu–Wen administration, harmony, as the most important principle of Confucianism, should be implemented and mobilised by China’s major cultural and 373

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educational institutions. At the opening ceremony of the 8th Congress of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the 7th Congress of the Chinese Writers Association in November 2006, Hu urged Chinese artists and writers to devote themselves to promoting ‘cultural harmony’. Many prominent scholars of Chinese media have pointed out that it is under this political climate that the television historical dramas set during the dynasty era have been at the forefront of articulating political and legal principles based on the Confucian-influenced traditional Chinese culture and thereafter have been playing their roles in support of the state’s propagandist purposes (e.g. Li and Xiao 2006; Yin 2002: 28–39; Yin and Ni 2009: 103–22; Zhu 2008a). In her discussion of the popularity of the Qing drama, US-based Chinese media scholar Ying Zhu (2008b: 30) establishes ‘the symbolic link between neo-authoritarianism’s justification of the Tiananmen crackdown and the drama’s ideological positioning’. She reminds us that the revisionist Qing drama emerged at a time when Chinese society was undergoing rapid economic growth due to the Deng Xiaoping-led economic reforms in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. As the Chinese people were fed up with corruption and the society’s perceived loss of its moral grounding as the economy developed, these dynasty dramas attempted to ‘present exemplary emperors from bygone dynasties’ and ‘capitalize on the popular yearning for models of strong leadership’ on Chinese television (Zhu 2008b: 32). At the same time, Zhu positions this ‘authoritarian nostalgia’ for exemplary emperors in parallel with the fact that Mao enjoyed the same kind of renewed popularity from the late 1980s to the early 1990s (Zhu 2008b: 32). For Chinese intellectuals like Zhu, the search for model rulers is rooted in Chinese cultural tradition that has been dominated by Confucianism, as a state religion, dating back to the second century and down to the late Qing Dynasty and the early twentieth century. Although these scholars have interpreted the popularity of the television historical dramas as a revival of Confucianism, virtually no empirical research has been done to explore how Chinese audiences relate their viewing experiences to the revival of Confucianism according to their own social and cultural conditions. Media scholars have failed to closely investigate how these television historical dramas are perceived, discussed and criticised by the audiences. In his discussion of soap opera in the western world, Robert Allen (1985: 10) claims that the study of soap operas had been conditioned within two related supervisory discourses: ‘criticism (aesthetic discourses) and sociological research’. For an extended period, the media scholars in China have interpreted these historical dramas mainly by using textual analysis, but little academic effort has been made to explore the meaning of these dramas from a sociological perspective. It is possible that the chronic lack of sociological consideration of television dramas in China is because most of the media scholars in China come from a literature background and so give more attention to the textual elements of television drama than its contextual meaning. At the same time, although the ways of defining the historical television drama are diverse, ‘the historical’ has become an umbrella term in contemporary China, referring to television fiction concerning treatment of history (mainly pre-modern), explorations of key pre-modern events and figures as well as adaptations of classic novels. Nevertheless, the use of ‘the historical’ as a term is not stable. ‘Serious drama’ (zheng shuo ju) versus ‘popular drama’ (xi shuo ju) is still the most common dichotomy made within Chinese popular press and academia about this rather broad genre of ‘historical television’. The serious dramas refer to those representing historical figures and events in a more historically accurate way, whereas the popular ones are judged to feature a dramatic representation loosely based on historical facts. Faced with this diversity and complexity, this chapter is intended to interrogate contemporary Chinese historical television dramas as a cultural genre. In discussing the global historical television phenomenon, historian Jerome de Groot (2009: 181) suggests that we consider the ways historical 374

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television has ‘complicated “history” to the point that the “historical” becomes a genre itself to be challenged and subverted’. In my own study of Chinese historical drama, the diverse and inconsistent use of ‘the historical’ prompts the question of how the category of ‘the historical’ is brought to life through narrating contemporary Chinese political and social issues within the historical drama text. In other words, what needs to be examined is how Chinese historiographical traditions are manifested in the contemporary historical drama’s production and consumption processes. On the other hand, it is not my intention to argue against the interconnections between Confucianism as an old Chinese political philosophy and its contemporary media representations proposed by media scholars like Ying Zhu. Rather, as a media sociologist, I am always suspicious of a narrow interpretation of a certain media phenomenon and its ideological positioning. As far as the historical television drama is concerned, I feel more inclined to interrogate the Chinese audience’s televisual experience on the historical drama and its sociological groundings. To a large extent this echoes American anthropologist Lisa Rofel’s (1994) approach to studying Chinese nationalism in the era of popular culture. Benedict Anderson’s path-breaking work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983) became a key reference for media and cultural scholars on China in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, in her critique of Anderson’s approach Rofel (1994: 701) argues that ‘his [Anderson’s] theory can explain the origin of imagined communities but not plots, climaxes, or denouement’. She goes on to claim that a simple description of the administrative structure of the party-state China is inadequate for an understanding of how official power works in the post-Mao era. She suggests we need to take a close look at how state power in China operates not merely through its institutions, but ‘through the way the state creates itself as an imagined entity’ (Rofel 1994: 704). Inspired by Rofel’s approach, I put forward a hypothesis that Chinese audiences’ different modes of engagement with the historical drama text can reflect their different modes of cultural imagination conjured up by the state power. It is worth noting that the genre analysis in this chapter is primarily influenced by the cultural approach to television genre advocated by Jason Mittell. According to Mittell (2004: xii), television genre is ‘a process of categorization’; it is ‘not found within media texts, but operate[s] across the cultural realms of media industries, audiences, policy, critics, and historical contexts’. Within traditional genre studies, exploring textual assumptions is the key to understanding the formation and operation of a given genre; an interpretive textual analysis is considered as a primary critical practice in a study of the genre. Although a genre is a category of texts operating within a given context, it is the text not the category that is treated as the point of departure for traditional genre studies. For Mittell, discursive formations of genres should not be studied through ‘interpretive readings or deep structural analysis’; rather, they should be studied ‘in their surface manifestations and common articulations’ (Mittell 2004: 13). Meanwhile, the categorical rubric, not the textual property of a given genre, should be the primary site and material for genre analysis. By refocusing on the category and not the individual text Mittell reconceptualises the relationship between a single text and its social context; that is, in my understanding, to situate the single text into a larger system of power relations. In this system, a given genre is surrounded and characterised by a group of discourses which constitute generic categories. Those discourses, as Mittell (2004: 13) argues, are ‘the practices that define genres and delimit their meanings, not media texts themselves’. Useful as it may be, Mittell’s approach can be problematic in the study of Chinese television culture. The main problem lies in its inheritance of a Foucauldian legacy that regards power as diffused and discursive. This is incompatible in addressing the strict state supervision of television production and broadcasting that prevails in China. Unlike modern liberal states and neo-liberal states in Europe and the United States, the party-state apparatus remains the ultimate power in 375

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Chinese cultural production. Although China’s TV dramatists are now afforded certain freedoms in managing the business aspects of production and distribution, they must still have their shooting proposals censored and approved by China’s top audiovisual regulatory body, the State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT, prior to 2013 the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television or SARFT). It would be therefore naive to directly apply a theory like Mittell’s cultural genre approach to the Chinese situation, although this approach is appropriate as applied to the American broadcasting system. As a consequence, because of its theoretical limitations, this chapter uses Mittell’s approach as an analytical tool to unpack the historical television drama in China, but vigilance is required about how state intervention of all sorts might impact the production, distribution and reception of drama programmes. This chapter examines the genre of the historical television drama from both the production and the consumption perspectives. The first section focuses on the Chinese television drama industry. The aim of this section is to look at how the Chinese television drama industry has been categorising and evaluating historical drama since the 1980s. Based on my document analysis and industry interviews between 2007 and 2010, I will divide the evolution of Chinese historical drama into three stages: 1984–92, 1992–2004 and 2004–present. At each stage, the meaning of ‘the historical’ has been conditioned by certain literary, production, scheduling and regulatory circumstances. My discussion on the audience response is based on some empirical audience research that I conducted between late September 2007 and early April 2008. The research was carried out in two urban settings in China – Beijing and Changsha. Ten focus groups and 11 in-depth interviews were conducted involving more than 60 respondents from young adult and middle-aged audience groups. Based upon their attitudes towards the historiographical traditions which take their character from contemporary China’s system of television historical drama production, I group my respondents into three types including conservatives, culturalists and realists. Arbitrary as it may look, I argue that to a large extent these three audience types reveal my respondents’ awareness and perception of state power in their cultural practices of watching the historical drama.

The evolution of the historical drama: an industry perspective Stage one: 1984–92 The period between 1984 and 1992 not only witnessed the Chinese television industry’s recovery from the Cultural Revolution, but also observed television drama becoming more mature and diverse in terms of content and style. It is between 1984 and 1989 that historical drama appeared as a new genre on Chinese television in greater numbers. The prominent examples are The Dream of the Red Chamber (Hong lou meng, 1986), Strange Tales of a Lonely Studio (Liaozhai zhiyi, 1986), Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 1987) and The Last Emperor (Modai huangdi, 1988). Most of these dramas were based on popular literary work, so the term ‘literary adaptation’ (wenxue gaibian) often referred to historical drama by the television drama directors at the time (see Li and Xiao 2006). These literary adaptations produced in mainland China fell into three categories: classic ancient Chinese novels (like The Dream of the Red Chamber), ancient legendary folklores (like Strange Tales of a Lonely Studio) and contemporary historical novels (like The Last Emperor). Apart from their literary origins, these dramas have two other characteristics that are worth special attention. First, they were all produced by the state-owned television studios, mainly those affiliated to China Central Television (Zhongyang dianshi tai, CCTV) or provincial television stations. 376

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Under the strict supervision of China’s Central Ministry of Propaganda (Zhong xuan bu), Chinese television dramatists were required to dogmatically follow the so-called Marxist literary and artistic principles, which basically advocated that artists and writers serve the people and the socialist system, and should adopt a social realism style in their work. In this political climate, Chinese television dramatists throughout the 1980s treated historical or literary subjects in a relatively serious manner compared to those in the 1990s. This ‘seriousness’ well reflected the dramatists’ ideological and rhetorical burdens that were imposed by the central authority at the time. Meanwhile, the ‘seriousness’ effectively set a ‘quality’ standard for the historical drama. This quality standard can be characterised as a strong combination of literary accuracy and moral instruction. Second, as well as the inherited Chinese literary tradition, these productions were also influenced by productions from abroad, notably in their adoption of the serial format. For instance, The Dream of the Red Chamber has 36 episodes and The Last Emperor 28 episodes, with each episode running for about 45 minutes. What is more, most of these dramas debuted on CCTV1, the most watched television channel in the country, in the evening slot between 8:00 p.m. and 8:45 p.m., which became China’s daily national television prime time throughout the 1980s until the present. In short, one can say that historical drama on Chinese television in the 1980s performed a dual cultural function: promoting national literary heritage on the one hand, and providing mass entertainment on the other.

Stage two: 1992–2004 In the second stage between 1992 and 2004, Chinese historical drama experienced enormous transformation in both its content and its sub-genres. Most importantly, the dichotomy between ‘serious drama’ and ‘popular drama’ emerged in the public discussion about historical drama in the mid-1990s. Taiwanese television culture and the ongoing commercialisation of Chinese television worked together to generate and reinforce this dichotomy. With regards to the influence of Taiwanese television culture, Michael Curtin (2005: 293–313; 2007) revisits this important political and cultural change which had a significant impact on contemporary Taiwanese and Chinese television culture. Curtin writes (2005: 297), ‘as martial law began to wither and new media outlets began to flourish’, reformers within the Taiwanese ruling Kuomintang (KMT, i.e. the Nationalist Party) decided to loosen their control of the China Television Company (CTV, Zhongshi), one of the three state-controlled television stations in Taiwan. The others were the Chinese Television System (CTS, Huashi) and the Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV, Taishi), controlled by the military and the provincial government respectively. The KMT’s decision to relax its control was made in response to a growing multiplicity of cable television channels and increased competition in the Taiwanese commercial television market. The KMT’s reformers believed that cutting off the explicit ties between CTV and the party would better realise CTV’s commercial objectives as well as making it more attractive as a public stock offering. At the same time, in order for the station not to fall into the hands of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the KMT installed at CTV managers who were sympathetic to the KMT. CTV transformed itself from the KMT’s propaganda machine to a market-oriented business, although its core identity still revolved round ‘its distinctive association with Chinese arts and culture’ (Curtin 2005: 298). It needs to be made clear here that CTV’s strong Chinese identity is to a large extent determined by CTV’s spiritual resonance with the KMT, which has always been controversially in favour of imagining a Greater China (dazhongguo xiangxiang). 377

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Under these circumstances, CTV started to devote itself to producing costume drama (guzhuang ju) for audiences in the Greater China region from the early 1990s. CTV’s production of costume drama served as a historic starting point for frequent collaboration between Taiwanese and Chinese television producers after almost 40 years of military stand-off across the Taiwan Straits. The 42-part Tales of Emperor Qianlong (Xishuo Qianlong), co-produced by Taiwan’s Flying Dragon Film Production and China’s Beijing Film Studio, was the first pioneering series. Based on the well-known historical tale about the Qing Emperor Qianlong’s visit to south China, it tells a story of the emperor’s wish to pursue freedom and true love. The serial made its first appearance on CTV in the prime time slot of 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekdays between May and July in 1991. One year later in 1992, it was shown on most of China’s cable television channels as well. In my view, the rise of the costume drama represented by Tales of Emperor Qianlong can be understood in two ways. On the one hand, as Curtin (2005: 311) rightly observes, it came as a result of Taiwanese television producers ‘seeking alliance outside of the island in order to respond to local market pressures’. On the other hand, it suggested to television producers on either side of the Straits that despite the fact that there is tension between contemporary Chinese and Taiwanese politicians, pre-modern Chinese history provides them with much less sensitive and culturally specific artistic inspiration. For television dramatists in China, the success of Tales of Emperor Qianlong introduced them to the new idea of ‘popular historical drama’. For a proper understanding of this broad term ‘popular historical drama’ in the Chinese context, I need to elaborate. Starting from Tales of Emperor Qianlong, ‘xishuo drama’ gradually came to be recognised by Chinese television dramatists as a distinctive television genre. Not based on official historical records but popular historical tales, a xishuo serial tends to address such issues as corruption, romance, tradition and identity using historical events and characters. Heavily influenced by Tales of Emperor Qianlong, a wave of popular historical dramas thus emerged in China and saturated prime time provincial television schedules in the mid-1990s. The 40-episode Hunchback Liu the Prime Minister (Zaixiang Liu Luoguo), which was produced and distributed by Shanghai Hairun Film and Television Production in 1996, was a perfect example. The story of Hunchback Liu is centred around the conflicts between two famous senior officials during the Qianlong period (1711–99) of the Qing Dynasty. Liu Yong (or Hunchback Liu) is an honest and caring official and He Shen is notoriously corrupt and evil-hearted. Hunchback Liu is widely documented as the earliest domestically produced popular – or xishuo – historical drama that enjoyed massive popularity (see Li and Xiao 2006). At the same time, traditional ‘literary adaptation’ genres that emerged in the 1980s continued to develop. For one thing, many classic ancient Chinese novels, for example, The Tales of Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), which was first turned into television drama in the 1980s, was remade by the state-owned television studios, including CCTV. The introduction of new set designs and new casts to the classic literary adaptations attracted audiences of all ages both in China and beyond. For another, the Qing emperor serials emerged. The most prominent examples have to be Eryuehe’s biographical novels of Qing emperors. The Chinese novelist Eryuehe, among those historical writers, is worth special attention here. Born in Shanxi Province in north China in 1945, Eryuehe was originally named Ling Jiefang. He is best known for his works of three Qing Dynasty emperors, Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, all of which have been adapted into award-winning television series. Similar to the popular historical drama, Eryuehe’s emperor serials use the past to mirror the present and draw upon the past to satirise the present. However, the fact that they claim to be based on official historical records differentiates them from the popular serials. 378

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Ever since Eryuehe’s Qing emperor drama was a huge success on Chinese television in the mid-1990s, the term ‘serious drama’ or ‘correct drama’ has been adopted by industry professionals. Fu Le, a senior television drama producer from the Drama Unit of Hunan Television, comments on the use of the term in my interview with him. He says that although China’s television dramatists still use terms like costume drama, period drama or emperor drama to specify a certain historical serial depending on its content and style, ‘serious drama versus popular drama has served as the threshold showing to what extent a certain historical drama concerns real history since the late 1990s’.2 ‘Real history’ is an interesting notion here. From this, it can be seen that the way of representing ‘the historical’ has become key in evaluating historical drama within the television industry since the mid-1990s. In other words, not until almost two decades after historical drama appeared on Chinese television did China’s television industry professionals start to rethink the legitimacy question of ‘the historical’ as a cultural category in such a straightforward manner. This legitimacy question reflects the changing political and cultural value of Chinese historical drama. It eventually led to deep controversy and further hybridisation of the historical drama from 2004 to the present. It is worth noting that, for the Chinese audience, the biggest attraction of Eryuehe’s Qing emperor series lies in its Chinese historiographical traditions which have been inherited from literary and artistic work. The series drew upon historical allegories and historical rewritings to explore the history and power relations of contemporary Chinese society. This televised practice of rewriting history reached a climax in spring 2003 with the Towards the Republic (Zouxiang gonghe) incident. Towards the Republic was a Chinese historical television series first broadcast on CCTV from April to May 2003. The series is based on events that occurred in China between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century that led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the founding of the Republic of China. The series reinterpreted aspects of the historical events and actors involved. Therefore, its airing immediately provoked heated public discussions in the media as well as on the internet. Due to its portrayal of historical issues deemed politically sensitive by the Chinese government, the series was subject to censorship. Some episodes had to be re-edited, and its planned repeated airing on provincial television channels was cancelled. In a general sense, the restrictions that Towards the Republic faced in the end were primarily because, as Muller (2007: 3) states, the serial’s historical interpretation ‘did not accord with the widely-held official one supported by the government’. Unlike the seriousness embedded in the 1980s television literary adaptations, which wrestled with a combination of literary accuracy and moral instruction, the seriousness of the 2000s historical drama is imbued with eagerness to criticise contemporary political and social problems using historical memories and reflection.

Stage three: 2004 to the present Not surprisingly, the popularity of this televised rewriting of history soon attracted the attention of the Chinese authorities, the incident of Towards the Republic being an obvious sign. In 2004, SARFT issued its Fortieth Regulatory Policy on the censorship of television drama attached to a document entitled ‘Concerning the Adjustment of Censorship Procedure for Proposals and Final Versions of Film and Television Drama on Very Important Revolutionary and Historical Subjects’. According to the policy, film and television producers must have approval from a special committee within the Central Ministry of Propaganda, rather than simply the SARFT itself, if they wish to deal with prominent events and figures from both ancient and modern Chinese history. 379

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The stricter censorship of historical drama since 2004 resulted in fewer mentions of the old dichotomy between serious and popular drama within the Chinese popular press. I suggest that there are three main reasons behind this change of television culture. First of all, because they were restrained by the SARFT’s Fortieth Regulatory Policy in 2004, Chinese television dramatists became more cautious in dealing with serious historical events and figures. The forced re-editing of the historical drama The First Emperor (Qin shi huang) by CCTV’s Drama Unit taught them a lesson. The First Emperor is an epic television series produced by CCTV. It is based on the story of Ying Zheng, the founder as well as the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC). It was filmed between 1999 and 2000 and was first released in 2001 in Hong Kong and Thailand, and in 2002 in Singapore. However, it was not approved for broadcast on mainland Chinese television because it had to endure censorship from the CCTV’s Drama Unit. The initial version of the series had 32 episodes and the Drama Unit raised two issues about its adaptation: First, the historians in the Drama Unit cast doubt on the way that the controversy surrounding the birth of the First Emperor was dealt with in the series. There have long been historical questions among Chinese academics about who were the birth parents of the emperor. Yet the original television series seems to have treated this in an over-straightforward manner. Second, in the original version, the love affair between the First Emperor and a princess named A Nuo constituted an important part of the drama content. Because the love affair was judged to be overemphasised and thus unacceptable by the Drama Unit, this section was re-edited and the series was not allowed to be shown on CCTV until 2006, five years after it had appeared in Hong Kong and Thailand. Second, moving away from the controversial Qing Dynasty which marked the end of ancient Chinese empires, China’s veteran television dramatists re-emphasised the role of the historical drama in promoting Chinese culture and philosophy. The Great Emperor Hanwu (Hanwu dadi) is a case in point. This 38-part television drama was co-produced by CCTV and China Film Group Corporation, which are China’s largest state-owned media organisations in the sectors of television and film respectively. With a huge cast of more than 1,700 characters, this epic drama series covers a 45-year period of the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) under the reign of Emperor Wu, who was the seventh Han emperor from 141 BC to 87 BC. It tells a story of how Confucianism was established as China’s state political philosophy by Emperor Wu. Last but not the least, more and more popular historical dramas are also devoted to promoting different aspects of traditional Chinese culture and societies in diverse artistic styles. On the one hand, they have started to touch upon such issues as commerce, medicine and the legislative system in different periods of pre-modern China. On the other hand, the last few years have witnessed the emergence of so-called ‘time-travel television series’ (chuanyue dianshiju) on Chinese television. By situating its plot between contemporary and historical or imaginary settings, this television drama genre presents a hybridisation of contemporary subject, costume drama and science fiction. In response to the rise of the time-travel television series, however, SARFT expressed its concerns. In 2011, some senior officials from the SARFT publicly accused those television series of misrepresenting traditional Chinese culture and thus playing a negative role for Chinese audiences to formulate their historical understanding. In the same year, SARFT put a ban on the remaking of the well-known ancient China’s big four classic novels on Chinese television. This was done to avoid potential impact of the time-travel television genre on the classic novels (also see Creemers, Chapter 3 in this volume). This section has used Jason Mittell’s cultural genre approach as the analytical tool to look at how the Chinese television drama industry categorises and evaluates historical drama through its production, regulatory and scheduling practices. Compared to traditional genre studies, which 380

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consider textual assumptions to be the key to understanding the formation and operation of a given genre, Mittell’s approach argues for an open rather than a closed analytical attitude towards a given television genre and its generic function. By adopting this cultural genre analysis to examine the evolution of the historical drama since the mid-1980s, this section reveals that since the early 1990s, Chinese historical drama has experienced enormous transformation in both its content and its sub-genres. Most importantly, the dichotomy between ‘serious drama’ and ‘popular drama’ emerged in the public discussion about historical drama in the mid-1990s. However, the stricter censorship of historical drama since 2004 resulted in fewer mentions of the old dichotomy between serious and popular drama within the Chinese popular press. Therefore, one can say that the party-state apparatus remains the ultimate power in Chinese cultural production and the strict state supervision of television production and broadcasting still prevails in China. It is at this point that I shall discuss audience responses to the historical television drama.

The Chinese historiographical tradition and its three types of TV interpreters Since the mid-1990s, the popularity of historical dramas on contemporary Chinese television has triggered a massive cultural debate within the Chinese popular realm. At the heart of the debate are concerns about the implications of those bygone dynasties as well as historical characters represented within the drama texts for contemporary Chinese society. Media and literary scholars who look solely at the production and content aspects of historical dramas believe they inherit China’s intellectual traditions of historiography, which are characterised as ‘using the past to mirror the present, and drawing upon the past to satirize the present’ (Yin 2002: 35). US-based Chinese scholar David D.W. Wang (1992) points out that one of the most remarkable literary phenomena in the post-Mao China is the resurgence of historical fiction. As he argues, compared to the historical novels of the Maoist period, which were characterised by an old belief in official historiography in the new guise of Communist ideologies, the postMao historical fictions demonstrate new tendencies in historical interpretation. A significant tendency in this new wave of historical interpretation can be found within a series of novels dealing with political events during the late Qing period, which is notable because it allows for an interrogation of all the aspects of China’s last feudal society and thus offers a particular representation of Chinese identity and nationalism. During the Cultural Revolution, the emperors and high officials of China’s bygone dynasties were generally depicted in literary works as anti-revolutionary feudalist remnants. Under the Maoist ideology, which prevailed until the early 1980s, it was always the ordinary people not a particular hero that were treated as the ultimate force in the making of history. According to Mao’s revolutionary agenda, the petty-bourgeois intellectuals should, first of all, live and labour with the workers, peasants and the soldiers, and thereby familiarise themselves with the latter’s language, lifestyle and thoughts. More importantly, as the Chinese media scholar Anbin Shi (2000: 204) observes, ‘the intellectuals should subjugate themselves to the ideological reform of the people’. That is to say, intellectual elitism should be abandoned and the sanction of the proletariat hegemony should be paramount. The new wave of historical novel is characterised by the re-emergence of Qing emperors as heroic protagonists in historical representations. Notable examples include Li Ling’s The Young Son of the Heaven (Shaonian tianzi, 1987) and Evening Drum, Morning Bell (Mugu chenzhong, 1991), Tang Haoming’s Zeng Guofan (1990–92), and Eryuehe’s Great Emperor Kangxi (Kangxi dadi, 1985–89) and Emperor Yongzheng (Yongzheng huangdi, 1991–94). Interestingly enough, unlike 381

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the historical novels of the 1980s which were mostly written by young adult authors, the writers of those Qing emperor novels were all born in the 1940s and were middle-aged at the time they wrote the novels. One could argue that, having survived the Maoist period, those middleaged historical novelists had discarded an ideological mindset based on class struggle and come to terms with a more revisionist understanding of historical development, which highlighted the actions of the ruling classes. As far as the evolution of the historical drama is concerned, a dichotomy has emerged between the serious historical drama and the popular historical drama. For instance, Yin (2002: 23) claims that popular costume dramas like The Tales of Emperor Qianlong have no intention of exploring ‘contemporary China’s political and power struggle in reality’; they simply offer the Chinese public ‘pure entertainment in the disguise of historical representation’. In contrast, serious historical dramas like The Great Emperor Hanwu, while adopting diverse theatrical styles, are judged to have inherited Chinese intellectuals’ historiographical tradition. This programme not only ‘recalled history, but also simulated history’ and ‘provided intellectuals with a means of expression and certain rhetorical strategies’ (Yin 2002: 24). From the perspective of audience research, however, the historiographical traditions discussed by those media and literary scholars serve as nothing but text-based assumptions made for the understanding and interpretation of the historical drama. Furthermore, they are derived from the treatment of the historical drama as a literary form of writing history. The relationship between the writing of history and historical television drama programmes is far from simple. A historical television drama is shaped primarily within the categories of television rather than the needs of historical knowledge; it is an institutional media phenomenon, which is associated with a specific set of regulatory, production, distribution and scheduling practices. In the meantime, the writing of history and the production of historical television programmes are not completely autonomous activities. According to Colin McArthur (1978: 15), they ‘take their character from the system of production relationships in the social formation they inhabit’. By the same token, rather than dwell on the historiographical traditions, one has to shift attention to study how their different ways of perception are constructed, and at the same time why they matter in a wider sociocultural context. Informed by this understanding of the production–consumption relationship, I thus identify three main types of attitudes amongst the respondents who were involved in my audience research – conservatives, culturalists and realists. These three audience types are determined by how those respondents perceive the historiographical traditions inherent in the historical drama. Next, I shall elaborate on each one of the audience types.

Conservatives The first type of respondents is what I would term as conservatives. These respondents strongly advocate that China’s television dramatists be obliged to represent important Chinese historical figures and events in an accurate way. As far as a serious historical drama is concerned, they would prioritise its claim to historical truth over that to artistic truth by emphasising the avoidance of realising dramatic effect at the sacrifice of distorting historical facts. The following two respondents are representative of this type of audience. For example, when talking about The Great Emperor Hanwu, they express their opinions as follows: Generally speaking, The Great Emperor Hanwu has done well in dealing with the relationship between fact and fiction. Most of the scenes are based on their original historical stories. However, some of the big scenes look a bit too modern and not that authentic. For instance, there is this scene where a big royal ceremony is held to celebrate the end of the winter. 382

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It looks more like a disco dance party than any event that would take place in ancient times. (male, aged 44, university instructor)3 In general, The Great Emperor Hanwu has made a good balance between representation of historical facts and melodramatic effect. It can be easily felt that the producers have made good efforts to weave historical facts into an engaging way of story-telling. Where it falls down, however, is in an insufficiency of historical accuracy in the detail. For example, there is this battle that involved tens of thousands of soldiers according to its well-known historical records, but you just get less than one hundred actors appear in the scene. Fake scenes like that would make me feel very unsatisfied and disappointed. (male, aged 27, secondary school teacher)4 From these two quotes, one can easily feel a sense of strictness concerning the extent of factual accuracy that these two male respondents expect of the historical drama. In other words, the quotations demonstrate the respondents’ strong yearning for a fair and candid representation of historical facts by historical dramas, especially those that claim to be based on well-known historical records. Here, this strong yearning for authentic historical representation is manifested by two approaches of audience interpretation. First, there is a sensory approach. For example, the 44year-old male university instructor quoted above constantly expressed unsatisfactory feelings with the misrepresentation of historical facts. His critique of ‘a bit too modern and not that authentic’ on that particular royal ceremony scene from The Great Emperor Hanwu is simply derived from his sensory engagement with relevant historical representation. The second approach of audience interpretation is informed by the audience’s use of factual knowledge. The quote from the 27-year-old male secondary school teacher illustrates well this interpretive approach. In interview, this young fan of the historical drama repeatedly emphasised the crucial significance for a serious historical drama to do justice to the widely known historical facts represented within it. He even drew a parallel between the historical drama and the historical documentary on contemporary Chinese television, stating that his ideal type of historical television programmes would be ‘a perfect combination’ of the two genres. Extreme as his statement may sound, what he says here tells us that a claim to historical truth remains the most important viewing value for him as far as the historical drama is concerned. For him, historical accuracy serves as the most important standard for a quality, serious historical drama. The above-mentioned two males are representative of the conservative audiences mainly because they have relatively high educational levels. From the focus group discussions, I find that educational workers always tend to more naturally and strongly defend the function of communicating accurate historical knowledge to the general public performed by the historical drama. More importantly, they also criticise the issues of misrepresentation in a way that echoes that of middle-aged males through a sensory engagement of particular historical drama texts. It is possible to argue that this is largely due to the fact that they have cultivated a strong awareness of historical knowledge by watching the historical drama.

Culturalists In contrast to those conservative audiences who have high expectations of factual accuracy, many other respondents are much more relaxed in dealing with this issue. On the one hand, they would more or less admit that artistic illusion between the past and the present created by the historical drama serves as the biggest attraction for them to watch this particular genre. On 383

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the other hand, they would challenge the legitimacy of the widely acknowledged serious/popular divide of the historical drama. They suspect that the serious historical drama’s claims to historical truth could not be actually realised on contemporary Chinese television in the way that those conservative respondents assume. I call these respondents culturalists for analytical reasons. The following two quotes are from two respondents within this category: There is absolutely no doubt that all these emperor dramas including The Great Emperor Hanwu and even Hunchback Liu the Prime Minister have their own political agendas. We all know that the government is now promoting the building of a harmonious society in China, right? These historical things are surely supposed to send that message. However, in order to get that message across a certain historical drama has to be made acceptable to its audiences in the first place. Producing historical dramas is not doing academic historical research. It is mass art and mass entertainment production! The serious historical drama also needs to be entertaining. (male, aged 55, company manager)5 To what extent or in what ways an audience would understand the relationship between a certain historical fact and its contemporary meanings is a complicated cultural question. You may get different answers from different people. I think that a good understanding of historical representation has a lot to do with the audience’s life experience. You have to be old and mentally mature enough to truly understand the heroic deeds of those emperors. Those emperors are just like our country’s leaders today. Although from different periods of history, they have a lot in common as human individuals. (female, aged 47, civil clerk)6 From these two quotations it is easy to identify a high level of cultural competence. According to Bourdieu (1984: 2), cultural competence is the code into which a work of art is encoded; it is ‘only for someone who possesses the cultural competence’ that the work of art ‘has meaning and interest’. In this particular case, this high level of cultural competence is reflected in the respondents’ ability and flexibility to deal with the issues of historiography that relate to the historical drama. For example, the 55-year-old company manager believes that Chinese historical drama, whichever sub-genre it is, performs an important propagandist function for the Chinese government. From this, one can say that the respondent is quite aware of the fact that the rise of traditional Chinese culture as content on contemporary Chinese television has been deliberately endorsed by the government. On the other hand, he is also very concerned with mass entertainment. In saying that ‘a certain historical drama has to be made acceptable to its audiences in the first place’, he effectively suggests an audience-centred way of understanding the impact of the historical drama. Furthermore, his statement that ‘the serious historical drama also needs to be entertaining’ shows his positive attitudes towards the commercial operation of China’s television drama industry. Instead of making a serious/entertaining distinction, the 47-year-old female civil clerk considers an understanding of historical representation to be ‘a cultural question’. By proposing the notion of ‘the audience’s life experience’, she brings to this issue a humanist perspective. Nevertheless, she addresses positively China’s Confucianism-related political and cultural issues. She even associates the emperor figures in the historical dramas with China’s current leading political authority. These culturalist respondents have two characteristics worthy of special attention. First, like the two respondents quoted above, most of them are middle-aged viewers, hence they are more 384

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likely to have established patterns of television viewing than their younger counterparts. As a result, they tend to regard the practice of watching television drama as a serious business of being entertained as well as engaging with public concerns. The culturalist audiences in particular would view historical drama as an important cultural forum in which prominent Confucian values are disseminated and debated in contemporary Chinese society. Second, nearly all the respondents who occupy senior administrative positions in China’s state-owned enterprises fall into this audience category. They would address Confucianismrelated or traditional Chinese cultural issues more actively than others. The above-quoted middleaged male respondent – a senior manager of a small-sized state-owned retail company in Beijing – is a perfect example. For instance, when discussing The Great Emperor Hanwu, he enthusiastically associated the Emperor Wu with China’s leading political authority, the Hu–Wen administration. He repeatedly claimed that the Hu–Wen administration had a lot to learn from Emperor Wu in maintaining China’s national unification and social stability.

Realists The third type of my respondents is what I call realists. Unlike the two preceding types of respondents, realists distance themselves from actual historical facts in an interpretation of certain historical representation. More importantly, in terms of their social positions, most of these realistic respondents are either self-employed or low-rank employees in state-owned enterprises. They not only choose to approach the historical representation from a contemporary perspective, but also their understanding of the historical representation is entirely derived from their personal social and cultural concerns. The following two quotes illustrate this point: I am a complete realist. I only care about contemporary life. Those dynasties are too far away from me. Getting the message they attempt to convey is the key. That is, in most cases, those historical figures would show great loyalty to their own countries! (female, aged 40, senior manager)7 I think the reason why so many people like The Great Emperor Hanwu is mainly because the serial addresses lots of similar human relationship problems as those people may encounter in their daily work. In a governmental organisation, for example, you’ve got to know how to play politics in a smart way. That is exactly what The Great Emperor Hanwu is all about, isn’t it? (male, aged 28, self-employed)8 Instead of directly addressing the historical drama in relation to its social meanings, these respondents tend to focus more on their personal concerns with the genre. In the first quote, the middle-aged female respondent claims in a rather blunt way that she is ‘a realist’. She goes on to explain that she would always interpret television content from a contemporary perspective. It is worth pointing out that this female respondent is a senior manager in a high-profile privately owned dairy products company in the city of Changsha. Amongst the respondents, those who are self-employed or low-ranking employees in state-owned enterprises would normally choose to approach the historical drama from a contemporary perspective. Instead of dwelling on actual and solid historical facts, they tend to focus on their personal interests in historical knowledge and the entertainment values of a particular historical drama text. At the same time, there is a much stronger oppositional reading of the serious historical drama from those who work in non-governmental organisations than those who work in governmental 385

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ones. The 28-year-old self-employed male respondent is a case in point. According to my audience research, most of the self-employed respondents like this male respondent tend to undermine and even oppose an educational function of the historical dramas. As far as they are concerned, this educational function performed by the historical drama is less for those who work in the governmental organisations to criticise political corruption than to learn to survive in the current political climate. Chinese historical dramas like The Great Emperor Hanwu, which are full of political implications, therefore offer those Chinese audiences who develop careers in state-owned organisations cultural resources which they can turn to for strategies to lead successful political lives within those organisations.

Conclusion As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, media scholars in China have long interpreted historical dramas produced for contemporary Chinese television mainly by using textual analysis, but little academic effort has been made to look at the production and consumption of these dramas. With the primary aim of filling in this knowledge gap, this chapter attempts to use Jason Mittell’s (2004) cultural genre approach as the analytical tool to examine the genre of the historical television drama from both the production and the consumption perspectives. Although China’s television drama industry has undergone a process of commercialisation since 1987, the CCP would argue that the role of the nation-state remains critical in regulating China’s national television production and broadcasting practices and this role cannot be left to the market alone. As the latest consequence of this state supervision over historical drama productions, there has been less and less mention of the dichotomy between ‘serious and popular’ drama within the Chinese popular press since 2004 and the Towards the Republic incident. Because of this episode, Chinese television dramatists became more cautious in dealing with serious historical events and figures. The audience research presented here offers clues to help explore the extent that the respondents are aware of and perceive the party-state’s dominant supervisory role. There are two main observations about the respondents’ awareness and perception of state power. On the one hand, those who occupy senior administrative positions in state-owned enterprises appear much more concerned with and pay much more attention to the Chinese historiographical traditions inherent in the historical drama, compared with those who are self-employed or lowranking employees in state-owned enterprises. On the other hand, there is a much stronger oppositional reading of the serious historical drama from those who work in non-governmental organisations than those who work in governmental ones. The respondents’ awareness and perception of the state power in their cultural practices of watching the historical drama largely confirm Lisa Rofel’s (1994) theoretical model of how official power works in the past-Mao era introduced at the beginning of this chapter. My study demonstrates that the battle of historical interpretation between audiences living under different social and political conditions emerges as a result of a widespread suspicion and mistrust of the party-state in China mobilising the Chinese public through the medium of historical dramas. In other words, the relationship between the historical drama genre and its audiences represents imaginative conflicts and ideological clashes in the treatment of the state as a totalitarian entity in China’s television cultural sphere. In conclusion, the historical drama provides Chinese audiences with a dramatised account of the past and traditional Chinese society at a time when major change is taking place in contemporary China. It also provides the Chinese viewing public with a televised forum to reflect on their Confucian cultural traditions and spiritual heritage as well as reconsider their orientation in a changing order of political culture in contemporary Chinese society. Echoing 386

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Wei-ming Tu’s influential essay of 1991, ‘Cultural China: the periphery as the centre’, one can say that Chinese historical drama, as an important part of the Chinese cultural industry, remains an unfinished project for modern Chinese identity formation. It is therefore valuable to continue to investigate and evaluate this ongoing process of identity formation by treating the future development of the historical drama as a changing cultural phenomenon.

Notes 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Legalism was a school of philosophical thought in Chinese history. It emphasised strict obedience to the system of laws, and was one of the main philosophical currents during the Warring States period (c.475–221 BC). Legalism was a utilitarian political philosophy that did not address higher questions like the purpose and nature of life. The school’s most famous proponent and contributor Han Fei Zi believed that a ruler should use three main tools to govern his subjects. These three tools can be summarised as principle, tactics and charisma. My telephone interview with Fu Le, senior TV drama producer at the Drama Unit of Hunan Television was conducted in Beijing in December 2007. This quote is derived from a focus group interview conducted in Changsha on 9 March 2008. This in-depth interview was conducted in Beijing on 2 December 2007. This quote is derived from a focus group interview conducted in Beijing on 16 February 2008. This quote is derived from a focus group interview conducted in Beijing on 3 December 2007. This in-depth interview was conducted in Changsha on 2 March 2008. This quote is derived from a focus group interview conducted in Changsha on 1 March 2008.

References Allen, R.C. (1985) Speaking of Soap Opera, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, New York: Verso. Bell, D.A. (2008) China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, London: Routledge. Curtin, M. (2005) ‘From kung fu to imperial court: Chinese historical drama’, in G.R. Edgerton and B.G. Rose (eds), Thinking outside the Box: A Contemporary Television Genre Reader, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 293–313. –––– (2007) Playing to the World’s Biggest Audience: The Globalization of Chinese Film and TV, Berkeley: University of California Press. De Groot, J. (2009) Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture, London: Routledge. Li, S.L. and Xiao, J.H. (2006) Researching on Historical Television Drama (Lishi ticai dianshiju yanjiu), Beijing: Chinese Communication University Press (in Chinese). McArthur, C. (1978) Television and History, London: BFI. Mittell, J. (2004) Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture, London: Routledge. Muller, G. (2007) Representing History in Chinese Media: The TV Drama Zou Xiang Gonghe (Towards the Republic), Berlin: LIT. Rofel, L. (1994) ‘Yearnings: televisual love and melodramatic politics in contemporary China’, American Enthnologist 21(4): 700–22. Shi, A.B. (2000) ‘Toward a Chinese national-popular: cultural hegemony and counter-hegemony in Maoist and post-Maoist China’, Social Semiotics 10(2): 201–10. Tu, W.M. (1991) ‘Cultural China: the periphery as the centre’, Daedalus 120(2): 1–32. Wang, D.D.W. (1992) Fictional Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen, New York: Columbia University Press. Yin, H. (2002) ‘Meaning, production, consumption: the history and reality of television drama in China’, in S.H. Donald, M. Keane and Y. Hong (eds), Media in China: Consumption, Content and Crisis, London: Routledge, 28–39. 387

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Yin, H. and Ni, Y. (2009) ‘An analysis of the development of Chinese TV drama genres’ (Zhongguo leixinghua dianshiju fazhan fenxi), in Z.Z. Guo, L.F. Deng and Z.X. Zhang (eds), The First Medium: Chinese TV in the Age of Globalization (Diyi meijie: quanqiu hua Beijing xia de Zhongguo dianshi), Beijing: Tsing Hua University Press, 103–22 (in Chinese). Zhang, X.D. (2008) Postsocialism and Cultural Politics: China in the Last Decade of the Twentieth Century, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Zhu, Y. (2008a) Television in Post-Reform China: Serial Dramas, Confucian Leadership and the Global Television Market, London: Routledge. –––– (2008b) ‘Yongzheng dynasty and totalitarian nostalgia’, in Y. Zhu, M. Keane and R.Y. Bai (eds), TV Drama in China, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 21–32.

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24 Live television production of media events in China The case of the Beijing Olympic Games Limin Liang

Introduction The countdown to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, widely seen as China’s ‘coming-out party’, started almost as soon as the city won the Olympic bid in 2001. An important component of this countdown was the media planning within China Central Television (CCTV), which is the state broadcaster and the Olympic TV rights holder in mainland China. The coverage would eventually amount to approximately 3,000 hours of programming across nine TV channels. Drawing from literature on media events and cultural production, this chapter engages with an under-studied topic in media events scholarship: the relationship between plans and improvisation at different stages of live broadcasting of a mega-event. Related to this, the chapter looks at the perception of ‘uncertainty’ in live television production as well as the strategies developed by media agents to cope with it. Regarding the component of ‘improvisation,’ in particular, the chapter revisits the concept of ‘what-a-story’ (Berkowitz 1992: 82–94) in news reporting and uses as a case study sprinter Liu Xiang’s unexpected withdrawal from racing in the Olympic Games, as an example to illustrate the dialectic relationship between plan and improvisation. This ethnography-based project was conducted between May 2008 and September 2009 at CCTV. The chapter is based on field observation of a sports feature team before and after the Olympics, as well as in-depth interviews with major media producers at CCTV. The interview subjects included members of the senior management in charge of live production, producer of the planning desk, CCTV Sports’ consultants for live broadcasting, programme producers, directors, anchors and reporters. In addition, the author was able to obtain major planning documents, meeting minutes and broadcasting budgets for Olympic live broadcasting, including the minutes of a CCTV post-Olympics conference reviewing the overall process of Olympic TV-making attended by key producers. Together these interviews allowed the author to gain a comprehensive understanding of the different components of live broadcasting.

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Literature review and the structure of the chapter The production of media events Olympic television is part of a special genre of media phenomena which Dayan and Katz (1992) refer to as ‘media events’. This is a genre that includes the Durkheimian-inflected, solidarity-building event schemas of ‘contest, conquest and coronation’. Syntactically, this genre of affirmative media events is characterised by prior media planning and has ‘elements of interruption, monopoly, being broadcast live, and being remote’. The semantics of a media event are ‘proposed by its organizers and shared by broadcasters . . . The message is one of reconciliation’. Pragmatically, media events enthral a nation and the world (Dayan and Katz 1992: 10–14). While media planning was underlined in Dayan and Katz’s theorisation, their work did not look closely at the relationship between plans and improvisation in media production, except for mentioning that planned events might sometimes go awry to become ‘hijacked events’. This is when the event platform is ‘ambushed’ by a rival party that competes for recognition or for legitimacy. A hijacked event captures the messiness of reality that refuses to be subject to meticulous media planning and might lead to negotiated, oppositional or even subversive meanings from those proposed by the event owner. Staying on this possible turn towards conflicts, other scholars have pointed out that media events do not necessarily work towards an affirmation of we-ness but can produce discord and trauma as well (Elliot 1982: 583–619; Ettema 1990: 309–31; Dayan 2008: 145–62; Katz and Liebes 2007: 157–66). Instead of prior media planning, these latter events often catch media by surprise, as with terrorist attacks, wars, disasters or other forms of breach of social norm and order. These studies put the emphasis on the interaction between media organisations and other powerful social institutions in jointly producing the media events. Despite the spontaneity of the initial event trigger, these events’ subsequent coverage still acquires a discernible trajectory, adopting frames such as social drama (Ettema 1990: 309–31), degradation ritual (Carey 1998: 42–70) or disaster marathon (Liebes 1998: 71–84) and so on.

Connecting media events to cultural production theories Media events scholarship rarely takes an organisational approach for a closer look at the production of the event. ‘Plans and improvisations’ – a key binary in live broadcasting that subsumes not only the nature of arrangement struck between the media and the event owners, but also the negotiation amongst interested parties within a media organisation – goes virtually unstudied. While such issues tend to be overlooked in studies of ‘media’s high holidays’, they receive more systematic attention in studies of media production at a more mundane level. These studies show how the creative autonomy of individual media professionals is both empowered and constrained by organisational routines. In other words, the focus is on how media industries manage creativity and uncertainty by ‘routinizing the unexpected’ (Tuchman 1973: 110; also see Hesmondhalgh 2007; Hirsch 1972: 639–59). Routinisation can be either production-oriented or product-oriented. On the production side, the division of labour helps ‘routinize creative tasks by dividing specialists who presumably are best able to execute them’ (Whitney and Ettema 2003: 165; Turow 1992). But, at the same time, these different roles along the production line are unified by a ‘product image’ which builds on past successful prototypes (Ryan and Peterson 1982: 11–32). Typifying news along a temporal dimension into ‘spot, development and continuous news’ as well as along a thematic 390

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dimension into different beats systematises news work, allowing news workers to anticipate the allocation of resources and better meet organisational needs (Tuchman 1973: 114–15; Berkowitz 1992: 82–94). Further, at individual level, a journalist learns his or her craft by building a repertoire of story schemas, or standardised story categories that are drawn from culture (Bird and Dardenne 1988: 67–86; Ettema 2009: 289–300; Lule 2001). The interest in studying routines and schemas in culture originates from a change in the dominant conception of culture from a ‘seamless web’ to a ‘tool kit’ or ‘a grab-bag of odds and ends’ that ‘can be put to strategic use’ (DiMaggio 1997: 265). With this turn from coherence to fragmentation, routines and cultural schema become essential means for agents to make sense of an uncertain world, as has been extensively discussed in literature on decision making in uncertain organisational environments (DiMaggio 1997: 263–87; Benford and Snow 2000: 611–93). Organisational actors engage in interest-driven framing practices that highlight certain aspects of organisational goals for mobilising action (Boczkowski 2004; Kaplan 2008: 729–52). At the same time, routines have to be enacted by agents (Giddens 1984; Sewell 1992: 1–29). Such practices always incorporate improvisation, which involves ‘exploring, continual experimenting, and tinkering with the possibilities without knowing where one’s queries will lead’ and with ‘potential for failure and incoherency’ (Barrett 1998: 606). But, interestingly, even for these highly spontaneous acts where ‘structure’ is expected to have a minimal hold, improvisation is still found to rely on routines that are pre-established or rehearsed (Crossan 1998: 593–9; Mirvis 1998: 586–92; Weick 1998: 543–55). Studies show that jazz musicians improve their proficiency by making deliberate efforts to interrupt habit patterns, seeing errors as a source of learning and encouraging minimal structures that allow maximum flexibility (Barrett 1998: 605–22). Also, when organisations can accept blemishes in actual performance and lower the punishment for breakdowns, organisational actors are more emboldened for improvisation. In the literature on news sociology, the one area that lends weight to improvisation is Berkowitz’s (1992, 2000) analysis of ‘what-a-story’, a very unexpected news event that stands out from routine news-making. The what-a-story is usually signified by newsmakers labelling the story through their exclamations and gestures, and followed by a change in work rhythm that commands ‘pull-out-of-the-stops efforts’ and the allocation of more resources (Berkowitz 1992: 83). However, dealing with ‘what-a-story’ also involves ‘routinizing the very unexpected’ in which reporters ‘adapt work routines to the particulars of the news situation’ rather than creating new ones (Berkowitz 1992: 92). The competitive ethos plays a key role in responding to what-a-story; typifying the unexpected event into past familiar event schema is vital for subsequent coverage.

Structure, agency and uncertainty in the context of Olympic media production Olympic TV rights holders enjoy exclusive Olympic broadcasting rights granted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) within their respective countries/regions. In this sense, an Olympic TV rights holder and the event’s owner (IOC) have a solid partnership. The coverage of the games usually follows a ‘contest’ frame, an important sub-genre of affirmative media rituals that celebrates the spirit of fair play and an ideal of human communitas (Dayan and Katz 1992). Moreover, since most of the media people involved in Olympic broadcasting work for the sports desk of a broadcaster, the coverage is more likely to adhere to a ‘sports contest’ frame than if it is handled by the general news desk, in which case the coverage would be more likely to acquire a social/political slant. 391

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This being said, the sports mega-event’s ‘purity of form’ is easily corrupted by politics. In its more benign form, host cities and the national governments may use the Olympic Games for public diplomacy purposes. On more rare occasions, the games may become a ‘hijacked event’ where the event platform is ‘taken’ by a rival party and its official discourse becomes ‘subverted’. In the five months running up to the Beijing Olympic Games, the official owners (i.e. the IOC, the Chinese organisers and, by extension, the Chinese government) were threatened by the prospect of having the Olympic stage taken away from them by the Free Tibet Movement supporters during the discordant international torch relay. The heightened drama became an antidote to the Olympic spirit and did not escape the attention of international media. But the state-controlled Chinese broadcaster which was an important partner in staging ‘China’s coming-out party’, adhered to the ‘universalising sports’ frame throughout the Olympic cycle. The broadcaster rejected a political frame even as contentious national and ethnic politics were narrated and waged in the Olympic theatre. In a sense, it was as if the broadcaster was operating within a cocoon. But despite these larger structural constraints, within the limited freedom the broadcaster was allowed to operate, one can still discern a dialectic relationship between ‘plans and improvisations’. The focus of this chapter is not on the waging of contentious politics that almost hijacked the Olympic platform before the games, but on how the broadcaster struck a balance between ‘control and spontaneity’ when all constraints were registered. In particular, I look at Chinese sportsman Liu Xiang’s unexpected withdrawal from his race during the games, and discuss the broadcaster’s strategy in dealing with it.

Drawing the overarching framework: massive resource allocation Beijing Olympic television is a multi-tiered, multi-party enterprise, including national broadcasters, the IOC, the Beijing Organising Committee (BOCOG) and the Beijing Olympic Broadcasting (BOB).1 Within the broadcaster itself (CCTV), there were also multiple layers of operation (see Figure 24.1). CCTV lavished unprecedented resources in broadcasting the Beijing Olympics. It utilised three production centres involving more than 3,000 staff and produced 2,976 hours of programming. The broadcast planning stretched well over two years. In planning the overall framework (from early 2006 to late 2007), decisions were made regarding channel distribution, programme design, the location of command centres, as well as the scope and standards of technology systems. In fine-tuning the plans (from late 2007 to the onset of the Olympic Games), action flowed from the senior management to middle management. They drafted day-to-day broadcasting budgets outlining the exact distribution of sports events across multiple TV channels. •

Channel distribution: Whereas only one or two channels carried Olympic programming in the past, in 2008 there were so many Olympic channels that the planning desk had a difficult time filling the airtime.2 The producer spoke of the strategic implication of such a ‘flooding the zones’ effect: ‘The party leadership wanted nothing but an obsession with the Olympics across China’s airwaves during the Olympics, i.e. whenever you turn on TV, it should be about the Games. Watch it or not, it should be “truly exceptional”.’3

The management had planned to set aside 5 of its 17 terrestrial channels and 2 paid channels for Olympic broadcasting. However, during the games, Chinese authorities decided that the 392

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CCTV Olympic Coverage Leading Committee

General Office

Sports Events Reporting and Production System

Non Sports Events Reporting and Production System

Int’l Oriented Reporting and Production System

New Media System

Technology System

Business and Finance System

Adm and Logistics System

Figure 24.1 Structure of CCTV Olympic reporting system Notes ‘Sports Events Reporting and Production System’ refers to the channels run by personnel from CCTV Sports. ‘Non-Sports Events Reporting and Production System’ refers to the CCTV News channel, which is run by its own staff. ‘Int’l Oriented Reporting and Production System’ refers to CCTV-4 (a Chinese-language channel) which broadcasts to both the Chinese diaspora audience overseas and the domestic Chinese audience, the CCTV English, the CCTV French and the CCTV Spanish channels, none of which had the Olympic TV rights to be broadcast outside China (CCTV only acquired Olympic TV rights within the Chinese mainland). ‘New Media System’ refers to CCTV’s Olympic new media production franchise through its website cctv.com. ‘Technology System’ refers to the broadcaster’s technology department in charge of constructing and maintaining the technological infrastructure that enables the Olympic TV production. ‘Business and Finance System’ refers to CCTV’s advertising franchise related to the selling of its Olympic programming. ‘Adm and Logistics System’ takes care of all administrative and logistics matters related to the Olympic media production.

broadcasting resources had not been fully tapped into and the broadcaster ended up adding two more Olympic channels.4 •

Programming: The Olympic TV programming has three tiers. The first tier consists of the international feeds provided by the Olympic Broadcasting Corporation. The second tier refers to the national broadcasters’ production of sports events via unilateral facilities they rent from the BOB (e.g. a dedicated TV compound5). The third tier refers to news and feature production by national broadcasters based on electronic news gathering, which best demonstrates the creative power of a TV organisation. Within this tier, CCTV planned three 1.5-hour long daily features, including a prime time news magazine, a late-night talk show featuring popular athletes with an on-site audience component, as well as a morning TV magazine with an overview of the events the day before. All in all, this planning framework was the outcome of interest-driven organisational negotiations. It became a roadmap guiding the distribution of resources in the later stages.

Fine-tuning the framework and anticipating contingencies It might sound like an oxymoron that ‘live broadcasting’ should in fact be tightly structured and planned, but this is exactly what happened for a sports mega-event commanding 3,800 hours of international television feeds and 2,976 hours of CCTV production. One sports channel supervisor spoke of the four related components of this massive enterprise of media planning: the overarching framework, the implementation of the framework, the individual segments under the framework, as well as the implementation of these segments.6 The last component, in particular, is meant to give media professionals down the production line an accurate visualisation of the planned ideas. This is also the stage where improvisation is most likely to deviate from plans and thus consumes the analytical focus of this chapter. The supervisor recalled: 393

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For previous Olympic coverage much smaller in scale, we would usually leave about 30 percent of content to improvisation. But when we have over 2,000 people across nine channels, any small change upstream will trigger big change downstream, and some of them might wreak havoc in the system. Ideally we should be able to account for 95 percent of the content ahead of time.7 Such media planning is the ideal scenario but, in actual practice, it ran into two obstacles. First, given resource constraints, actual planning always had to cut corners. The planning desk chief later acknowledged that despite the intention, eventually they still left many live segments in ‘broad brushes’.8 In organisational literature, it is not unusual that organisations pay disproportionate attention to beginnings and endings but not much attention to ongoing temporal coordination. Many breakdowns of innovations occur because organisations are too segmented. Members do not share a mutual orientation after a project is launched. When somebody alters action or changes direction, no one is sure where others are located until too late (Barrett 1998: 612). Second, even with the most meticulous planning, unexpected events always lurk around the corner. With regard to Beijing Olympic TV coverage, the sources of uncertainties varied: breaking news would happen within or surrounding the games; the government authorities might issue last-minute directions that would change the broadcasting plans; and technical glitches constitute another form of uncertainty. In this case, however, the broadcaster was insulated from one common uncertain factor in a media event: competition from other media organisations. This was due to CCTV’s virtual monopoly of Olympic broadcasting rights in China.

Routines and typification Despite the aforementioned factors preventing the delivery of a perfect plan, media actors and especially primary creative agents still tried to come up with their own mechanisms to anticipate uncertainties. One such strategy can be summarised as ‘overproduction with differentiated use’. This is a tweak of Paul Hirsch’s (1972: 625) phrase ‘overproduction and differential promotion’, which is among cultural industries’ essential strategies to cope with uncertainty. The primary creative agents in live broadcasting all prefer to err on the abundant side. Only a tiny fraction of the prepared material could find its way into the final output. The production of athletes’ features provides an example of this rule. An average feature story is one and a half minutes long. It usually opens with an athlete’s latest Olympic performance, followed by a recap of his/her portfolio and competitive strength. These features have a highly selective on-air window, which is between the end of an event and the awarding ceremony. In the run-up to the games, the feature team would carefully plan the themes of all would-be features and make rough cuts but, eventually, only about half of the prepared rough cuts would go on the air. In preparing the script for the rough cuts, writers would exhaust the event’s scenarios, which translate into a win, a loss and a tie. When asked if there could be a short cut, the producer explained that such a cumbersome strategy was required especially for the novices: ‘Beyond a saturation point, seasoned journalists always come to grip with the “right frame” as they watch the events unfold.’9 His words were an excellent illustration of the concept of routinised schema – the notion that journalists practise their craft by learning to internalise the ‘product images’ or prototypical stories that fit different types of stories. Typification becomes a critical strategy for media 394

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professionals to make sense of an unruly world. However, for the rookies ‘overproduction’ became a necessary measure to anticipate the contingency in production. Similarly, anchors have their own strategies to structure planning. To start, the broadcasting budget served as their individual work calendar.10 Here the budgets acquired a dual nature – as both documented rules guiding production, and as resource to be of service to the anchors. Their preparation was a combination of individual and team effort. The media team worked closely with the anchors and could often write tailor-made scripts for different anchors.11 Senior planners were also good sources that the anchors could use. Sha Tong, an anchor, spoke of how a seemingly most improvising and emotionally uplifting moment actually relied on days of preparation. He recalled his proud final moments of covering the Paralympics Closing Ceremony, when he used sign language as he recited a few quotes from Philip Craven, president of the International Paralympics Committee: ‘Over the past two weeks, we find that what had divided us – a normal world versus the physically challenged world – is but an imaginary line. After all, we share one world.’ Sha said he got the inspiration of using sign language upon hearing Craven’s words a few days earlier. He referred to those final moments as the finest of his Olympic memory: I used the signs fluently and controlled the timing perfectly. I ended on ‘Good bye, Beijing and see you in London’ exactly upon the last note of the theme song. Bang! I also froze my last sign right there. It was a perfect end. As I walked out of the studio, my colleagues gave me a standing ovation . . . It was a beautiful moment.12 True to Dayan and Katz’s (1992) notion, affirmative media events such as the Olympics are long on ‘planning’. Creative agents along the production line rely on different mental schemas to do the preparation. A deputy supervisor even went so far as to claim ‘there is no improvisation that cannot be planned’.13

Managing uncertainty in executing plans While a balance will always be struck between ‘preparedness’ and ‘spontaneity’ in live broadcasting, the dominant atmosphere within the broadcaster during the games certainly tipped towards ‘preparedness’. In other words, the frame of ‘safety in broadcasting’ gained primacy to a competing schema of ‘spontaneity’. There were widespread worries among primary creative agents (anchors, on-air reporters, etc.) about saying the wrong things on air and everyone was preoccupied with the idea of ‘safe broadcasting’. After all, the games had been dissected for its symbolic value for China since day one, which was tantamount to a revival of the Chinese nation and culture as well as a huge achievement for the Communist Party. The media producers knew their performance would be scrutinised under a microscope by over 2 billion eyes. The organisational rhetoric constructed around the Beijing Games also elevated it to a beall and end-all project. The slogans used even savoured some revolutionary-era fervour, such as ‘make no errors, ensure safe broadcasting, build confidence and win success’.14 Before the opening of the Olympic Games, a ceremony was held for on-air media producers that resembled the oath-taking by athletes to pledge fair play. As one anchor recalled: ‘You could literally see the anxiety on everyone’s face. . . . We were all aware our performances were intimately linked to safe broadcasting.’15 But plans could only do so much to anticipate reality. When live events veered away from plans, improvisation was needed. The organisational leaders who had access to crucial information 395

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and resources had the ultimate responsibility of responding to a major contingency. Below them, the director of broadcasting was in charge of mapping out a quick response. There were often alternatives: should the on-air reporter be immediately contacted for a live-cross? Should experts be sought for comments or would some chit-chat between anchors suffice? Should the coverage be a simple news story or should a package be planned? Confronted with these alternatives, the directors of broadcasting during the Beijing Games opted for a course that would ensure safe broadcasting.

Case study: response to Liu Xiang’s exit Sprinter Liu Xiang is an iconic figure in China and was the poster child of the Beijing Games. He is the first Asian in Olympic history to take the title in 110m hurdles, a big achievement amidst China’s chronically poor track and field record. The nation placed exceedingly high expectation upon him during the Beijing Games. However, in the qualifying race on 18 August 2008, Liu limped out of the National Stadium (nicknamed the ‘Bird’s Nest’ because of its shape) before he could finish the race due to an aggravated injury that had not been released to the media. In the absence of other major breaking news during the Olympics, Liu Xiang’s withdrawal was seen in China as a sensation. CCTV’s response offers a good window in examining how media agents dealt with the ‘what-a-story’ of the Beijing Games. (i) The first mediated responses Upon Liu Xiang’s exit, Yang Jian, an experienced commentator, sounded astonished. But he quickly recollected himself and offered a few remarks that set the tone for later coverage:

Unfortunately, Liu Xiang had to quit the Beijing Olympics because of his aggravated injury. As spectators, we should understand him and support his choice. He has been in great pains over the past two months due to the injury in his heel, the extent of which only he himself may know. He has the right to choose to give up the race at this moment. Along with the commentator, the TV team stationed at the Bird’s Nest became the primary mediators of this breaking event. The producer later recalled their response: Liu Xiang came and, in front of a packed stadium, limped off emotionlessly. The drama was brief, and the camera captured his moves steadily . . . We were taken aback. We didn’t know where he was going. But when we saw the shocking faces through the viewfinder, it suddenly dawned on us that ‘the’ big moment had arrived . . . For the next ten minutes, I issued almost no instructions, yet the team moved swiftly with an astonishing degree of coordination. The product that we turned out was excellent; the images were rich and expressive.16 Meanwhile, the event sent CCTV’s control room into a flurry. The senior executive in charge recalled he was scrambling for an editorial line during the first few moments after Liu’s exit: What was most difficult for us was not how to report this story but how to comment on it. Should we give our approval? Disapproval? Sympathy? Or just refraining from comments at all? You see, soon after Liu Xiang quitted, half of the Bird’s Nest went empty. You could feel all kinds of feelings swirling around: sorrow, tears, disbelief, even anger. As a news organisation, we have to come up with an editorial line.17 396

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This was a situation offering no boilerplate language. In the previous section, we noted how, in preparing for the athlete profiles, the feature team tried to come up with an exhaustive typology of possible scenarios that included a win, a loss and a tie. In this case, even if media creators anticipated either a win or a loss, they probably could never have foreseen a withdrawal. Given a race as emotionally charged as Liu’s, what happened became a ‘what-a-story’ in an unlikely ‘what-a-story’ situation. However, such universal disappointment was not unparalleled. During the Seoul Olympics in 1988, when the then Chinese sports icon Li Ning (nicknamed ‘the gymnastics prince’) made a series of blunders and failed to win any medal, domestic media drowned him with censure while the public reacted furiously and irrationally. One anonymous man even sent Li Ning a bullet and another sent him a rope, daring him to commit suicide. The Li Ning episode was often brought up in the sports documentaries shown in the runup to the Beijing Games. In a way, memory of that episode had been rekindled for a contemporary audience. It also offers a backdrop for media producers to make their decisions following Liu Xiang’s withdrawal. The channel would not want the frame of ‘beating an underdog’ to prevail. The disappointment was accepted and was captured through a slogan in line with the Olympic spirit, ‘participation is more important than winning’. Since the Olympic coverage spanned multiple channels, it became essential that the editorial line quickly penetrated different channels. One anchor recalled that within half an hour, they got the oral koujing (guideline; literally, ‘the size of the mouth’). The MSN messenger service on the anchors’ laptop started buzzing, informing them of the latest editorial line or the key talking points. (ii) Covering the live press conference

Within half an hour of the incident, a press conference was held at the National Stadium’s press centre featuring both Liu Xiang’s coach and a senior sports official. The production team at the stadium dashed to the media centre to get ready for live coverage. Its producer later referred to it, a bit ironically, as ‘the most exciting moment of my Olympic coverage’.18 The press conference started shortly after twelve o’clock and would go live on the flagship Olympics channel.19 Soon the management began to gather at the control room. The most pressing question now became how to structure the special coverage. According to a deputy supervisor, ‘many thoughts were racing through my mind: How should we title the special programme? What is the short feature going to look like? What footage shall we use?’ The title they settled on was Salute to Liu Xiang. The programme would only adopt Liu Xiang’s footage that morning ‘because the feature needs to look fresh’. Liu’s movements were set into slow motion to be more expressive, and the Olympic theme song, You and Me, was chosen as the soundtrack. The supervisor described the teamwork as such: I asked the studio team to assist the anchors writing the on-air comments. They must be reminded of the key talking points and I would help set the tone along the way. Meanwhile, the information team would keep a close eye on the latest development and update subtitle news timely. I also asked the creative team to design a better promo for the event.20 (iii) Performance by reporters and anchors

Not everyone felt comfortable shifting into an improvising mode upon a what-a-story. For instance, instead of immediately arranging a live-cross with the reporter in the field following Liu’s exit, the director of broadcasting thought otherwise: 397

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After Liu’s exit, the idea that first flashed across my mind was the controversial Italian–Australian game of the 2006 Football World Cup. In calling that event, Huang Jianxiang [a controversial sports commentator who had since left CCTV] cheered onesidedly for the Italians and denigrated the Australians. His personal bias caused great trouble. Likewise, after Liu’s withdrawal I feared the reporter would blurt out inappropriate things. I don’t think I had the experience calling the shot. I decided that unless I was otherwise asked to, I would not take the risk.21 Obviously, the ‘what-a-story’ scenario created by Liu Xiang threw young media professionals into jitters. They were afraid of messing up the coverage. As later development shows, the director’s scruples were not unfounded. The reporter in the National Stadium, Dong Rina, did mess up the first live-cross. She started off by referring to a song picked by the media team at the National Stadium following Liu Xiang’s withdrawal, a song known as We Will Always Love You. This approach did not correspond to the intentions of executives. The supervisor later lamented that the live-cross had an oddly emotional start. He instructed the anchors to cut the conversation short and have the reporter address Liu Xiang’s injury directly. However, the reporter again missed the point. After glossing over Liu’s injuries, she commented that Liu had ‘achieved a beautiful turn-around in his career in his understanding of sports’. The supervisor told me why this approach failed to resonate with the audience: These words weren’t wrong. They were inappropriate. The focus here is Liu’s injury and you have to address this point upfront: when did he get injured? How serious was it? . . . The reporter could have reminded the audience that Liu Xiang had been battling his injury for over a year . . . But instead of providing evidence, she went straight to the conclusion. This would annoy your viewers. They would be asking: what on earth are you talking about?! The lack of solid reporting was made worse when the reporter started to cry midway through the interview. While sports insiders excused her reaction knowing she was a good friend of Liu, viewers were less sympathetic. After the coverage, the online chat-rooms were inundated with complaints about the reporter’s lack of balance and detachment. The supervisor acknowledged the weakness of the reporting: ‘When a multitude of feelings were surging while the reporter chose to identify with a single, specific emotion. It was a risky approach.’22 Other editorial members watching this drama unfold likewise felt the reporting was going astray and called an end to the live-cross. The reporter’s account having failed, the supervisor turned to anchors for remedy: I said, first, we have to address his injury. Second, we have to explicitly thank Liu Xiang. While it was regrettable that his Olympic dream fell through, we must thank him for winning China’s first gold medal in hurdles in 2004 and sustaining an outstanding record since. Liu helped cultivate more Chinese fans in this sport than anyone before him, and it’s he who glued us to television at this moment . . . Third, we must ask our viewers to stay with us for future track and field events, as if Liu Xiang were still with us. The coverage was pulled off with intensive brainstorming directly from the top. The programme ended with an emotional touch, ‘We will always be with you, Liu Xiang’. After 398

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that, a distinct promotional video was aired to prepare the audience for a change of tone so that they could return to the regular coverage of the Olympic Games. (iv) Analysis Liu Xiang’s premature withdrawal could be termed a ‘what-a-story’ in an unlikely what-a-story scenario. The pullout of a superstar might be reason for a surprise, but usually would not qualify as headline news across the media landscape. That Liu Xiang’s case became a ‘what-a-story’ was warranted by its unique political and social circumstances. As the ‘poster child’ of the Beijing Olympics, Liu became the embodiment of a rising China and what the nation hoped to achieve through hosting the Beijing Games – officially ending a history of underdevelopment and humiliation while being admitted to the world’s elite club of nations. In this sense, Liu Xiang’s image carried great symbolic significance and his withdrawal became ‘the’ news of the games. The consternation was also due to sports officials’ cover-up of his injury in the run-up to the games. Only a modicum of information was released, making the incident more shocking than necessary. As a ‘what-a-story’, Liu Xiang’s pullout departed from prior media planning. The routine organisational rhythm during the Olympics came to a halt and everything started to revolve around him. As in ‘what-a-story’, it was signified through labelling, gestures and exclamation (Berkowitz 1992, 2000). This could be seen from the reactions and recollections of various primary media agents. The incident was seen to be so important that the command structure also dramatically changed. Senior management directly took over decision making, planning and even brainstorming towards the lower level media professionals. This created a ‘war-room’ like atmosphere even for a media operation during which tension was the norm. While a more flattened hierarchy usually governs a cultural organisation characterised by a high level of uncertainty, under extreme tension-ridden and uncertainty-driven situations such as these, the hierarchy would be stressed again. The presence of a capable leader became crucial in this operation, so the streamlined leadership made response to a confusing situation easier. The leadership also relied on effective articulation work to coordinate the different components of live TV broadcasting: setting an editorial line, sketching a framework, implementing the various segments, getting the reporter and anchors on air and rallying the maximum resources for a ‘single battle’. To summarise, what resulted was ‘order from chaos’ while the work rhythm exhibited that of a ‘pull-out-of-the-stops, call-in-the-troops mode’ (Berkowitz 1992: 83). When Liu Xiang withdrew from the race, media producers had to resort to improvisation. Safe broadcasting was an overarching schema that unified the action of primary creative agents, which led to live broadcasting decisions bordering on the conservative. Regarding the content of individual television segments, the story schema chosen tried to avoid the frame of ‘beating the underdog’ that befell another fallen hero, Li Ning, many years ago. Instead, media professionals chose to frame the story underscoring the injured athlete’s ‘participatory spirit’. In Berkowitz’s (1992: 93) study of a ‘what-a-story’, organisational demands led journalists to favour one frame (e.g. a fire story) over another (e.g. a plane crash story) when there were competing frames. Here, framing practices in reporting the ‘what-a-story’ during the Beijing Olympics was informed by organisational memory and defined through what the programme should not look like. While the supervisor played a crucial role steering the ‘what-a-story’ coverage, other individuals exhibited various degrees of expertise in crisis management. Among the younger professionals, the schema of safe broadcasting stood out during crisis situations. This schema was inculcated through organisational training, previous experience, a ‘war-room’ like atmosphere, as well as agents’ perception of possible organisational retribution should grave mistakes 399

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occur. As a result, media actors were likely to adopt a cautious approach. For instance, not knowing if the on-air reporter would blow the interview after Liu Xiang’s pullout, the director shelved the idea of immediately contacting the reporter for a live-cross.

Conclusion In this chapter I addressed issues related to the dialectic relationship between plans and improvisation in the course of the Chinese Olympic broadcaster’s plan formulation as well as execution of live broadcasting of a mega-sports event. The entire Olympic media production stood out as an irregular phase compared to the broadcaster’s daily routines. It was like a phase of ‘media’s high holiday’ adopting a Durkheimian ‘media event’ mode. The expansion of channels, the construction of new technological infrastructures, the training of personnel and the redistribution of human resources all pointed to changes in daily work routines, which themselves soon began to acquire structural property. This is analogous to the ‘unfreezing and refreezing’ moments described in organisational literature. Meanwhile, improvisation abounded despite a meticulously planned structure. While media plans served as temporary guides to minimise uncertainty, changes were continuously factored into the plans as new conditions emerged, calling for spontaneous judgements by media agents. Creative agents also actively anticipated uncertainties by incorporating different coping mechanisms in their work. Finally, when confronted with unanticipated contingencies during the live coverage, media agents usually opted for a safe course, ensuring error-free broadcasting first. In this sense, live broadcasting is prejudiced against too much improvisation. The extraordinary requirements of being politically correct at all times during China’s ‘coming-out party’ further raised the caution across the board, constraining the creative energy of media producers. However, the agents still managed to work around the constraints imposed on them to put the best face on the Olympic drama. In a way the Olympic media-making is an excellent illustration of the dialectics between ‘creativity and constraints’ in cultural production.

Notes 1 Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co. Ltd. (BOB) was a Sino-foreign joint venture funded by BOCOG and the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) to perform the role of an on-site host broadcaster for the 2008 Olympic Games. It was officially established on 6 September 2004. BOB was responsible for the day-to-day operations in Beijing under the management of OBS, which was created by the IOC in May 2001 to ensure the high standards of broadcasting and has been maintained over successive Olympic Games. IOC has 99 per cent of the holdings of OBS. 2 Interview with the chief of the planning desk of CCTV Sports, 5 August 2009. 3 Interview with the chief of the planning desk of CCTV Sports, 5 August 2009. ‘Truly exceptional’ was the term used by IOC President Jacques Rogge, in his speech during the Closing Ceremony of the Beijing Games, and was widely quoted in China. 4 The ‘flooding the zones’ effect during the Olympic Games produced some unexpected side effects. For a long time after the Beijing Olympics, the sports channel’s ratings were lingering in the doldrums. The media professionals concluded that the audience had been bombarded with so many top sport events during the Olympics that they lost interest watching any sports after the Olympics. The previous Olympic Games had had similar cycles, but the after-effects had not been so palpable. 5 CCTV used the TV compound for the first time in Beijing Olympic coverage. Its past coverage only involved live reporting from mixed zones. A TV compound allows the broadcaster to have its independent workstation within the venue therefore enhancing its live production capacity. The workstation accommodates live reporting, unilateral camera feeds, sports commenting and editing, etc. The broadcaster is allowed to employ unilateral cameras at venues that can capture more shots and close-ups of its national athletes, coaches and spectators, which mean much more to its home audience than to a generalised international audience that BOB serves. 400

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6 Interview with Fang Gang, deputy controller of CCTV Sports, 5 September 2009. 7 Interview with Fang Gang, deputy controller of CCTV Sports, 5 September 2009. 8 Minutes from the Symposium on the Beijing Olympics TV Coverage organised by CCTV Sports Programming Centre, 15–16 October 2008. 9 Interview with the producer of feature production, 7 September 2009. 10 Interview with the producer of feature production, 7 September 2009. 11 Li Baoshi’s remarks at the Symposium on the Beijing Olympics TV Coverage organised by CCTV Sports Programming Centre, 15–16 October 2008. In addition, in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, the broadcaster also arranged a series of training for on-air TV workers on topics from reporting techniques to the state of world sport, and even on topics of international politics. 12 Interview with Sha Tong, an anchor of CCTV Sports, 5 January 2009. 13 Interview with Fang Gang, deputy controller of CCTV Sports, 5 September 2009. 14 From Jiang Heping’s article manuscript and its shortened version published in TV Research (2008), Issue 11: 11–14. 15 Yu Jia, presentation at the Symposium on the Beijing Olympics TV Coverage organised by CCTV Sports Programming Centre, 15–16 October 2008. 16 Remarks by the director in charge of the TV Compound at the National Stadium, at the Symposium on the Beijing Olympics TV Coverage organised by CCTV Sports Programming Centre, 15–16 October 2008. 17 Interview with Fang Gang, the deputy controller of CCTV Sports, 5 September 2009. 18 Remarks by the director in charge of the TV Compound at the National Stadium, at the Symposium on the Beijing Olympics TV Coverage organised by CCTV Sports Programming Centre, 15–16 October 2008. 19 Interview with Jiang Heping, controller of CCTV Sports, 21 October 2008. 20 Interview with Fang Gang, the deputy controller of CCTV Sports, 5 September 2009. 21 Minutes from the Symposium on the Beijing Olympics TV Coverage organised by CCTV Sports Programming Centre, 15–16 October 2008. 22 Interview with a senior CCTV Sports news manager, 18 August 2009.

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Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2007) The Cultural Industries, London: Sage. Hirsch, P. (1972) ‘Processing fads and fashions: an organisation-set analysis of cultural industry systems’, American Journal of Sociology 77(4): 639–59. Kaplan, S. (2008) ‘Framing contests: strategy making under uncertainty’, Organisation Science 19(5): 729–52. Katz, E. and Liebes, T. (2007) ‘“No more peace!” How disaster, terror and war have upstaged media events’, International Journal of Communication 1(1): 157–66. Liebes, T. (1998) ‘Television’s disaster marathons: a danger for democratic processes?’, in T. Liebes and J. Curran (eds), Media, Ritual and Identity, London: Routledge, 71–84. Lule, J. (2001) Daily News, Eternal Stories: The Mythological Role of Journalism, New York: Guilford Press. Mirvis, P. (1998) ‘Practice improvisation’, Organisation Science 9(5): 586–92. Ryan, J. and Peterson, R. (1982) ‘The product image: the fate of creativity in country music songwriting’, in J. Ettema and D. Whitney (eds), Individuals in Mass Media Organisations: Creativity and Constraint, London: Sage, 11–32. Sewell, W. (1992) ‘A theory of structure: duality, agency, and transformation’, American Journal of Sociology 98(1): 1–29. Tuchman, G. (1973) ‘Making news by doing work: routinizing the unexpected’, American Journal of Sociology 79(1): 110–31. Turow, J. (1992) Media Systems in Society, New York: Longman. Weick, K. (1998) ‘Introductory essay: improvisation as a mindset for organisational analysis’, Organisation Science 9(5): 543–55. Whitney, D. and Ettema, J. (2003) ‘Media production: individuals, organisations, institutions’, in A. Valdivia (ed.), Blackwell Companion in Media Studies, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 157–86.

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25 Negotiated discursive struggles in hyper-marketised and oligopolistic media system The case of Hong Kong Charles Chi-wai Cheung

Hong Kong political communication researchers stress that the struggles between the Chinese government and local media make Hong Kong an ideal ‘laboratory’ for studying the complex relationship between political power and news media (Chan and Lee 2007: 132). To this I would add that the Hong Kong media are also a laboratory for exploring the politics of ideological domination and resistance in an extreme marketisation and oligopolisation media environment. Since this is a relatively new way of exploring media power in Hong Kong, this requires some explanation. The structure of the Hong Kong media industry is shaped by the media policies in both the colonial and post-colonial eras. Before 2014, the government-funded public service broadcaster did not own its channel but rather, for over 40 years, broadcast its limited output on commercial television for several hours a week. In 2014, digital public television channels were available on a trial basis, but these channels will not be in full service until 2018 and there has been no sign of a significant increase in government funding to boost public television production.1 This stands in sharp contrast with the entrenched public television system in Europe, which still has a 30–40 per cent audience share in various European countries despite intense competition with commercial broadcasters (IPTS 2012: 73). Without a strong public media tradition, the Hong Kong media are hyper-marketised – the extent of marketisation far exceeds many capitalist societies in the west. Furthermore, due to the lack of government support for independent media and stringent media concentrations laws, different Hong Kong media markets have been each oligopolised by a few firms. Media oligopolies in Europe and the USA often delegate their work to swarms of small, independent companies and producers (Hesmondhalgh 2013: 209–15). But Hong Kong media oligopolies have more direct control over production – in Hong Kong, television broadcasters produce most of their local programmes in-house; major record companies primarily make music for their own labels; and the key film-funding corporations have tight control over independent film production. The Hong Kong media are hyper-oligopolistic for two reasons. First, independent producers, a significant force in decentralising the power of 403

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some western media, have not flourished in Hong Kong.2 Second, Hong Kong media oligopolies have much more centralised production control than their western counterparts. Will this hyper-marketised and oligopolised system only perpetuate the dominant ideologies of the government or powerful groups? Research suggests a complex picture. Undoubtedly, since China’s takeover of Hong Kong in 1997, news media with significant business interests in China often exercise self-censorship to avoid provoking the Chinese authorities, but this is only one part of the picture. The need to maintain credibility in the local media market, coupled with the entrenched news professionalism in Hong Kong, has constrained news media from completely ignoring local voices (Lee and Chan 2011). Alternative voices are not entirely annihilated in popular media either. Besides making formulaic love songs, corporate media sometimes cooperate with independent musicians, producing music that expresses marginal voices (Wong 2010). Since 2000, many Hong Kong filmmakers have produced movies addressing uncontroversial topics acceptable to the Chinese government, but some film workers have persisted in making films that explore Hong Kong’s social problems (Chung 2012: 1–15). In addition, the marginalised Hong Kong public television often produces programmes critical of the establishment (Ma 1999). Overall, while mainstream ideologies permeate the Hong Kong media, counter-hegemonic discursive forces have continued to exist, and this results in various forms of unequal but continual discursive struggles across different media. The key question, however, is how much challenge the aforesaid counter-hegemonic discursive forces could pose to various mainstream ideologies in Hong Kong. Some media scholars suggest that dissenting voices in capitalist media are often marginalised and that their resistance to hegemonic ideologies are insignificant (e.g. Herman 2000: 101–12; McChesney 2008). They claim that studies of the media do not specify the limited power of counter-voices and risk exaggerating their subversive influences. This criticism prompts us to think about some limitations in studies about discursive negotiations in Hong Kong. Studies that analyse the subversive works by Hong Kong independent musicians or public television often do not explore to what extent these alternative works can disrupt mainstream ideologies. As Hong Kong political news is shaped by the struggles between the Chinese government and local civil society, it is understandable that local market forces can serve as significant countervailing forces constraining the influence of the Chinese government. It is however reasonable to ask if the market could be a more conservative force in shaping news that involves other unbalanced power struggles. More rigorous studies on the specific influences and limits of counter-discursive forces need to done. It is in the above context that this chapter develops a more sophisticated understanding of unequal representational struggles in the Hong Kong hyper-marketised and oligopolistic media. My analytical focus is to investigate how the extreme marketisation and oligopolisation of the Hong Kong media constrain and enable representational struggles over youth across different media sectors and theorise the counter-hegemonic potentials, influences and limitations of the counter-discursive forces involved. While the case of Hong Kong youth is of interest in and of itself for Hong Kong researchers, the case also has wider relevance to understanding media pluralism in capitalism. First, discursive struggles over Hong Kong youth are rather unequal. As the next section will show, the local government and some civil groups primarily frame young people as a social problem, and they have enormous organisational and economic resources to influence the media; people advocating more pluralistic views of youth are mainly liberal professionals and critics, who depend on their professional and social standing rather than organisational resources to disseminate their views. This context of an unequal power struggle is not peculiar to youth, but to different degrees is shared by other powerless groups in Hong Kong and by other capitalist societies. Many scholars have expressed serious concerns about 404

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how extreme media marketisation and oligopolisation would disadvantage powerless groups. The case of Hong Kong youth can shed important light on ‘what would be’ for powerless groups in such a media environment. Second, the Hong Kong case suggests that representational struggles may be neither intense nor insignificant, but are situated between these two extremes at a location I call ‘negotiated representational struggles’. Negotiated representational struggles should not be dismissed as trivial resistance, as they periodically and sporadically pose challenges to the mainstream with strong and lasting counter-hegemonic effects. Before presenting the details of the research, a concise discussion follows of producers of youth discourse in Hong Kong to understand the dynamics of representational struggles over youth.

Discourse producers and resource inequality From the 1960s to the 1970s, youth rapidly evolved from an insignificant social concern to a key public focus in Hong Kong, and since then the discourses of the youth problem are capable of reproducing and regenerating themselves and have become the hegemonic ways of understanding youth. Discourses about cybercafés in the 1990s, for instance, were similar to discourses about video game centres in the 1970s – both sets of discourses emphasise that leisure venues for youth were fertile soil for breeding deviance; recent discourses of young internet addicts also bear striking similarities to those of young television victims in the early 1980s (Chan 2004: 155–68; Yau et al. 1983: 55). The reason why hegemonic discourses of youth are able to reproduce and regenerate themselves is that this set of discourses has been supported by a wide range of powerful producers of youth discourse, which have enormous organisational and financial resources to conduct research, publish books and prepare materials related to youth problems. The first type of these powerful ‘official’ discourse producers of youth is government-related: the police periodically release statistics for various youth crimes to the media; the courts, operating five days a week, regularly provide journalists with detailed information regarding individual cases of youth crime; and many other government departments and committees also periodically release information about youth deviance. The second type of organisation is civil agencies. Academics trained in criminology, social work and psychology often secure government funding to conduct research on youth deviance (Shiu 2001: 58–60). Besides, various psychological, medical, educational and religious groups also engage in discourses about youth problems, and in the past few decades these groups have organised influential campaigns to ban pornography and violence in youth media. In fact, religious organisations, which have established over 75 per cent of secondary schools in Hong Kong, have also funded over 100 child and youth service organisations which regularly conduct research on combating youth problems (Ng 2000). Nonetheless, official discourses of youth problems are not immune to challenges. Since the 1980s, the human rights movement has initiated various social groups fighting for universal suffrage, press freedom, women’s rights, children and youth rights and so on (Central Policy Unit of Hong Kong SAR 2004: 131–2). Furthermore, since the 1990s local scholars trained in critical social sciences have also put forth ideas such as ‘moral panic’ and ‘subcultural resistance’ to challenge official definitions of youth deviance (Chan 2002). That said, these counter-discursive forces have not fostered a powerful alternative discursive field of youth issues per se due to two factors. First, alternative producers of youth discourse lack the support of resource-rich government and traditional religious organisations since alternative discourses of youth challenge the official approach to youth work. What is equally limiting is the continued lack of a civil motive for organising advocacy groups specifically devoted to youth rights. This phenomenon 405

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is not unique to Hong Kong but is common in modern societies. As Bradley (1996) suggests, most adolescents pass through the youth stage and become adults and therefore are less motivated to have long-term participation in politics specifically around youth issues.3 Without the support of the government and an organised youth movement, alternative producers of youth discourse are primarily individual-based. As previously discussed, a range of professional associations endorse youth-problem discourses, but the introduction of human rights movements and critical social sciences to Hong Kong has led some professionals to adopt more liberal views. Some social workers, for instance, have fashioned the discourse of youth empowerment, and some academics prefer to do research on youth resistance to adult hegemony. Furthermore, significant numbers of political and social critics work in Hong Kong and through regularly writing articles on websites and submitting commentaries to various media, some have succeeded in being recognised by the media as capable critics. Undoubtedly there are conservative critics in Hong Kong, but many critics are liberal, unhappy with the status quo and critical of the dominant youth–problem discourses. Both the liberal professionals and critics receive little or no support from the government or religious organisations, but their professional and social standing accords them cultural resources, and accordingly they are recognised by the media as informed speakers regarding youth issues. What are the consequences of this resource inequality for representations of youth in Hong Kong? It is inappropriate to assume that the unequal discursive struggle will be directly reflected in the media. Generally discourse producers of youth shape media output in an indirect way: various discourse producers provide different media producers with the general range of frameworks for understanding Hong Kong youth and, in the actual making of texts, media producers will selectively employ these discourses according to individual production contexts, which are in turn influenced by a range of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces that enhance or restrict media diversity. One exception seems to be the news media, meaning discourses producers can serve as sources, directly approaching (or are approached by) journalists. Nonetheless, other forces such as the market and ideals of news professionalism come into play in news-making so that the influence of discourse producers on news is also indirect. The rest of this chapter will identify how different hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces shape representational struggles over youth in the context of unequal discursive struggle. Since various media sectors in Hong Kong are shaped by different forces, independent and public media, popular cultural media, and commercial news media will be discussed separately.

Negotiated representational struggles I: independent and public media In the USA and some European countries, independent and public media serve as a route to offset the influences of unequal discursive struggles, since independent and public media producers tend to have stronger creative autonomy and are more able to present minority voices with less external pressures (e.g. Hesmondhalgh 2013). But studying whether alternative producers of youth discourses can compete with official discourse producers through independent and public media in Hong Kong seems to be a fruitless exercise. This is because various media industries in Hong Kong are highly oligopolised and marketised and have very high barriers to entry due to the undemocratic media policies of the colonial and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government. This is evident in various major media sectors. First, the number of free television and radio broadcasters in Hong Kong has been limited: in early 2014, there were only two commercial television broadcasters and three radio stations (two commercial; one public).4 Over the years, both the colonial and HKSAR government 406

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have explained that this is because frequencies are limited (Yan 2007: 230), but historical evidence suggests otherwise. In 1976 the colonial government issued a third licence to a commercial television station, CTV, an act which questions the airwave-scarcity theory. CTV closed in 1978 due to financial problems. While some investors proposed to take over CTV, the colonial government was worried about their pro-China background and rejected their proposals (Ng 2003: 89). After the return of Hong Kong to China, some activists set up the ‘radical’ radio station, Citizens’ Radio, but the HKSAR government rejected their licence application again because of scarcity of frequencies (South China Morning Post 28 December 2008).5 Under public pressure, the HKSAR government considered opening up the television market in 2009. In 2013 the government decided to issue new licences to two applicants with strong political and economic ties to the Chinese government, but refused to grant license to HKTV whose owner has no significant business in China (Lam 2013). All the above incidents strongly suggest that for the colonial and HKSAR government, suppressing critical voices is a key factor in issuing broadcasting licences. The effect of this restrictive licensing policy is a government-led broadcasting oligopoly. Five radio channels make up around 80 per cent of audience share, and the Jade channel of the leading free broadcaster TVB has secured 70–90 per cent of the primetime rating share for more than two decades (Consumer Search 2007: 6).6 In fact, due to the dominating power of TVB, Hong Kong television is virtually a monopoly market, and some local scholars expressed serious doubts about whether the coming two new television operators, lacking experience in producing quality television drama, might break up the TVB monopoly (Ming Pao 16 October 2013). Although the broadcasting sector is highly regulated, the operation of other media has been left to free market competition (Lee 2003: 4–5). However, without stringent anti-competition laws, Hong Kong media industries have become increasingly oligopolised. Two price wars in the 1990s drove five newspapers out of business, the result being intensified oligopoly. From 1988 to 2005, the number of newspapers that took up around 75 per cent of the total readership dropped from six to three (Chan and Lee 1992: 194; ONMEDIA 2005). In an increasingly oligopolistic newspaper market, the cost of launching a successful newspaper becomes astronomical. In 1995, the launch cost of Apple Daily (ranked second in readership quickly after the launch, soon ranked first in readership), amounted to around US$90 million (Lee 2004: 225).7 According to C.W. Wong (1991: 185), in the 1970s around 15 local record companies shared the music market, but a few international majors quickly dominated the market in the late 1970s. In 2003, four international majors and one local conglomerate – Sony, BMG (now absorbed into Sony), Universal, EMI (now split between Sony and Universal), Warner and EEG – had around 88 per cent market share in Hong Kong (Music & Copyright 10 December 2003). Since 2000, some local music companies such as Media Asia Music, Golden Typhoon and A Music have become more prominent players. The only exception to this trend seems to be the film sector, which I shall discuss shortly. Despite the above alarming picture of media oligopolies, one still cannot hastily conclude that independent producers are powerless in promoting alternative views of youth. Some scholars argue that the ‘Fordist’ media production, where corporate giants exert tight control over the creative process, is now increasingly replaced by the ‘post-Fordist’ production, where media conglomerates form various sorts of flexible relationship with swarms of small production firms through licensing and distribution, outsourcing and subcontracting, or funding and investment. These small companies, as the studies point out, have relatively loose control over the creative process and have significantly promoted minority and youth voices (Christopherson and Storper 1989: 331–47; Herman 2003: 141–59; Hesmondhalgh 2013; Shary 2002). But post-Fordist mode of media production in Hong Kong is relatively weak. Two factors are important for explaining 407

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this. In the UK, television broadcasters are required by law to commission at least 25 per cent of their production to independent companies, but in practice some broadcasters made more; in 2011, 42 per cent of BBC output was by independents (BBC 2013).8 Similar media regulation is absent in Hong Kong. Post-Fordist production is also found in the US and UK popular music sector, where production quotas are not required and the market is the primary driving force. But for the market to be a driving force for independent production, it must be large and diverse enough to minimise investment risks, especially where minority media are concerned (Nissen 2006). However, Hong Kong, with a population of only 7 million, is a very small media market with high investment risk.9 The small market and the lack of government support severely restrict independent production as a route for promoting alternative voices of youth. •

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Television: From the 1970s to the 1990s, competition led two television broadcasters, namely TVB and ATV, to focus on producing non-controversial family dramas for primetime slots (Ng 2003). Most dramas were produced in-house. In the late 1990s ATV commissioned most of its drama production, but its purpose was to save production costs and therefore did not lead ATV to give up producing non-controversial dramas. Since 2000 ATV has relied more on importing overseas programmes and has almost ceased independent production. In this context, independent television production never thrives in Hong Kong, let alone constitutes a strong alternative force to promote diverse representations of minorities or youth. At the time of writing in early 2014, only around 50 independent television production companies were active,10 constituting a very small independent production sector (there were over 1,100 independent production firms in 2009 in the UK; see the Select Committee on Communications 2010: 46). Film: Independent production has been the dominant mode of filmmaking since the mid1980s. In 1994, there were over 170 film companies, most of which were small and produced 90 per cent of movies (Yu 1995: 115–21). Since 2000 there have been over 100 independent companies. But the dominance of independents does not necessarily mean post-Fordist film production (Blair and Rainnie 2000: 193). As Chung (2004: 267–8) notes, over the years most independents in Hong Kong have been financed by large studios, distribution and exhibition companies or media conglomerates, which often place constraints on the creative process. Independents without the backup of large companies often have to close down after one box-office failure. With the growing importance of the Chinese film market, film investors are more profit-conscious and exert more significant control over projects commissioned to independent filmmakers (Chung 2012: 1–15). Popular music: Making independent music with the support of major labels, which has been the key channel for young British and American musicians to express their voices, is not a prevalent practice in Hong Kong. In the early 1990s, the PolyGram group in the UK alone already had over 82 labels for producing a diverse range of music genres (Negus 1992: 18). Now the big three – Sony, Warner and Universal – in the USA each owns over 100 labels.11 Japan also has a vibrant independent music scene, with over 210 labels associated with nine major record companies.12 In contrast, majors in Hong Kong for decades signed independent artists or set up one or two independent labels, and they quickly closed down those labels if they were unprofitable in the short run (Chu 2000: 300–1). Most artists in major companies are singers, with all their works produced by other composers, musicians, producers and lyricists.

Public television in Hong Kong is equally as weak as the independent media. The government-funded Radio and Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the only public television 408

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broadcaster in Hong Kong. While many western European countries have a strong tradition of public television (still robust despite the recent marketisation trend of the media), since its inception RTHK has received remarkably little funding. In 2005, for example, the ratio of ‘public broadcasting funding per GNP’ for Britain to Japan to Australia to Hong Kong was 10.6 to 5.5 to 3.5 to 1 (compiled from RTHK 2006: 40). Before 2014, RTHK did not own its channel. In fact, since the start of its television service in 1970, RTHK only broadcast its limited television output on commercial channels for several hours a week (RTHK 2009: 246). In 2014 RTHK trialled its digital channels, but they will not be in full service until 2018 and there has been no sign that RTHK will receive generous government funding to significantly boost its television production in the near future. In 2010, RTHK only achieved around 3 per cent of total broadcasting on one commercial television channel, while public television in various European countries has enjoyed 30–40 per cent audience share (IPTS 2012: 73). Given its limited broadcasting time, RTHK’s role in facilitating diverse representations of local powerless groups such as youth has been dampened. Overall, the above analysis reveals that the Hong Kong media system is hyper-marketised and oligopolistic – the extent of media marketisation and oligopolisation far exceeds most capitalist societies in the west. Such a media system disadvantages representations of alternative discourses of youth in the independent and public media. But paradoxically, structural disadvantages are not identical to perpetual lack of significant struggle. As Hesmondhalgh (2013: 210–11) notes, creative persistence is central to media production, and even in an underpaid and unfavourable environment many producers are keen to do creative work of which they can be proud. This is evident in Hong Kong independent music. Although very often Hong Kong independent musicians remain marginalised, they never disappear (Chu and Choi 2001: 165–76). From 1985 to 1990 around 50 independent bands released works (Chu 2000: 16–23). Many of these bands wrote songs about youth voices challenging the establishment (Chu 2000: 24–56). While majors often closed down their sub-labels if unprofitable in the short run, there are always several ‘true’ independent labels (not owned by majors) actively producing and distributing music (Wong 2010). Creative persistence among counter-hegemonic producers of youth discourses is also evident in RTHK. In 2006, 10 per cent of RTHK television output was about youth (RTHK 2006: 21). Complete Student Handbook, for example, is a single-play series about young students broadcast in different years (1996, 1999, 2001 and 2002). The discourses of this series were complex, ranging from conservative portrayals of young drug users to positive depictions of young homosexuals and artists.13 RTHK has less ratings pressure and stresses the authorial vision of individual producers. Inevitably, some producers used this creative room to promote youth–problem discourses, but it is equally true that this creative room also allowed other producers to create works that challenge mainstream views (Ma 1999). As long as RTHK retains its relatively open production mode, works with alternative views of youth produced by RTHK will persist. If the media produced by independent and public media producers can reach only small fractions of audiences, representational struggles over youth still exist but their influences are limited. History shows that although independent and public media producers have not posed frequent disruptions of the mainstream, at certain moments the persistent efforts of producers can bubble up to the surface and exert strong and lasting challenges – or what I call ‘sporadic disruption’ – to mainstream discourses of youth. At least three contingent factors can facilitate such sporadic disruptions. I emphasise contingency since these factors are very much beyond the control of independent and public media producers. First, as discussed before, at times corporate media may sign and promote seemingly profitable independent producers in the mainstream market. But corporate media seldom do this and getting long-term support of 409

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corporate media is rare. Second, some controversial works of independent or public media may not attract mainstream audiences at first, but they may attract criticism from the authorities. This may stir up open debate in the mass media and catch public attention. But it is hard to predict whether and how the authorities will react, and most independent and public media producers are more interested in producing good work than planning how to provoke the authorities. Third, if independent or public media output wins some important local or global awards, they may catch public attention, but of course winning awards is also unpredictable. Despite these varied processes, all contingencies share one feature: they prompt the mass media, and especially the news media, to feature or even debate independent and public media works that challenge the mainstream. The following are some prominent examples of the disruptions caused by independent and public media: •

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Sex Education: The series produced by RTHK was broadcast in primetime television in different years (1991/92, 1992, 1995, 1997/98, 2000, 2007). Around 40 per cent of the episodes were about youth sexuality.14 At first the series attracted criticism from parents and the authorities because it explicitly explored sex issues related to the young (Sing Tao 12 April 1999). However, the series was quickly regarded by some critics as providing progressive sex education. Sex Education had a strong effect – whenever the series was aired, there was news using the series to criticise the prevailing conservative sex education in Hong Kong (RTHK 2001, 2008). The ‘golden’ band period: From 1985 to 1986, some independents and majors released the work of a few independent groups and achieved moderate success (Cheng 2000: 70–85). This prompted the majors such as Polydor and Warner to sign more independent bands and promote them on commercial television. From 1985 to 1990 over 50 independent bands released tapes or records, and some bands even won several Platinum and Gold Disc awards, which increased their public visibility.15 This golden period of a corporate– independent alliance was short-lived. In 1991, majors no longer signed independent bands as sales of their work declined. Nonetheless, this short-lived ‘golden’ band period poses a lasting counter-hegemonic effect – for years the success stories of the independent bands in this period have provided solid discursive resources for critics and reporters to show support for youth pursuing music or even other artistic careers (Ming Pao 22 June 2003). LMF: In 1999, the hip-hop band LazyMuthaFucka (LMF hereafter) released a self-financed album with plenty of foul language and scathing social criticism and achieved fame among some indie music fans (Mitchell 2001: 6). After Warner signed LMF, their CD sales quadrupled because of aggressive promotion and the band won awards such as ‘band of the year’ (Billboard 28 October 2000). From 2000 to 2003, LMF’s provocative speeches, music and performance stirred up intense debate in the news media – some authorities attacked them for singing ‘foul language’ songs, but some argued that LMF reflected the deep frustration of Hong Kong youth (Ma 2001). DNA, the alternative label of Warner that signed LMF, quickly became inactive after the break-up of the profitable LMF in 2003. Independent youth films: During the early 1980s, three independent films about youth conditions provoked controversy. The Dangerous Encounter: 1st Kind (Diyilei xing weixian, dir. Tsui Hark, 1980) depicts student bombers; The Nomad (Liehuo qingchun, dir. Patrick Tam, 1982) presents youth sex; and Lonely Fifteen (Liang mei zai, dir. David Lai, 1982) portrays young prostitutes and satirises schools (Cheuk 2003: 108–10; 157–8). For the authorities these depictions of youth were about violence, premarital sex and distrust of the authorities. The censors banned the original cut of The Dangerous Encounter; 180 headmasters and teachers called for censoring The Nomad; and Lonely Fifteen was condemned

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for exploiting girls (Cheng 1995: 440; Li 1990: 69–77). This led to much debate on film censorship and Hong Kong youth, which was widely reported in the news media (Cheuk 2003: 253–4). The above are more prominent historical examples of the sporadic disruptions led by independent and public media producers. For some scholars (e.g. Gitlin 1997: 77–82), sporadic disruptions may still mean trivial struggles, but this view simply dismisses the persistent efforts of independent and public media producers in Hong Kong and cannot adequately explain the history and influence of representational struggles they led. Overall, it is more appropriate to take representational struggles over youth led by independent and public media producers as a type of negotiated struggle rather than as insignificant or intense struggle – one which remains dormant most of time, but at certain junctures can present unpredictably powerful and lasting challenges to the mainstream.

Negotiated representational struggles II: popular cultural media Although independent and public media are weak in Hong Kong, popular cultural media are vibrant. Many studies in the UK and USA suggest that popular media, influenced by market principles and the youth as a strong consumer group (rather than organised youth politics), are loaded with progressive representations of youth (Gauntlett 2008; Osgerby 2004). However, these studies tend not to define the counter-hegemonic limits of popular media. Because of the prevalence of these studies, I shall discuss their limitations for the case of Hong Kong youth before discussing how popular media help challenge mainstream discourses of youth. To begin with, many alternative themes of youth analysed in popular media tend to be restricted to media targeted at young audiences. Cheung (2002) argues that youth magazines such as Easy Finder in the 1990s promoted playful youth lifestyles and consumption, questioning the middle-class lifestyle of Hong Kong adults. But the four leading youth magazines in Hong Kong made up around 12 per cent of the total readership in 2002, mostly among young readers.16 Similarly, local films with positive portrayals of youth such as Moments of Love (Yong bao mei yike hua huo, dir. Chung Siu-Hung, 2005) were all made to target the youth rather than a mass audience. While it seems reasonable to suggest that such youth media may help young people develop their subversive consciousness for resisting unjust adult rule, it is much less convincing to argue that these media can have direct de-stigmatising influences on the general public. While popular media with diverse audiences do exist in Hong Kong, two key forces – strong broadcasting regulation and the adult-oriented media market – seriously restrict the range of alternative discourses of youth that can be regularly represented in the popular media. I shall discuss this issue with regard to three media: television, popular music and stars, and tabloid and gossip magazines. Commercial television, with the most reach, is subject to strict content regulation to protect youth and children (Lee 1995: 407–11). For years, primetime television is subject to the Family Viewing Policy which specifies that from 4:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. violence, sex or nudity, bad or offensive language, and scenes of ‘extreme distress’ should be avoided (Broadcasting Authority 2007: 7). Further, teen sex can ‘never’ be presented as ‘acceptable’ and ‘[d]isrespect for law and order, adult authority, good morals . . . should be avoided’ (Broadcasting Authority 2007: 16, emphasis added). Under these guidelines many alternative topics about youth should not be featured on primetime television: sympathetic presentations of teen pregnancy (not ‘acceptable’); youth abuse (‘cause alarm’); realistic exploration of subcultures (contains ‘drugs’); alternative sexuality of youth (not ‘ordinarily acceptable’); police brutality against youth (‘cause alarm’), and so on. 411

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It is reasonable to speculate that alternative topics about youth could be found outside family viewing time when restrictions are more relaxed. But as Lo and Ng (1996) note, since the 1990s, television has catered predominately for middle-class adult audiences, the most profitable audience profile for advertisers. Television management has learned that controversial depictions of youth would provoke complaints from adult audiences and at times the stations were fined by the government. As the main audience of television is adults, it makes sense to simply marginalise representations of youth or only present healthy images of youth if necessary. Overall this means restricting the range of alternative discourses of youth presented on television. A review of television dramas confirms this: out of 70 locally made serials on TVB from 2002 to 2004, only six have secondary school and university students as leading characters, and the rest are stories about parents, professionals or adult couples. Those more prominent young characters play the role of sportspersons or pilots, which can hardly be considered as subversive.17 The restrictive regulatory forces and the adult-oriented market for commercial television have chilling effects on popular music. Due to a serious drop in CD sales in recent years, the current revenue of the Hong Kong music industry does not depend on CD sales but through ‘cashing in on [the] popularity [of singers] later with concerts, commercials and movie work’ (Billboard 2 September 2002). So, for the music labels, a highly popular singer can generate more revenue through other non-music or non-youth media (such as being an advertising spokesperson). To achieve popularity, the most effective method is through repeated exposure on the dominant broadcaster TVB. However, to do so means adaptation to the regulatory logic of TVB. This leads TVB and music labels to be cautious about maintaining a healthy public image for the singers, and this is evident in many cases. A singer who said ‘don’t be so fucking noisy’ in a game show, quickly apologised to the public the day after and was forbidden by TVB from appearing on its programmes for three months (East Week 5 April 2006); another singer wore a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Masturbating is not a crime’ in a show, which led TVB to apologise for negligence (Apple Daily 11 May 1999). The most serious consequence is withdrawal. In early 2008, hundreds of sex-related photos taken by a male singer were leaked to the internet. The singer, after openly apologising for failing to be a role model for youth, withdrew from the Hong Kong entertainment business (The Standard 22 February 2008). Undoubtedly, local music industries need to make their singers and songs appealing to ‘rebellious’ young audiences but, under the constraint of keeping healthy images, the ‘rebellious’ qualities of popular stars and music are highly restricted from a broader ideological view. Unlike the case of many music artists and genres in the UK and USA, Hong Kong popular singers and music seldom explicitly criticise the establishment. Neither do they explicitly promote alternative views of drugs, sexuality, lifestyles or politics. In fact, no stars have ever dared to speak publicly on the complex issue of drugs. Local singers spotted by the paparazzi taking drugs have all apologised to the public afterwards to save their careers. Even the most subversive popular media – gossip and tabloid magazines – are conservative about presenting alternative discourses of youth. Around 90 per cent of the readers of two bestselling tabloid and gossip magazines, Next Magazine and Eastweek, are above the age of 24 (Next Media 2005: 8). As a result, these magazines are interested in exposing corrupt police or abuses of the official housing allowance rather than abuse of youth or their criticisms of police attitudes. Youth, if featured, are overwhelmingly presented as problematic. A review of Next Magazine reveals this: from March 2005 to March 2008, there were 29 articles about youth featured in the current affairs section, 26 of which discuss youth as a social problem.18 Some article headlines are illustrative: ‘Internet sex seekers’; ‘Top school girls sell sex after school’; and ‘Ketamine craze among 14-year-old students’ (30 August 2007; 22 February 2007; 31 August 2006). 412

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My discussion so far is intended to correct the prevalent optimism regarding popular cultural media as an intense site of representational struggle. But does it mean popular media are entirely insignificant with regard to representational struggles over Hong Kong youth? Not entirely so. To attract niche audiences, every now and then popular media producers may take the risk to feature more provocative content, which leads to strong disruption of the mainstream. Some of these ‘popular’ disruptions are in fact intertwined with independent musicians and filmmakers discussed in the last section. Here I shall list some other examples of the more prominent disruptions made by popular media: •

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TVB broadcast two controversial youth dramas imported from Japan, namely Great Teacher Onizuka (1998) and The Classroom of the Queen (2006), both of which strongly criticise utilitarian parents and teachers and advocate highly unconventional teaching methods. These themes are provocative, but the popularity of the show in Japan led TVB to take the risk to broadcast them. To avoid complaints, they were broadcast during weekend nonprimetime. Still, because of the popularity of TVB, the series achieved high ratings. The Classroom of the Queen, for instance, attracted around 1.6 million viewers, a figure comparable to those of some weekday primetime dramas (East Week 2 August 2006). The term ‘unusual teachers’ used in the series Great Teacher Onizuka also stimulated debates about Hong Kong’s educational system in the news media. Another example is the television series Mother at 14 (2007) also imported from Japan. The drama explores a range of sensitive issues: the medical risk of an underage girl giving birth, the stigmas imposed on young parents, the hypocrisy of school authorities in handling teen pregnancy and so on. To avoid public complaints, TVB scheduled the series on its much less popular English channel, Pearl, during weekday non-primetime (Ming Pao 30 July 2007). Again, because of the popularity of TVB, the show still had around half a million viewers. At times advertisers take risks to disrupt popular media. One remarkable example is the outdoor advertising campaign launched by the soft drink Sprite in 2002. These ads featured different slogans to explicitly argue that youth are more mature than adults think (‘I’m already fourteen, not ten!’), can decide their alternative sexuality (‘I love women’), can be in love with teachers (‘I love you, Miss Chan!’) and refuse the ideal of women with big breasts (‘I wear a 31A bra!’). These ads were located around bus stops and underground stations and therefore were seen by a large audience (Hong Kong Economic Times 21 June 2002). In fact, with the help of the news media, even youth media can sometimes disrupt mainstream discourses of youth. The most prominent example is Yes! magazine in the early 1990s which invited students to complain about unjust school rules and featured a column about sex and love matters. During its launch, the magazine shocked many school authorities and attracted critical news coverage. The magazine had some counter-hegemonic effects – some authorities publicly admitted the limited channels for youth to express opinions and the needs of youth for sex education (Ming Pao 15 September 1991).

So far what perhaps looks especially disappointing is that producers (and management) of popular cultural media have many more resources than independent and public media producers, but only occasionally end up disrupting mainstream discourses of youth in ways similar to independent and public media. In this regard, it seems that independent and public media producers deserve more respect. These different evaluations however miss the broader theoretical implications that all independent, public and popular cultural media are in fact constrained by the extremely marketised and oligopolistic media system. In such a system, independent and 413

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public media can at best interrupt the mainstream sporadically due to high barriers of entry and minimal government support; similarly, the strong emphasis on the adult market, coupled with content regulations, also restricts alternative discourses in popular cultural media.

Negotiated representational struggles III: news media While popular media are constrained by the adult market principle, commercial news media are no exception: all major news media in Hong Kong are produced for and mostly consumed by adults rather than youth. Nonetheless, besides the constraining force of the adult market, two additional counter-hegemonic forces shape representations of youth. These are journalistic professionalism and the restricted alternative sources, the latter of which are the liberal professionals and critics discussed in the first section. These two particular forces, coupled with the extensive reach of the news media (which will be discussed shortly), make the news media a more subversive site of representational struggles over youth than the independent, public and popular media. This requires some explanation. Over the years, Hong Kong journalists have developed a strong tradition of journalistic professionalism, the two cornerstones of which are the roles of news in monitoring government performance (journalists as watchdogs) and reporting balanced viewpoints of social issues. This is evident in the large-scale survey studies of Hong Kong journalists in the past two decades (Chan et al. 1996; So and Chan 2007: 148–58). As Table 25.1 shows, in the periodic surveys done in 1990, 1996, 2001 and 2006, journalists consistently consider it important for the news media to serve as a watchdog of government. In 1990, 78 per cent of the journalists perceive that ‘to report in a balanced way’ is important; similarly, the 2001 and 2006 surveys show that journalists tend to regard ‘becoming the voice of citizens’ and ‘helping disadvantaged social organisations’ as important news functions, both of which support the ideal that voices of various social groups should be represented regardless of social positions, which is a key feature of balanced journalism. There are historical reasons for the resilience of news professionalism in Hong Kong. In the past 40 years, journalism training in the tertiary education institutions in Hong Kong has been much influenced by the American liberal model of news professionalism, and accordingly the liberal notion of news professionalism is widely accepted by generations of journalism graduates (Chan et al. 1996: 53–60).19 There were fears among local scholars, journalists and citizens that journalistic freedom would be severely suppressed after the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, and there have indeed been signs of increased self-censorship and government criticisms of the news media (Ma 2007: 949–70; Lee 2004; Fung 2007: 159–71). But Hong Kong journalists have shown their determination to step up to fight for journalistic freedom whenever they perceive that the government wants to curtail journalistic freedom, and these actions have been strongly supported by both local academics and citizens (Lee et al. 2005: 37–56). Journalistic professionalism, at least as an ideal, remains robust (So and Chan 2007: 151). Some scholars however have strongly dismissed the counter-hegemonic potential of professionalism. Tuchman (1972: 660) suggests that balanced reporting is merely a ‘strategic ritual’ which legitimises the status quo, and Hall et al. (1978) claim that unequal source competition only reproduces dominant ideologies.20 If these critical views are valid, then major news media in Hong Kong – even those with the strongest commitment to news professionalism – will reproduce dominant ideologies of youth and suppress alternative views. A critical case analysis seems to support this. Newspaper reports across four months about youth (in 2003) in Ming Pao and Apple Daily were sampled and coded according to the types of discourse of youth predominately represented and the page position (‘non-report’ genres such as commentary were 414

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Table 25.1 Hong Kong journalists’ views on watchdog and balanced journalism across different years News function

Survey sample

Journalists’ views on news function

1990

N = 522 (75% response rate); systematic sampling.

88% agree that it is important or very important for the news media ‘to be a watchdog of the government’ (Chan et al. 1996: 88).

1996, 2001, 2006

1996: N = 533 (62% response rate); 2001: N = 722 (62% response rate); 2006: N = 1,004 (55% response rate); all systematic sampling.

Hong Kong journalists score 4.05, 4.16 and 4.03 (along a 5-point scale, with 5 = very much agree and 1 = very much disagree) in answering the question whether the news media should ‘help citizens to monitor’ government in 1996, 2001, 2006 (So and Chan 2007: 151).

Watchdog

Balanced journalism 1990

N = 522 (75% response rate); systematic sampling.

78% agree that ‘to report in a balanced way’ is important or very important (Chan et al. 1996: 88.)

2001, 2006

2001: N = 722 (62% response rate); 2006: N = 1,004 (55% response rate); all systematic sampling.

Hong Kong journalists score 3.99 and 3.82 (along a 5-point scale, with 5 = very much agree and 1 = very much disagree) in answering whether the news media should ‘become citizens’ voice’ in 2001 and 2006; journalists also scored 3.60 and 3.70 in answering whether the news media should ‘help disadvantaged social organisations’ (So and Chan 2007: 151).

Table 25.2 Types of discourse of youth predominately represented in news reports, by media and months Dominant type of discourse of youth represented in the reports in Apple Daily

Dominant type of discourse of youth represented in the reports in Ming Pao

Hegemonic discourses

Hegemonic discourses

Alternative discourses

28 (6) 23 (5)

4 (1) 3 (0)

51 (11)

7 (1)

Alternative dIscourses

May June

45 (0) 41 (1)

8 (0) 3 (0)

Total

86 (1)

11 (0)

October November

Note: The number in brackets indicates the number of stories placed in front, second or third pages.

not analysed). Ming Pao has been recognised for its balanced and quality reporting, and Apple Daily has been also well-known for its critical stance towards the government (Leung 2006). Table 25.2 shows the results of the analysis. The sampled news reports suggest that day-to-day reporting about youth is ideological in the sense that stories that mainly presented hegemonic discourses of youth greatly outnumbered 415

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those that primarily presented alternative discourses of youth (by around seven to one on average). The figure suggests that on average there would be one story about youth problems per day. The following headlines are illustrative: • • •

17-year-old ‘staircase rapist’ charged with 12 more felony counts. (Ming Pao 11 November 2003) Teachers should protect themselves when facing violent students. (Ming Pao 11 November 2003) Five teen burglars caught at school. (Ming Pao 13 October 2003)

Although the above analysis is correct to point out the consistent advantaged positions of dominant sources, its explanation of representational struggles over youth in news is incomplete for two reasons. First, while the prevalence of hegemonic discourses about youth can indicate the significance of official sources, it does not follow that the smaller numbers of stories with alternative discourses are necessarily insignificant. Sometimes one or two occasional stories that centre on interesting alternative accounts of youth would interest many readers. I shall illustrate this shortly. Second, most critical accounts of news media assume that news reports are the only important news genre in considering news performance (Manning 2001). This assumption is problematic. Many major newspapers use immense resources to develop feature and opinion pages to increase their appeal (Wahl-Jorgensen 2004: 59–70). As C.C. Lee (2000: 317–19) points out, non-report journalism constitutes a safety net to pre-empt the pitfall of being charged of failing to practise watchdog and balanced journalism in various ways. First, editorials allow editors to express counter-hegemonic discourses without using sources; feature journalism, less subject to time pressure and the everyday news agenda, provides reporters with more freedom to develop alternative stories; by commissioning critics with different political perspectives to write social commentaries, editors can guarantee a range of quality opinions represented everyday (at least in opinion pages), the practice of which relies much less on staff resources or source availability. Similarly, the forum section facilitates expression of diverse opinions from the community. And, finally, in presenting controversial views in opinion pages rather than reports, editors can absolve themselves from political pressures. By undertaking content and textual analyses of news reports and non-report news genres, I would like to argue that during day-to-day news production, the combination of news professionalism and restricted alternative sources on youth produces at least three forms of challenges to mainstream news representations of youth. The first form of challenge is periodic representation of various alternative discourses. Although alternative discourses of youth are consistently suppressed in reports, they are not absent. If we include features and commentary articles in considering news diversity, it turns out that together various news outputs periodically promote de-stigmatising views of youth. This is evident in my analysis of a one-year sample of reports and non-report articles about youth in Apple Daily and Ming Pao (1 March 2003 to 28 February 2004; see Tables 25.3 and 25.4). All articles – news reports, feature stories, editorials, columns and forum articles – were coded according to the type of alternative discourses of youth predominately represented. Overall, Ming Pao and Apple Daily had, respectively, 138 and 109 articles that focused on alternative accounts of youth. This suggests that, on average, every three or four days a feature article, column, report or editorial primarily presenting alternative views of youth would appear in everyday news. More importantly, the range of the discourses presented in these articles is fairly diverse and to some extent evenly distributed across various news genres (see Tables 25.3 and 25.4). This wider range of discourses presented in the news media stands in sharp contrast with 416

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Table 25.3 Reports and non-report articles that predominately represented different alternative discourses of youth in Apple Daily (March 2003 to February 2004) Type of alternative News reports discourses of Prominent Ordinary youth position position

Features and Comment pages Subtotal

Features

Comment pages

Subtotal

Total

General youth deviance

1

8

9 (39%)

5

9

14 (61%)

23 (21%)

Pop culture and media

2

15

17 (61%)

10

1

11 (39%)

28 (26%)

Sex

1

6

7 (50%)

5

2

7 (50%)

14 (13%)

School authoritarianism

3

12

15 (71%)

2

4

6 (29%)

21 (19%)

Employment

0

11

11 (48%)

1

11

12 (52%)

23 (21%)

Total

7

52

59 (54%)

23

27

50 (46%) 109 (100%)

Note: Italic percentages are by column. Non-italic percentages are by row.

Table 25.4 Reports and non-report articles that predominately represented different alternative discourses of youth in Ming Pao (March 2003 to February 2004) Type of alternative News reports discourses of Prominent Ordinary youth position position

Features and Comment pages Subtotal

Features

Comment pages

Subtotal

Total

General youth deviance

2

2

4 (24%)

9

4

12 (76%)

17 (12%)

Pop culture and media

2

9

11 (28%)

17

11

39 (72%)

39 (28%)

Sex

2

9

11 (42%)

13

2

15 (58%)

26 (19%)

School authoritarianism

2

13

15 (50%)

7

8

15 (50%)

30 (22%)

Employment

3

7

10 (38%)

14

2

16 (62%)

26 (19%)

11

40

51 (37%)

60

27

Total

87 (63%) 138 (100%)

Note: Italic percentages are by column. Non-italic percentages are by row.

the case of the popular media (especially television), where subversive discourses of youth such as those described below are consistently absent (except during moments of sporadic disruption). As the one-year sample suggests, these alternative accounts of youth concern five issues: •

General youth deviance: For instance, a news report argues that ‘marginal youth’ or dropouts are not ‘incapable’, but that the uninteresting mainstream secondary education creates dropouts (Apple Daily 27 August 2003). In a very long feature story, five writers and journalists express their in-depth views of ‘youth gangs’ (over 3,000 words, which is not possible in news reports) after several young pickpockets were caught, and one writer strongly attacks the labelling power of ‘youth gangs’ (Ming Pao 28 September 2003). 417

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•

•

•

•

Popular culture and media: Diverse views of the involvement of youth in popular media and culture are evident. While youth fashion is often dismissed as consumerism, a university student in one feature article countered that youth fashion represents the adventurism of teenagers (Ming Pao 30 October 2003). The in-depth interview feature headlined ‘Young girl rehabilitates graffiti’ describes how a girl becomes an ‘artistic’ graffiti teacher and reports her criticisms about the suppression of graffiti (Ming Pao 4 September 2003). A local scholar also presented a series of articles proposing idol-worshipping as a form of resistance to unjust adult rules (Ming Pao 27 November 2003; 9 February 2004). Sex: Views proposing that youth have the right to acquire comprehensive knowledge and detailed information about youth sex rarely appear on commercial television, but they are not taboo in news reports (Ming Pao 19 January 2004). Even the view that teen homosexuality should not be discriminated against can be discussed at length in long feature articles (Ming Pao 19 February 2004). School authoritarianism: Various forms of school authoritarianism – unjust school rules, corporal punishment and discrimination against individual students – are reported or criticised across different news genres. Here are some examples of the headlines with very explicit criticisms of schooling authorities: ‘Wearing shorts during winter/Parents criticise inflexible school rules’ (Apple Daily 8 February 2004); ‘Discriminating against learning disability’ (Apple Daily 25 April 2003); ‘Judge: Stop physical abuse in modern education’ (Apple Daily 7 February 2004). Employment: The news media are the only site that allows strong critiques of inadequate employment policy for youth and discrimination and exploitation against youth at work. Consider this headline, which is a strong indictment: ‘Monthly allowance for temporary jobs hits as low as $500/Groups attack employers for exploiting youth’ (Apple Daily 1 August 2003).

Besides periodic representations, another less frequent form of challenge is also worth discussion: contingent augmentation. Every now and then alternative discourses of youth promoted by the restricted alternative sources are regarded by journalists as interesting and are reported in prominent positions (the front, second or third page). This is again evident in my one-year sample where Apple Daily and Ming Pao had, respectively, seven and eleven reports of this type and there are no restrictions on the range of discourses represented in these reports. Some headlines of these reports are illustrative: ‘Twisting ears hurt student/Teacher found guilty/Judge: Stop physical abuse in modern education’ (a story criticising corporal punishment at schools; Apple Daily 7 February 2004); ‘t.a.t.u. passionate kiss/Audiences got high’ (a story about the performance of a Russian girl duo who promote lesbianism; Ming Pao 25 October 2003); ‘Youth unemployment remains high’ (a story about ineffective government policy on youth employment; Ming Pao 19 September 2003). At times reporters augmented alternative accounts of youth with a generous amount of space. The news reports about the local hip-hop band LMF on 11 September 2001 in Ming Pao are a case in point. These reports occupied the entire page four, in which journalists presented the views of LMF about music and culture in detail – their reasons for refusing incorporation by the mainstream, defence of their foul-language songs, criticisms of government suppression of creative freedom and so on. Certainly, such augmented alternative reports are always outnumbered by mainstream reports, but we should not hastily dismiss these more sporadically augmented alternative reports. Sometimes less frequently presented alternative reports may look more interesting to readers than the frequently presented, familiar negative stories of youth. 418

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The final form of challenge which I call topical debate is also relatively infrequent but no less important. From time to time some youth problems are regarded by journalists as somewhat novel. During these moments, the novelty of the problems would, to various degrees, stimulate either the newsworkers to look for balanced opinions or the alternative sources to actively express their ideas. In other words, negative reports about ‘new’ youth problems may lead to topical debate. For instance, the term ‘hidden youth’ was first proposed in early 2005 to describe youth who hide away at home to play internet games. Shortly after this negative term was reported, alternative views emerged in both feature and forum pages of some newspapers. In April 2005, Ming Pao commissioned five cultural critics to comment on the phenomenon in a very long feature article (over 4,500 words), and a liberal social worker and a lecturer also wrote in the column and forum section. A range of critical ideas emerged in these articles: the internet lives of many hidden youth should not be dismissed; the term was invented to increase subsidies for social workers; hiding at home is a form of resistance to an unjust society, etc. Topical debates can be conducted in a one-day form: the main story in Ming Pao on 26 June 2007 used ‘licentious’ to describe a case of a 14-year-old girl having sex with four teens, and another story on the same page was headlined ‘Transgressive sex needs open discussion’. Very often, however, topical debates are ‘diffused’, which means various news articles may appear on different days and pages. However, it is reasonable to assume that topical issues presented as somewhat novel would attract more attention from audiences, and so would the follow-up alternative articles that emerge shortly after the initial negative reporting. The above broadly outlines three forms of intervention initiated by news professionalism and restricted alternative sources on youth in daily news production, namely, periodic representation, contingent augmentation and topical debate. There is strong evidence that news audiences in Hong Kong have remained robust in the past few decades. Daily newspaper readership remains high – from 1975 to 2005 newspaper readership has steadily increased from 61 to over 70 per cent (Chan and Lee 1992: 193; ONMEDIA 2005). With the rise of digital news and free dailies in the past few years, total paid newspaper readership has dropped to 53 per cent in 2010 (Trade Development Council 2012). But this drop is compensated by online news readership. The average copy sold per day for Apple Daily in 2011, for instance, was reduced by around 35,000 compared with 2010, but the number of visitors per day to its digital version reached around 124,000 in 2012 (Next Media 2012: 20–2). This continued high newspaper readership in Hong Kong, paid and digital, is attributable to what Chan and So (2004: 171–92) called the strong ‘surrogate’ function of the news media in Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong citizens are denied the right to select the government, many people regard the news media as a key channel to represent their voices. In any case, with their expansive reach and three forms of counter-hegemonic intervention, the news media are the most subversive site of representational struggles of youth in Hong Kong.

Conclusion: hyper-marketised and oligopolistic media and negotiated discursive struggles Representational struggles over youth in Hong Kong fit neither the pessimistic view of media as the propaganda tool of the powerful nor the celebratory view of the media as a free marketplace of ideas. Undoubtedly, the hyper-marketised and oligopolised media system in Hong Kong consistently reproduces dominant representations of youth problems. But there are still some negotiated resistances – independent, public and popular producers sporadically disrupt mainstream representations of youth with strong and lasting effect. These resistances should not 419

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be ignored, but as they are constrained by market forces and undemocratic media policies, their counter-hegemonic disruption is sporadic and infrequent. In this context, commercial news media are the most negotiated counter-force, since besides the market, daily news production is also guided by two extra forces – news professionalism and restricted alternative sources on youth. As a result, although the news media do not constitute a truly pluralist site where contradictory producers of youth discourse are granted equal communicative power, the news media still periodically represent a diverse range of alternative discourses of youth and occasionally initiate topical debates and present alternative accounts of youth in a prominent manner. Borrowing Scott’s idea (1988), C.C. Lee (2000: 317) argues that journalistic professionalism in Hong Kong serves as a ‘weapon of the weak’ in political news reporting, ‘especially when the weak are devoid of stronger means of resistance’. Without intending to exaggerate their power, I would suggest that news professionalism and restricted alternative sources are the two strongest weapons of the disadvantaged youth in the context of the Hong Kong brand of hyper-marketised and oligopolistic media system. Some media theorists may dismiss the negotiated counter-hegemonic challenges identified in this study as trivial resistance as these challenges are not radical institutional reform. This critique is problematic because in reality radical media reform can seldom be achieved overnight. In fact, many scholars and citizens have called for reforming the excessively marketised and oligopolistic Hong Kong media system, but so far RTHK is still seriously underfunded and the support of the HKSAR government for independent media is still minimal. In this light, in any context where strong obstacles to radical media reform persist, my proposal is that media scholars also need to be ‘practical’; they should not ignore but should identify and evaluate the achievements and limitations of negotiated struggles, and based on this realistic knowledge propose ways to defend existing negotiated practices. As for the hyper-marketised and oligopolistic Hong Kong media, it means that the news professionalism constantly under threat and the marginalised creative room of the independent and public media must be defended at all cost, especially when stronger means of subversion are not readily available at the current historical conjuncture. In stressing the importance of defending negotiated counter-voices, I do not wish to uncritically celebrate these negotiated forces. The Hong Kong case illustrates that a hypermarketised and oligopolistic media system has remarkable suppressive effects on media pluralism, and that it tends to only bring about sporadic and periodic challenges to hegemony. Sporadic and periodic challenges still represent resistance to hegemony, but they are far from ideal. In this regard, rejuvenating public service television, breaking up vertically integrated media oligopolies and expanding support to independent media remain important long-term goals of reform in Hong Kong. Having said that, defending negotiated discursive struggles is not at odds with radical institutional reform; rather, they boost media pluralism using different methods and different effects.

Notes 1 Three new digital public television channels were trialled in 2014: one channel broadcast RTHK locally produced programmes on public affairs, education and culture for only a few hours at night; another channel aired live Legislative Council meetings and other press conferences; the third channel relayed China Central Television Channel 9 (CCTV-9) 24 hours a day (Realhknews 2013). At the time of writing in 2014, the public broadcasters did not announce any plans to increase local production. 2 Statistics for independent media workers illustrate this. In 15 European countries, on average 45 per cent of writers, creative and performing artists are self-employed; in the USA, self-employed authors, 420

Hyper-marketised and oligopolistic media

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

photographers, producers, directors and musicians make up 33–68 per cent of the total (Center for an Urban Future 2005: 23; MKW GmbH 2001: 86). In Hong Kong, however, only slightly more than 10 per cent of writers, creative artists, performers and entertainment personnel are self-employed (Centre for Cultural Policy Research 2003: 53–4). Since 2003, some young people born after 1980 have organised social movement groups, which are concerned more with political issues such as democratisation and national education and much less with issues specific to youth. In 2014, there were 11 free-to-air television channels in total. The most popular one has been the Cantonese Jade channel owned by TVB (Communications Authority 2013: 29). The two commercial and one public radio broadcasters mentioned here still broadcast on an analogue signal as digital radio has not been popular in Hong Kong. The case of the relatively limited television and radio broadcasters in Hong Kong is evident when compared with the free national television broadcasters (both commercial and public) available in some western and Asian countries. Britain has 5 national television broadcasters; Japan has 6; South Korea 6, and Taiwan 5 (Muppidi 2012). Regarding radio, Taiwan, with a population three times that of Hong Kong, had 172 radio stations in 2010 (Muppidi 2012: 399). This chapter consults hundreds of popular articles and journalistic reports published in newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong. I only offer in-text citations with the title of the publication and the date without listing them as formal references. My discussion here focuses on free broadcasting, as the pay television services available in Hong Kong have achieved only around 20 per cent of audience share since 2000 and still cannot compete with free commercial television in terms of popularity (Communications Authority 2013: 29). Although several free dailies were launched in Hong Kong in the 2000s, my discussion here only focuses on traditional paid-for newspapers, as the latter are still much more influential and free dailies are generally considered as lower quality by local readers (Hong Kong Economic Times 28 September 2011). An independent production quota for public television is also implemented in other European countries such as Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and so on (European Commission 2009: 91–2). In 2007 the UK population was 60 million, more than eight times that of Hong Kong (source: Office for National Statistics of Britain); Japan’s population was 128 million, around eighteen times that of Hong Kong (source: Statistics Bureau of Japan). The estimate here was obtained by the 2006 directory available from the government’s Film Services Office. Music majors seldom publish these data. The data here were an estimation based on the majors’ company websites and Wikipedia. These data were compiled from http://onluck.biz/index.php/music-label.html (accessed 2 September 2012). The analysis here was gathered from the programme synopsis in the RTHK programme catalogue (RTHK 2004). This figure was compiled from the synopsis of the series available in the RTHK website: www.rthk.org.hk/channel/tv/tvarchivecatalog/ (accessed 20 February 2013). For the award figures, see www.ifpihk.org/www_1/se4e.php (accessed 20 February 2008). These included Easy Finder, Yes!, East Touch and New Monday (Centre for Cultural Policy Research 2003: 60). The data here were gathered by analysing the extensive synopses and character summaries available on the website of TVB (www.tvb.com/). Historical dramas were not analysed. The data here were gathered by searching all youth-related articles in the public affairs section of Next Magazine through the internet news archive Wisenews (www.wisers.com/). Recently around half of the journalists (52 per cent) have a degree in journalism and mass communication, and some (17 per cent) have attended journalism courses (So and Chan 2007: 149). In most cases journalists need to interview relevant ‘sources’ to gather information to produce news stories. ‘Unequal source competition’ refers to the condition that some sources (e.g. government officials or corporate public-relation spokespersons) have more political, economic or organisational resources than others (e.g. union leaders or ordinary citizens) to get attention from journalists. Some scholars (Hall et al. 1978) argue that in this situation the voices of more powerful sources will dominate the news media and that the views of less-resourced sources are inevitably marginalised. 421

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European Commission (2009) Study on the Application of Measures Concerning the Promotion of the Distribution and Production of European Works in Audiovisual Media Services, Brussels: European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/library/studies/art4_5/final_report.pdf (accessed 23 October 2013). Fung, Y.H.A. (2007) ‘Political economy of Hong Kong media: producing a hegemonic voice’, Asian Journal of Communication 17(2): 159–71. Gauntlett, D. (2008) Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Gitlin, T. (1997) ‘The anti-political populism of cultural studies’, Dissent 44(2): 77–82. Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Roberts, B. (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order, London: Macmillan. Herman, D. (2003) ‘“Bad Girls changed my life”: homonormativity in a women’s prison drama’, Critical Studies in Media Communication 20(2): 141–59. Herman, E.S. (2000) ‘The propaganda model: a retrospective’, Journalism Studies 1(1): 101–12. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2013) The Cultural Industries, 3rd edn, London: Sage. IPTS (2012) European Television in the New Media Landscape, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Lam, O. (2013) ‘Arbitrary TV license decision undermines Hong Kong freedom of speech’, Global Voices, 17 October. Available online http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/10/17/arbitrary-tv-license-decisionundermines-hong-kong-freedom-of-speech/ (retrieved 23 October 2013). Lee, C.C. (2000) ‘The paradox of political economy: media structure, press freedom, and regime change in Hong Kong’, in C.C. Lee (ed.) Money, Power, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 288–336. –––– (2004) Beyond Western Hegemony: Media and Chinese Modernity (Chaoyue xifang baquan), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press (in Chinese). Lee, F.L.F. and Chan, J.M. (2011) Media, Social Mobilization, and the Pro-democracy Protest Movement in PostHandover Hong Kong, London: Routledge. Lee, F.L.F., Chan, J.M. and So, C.Y.K. (2005) ‘Evaluations of media and understanding of politics: the role of education among Hong Kong citizens’, Asian Journal of Communication 15(1): 37–56. Lee, S.N. (1995) ‘Regulating radio and television broadcasting’ (Diantai ji dianshi guangbo de jian guan), in W.Y. Leung and M.M. Chan (eds), New Perspectives on Communication Laws (Chuangbofa xinlun), Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 399–428 (in Chinese). –––– (2003) ‘Social change and media development’ (Shehui bianqian yu meijie fazhan), in S.N. Lee (ed.), The New Century of Hong Kong Media (Xianggang chuanmei xin shiji), Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 3–16 (in Chinese). Leung, L.K. (2006) The Apple Falls (Pinguo diao xialai), Hong Kong: Subculture Publishing (in Chinese). Li, C.T. (1990) Hong Kong Film Notes 1980s, vol. 1 (Bashi niandai xianggang dianying biji shangce), Hong Kong: Chuang Jian (in Chinese). Lo, T. and Ng, C.B. (1996) ‘The evolution of prime-time television scheduling in Hong Kong’, in D. French and M. Richards (eds), Contemporary Television: Eastern Perspective, New Delhi: Sage, 200–20. Ma, E.K.W. (1999) Culture, Politics and Television in Hong Kong, London: Routledge. Ma, K.W. (ed.) (2001) Selling LMF: Foul Language Songs Archive (Chumai LMF: Cukou yinyue dang an), Hong Kong: Ming Cheung (in Chinese). Ma, N. (2007) ‘State–press relationship in post 1997 Hong Kong: constant negotiation amidst self-restraint’, China Quarterly 192: 949–70. McChesney, R.W. (2008) The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas, New York: Monthly Review Press. Manning, P. (2001) News and News Sources: A Critical Introduction, London: Sage. Mitchell, T.W. (2001) ‘Another root: hip-hop outside the USA’, in T.W. Mitchell (ed.), Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside of the USA, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University, 1–39. MKW GmbH (2001) ‘Exploitation and development of the job potential in the cultural sector in the age of digitalisation’, report commissioned by European Commission, DG Employment and Social Affairs. Muppidi, S.R. (ed.) (2012) Asian Communication Handbook, 6th edn, Singapore: AMIC. Negus, K. (1992) Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music Industry, London: Arnold. Next Media (2005) Next Media Limited Annual Report 2004/2005, Hong Kong: Next Media. –––– (2012) Next Media Limited Annual Report 2011/2012, Hong Kong: Next Media. Ng, H. (2003) The History of Hong Kong Television, vol. 1 (Xianggang dianshi shihua 1), Hong Kong: Subculture Publishing (in Chinese). 423

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Ng, P.T.M. (2000) ‘(New) church schools in Hong Kong: a review’ (Jidujiao xin jiaohui zai xianggang banxue de qingkuang), in M.Y. Gu and Z. Du (eds), The Past and Future of Education in Hong Kong (Xianggang jiaoyu de guoqu yu weilai), Beijing: People’s Education Press, 650–62 (in Chinese). Nissen, C.S. (2006) Public Service Media in the Information Society, Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe. Available online www.menntamalaraduneyti.is/media/MRN-PDF-Althjodlegt/Public_service_media. pdf (retrieved 16 September 2013). ONMEDIA (2005) Of the Latest Newspaper Battlefield in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: ONMEDIA. Osgerby, B. (2004) Youth Media, London: Routledge. Realhknews (2013) ‘RTHK to show CCTV’s documentaries on its three new TV channels in Jan’, The Real Hong Kong News, 30 November. Available online http://therealnewshk.wordpress.com/ 2013/11/19/rthk-to-show-cctvs-documentaries-on-its-three-new-tv-channels-in-jan/ (retrieved 20 November 2013). RTHK (2001) TV Program Appreciation Index Survey 2000, Hong Kong: RTHK. –––– (2004) Television Programme Database 1973–2003 (Dianshi jiemu ziliaoku 1973–2003), Hong Kong: RTHK (in Chinese). –––– (2006) RTHK Corporate Brochure 2006, Hong Kong: RTHK. –––– (2008) TV Program Appreciation Index Survey 2007, Hong Kong: RTHK. –––– (2009) Our Days of Broadcasting: Eighty Years of RTHK (Yiqi guangbo de rizi: Xianggang diantai bashi nian), Hong Kong: Ming Pao Publishing (in Chinese). Scott, J.C. (1988) Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Select Committee on Communications (2010) First Report: The British Film and Television Industries – Decline or Opportunity? London: House of Lords. Shary, T. (2002) Generation Multiplex: The Image of Youth in Contemporary American Cinema, Austin: University of Texas Press. Shiu, K.C. (2001) Reverse Construction of Youth (Ni gou qingnian), Hong Kong: HK Policy Viewers (in Chinese). So, C.Y.K. and Chan, J.M. (2007) ‘Professionalism, politics and market force: survey studies of Hong Kong journalists 1996–2006’, Asian Journal of Communication 17(2): 148–58. Trade Development Council (2012) ‘New media: a game changing challenge for Hong Kong newspapers’, HKTDC Research, 18 May. Available online http://economists-pick-research.hktdc.com/businessnews/vp-article/en/1/1X07WPR6.htm (retrieved 23 September 2013). Tuchman, G. (1972) ‘Objectivity as strategic ritual: an examination of newsmen’s notions of objectivity’, American Journal of Sociology 77(4): 660–79. Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2004) ‘Playground of the pundits or voice of the people? Comparing British and Danish opinion pages’, Journalism Studies 5(1): 59–70. Wong, C.C. (2010) Sound of Pop Music (Liu sheng), Hong Kong: Home Affairs Bureau (in Chinese). Wong, C.W. (1991) ‘Hong Kong Canton-pop music scene under the oligopolistic control of international music companies’ (Kuaguo changpian gongsi longduan xia zhi xianggang yueyu liuxing yuetan), unpublished M.Phil thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong (in Chinese). Yan, M.N. (2007) Hong Kong Media Law, Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong. Yau, S.M., Lee, T.K., Tong, Y.K., Cheung, S.T., Tam, Y.Y. and Ho, F.L. (eds) (1983) Exploration of Hong Kong Youth Problem (Xianggang qingshaonian wenti tansuo), Hong Kong: Zhen Shan (in Chinese). Yu, M.W. (1995) ‘1994 review of Hong Kong movies’ (1994 nian xianggang dianying huigu), Film Appreciation Journal 13(1): 115–21 (in Chinese).

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Chinese media and the world

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26 Internationalisation of China’s television History, development and new trends Junhao Hong and Youling Liu

Introduction China’s television represents a highly complicated media system. Not only is it one of the largest television systems in the world and one of the world’s most powerful political and ideological machines, but more importantly it is also a very unique social manifestation. Since the late 1950s when China’s television emerged it has experienced multifaceted, multidimensional and multilevel changes, and all those changes resulted from political, economic, cultural and social changes (Hong 1998). Among the changes, one of the most apparent and significant is Chinese TV’s internationalisation and the various approaches used by the Chinese government for the internationalisation of television during different time periods. In general, the internationalisation of China’s television in the past several decades can be divided into four intertwined paths. The first is importing media and cultural products from other countries, which initiated the exchange of China’s television with the outside world, and so far is still popularly employed by all levels of Chinese television units. The second is coproducing television products with foreign media. The third is exporting television dramas to other countries; and the fourth, which demonstrates the new trend of internationalisation of China’s television, is an aggressive strategy of expanding China’s media outlets and their informational and cultural products abroad. Compared to the industrialised countries, China’s television broadcasting was a late-comer. On 1 May 1958, China’s first television station, Beijing Television, was established in China’s capital. Four months later it broadcast the first television programme. With only one channel, it broadcast twice a week for two to three hours per session (Sun 1989: 210–21). In the following two years, regular and experimental stations were set up in China’s major cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou and in a dozen provinces as well (Lee 1994: 22–37), and the former Soviet Union supplied most of the equipment and technical assistance. However, the break between China and the Soviet Union in the winter of 1960 resulted in the first setback in Chinese television development when Moscow suddenly withdrew its economic and technological aid. Most cultural exchange agreements between the two countries were also terminated. Consequently, a number of television stations were closed, and only five out of the total 23 Chinese TV stations kept 427

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broadcasting (Li 1991: 341–56). Then came the second setback – the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 – which again severely undermined China’s television development. During the early years of the Cultural Revolution, television broadcasting stopped entirely and broadcasters were dismissed from their posts. It was not until the early 1970s that the nation’s television development gradually resumed normality. In 1971, with the installation of microwave trunk lines, transmission of Beijing Television was extended to the entire nation. Beijing Television thus assumed the role of headquarters for a national television network. In 1972, the first ground satellite-reception station was set up in Beijing to assist in domestic and international programme exchange. By the end of the year, there was at least one television station in each of China’s 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities under central authority with the exception of Tibet (Bishop 1989; Yu 1990: 69–87). Since the economic reforms of the late 1970s, television’s development has been rapid. On 1 May 1978, Beijing Television was renamed China Central Television (Zhongyang dianshi tai, CCTV), which became China’s official national network, linking all of the provincial stations to thousands of relay, transmitting and channel-switching stations. By 2010, there were a total of more than 2,000 TV broadcasting and relaying stations across the whole country, producing more than 2.7 million hours of TV programmes, and covering almost 98 per cent of the Chinese population (China Statistical Yearbook 2011).

Television programme exchange before the Cultural Revolution China’s television programme exchange started in the 1950s. At that time, however, the importation of TV programmes was totally centralised. In the view of Gan (1994: 2), a high degree of centralisation and uniformity was required, which guaranteed easier governmental control. Under this policy, television programme exchanges between China and other countries before the Cultural Revolution were very limited. Only the national television network, Beijing Television, was authorised to import programmes but under tight control and with many restrictions. No other television stations – municipal, regional or local – were allowed to do programme exchange with foreign television companies. In general, television programming consisted of three categories: news, entertainment and education. Although entertainment programmes occupied most of the broadcasting hours, there were few genuine entertainment shows on the screen as the majority of entertainment programmes were old films, performances of revolutionary songs and folk songs, teleplays and dramas. Strictly speaking, these programmes were more like political and ideological propaganda than entertainment. The volume of imported programmes was small, most were from the former Soviet Union and some Eastern European countries, and the reason for this stemmed from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) guidelines. The CCP claimed that the ‘socialist revolution and reconstruction’ could be conducted only under the self-reliance policy, a policy proposed by Mao Zedong who emphasised China’s own capability of economic reconstruction. The implication was that an independent socialist country could not be built by relying on other nations, especially capitalist countries. This doctrine of self-reliance influenced China’s media and cultural exchanges with other countries, and political factors meant the sources of foreign programming were limited. For instance, Beijing Television could obtain foreign news items only from ten countries, namely the former Soviet Union, East Germany, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Egypt, Cuba and Japan (Li 1991: 341–56). Among the nations, eight were communist countries. As for the other two, Egypt was regarded as one of China’s most reliable political allies, and 428

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Japan was treated as a politically neutral capitalist nation. Besides the small quantity and sources of the imported programmes, their content was also stereotyped; it concentrated on the Soviet Revolution and its economic progress, along with a small portion of non-revolutionary entertainment programmes such as the Soviet ballet Swan Lake and some well-known classical music programmes. The self-reliance policy in TV programme exchange was implemented out of two considerations: (1) too many imported programmes would lead to heavy foreign influence and consequently to a dependency on other countries; and (2) China’s own culture must be protected.1 In other words, one consideration was national sovereignty, and the other was cultural identity. Thus, imports were controlled not only for amount, but also for content. The selection criteria were determined by whether the programmes would do good or harm, presently or potentially, to China’s socialist revolution and reconstruction. The bottom line was that at the very least the programmes should not cause any political damage to the party and government. The volume of television programming imported from the west before the Cultural Revolution was even smaller in comparison with those from the communist countries. This was due to three factors. First, before the 1970s, China did not have diplomatic relations with most western nations, nor did its television have contact with its western counterparts. Second, the hostile ideological conflict between communism and capitalism made it hard for China to exchange cultural products with the west. Different countries were treated differently based on their ideologies (Katz and Wedell 1977). Importing cultural products from the west was accordingly considered a kind of self-destruction. Only those programmes that exemplified that ‘socialism is promising, capitalism is hopeless’ could be imported. For instance, the few programmes imported from the west at the time all carried such themes by depicting the west either fleetingly or in the worst terms possible, often as a place of riots, crime, poverty and other human and natural disasters. Third, China lacked foreign currency to pay for imported programmes from the west.

Television programme exchange during the Cultural Revolution In the early 1960s, Mao Zedong moved further to widen and consolidate his class struggle theory, defending his position that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie remained the principal contradiction in socialist society. He claimed that the bourgeoisie as a whole would continue to exist and would attempt a comeback to become the source of revisionism inside the party. The growth of ‘ultra-leftist’ (i.e. radical) errors in the spheres of politics, ideology and culture since the early 1960s soon resulted in the Cultural Revolution beginning in 1966. According to Mao, the purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to guarantee China would never change its Marxist colour. To achieve this goal, Mao said that China had to engage in class struggle at all levels, in all aspects and for all times. Mao’s allies carried forward both Mao’s nonstop revolution theory and Marxist-Leninist classical media theory, emphasising the media as a battleground of ideology and television as a particularly important site of class struggle (Ming 1987). Not surprisingly one of Mao’s first moves in the Cultural Revolution was to gain control over the propaganda apparatus (Goldman 1994: 23–35). The media were thus plagued by the party’s ultra-left guidelines (Cushman 1987: 57–70). For several months in mid-1966, television broadcasting was forced to cease operating. Beijing Television’s regular telecasting came to a halt on 3 January 1967, and local stations followed its lead. Although gradually resuming their broadcasting around the end of the 1960s, television stations appeared with a substantially reorganised structure: selected workers, peasants and soldiers 429

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replaced previous professional broadcasters, and the content and format of programming changed drastically. Chen and Chu (1982: 219–31) consider that, when one examines the scope of the purge, censorship is too mild a term to describe the political control of the media at the height of the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1969. Indeed, as Gan (1994: 40) says, ‘feudalistic fascist journalistic control reached its climax during the Cultural Revolution’. At the time news stories no longer contained information, but quotations from Mao’s works. The fate of entertainment programming was even worse. It was reduced to a minimum and consisted exclusively of ideological content. Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife and one of his chief allies, terrorised the entertainment industry for a decade with demands to replace all vestiges of traditional Chinese and western culture with revolutionary music, plays, films and operas (Lull 1991). Virtually all contact with foreigners during the Cultural Revolution, especially in cultural matters, was banned (Howkins 1982); and anyone caught listening to foreign broadcasts risked spending time in prison (Lu 1994: 147–61). At that time, China had positive relations with only a few countries, such as Albania, North Korea and North Vietnam. None of these countries at the time possessed advanced television production capability, while many other countries were treated either as physical or as ideological enemies. Importing cultural products from foreign countries – imperialist countries such as the United States, revisionist countries such as the former Soviet Union and capitalist countries such as Britain – was thought would only poison the Chinese people, change the nation’s socialist colour and threaten China’s communism. Under the circumstances, the exchange of TV programming with these countries was almost at zero. The few moves toward international agreements, such as an exchange agreement with Visnews of Britain in 1963, were sabotaged.2 Even foreign language education programming disappeared from television screens, and foreign films shown on television were mostly those imported in the early years. Soviet movies such as Lenin in October and Lenin in 1918, Albanian movies about fighting against Italian fascism, North Korean films depicting the anti-Japanese war and several Vietnamese films denouncing the invasion of the USA were the staple fare of Chinese TV entertainment programming. Foreign contacts were gradually re-established to a certain degree after 1969. Just before President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, Beijing Television renewed its contract with Visnews and resumed its three international news broadcasts each week. After that, international news stories produced by the west had an increased presence, and some entertainment programmes were imported from the capitalist countries as well. Nevertheless, significant and large-scale changes in TV programme exchange were not seen until China entered the reform era beginning in 1978.

A new era for television programme exchange after the Cultural Revolution Mao’s death in 1976 and the smashing of the ultra-leftist Gang of Four, led by Jiang Qing, brought the catastrophic Cultural Revolution to an end. Then, in 1978 Deng Xiaoping manoeuvred into power. This change in the party leadership ushered in a new era of development, including in the mass media (Harding 1986: 13–38; Starck and Xu 1988: 143–59; Huang 1994: 217–41). Media reform was initiated and a number of taboos were eliminated with many restrictions on television lifted. Among the changes in television, the development of programme exchange with foreign counterparts was the most conspicuous. The practice of exchange was no longer limited to importing foreign TV programmes; China’s TV products also began to be exported abroad, and the exchanging countries included both communist and capitalist. The following main 430

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exchange activities at the start of the reform era symbolised Chinese television’s entry into a new period and reflected its rapid rate of international contact: •

• • • •

•

• •

On 26 October 1977, for the first time in history, Beijing Television opened a weekly programme, Around the World, which specialised in introducing the outside world to Chinese viewers by airing imported documentaries. On 29 November 1977, a former Yugoslavian-produced TV play was broadcast on Beijing Television, making it the first foreign TV play broadcast on Chinese television screens. On 27 January 1978, Beijing Television started broadcasting the British-produced 10-part series Anna Karenina. From 4 to 10 February 1978, China was able to organise its first Chinese TV Week via BBC2, showing the audiences in Britain a total of 14 TV programmes about China. On 25 June 1978, CCTV – renamed from Beijing Television a month previously – rented an international communication satellite to televise football’s World Cup to the Chinese audience from Argentina. On 1 December 1978, CCTV sent a crew to Egypt, Sudan and Somalia for documentary production. This was the first television crew sent overseas for production at a television station’s own expense and not as a government cultural exchange programme. In July 1979, a television play from the Philippines was imported and shown on CCTV. On 8 August 1979, the first joint production between Chinese television and foreign television, a 26-part, Sino-Japanese joint production of the Silk Road, began shooting (CCTV 1988, 1993; Huang 1994: 217–41).3

These events in Chinese television’s international contact and exchange were not isolated. By and large they were interrelated to, integrated with and interdependent on many other changes in television. For example, since the late 1970s, a number of ‘firsts’ have been recorded in television history, such as market information programmes, broadcasting political debates on sensitive topics, live telecasts of the party congress, and domestic and international interviews with important people. Moreover, although news on the frustration of economic reform, harsh opinions from the audience, coverage of disasters, crime reports and human interest stories were unimaginable in Mao’s time, they were now seen on a daily basis. Since the 1980s television’s international contact and exchange has been more rigorous and substantial: •

•

•

• •

Beginning in 1980, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television stopped jamming foreign broadcasters, including the Voice of America (VOA), BBC and foreign religious broadcasters (although the jamming was resumed on and off with the changes in China’s politics). On 1 April 1980, CCTV signed a new agreement with Britain’s Visnews and the United Press International Television News (UPITN) of the USA to receive international news stories via satellite transmitted from London and New York daily; on 15 April 1980, CCTV started telecasting foreign international news daily.4 On 5 January 1982, a British-produced, 60-part English-language teaching programme, Follow Me, was shown on CCTV and became the most influential foreign TV programme in China. On 2 April 1983, China formally joined the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) and started to exchange news programming with other member countries on a regular basis. In September 1985, CCTV sent a delegation to the American Television Fair held in Los Angeles and for the first time became a client in the western television market. 431

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• • • •

On 30 December 1986, to serve foreigners in China, CCTV opened an English-language channel that broadcast news, features, documentaries and entertainment shows. In February 1987, CCTV signed an exchange agreement with CNN to use each other’s news stories. Beginning 9 June 1987, CCTV started using satellites to receive news stories provided by the former Soviet Union and the former Eastern European socialist bloc countries. In June 1987, China exported a classical, 30-part TV series, Dreams in the Red Chamber, to Malaysia and West Germany, making it the first entry of Chinese television drama into the global market (CCTV 1988, 1993; Huang 1994: 217–41; Hamrin 1994: 59–74).5

By 1987, CCTV had established contact or conducted exchanges with more than 120 television companies in 84 countries. In 1987 alone CCTV exported 10,216 programmes to 77 foreign television stations across the world (CCTV 1988).

Major changes in television programme exchange in the reform years The reform of China’s media intensified in the 1990s, and this resulted in the gradual increase of TV programme exchanges between China and the world. Among the changes, the following four aspects were the most significant and are worth discussing in detail.

Change in import controls Before the reforms, importing TV programmes was only allowed at the national level, and all imports were monopolised by the top propaganda organs. Even major cities like Shanghai, China’s economic and cultural centre, were prohibited from importing television programmes. However, in the late 1970s the central authorities lifted the ban and gave several major cities and provinces permission to import. Allowing regional-level imports reflected a shift toward decentralisation and loosened control. As the trend continued, by the mid-1980s most of the big regional and city television stations had authority to import foreign television programmes. After entering the 1990s, the central, regional and local television stations were all looking to other countries as a source of more programming. As a result of the decentralisation, Shanghai Television (STV), the second largest TV station in China, imported more programmes than CCTV, the national network, and these imports greatly enhanced STV’s national competitiveness. According to White (1990: 88–110), the two channels owned by STV received far higher ratings than the two central government ones, and almost always programmes imported by STV became nationwide hits. For instance, after a failed attempt with CCTV, in 1986 America’s Lorimar Productions signed a five-year contract with STV, providing 7,500 hours of shows. The programmes included Falcon Crest, Knot’s Landing, Hunter, Alf and animated shows such as Thundercats and Silverhawks. Among them, Hunter was first sent to CCTV where it was declared ‘inappropriate’ to broadcast on a national network. However, after STV imported the series and aired it twice on its two channels, almost all the regional and local stations approached STV for the series. Hunter was shown on every Chinese television station except CCTV, and the leading actors in the series, playing two American detectives, became known to every Chinese viewer.6 Later, STV even set up several overseas offices in the USA, Japan and Hong Kong to facilitate programme exchange (Hong 1998). Changes in import controls have made CCTV, STV and a few other major television stations fierce rivals in the international television market (see Table 26.1). 432

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Table 26.1 Percentage of imported programmes among the total on selected television stations in China, 1970s–1990s Year

CCTV

STV

Gansu TV

1975 1980 1985 1990

n/a 15.5 11.2 17.3

1.5 4.0 11.8 42.6

7.4 5.6 11.8 15.6

Source: Chan (1994: 70–87).

As Table 26.1 shows, the years from the 1980s to the mid-1990s saw a significant increase in imported TV programmes. By the late 1990s, however, the Chinese government began to realise that it was time to curb these imports because their volume seemed disproportionate to domestic TV products (Cooper-Chen and Liang 2010: 2), and regulations were implemented to strengthen their management. For instance, all levels of Chinese television outlets had to import TV programmes only according to an import quota authorised by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT, since early 2013 the State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television, i.e. SAPPRFT), while the broadcast of imported programmes was restricted to prime-time viewing (Meng 2012: 467–83). Nevertheless, since 2000, the import of TV programmes remains a routine and common practice, and is now considered and used by many television stations in China as a simple, convenient and rewarding source of TV programmes to cater to their increasing needs (see Table 26.2). Among all types of imported TV programmes, dramas have been invested with the most money in comparison with other imported products. As Table 26.3 shows, the annual value of Table 26.2 Television programmes imported in China, 2006–10 Year

Time of imported TV programmes (hour)

Value of imported TV programmes (million yuan)

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

35,914 25,137 20,550 21,426 22,197

337 322 454 491 430

Source: Based on data collected from China Statistical Yearbook 2007–2011.

Table 26.3 Value of imported television dramas in China, 2006–10 Year

Value (million yuan)

% of total value of imported TV programmes

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

185 108 243 269 215

55 34 54 55 50

Source: Based on data collected from China Statistical Yearbook 2007–2011.

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imported TV dramas occupied more than half of the total, with the exception of 2007. In the reform years, the number of TV programmes from the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries decreased. Instead, two areas with Chinese culture, Hong Kong and Taiwan, dominated the imported TV drama market. The countries sharing similar cultural backgrounds to China, such as Korea, Japan and Singapore, have also exported considerable numbers of TV dramas to China, while the USA is also a major resource for China’s television content. Most recently TV dramas from Thailand and India have increased their visibility in China (see Table 26.4).

Change in import purpose Despite the fact that many changes occurred during the reform period, party documents maintain that the ultimate purpose of importing media and cultural products is to serve the CCP’s political and ideological needs (Peng 1987: 3–5). But in reality, there have been remarkable changes in the purpose of TV programme exchange, and both information and entertainment programming have assumed a new appearance. Although the authorities were Table 26.4 Number of imported television drama episodes and distribution of origins, 2003–11 Origin

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

Hong Kong Taiwan USA Korea Japan Singapore Thailand India Canada Britain Germany France Australia Monaco Italy Norway Netherlands Brazil Denmark South Africa Iran Venezuela Cyprus Poland Turkey Hungary Philippines

762 477 233 195 49 60 – 2 64 46 42 36 8 6 4 4 2 2 – – – – – – – – –

314 190 161 400 2 46 2 10 6 13 15 8 7 – 7 – 2 – 4 2 2 – – – – – –

519 392 62 291 209 48 20 148 18 4 40 4 8 – 2 – 1 40 1 – – 80 2 1 1 1 –

598 715 73 272 54 147 20 88 – – – 1 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 20

668 144 96 279 132 27 468 163 2 6 16 8 2 – – – – – – – – – – – – – 50

Source: Compilation based on the authors’ field research at SARFT in 2012. Note: The numbers include the TV dramas shown on China’s provincial and city television stations.

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still wary of too much foreign influence, they did let the public see foreign movies, television programmes, books, magazines and other imported cultural products. The old concept of mass media as an instrument of class struggle was challenged which brought about two important consequences. First, the political colour of Marxism-Leninism–Maoism faded, and the ideological orientation became less intrusive. Television programming was no longer imported only for conducting class struggle, anti-imperialism, anti-revisionism and anti-capitalism. From the late 1970s throughout the 1980s, China established formal diplomatic relations with most western countries and almost all the developing nations and resumed relations with the former Eastern European socialist bloc countries. Television programmes from those countries were seen as a token of improved relations. While imported foreign television programming still served political or diplomatic purposes, in most cases programming was imported for educating or entertaining the public (Shi and Zhang 1990: 177–97). After getting rid of ultra-leftism, the party realised that not all foreign television programmes were poisonous; instead, importing TV programming could be beneficial to the country, both culturally and economically. Showing programmes from other countries was thus regarded as a window on the world, a cultural supplement and a way of promoting understanding among peoples. Second, importing TV programming not only helped Chinese television stations improve their production skills, but it also brought them economic gains. Import costs were minimised because China either paid a fairly low price for foreign programmes or, by selling advertising time, did not need to pay any currency. Because the imported programming was well received and hence had higher ratings, domestic and foreign advertisers competed for prime-time programme slots, bringing substantial revenues to television stations. This incentive greatly stimulated television stations to import more foreign programmes.

Changes in import criteria Until the reform period, China lacked a clearly defined policy for TV programme exchange. Only the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee issued informal and implicit directives and commands to define what was and was not appropriate programme content. After the reforms began, the party adopted some new policies and central control was loosened. As a result, television stations have used two uncodified criteria in their routine programme exchange, namely acceptability and affordability. ‘Acceptability’ refers to programme content. The themes of programmes were required to meet certain basic principles, such as not promoting anti-communism or being against the party and government. Programmes were no longer required to expose the so-called darkness of the west; instead, as long as the programmes were not anti-communist and against the party, they were deemed acceptable. This shift in criteria was significant because it opened the door wider for TV programme exchange. Sexual permissiveness was simply not allowed, although the specific limits were not clear. As Pan Hairong, deputy director of Guangdong Television (GTV) noted: ‘We are selective about what programmes we import, and we are not going to pick up programmes that are too violent, too sexual, or too religious.’7 Since most western television programming already tried to avoid explicit sexual content, this restriction was not a barrier to TV programme exchanges. ‘Affordability’ refers to purchasing ability. The price of television programmes for developing countries in the international market was much discounted, but it was still too high for many Chinese television stations. This cost problem resulted in many television stations pursuing every avenue to get foreign programmes at as low a price as possible. Consequently, the low price 435

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of American programmes led to their domination of China’s TV import market during most years of the reform period. However, the media institutions’ manner for selecting programmes was not consistent with the party’s policy. In theory, the criterion of acceptability should have priority over the consideration of affordability but, in practice, the latter often became the decisive factor. Thus McQuail (1986) is right to say that market forces rather than political and moral judgements by self-appointed guardians often decide what is carried in communication channels. Undoubtedly, this affected the quality of the imported programmes, with many cheap but artistically inferior foreign shows entering China. Bing Tian, a senior official of CCTV, admitted that buying low-quality, inexpensive shows from the west, in the long run, could ‘affect the aesthetics and the national dignity of the Chinese people’, though he explained that this ‘unpleasant’ situation was unavoidable because China had too many local stations that did not have the money to produce programmes themselves.8

Changes to the import methods China’s television stations have tried several alternative methods for importing programming. The following are some of the most used. •

Barter: Barter refers to the process of exchange whereby foreign companies gave TV programmes to Chinese television stations and in return received advertising time for free. In the early 1980s, although a few cash deals were struck, the majority of foreign TV programmes that appeared on Chinese television mainly resulted from barter agreements. Especially in big cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Tianjing, which are situated in the nation’s most prosperous areas with huge populations, bartering was the chief method because foreign advertisers were interested in China’s huge consumer potential. The major foreign advertisers were from Japan, Hong Kong, western Europe and the USA (China Radio and Television Yearbook 1997).

The first barter agreement between Chinese television and foreign TV companies was between CCTV and Japan. In 1980 CCTV started to broadcast a series of Japanese cartoons with commercials targeted at children. Another example of using the barter format was a contract between CCTV and CBS in the USA. In 1982 CBS gave CCTV 60 hours of programming in exchange for 320 minutes of advertising time. Advertisers that bought the airtime included IBM, Boeing, Weyerhauser, Procter & Gamble, Kodak and Stauffer Chemical. Twentieth Century Fox later agreed to let CCTV choose 52 feature films from more than 3,000 titles, and MCA, Paramount and MGM provided CCTV with 100 hours of programming, including programmes such as Star Trek, in exchange for commercial time (Lent 1989: 16–24; Lull 1991; Huang 1994: 217–41).9 Both Chinese and foreign television companies have accepted the barter method as mutually beneficial. On the Chinese side, television stations obtained free programmes without spending hard currency, or even earned foreign money by selling airtime to foreign advertisers. Meanwhile foreign television companies had an easy way to export their programmes to China. Between 1982 and 1984, six American television companies signed barter contracts with CCTV. In 1984, CBS renewed its contract with CCTV to provide 64 hours of off-the-shelf programmes to CCTV in exchange for 320 minutes of advertising time. Then, CBS managed to sell the advertising time to various companies, including several Fortune 500 firms. A dozen other foreign television companies, mainly American, soon followed suit (Seligman 1984: 12–17). Also, barter 436

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agreements have put the Super Bowl on Chinese television since 1986, and the Entertainment and Sports Network (ESPN) has broadcast its international programme, Global Sports, in China during prime time. The most famous barter agreement between American programme producers and Chinese television was the Walt Disney production Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Two minutes of commercial airtime were retained within each half-hour programme (Schell 1987; Huang 1994). Regional and local television stations were by no means late in joining this trend as they also obtained authorisation to import shows on barter terms. Besides Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Tianjing, Sichuan Province and a few other provinces and cities also made deals with foreign traders and advertisers. The US-based production company Lorimar was particularly interested in signing barter contracts with STV because it was able to sell more programming time there than it would have been given by CCTV (Schell 1988). Between 1985 and 1986, national, regional and local stations imported a total of 650 to 750 dramas or telefilms annually from overseas, and most of the deals were based on barter agreements (Xia 1989: 41–57). The use of barter contracts at both central and local levels greatly stimulated China’s TV programme exchange (Cao 1990: 55–8). At the first Sichuan International Television Programme Trade Fair held in 1991, hundreds of Chinese television stations imported more than 2,000 foreign TV programmes through the barter format (China Radio and Television Yearbook 1991). •

•

Cultural exchange: During the 1980s each of China’s 30 provinces, hundreds of cities and even many counties established partner provinces, cities and counties with foreign countries. Both Beijing and Shanghai had more than 30 partner cities from Japan, the USA, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Australia, Mexico, Brazil and Egypt. Exchanging TV programmes between partner cities was a source of foreign programming for some Chinese television stations. Television festivals: In 1986, China held its first international television festival, the Shanghai International Television Festival. Around 40 television companies and organisations from 15 countries attended (Hong and Cuthbert 1991; Hong 1998). All of the programmes participating in the award competition were shown on the screen, and most of them were left to the host country as gifts for future broadcasting. Between 1986 and 2005, a total of 11 international television festivals were held in Shanghai, and the Shanghai International Television Festival has become one of the world’s several best-known television festivals that attracts TV companies from all over the globe. At the 11th Shanghai International Television Festival held in June 2005, 948 TV programmes of 18,751 episodes were traded, and 80 per cent of the traded programmes were TV plays and series. The total value of TV programme exchange at the festival reached RMB 908 million yuan (c. US$110 million), the highest figure in the history of China’s TV programme exchange. Among them, 44.57 per cent were traded between Chinese television organisations and foreign television companies (China Radio and Television Yearbook 2005).10

In addition to the Shanghai International Television Festival, since 1991 China has also been hosting another international television festival in Chengdu. At the 8th Sichuan International Television Festival held in November 2005, 1,614 TV companies from 33 countries and regions were present. The total value of the programme exchange reached RMB 554 million yuan (c. US$70 million), more than twice the total value of the traded programmes at the 7th Sichuan International Television Festival held in October 2004 (China Radio and Television Yearbook 2005). Thus, television festivals have also became an additional channel for TV programme exchanges. 437

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•

TV Weeks: Presenting a TV Week dedicated to a certain country was frequently used to showcase foreign programming. During the reform period a number of Chinese TV stations had a ‘TV Week’ segment in their programming schedule to broadcast foreign television programmes depending on the international situation and the focus of the world’s attention, China’s national political or diplomatic needs, the relations of the local Chinese governments with their foreign counterparts, and cultural considerations. TV Weeks usually were not sponsored by foreign advertisers, but by foreign television companies as well as both the Chinese government and the concerned foreign country’s government.11

Programming imported through these channels accounted for the majority of imported programmes. However in more recent years, China has taken bigger steps by dispatching delegations overseas and sending representatives to the international television markets to shop for programmes.

New strategic moves in the twenty-first century Entering the twenty-first century, the new global economic and political landscape has, to a large degree, influenced both China’s media and the process of its television internationalisation. Today, media-aware nations compete for the foreign attention necessary to promote their economic and political interests, and China is no exception.

Development of China’s television programme exports China’s policy makers realised that dependence on importing foreign TV programmes or coproduction with foreign media would not accelerate the development of the nation’s media. Moreover, they pointed out that the one-way import process had exacerbated China’s trade deficit in international media exchange, and worried this may impair China’s cultural identity and hinder the nation from wielding its cultural influence. In this regard, China has pushed for the export of TV programmes, especially TV dramas, to speed up the pace of internationalisation (see Tables 26.5 and 26.6). As Figure 26.1 shows, there is still a gap between the import and export of TV programmes, and Figure 26.2 shows a similar situation for drama. In 2010, China imported RMB 430 million (c. US$68.35 million) worth of TV programmes, more than twice that of the export value. The difference regarding the value between the imported and exported TV dramas was even more significant: the value of the former almost tripled the latter. The huge trade deficit indicates that the sole mode of TV programming exchange is not sufficient for internationalisation. More strategic, efficient and diversified methods need to be adopted in the new global information age. Table 26.5 Chinese television programme exports, 2006–10 Year

Time of exported TV programmes (hour)

Value of exported TV programmes (million yuan)

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

8,051 5,097 10,300 10,238 13,762

169 122 125 92 210

Source: Based on data collected from China Statistical Yearbook 2007–2011.

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Table 26.6 Chinese television drama exports, 2006–10 Year

Time of exported TV dramas (episode)

Value of exported TV dramas (million yuan)

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

3,685 3,453 6,662 5,825 12,362

111 24 75 36 75

Source: Based on data collected from China Statistical Yearbook 2007–2011.

600

(Million yuan)

500

Value of imported TV programmes Value of exported TV programmes

400 300 200 100 0 2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Figure 26.1 Comparison of the value of China’s imported and exported television programmes, 2004–10 Sources: Based on data collected from China Statistical Yearbook 2007–2011 and the authors’ field research at SARFT in 2012.

300

(Million yuan)

250

Value of imported TV dramas Value of exported TV dramas

200 150 100 50 0 2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Figure 26.2 Comparison of the value of China’s imported and exported television dramas, 2006–10 Sources: Based on data collected from China Statistical Yearbook 2007–2011 and the authors’ field research at SARFT in 2012.

439

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Disseminating Chinese television abroad as a way of boosting the country’s soft power One more elaborate and systematic strategy taken by China in the global information age is to expand the nation’s television, including both its operations, information and cultural products, to the world. Since 2000, China has embraced soft power, emphasising the subtle effects of a nation in influencing others through its culture, foreign policy, ideology, morals or values (Nye 2004). China understands that a nation must build a favourable image at the global level to pursue its interests. Hence the Chinese government deems the media system to be a prominent component of China’s cultural strength. Consequently, improving the media’s global capacity can represent the nation’s power. Further, the international circulation of information and cultural products may also help China build its national image and attract favourable public opinion from the international community. While CCTV began to internationalise as early as the 1980s, most methods were restricted to programme exchange or rentals, which limited the global influence of Chinese television. In 1992, CCTV launched its first international channel, CCTV-4 (Chen 2010). Via Asia I satellite, CCTV-4 covered more than 80 countries in Australia, Eastern Europe, East Asia and North Africa. The programmes broadcast on CCTV-4 included Chinese-language programmes selected from other Chinese-language channels of CCTV, delivering news and current affairs, economics, entertainment, sports, children’s programmes, movies, TV dramas and documentaries. Meanwhile the channel also produced its own English-language news programme. By 1996, CCTV-4 was able to cover 98 per cent of the world’s countries and regions. Since 1998, CCTV4 has broadcast 24 hours a day in four units rotating every six hours on arrangement which allows audiences in different time zones to watch the channel at their convenience (Ke 2010: 183–97). In 2000, another major international channel, CCTV-9, began to broadcast with the slogan, ‘Your window on China’. Different from CCTV-4, which mainly contains Chinese-language programmes, CCTV-9 has been a full English-language channel since its birth, equipped with 24-hour news programmes and other programme genres. The channel caters to a global English-speaking audience, including English speakers in China, overseas Chinese and Englishspeaking audiences who are interested in China. The channel is carried internationally on a variety of platforms: Rupert Murdoch’s Sky satellite to the UK, Fox services in the USA and Vanuatu in the mid-Pacific. With the work of CCTV-4 and CCTV-9, China’s television broadcasting hopes to expand its influence to the world (Chen 2010). After the government launched China’s ‘going out’ project in 2001, CCTV has taken stronger steps to expand its influence overseas. Four hours of English programmes were moved from CCTV-4 to CCTV-9, making CCTV-4 a full Chinese-language channel which serves Chinese citizens living overseas, foreign nationals of Chinese origin and foreign viewers who were interested in China. In April 2007, in order to reach a wider range of global audiences, CCTV4’s overseas service split into three regional channels, including CCTV International Asia, CCTV International Europe and CCTV International America (Ke 2010). CCTV-9 became the only national English-language channel in China. Since 2004, the channel has begun to employ foreign anchors to host its English programmes. According to Jiang Heping, who was the director of CCTV-9 at the time, the practice of employing foreign professionals began with the intention of learning from the experience of western-style television and also to communicate with English-speaking viewers more effectively (as cited in Ke 2010). In 2010, CCTV-9 was renamed CCTV-News. At the same time, some shows were rebranded and new shows were added, including newscasts, in-depth reports, commentary programmes 440

Internationalisation of China’s television

and feature presentations. The relaunch of CCTV-News marks a more significant development in terms of CCTV’s English-language external broadcasting. Besides Chinese- and English-language international channels, CCTV has also expanded its programming in other foreign languages. On 1 October 2004, the third international channel in CCTV, a combined Spanish and French channel with global distribution, was launched targeting Spanish- and French-speaking audiences. Three years later, the channel was divided into two: CCTV-French and CCTV-Spanish. Both of the channels, as well as CCTV-News, hired a number of native speaking professionals as news anchors, hosts and reporters. The programmes focus on news, but also cover the economy, history, culture, tourism, Chineselanguage teaching, sports, entertainment and dramas. The foreign-language channels launched during the most recent years were Arabic- and Russian-language services. An Arabic-language channel was founded on 25 July 2009 to maintain stronger links with Arabic nations (CCTV.com 2009a). The free-to-air channel reaches the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Nearly 300 million people throughout these regions are able to watch the Arabic-language programmes offered by the CCTV with a satellite dish (CCTV.com 2009a). Two months later, a Russian-language channel began to broadcast. The launch of this channel coincided with the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Beijing and Moscow (CCTV.com 2009b). Running for 24 hours a day, the channel carries 16 programmes of news, feature stories, entertainment and educational programmes. Nearly 300 million viewers in 12 Commonwealth of Independent States members, Eastern Europe and three Baltic Sea nations are able to watch these programmes (CCTV.com 2009b). With the launch of CCTV-Arabic and CCTV-Russian, CCTV has built an external broadcast platform supported by the six international channels. Chinese television’s global strategy of multilingual programming and wide-range coverage has thus greatly developed. The establishment of international channels by CCTV was followed immediately by its aggressive process of ‘overseas landing’. With respect to television, the goals of the ‘going out’ project included a two-step plan: distributing a full range of Chinese television overseas within the first five years, especially in North America and western Europe, and then consolidating multilanguage global and regional services within the following ten years (SARFT 2001). In 2003, CCTV’s programmes and international channels, i.e. CCTV-4 and CCTV-News, covered 72 countries and regions of the world, nearly three times as many as that of 2000 (CCTV Yearbook 2004). The extent of coverage and audience ratings continued to increase in the following years Table 26.7 CCTV overseas landing, 2003–10 Year

Number of countries and regions covered

Household audience rating outside China (million)

Number of landing projects

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

72 n/a 77 86 137 139 140 141

22 50 60 65 92 97 100 171

157 180 213 222 252 n/a n/a 392

Source: Based on data collected from CCTV Yearbook 2004–2011.

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Table 26.8 Overseas household audience ratings CCTV-4 and CCTV-News (million), 2003–10 Year

CCTV-4

CCTV-News

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

5 10 15 15 n/a 15 15 16.79

17 40 50 50 n/a 68.1 75.68 114.07

Source: Based on data collected from CCTV Yearbook 2004–2011.

(see Table 26.7). By 2010, through 392 overseas landing projects, CCTV had taken its programmes and international channels into 141 countries and regions where its programmes were accessed by nearly 171 million households outside of China (CCTV Yearbook 2011). In comparison with other international channels, namely CCTV-French, CCTV-Spanish, CCTV-Arabic and CCTV-Russian, CCTV-4 and CCTV-News cover more overseas areas and hold higher audience ratings outside of China. In fact, they have significantly increased overseas audience ratings over the years (see Table 26.8). For instance, in 2002, CCTV-News enjoyed an audience rating of only 6 million households (CCTV Yearbook 2003). Eight years later the figure increased eighteen times. By 2010, 114.07 million of overseas households could watch CCTV-News in their own countries or regions (CCTV Yearbook 2011).

Conclusion Internationalisation of China’s television has evolved through different historical phases and undergone a number of major changes. From the very beginning when Beijing Television broadcast a limited number of TV programmes from the former Soviet Union to the new era when China’s television stations began to expand their global reach, the progress of internationalisation has been strengthened and improved and this has been triggered by both external and internal motivations: The growth of international awareness has highlighted global linkages among nations. As one of the countries deeply involved in globalisation, China has adopted a two-fold strategy in response. On the one hand, China has further opened its economy and engaged in more comprehensive global interactions, which therefore trigger the expansion of China’s television internationalisation. In the meantime, China has also adopted a defensive position towards globalisation, paying more attention to political and cultural consolidation to highlight its independent status. This concern also encourages China’s television internationalisation, but with a cautious strategy. Internal motivations for the changes in China’s television internationalisation come from two approaches. Beginning at the end of the 1970s, China has experienced a significant political change, that is, the replacement of Maoist dogmatism by Deng’s pragmatic modernisation and the corresponding shift from the primacy of politics to that of economics. The political transition has caused a cascading effect in almost every aspect of Chinese society, including China’s television and the process of its internationalisation. Media reforms initiated in the 1980s have had a tangible and direct impact on China’s television internationalisation, as a market economy was introduced to the industry, when the government ended its subsidies for many media. China’s 442

Internationalisation of China’s television

television stations have been forced to become financially self-supportive in order to survive. Hence the logics of a media market such as advertising and audience rating are considered vital for their survival, while Chinese TV producers call for less ideological direction and lighter government intervention. We can identify three implications and trends regarding the development of China’s television internationalisation: First, one may foresee an even more rapid and larger-scale progress in internationalisation of China’s television, with more pragmatic criteria, more diversified media content and formats, and more abundant channels and sources. Specifically, the balance between imports and exports will be taken into account by the Chinese government. The export of TV products is considered more beneficial than the sole import of media content from the outside, not only in respect of economic interests, but also because of political concerns. This means that, at least in the near future, the Chinese government will still limit the volume of imports, but will increase the quantity and quality of exports. Second, the internationalisation of China’s television is beyond merely catering to the needs of the domestic audience for diversified media content and formats, or merely improving the capacity of the nation’s media. For the Chinese government, improving the capacity of China’s television to transform information, culture and ideology will contribute to the acquisition of international discourse power, the consolidation of cultural identity, the strengthening of nationalist sentiment and the reconfiguration of the nation in the era of globalisation. Such a perception is a major motivation for the media’s ‘going out’ project. In this sense, the influence of China’s expanding international television activities will be adopted as a long-term development project and will also be integrated into a more extensive soft power strategy (also see chapters 2 and 28 by Colin Sparks and Gary D. Rawnsley, respectively, in this volume). Finally, the internationalisation of China’s television, like other media in China, will experience increased tensions between the market orientation of China’s television and control by the party-state. On the one hand, in the actual context of reforms and opening up, the government has to allow television networks to advocate audience-oriented and market-driven approaches in various practices, including international exchange. On the other hand, however, television, together with other media, is still expected to reinforce the party-state’s ideology. For sure, there has been a more liberal alternative to the previous ideological domination of Chinese media and there has been slightly less control over television operations and content since the reform began. However, the government will in no way terminate its dominance over the media. For instance, the government determines the import quota for TV products every year and is vigilant about any content that is perceived as sensitive or harmful, such as Tibet, ethnic minorities, religion, human rights, democratic movements and Falun Gong. From this perspective, in order to foster a more favourable environment for the development of television internationalisation, the Chinese government may need to make constant adjustments to successfully accommodate the logic of the market without ceding too much of its power over the media. For the television networks, a balance must be achieved by, on the one hand, compromising the ideological line of the party-state and, on the other hand, finding more ways to make a profit and enhance their capacity in the process of internationalisation.

Notes 1 Junhao Hong’s interview with J. Zhou, director of Editorial Office, CCTV, 1994. 2 Visnews was a London-based international news agency. It changed its name to Reuters Television in 1993. See www.thefreelibrary.com/VISNEWS+BECOMES+REUTERS+TELEVISIONa012892712 (retrieved 8 August 2014). 443

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3 The information was also confirmed by five interviews conducted by Junhao Hong in 1994: (1) with J. Zhou of CCTV; (2) with C. Wang, production director of CCTV; (3) with C. Yu, vice director of Foreign Affairs, China’s Ministry of Radio, Film and Television; (4) with J. Luo, director of Foreign Affairs, China’s Ministry of Radio, Film and Television; and (5) with X. Xu, president of China International Television Company. 4 UPITN was a television news agency, formed by United Press and Independent Television News, a British-based news and content provider. 5 The information was verified by the interviewees identified in note 3 above, together with an additional interview with J. Wang, director of Culture and Education Department, CCTV, 1994. 6 Junhao Hong’s interview with Y. Zhuang, vice president of Oriental Television, 1994. 7 Junhao Hong’s interview with H. Pan, deputy director of Guangdong Television, 1997. 8 Junhao Hong’s interview with B. Tian, programming official of CCTV, 1997. 9 The practice was also confirmed by J. Zhou, director of Editorial Office, CCTV, 1994. 10 Junhao Hong’s interview with X. Chen, director of Shanghai Radio, Film and Television Bureau of International Special Events, 2005. 11 Junhao Hong’s interview with Y. Ma, senior official of China’s Ministry of Radio, Film and Television, 1997.

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Huang, Y. (1994) ‘Peaceful evolution: the case of television reform in post-Mao China’, Media, Culture & Society 16: 217–41. Katz, E. and Wedell, G. (1977) Broadcasting in the Third World: Promise and Performance, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ke, G. (2010) ‘English-language media in China’, in J.F. Scotton and W.A. Hachten (eds), New Media for a New China, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 183–97. Lee, P. (1994) ‘Mass communication and national development in China: media roles reconsidered’, Journal of Communication 44(3): 22–37. Lent, J. (1989) ‘Mass communication in Asia and the Pacific: recent trends and developments’, Media Asia 16(1): 16–24. Li, X. (1991) ‘The Chinese television system and television news’, China Quarterly 126: 341–56. Lu, K. (1994) ‘Press control in “New China” and “Old China”’, in C. Lee (ed.), China’s Media, Media’s China, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 147–61. Lull, J. (1991) China Turned On: Television, Reform, and Resistance, London: Routledge. McQuail, D. (1986) Mass Communication Theory, 5th edn, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Meng, B. (2012) ‘Underdetermined globalisation: media consumption via P2P networks’, International Journal of Communication 6: 467–83. Ming, A. (1987) ‘China’s mass communication: for the two civilisations – some aspects of the transformation of the mass communication system in China’, unpublished paper presented at the Conference on International Communication, Spain. Nye, J. (2004) Power in the Global Information Age: From Realism to Globalisation, London: Routledge. Peng, Z. (1987) ‘Speech at the forum of Beijing journalists’, News and Legislation 2: 3–5. SARFT (2001) Regarding ‘Going Out Project’ Trial Implementation No.1494 (Guanyu “zouchuqu gongcheng” de shishi xize no.1494), Beijing: SARFT (in Chinese). Schell, O. (1987) ‘Serving the people with advertising: propaganda to P.R. in the new improved China’, Whole Earth Review (spring): 88–92. –––– (1988) Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform, New York: Pantheon Books. Seligman, S. (1984) ‘China’s fledgling advertising industry’, China Business Review (January–February): 12–17. Shi, H. and Zhang, Y. (1990) ‘Communication and development in China’, in F. Casmir (ed.), Communication in Development, Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 177–97. Starck, K. and Xu, Y. (1988) ‘Loud thunder, small rain drops: the reform movement and press in China’, Gazette 42: 143–59. Sun, L. (1989) ‘A forecasting study on Chinese television development 1986 to 2001’, Media Asia 17(2): 210–21. White, L. (1990) ‘All the news: structure and politics in Shanghai’s reform media’, in C. Lee (ed.), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism, New York: Guilford Press, 88–110. Xia, L. (1989) ‘A survey on the development of Shanghai broadcasting industry (1984–88)’, in Cultural Economy and Cultural Management, Shanghai: Baijia Press, 41–57. Yu, J. (1990) ‘The structure and function of Chinese television, 1979–89’, in C. Lee (ed.), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism, New York: Guilford Press, 69–87.

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27 Decoding the Chinese media in flux American correspondents as an interpretive community Yunya Song

Given there is no substitute for ‘being there’, the US press corps’ first-hand reporting from China is considered to carry considerable weight with China policy and public opinion in the United States and abroad (Cohen 1983). The spectacle within the reach of the US public is the China reality accepted and recoded by the US press corps. The practice of using local media to inform, interpret, tip-off and explain local developments is a standard operating procedure in foreign news reporting. As the US news bureaus are mostly based in Beijing and Shanghai, American journalists may not be on hand for any event outside major cities in China. On a daily basis they comb the Chinese media for clues, topics or evidence that they use to add to what they know from field experience and to construct their interpretations (Hamilton and Jenner 2004: 301–21). Working under the conditions of authoritarian states, however, foreign correspondents are all the more prone to rely on indigenous media in their work routines (Kester 2010: 51–69). American journalists constantly experience tight constraints in China, for example, insufficient access to government officials and arbitrary restrictions on movement. Despite the Chinese government having eased its restrictions on foreign journalists since 2007, foreign reporting is still tightly monitored, and these correspondents often do not have as close access to officials and ordinary Chinese people as do indigenous media (Latham 2009: 25–43). However, very few academic studies have focused on how American journalists seek the information from the Chinese media, and how they interpret the messages encoded by their Chinese counterparts. The interpretive response of American journalists is not a matter of individual perception alone. While foreign correspondents are typically viewed as loners who set their own agenda (Hannerz 2004), nowhere had the US press corps consorted as much as they did in post-Mao China (Jensen and Weston 2007). Baltimore Sun reporter John Woodruff’s (1989) eyewitness accounts testified to the US press corps’ frequent pooling of information in China, and revealed that most of the foreign correspondents in Beijing had been ‘developing the practice of working together much as correspondents do in newsier places’ (p. 167). The conglomeration of the US press corps is primarily related to the controlled news environment in China. ‘It is 446

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exhilarating being on one’s own, but . . . it was the product of an environment where newsgathering is restricted’, confessed veteran correspondent James Miles (2008: para. 2), ‘having others there means that some can break away from the main story and look at what is happening on the edges’. Preferred meanings arise most often from social interactions of their commonly shared ‘typifications’ among members within interpretive groups (Zelizer 1993: 219–37). Every interpretation thereby goes beyond an individual act of discovery, but epitomises an offshoot of shared interpretive strategies. It is the group, in its own communication, that accepts, adapts or rejects preferred readings of Chinese media messages, uncovering their hidden structures and implicit ideological operations, albeit within the framework of the group’s own assumptions. As an interpretive community, the US press corps deconstruct in order to reconstruct their own story. From the reader-response perspective, the decoders’ construction of meanings is affected by the assumptions and strategies shared by the community, and often, as in the case of the US interpretive response, such shared strategies form the paradigm that in time becomes the locus of critical authority (Fish 1980). This chapter aims to identify what information sources are preferred by the US press corps in their use of Chinese media, and paints a longitudinal portrait of the Chinese media landscape ‘recoded’ by these American journalists. With the view that information seeking does not exist only in the incipient location of information, but also its ensuing ‘relocation’ (Attfield and Dowell 2003: 187–204), the concern of this study has been not only with the initial retrieval of facts, but also with shared decoding strategies, to wit, the ways in which American journalists as an interpretive community evaluate and decode local media messages throughout the wider constructive task. Their choice of decoding strategies is not the result of individual self-serving, idiosyncratic renderings of texts but a collective appropriation of texts by virtue of dominant cultural assumptions to suit group interests (Hall 1973). The data used in this study are 27 books penned by American correspondents from 1979 to 2009. Absent the distinctive voice of the authors in straight news, little if anything could be learned about the journalistic practices of foreign correspondence. In contrast, the books written by the reporters themselves carry obvious import for the self-reflexive responses of journalists as decoders – why have they adapted their information-seeking behaviour to the best of their ability to meet the contextual changes. Many of these leading reporters have written a book about their experiences in China after they complete their term of assignment; this cannot be said of American correspondents assigned to Moscow, Tokyo or New Delhi. Because of the strained ties between the USA and China after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), there was nearly a 30-year blank in ‘insight’ books penned by on-the-ground American correspondents (Hooper 1983: 157–68). It was not until the US–China rapprochement in the 1970s that another journalistic wave of ‘I was there’ books was initiated, and since then a great number of such books has proliferated.

Presence of the Chinese press in journalistic books Among the ten journalistic books written from 1979 to 1989, the Chinese press that is referenced most often is the People’s Daily (PD, 10),1 followed by Xinhua News Agency (7) and China Youth Daily (7). Magazines such as Red Flag (4), Beijing Review (2) and China Youth Magazine (2) are also visible in the journalistic accounts of this decade. From 1990 to 1999, the PD (9) continues to play first fiddle among the nine books penned this decade, followed by China Daily (7) and Xinhua News Agency (5). Among the seven books penned from the year 2000 onward, the press with the highest visibility is still the PD (6). These newspapers and other often cited media outlets are listed in Table 27.1. 447

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Table 27.1 Occurrence of newspapers and periodicals in journalistic accounts, 1979–2009 1979–89

1990–99

People’s Daily 10 Xinhua News Agency 7 China Youth Daily 7 Workers’ Daily 5 China Daily 5 Red Flag 4 Liberation Army Daily 4 Guangming Daily 3 Beijing Evening News 3 Beijing Daily 3 Economic Daily 3 Liberation Daily 2 Chinese Peasant Daily 2 Beijing Review 2 China Youth Magazine 2

People’s Daily China Daily Xinhua News Agency Guangming Daily Beijing Daily Beijing Review Liberation Army Daily Workers’ Daily World Economic Tribune Yangcheng Evening News Reference News Beijing Evening News Southern Daily Liberation Daily Economic Daily Farmers’ Daily

2000–09 9 7 5 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1

People’s Daily China Daily Xinhua News Agency Yangcheng Evening News China Youth Daily Liberation Daily Beijing Daily

6 3 2 1 1 1 1

A glimpse of the Chinese media presence in journalistic accounts shows that the PD commands the reporters’ attention second to none. The US press corps are well aware of the PD’s agenda-setting role in the PRC’s opinion landscape and regard it as the barometer of the official views. ‘The written word has always had more power than the spoken word’, NPR reporter Rob Gifford (2007: 112) wrote in the late 2000s, ‘even today, public or television addresses by leaders are rare, and important policies are more likely to be propagated through an editorial in the PD than through an address to the people by the president’. When former New Yorker reporter Orville Schell caught sight of a photograph and an article about the previous day’s demonstration on the PD’s front page during the 1989 pro-democracy movement, he took it as ‘a signal to the other Chinese media that they, too, could begin reporting on student movement’ (Schell 1995: 94). Moreover, the publications cited in these journalistic accounts are mostly based in Beijing, or in such developed cities as Shanghai and Guangzhou. This points towards the Beijing orientation of what Gaye Tuchman (1978) elaborated as the ‘news net’ across these three decades. Events are routinely decoded and recoded through a ‘web of facticity’ outweighing the Beijing perspective. Meanwhile, journalists’ dependence on the Chinese press in their books conspicuously diminished in the 1990s and 2000s. For the first American reporters who arrived after US–China rapprochement, China remained a closed society and they had limited access to the field. As Schell (1984: 124) confessed in To Get Rich Is Glorious, ‘I now began to feel like a parody of a journalist: the stereotypical reporter who gets his news from the English language paper slipped under the door of his hotel room each morning, or from taxi drivers and elevator boys assigned to serve foreigners in their magnificent isolation.’ Nevertheless, with the liberalisation of Chinese society, the foreign press corps have been granted a wider access to first-hand materials and have thus become less reliant on the indigenous media. New York Times reporter Sheryl WuDunn compared her cohort with the earlier generation of China watchers who ‘cut their teeth by analyzing PD’ (Kristof and WuDunn 1994: 410). Though the US press corps still quote the Chinese press from time to time, they often use them for background facts to sustain their observations, or for additional information on their report’s topic. For example, when writing 448

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Factory Girls, former Wall Street Journal reporter Leslie Chang (2008) resorted to Shenyang Chinese Business Morning View for the historical background of Manchuria and turned to the Shanghai Morning Post for the general facts about the Ladder English Company. In Country Driving, former New Yorker reporter Peter Hessler (2010) revealed that most of his research was based on personal observation, and only occasionally he resorted to published resources and interviews with experts. Ian Johnson (2004: 293), formerly of The Wall Street Journal, stated outright in his Wild Grass: ‘this is a work of journalism, and all quotes are from interviews with the people who said them or from court documents. When accounts differed, I gave precedence to scenes that I witnessed directly or to direct interviews.’

Perceived trajectories of change in China’s media landscape With the introduction of market forces in the post-Mao era, the Chinese media landscape has undergone a sea change both quantitatively and qualitatively which has puzzled the US press corps, particularly in the 1980s. As Schell (1989: 100) noted, ‘the explosive growth of new newspapers and magazines showed no sign of abating’. According to a survey Schell cited from the Journalism Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the number of newspapers in China had more than doubled to 1,177 from 1980 to 1986. In terms of content, magazines concentrating on ‘movies, fashion, and sports’ had begun to reappear in the resurgent private newsstands on urban street corners, and many were ‘using cover photographs of pretty young women’ (Schell 1984: 164). As the press burst forth into ‘unusual territory’, Schell was ‘surprised’ simply to find the subject brought up in the official Chinese press at all (Schell 1984: 166). When China Sports News, ‘a paper that usually deals with athletics and health’, mentioned ‘better nutrition, exercise, hormones, and even plastic surgery’ for ‘flat-chested Chinese girls’, Schell (1984: 165) captured ‘the most arresting changes in Chinese attitudes towards western style’. The first Beijing bureau chief of the New York Times Fox Butterfield (1982: 143) exclaimed at this ‘rare sensual moment’ when the Chinese press began to offer advice on sexual matters in the form of ‘urging that people sublimate their improper passions into more constructive work or study for the benefit of the nation’. To this cohort of correspondents in the 1980s, ‘these exotic new competitors fairly glowed with glitzy photos of beautiful young models, depictions of lurid crimes . . . and action-packed sporting events’ posed a sharp contrast with ‘old-style revolutionary periodicals with their pictureless covers and blank backs’ (Schell 1989: 76). The journalistic accounts move beyond description to explain the driving forces for the perceived changes in the Chinese media landscape. First, having no state subsidies, the press was forced to be self-reliant and attentive to ‘what made publications sell’ in the 1980s (Schell 1989: 76). Although such official press as the Workers’ Daily disparaged the superfluity of ‘profitseeking tabloids that attract readers mainly by publishing filthy stories, describing violence, swindles, and obscenities’, magazines containing ever more sensational articles and covers continued to mushroom to boost the sales, ‘fast becoming the name of the game’ (Schell 1989: 317). Schell further quoted Liberation Daily as saying, ‘the real problem is how to make a magazine good and profitable’ (p. 317). To the astonishment of western observers, even politically staid publications like the PD, Red Flag and the Beijing Review had long since carried commercials that featured such products as Blue Sky toothpaste and Flying Pigeon bicycles (Schell 1989). Second, Chinese politics experienced a great degree of liberalisation in the post-Mao era. This new openness played to a full extent in the media sector, as Schell (1989) and former CNN reporter Mike Chinoy (1999) have chronicled. Denial of the Cultural Revolution was followed by a continuous antagonism between the conservatives and reformists. Right after the purging of the Gang of Four2 in China, wall posters requesting the government be held to 449

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account appeared in Beijing. Until June 1989, many of these intellectual enquiries found their way into alternative channels. In Watch Out for the Foreign Guests, Schell (1980) referred to such proliferating underground publications as Explorations, Beijing Spring, Today, Enlightenment and Autumn Fruit.3 In China’s Fate, New York Times reporter Edward Gargan (1991) referred to the World Economic Herald, a pioneering newspaper in Shanghai that brought the crises of national identity to readers’ attention. In From the Center of the Earth, the first Beijing bureau chief of Time magazine Richard Bernstein (1982) referred to the internal reference that provided ‘privileged’ information for the ‘elites’. As observed by the husband-and-wife reporters Jay and Linda Mathews (1983), these reference materials for higher-level officials were often given more leeway and were thus more outspoken. In China Wakes, New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof observed that ‘the secret channels of communication’ in the 1980s came in the form of a system of ‘internal publications’, such as the ‘sensitive information or trends’ in the daily publication produced by the PD and ‘a dozen’ internal newsletters produced by Xinhua. However, these internal references ‘cannot be fully frank . . . They reported that crime is rising, or that peasants are annoyed at corruption’, Kristof recalled, ‘but they never hint citizens do not like Li Peng’ (Kristof and WuDunn 1994: 473). Meanwhile, American reporters began to perceive in the popular press a level of unhappiness in the post-Mao era after the Chinese authorities unleashed a public outcry against the Cultural Revolution. To the Mathews’s surprise, the press that once celebrated class struggle began to uphold the ‘independence of the judiciary’ and ‘issues of legality before the law’ at the beginning of the 1980s, aiming to ‘correct the justice in Cultural Revolution’ and to ‘attack backdoor dealings’ (Mathews and Mathews 1983: 234). Gargan (1991) was stunned to find that even the government-owned China Daily regretted Mao Zedong’s ignorance of the architect Liang Sicheng’s constructive advice. Liang proposed to establish the PRC’s administrative centre in Beijing’s western suburbs, thus preserving the Old City as a living monument to Beijing’s past. ‘If his [Liang] farsighted idea on Beijing’s city planning had been appreciated by Mao Zedong in the 1950s’, said the article in 1986, ‘or if there had been free discussion in decision-making at the time Beijing would not look the way it does now’ (p. 64). Bernstein (1982) cited a number of ‘common forms of popular discouragement’ from the Guangming Daily, which ‘struck the Chinese media’s usual hortatory tone’ (p. 70). Having regular access to the official press, American reporters were exposed to heated discussions of such previously taboo subjects as human rights, the separation of powers in government, political pluralism, checks and balances, and even freedom of speech and of the press itself. Although Schell began to take such outspoken political opinions for granted after the mid-1980s, he found certain new topics broached in the press ‘still had the power to shock’ (Schell 1989: 29). The PD’s commentaries made him feel it ‘read more like the op-ed page in a United States daily than a Party mouthpiece’ (Schell 1989: 29). To his amazement, even in faraway north-western China, the ‘parochial’ Ningxia Daily exulted that ‘the severe winter that was strangling democratic activities has passed and . . . the spring of democracy . . . has come’ (p. 38). As Schell looked back, ‘democracy’ was not the only new idea bouncing in suggestive headlines in 1986. He ran across various topics about jarring, bumpy developments in China’s rush towards modernity (e.g. articles exclaiming the awe-inspiring effects of disco) in official newspapers by the spring of 1987. As Gargan (1991: 266) recalled, in 1986 even the PD quoted the leader of the party’s propaganda apparatus as urging the ‘propagation of independent thinking and the discussion and contention of different viewpoints’. Against this background of new openness, the US press corps documented the boom of baogaowenxue journalism, a genre of literary reportage venting genuine popular grievances after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Schell (1989) dismissed literary reportage as a combination of truthful, timely investigative journalism with artful narrative literature. Through their 450

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immediacy and vividness, these narrative practices unmasked such past ‘frozen’ news events as the Tangshan earthquake of 1976, readdressed social ills and engaged closely with the politics of the present moment. It was considered to be a vital vehicle for voicing social advocacy, and describing ‘a society in rapid flux’ at a time when neither fiction nor straight news could capture the rich complexity of social transitions (Chen 2011: 156). The relaxed political climate allowed a palatable latitude for the new genre of journalistic writing that was uniquely suited to the canons of the early 1980s – an era of what Schell (1989: 90) called ‘letting a hundred literary periodicals bloom’. According to Patrick Tyler, formerly of the New York Times and the Washington Post, while a Chinese Enlightenment was battling against the old orthodoxy in the opinion pages, conservatives working for major party newspapers mounted a strong counterattack by probing and exposing ‘injustice, incompetence, and corruption’ (Tyler 1999: 338). The Mathews (1983: 295) kept a record of the ‘demystification’ process that proceeded on many fronts in the post-Mao era. Journalists such as Deng Tuo, Wang Ruoshui and Liu Bingyan rose to the fore and felt they were able for the first time to write about what they saw as the truth of Mao’s irrationality and the oppressive aspects of the Leninst socialist system. Increasingly, American reporters were impressed by the boldness with which previously timid Chinese counterparts now probed into official misconduct via the vehicle of literary reportage (Schell 1989; Chinoy 1999). However, as Red Flag noted, restrictions were still ‘the order of the day’ (Woodruff 1989: 94). Since the early 1980s, this new genre of journalism had aroused resistance from the conservative camp. As Schell (1989) observed, newspapers and periodicals with the ‘wrong political orientation’ (p. 315) were closed down, such as the Shenzhen Youth Herald and the Special Zone Workers’ Daily, which had published Wang Ruowang’s combative reply to Deng Xiaoping on the question of getting rich and class polarisation. As Woodruff (1989) recalled, a struggle between conservative censors and muckraking reformists constituted the daily experience of US press corps in all areas of reporting in China. Schell (1989: 353) was impressed by such an ‘unlikely dissonance’ in the press: one page would feature the youths ‘re-tempering their socialist spirit’, whereas the following page would publish an article declaring the virtues of disco. Given such a period of political volatility and uncertainty, the former foreign editor of the PD told Gargan (1991) that the press must grope their way. As Gargan (1991) summarised, these investigative articles focused only on individual factories, directors or ministries, and the purpose of this investigative journalism was not to question the decisions made by the communist leadership but to show that all these matters were within grasp (p. 132). It was not until the Tiananmen incident on 4 June 1989 that the gradual liberalisation of the Chinese press was brought to a halt. In Mandate of Heaven, Schell (1995: 176) wrote about the purge at the PD after the Tiananmen incident and called it ‘only the tip of the iceberg’. In Shanghai alone 28 publications were forced to close. According to Schell, the article in the 7 August issue of the reorganised daily set the tone for the reporting from the rest of Chinese media outlets, all of which were imbued with requisite ideological resistance against democratisation. From the 1990s onward, changes continued to be felt in the Chinese media landscape, though in a moderate way. Kristof and WuDunn (1994) observed that official news media provided genuine news at times thanks to the influences of the market economy. Advertising-dependent newspapers were competing for sales and readership, as the government further cut subsidies. Typical were the examples of the Beijing Youth Daily’s exposé of China’s ambitious plan to build an aircraft carrier, Peasants’ Daily’s probe into a lawsuit against the police and the Beijing Evening News’s interview with a little boy who had been abandoned and neglected by the government. Nevertheless, except these occasional periods of relaxation – as chronicled in China Wakes – ‘pabulum and propaganda’ still dominated the official newspapers, and a set 451

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of rigorous censorship regulations remained. As WuDunn recalled, many of her Chinese friends hardly read the PD and teased WuDunn’s habit of reading it. A former editor explained to her that nothing was truthful in the PD each day except the date. In the fall of 1990, when her husband wrote in the New York Times that the PD was the most powerful newspaper with few readers, he was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for a scolding (Kristof and WuDunn 1994). The government’s tight grip on party newspapers persisted in the new millennium, with Gifford (2007: 80) observing that the Chinese press can still ‘easily be muzzled by the government on any sensitive issue’ despite a greater latitude on ‘social and economic matters’. As Ian Johnson (2004: 239) revealed, a senior editor at the PD killed a story that they initially wanted to publish in its elite internal reference edition just because the story talked too frankly about politics. These accounts by journalists point towards the unchanging propagandist function of Chinese media after decades of marketisation. Former Los Angeles Times reporter James Mann was not the only one to debunk the ‘China fantasy’ (Mann 2007) that capitalism will inevitably bring democracy to China, as he concluded that ‘the essentials of the current political system would remain intact’, and ‘there would be no significant political opposition, no freedom of the press’ (p. 11).

Awakened to the propaganda: the US press corps’ decoding strategies The decoding of indigenous media by the US press corps takes place in a context of China’s transformations where the correspondents have the capacity to accept or challenge local media readings. Reports acknowledge that since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the PRC has transformed from one of the most closed societies (Mathews and Mathews 1983) to a relatively open one (Chinoy 1999). Despite constant government control and a long-standing hierarchical structure, the Chinese media have undergone a certain degree of liberalisation since the late 1970s and most remarkably during the 1980s. The Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated 1 January 1979 marked a significant turning point in US–China relations, and it became possible for US news organisations to open news bureaus in Beijing. Until 1984, 19 American news organisations had sent resident correspondents to an increasingly liberalised China amidst the economic reform and second opening to the west after the end of Cultural Revolution (Chu 1984: 87–106). Since Mao’s death new information came forth from inside China about the scale and scope of repressions, revealing the abuse and atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. It struck the community of American journalists that the China reality did not match up to the glowing account of political dogma (Pomfret 2006). Harry Harding made a note of the US press corps’ tendency to ‘denigrate’ the party rule of China after the end of the Cultural Revolution and further attributed it to their attempt to correct their ‘blind idealisation’ in the decade of US–China rapprochement: ‘the only way to remedy misunderstanding . . . is to turn it on its head’ (Harding 1982: 266). Canadian journalist Jan Wong (1996: 185), then an assistant with the New York Times’s Beijing bureau, expressed her disappointment: ‘I felt betrayed, like the victim of a massive practical joke . . . I vowed I would never again wholeheartedly suspend my disbelief.’ Across the four decades, the negotiated positions of the US press corps are the result of these decoders struggling to understand the dominant position of China’s communist leadership or experiencing dissonance with those views. American reporters were made aware that historical allusions and reporting on role models still abounded in the party organs while clouding what was actually happening in China (Mathews and Mathews 1983). Mann even summarised the formula of the typical ‘tantalising’ news story 452

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in Chinese official organs – short, skimpy on details, puzzling, yet hinting at startling change – which the party uses to send messages to the Chinese people and even foreigners (Mann 1989: 139). Mann raised the example of a story about a successful chicken farmer who became the first Chinese peasant to buy a private car in 1984. This story was published by China’s statecontrolled Xinhua News Agency and distributed by foreign news agencies, though it proved to be a fraud – what Mann (1989: 139) called one of the ‘common occurrences’ in China. In this process American reporters have developed a set of adaptive decoding strategies with an increasing awareness of the environment. WuDunn’s remarks in China Wakes crystallise the US press corps’ daily experience and wit: ‘foreigners writing about China must learn how to interpret indirect information’ (Kristof and WuDunn 1994: 175).

Discovering ‘public grievances’ from ‘letters to the editors’ Contrary to the conventional wisdom in the west, official organs like the PD do provide a safety valve for minor popular grievances against the government via the route of letters to the editor (Butterfield 1982). According to Gargan’s investigation, a similar system has existed in Chinese newspapers for decades, and millions of letters have been published annually from readers reporting on perceived wrongdoings. Though such letters may serve as a channel for the public to lodge anonymous complaints, there was ‘a good deal more smoke than fire here’ (Gargan 1991: 165). Mathews and Mathews (1983: 176) learned from the PD staff that the effects of these letters (most of which went unpublished) were limited to give officials a mere sense of what people had been complaining about. When the US press corps had rather limited access to ordinary Chinese people in the 1980s (Bennett 1990: 263–76), the ‘letters to the editor’ columns served a very important channel for the American reporters to access public grievances and concerns. Schell (1980) chronicled the rise of ‘letters to the editor’ columns from 1979 and revealed how he learnt the level of popular anxiety from ‘the accusations against high-ranking party members and military officers for using their influence to secure privileges to good schooling, the best apartments, and cars’ published in the ‘letters to the editor’ column (p. 195). An attorney with the New York law firm told Schell about defects within the new tax-collection system in China, a problem an outsider would never get to know about without the letter to the PD from an official who worked in the Ministry of Finance’s Tax Office. The official claimed in the letter that the tax-collection system was already ‘being given a hostile reception’ (Schell 1984: 35). Meanwhile, editors’ responses to letters from readers can also be revealing. The weekly news magazine Beijing Review published a short commentary in April 1984 by its economic editor, which suggested evident concerns about the confusion that many of its readers were expressing over the role of a growing private sector in a socialist economy (Schell 1980: 25). Fox Butterfield (1982) observed in the early 1980s, ‘Peking’s view that proper thinking can overcome biological imperatives’ was reflected in a ‘delicate colloquy between a youthful letter writer and the China Youth News on the subject of masturbation’ (p. 143). Mathews and Mathews (1983: 101) wrote about the Chinese government’s ‘uneasy endeavour to fill the vacuum of information about sex’ by use of the evidence from an occasional column of letters run by the China Youth News.

Discerning ‘conflicts’ from political indoctrination When financial reporter Graeme Browning (1989: 101) read in the English-language press the threats to expel from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) any member who had participated in corruption, he concluded that ‘corruption had become a serious problem’, and the Chinese 453

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leadership was all too aware of it. Mann (1989: 50) noted that ‘like virtually everything written in the PD, the language had a strong component of domestic Chinese politics – the implied contrast between George Washington and Mao’. Mathews and Mathews (1983: 295) revealed their habit of making judgements from the political language used in the official organs, since articles by politicians and in editorials might serve as ‘digestive tracts’ to reveal their minds. Similarly, as WuDunn summarised, if the PD publishes a series of articles on workers who expose corruption, then the journalists would know that the government intend to encourage the workers to report them. She even traced its method back to Zhou Enlai’s dialogue with the pioneer American correspondent Edgar Snow: ‘those who come to China for fact-finding don’t hunt for any inside information, but instead they can discover the problems from the stage or from the publications. When the press encourages the good and criticizes the bad, it means that bad things surely still exist and good ones are not yet perfect’ (Kristof and WuDunn 1994: 175). In Beijing Jeep, Mann (1989: 230) referred to a barrage of articles in the Chinese press that aimed to ‘reassure foreign investors’, and to ‘encourage’ Chinese officials to do business with the Americans in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. In Mann’s account, such unalloyed enthusiasm in PD commentaries was pitted against the fear of American culture and politics which later emerged in the Chinese press during a nationwide campaign against bourgeois liberalisation and the democracy movement. When the party launched an anti-crime campaign in 1982, the Chinese newspapers which once were full of ‘slogans and long theoretical tracts’, became sprinkled with melodramatic accounts of corruption and crime that ‘at times read like tabloids’ (Schell 1984: 36). As Schell decoded, the object of such news stories was not to titillate or to sell papers, but to warn offenders that criminal activity would incur severe punishment. In China’s efforts to counter American influence during these two campaigns, the anti-American message was encoded by the Chinese press in issuing the warnings against spiritual pollution or bourgeois liberalisation – ‘all about westernisation’ (Bernstein and Munro 1997: 37). Although the Chinese press alleged that the real targets of these campaigns were ‘pornography, drugs, prostitution, and corruption’, long-term China observers Richard Bernstein and Ross Munro (1997) pointed out that the underlying target was the USA (p. 37). As Mann (1999) observed in the 1990s, the words in China’s controlled media were carefully chosen in their strikingly hostile anti-American opinion articles. Such charges against the USA, as encoded from the perspective of China’s ruling elites, revolved around the US strategic objective of preserving the unipolar moment after the end of the Cold War. More often than not, the US press corps use the ‘political language’ in the Chinese press to gauge the elite conflicts and estimate the political strength of each faction. In what Fox Butterfield (1982) called one of the most secretive societies in the world, China’s leaders often made their most private political quarrels vocal in the pages of the press. As Schell explained, when one political camp of leaders is in the ascendancy in China, it is very difficult to estimate the strength of the opposition, since no organs of propaganda are in their hands. However one can get a sense of that strength by reading between the lines in the party press. For instance, if the PD is constantly proclaiming the ‘correctness’ of a given policy, how firmly ‘resolved’ the party is to carry it out, and how the masses are not being ‘deterred’ from supporting it, one can infer that these proclamations have been provoked by opposition somewhere (Schell 1984: 66). Though the broadcasting sector has not been included in this study, it is notable that the journalists watch the seven o’clock news to estimate the ‘political wind’ in China. CNN’s Mike Chinoy (1999: 278) recalled watching the seven o’clock evening news on CCTV on 9 June 1989. From the absence of Zhao Ziyang in Deng Xiaoping’s first public appearance after the crackdown, Chinoy concluded that Zhao had been purged. Given the political volatility in the 454

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1980s, American reporters turned to the official organs for hints about the political antagonism between left old-timers and reformists. According to Mathews and Mathews (1983), while some official press reports resented the idea of restaurant owners and other small businesspeople accumulating wealth over the factory worker, the PD tried to reassure nervous readers that it was all right to be rich. When the Economic Daily published a report about a wellspring of hostility towards a Chinese official, a pioneer in implementing the leasing system in China, Gargan estimated that there might be opposition from inside the official circle. Gargan also took note of the PD’s signalling at the ‘sharp swing towards intellectual repression and political orthodoxy’ from the beginning of 1987 (Gargan 1991: 276). As he explained, China’s press was controlled to such an extent that publication of this sort of criticism generally, although not always, reflected ‘emerging official sentiments’ (p. 132).

Differentiation Journalists differentiated the uses of Chinese publications in decoding the media messages. Especially in the politically most open decade of the 1980s, experienced China observers attached tags to various media outlets. Gargan (1991: 275) tagged the Beijing Daily ‘a hard-line paper controlled by the most rigid Marxist–Leninists in the leadership’, while labelling the China Youth News as ‘spunky’ and one of China’s ‘feistiest’ newspapers (p. 92). Schell (1989: 160) considered China Youth News to be one of the most ‘aggressive’ and ‘iconoclastic’ newspapers in China. Among all the American reporters, Schell drew the most detailed distinctions in decoding the China reality in the 1980s. According to Schell (1989: 12), the Guangming Daily was ‘a newspaper favored by China’s intellectuals’; the Beijing Daily was a ‘conservative city-run paper’; and the Yangcheng Evening News was labelled ‘a liberal Canton daily’. The tags for the PD, Red Flag and the Liberation Army Daily are respectively ‘the official Communist Party newspaper’, ‘the Party’s main theoretical organ’ and the ‘official organ of the People’s Liberation Army’ (p. 12). In comparison with the typical official press, the US press corps set apart the Reference News which selects and translates articles from foreign publications. The newspaper published reports by foreign correspondents, or pro-communist Hong Kong papers, explaining what was happening in China, such as challenges to Deng Xiaoping’s faction. They did so with a ‘clarity’ and ‘speculative boldness’ which Mathews and Mathews (1983: 174–5) pitted against the ‘obliqueness’ in the official Chinese press. As the Mathews explained, ‘since its back-room editors do not operate under the strict limits of the official press, they let Chinese know more about the outside, and in an indirect way about themselves’. Not all the stories were about international politics, and the paper provided supplements on lifestyle, health, education and other topics (Butterfield 1982). According to an analysis of the samples over a three-year period, Mathews and Mathews (1983) found its editors had been using the foreign press as a satellite relay to bounce signals back to the Chinese people. Butterfield (1982: 389) chronicled the critical incidents in which the Reference News played a prominent role in ‘enabling Chinese to be more knowledgeable about the outside world’ in contrast with the PD. For instance, as the vote on China’s seat in the United Nations approached in 1971, the Chinese people got to know about it from Reference News, while the PD did not mention a word. During the Watergate crisis, the PD spared President Nixon by not mentioning it in consideration of his contribution to reopening Sino-US relations, while Reference News kept the Chinese public informed (Butterfield 1982: 390). Reference News used to be the only legal way for Chinese to get information from the foreign media, but with the advent of the internet, its edge is dwindling. 455

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Fact verification Given that rumours spread quickly in such a politically closed society as China (Mathews and Mathews 1983), the verification of facts appears to be an important daily task for the US press corps. Both Mann (1989) and Gargan (1991) testified to their regular attempts to verify sliceof-life stories in the government-controlled press. Their first resort would be their Chinese counterparts. Despite sniffing at the Chinese media, they showed certain respect for the journalists working for Chinese media. Chinoy (1999: 176–8) observed how the PD’s editors and reporters had ‘managed to survive years of ideological battering and came out not nearly as punchdrunk as they expected’ after the end of the Cultural Revolution. In the late 1980s, because of CNN’s formal cooperative relationship with CCTV, Chinoy was in close touch with Chinese TV reporters and editors who began to express ‘cautious hopes that CCTV might begin to resemble a more conventional, less ideological news organisation’ (p. 159). In 1987, ‘determined not to be defeated by the challenges the system posed to living and working in Beijing’, Chinoy began to develop a number of good Chinese friends (p. 161). Among them was a young reporter for the business section of the China Daily. His mockery of foreign and Chinese journalists revealed the strengths and weaknesses of each: ‘eight percent of what we know we aren’t allowed to publish . . . while eight percent of what you foreigners publish, you don’t know what you are talking about’ (p. 162). In Watch Out for the Foreign Guests, Orville Schell (1980) chronicled his interaction with the journalists from Xinhua and CCTV during Deng’s tour of the USA. The US press corps’ reliance on their Chinese colleagues was all the more considerable in the 1990s (Kristof and WuDunn 1994). Compared with the generation of China hands who cut their teeth by analysing PD, the new generation has a bigger chance of obtaining scoops by pursuing friendship with PD journalists (p. 410). Another source in the daily routines of the US press corps are the Hong Kong media such as Cheng Ming, Ming Pao, Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), Nineties, Standard and Wen Hui Po, which commands high visibility in journalistic accounts. Mathews and Mathews (1983: 92–3) regretted that ‘China’s party-controlled press rarely discussed the private lives of national leaders’. So they turned to the ‘respected independent’ Ming Pao (p. 178) to know about political manoeuvres within the Chinese leadership and to read a transcript of meetings between Mao and a few of his likely successors before his death. In early 1984 Schell learnt from the Hong Kong magazine Cheng Ming that the renowned General Zhu De’s grandson was spared the death penalty for committing grave economic crimes (Schell 1984: 40). In the same year, he was informed by Ta Kung Pao that ‘the left is staging a comeback’ (p. 66). Gargan (1991) cited the candid interview with Liu Binyan published by The Nineties, a political magazine in Hong Kong and banned in China because of its regular exposés of conflicts within the leadership. For Chinoy, New Evening Post remained one of his ‘most insightful guides’ to the trends of Chinese politics. He considered the journalist working for this Hong Kong newspaper to be ‘a sophisticated analyst able to discuss serious issues without lapsing into party rhetoric’ (Chinoy 1999: 70). Various tags attached to these titles in journalists’ accounts further reveal American reporters’ grasp of the opinion landscape in Hong Kong. Bernstein and Munro (1997: 70) called Ming Pao an ‘unofficial organ of leaked information’ with ‘a reputation for access to accurate insider information in China’. Mann (1989: 39) called Wen Wei Po ‘a Chinese-language newspaper . . . that supported the communist regime’. Schell (1989) called Wen Wei Po a ‘pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper’ (p. 375) and labelled Ta Kung Pao a ‘Hong Kong’s Communist newspaper’ (p. 66). Chinoy (1999: 68) called New Evening Post ‘one of three so-called patriotic publications’ and Chinese ‘mouthpieces in the colony’. Whatever their ideological positions, the Hong Kong media provide the leaked information and the in-depth observation of experienced China experts that allow the US press to decode the twists and turns of Chinese politics. 456

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Conclusion The decoding of Chinese media in these journalistic accounts has related to the requirements of the ‘products’ of the US press corps, the ‘situations’ within which these accounts are produced and the ‘resources’ that sustain their production. The publications cited in these accounts are mostly based in Beijing, or in such developed cities as Shanghai and Guangzhou. To catch the big fish, the China reality has been routinely decoded and recoded through a ‘web of facticity’ (Tuchman 1978) outweighing the Beijing perspective. Meanwhile, journalists have relied much less on the Chinese press in constructing their interpretations. In contrast with the first batch of American reporters who arrived after the US–China rapprochement, the later cohorts of American correspondents are getting wider access to the field in an increasingly liberalised China. Though they still resort to the Chinese press from time to time, they often use them for background facts to sustain their observations, or for additional information on reports. This longitudinal study has not only tracked the occurrence of Chinese media in journalistic accounts, but also provides a rich description of understandings of Chinese media by American journalists by tracing the perceived changes in China’s media landscape. While keeping a record of such local media developments as the boom and decline of literary reportage, the flourishing investigative journalism and a wider variety of entertainment content made available for readers, the US press corps have gone further to explain the driving forces underneath – the abolition of state subsidies, the increasing role of advertising revenues and, fundamentally, the limited liberalisation in China’s politics and society. An uncertain context is often the fountainhead of possible misreading by journalists of the China reality in foreign correspondence (Louw 2004: 151–62). The US press corps’ provisional and unstable judgements of information sources are characteristic of their continually evolving strategies in interpreting Chinese media messages. This chapter shows that American journalists as an interpretive community have resisted the dominant or preferred hegemonic message encoded in media texts from time to time, because they were awakened to the party-state’s propagandistic rhetoric by such landmark events as the end of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen incident. The ‘alternate’ and ‘oppositional’ modes are embedded in their strategies of interpreting the Chinese media texts, for example, the practice of discovering ‘public grievances’ from ‘letters to the editors’, and that of discerning ‘conflicts’ from political indoctrinations voiced by official organs. To the US press corps, the Chinese press bear careful reading and often contain insights into Beijing politics. While the US correspondents may accept some elements of a specific message in the Chinese press, they also adapt or even reject other elements of a message that do not fit with their own immediate experience of the China reality.

Notes 1 2

3

The number in parentheses refers to the occurrence of each publication in journalistic accounts during the study period. Gang of Four refers to a radical political faction around Mao and composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials who rose to prominence in China’s political arena during the later years of the Cultural Revolution. The increasing number of underground journals was attributed to the vociferous public dissent in 1978–79. They were somewhat similar to Soviet samizdat. After getting them into print by stealth, the distributors posted them at Democracy Wall (minzhu qiang) or dispatched them as handbills around the city. The American correspondents mentioned them occasionally, but it was only restricted to those with a proficient grasp of Chinese language (e.g. Orville Schell).

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References Attfield, S. and Dowell, J. (2003) ‘Information seeking and use by newspaper journalists’, Journal of Documentation 59(2): 187–204. Bennett, A. (1990) ‘American reporters in China: romantics and cynics’, in C.C. Lee (ed.), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism, New York: Guilford Press, 263–76. Bernstein, R. (1982) From the Center of the Earth : The Search for the Truth about China, Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Bernstein, R. and Munro, R.H. (1997) The Coming Conflict with China, New York: A.A. Knopf. Browning, G. (1989) If Everybody Bought One Shoe: American Capitalism in Communist China, New York: Hill and Wang. Butterfield, F. (1982) China, Alive in the Bitter Sea, New York: Times Books. Chang, L.T. (2008) Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, New York: Spiegel & Grau. Chen, P. (2011) ‘Social movements and Chinese literary reportage’, in J.S. Bak and B. Reynolds (eds), Literary Journalism across the Globe: Journalistic Traditions and Transnational Influences, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 148–61. Chinoy, M. (1999) China Live: People Power and the Television Revolution, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Chu, J. (1984) ‘The gathering of news about China’, International Communication Gazette 33(2): 87–106. Cohen, B.C. (1983) The Press and Foreign Policy, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Fish, S.E. (1980) Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gargan, E.A. (1991) China’s Fate: A People’s Turbulent Struggle with Reform and Repression, 1980–1990, New York: Doubleday. Gifford, R. (2007) China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power, New York: Random House. Hall, S. (1973) ‘Encoding and decoding in the television discourse’, paper presented at the Council of Europe Colloquy on Training in the Critical Reading of Television Language, University of Birmingham. Hamilton, J.M. and Jenner, E. (2004) ‘Redefining foreign correspondence’, Journalism 5(3): 301–21. Hannerz, U. (2004) Foreign News: Exploring the World of Foreign Correspondents, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Harding, H. (1982) ‘From China, with disdain: new trends in the study of China’, Asian Survey 22(10): 934–58. Hessler, P. (2010) Country Driving: A Journey through China from Farm to Factory, New York: Harper. Hooper, B. (1983) ‘Popular books on China: the new journalistic wave’, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 10: 157–68. Jensen, L.M. and Weston, T.B. (2007) China’s Transformations: The Stories beyond the Headlines, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Johnson, I. (2004) Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China, New York: Pantheon Books. Kester, B. (2010) ‘The art of balancing: foreign correspondence in un-democratic countries: the Russian case’, International Communication Gazette 72(1): 51–69. Kristof, N.D. and WuDunn, S. (1994) China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, New York: Times Books. Latham, K. (2009) ‘Media, the Olympics and the search for the “real China”’, China Quarterly 197: 25–43. Louw, E.P. (2004) ‘Journalists reporting from foreign places’, in A.S. de Beer and J.C. Merrill (eds), Global Journalism: Topical Issues and Media Systems, Boston, MA: Pearson, 151–62. Mann, J. (1989) Beijing Jeep: The Short, Unhappy Romance of American Business in China, New York: Simon & Schuster. –––– (1999) About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China from Nixon to Clinton, New York: Alfred Knopf. –––– (2007) The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain away Chinese Repression, New York: Viking. Mathews, J. and Mathews, L. (1983) One Billion: A China Chronicle, New York: Random House. Miles, J. (2008) ‘James Miles on media coverage of Tibet’, The China Beat, 29 March. Available online http://thechinabeat.blogspot.com/2008/03/james-miles-on-media-coverage-of-tibet.html (retrieved 10 August 2014). Pomfret, J. (2006) Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China, New York: H. Holt. 458

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Schell, O. (1980) ‘Watch Out for the Foreign Guests!’: China Encounters the West, New York: Pantheon Books. –––– (1984) To Get Rich Is Glorious: China in the Eighties, New York: Pantheon Books. –––– (1989) Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform, New York: Anchor Books. –––– (1995) Mandate of Heaven: The Legacy of Tiananmen Square and the Next Generation of China’s Leaders, New York: Simon & Schuster. Tuchman, G. (1978) Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality, New York: Free Press. Tyler, P. (1999) A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China, An Investigative History, New York: PublicAffairs. Wong, J. (1996) Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Toronto: Doubleday/Anchor Books. Woodruff, J. (1989) China in Search of its Future: Years of Great Reform, 1982–87, Seattle: University of Washington Press. Zelizer, B. (1993) ‘Journalists as interpretive communities’, Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10(3): 219–37.

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28 Chinese international broadcasting, public diplomacy and soft power Gary D. Rawnsley

For one of the few times in its history, this famously inward-looking nation is vulnerable to how it is seen abroad. How China is perceived by other nations – and the underlying reality that perception reflects – will determine the future of Chinese development and reform. (Ramo 2007: 9)

It has become an urgent strategic task for us to make our communication capability match our international status. Nowadays, nations which have more advanced skills and better capability in communications will be more influential in the world and can spread their values further. —Liu Yunshan, Director of the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (quoted in Scotten and Hachten 2010: 113)

Introduction Since 2000 there has been an explosion of interest in China’s soft power capacity and performance, and we no longer need to question the value that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) attaches to its international outreach. Long gone are the days when we might concur with Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, who wrote in 2002, ‘China today exports televisions, not ideas’ (Thatcher 2002: 178–9). Today China not only continues to export televisions (and increasingly television programmes), but also China’s idea of China is more noticeable around the world. China has embraced the concept of soft power (ruan shili or ruan quanli) with an enthusiasm rarely found elsewhere, and as Yiwei Wang (2008: 258) has noted, ‘few western international relations phrases have penetrated as deeply or broadly into the Chinese vocabulary in recent years’. The government in Beijing continues to devote extraordinary amounts of money (c. US$9 billion per year), time and talent to designing and executing its soft power strategy (Rahman 2010). In fact, China now outspends its neighbours, including its closest rivals South Korea and Japan, on regional soft power activities. Any assessment of China’s performance would have to concede that, on the surface, all this work and effort seems to be paying off: not only does 460

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China have a greater and stronger international presence than at any time in the past, reflecting its economic strength and growing strategic value, but also we are certainly more familiar with China as it becomes more visible on our television screens, in our movie theatres, on our high streets and campuses, and as a viable and attractive tourist destination. This chapter will evaluate the relationship between China’s soft power strategy, its public diplomacy and its international broadcasting capacity. Understanding the connection between these three activities is important for public diplomacy, with international broadcasting as one of its instruments, represents the mobilisation and instrumentalisation of soft power resources: it helps us to understand how soft power resources are converted into behavioural outcomes. After all, effective soft power ‘depends on other’s knowledge of one’s alluring qualities’, and soft power success depends ‘on knowing how exactly to make their ideas and themselves attractive to a target population’ (Mattern 2005: 588 and 584). Advertising ‘one’s alluring qualities’ and ideas is the responsibility of public diplomacy, ‘the process by which direct relations with people in a country are pursued’ by state or non-state actors ‘to advance the interests and extend the values of those being represented’ (Sharp 2007: 106). The principal themes of this chapter are: (1) the discrepancy between the messages disseminated by China’s international broadcasting stations and the perceptions of China by their audience; (2) the reactive strategy that has determined China’s international broadcasting must be a corrective to both western media reporting about China and the dominance of western media organisations in global news flows; and, perhaps most importantly, (3) the question of trust and credibility that surfaces because China’s international broadcasting remains fully embedded within the state system.

From ‘soft power’ to ‘soft use of power’ In 1990, Joseph Nye published Bound to Lead which first introduced the term ‘soft power’ to the vocabulary of international relations. Just three years after it first appeared in the USA, Bound to Lead was translated into Chinese and was published in the PRC. The concept of soft power refers to ‘the ability to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes’ (Nye 2011: 21). Advocating the attraction of values, ideas and culture as ‘a slower, surer, more civilised way of exercising influence than crude force’ (The Economist 2006), soft power was conceived as an alternative to the growing expense (in financial terms, but also in terms of legitimacy) of hard power, exercised especially by the military: The key to sustainable leadership is not the ability to mount pre-emptive strikes against potential challengers, but rather the persuasiveness of soft power. Precisely because persuasion produces cooperation while husbanding resources, it can be sustained indefinitely. In contrast to the self-limiting side effects of the use of force, the preconditions of successful persuasion increase the likelihood of successful persuasion in the future. . . . Reciprocal patterns of respect and deference become habitual. (Womack 2005) One only need consider the extraordinary financial, political and human cost of using hard power in Iraq to appreciate the need for and potential of soft power. Stiglitz and Blimes (2008) calculated the cost of the war – roughly US$3 trillion – in 2003 only and did not consider the damage done to American political legitimacy and credibility. Why didn’t the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration accept the possibilities offered by soft power? For Nye, it goes beyond 461

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the failure to understand the concept (allegedly the secretary of state for defense, Donald Rumsfeld, told a US general that he did not know what soft power is) and is rooted in a simple preference for hard power: ‘something that could be dropped on your foot or on your cities, rather than something that might change your mind about wanting to drop anything in the first place’ (Nye 2011: 82). In short, soft power is ‘the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments’ (Nye 2004: x): It is a mistake to think that power consists of just ordering others to change. You can affect their behaviour by shaping their preferences in ways that produce what you want rather than relying on carrots and sticks to change their behaviour. . . . Sometimes you can get the outcomes you want without pushing or shoving. Ignoring this dimension by using too narrow a definition of power can lead to poorly shaped foreign policy. (Nye 2011: 11) Craig Hayden has offered a definition that indicates how soft power connects with international politics and provides the basis for understanding China’s approach. The theory of soft power, he says, ‘is a recognition that traditional metrics of “power” in international affairs should be inclusive of ideational factors: what people believe can shape or constrain the agency of a political actor and their ability to effect change’ (Hayden 2012: 5). This certainly links with Chinese understandings of soft power as part of an integrated approach to realising the nation’s ambition for ‘comprehensive national power’ (zonghe guoli), namely ‘the sum total of coercive, economic and ideational power of a nation’ (Lampton 2008: 21; Ghosh 2009: 17; Men 2007; Guo 2009: 20–6).1 In turn this echoes the way the idea of soft power has been refined as ‘smart power’ to address the difficulties of separating – in theory and practice – hard and soft power. While Nye addressed smart power at length in his 2011 volume, The Future of Power, he was pre-empted by Chinese scholars Zheng Yongnian and Zhang Chi (2007) who found the distinction between hard and soft power too simple and absolute. In turn, they suggested a more integrated approach that would reflect better the reality of power that can be both hard and soft depending on the motivation for its exercise and how the target audience responds to it.2 While the Chinese Communist state has always believed in the power of ‘ideational factors’ in its international engagement – Confucius himself noted the value of ‘attracting by virtue’, while ‘panda diplomacy’, still a popular method of outreach, was first exercised by China’s ancient dynasties (Hartig 2013: 49–78) – until recently this was considered ‘propaganda’, especially during China’s revolutionary twentieth century. Such activity, now labelled soft power, public and cultural diplomacy, has gained prominence as a method of communicating with the international community at a time when the Chinese government has moved away from an ideological basis for its legitimacy. Now performance, based on international trade, sustained economic growth and the delivery of wealth, determines the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and in turn this requires a new, less dogmatic style of communication. Moreover, the Chinese rebranded in English (and only in English) its international communications and changed the name of the Propaganda Department (xuanchuanbu) to Publicity Department (Brady 2008: 30). The Chinese terminology, incorporating the word ‘propaganda’ has not been amended, and the practices continue much as before, but the change of name in English is important: it demonstrates China’s growing sensitivity to the way international audiences perceive its communications strategies and suggests awareness of the power of labels to determine whether and how communications are received and accepted. However, changing the brand name (in this case, from propaganda to publicity or public diplomacy) does not necessarily make the product more palatable to consumers. 462

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The value of soft power as an analytical tool is rightly subject to more critical scrutiny than in the past. The problem that many sceptics, including Amy Zalman (2012), have identified is that soft power can be used to mean everything and therefore can actually mean very little. In many ways, it is possible to argue that the core disciplines of international relations and international communications have been seduced by the notion of soft power and have given it credibility and prominence that we need to interrogate in a more systematic way. It may be that soft power has become a convenient catch-all term, a mere label, which is used to describe and justify a wide range of communicative practices. Hence the term has lost much of its early conceptual clarity, precision and utility, and benefits from rigorous and methodical theoretical enquiry (Hayden 2012; also see Sparks, Chapter 2 in this volume). Xintian Yu (2007: 113–27), for example, has criticised Nye’s broad approach to soft power which leaves the concept ‘obscure’ and means that ‘scholars must tailor their own definitions’, an understandable sentiment but one which does not help us towards clarity or consistency. Despite understandable reservations about the term, soft power remains an important subject of intellectual examination precisely because governments, including China, concede the need to both exercise soft power and pronounce at every opportunity their soft power credentials. In other words, if governments persist in claiming that they deploy soft power as an instrument of statecraft, it is attendant upon the academic community to understand why they do so, what they mean by soft power, and whether and how its practice deviates from the dominant ‘western’ (Anglo-American) models and approaches. It is therefore essential to analyse Chinese soft power on its own terms, from the perspective of China’s own understanding and execution. So, for example, we might draw on the discussion by Li (2009: 7) of the ‘soft use of power’. Li argues that by ‘seeing soft power within the lens of how a state uses its capability instead of focusing on the resources of power, we can then better understand how culture, values and institutions can be brought into the discussion of soft power’ (Li 2009: 7). In other words, labels are less important than how power – soft or otherwise – is exercised and for what objectives. As Li (2009: 3) notes, culture, ideology and values do not always produce attraction, persuasion, appeal and emulation. Culture, ideology, values and norms also often result in resentment, repulsion, hostility and even conflict. On the other hand, hard power is not always used for coercion, threat or intimidation and inducement. Hard power can also produce attraction, appeal and enmity in certain circumstances. At the end of the day, perhaps power is just power after all. Indeed there is a danger that audiences may interpret the most soft power enterprises as yet another example of ‘cultural imperialism’, and thus the effort is squandered and may even backfire: ‘A target may find a sender’s promotion of cultural and political values (such as democracy) to be an act of coercion, not persuasion. A sender’s cultural and political values themselves may be interpreted by a target state to be the potential source of threat to society’ (Lee 2011: 22). These debates underscore the relevance of research that is concerned with ‘de-westernisation’ and seeks to expand the discussion of soft power and public diplomacy beyond Anglo-American models. De-westernisation is concerned with relocating the concepts within specific cultural, social and political contexts that better reflect local approaches to international relations, politics and communications. This research agenda is motivated by an aspiration to avoid simply describing and analysing how different countries design and implement their soft power strategies; it is also an attempt to contribute to a more culturally sensitive and nuanced understanding of, and explanation for, the distinct theoretical and conceptual perspectives we may encounter beyond the USA and Europe.3 463

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China’s approach to soft power, public diplomacy and international broadcasting From the previous discussion, one might argue that the dominant theme of comparative research on soft power must centre on the way local perspectives are embedded within, help shape and are shaped by distinctive political and cultural environments. Although there have been in Chinese discourse allusion to the strategic objectives of exercising soft power – for example, Liu Yunshan, the director of the Propaganda Department, has described how a ‘more powerful communication capability’ means more ‘effective global influence’ (Edney 2012: 905) – China’s appreciation of and approach to soft power is not considered a means of restructuring ‘patterns of international relations’ (Edney 2012: 906) as in the original understanding of the concept (see Nye’s Bound to Lead, 1990). Rather, it is primarily a clearly articulated challenge to the dominant western discourses on the subject; a way of trying to change or at least manage international perceptions of China; and to explain and communicate narratives of China that the leadership in Beijing considers favourable to its international profile. Certainly the Chinese reaction to Joseph Nye’s earliest discussions of soft power expressed concern with their implicit ethnocentrism.4 Chinese commentators have advocated instead a conspicuously local type of soft power as a response to perceived American efforts to strengthen cultural hegemony (Young and Jeong 2008: 453–72; also see Sparks, Chapter 2 in this volume).5 Zhao Qizheng, former director of the State Council Information Office (SCIO) and China’s most visible and vocal advocate of public diplomacy,6 has described soft power as an essential counterweight to the alleged demonisation of China by the ‘western’ media. This situation, he contended in 2007, ‘requires China to proactively establish a public diplomacy [gonggong waijiao] to improve the international image’. Realising that the Chinese could not depend on the international media to represent and reflect their country China ‘must,’ he said, ‘present an accurate picture of itself to the world’ (People’s Daily 2007). Zhao has continued to articulate his concerns with the portrait of China in and by the western media. In his 2012 Englishlanguage volume, How China Communicates, he emphasises how the western media fail repeatedly to observe and report China in what he calls ‘a correct way. As a result’, he writes, ‘the image of China in world public opinion is seriously inconsistent with the actual situation in China. All these background conditions magnify the urgency and importance of explorations and undertakings in China’s public diplomacy’ (Zhao 2012b: ii). Hence Zhao described the ‘basic task of China’s public diplomacy’ to be explaining China ‘to the world and help foreign publics learn about the real China’ (Zhao 2012b: 15). These concerns have defined the Chinese approach to soft power and public diplomacy, as well as China’s international broadcasting strategy, since the events in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Coverage in the global media of protests by students and workers, and their subsequent suppression by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was a public relations disaster for the Chinese leadership and convinced them of the need to reorganise and rejuvenate China’s information and communications machinery. The head of the propaganda apparatus was promoted to the Politburo Standing Committee, the highest decision-making body in the CCP, and in 1991 the SCIO was created to shape and lead China’s international communications (Brady 2008; Edney 2012: 902). The party’s control over China’s public diplomacy is clear: ‘While it is often those within the foreign affairs community who are the most enthusiastic about assessing and improving China’s soft power’, observes Edney, ‘the bulk of the work . . . is not primarily controlled by the foreign affairs bureaucracy but rather by the propaganda authorities’ (Edney 2012: 902). Hence China’s international broadcasting stations are managed by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT, since early 2013 the State 464

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Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television, i.e. SAPPRFT) which in turn is subject to the authority of the CCP’s Propaganda Department (Brady 2008; Edney 2012: 905). In February 2009, President Jiang Zemin called on China to ‘establish a publicity capacity to exert an influence on world opinion that is as strong as China’s international standing’ (quoted in Kurlantzick 2008: 39). To this end, the party leadership decided that China’s international broadcasting required serious investment and a new approach to offset the global reaction to Tiananmen. So whereas previously Chinese media had collaborated with foreign television companies to produce positive programmes about China that would be broadcast on the foreign channel, now China’s own broadcasters – motivated by, and responsible to, the CCP’s propaganda apparatus – were instructed to take a more proactive role in telling China’s story to the world. In 2009, c. US$4 billion was set aside to meet the costs of expanding China Central Television (CCTV) and Xinhua News Agency. In addition, Radio China International (RCI), broadcasting on both short and medium wave (and now on the internet), and CCTV7 (now with dedicated channels in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic), were joined in 2010 by a new English-language channel, China Network News Corporation (CNC), operated by China’s official news agency, Xinhua. Moreover, English-language editions of three newspapers, People’s Daily, China Daily (the biggest English-language newspaper) and Global Times, are available on the internet and remain a primary source of news about China from a Chinese perspective. In November 2008, China Daily launched a US edition, a Korean edition followed in 2010 and an African edition in 2012. In the same year Xinhua unveiled its first digital interactive e-magazine in Arabic, China Panorama; and in January 2012 Xinhua opened its first African hub in Nairobi.8 The need to redress how international news organisations reported China became an urgent priority in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 when western media coverage focused overwhelmingly on a narrative of protests in and about Tibet during the torch relay. China was determined to ‘resist the image and values imposed on it by the west and assert its own discourse rights’ (Glasser and Murphy 2009: 14). Coverage of the protests ‘revived long-standing suspicions that US “cultural hegemony” was being used to weaken and destabilise China and led to calls for Beijing to combat this challenge’ (Glasser and Murphy 2009: 14; on Beijing Olympics, also see Liang, Chapter 24 in this volume). In 2011, Li Congjun raised the spectre of ‘cultural imperialism’ in a commentary published in The Wall Street Journal in which he discussed the ‘uneven pattern of international communication. The flow of information,’ he said, in terms that have been familiar to students of international communication since the 1970s, ‘is basically one way: from West to East, North to South, and from developed to developing countries,’ and he called on the United Nations to consider new mechanisms to regulate global communications (Li 2011).9 This echoes SARFT’s ambition, stated in 2001, to have Chinese voices heard in any location where major western outlets are able to present their audio and visual images, and let our radio, TV programs and films have significant international impacts, and substantially improve the current unfavourable situation that Western media is strong but Chinese media is weak in the international arena. (quoted in Deng and Zhang 2008: 153) Beijing recognises the fear that China’s rise provokes in some quarters, especially in the USA where a ‘China threat’ discourse dominated the 1990s (Bernstein and Monroe 1998; Huntington 1996; and Chang 2001). The so-called ‘China model’ of development, itself considered an instrument of soft power, is routinely criticised, with Mark Leonard (2005) describing it as ‘the 465

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biggest ideological threat the west has felt since the end of the Cold War’. In 2012, President Hu Jintao told the Chinese that ‘we must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernising and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields,’ he insisted, ‘are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration’ (Wong 2012). Hence it is possible to argue that the expansion of China’s international broadcasting capacity has not been designed around a primary aim of boosting the country’s soft power potential, but rather is a reactive and defensive strategy to meet a supposed cultural threat and is intended to remedy a defect in how China is reported by international news media. China’s international broadcasters operate within a framework of structural constraints – the framing of China-related news by foreign and international media – over which Beijing has limited power. Such news is structured around values that are different from those that define journalism in China and which, by instinct, privilege the negative aspects of China’s modernisation. The Chinese response has been a determined attempt to make sure their voice is heard, and they have therefore expanded China’s international broadcasting capacity in the hope of making a more confident entry into the international news and information space. Hence when Xinhua launched its own 24-hour English-language channel in July 2010, CNC, its president, Li Congjun, promised to ‘offer an alternative source of information for a global audience and . . . promote peace and development by interpreting the world in a global perspective’ (CNC undated). This growth helps realise the long-held ambition to create a ‘Chinese CNN’ or Al-Jazeera which, in the Chinese context, would be indelibly tied to political power. Jirik (undated: 12) confirms that the leadership sees little difference between CNN and the Chinese media and cannot observe any inconsistency between providing a global news service and serving the state. His impression is supported by Zhao Qizheng in his book, How China Communicates (2012b). Zhao notes: the media enterprises founded by some entrepreneurs are themselves important vehicles and instruments for public diplomacy in the modern media environment. A perfect example is the Cable News Network (CNN), a powerful media organisation founded by Ted Turner . . . CNN broadcasts to the entire globe, exerts enormous influence, and undertakes the task of public diplomacy on the basis of the US’s national stance. (Zhao 2012b: 35, emphasis added) In claiming that CNN undertakes public diplomacy on behalf of the US’s position on global affairs, Zhao fails to understand that the network, like the BBC and Al-Jazeera, is editorially independent from the state, and therefore conveniently ignores one of the biggest problems facing China’s international broadcasting system – its indelible relationship to the institutions of power. His misunderstanding, however, does serve to remind us of how Chinese perceive international broadcasters, and this reinforces the reactive strategies adopted in Beijing. China’s commitment to growth reflects an abiding faith in the power of media and communications to overcome and possibly transform the attitudes and prejudices of audiences. The Chinese clearly believe that greater exposure to news, information and culture will have soft power benefits – that intangibles can be converted into tangible rewards. In other words, the Chinese are following the soft power maxim, ‘to know us is to love us’ which, as the Americans know to their cost since 9/11, does not succeed if the message and policy are not aligned. Simply adding more methods and platforms of communication (i.e. hardware) will achieve little if insufficient attention is devoted to the software, the message itself, and if there is doubt about the credibility of the source. In 2011, Zhao Qizheng concluded that the Chinese public diplomacy campaign ‘is not big enough’ (China Daily 2010). Mr Zhao needs reminding that in public diplomacy, size rarely matters. 466

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What does matter is the audience for China’s international programming and how watching CCTV or CNC persuades viewers to look at China in a more positive way. This is neither easy to achieve not easy to measure. CCTV’s claims about its audience size are questionable. The station maintains that it covers ‘98 percent of the world . . . with 45 million subscribers outside China’ (Zhang 2011: 63). However, as Xiaoling Zhang has noted, ‘CCTV has not conducted any systematic overseas audience research . . . but a three-year internet survey showed that 39 percent of the viewers were non-Chinese, with the majority (43 percent) of them from within China’ (Zhang 2011: 63). Audience figures cited by CCTV refer to the potential audience that may be able to access the station provided they subscribe to a satellite or cable package that includes its feed. There is simply no recent or reliable evidence to support CCTV’s claim that it has a global audience of 45 million.10 This indicates that China, like most governments around the world, obsesses about the outputs rather than the impacts of their soft power strategies: How many viewers does the international channel have? How many foreign students are studying in our higher education system? How much aid have we donated to a particular developing country? How many people went to see a movie? These are merely quantifiable measures of outputs and reveal nothing about impact: Did the film or television programme actually have any demonstrable effect on viewers’ attitudes or opinions towards the source? Outputs are a useful starting point to consider the impact of soft power instruments and they are understandably attractive to bureaucratic machineries fighting for resources and looking only at short-term horizons, but they do not and cannot measure human responses.

The issue of credibility Another, more pressing issue for China’s international broadcasters and those who would position them as part of a soft power strategy is the credibility of the source and the message. The issue of credibility is the foundation upon which any discussion of international political communications, public diplomacy and soft power must be based, for its absence reduces dramatically a country’s political, strategic and persuasive power. In Joseph Nye’s analysis of The Future of Power (2011), building and maintaining credibility is a key concern, for in today’s information environment, ‘political struggles occur over the creation and destruction of credibility’ (Nye 2011: 103). This is certainly a major anxiety for China which strains to build and preserve credibility in daily discourses about what the country’s rise means for its neighbours and the international community. The problem is amplified by the fact that credibility is largely defined and determined by others and how audiences interpret the (domestic and international) behaviour of nations and their governments. Hence, while politics ‘may ultimately be about whose story wins’ (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 1999: ix–x), Nye concludes that ‘narratives become the currency of hard power’ (Nye 2011: 104). As this chapter has suggested, China’s international communications have been designed primarily to help shape and manage global narratives about China, and to remedy what China sees as defects in the understanding of China by western media and in global opinion. However, there is a major disconnect between China’s soft power ambitions and the reality of China as perceived and/or experienced by the audiences watching (or not watching) CCTV and CNC. While the differences in news values between Chinese and western journalism must be considered, it is possibly too naive to explain negative views about China simply by detecting ‘anti-China bias’ in western news coverage. First, modern communication technologies blur the distinction between the domestic and the international domains. This means China’s previous formal separation of internal propaganda 467

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(duinei xuanchuan, for domestic audiences) and external propaganda (duiwai xuanchan, for foreign audiences inside and outside China, and for the overseas Chinese communities) is less meaningful as the information sphere expands. This opens up a number of significant avenues of enquiry that have consequences for China’s soft power and international broadcasting. For example, the Chinese government must acknowledge the impact on its communication strategies of the increasing number of non-Chinese who are proficient in speaking and reading the Chinese language. These language learners are in a strong position to detect any credibility gaps that may open across different media platforms and across messages intended for different audiences. The global flow of communications means that political actors are now addressing multiple audiences simultaneously, and that any contradictions in the messages have an impact on the source’s credibility. Writing about US public diplomacy after 9/11, Nye noted that ‘what appealed at home, failed abroad’ (Nye 2010: 5), and this can apply equally to China. This means the alignment of news and information is likely to become a priority. Of course, the irony here is that the much celebrated Confucius Institutes were created by the Chinese government with the express intention of increasing the spread of the language: might this strategy backfire in the long term? Moreover, the credibility of China’s soft power strategy is undermined by the exposure of contradictions in Chinese ambition, rhetoric and reality. This rests on the understanding that the power of communications rests less with the source than with the audience, the receiver of the message. This is even more important in the context of soft power and public diplomacy where communications assume a strategic purpose. As Nye (2004: 11) has observed, ‘soft power depends more than hard power upon the existence of willing interpreters and receivers’, and that its effects ‘depend heavily on acceptance by the receiving audience’. Perceptions about the government’s domestic behaviour and its response to human rights issues, calls for greater democracy and freedom of speech, the status of Taiwan and Tibet, etc. all sour the international assessment of China’s rise. Any political issue that is viewed unfavourably by the international community has natural repercussions for China’s soft power and raises concerns about the inconsistencies in the way China presents itself: The domestic political values, institutions, and political system are important considerations for a state’s soft power because all these things demonstrate how the ruling elite in that state use power on its own people. Such use of power in the domestic context can resonate in the international arena because people outside see and observe how foreign rulers treat their own nationals and associate that practice with their dealings in the international community. (Li 2009: 9) In other words, China experiences problems within the political realm which prevent policies, values and principles being as attractive as they might be otherwise.11 This dilemma was captured succinctly by Hongying Wang (2011: 52) who highlighted ‘the difficulty of effective image projection, especially in circumstances in which the targeted audience already views the image-projecting country poorly’. Or, as the editor of the Nanfang Daily newspaper, Yang Xifeng, has noted, China needs to escape a model of communications that has inhibited success, namely: ‘transmit but does not get through, get through but does not ensure acceptance’ (Siow 2012: 2). The problems are revealed by a number of opinion polls that suggest there is no correlation between expenditure on soft power activities, including international broadcasting, and positive changes in attitudes towards China.12 In fact, we have tended to see a reversal of fortune despite 468

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the huge soft power push engineered in Beijing, and one may conclude that the reversal is due to negative perceptions of China’s policy and behaviour (especially among China’s Asian neighbours). Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence from a range of places which are major destinations of Chinese investment – including Africa, Peru and Myanmar – suggests that there is strong local resistance to the Chinese economic and commercial push in the developing world (Radio Australia 2009). It is encouraging that even Chinese scholars understand the dilemmas of international engagement and address this issue in their work. As Beijing University’s Qingguo Jia has observed, it is ineffective and even counterproductive to use what he calls ‘the People’s Daily tone when explaining China to foreigners’. Jia noted that ‘telling China’s stories does not mean merely outlining the country’s accomplishments, but also detailing its shortcomings’ (quoted in Siow 2012: 2). This is not to ignore the fact that some of the country’s international media do try to offer a more critical reflection of modern China. Indeed, the picture is more complex than a simple authoritarian propaganda model may allow, and both Jirik (undated) and Brady (2008) present sketches of what used to be called CCTV-9 that suggest the station is not completely and merely a mouthpiece for government propaganda. Brady (2008: 167) comments, ‘as with other Chinese foreign propaganda mediums, the information presented in CCTV-9’s programs is sometimes allowed to take a more liberal line than that shown in Chinese-language information sources’. One senior executive whom Brady interviewed described CCTV-9 as engaging in ‘soft propaganda’ and enjoying ‘more room to push boundaries than other stations’ (Brady 2008: 167). However, at the same time journalists at CCTV-9 are still expected to contribute to the positive projection of China and can be reprimanded should they attempt to push the boundaries too far beyond the acceptable: In August 2005, a series of items reported factually on coal mining disasters in China; soon after the channel’s leaders received a warning from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that its reports were harming China’s international image. Following this incident, senior editorial staff and journalists were all forced to write self-criticisms. (Brady 2008: 167) As the controller of CCTV-9 noted in 2004, ‘We are taking greater efforts to minimise the tone of propaganda, to balance our reports, and to be objective. But we definitely won’t be reporting as much negative domestic news as the western media’ (Jirik undated: 14). This reinforces the Chinese idea of soft power as a positive force: ‘a state only attempts to display the good part of its culture that the outside world believes is enjoyable or agreeable and hides those elements that may cause uneasiness or misgivings in other states’ (Li 2009: 8). In Chapter 2 in the present volume, Colin Sparks notes that ‘some commentators on soft power have argued that this selective assessment is a necessary part of the exercise of international cultural influence since states attempt to filter their culture so that only attractive elements are visible’. While such selective assessment is understandable, it overlooks how the ability to accept criticism and engage in honest self-criticism is also a valuable source of soft power (Nye called this ‘meta soft power’). When China retreats into a fierce defensive mode that will not tolerate any criticism of its policies, position or behaviour, the lines between soft power and propaganda are blurred. When China’s international broadcasters are concerned only with projecting a positive portrait of the country, they damage their credibility. If the inconsistencies in message and perception are part of the explanation for the absence of credibility in China’s strategy to use international broadcasting as an instrument of its soft power, then we must also attend to the issues arising from the architecture of China’s soft power mechanisms. The structures give responsibility for fulfilling the government’s agenda and vision 469

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to agencies like CCTV and Xinhua which are firmly embedded in the state system, or which are answerable to China’s political authorities, most notably the State Council Information Office, the CCP’s Office of External Publicity, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Brady 2008). This means that the popular perception of China’s international communications is one of propaganda; and hence in many parts of the world there may be natural scepticism and even hostility towards the soft power strategies directed by the Chinese government. As the Chinese case demonstrates, even labels are subject to audience discretion; whether an act of communication is propaganda, public diplomacy or soft power is not in the power of governments or academics to decide, but rather depends on the receiver of the message and how they may interpret or contextualise it. The CCP may have rebranded the English name of its Propaganda Department to the Publicity Bureau, but a name change has little effect on audience tastes unless the product also changes.

Ventriloquising of global media A third issue that damages the credibility of China’s soft power push is the hidden investment by the Chinese state in media organisations around the world. One commentator, William Mackenzie (2012), has described the ‘undisclosed, international subsidiaries of Chinese state media acting as independent foreign media’, and labelled this the ‘ventriloquising of global media’. These concerns were sparked by revelations that Andrea Yu, who was accused of ‘softballing’ questions to CCP officials during the 18th Party Congress in November 2012, works for a media company based in Australia, Global CAMG Media. This company is actually majorityowned by China Radio International (CRI). Meanwhile, CRI also finances Finland-based Futuvision Media and ‘produces Chinese state-sponsored content in twenty languages, runs offices in Paris and Milan, and broadcasts [CCP] friendly content from northern and eastern Europe to the Middle East’ (Mackenzie, 2012); and Chinese media offer free content to indigenous news organisations, especially in Africa, and training and exchange opportunities for journalists: More than 200 African government officers received Chinese training between 2004 and 2011 in order to produce what the Communist Party propaganda chief, Li Changchun, described as ‘truthful’ coverage of development supported by China’s activities. This has been backed by an extensive programme of infrastructure development, with everything from satellite equipment for Ugandan television, to building work for Equatorial Guinea radio. (Plaut 2012) Wan Sucheng, chairman of the Hong Kong-based newspaper, Wenweipo (which itself receives funding from the CCP), alluded to the public diplomacy problems associated with this kind of investment: ‘The point for most concern’, he told CRI in November 2012, ‘is that these “foreign” sources are then played back to viewers in China, giving them the impression that the rest of the world agrees with the party’ (Mackenzie 2012). In other words, these practices are consistent with a distinct Chinese approach to public diplomacy that involves the domestic, as much as the international, audience. Edney directs our attention to the way the Chinese see diplomacy ‘as an extension of domestic politics’ (Edney 2012: 907, quoting the Chinese foreign minister). Hence China’s soft power push overseas helps ‘shape a public environment conducive to the pursuit of the CCP’s domestic political agenda’ (Edney 2012: 907). However, the problems with the strategy of secretly subsidising foreign media are two-fold: (1) it distorts international opinion about China and prevents the Chinese from becoming acquainted with an accurate understanding of how China is seen abroad. The challenge is then 470

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how to use this distorted intelligence to design a more persuasive public diplomacy programme; and (2) revelations about such practices merely feed international suspicion, especially in the liberal democracies, about Chinese propaganda: insidious, deceptive and sponsored by the CCP. In other words, these activities simply reinforce existing prejudices about China, the very prejudices that China’s soft power and public diplomacy wish to overturn.

Conclusions In the American television show Mad Men, the central character Don Draper advises the creative staff at his Madison Avenue advertising agency: ‘If you don’t like what they’re saying, change the conversation.’ Transformations in the media and communications landscape, together with the rapid proliferation of so-called ‘social media’ – which are difficult and expensive both to monitor and manage – have persuaded governments that old-fashioned methods of controlling information are no longer efficient or effective (Morozov 2011). Rather, governments concerned about the circulation of news, information and culture into and within their countries have grasped the value of trying to manage the narrative itself – of changing the conversation. As this chapter has emphasised, China’s international broadcasting strategy, designed to support the government’s public diplomacy campaign and soft power push, has been primarily concerned with changing the global conversation about China. However, what works on Madison Avenue or is helpful to governments working within the domestic arena may not work so well at the international level. There are five key reasons why China encounters problems in trying to manage the global conversation. First, the power and scope of the conversation is not under China’s control, but rather resides in the audience. China is not able to determine or guarantee how the audience for its international broadcasts will decode the meaning of messages according to their prevailing cultural, social and political beliefs, attitudes and norms. Second, the audience’s image of China is conditioned by the politics of the country: the authoritarian political system, a flaccid approach to human rights, the rise of an aggressive style of nationalism, the treatment of dissidents, China’s behaviour towards Tibet, continued intransigence on the status of democratic Taiwan and problems in domestic governance (especially political corruption). All of these issues explain the cognitive dissonance (the psychological processing of information which conflicts with existing knowledge or values) that prevents the ready acceptance of more positive images of China. The third problem in China’s strategy follows the second. China’s public diplomacy activities strain to achieve credibility. Merely adding more communication platforms or creating new broadcast stations will not solve what remains essentially a software problem. The message suffers because of the product it is trying to sell, not because the effort to sell it is too small. Fourth, the public diplomacy architecture, with the international broadcasters securely embedded within the political system, reinforces popular suspicion that the Chinese are engaged in state-sponsored propaganda. Although they are able to push the boundaries of acceptability a little further than the domestic media, the international broadcasting stations are still required to follow the official line when reporting news that involves China or Chinese interests. Moreover, audience mistrust is only amplified by revelations of secret subsidies paid to media organisations in other countries whose stories then provide the Chinese with a distorted and therefore meaningless picture of international opinion about China. If these reports are used in the construction of China’s public diplomacy, then the problems are only aggravated. Fifth, China’s international broadcasters are considered by the leadership as a remedy for the apparent defects in the global flow of information. Echoing the ‘cultural imperialism’ theory 471

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that was fashionable in the 1970s, the Chinese observe news, information and culture flowing in one direction only: from the developed to the under-developed countries, or from west to east. Moreover, at the heart of cultural imperialism lies a belief that power over the global flow of news and information translates into strategic and political power. However, the continued relevance of this theory is open to discussion, since culture and information no longer flow north–south or west–east, but are multi-directional and allow for a greater number of regional voices that challenge a supposed ‘western hegemony’. This returns our discussion to the second and third points above: if CCTV or CNC cannot capture global audiences of the size to which they aspire, it may have something to do with the product they sell, rather than their being denied access to the international media sphere. After all, China does now have a voice, but that voice is failing to provide a credible alternative to other news channels, such as the BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera. One reason is again the prevalence of state influence in programming. Moreover, John Jirik’s content analysis of CCTV-I discovered not only the continued domination of foreign news agency material, but also a ‘restricted range of places, voices and institutions in the news’, and concluded that ‘CCTV-I offered not so much a window on China, as a window on power’ in China (Jirik undated: 24). The principal problem is that the strategic motivation for China to engage in soft power is unclear: power to do what? Over whom? Is changing the conversation a sufficiently ambitious project to vindicate the resources China spends on its soft power activities? Soft power should not be considered merely as a way of creating a positive image, as if China can be branded like any commodity in the supermarket. There is a danger, warns McConnell, of ‘talking about soft power as if it were simply a popularity contest among nations’ (McConnell 2008: 24–7). The dilemma for China is how to embed its international broadcasting agents within a soft power design that might go beyond the limited ambition of changing the global conversation and fulfil tangible and political objectives.

Notes 1 Speaking on ‘comprehensive national power’ in 2006, President Hu Jintao noted that ‘the enhancement of China’s international status and international influence must be reflected both in hard power including the economy, science and technology, and national defense power and in soft power such as culture’ (quoted in Li 2009: 23). 2 Zahran and Ramos (2010: 17) provide a theoretical critique that addresses the problems of distinguishing between hard and soft power. 3 Notable studies on Chinese soft power in English that help advance this de-westernisation include Ding (2008), d’Hooghe (2011: 163–90), Barr (2011), Wang (2011), Breslin (2011), Li (2009), Zhao (2012a; 2012b); a chapter on China by Hayden (2012) and essays by Yan, Hunter and Li in a special issue of the Chinese Journal of International Politics co-edited by Sun et al. (2010). A useful survey of the development of soft power discourses in Chinese is provided by Young and Jeong (2008: 453–72). 4 Nye has contested the idea of exceptionalism in his theory of soft power: ‘Some critics think that I believe the American way of life is so attractive that others are predisposed to follow Washington’s lead . . . On the contrary, much of my writing has been to warn policymakers that they cannot take American attraction as given, and that they are squandering soft power’ (Nye 2008: x). 5 Li (2009: 294) analyses Chinese discourses about the domination of international media and culture by the USA and the prevalence of the term ‘cultural hegemony’ as a descriptor. 6 Zhao is credited with professionalising the work of the SCIO where he ‘increased the frequency of press conferences; he urged Chinese officials to be more accommodating towards journalists; he reinstated the use of English at press conferences; and he introduced the risky western-style approach of speaking off the record in Beijing’ (d’Hooghe 2008: 5). 7 CCTV’s 24-hour English-language service – CCTV-9 or, from 2004, CCTV International – was established in 2000, and rebranded as CCTV-News in 2010. Spanish was added in 2004; French in 2008; and Arabic and Russian in 2009 (also see Hong and Liu, Chapter 26 in this volume). 472

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8 ‘China has also implemented other innovative media projects, like giant news screens in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and thousands of scholarships for African journalists . . . Xinhua has also partnered with a Kenyan mobile firm to provide news services for mobiles’ (BBC 2012). 9 In 2006, Cai Wu, the Minister of Culture, expressed concern that ‘currently, western countries direct world culture and the speech rights of international public opinion’ (Edney 2012: 912). On cultural imperialism, also see Sparks, Chapter 2 in this volume. 10 www.cctv.com/english/20090123/107144/shtml (undated, accessed 15 May 2010). 11 China is not alone in this. In fact the behaviour at home and abroad of many liberal democracies often contradicts and undermines the very soft power principles they claim in their rhetoric. Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the debates about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in the run-up to the war against Iraq in 2003 all challenged American soft power and had a negative impact on America’s image and attractive value. For audiences affected by American policy and socialised by anti-US narratives, ‘Presidential rhetoric about promoting democracy is less convincing than pictures of Abu Ghraib’ (Nye 2010: 8). 12 See the following surveys for further details: BBC World Service (2005); Brown and Wu (2009); Pew Research Center (2010); and BBC World Service (2011).

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Appendix Chinese dynasties at a glance

The Shang Dynasty, 商／商 (c.1523–1027 BC) The Western Zhou, 西周／西周 (c.1027–771 BC) The Eastern Zhou, 东周／東周 (771–476 BC) The Warring States period, 战国时代／戰國時代 (c.475–221 BC) The Qin Dynasty, 秦／秦 (221–206 BC) The Western Han Dynasty, 西汉／西漢 (206 BC–AD 9) The Xin (New) Dynasty, 新朝／新朝 (9–25) The Eastern Han Dynasty, 东汉／東漢 (25–220) Partition: Three Kingdoms, 三国／三國 (220–589) The Sui Dynasty, 隋／隋 (581–618) The Tang Dynasty, 唐／唐 (618–907) Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, 五代十国／五代十國 (907–79) The Northern Song Dynasty, 北宋／北宋 (960–1127) The Southern Song Dynasty, 南宋／南宋 (1127–1279) The Yuan Dynasty, 元／元 (1271–1368) The Ming Dynasty, 明／明 (1368–1644) The Qing Dynasty, 清／清 (1644–1911)

476

Chinese glossary Selected Chinese names and terms

1966: Wode hongweibing shidai 1966: 我的红卫兵时代／我的紅衛兵時代 aiguo zhuyi 爱国主义／愛國主義 A Nuo 阿诺／阿諾 Asia Television (ATV) 亚洲电视／亞洲電視 Baijia gushi tai 百家故事台／百家故事台 baogao wenxue 报告文学／報告文學 baoren banbao 报人办报／報人辦報 Ba qingchun xiangei nongcun 把青春献给农村／把青春獻給農村 barong bachi 八荣八耻／八榮八恥 Beijing Shangzao yingshi gongsi 北京上造影视公司／北京上造影視公司 Bi an 彼岸／彼岸 Bojue furen 伯爵夫人／伯爵夫人 Bo Xilai 薄熙来／薄熙來 Bu bu jing xin 步步惊心／步步驚心 ca bian qiu 擦边球／擦邊球 Caijing 财经／財經 chanye 产业／產業 Chaoji nansheng 超级男声／超級男聲 Chaoji nüsheng 超级女声／超級女聲 Chengtian yule 橙天娱乐／橙天娛樂 China Central Television (CCTV) 中央电视台／中央電視台 China Television Company (CTV) 中视／中視 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 中国共产党／中國共產黨 Chinese Television System (CTS) 华视／華視 Chongqing haoren 重庆好人／重慶好人 Chongqing Satellite TV (CSTV) 重庆卫视／重慶衛視 Chongqing TV Station (CQTV) 重庆电视台／重慶電視台 chuanyue dianshiju 穿越电视剧／穿越電視劇 Cunmin de xuanze 村民的选择／村民的選擇 Da guo jue qi 大国崛起／大國崛起 477

Chinese glossary

Dao nongcun qu 到农村去／到農村去 Dazai zhilu 大寨之路／大寨之路 dazhe hongqi fan hongqi 打着红旗反红旗／打著紅旗反紅旗 dazhongguo xiangxiang 大中国想象／大中國想像 dazibao 大字报／大字報 Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) 民进党／民進黨 Deng Xiaoping 邓小平／鄧小平 diceng 底层／底層 Dongfang shikong 东方时空／東方時空 Duan Jinchuan 段锦川／段錦川 dubo quan 独播权／獨播權 duinei xuanchuan 对内宣传／對內宣傳 duiwai xuanchuan 对外宣传／對外宣傳 egao 恶搞／惡搞 Eryuehe 二月河／二月河 Fajia 法家／法家 Falun Gong 法轮功／法輪功 fanshen 翻身／翻身 Fengwang 封网／封網 fengxian xing 风险性／風險性 Fu Le 傅乐／傅樂 Fuxing zhilu 复兴之路／復興之路 Ganxiang gangan de dazai ren 敢想敢干的大寨人／敢想敢幹的大寨人 gaofei 稿费／稿費 gonggong dianshi 公共电视／公共電視 gonggong pindao 公共频道／公共頻道 Gongsi de liliang 公司的力量／公司的力量 gongyi dianshi 公益电视／公益電視 gongyi pindao 公益频道／公益頻道 Gugong 故宫／故宮 Haizi wang 孩子王／孩子王 Hanwu dadi 汉武大帝／漢武大帝 He shang 河殇／河殤 He Shen 和绅／和珅 hexie shehui 和谐社会／和諧社會 Hong lou meng 红楼梦／紅樓夢 Hongqi qu 红旗渠／紅旗渠 Hua er jie 华尔街／華爾街 Huang he 黄河／黃河 Huanzhu gege 还珠格格／還珠格格 Huashuo changjiang 话说长江／話說長江 Huashuo yunhe 话说运河／話說運河 Huaxi dushi bao 华西都市报／華西都市報 Hu Jintao 胡锦涛／胡錦濤 Jiang Zemin 江泽民／江澤民 jiefa xing 揭发性／揭發性 jiehei baodao 揭黑报导／揭黑報導 jijuqu 集聚区／集聚區 478

Chinese glossary

Jilupian bianjishi 纪录片编辑室／紀錄片編輯室 Jin zhuan zhi guo 金砖之国／金磚之國 jishi zhuyi 纪实主义／紀實主義 juweihui 居委会／居委會 Kangxi dadi 康熙大帝／康熙大帝 Kangxi laile 康熙来了／康熙來了 Kang Youwei 康有为／康有為 keju 科举／科舉 koujing 口径／口徑 Kuaile dabenying 快乐大本营／快樂大本營 Kuomintang (KMT) 国民党／國民黨 laodong 劳动／勞動 Liang Qichao 梁启超／梁啟超 Liaozhai zhiyi 聊斋志异／聊齋誌異 Ling Jiefang 凌解放／凌解放 Liulang Beijing: zuihou de mengxiang zhe 流浪北京：最后的梦想者／流浪北京：最後的夢想者 Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇／劉少奇 Liu Yong 刘墉／劉墉 Luopao tianxin 落跑甜心／落跑甜心 Meigui zhiyue 玫瑰之约／玫瑰之約 minben 民本／民本 minjian 民间／民間 minying dianshi 民营电视／民營電視 minyun 民运／民運 Modai huangdi 末代皇帝／末代皇帝 Nanfang baoye chuanmei jituan 南方报业传媒集团／南方報業傳媒集團 Nanfang dushi bao 南方都市报／南方都市報 Nanfang zhoumo 南方周末／南方周末 nanxun 南巡／南巡 netizen (wangmin) 网民／網民 nong min gong 农民工／農民工 People’s Daily 人民日报／人民日報 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 中华人民共和国／中華人民共和國 PeoPo 公民新闻／公民新聞 paike 拍客／拍客 Pin du 品读／品讀 pingheng baodao 平衡报导／平衡報導 Public Television Service (PTS) 公视／公視 Qianlong 乾隆／乾隆 qianze xing 谴责性／譴責性 Qin Shihuang 秦始皇／秦始皇 qishi xing 启示性／啟示性 qiye 企业／企業 qunzhong 群众／群眾 Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) 香港电台／香港電台 renmin gongshe 人民公社／人民公社 renrou sousuo 人肉搜索／人肉搜索 ruan quanli 软权力／軟權力 479

Chinese glossary

ruan shili 软实力／軟實力 Rujia 儒家／儒家 ruoshi qunti 弱势群体／弱勢群體 san dang hui shen 三堂会审／三堂會審 Sanduotang yingshi guanggao gongsi 三多堂影视广告有限公司／三多堂影視廣告有限公司 Sanguo yanyi 三国演义／三國演義 Sanlian shenghuo zhoukan 三联生活周刊／三聯生活週刊 Sanxia Yimin 三峡移民／三峽移民 Shanghai Geming 上海革命／上海革命 shangren banbao 商人办报／商人辦報 Shaonian tianzi 少年天子／少年天子 Shengcun datiaozhan 生存大挑战／生存大挑戰 Shijie lishi 世界历史／世界歷史 Shijin babao fan 什锦八宝饭／什錦八寶飯 shiye 事业／事業 shiye danwei, qiye guanli 事业单位，企业管理／事業單位，企業管理 Shouzuyuan 收租院／收租院 shuojiao xing 说教性／說教性 Sichou zilu 丝绸之路／絲綢之路 Star TV satellite (Xingkong weishi) 星空卫视／星空衛視 State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) 国家新闻 出版广电总局／國家新聞出版廣電總局

State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) 国家广播电影电视总局／國家廣播 電影電視總局

suzhi 素质／素質 Taiwan Broadcasting System 台湾公广集团／台灣公廣集團 Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) 台视／台視 Tiananmen 天安门／天安門 Tianlong babu 天龙八部／天龍八部 Tiantian hongge hui 天天红歌会／天天紅歌會 Tie guniang guo fenglian 铁姑娘郭凤莲／鐵姑娘郭鳳蓮 Tieren hai zai zhandou 铁人还在战斗／鐵人還在戰鬥 Tu Wei-ming 杜维明／杜維明 Wang changcheng 望长城／望長城 wangmin (netizen) 网民／網民 Wangguo gongbao 万国公报／萬國公報 Wanmei jiaqi 完美假期／完美假期 weibo 微博／微博 Weida de tudi gaige 伟大的土地改革／偉大的土地改革 wenhua re 文化热／文化熱 Wen Jiabao 温家宝／溫家寶 wenren banbao 文人办报／文人辦報 Wo biye le 我毕业了／我畢業了 Wocai wocai wo caicaicai 我猜我猜我猜猜猜／我猜我猜我猜猜猜 Wo si chuanqi 我是传奇／我是傳奇 Wretch 无名小站／無名小站 Wuhan zhanzheng 武汉战争／武漢戰爭 Wu ji 无极／無極 480

Chinese glossary

Wumaodang (fifty cent party) 五毛党／五毛黨 Wu Wenguang 吴文光／吳文光 wuxian dianshi minzhu hua lianmeng 无线电视民主化联盟／無線電視民主化聯盟 Xiangshang ba, shaonian 向上吧！少年／向上吧！少年 Xi Jinping 习近平／習近平 Xingkong weishi (Star Satellite TV) 星空卫视／星空衛視 Xinhuamian yingye 新画面影业／新畫面影業 xin jilu yundong 新记录运动／新紀錄運動 Xinwen diaocha 新闻调查／新聞調查 xishuo ju 戏说剧／戲說劇 Xishuo qianlong 戏说乾隆／戲說乾隆 Xi you ji 西游记／西遊記 Xuanchuanbu 宣传部／宣傳部 Yangcheng wanbao 羊城晚报／羊城晚報 yidi jiandu 异地监督／異地監督 Yige aizibing huanzhe de mingyun 一个艾滋病患者的命运／ㄧ個愛滋病患者的命運 Ying Zheng 赢政／贏政 Yongzheng huangdi 雍正皇帝／雍正皇帝 yuan shengtai 原生态／原生態 yulun daoxiang 舆论导向／輿論導向 yulun jiandu 舆论监督／輿論監督 Zaixiang liuluoguo 宰相刘罗锅／宰相劉羅鍋 Zeng Guofan 曾国藩／曾國藩 Zhang Yuan 张元／張元 Zhao Ziyang 赵紫阳／趙紫陽 zhengming 正名／正名 zhengshuo ju 正说剧／正說劇 Zhongguo jingji shibao 中国经济时报／中國經濟時報 Zhongguo keyi shuobu 中国可以说不／中國可以說不 Zhongguo qikan wang 中国期刊网／中國期刊網 Zhongguo qingnian bao 中国青年报／中國青年報 Zhonghua shiji tan 中华世纪坛／中華世紀壇 Zhong xuan bu 中宣部／中宣布 Zhongyang guangbo shiye ju 中央广播事业局／中央廣播事業局 Zhongyang xinying jituan 中央新影集团／中央新影集團 Zhou Enlai 周恩来／周恩來 Zhu xuan lu 主旋律／主旋律 Zhu Ying 朱影／朱影 zi pai 自拍／自拍 zonghe guoli 综合国力／綜合國力 Zouxiang gonghe 走向共和／走向共和

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482

Index activism 218, 226–27, 241 advertising 167, 300 agency-structure debate 93–4 agenda setting 253–4, 257–8 Ai, Weiwei 147, 220–4 Al-Jazeera 40, 466, 472 Allen, Young 69–73 anti-imperialism 204, 435 anti-communism 50, 430, 435 Arab Spring 23–4, 164, 228, 336 Atlantic alliance 16 autonomy: of media 10, 250–1, 289, 342, 390; of press 79, 81–5, 135, 253–61; of power 34–7, 282; see also power BBC 33, 40, 127, 283–5, 293, 408 Beijing Daily 122, 126–7, 455 Beijing Olympics 55, 206, 212–13, 392–9 Bo, Xilai 24, 299, 305 branding strategy 307, 347–8 capitalism: and democracy 10–12, 16–17, 25, 452; digital 15, 218; power 21, 217; class struggle 12–13, 364, 429, 435–6 CBS 84, 436–7 CCTV 39–41, 55, 101, 107, 300–1, 304, 346–50, 366–9, 380, 392–3, 431–3, 440–2, 456, 467–70 Central Propaganda Department (CPD) of the Chinese Communist Party 54–6, 82, 93, 110, 124–6, see also leadership censorship: as political control 47–8, 126–7, 189–90, 211, 317, see also legitimacy; broadcast 120–2, 348, 359, 379–81; cyberspace 181–92, 209, 214, 219–21; online games 332–3, 336–7; press 75, 86, 94, 127–8, 169; self-censorship 2, 24, 89, 92–3, 132–41, 404; systemic structure 133–5, 192, 250, 324–5; resistance against 225–7 Chinese Communist Party (CCP): authoritarianism 17, 21, 121–2; doctrine

48–9, 51, 208, 373; use media as mouthpiece 20, 85, 106–7, 120–1, 193, 209, 341–2, 364–5, 450; party-state control over media content 24–5, 251, 331, 336–7, 363–64, 469; see also Central Propaganda Department Chinese Dream 27, 43, 93 Chomsky, Noam 34, 40, 109, 169 civilization: Chinese 47, 360; material and spiritual 49–50; print 67 civil society 138–41, 225 Codes of Ethics 40, 52, 169, 316 cognitive development 268, 471 Cold War 12–18, 28, 36, 359, 373, 454 commercialisation: companies 30–1; competition 41, 85, 117, 120, 285, 298; de-commercialisation 15, 305–7; of internet 333–4; of media industry 341–3, 345, 351, 355–8; of television 298, 342, 365–6, 377, 386, 403–7; profit maximization 122, 285, 298, 346, 449; state-directed 10–11 Communism: regimes 16, 24, 50, 75; Maoist class struggle 12–13, 20, 79, 336, 429; Marxist ideology 21; see also Marxism conflict: class 240, 245–8, 260–1; culture 36; cyber 217; ethnic 24, 228, 232; interest 108–9, 232, 253; political 23, 48, 138, 207 Confucianism: as China’s cultural resource 39, 385–6, 462; as philosophy 38, 49–50, 204, 316–19, 357, 372–5; Confucius Institutes 39, 468 conglomeration 80–5, 342–3, 407–8 copyright laws 56–7, 233–4, 315–19 corruption 50, 57–9, 70, 88–9, 102–6, 142, 186, 218–19, 226–8, 305, 373, 450–1 CNN 33, 39, 161, 432, 466 creative economy 316–7, 321–3 cultural ambition 42–3 cultural imperialism 4, 28–37, 463–5, 471–2 cultural industries 41, 283, 315, 331, 345–6, 351 483

Index

cultural resources 36–9, 292–3 Cultural Revolution 13, 21, 107, 219, 381, 427–30, 452, see also Mao Zedong democratisation 15–19, 142, 196–7, 224, 256, 285–9, 342 Democracy Wall 13–14, 51 Deng, Xiaoping: Open Door policy 305, 319–21; reform-era 10, 51, 205, 228, 358; pro-democracy movement 51, 107; reform movement 13, 21, 49–50, 91; reformist newspapers 107, 359–62; reform-and-opening 13, 81, 442–3; digital media 181–2, 192–7, 305, 316–24 discursive discourse 21–2, 152–4, 240–6, 375, 405–6, 420 division of labour 85–7, 390–1 dynasty: Han 51, 373, 380; Qin 372, 380; Qing 51, 73, 204, 317, 356, 372–9; Song 317, 325; Sui 316; see also Qin, Shihuang education 14, 32–4, 52–4, 68–71, 141, 182–3, 205–7, 232, 252, 383–6, 410 Egypt 23, 164–5, 428–9, 431 emancipation 16, 74, 81–2, 266–7 Falun Gong movement 19, 133, 220, 232–3, 443 film production 37, 57, 321, 346, 403 Foucault 10, 18, 175–6, see also hegemony Fordist production 407–8 freedom of expression: legislation 48–56; press freedom 10, 13,75, 109, 131–5, 140–2, 251

Hong Kong: colonial 406–7; conflict with Chinese government 2, 5, 22, 403–4, 414; cultural integration 138–9; social mobilization 145, 147, 149–54, see also mobilisation Hu, Jintao 87, 107–8, 192, 209, 373–4, 466 Human Rights 59, 206–7, 212, 223, 236–7, 405–6, 468, 471 identity: formation 211–12, 270–2; journalist 83, 86, 106, 137, 164, 172; national 204–6, 232–3; online 196; political, social, subaltern 240–7, 259; intellectual property: piracy and copyright theft 37, 59; IPR 42, 315–25 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 18 internet 2–3, 19–20, 22, 48, 54–6, 106, 154–5, 163–4, 181–92, 203–4, 208–10, 230 Iraq 28–9, 34, 100, 461–2 Japan 16, 49, 166, 190, 204, 233, 267, 333, 408, 413, 428, 436–7 Jiang, Zemin 87, 107, 220, 373, 465 journalism: citizen 4, 161–6, 170–4, 184, 188–9; Chinese elite 67–8, 72–3; industry 59; investigative 24, 80–3, 91–3, 100–3, 106; objectivity/objective report 10–11, 89, 132–4, 140–2, 165, 257–8, 356; professional 23–4, 82–4, 89; tabloid 88, 124–6, 189, 253, 412, 449 Kang, Youwei 68, 70–3 Korean War 50–1

GATT 41 globalization 2–3, 29, 131, 342–3, 442–3 Google 169, 233 governance: crisis in 58–9, 139, 219; electronic 217; media 47–8; supervision of 54, 91, 256, 300, 334 Great Firewall 183, 221, 227 Great Leap Forward 51, 362 Guangdong Daily 80–2, 347 Guangzhou Daily 83–4, 119, 346 Guo, Meimei 104–5

leadership 35, 48–55, 81–2, 94, 206, 240–1, 308, 357, 373–4, 399, 455–6 legitimacy: culture 41, 49, 52, 367, 461–2; policy 252–3, 256; protest action 150–2, see also protest; ruling party 82, 88, 120, 131, 135, 196, 211–12, 226–7, 246, 255–7, 373, see also censorship Leninism 21, 48, 51, 54, 205, 364, 429, 435, 455 Li, Changchun 49, 82, 223, 470 Liang, Qichao 70, 73–4, 204 liberal press theory 10, 14 Liu, Shaoqi 107, 366

Habermas, Jugen 250–2 Harmonious Society 90, 192, 253–4, 304, 368, 373 hegemony: China 21, 152, 227, 241–2, 381, 420; America 12–13, 464–5, 472; see also Foucault Hollywood 31, 33–4, 41, 58, 345, 351

Mao Zedong: building authoritarian 318; media content 79; Maoism 20, 79, 336; Utopia 12, 22, 361 Marxism 12, 52, 92, 205, 241–2, 247–8, 359, 429, 435 see also Communism May Fourth movement 12, 360 mercantilism 41–2

484

Index

Middle East 23, 39, 348, 470 Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China 54, 183, 333 modernization 12–13, 21, 24, 49–51, 71, 205, 219, 241, 315, 466 Murdoch, Rupert 42, 243–4, 283, 440

monitoring function 52–3; netizens 105, 111, 139–40, 183–4, 196, 209–11, 255; polls 134, 138, 147–8; responsiveness to 11, 213–14, 275 Public Service Broadcasting 3–4, 166, 283–5, 293–4, 298–9, 302–7

Nanfang (Southern) group 23, 79–81, 83–7, see also Southern Weekend National People Congress of China 22, 27, 52, 106, 108, 125, 136, 220, 255, 319, 354, 374 nationalism 14, 137, 203–8, 210–14, 226–7, 231–2, 367, 471 New Enlightment 12–13, 19, 21 New Life movement 52 New Media 2, 112, 141, 150–8, 193, 242–4, 349, 355, 377, see also internet New York Times 22, 84, 165, 220 NHK 162, 286 Nye, Joseph 27–9, 37, 461–4, 467–8

Qin, Shihuang 51

Opium War 68 organisational culture 81–4, 86–7, 92–3 ownership 41, 53–4, 120–1, 123, 128, 133, 240, 292, 304, 343, 351 People’s Daily 55, 122, 124, 193, 209, 253–61, 469 persuasion 30, 50, 136, 155, 362, 461–3 political economy: critical 11–12; marketization 107, 281, 361, 403, 409; state-capital collaboration 321, 331, 337; state-market relationship 11, 82, 129, 301, 442–3 political participation 21, 49, 139, 154–5, 181–2, 193–6 post-modernism 12, 21 power: global shift 14–15, 17–18, 23; pluralism 35, 81; tripartite 30, 82, 94; resistance 30, 70, 134–5, 214, 226–9, 404–6, 419–20, 469; soft 23, 27–9, 31–7, 137–8, 244, 440–3, 461–7 propaganda 5, 39–40, 53, 79, 91–2, 117–21, 193, 205–9, 245–6, 301–2, 337, 343, 355, 359, 377, 419–20, 429–9, 452, 169–70 protest 18–19, 43, 53, 86, 93, 123–6, 135–41, 145–56, 164, 173, 188–91, 210–4, 224–43, 281, 360 public diplomacy 32–4, 40, 392, 461, 464, 466–7 public opinion: attitudes of 74, 155, 208, 219, 321, 368, 382, 466; consensus in 49, 282, 330, 337; discontent of 135, 145, 192, 214, 218, 261, 337; expression of 22, 48, 119, 134, 140, 187, 191, 242,261, 273–4, 416; favourable 33, 243–4, 271, 410, 464;

realism 31, 364–5, 377 Red Cross 104–5 religion: Christianity 67, 69, 373; Islam 29, 232; Buddhism 19, 33–4 Sina 54–5, see also weibo Sino-Japanese War 68, 70, 211 Sino-Soviet War 204 Shanghai Expo 57 Shiwu Bao 74–5 Snowden, Edward 23 social media 2–3, 47, 57–8, 102–3, 154–5, 164–5, 181–5, 193–6, 224–5, 243–4, 336–7, see also internet social responsibility 72, 83, 172, 257, 308, 362 socialism: common prosperity 24; theories 52–3; vs capitalism 18–20, 22, 362, 367–8; with Chinese characteristics 22, 252, 368, 373, see also Communism; Marxism Southern Weekend 79, 101, 106, 255–61, see also Nanfang group Soviet Union 16, 24, 30–1, 36, 205, 318, 427, 434 State Council Information Office of China State Administration of Film, Radio and Television (SARFT) or State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) 40–1, 50, 298, 300–2, 349, 351, 379–80, 433, 465 Taiwan: independence 290, 133, 138; Sunflower movement 3; transition 281–2, 285 Taoism 19 technological developments 57, 69, 233 Tiananmen Square incident 3, 53, 133, 139, 146, 236, 373–4, 465 Tibet 38–9, 106, 191, 206–7, 232–3, 292, 428, 468 Thatcher, Margaret 14, 460 Third World 12, 23 totalitarianism 121–2, 298, 336, 386 transnationalism 14–15, 18, 218, 223, 232, 342 TVB 139–40, 347, 407–8, 412–13 485

Index

universalism 252, 261 urbanization 23, 239 US-China relations: economic 15, 352; China’s rise 29; cultural relationship 28–9, 32–3, 38, 41–3; rapprochement 447–8, 452 United States Information Agency (USIA) 34

Washington Consensus 38 Washington Post 84, 451 Watergate 110, 455 weibo , 56, 104, 187–93, see also Sina World Trade Organisation (WTO) 17, 41, 59, 319, 331, 347, 336

Wall Street Occupation 23, 362 Wang, Hui 18, 22–3 Wanguo Gongbao 68–75

Xi, Jinping 24, 27, 44, 362 Xinhua 33, 54, 123–8, 447–8, 453, 465–70 Xunhuan Daily 72–3

486