Entertainment and Politics in Contemporary China

Entertainment and Politics in Contemporary China
Author: Jingsi Christina Wu
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2017-08-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319482645

This book advances research about China by providing an updated narrative of its entertainment life in the beginning of China’s twenty-first century. As the rest of the world continues to pay keen attention to developments in China’s politics, economy, and culture, the book provides insights on fascinating new developments in contemporary Chinese popular culture—including its reality television, family dramas centered around younger generations’ life struggles, and social media. Furthermore, Entertainment and Politics in Contemporary China is the first book to apply the theoretical innovation of an aesthetic public sphere in examining closely the linkages between China’s political life and activities in the country’s culture sphere. Since concepts of public sphere and democracy largely took root from the West, Wu argues that this case study of China promises valuable insights about entertainment’s role in the formation of citizenship and building of a civil society, which remains a site of great contention in Western theories and empirical efforts.

Television Drama in Contemporary China

Television Drama in Contemporary China
Author: Shenshen Cai
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317239520

Due to high audience numbers and the significant influence upon the opinions and values of viewers, the political leadership in China attributes great importance to the impact of television dramas. Many successful TV serials have served as useful conduits to disseminate official rhetoric and mainstream ideology, and they also offer a rich area of research by providing insight into the changing Chinese political, social and cultural context. This book examines a group of recently released TV drama serials in China which focus upon, and to various degrees represent, topical political, social and cultural phenomena. Some of the selected TV serials reflect the present ideological proclivities of the Chinese government, whilst others mirror social and cultural occurrences or provide coded and thought-provoking messages on China’s socio-economic and political reality. Through in-depth textual analysis of the plots, scenes and characters of these selected TV serials, the book provides timely interpretations of contemporary Chinese society, its political inclinations, social fashions and cultural tendencies. The book also demonstrates how popular media narratives of TV drama serials engage with sensitive civic issues and cultural phenomena of modern-day China, which in turn encourages a broader social imagination and potential for change. Advancing our understanding of contemporary China, this book will appeal to students and scholars of contemporary Chinese culture, society and politics, as well as those with research interests in television studies more generally.

Television Drama in Contemporary China

Television Drama in Contemporary China
Author: Shenshen Cai
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317239512

Due to high audience numbers and the significant influence upon the opinions and values of viewers, the political leadership in China attributes great importance to the impact of television dramas. Many successful TV serials have served as useful conduits to disseminate official rhetoric and mainstream ideology, and they also offer a rich area of research by providing insight into the changing Chinese political, social and cultural context. This book examines a group of recently released TV drama serials in China which focus upon, and to various degrees represent, topical political, social and cultural phenomena. Some of the selected TV serials reflect the present ideological proclivities of the Chinese government, whilst others mirror social and cultural occurrences or provide coded and thought-provoking messages on China’s socio-economic and political reality. Through in-depth textual analysis of the plots, scenes and characters of these selected TV serials, the book provides timely interpretations of contemporary Chinese society, its political inclinations, social fashions and cultural tendencies. The book also demonstrates how popular media narratives of TV drama serials engage with sensitive civic issues and cultural phenomena of modern-day China, which in turn encourages a broader social imagination and potential for change. Advancing our understanding of contemporary China, this book will appeal to students and scholars of contemporary Chinese culture, society and politics, as well as those with research interests in television studies more generally.

The Politics of Chinese Media

The Politics of Chinese Media
Author: Bingchun Meng
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2018-01-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137462140

This book offers an analytical account of the consensus and contestations of the politics of Chinese media at both institutional and discursive levels. It considers the formal politics of how the Chinese state manages political communication internally and externally in the post-socialist era, and examines the politics of news media, focusing particularly on how journalists navigate the competing demands of the state, the capital and the urban middle class readership. The book also addresses the politics of entertainment media, in terms of how power operates upon and within media culture, and the politics of digital networks, highlighting how the Internet has become the battlefield of ideological contestation while also shaping how political negotiations are conducted. Bearing in mind the contemporary relevance of China’s socialist revolution, this text challenges both the liberal universalist view that presupposes ‘the end of history’ and various versions of China exceptionalism, which downplay the impact of China’s integration into global capitalism.

State Propaganda in China's Entertainment Industry

State Propaganda in China's Entertainment Industry
Author: Shenshen Cai
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2016-05-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131726696X

Most current research on the evolution of China’s propaganda discourse only touches upon recent variations of official propaganda rhetoric grounded in popular media. Here, the research is extended by tapping into the most recently released popular cultural media narratives such as online documentaries, films, TV drama serials and education programs, all of which are enlisted and co-opted by the state for propaganda goals. This book maps out the cutting-edge expansions of official propaganda that are embedded in the entertainment industry of contemporary China. Its case studies bring to light the progression of the mainstream propaganda discourse in terms of its merging, cooperation and compromise with the commercial features of both the traditional and newly-emerging entertainment media. In particular, it examines a group of mass entertainment products which include two best-selling mainstream blockbusters, two on-line commercial web documentaries, the China Central Television Moon Festival Gala series, socialist revolutionary TV drama serials, and a prime time science and education program. In so doing, it forefronts the up-to-date developments and novelties of state propaganda: its motives, reasoning and approaches within the mediasphere of today’s China. Illustrating how the CCP propaganda apparatus and tactics evolve and become embedded in popular media products, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese studies, Media Studies and Popular Cultural Studies.

Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China

Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China
Author: Shenshen Cai
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2020-10-17
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9811581169

This book explores xiangsheng, one of the most popular folk art performance genres in China, its enlistment by official propaganda machine after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its revival in popularity under Guo Degang and his Deyun Club. Just as the 1950's saw the shift of xiangsheng 's social function from entertainment to the political tool of ‘serving the party’, Guo Degang has completed the paradigm shift by turning its focus back to ‘serving the people’ as a means of entertainment and social criticism. This volume examines how Guo has resurrected the essence of xiangsheng, successfully commercialised it in a market economy, and simultaneously deconstructed the official discourse through grassroots means.

Contemporary Chinese Celebrities

Contemporary Chinese Celebrities
Author: Shenshen Cai
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2024-04-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1350409456

Whether willingly or unwillingly, public celebrities are often the focus of discussion of moral matters and political causes, but how does this sort of celebrity culture function in a country such as China with a powerful central state? Contemporary Chinese Celebrities explores how in today's China, celebrity figures embody, conflict with and engage with social, civil, moral and economic issues. Shenshen Cai examines the state's governance of celebrity activism and the interplay between the propaganda machine and the stars. Analyzing examples of scandalous celebrities who act as activists in a moral domain which is tightly governed by the state, Cai also studies several sports stars who have emerged in recent years as political activists in China, and their open defiance of the Chinese political system that poses unprecedented challenge to the Party's rule.

The Transformation of Political Communication in China

The Transformation of Political Communication in China
Author: Xiaoling Zhang
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9814340944

This book examines different dynamics such as marketisation, globalisation and new media technologies that have driven the transformation of China''s media industry OCo one of the primary battlegrounds where ideological, social and economic struggles are fought OCo against the backdrop of the growing tensions between economic growth, globalisation, and political control in China.

Discourse, Politics and Media in Contemporary China

Discourse, Politics and Media in Contemporary China
Author: Qing Cao
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2014-04-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027270368

After three and a half decades of economic reforms, radical changes have occurred in all aspects of life in China. In an authoritarian society, these changes are mediated significantly through the power of language, carefully controlled by the political elites. Discourse, as a way of speaking and doing things, has become an indispensable instrument for the authority to manage a fluid, increasingly fragmented, but highly dynamic and yet fragile society. Written by an international team of leading scholars, this volume examines socio-political transformations of contemporary Chinese society through a systematic account, analysis and assessment of its salient discourses and their production, circulation, negotiation, and consequences. In particular, the volume focuses on the interplay of politics and media. The book’s intended readership is academics and students of Chinese studies, language and discourse, and media and communication studies.

Urban Mobilizations and New Media in Contemporary China

Urban Mobilizations and New Media in Contemporary China
Author: Lisheng Dong
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317003691

Popular protests are on the rise in China. However, since protesters rely on existing channels of participation and on patronage by elite backers, the state has been able to stymie attempts to generalize resistance and no large scale political movements have significantly challenged party rule. Yet the Chinese state is not monolithic. Decentralization has increased the power of local authorities, creating space for policy innovations and opening up the political opportunity structure. Popular protest in China - particularly in urban realm- not only benefits from the political fragmentation of the state, but also from the political communications revolution. The question of how and to what extent the internet can be used for mobilizing popular resistance in China is hotly debated. The government, virtual social organizations, and individual netizens both cooperate and compete with each other on the web. New media both increases the scope of the mobilizers and the mobilized (thereby creating new social capital), and provides the government with new means of social control (thereby limiting the political impact of the growing social capital). This volume is the first of its kind to assess the ways new media influence the mobilization of popular resistance and its possible effects in China today.