As China becomes more deeply engaged with the outside world its propaganda authorities confront a dilemma: how can they maintain domestic ideological cohesion in the face of an influx of foreign information and ideas while also convincing skeptical international audiences that China's rise is a good news story? This book examines the Chinese propaganda system in the era of globalization, exploring connections between the Chinese Communist Party's desire for domestic political control and its vision for the development of China's international power. Investigating areas such as Chinese attitudes to soft power, the recent international expansion of the Chinese media, and the authorities' reaction to public opinion crises at home and abroad, Edney shows that in order to understand Chinese attempts to influence international views it is necessary to examine the power of propaganda in China's domestic political system.

Usage of the political keyword 'propaganda' by the Chinese Communist Party has changed and expanded over time. These changes have been masked by strong continuities spanning periods in the history of the People's Republic of China from the Mao Zedong era (1949–76) to the new era of Xi Jinping (2012–present). Redefining Propaganda in Modern China builds on the work of earlier scholars to revisit the central issue of how propaganda has been understood within the Communist Party system. What did propaganda mean across successive eras? What were its institutions and functions? What were its main techniques and themes? What can we learn about popular consciousness as a result? In answering these questions, the contributors to this volume draw on a range of historical, cultural studies, propa­ganda studies and comparative politics approaches. Their work captures the sweep of propaganda – its appearance in everyday life, as well as during extraordinary moments of mobilization (and demobilization), and its systematic continuities and discontinuities from the perspective of policy-makers, bureaucratic function­aries and artists. More localized and granular case studies are balanced against deep readings and cross-cutting interpretive essays, which place the history of the People's Republic of China within broader temporal and comparative frames. Addressing a vital aspect of Chinese Communist Party authority, this book is meant to provide a timely and comprehensive update on what propaganda has meant ideologically, operationally, aesthetically and in terms of social experience.

Click here to hear Anne-Marie Brady's BBC World Service radio documentary titled "The Message from China" China's government is no longer a Stalinist-Maoist dictatorship, yet it does not seem to be moving significantly closer to democracy as it is understood in Western terms. After a period of self-imposed exclusion, Chinese society is in the process of a massive transformation in the name of economic progress and integration into the world economy. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is seeking to maintain its rule over China indefinitely, creating yet another "new" China. Propaganda and thought work play a key role in this strategy. In this important book, noted China scholar Anne-Marie Brady answers some intriguing questions about China's contemporary propaganda system. Why have propaganda and thought work strengthened their hold in China in recent years? How has the CCP government strengthened its power since 1989 when so many analysts predicted otherwise? How does the CCP maintain its monopoly on political power while dismantling the socialist system? How can the government maintain popular support in China when the uniting force of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology is spent and discredited? What has taken the place of communist ideology? Examining propaganda and thought work in the current period offers readers a unique understanding of how the CCP will address real and perceived threats to stability and its continued hold on power. This innovative book is a must-read for everyone interested in China's growing role in the world community.

Propaganda, Media, and Nationalism in Mainland China and Hong Kong gives a clear and insightful introduction to the nature of media in China and Hong Kong and presents a conceptual discussion of propaganda. It presents two case studies of Chinese media control including the presentation of Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet and the misrepresentation of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. This book also provides an important in-depth discussion of the battle between state propaganda and counter-propaganda in open societies, which can render them vulnerable to foreign governments, undermine civic society, and create dangerous polarization, as in the case of Hong Kong’s response to state media.

This biography of Deng Tuo (1912-1966) is a social history of intellectuals as agents in China's socialist revolution. It places Deng Tuo's writings and ideas in the rich context of his social experience as a member of the Communist bureaucracy and as an elite artist and aesthete. The tension between service to politics and service to culture was ultimately disasterous for Deng and for China's revolution: his ghost haunts the halls of power in Beijing today.

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.

Engaging with fiction films devoted to heroic tales from the decade and a half between 1949 and 1966, this book reconceives state propaganda as aesthetic experiments that not only radically transformed acting, cinematography and screenwriting in socialist China, but also articulated a new socialist film theory and criticism. Rooted in the interwar avant-garde and commercial cinema, Chinese revolutionary cinema, as a state cinema for the newly established People's Republic, adapted Chinese literature for the screen, incorporated Hollywood narration, appropriated Soviet montage theory and orchestrated a new, glamorous, socialist star culture. In the wake of decolonisation, Chinese film journals were quick to project and disseminate the country's redefined self-image to Asia, Africa and Latin America as they helped to create an alternative vision of modernity and internationalism. Revealing the historical contingency of the term 'propaganda', Chan uncovers the visual, aural, kinaesthetic, sexual and ideological dynamics that gave rise to a new aesthetic of revolutionary heroism in world cinema. Based on extensive archival research, this book's focus on the distinctive rhetoric of post-war socialist China will be of value to East Asian Cinema scholars, Chinese Studies academics and those interested in the history of twentieth-century socialist culture.