Media and Popular Culture in China - Term Paper Example

ChongQing Satellite TV Reform Neoliberalism and the Commercialization of Media in China Introduction Background In March, of 2011, Chongqing TV satellite channel (CTV) announced that it would seize commercial advertisements in an effort to provide their audience with an improved viewing experience. However, the TV station will still air public service advertisements and promotional films on Chongqing in between two programs. The channel will launch additional programs on news, culture and public services while reducing the time allocated to TV serials. It will also reduce outsourced programs, with the aim of providing public TV services and transmitting sophisticated culture to the public. The new programs will cover themes of books, role models from all fields in Chongqing and a revolution-themed singing competition, Chongqing Evening News reported. In an interview with Chongqing Daily, Chongqing’s top propaganda leader, He Shizhong, emphasized that the goal of the makeover was to dedicate CTV to creating the country’s first public interest television channel. He believes this will result in a mainstream media that broadcasts advanced culture and systematically combines “a Chinese manner, a Chongqing style, mass appeal and artistic charm”; that vigorously promotes and develops red culture, mainstream culture, and high culture (Bandurski, 2011, para. 9). CTV has attracted additional attention on national and international levels due to its broadcast of “red” party propaganda. One example of the network’s new cultural programming is a show called “The Daily Red Anthem Show,” a 15-minute program in which various performers sing songs from among a list of 100 Communist Party classics pre-approved by Chongqing’s propaganda department, along with some folk songs with local Chongqing flavor. Top Chongqing leader Bo Xilai claimed that the singing of “red songs” was “actually a kind of reading, a kind of study, a kind of spirit, a kind of culture” (Bandurski, 2011, para. 13) Shizhong sought to dispel fears that the “red China” theme being unveiled at CTV means a celebration of China’s leftist past: When we talk of “red” some people express opposition, saying that we are encouraging “leftist” sympathies, or even taking the old road of the Cultural Revolution. This is entirely wrong. The Chinese people have revered the color red since ancient times . . . The color red represents life, vitality, youth, ardor, brightness, vividness, strength, fullness of life force. (Bandurski, 2011, para. 14) In a press conference last week, Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan announced that CTV could expect to lose 300 million yuan in advertising revenues due to its “red” makeover. The city will reportedly subsidize its local television channels under CTV at a rate of 150 million yuan. Purpose of the Study CTV’s revolutionary reform comes at a time when neoliberalism and the commercialization of media are the dominant and overwhelming platforms on which China is making its ascension atop the global economy. While the party-state has maintained its firm grip, and is gradually modernizing its methods of control, market forces have permeated and transformed every aspect of the media system. Party-state power is increasingly converging with the power of capital in the Chinese media through a series of intertwined processes of accommodation, appropriation, state-engineered market consolidation, and selective incorporation of private and foreign media capital (Zhao, 2004, p. 1). This fusion of party-state and market power has resulted in a media system that preserves the well being of the country’s political and economical elite, while silencing and marginalizing any and all opposition (Zhao, 2004). As a result, journalists avoid revealing conflicting stories to maintain social balance. The issue of media and openness must be understood in terms of elite and popular politics and reconstituted class and power relations. It has become institutionalized to avoid coverage of domestic social conflicts, and focus on entertainment and stocks, for financial rewarding in a market driven media system. Due to a vested interest in the stability of Chinese media, major US media conglomerates will protect that investment through biased and subjective media coverage to suppress social threats from lower classes. Lower class migrant workers have been silenced; China has one of the highest suicide rates as well as the highest female suicide rate in the world (56%) as a result of such oppression (Bu, 2008). While Chongqing leader Bo Xilai denies CTV’s “red” makeover comes in any opposition of post-Mao “rightest” reform; the commitment to discontinue commercial advertisements and limit TV dramas is groundbreaking and in direct opposition of the monsoon of neoliberalism and commercialization flooding Chinese media since the reform began in the late seventies. Although there is no indication that this bold transformation will induce a rippling trend, it is a political statement that will place CTV and Xilai under a microscope, both domestically and abroad. The purpose of this study is gain an advanced understanding of the Chinese media system by examining the social and political implications of CTV’s revolutionary reform, in addition to determining the significance of said implications to the Chinese media system going forward. The Study Party Media Reform In 1978 China initiated economic and political reforms and implemented various new policies including policies which affected China's mass media to a degree unprecedented in China's media history. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping implemented the “revolutionary” Open Door policies, placing economic modernization at the center and setting the socialist ideology aside (Cummings, 1979). Operating from the pragmatic perspective, Deng opened the country to capitalist forces and investments, viewed as practical means to enrich economic development and raise the standard of living of Chinese citizens. While this allowed China to make impressive and outstanding economic advances, it also contributed to the fracture of the previous socialist national identity and consequently brought about problems for the justification and legitimatization of the Communist regime. The post-Mao reform era in China has produced the downfall of utopianism. Where once the rhetoric of an unraveling socialist utopia worked to spur on the masses in their subjugation to a national cause, since the 1980s the rhetoric has featured varying degrees of self-indulgence with the explosion of consumerism, individualism, self-reliance and personal responsibility devolved to the individual or family (Latham, 2000). According to the socio-economic transformations it can be noted how national identity has been renegotiated, reformulated and reconstructed over the past three decades (Watson, 1992 & Chan, 1993). Whether national identity had been defined exclusively in socialist terms in opposition to capitalist and traditional culture, the late seventies saw the beginning of a revaluation of Confucianism and Chinese tradition. Three major developments in the latter half of the 1990s are most often cited to explain the top policymakers’ decision to restructure the media. Firstly, by the mid-1990s, because media outlets had grown too many to be effectively controlled and few of them achieved scale of economy in the eyes of the Propaganda Department and state bureaucrats, policymakers desired to consolidate the media industry by restricting the issuance of licenses and eliminating a number of existing ones (Zhao, 2000). Secondly, competition among media members intensified towards the end of the 1990s. By October 1999, all provincial stations had launched at least one satellite channel, raising the total number of satellite channels to 49 (Ju & Wang, 2002). The number of satellite channels, cable television stations and over-the-air stations competed ferociously for a diminished advertising cake in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. Media managers saw a decline of annual advertising growth of 80% or even 90% in the early 1990s, to below 20% after 1998, to 10% by the end of the 1990s, and below 10% in 2002 (Ju & Wang, 2002). It was concluded that China’s media industry had reached a blockage that could only be overcome by media “industrialization”. Lastly, China’s entry into the World Trade Organization seems to present a daunting scenario to Chinese media officials, in which the fledging Chinese media industry is placed at the mercy of global media giants with all concomitant implications to the Chinese culture, the state sovereignty, ideological hegemony and social stability (Zhao, 2000). Out of such concerns, the state is determined to build up a strong media industry by nurturing a handful of industrial flagships in the shortest possible time. In fact, in light of concentration, commercialization and privatization in other major economic sectors, it is reasonable to infer that the Chinese media sector, which is moving ever closer to the center of economic action, will eventually be restructured. Neoliberalism and Mainstream Media Mainstream media is non-independent, manipulated media by an elite group that indoctrinate their beliefs to mass people. It is dominant media that most people accept and rely on. Neoliberalism strongly influences the lives of billions of people in every continent in such diverse areas as economics, politics, international relations, ideology, culture and so on. Arthur MacEwan defined neoliberalism as “The doctrine that economic growth is maximized when movement of goods, services and capital, but not labor, are un-impeded by government regulation” (1999). From this definition, it can be derived that neoliberalism focuses on economic growth and deregulation. It can be determined that neoliberalism is more focused on developing world economics while ignoring local and individual needs of the people. The relationship between mainstream media and neoliberalism has three characteristics: firstly, media act as a tool to spread neoliberalism idea across the globe. Secondly, both media and neoliberalism support corporations. And, last, is the degree that neoliberalism permit corporations to manipulate the media (Zhao, 2000). Media Commercialization China had been flooded by an entertainment storm, and the forecast indicates no sign of letting up. At the center of the storm is television. With the heat of entertainment on, TV stations give considerable screen time to entertainment reporting and promos of their own shows. As a resulting symptom, the boundary between entertainment and traditionally non-entertainment programs is blurred. Weather forecasts, for example, have standardized presentation by a visually appealing female. Although a high-profile weather forecast program on a provincial channel – “Star Weather”– was chastised because of the female presenter’s erotic gestures and voices as well as suggestive elements like a shot of queen-sized bed, the so-called “beauty weather forecast” has decidedly taken root in China. News shows have fallen under similar demise, which has already been observed by many scholars in North America with an interest in Chinese media (Zhao, 2008). Dramatic storylines and a human interest angle have become essential in news reporting. Even Newscast, a legacy from the 1970s, previously impervious to any kind of market-induced content change, was, in March 2003, ordered to limit reports on meetings within three minutes and to increase the amount of societal news (Bu, 2008). As a result, according to a count, societal news items more than doubled and stories like a leopard sneaking into a village and taking a nap after eating five sheep find their way into Newscast. Entertainment. Entertainment programs take up an increasing share of the total hours of programming in the 1990s, from about 26% in 1992, to 39% in 1996 and 44% in 2000, whereas the share of news programs has been decreasing from 28% in 1992, to 15% in 1996 and 6.9% in 2000 (Zhang 2002). Thanks to the increasing proportion of entertainment and the explosion of TV channels, the absolute number of entertainment hours increased dramatically (Yearbook, 2002). If breaking down the increase of entertainment programs, it is revealed that such increase is mainly accounted for by TV dramas and new genres of entertainment shows. Although TV drama production reached a plateau since the late 1990s of 8,000 to 9,000 hours a year, hours of TV drama broadcast must have undergone a dramatic increase, with the increase of TV channels and with the increase of TV dramas on individual channels. Party-State Control. The Communist party’s media commercialization can be identified with distinctive Chinese characteristics (Zhao, 2008). First, the party control of the media is decentralized but not reduced. The market reform has given way to a division of labor between media organizations and the party-state (Zhao, 2008). Media organizations are independent financially and have control over the business side of their operation (advertising), but the party- state maintains its hold over their editorial direction with a variety of keen strategies. For example, individual organizations are responsible for the “correct” direction of its media content. “Incorrect” content is quietly removed or tolerated with particular obscure publications in order to limit its appeal and reach to the public (Zhao, 2008). China is the only country in the world to formally license journalists, requiring a government certification. Second, while the media industry is commercialized, it is not privatized. Chinese media outlets continue to be affiliates of the party-state. Media commercialization has changed their business model but not ownership. Because private media companies are prohibited to own broadcast channel or provide news, China remains void to politically independent media (Zhao, 2008). Foreign and domestic private businesses are restricted to the fringe areas of the system such as capital investment, advertising, and product distribution. “Correct” content is predominately limited to business, entertainment, and lifestyle categories (Zhao, 2008). Consumerism Propaganda. Since the beginning of the media reform in 1978, the economic basis of a Chinese media has been transformed from a system based on state subsidies to one based on advertising subsidies (Zhao, 2000). By the mid 1990’s, media had developed into a more explicit state policy, promoted from policymakers as a “law of motion” in newspaper publishing (Zhao, 2000, p. 186). The State Press and Publications Administration (SPPA), in its “Plans for the Development of the Press and Publication Industries in Year 2000 and Year 2010,” for example, stipulated that “newspapers must raise the percentage of advertisement revenue in its total revenue from an average of 60% in 1996 to 70% by 2000, and 80% by 2010” (Zhao, 2000). This demonstrates both a state-planned and market-driven economy. Advertising is the state’s most effective propaganda tool. Not only do policymakers influence media content, but they also shape the structure of media with licensing authority (Zhao, 2000). Commercial propaganda has all but replaced political propaganda as the dominant mobilization of speech. A transformation has been made from Maoism’s instruction of the socialist state to adhere to the transcendental cause of “serving the people”, to a modern devotion to the unlimited world of wealth accumulation and personal consumption (Zhao, 2000). The state has mandated consumerism; traditional Communist symbols and icons have become brand names for consumer products, reducing the Cultural Revolution to little more than trendy décor (Zhao, 2000). “Demobilized liberalization” for Zhao refers to the conversion of the Chinese media as an instrument of political mobilization and socialist indoctrination during the Maoist era to economic modernization and image management in the reform era (Zhao, 2000, pp. 186-187). Social Power Struggle 30 years of media commercialization has created winners and losers among China’s social groups and classes. The psyche of the Chinese media industry during the commercialization has been “news creates values,” with values referring to social and, more significantly, monetary values (Bu, 2008). The winners in the commercialization are prosperous educated urban consumers who have contributed to the media industry’s money values and in return had their needs and tastes serviced by the media. The losers are poor rural and urban working-class populations who represent marginal value to the media industry and advertisers, thus rarely see their interests and needs covered in the mainstream media (Zhao, 2000). Tens of millions of rural women, often separated from their beloved ones travelling to the cities in search of work, are left to look after the young, the old, the livestock, and the crops in depressed rural villages. This population group, one of the most vulnerable in China, has been in such a desperate situation that they have found death as the only means of communication – the suicide rate among rural Chinese women is among the highest of all population groups in the world (Bu, 2008). While domestic and transnational elites are continually networked, similar linkages have not been paralleled by communication channels between China’s elite and its own marginalized masses, let alone systems linking various disenfranchised groups with one another (Zhao, 2008). The capitalistic turn of the Chinese Revolution, built upon popular anti-capitalistic and anti-imperialist social movements, promising reform for social groups disenfranchised from China’s integration with global capitalism, have inevitably intensified the pre-existing inequalities in pre-reform Chinese society and engendered new forms of social division, corruption, and contestation (Perry, 1999) The party-state currently survives upon political demobilization, “particularly the containment of grassroots protests and the prevention of communicative linkages and formation of new social movements among disenfranchised social groups” (Zhao, 2000, p. 187). Due to the official nature of Chinese media, commercial propaganda has become heavily intertwined with political propaganda and assumes political discursive power. This process has marginalized media outlets that cater to social groups that are a majority in numbers, but marginal in their political and economic power: workers, farmers, and poor women (Zhao, 2000, p. 188). The persistence of control in the political domain, paired with the neoliberalization in the economic and social worlds, represent the two sides of the self-serving Chinese media system in place for the benefit of the political and economical elite (Zhao, 2000). At a time of tremendous social and cultural disruption, evident in the rise of the Falun Gong movement and worker and farmer protests, television entertainment plays the critical role of mass diversion from the oppression and marginalization of lower class Chinese (Zhao, 2000, p. 200). Conclusion CTV Reform CTV’s actions offer a glimmer of hope to lower classes silenced by the Cultural Revolution’s media reform. Political propaganda by way of commercial propaganda has been replaced with a commitment to cultural awareness that could reignite the “Red” spirit and remind citizens of the foundation for which their revolution was founded. CTV must withstand the test of time financially to garner additionally trending television stations in support of their revolutionary movement. Similar reforms may take place in light of the suffering Chinese communication industries and declined advertising revenues resulting from the deflationary pressures of the overall Chinese economy and the uncertainties and bureaucratic conflicts associated with massive state mandated industry restructuring. CTV’s reform strikes at the heart of the Party state’s centralized efforts to drive the market through a series of intertwined processes of accommodation, appropriation, state-engineered market consolidation, and selective incorporation of private and foreign media capital. Although the party-state will always maintain its control over media content, CTV demonstrated that media outlets can have a hand in the structure from which they operate. One television station that is willing to swim against the current represents further restructuring that offers a sea of complications for the party-state’s effort to discredit the Maoist discourse on social justice and equality among the ruling elites. Social, political, and economical imbalance offer significant threat to the party-state’s desired media system. Demobilized liberalization has brought about the departure from the Maoist notion of serving the people, to a modern devotion to the unlimited world of wealth accumulation and personal consumption. The Communist Party, despite its embracing of capitalists, cannot denounce its socialist legacy and abandon the socialist commitments to the low social classes at will. Apart from popular challenges from below, bureaucratic conflicts and the absence of a relatively open system of intra elite bargaining and lobby – in some form of constitutional supremacy – continue to threaten the current political economic order. References Bandurski, David. (March, 2011). Will Chinese television “go red”? China Media Project: A project of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at The University of Hong Kong. Retrieved April 2011 from http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/03/08/10725/ Bu, L.Q. (2008). Chinese Media (and Society) in Transition: Party vs. Capitalists vs. People. Global Media Journal. Vol. 7, no. 13. Retrieved April 2011 from http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/gmj/fa08/issue-book-reviews/bu.htm Chan, A. (1993). “Confucianism and Deng’s China” in Modernization of the Chinese Past, eds. M. Lee and A.D. Syrokomla-Stefanowska, Wild Peony, Broadway NSW Australia. pp. 16-24. Cumings, B. 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