DOCSLIB.ORG

Tan, Jia. "Provincializing the Chinese Mediascape: Cantonese Digital

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Tan, Jia. Tan, Jia. "Provincializing the Chinese Mediascape: Cantonese Digital Activism in Southern China." China’s iGeneration: Cinema and Moving Image Culture for the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Matthew D. Johnson, Keith B. Wagner, Tianqi Yu and Luke Vulpiani. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. 197–212. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 24 Sep. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501300103.ch-011>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 24 September 2021, 10:01 UTC. Copyright © Matthew D. Johnson, Keith B. Wagner, Tianqi Yu, Luke Vulpiani and Contributors 2014. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 11 Provincializing the Chinese Mediascape: Cantonese Digital Activism in Southern China Jia Tan The recent events of the Arab Spring have shown some positive applications in the revolutionary potential of digital technology, which suggest that social media such as Twitter and Facebook have found a way to change the world. Such an optimistic view on technology is critiqued in Evgeny Morozov’s The Net Delusion in terms of ‘cyber-utopianism,’ which refers to ‘a naive belief in the emancipatory nature of online communication that rests on a stubborn refusal to acknowledge its downside.’1 When it comes to digital contention in China, similar tendencies of techno-utopianism have gained prominence, overpowering any detractors’ rumblings. Despite many scholars and opinion leaders outside of China fixating on the ways recent technol- ogies, including the internet and mobile communications have strengthened media control, surveillance and censorship, a point could be made however that researchers are only now beginning to explore the ways in which these newer technologies have empowered individuals and communities through the creation of reimagined social spaces.2 One such optimistic study would be Yang Guobing’s The Power of the Internet in China, in which the author argues that the internet provides spaces for ‘unofficial democracy,’ whereby websites provide openings for continual negotiations based on the lived experiences of millions of online users in China.3 This chapter investigates the wave of Cantonese digital activism that can be conceived of as another application of social media and formation of moving image culture that is worth interrogating. My aim is to inquire beyond the techno-utopia/- dystopia binary by locating Cantonese digital activism in its historical, social and industrial contexts against the backdrop of the explosion of various moving image cultures in the new millennium. The present study explores the particularities of Cantonese digital activism by deploying the notion of the provincial. I borrow this term from the post-colonial scholar Dipesh Chakravarty who asserts that we can ‘provincialize Europe’ through deconstructing the myth of ‘the West’ as an originary site of modernity by revealing the constitutive positions of the colonies in the modernization process. Chakravarty has criticized the developmental logic of many third world countries that subscribe to the linear narrative of modernity. Rather than 9781623565954_txt_print.indd 197 14/04/2014 09:12 198 China’s iGeneration provincializing a centre, the present study instead centralizes a province in order to explore the theoretical potential of ‘the provincial’ and reconfigure debates on globali- zation and transnationalism, particularly in the fields of cultural and media studies specific to the Chinese online moving image culture. This study invokes the term provincial in two ways. First, it employs the province as an analytical framework for examining the central–provincial structure in the Chinese media industry. Second, it explores the possibilities and problematics of Cantonese media activism, in the sense that the term functions as a nuanced way of thinking beyond the constraints of cultural dominance versus cultural resistance. In other words, I will argue that Cantonese digital activism seeks to uncover how new communication technologies, e.g. mobile devices and the internet, in conjunction with other mass media such as television, have facilitated new cultural articulations. While some of these articulations have been critical of the state’s monolingual policy and developmental logic, others run the risk of reproducing existing social hierar- chies such as class-based discrimination. The progressive and reactionary attributes in the same digital activism urges us to move from the question of whether certain technologies are revolutionary to the question of how technologies are embedded in social relations. In my chapter, I aim to use the provincial to demonstrate a more contextual understanding of the relationship between technology and culture beyond the techno-utopia/-dystopia binary. Cantonese activism and its discontents On 1 August 2010, thousands of people gathered in and around the People’s Park in the city of Guangzhou in southern China. The crowd was disbanded when hundreds of police marched in and dragged away protesters, filing them away on large municipal buses. In front of the confrontational scene between the protesters and the police, nearly every protester held either digital cameras, camcorders, or cellular phones to document that event. Some of these pictures were immediately posted online via telecom networks on Chinese micro-blogs such aso Sina Weib.4 Videos and pictures would soon be uploaded to the internet, a place to disseminate opinions and organize the street demonstrations, which made the fast mobilization of protesters possible in the first place. What were the protestors rallying for or against? They had not gathered to voice their discontent over environmental pollution, labour disputes, or land confiscation, all prevalent social problems and popular topics online in China today. Instead, this protest was triggered by a government proposal that the local Guangzhou TV station replace Cantonese primetime shows with Mandarin programming during the Asian Games in 2010. The protests can now be seen as climactic moments where a series of ‘flash mob’ gatherings, street demonstrations and civil disobediences exploded in metropolitan Guangzhou, all demanding the preservation of Cantonese language and culture.5 9781623565954_txt_print.indd 198 14/04/2014 09:12 Provincializing the Chinese Mediascape 199 Cantonese is widely used throughout southern China, Hong Kong and across the diverse Chinese diaspora worldwide. Yet, despite its linguistic importance throughout greater China, Cantonese has been relegated to the status of a Chinese dialect, soon to be expunged in the PRC via a national campaign to promote Putonghua, or Mandarin.6 Article 19 of the Constitution of the PRC proclaims the use of Putonghua nationwide. We can trace the promotion of Mandarin in the educational sector back to the mid-1950s, as the Communist Party had an interest in creating a standardized national language. Since that period, the state has championed Simplified Chinese, Mandarin and the pinyin system in its educational institutions. Furthermore, dialects are highly circumscribed within the Chinese mass media. In January 2001, the Law of the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language established Chinese as the standard language – officially enforcing Mandarin across the vast public sector, including the broadcasting industry. Netizens have dubbed such monolingual language policy the ‘Mandarin Promotion Machine,’ or more crudely ‘Language Slaughter.’7 To express concern over this promotion of Mandarin, netizens organized many street gatherings through social media, gatherings that were accompanied by debates, netizen-made videos, songs and images of dissent online. Such shows of activism have been tactically combined with criticism of urban planning and redevelopment policy, as well as calls for freedom of expression in the country. The activism soon received support from Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong, Macau and throughout cyberspace, as well as in physical spaces within the mainland and beyond. For example, at the same time as the August 1 demonstration in Guangzhou, hundreds of protesters in Hong Kong joined the demon- strations as part of the ‘Guangdong-HK Support Cantonese Action,’ working in unison from two different Chinese territories connected by digital activists. The banner term ‘Cantonese digital activism’ is used here to describe the partici- patory use of the internet and electronic devices for the articulation of shared language and cultural experiences, as suggested by the name of this activism: ‘Support Cantonese language.’ Despite the political agency and possibilities fulfilled in this wave of activism from user-generated content online to street demonstrations, such bottom-up cultural expressions also have limitations – chiefly, they have the potential to reproduce social hierarchies. A widely circulated netizen-reproduced propaganda poster points to the discriminatory side of Cantonese digital activism. The caption reads: ‘Canton people speak Cantonese. Go back to the countryside if you don’t understand Cantonese.’ This slogan may be a reference to the millions of migrant workers in China who come from the countryside and work in the city. According to the population census of 2010, more than four million people living in Guangzhou are non-locals, a figure representing more than one-third of the city’s total population. Many of these non-Cantonese-speaking, non-locals
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Changing Political Economy of the Hong Kong Media
    China Perspectives 2018/3 | 2018 Twenty Years After: Hong Kong's Changes and Challenges under China's Rule Changing Political Economy of the Hong Kong Media Francis L. F. Lee Electronic version URL: https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/8009 DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.8009 ISSN: 1996-4617 Publisher Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Printed version Date of publication: 1 September 2018 Number of pages: 9-18 ISSN: 2070-3449 Electronic reference Francis L. F. Lee, “Changing Political Economy of the Hong Kong Media”, China Perspectives [Online], 2018/3 | 2018, Online since 01 September 2018, connection on 21 September 2021. URL: http:// journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/8009 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives. 8009 © All rights reserved Special feature China perspectives Changing Political Economy of the Hong Kong Media FRANCIS L. F. LEE ABSTRACT: Most observers argued that press freedom in Hong Kong has been declining continually over the past 15 years. This article examines the problem of press freedom from the perspective of the political economy of the media. According to conventional understanding, the Chinese government has exerted indirect influence over the Hong Kong media through co-opting media owners, most of whom were entrepreneurs with ample business interests in the mainland. At the same time, there were internal tensions within the political economic system. The latter opened up a space of resistance for media practitioners and thus helped the media system as a whole to maintain a degree of relative autonomy from the power centre. However, into the 2010s, the media landscape has undergone several significant changes, especially the worsening media business environment and the growth of digital media technologies.
    [Show full text]
  • Entire Dissertation Noviachen Aug2021.Pages
    Documentary as Alternative Practice: Situating Contemporary Female Filmmakers in Sinophone Cinemas by Novia Shih-Shan Chen M.F.A., Ohio University, 2008 B.F.A., National Taiwan University, 2003 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Novia Shih-Shan Chen 2021 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY SUMMER 2021 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Declaration of Committee Name: Novia Shih-Shan Chen Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Thesis title: Documentary as Alternative Practice: Situating Contemporary Female Filmmakers in Sinophone Cinemas Committee: Chair: Jen Marchbank Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Helen Hok-Sze Leung Supervisor Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Zoë Druick Committee Member Professor, School of Communication Lara Campbell Committee Member Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Christine Kim Examiner Associate Professor, Department of English The University of British Columbia Gina Marchetti External Examiner Professor, Department of Comparative Literature The University of Hong Kong ii Abstract Women’s documentary filmmaking in Sinophone cinemas has been marginalized in the film industry and understudied in film studies scholarship. The convergence of neoliberalism, institutionalization of pan-Chinese documentary films and the historical marginalization of women’s filmmaking in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), respectively, have further perpetuated the marginalization of documentary films by local female filmmakers.
    [Show full text]
  • Tonatory Patterns in Taizhou Wu Tones
    TONATORY PATTERNS IN TAIZHOU WU TONES Phil Rose Emeritus Faculty, Australian National University [email protected] ABSTRACT 台州 subgroup of Wu to which Huángyán belongs. The issue has significance within descriptive Recordings of speakers of the Táizhou subgroup of tonetics, tonatory typology and historical linguistics. Wu Chinese are used to acoustically document an Wu dialects – at least the conservative varieties – interaction between tone and phonation first attested show a wide range of tonatory behaviour [11]. One in 1928. One or two of their typically seven or eight finds breathy or ventricular phonation in groups of tones are shown to have what sounds like a mid- tones characterising natural tonal classes of Rhyme glottal-stop, thus demonstrating a new importance for phonotactics and Wu’s complex tone pattern in Wu tonatory typology. Possibly reflecting sandhi. One also finds a single tone characterised by gradual loss, larygealisation appears restricted to the a different non-modal phonation type [12]; or even north and north-west, and is absent in Huángyán two different non-modal phonation types in two dialect where it was first described. A perturbatory tones. However, the Huangyan-type tonation seems model of the larygealisation is tested in an to involve a new variation, with the same phonation experiment determining how much of the complete type in two different tones from the same historical tonal F0 contour can be restored from a few tonal category, thus prompting speculation that it centiseconds of modal F0 at Rhyme onset and offset. developed before the tonal split. The results are used both to acoustically quantify laryngealised tonal F0, with its problematic jitter and 2.
    [Show full text]
  • A Reconsideration of Still Life Dai Jinhua Translated by Lennet Daigle
    Temporality, Nature Morte, and the Filmmaker: A Reconsideration of Still Life Dai Jinhua Translated by Lennet Daigle In the world of contemporary Chinese cinema, Jia Zhangke is, in many respects, an exception to the rule: he is a director whose films almost without fail depict the lower classes or, the majority of society; a director who has continually, from the start, been dedicated to making art films; a director who has fulfilled his social responsibilities as an artist while developing an original mode of artistic expression; a director who has made the transition from independent underground films to commercial mainstream films without losing his vitality, and without suffering exclusion from western film festivals; a director famous for his autobiographical narratives who has finally “grown up”, and who has successfully drawn on his experiences to explore broader social issues. As long as China’s fifth generation filmmakers continue to make commercial compromises, and the sixth generation remains stuck – have grown but not matured in terms of style and modes of expression – Jia Zhangke will remain an exception, or even “one of a kind.” Actually, after the period in which Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth and Zhang Yimou’s films had become synonymous with the moniker “Chinese cinema” and after Zhang Yuan’s nomination of “underground cinema” to refer to what Europeans think of as “Chinese cinema” – both post-Cold War but still Cold War-style designations, the release of Platform and the inverted portrait of Mao on the film poster unexpectedly heralded the arrival of the “Jia Zhangke era” of Chinese cinema in the new millenium’s international film world, as represented primarily by European film festivals and American film studies classes.
    [Show full text]
  • Official Colours of Chinese Regimes: a Panchronic Philological Study with Historical Accounts of China
    TRAMES, 2012, 16(66/61), 3, 237–285 OFFICIAL COLOURS OF CHINESE REGIMES: A PANCHRONIC PHILOLOGICAL STUDY WITH HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF CHINA Jingyi Gao Institute of the Estonian Language, University of Tartu, and Tallinn University Abstract. The paper reports a panchronic philological study on the official colours of Chinese regimes. The historical accounts of the Chinese regimes are introduced. The official colours are summarised with philological references of archaic texts. Remarkably, it has been suggested that the official colours of the most ancient regimes should be the three primitive colours: (1) white-yellow, (2) black-grue yellow, and (3) red-yellow, instead of the simple colours. There were inconsistent historical records on the official colours of the most ancient regimes because the composite colour categories had been split. It has solved the historical problem with the linguistic theory of composite colour categories. Besides, it is concluded how the official colours were determined: At first, the official colour might be naturally determined according to the substance of the ruling population. There might be three groups of people in the Far East. (1) The developed hunter gatherers with livestock preferred the white-yellow colour of milk. (2) The farmers preferred the red-yellow colour of sun and fire. (3) The herders preferred the black-grue-yellow colour of water bodies. Later, after the Han-Chinese consolidation, the official colour could be politically determined according to the main property of the five elements in Sino-metaphysics. The red colour has been predominate in China for many reasons. Keywords: colour symbolism, official colours, national colours, five elements, philology, Chinese history, Chinese language, etymology, basic colour terms DOI: 10.3176/tr.2012.3.03 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Distribution Agreement in Presenting This
    Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis or dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis or dissertation. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. Signature: _____________________________ ______________ Tianyi Yao Date Crime and History Intersect: Films of Murder in Contemporary Chinese Wenyi Cinema By Tianyi Yao Master of Arts Film and Media Studies _________________________________________ Matthew Bernstein Advisor _________________________________________ Tanine Allison Committee Member _________________________________________ Timothy Holland Committee Member _________________________________________ Michele Schreiber Committee Member Accepted: _________________________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies ___________________ Date Crime and History Intersect: Films of Murder in Contemporary Chinese Wenyi Cinema By Tianyi Yao B.A., Trinity College, 2015 Advisor: Matthew Bernstein, M.F.A., Ph.D. An abstract of
    [Show full text]
  • The 2010 Asian Games
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln The hinC a Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012 China Beat Archive 7-25-2009 A Reader: The 2010 Asian Games Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/chinabeatarchive Part of the Asian History Commons, Asian Studies Commons, Chinese Studies Commons, and the International Relations Commons "A Reader: The 2010 Asian Games" (2009). The China Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012. 432. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/chinabeatarchive/432 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the China Beat Archive at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in The hinC a Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012 by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. A Reader: The 2010 Asian Games July 25, 2009 in The Five-List Plan by The China Beat | No comments The PR folks for the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou have added China Beat to their mailing list, so we got their note this week about organizers’ plans to seed clouds to prevent rain during the Games. Our interest was piqued–we hadn’t heard much yet about the 2010 Asian Games. Here are a few of the things we found when we went looking… 1. As with the Olympic preparations in Beijing, there is massive construction, investment, and environmental management (not just cloud- seeding) underway in Guangzhou, according to Xinhua: Authorities are pumping in more than 58 billion yuan (8.5 billion U.S. dollars) to boost the transportation system and protect the environment as Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, is preparing for the 16th Asian Games next November.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Chinese Cinema Survey: 1980–Present Film S142 / Eall
    CHINESE CINEMA SURVEY: 1980–PRESENT FILM S142 / EALL S258 Meeting Times: T,Th 1-2:50pm; Session B (July 12-August 13) Instructor: Xueli Wang Email: [email protected] Office Hours: by appointment Course Description: The past four decades have been extraordinarily fruitful for Chinese-language filmmaking. This course will survey key figures, movements, and trends in Sinophone cinema since 1980. Sessions will be structured around eleven films, each an entry point into a broader topic, such as the Fifth and Sixth Generation directors; the Hong Kong New Wave; New Taiwan Cinema; martial arts film; commercial blockbuster; and independent documentary. We will examine these films formally, through shot-by-shot analysis, as well as in relation to major social, political, and economic developments in recent Chinese history, such as the Cultural Revolution; Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms; the Hong Kong handover; the construction of the Three Gorges Dam; and the demolition and displacement of local communities. We will also consider pertinent questions of propaganda and censorship; aesthetics and politics; history and memory; transnational networks and audiences; and what constitutes "Chineseness" in a globalized world. Online Access: ● Seminars and in-class presentations will take place over Zoom. Our Zoom sessions will simulate a live classroom experience with everyone’s audio and video enabled. ● All assigned films will be available to watch remotely, either on Canvas or a streaming site. During some Zoom sessions, we will watch clips together alternating with discussion. ● All required readings and PowerPoint slides and film clips will be available on Canvas. ● Office hours will take place over Zoom, after class and by appointment.
    [Show full text]
  • China Media Bulletin
    Issue No. 154: May 2021 CHINA MEDIA BULLETIN Headlines ANALYSIS The Gutting of Hong Kong’s Public Broadcaster P2 IN THE NEWS • Regulators “clean up” internet ahead of CCP anniversary alongside censorship of Oscars, Bible apps, and Weibo P5 • Surveillance updates: Personal data-protection law advances, Apple compromises on user data, citizen backlash P6 • Criminal charges for COVID commentary, Uyghur religious expression, Tibetan WeChat use P7 • Hong Kong: Website blocks, netizen arrests, journalist beating, and Phoenix TV ownership change P9 • Beyond China: Beijing’s COVID-19 media strategy, waning propaganda impact in Europe, new US regulations to enhance transparency P10 FEATURED PUSHBACK Netizens demand transparency on Chengdu student’s death P12 WHAT TO WATCH FOR P13 TAKE ACTION P14 IMAGE OF THE MONTH Is RTHK History? This cartoon published on April 5 by a Hong Kong visual arts teacher is part of a series called “Hong Kong Today.” It depicts a fictional Hong Kong Museum of History, which includes among its exhibits two institutions that have been critical to the city’s freedom, but are being undermined by Chinese and Hong Kong government actions. The first is the Basic Law, the mini-constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression and other fundamental rights; the other is Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), the once-respected public broadcaster now facing a government takeover. The teacher who posted the cartoon is facing disciplinary action from the Education Department. Credit: @vawongsir Instagram Visit http://freedomhou.se/cmb_signup or email [email protected] to subscribe or submit items. CHINA MEDIA BULLETIN: MAY 2021 ANALYSIS The Gutting of Hong Kong’s Public Broadcaster By Sarah Cook A government takeover of Radio Television Hong Kong has far-reaching Sarah Cook is the implications.
    [Show full text]
  • The 5Th International Conference on Manipulation, Manufacturing and Measurement on the Nanoscale
    The 5th International Conference on Manipulation, Manufacturing and Measurement on the Nanoscale 9-13 November 2015, Guangzhou, China 3M-NANO is the annual International Conference on Manipulation, Manufacturing and Measurement on the Nanoscale, which will be held 2015 in Guangzhou, China. The ultimate ambition of this conference series is to bridge the gap between nanosciences and engineering sciences, aiming at emerging market and technology opportunities. The advanced technologies for manipulation, manufacturing and measurement on the nanoscale promise novel revolutionary products and methods in numerous areas of application. All accepted full papers (presented at the conference and following IEEE format) will be included in IEEE Xplore database and indexed by Ei Compendex, upon the approval by IEEE Conference Business Services. Selected outstanding papers will be recommended for publication in the J of Micro-Bio Robotics, Int. J of Nanomanufacturing, Int. J of Intelligent Mechatronics and Robotics, Int. J of Optomechatronics, and other SCI/Ei journals. Organized / Sponsored by: National Natural Science Foundation of China South China University of Technology, China IEEE Nanotechnology Council (technically sponsored) Changchun University of Science and Technology, China University of Oldenburg, Germany Research Center OFFIS, Germany Conference topics include, but are not limited to Nanomanipulation and nanoassembly Self-assembly on the nanoscale Nanomaterials and nanocharacterization Nanometrology Nanohandling robots and systems Precision
    [Show full text]
  • The Business of Sport in China
    Paper size: 210mm x 270mm LONDON 26 Red Lion Square London WC1R 4HQ United Kingdom Tel: (44.20) 7576 8000 Fax: (44.20) 7576 8500 E-mail: [email protected] NEW YORK 111 West 57th Street New York The big league? NY 10019 United States Tel: (1.212) 554 0600 The business of sport in China Fax: (1.212) 586 1181/2 E-mail: [email protected] A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit HONG KONG 6001, Central Plaza 18 Harbour Road Wanchai Hong Kong Sponsored by Tel: (852) 2585 3888 Fax: (852) 2802 7638 E-mail: [email protected] The big league? The business of sport in China Contents Preface 3 Executive summary 4 A new playing field 7 Basketball 10 Golf 12 Tennis 15 Football 18 Outlook 21 © Economist Intelligence Unit 2009 1 The big league? The business of sport in China © 2009 Economist Intelligence Unit. All rights reserved. All information in this report is verified to the best of the author’s and the publisher’s ability. However, the Economist Intelligence Unit does not accept responsibility for any loss arising from reliance on it. Neither this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Economist Intelligence Unit. 2 © Economist Intelligence Unit 2009 The big league? The business of sport in China Preface The big league? The business of sport in China is an Economist Intelligence Unit briefing paper, sponsored by Mission Hills China.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Governance in Contemporary China: Popular Culture, Digital Technology, and the State
    ! ! ! ! CULTURAL GOVERNANCE IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA: POPULAR CULTURE, DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, AND THE STATE BY LUZHOU LI DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communications and Media in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Emeritus John Nerone, Chair Assistant Professor Amanda Ciafone Professor Emeritus Dan Schiller Professor Kent Ono, University of Utah ii ABSTRACT This dissertation is a study of the historical formation and transformation of the Chinese online audiovisual industry under forces of strategic political calculations, expanding market relations, and growing social participation, and the cultural ramifications of this process, especially the kind of transformations digital technologies have wrought on the state-TV-station-centered mode of cultural production/distribution and regulatory apparatuses. Through this case, the project aims to theorize the changing mode of cultural governance of post-socialist regimes in the context of digital capitalism. Using mixed methods of documentary research, interviews with industry practitioners, participant observations of trade fairs/festivals, and critical discourse analyses of popular cultural texts, the study finds that the traditional broadcasting and the online video sectors are structured along two different political economic mechanisms. While the former is dominated by domestic capital and heavily regulated by state agencies, the latter is supported by transnational capital and less regulated. Digital technologies coupled with transnational capital thus generate new cultural flows, processes, and practices, which produces a heterogeneous and contested cultural sphere in the digital environment that substantially differs from the one created by traditional television.
    [Show full text]