University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses August 2015 The Ambiguous Construction of Collective "Family" in the Age of Post-collectivism China: Through the Lens of CCTV'S Spring Festival Gala Lin Shi University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Shi, Lin, "The Ambiguous Construction of Collective "Family" in the Age of Post-collectivism China: Through the Lens of CCTV'S Spring Festival Gala" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 402. https://doi.org/10.7275/6557130.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/402 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE AMBIGUOUS CONSTRUCTION OF COLLECTIVE \FAMILY" IN THE AGE OF POST-COLLECTIVISM CHINA: THROUGH THE LENS OF CCTV'S SPRING FESTIVAL GALA A Dissertation Presented by LIN SHI Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2015 Department of Communication ⃝c Copyright by Lin Shi 2015 All Rights Reserved THE AMBIGUOUS CONSTRUCTION OF COLLECTIVE \FAMILY" IN THE AGE OF POST-COLLECTIVISM CHINA: THROUGH THE LENS OF CCTV'S SPRING FESTIVAL GALA A Dissertation Presented by LIN SHI Approved as to style and content by: Briankle Chang, Chair Henry Geddes, Member Enhua Zhang, Member Erica Scharrer, Department Chair Department of Communication In the evolution of Chinese society, there are no two themes that recur as frequently or are as pervasively influential as politics and family. Little in traditional China is not political and little in politics is uninfluenced by family. Interaction between the two often generates stories of glamorous spectacle and bewildering calamity. | Richard Davis (1986, p.1) \ Family isn't a word. It's a sentence." | The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many great people helped me shape this work. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor and mentor, Dr. Briankle G. Chang, for the inspiration, guidance, and encouragement throughout these years. Briankle, your expansive knowledge, enthusiasm, and friend- ship made people feel great and special as your student. Moreover, your insistent doubt cast on normalcy in terms of both the professional and personal will continue to bomb my imagination about what communication can and ought to become. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the members of my committee: Drs. Henry Geddes and Enhua Zhang, for the time they spent in reading many drafts, and all the following insightful suggestions and recommendations. Henry's inspira- tional feedback helped me greatly to flesh out this project. In so many hourly phone conversations, Enhua always expressed her genuine curiosity, and shared her impres- sive knowledge and understanding of modern and contemporary Chinese culture and society without hesitation. Anca Romantan and Julie Graham: Everything I learned from you two - about communication, about cultural politics, about quantitative methods, about humanity, about political possibility, about being fiercely critical while sympathetically engaged with the real world. will inspire me forever. Critical cultural/media studies is by nature a decentralized discipline, while so many graduate students and faculty members in Communication at UMass have come together, enhanced my intellectual maturity and enriched my life. My research topic and approach is apparently a culmination of their influences. Meanwhile, Kath- leen Ready makes the greatest Graduate Program Secretary I know. Kathy, your v impeccable organization, fairness, efficiency, resourcefulness, compassion and grace will always have an impact on me. I could not have made it successfully to the end of this dissertation without the help from Dr. Timothy Bickmore. Tim, thank you for offering me a job which turns out to be an intellectual home, for introducing me to the world of research and development in embodied conversational agents, and for trusting me by giving me endless opportunities to become someone better. I owe these and many other things my profound gratitude. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their tolerance and affection in the completion of this doctorate research. The gratitude is beyond words. vi ABSTRACT THE AMBIGUOUS CONSTRUCTION OF COLLECTIVE \FAMILY" IN THE AGE OF POST-COLLECTIVISM CHINA: THROUGH THE LENS OF CCTV'S SPRING FESTIVAL GALA MAY 2015 LIN SHI B.A., NANJING UNIVERSITY M.Phil., CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Briankle Chang The dissertation, through a semiotic reading of familial imagery in CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, explores the new propaganda and its effects on Chinese people's polit- ical subjectivity, against the background combining the dying Communist ideology, the rise of neoliberalism, the proliferating social technologies, and the tremendous human dislocation in contemporary China. Particularly, informed by cultural studies and ethnographic methods, this research project explores how the post-collectivism party-state insists on a mirror image of the collectivism through constructing the country as a singular super \family" from the olden time, as exemplified in the televised spectacle - CCTV's Spring Festival Gala. In the meantime, the Gala also dramatizes the party-state's inability to form together a seamless and unproblematic unity, as shown by the close readings of the audience vii reception. In other words, although \family" enjoys a superior position in Chinese politics and society as it is rooted in commonly shared social values and in Chinese's everyday conceptual system, upholding the \many in one" idea which reflects the legacy of the previously-dominant ideological framework, actually invokes complex and uneasy relationship between the party-state and the ordinary Chinese people. The core of this research is to \return to the individual" as Havel suggests, to help people understand politics, as well as culture, in relation to themselves individually. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................. v ABSTRACT ......................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES..................................................xiii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................. 1 1.1 The Issue and Perspective . 1 1.2 Research Background . 4 1.2.1 The Unique \Family" in Traditional China . 4 1.2.2 The Modern \Family Revolution" . 5 1.2.3 The Contemporary Disintegrated Society and the Dying Ideology . 7 1.2.4 The New Ideological Project \Harmonious Society" and the Return to Traditional Family Ethics . 9 1.2.5 CCTV's Spring Festival Gala: The Most Telling Case . 10 1.2.5.1 The Spring Festival . 10 1.2.5.2 CCTV's Gala: The No.1 Show . 11 1.2.5.3 A Televised Re-invention of Festival Celebration of \Family" Reunion . 13 1.3 The Theoretical Concerns. 14 1.3.1 Making the Power Visible: The Self-confirming System of Representation . 14 1.3.2 New Political Subjectivity in Making . 15 1.3.3 The \Material," Dynamic Understanding of Ideology and the Contestation of \Family" . 17 1.4 Pr´ecisof the Study . 19 ix 2. \FAMILY REFORM" IN MODERN AND SOCIALIST CHINA ........................................................ 21 2.1 Preamble . 21 2.2 The Tradition: Family in the Confucian Horizon . 22 2.2.1 The \Relational" Selves and the All-encompassing Family . 22 2.2.2 The Societal Order begins with the Family . 23 2.3 The Modern \Family Reforms" . 25 2.4 Construct the Socialist Communal Family in Ideology and Practice . 28 2.4.1 Introduction . 28 2.4.2 The Rural Revolution in Practice and in Discourse. 31 2.4.2.1 Land Reform: Overturning the Landscape of Traditional Extended Family . 32 2.4.2.2 The Class Label and Changing Landscape in the Local Community . 32 2.4.2.3 Class Struggle and National Consciousness in Representations . 35 2.4.2.4 The Changes \Within Family" . 37 2.4.2.5 The Local Practices and Constraints . 47 2.4.2.6 The Symbolic Violence and \Persuasion" . 49 2.4.2.7 The Ideological State Apparatuses and the Crucial Means of Propaganda . 53 2.4.3 The Plan for the Cities. 55 2.5 Conclusion and Discussion . 58 2.5.1 The Purpose of the State: The \Legible" Society . 59 2.5.2 \Public Life" as A By-product and Its Trajectory . 61 2.5.3 The End of Collectivism and the New Family Ideal . 62 3. MATERIAL AND DISCURSIVE POST-MAO TRANSFORMATIONS ........................................ 65 3.1 Preamble . 65 3.2 The \Open and Reform" Policies Before and After 1989 . 66 3.2.1 The \New Era" . 66 3.2.2 1989 Onwards . 70 3.3 The New Order of Social Life in the Post-Collective China . 73 x 3.3.1 In the Cities: The Decline of Work Unit . 73 3.3.2 In the Villages: The Collectives Clasped . 74 3.3.3 The \Invisible," \Floating" Population from the Rural Area to the Cities . 75 3.4 Media Mediated Information Environment in China . 77 3.5 Domesticate Culture into Politics . 84 4. SPRING FESTIVAL GALA: MIXED WINE IN THE OLD BOTTLE ...................................................... 88 4.1 Preamble . 88 4.2 Introduction . 89 4.3 An Actual CCTV's Spring Festival Gala on the Stage . 90 4.3.1 The Opening of the Show . 91 4.3.2 Section 1: \Dragon" - Symbolizing China: Cultural Essentialism in Practice . 92 4.3.3 Section 2: \Family/ Home" - Ideology of \Return" and \Reunion" . 95 4.3.4 Section 3: \Gala's Thirty Years" - Historicizing the TV Festival and the Historical Becomes Personal . 98 4.3.5 Section 4: \The Chinese People under Heaven Belong to A Singular Family" . 100 4.4 Discussion: Spectacle As Visualized Ideology . 103 4.4.1 A \Carnival" Or Not? .