China's Rise and Global
Communication:
Problems and Prospects
HU Zhengrong
JI Deqiang
Communication University of China
Outline
• 1. Ambitions: China’s project of enhancing competence and
raising national image in global communication
(1) Media “going-out” plan
(2) National branding: promotional videos
• 2. Ambiguities within those plans
• 3. Social and Political-economic analysis
(1) Internal complexities:
Fractured society and interest groups in conflicts
Media’s Dual-role and regulatory uncertainties
(2) External contradictions:
Ideological stereotypes in global media coverage
West-dominant media political economy
• 4. Discussion: the core value of China’s rise in global
communication order
1. Media “going-out”
• 1. China’s culture “going out” plan
“China is going to actively exploit international culture
marketplaces, innovate culture ‘going-out’ models, strengthen the
competence and influence of Chinese culture and finally enhance the
nation’s soft power”– “China’s 12th Five-Year Plan”(2011-2015)
• 2. Media expansion: three examples
(1) Xinhua News Agency:
World television network: CNC World News
Increase of oversea bureaus
(2) China Central Television
Expansion of multilingual broadcasting services
China’s first national TV website: China Network Television (CNTV)
(3) Newspapers
English edition of Global Times, a product of People’s Daily Group
The US edition of China Daily
2. Promotional videos: an attempt of
national branding
• Two-stage promotion:
• 1.“Experiencing China”
Presentation of outstanding
Chinese figures in various
fields
• 2.“China on the way”
Personal telling about how
China developed by
ordinary Chinese people
and foreigners
China promo videos playing in Times Square
3. Ambiguities in those efforts
• What exactly the meaning of “China’s rise” is?
• What is the core value of China within the existing global
communication order?
• Whether China’s voice can be heard and “correctly”
decoded by audiences from oversea audiences?
• If China decides to go the way Western media group
succeeded, the extent to which Chinese media
organizations will get the same or higher status with
manipulative power in global communication is obscured.
• Those ambiguities lie in the characteristics of Chinese
media in the context of reform China since early1980s.
4. Internal complexities
• (1) Fractured society and interest groups in conflicts
•
“One nation” with diverse social strata
•
“One nation” with fractured social structure between
the affluent and the poor, the urban center and the
rural peripheries, as well as the developed East coastal
areas and the underdeveloped West and hinterland
•
“One nation” with a variety of interest groups
A case: the “Turf War” between SARFT and MII
SARFT
Media
Convergence
MII
The interplay between marketization and sustaining political governance
in the era of media convergence
4. Internal complexities
• (2) Dual-role of Chinese media and regulatory
uncertainties
The Dule-role of media: profit making and ideological
management.
Media
legitimacy
Political
concerns
profit
Market
The consolidation of existing special-interest-oriented media structure
4. Internal complexities
• Regulation systems are de facto the reflection of those
complexities. By definition, regulation is the temporary outcome
or balance of negotiation between various interest groups
(always with unequal empowerment of negotiation) within a
society, and is essentially not stable but subject to change
whenever this balance is broken up.
• The existing regulatory structure encourages marketization on
the one hand, and “securing the commanding height” on the
other hand. This two-sided regulatory feature has been
amplified during globalized media expansion, which might
undermine the value basis of China’s rise.
5. External contradictions
• (1) Ideological stereotypes
• “With generally low official credibility, China’s state media have a
hard time winning over a skeptical audience.” (Zhang Xiaoling, 2007)
• A case: How did US media represent and frame China’s media
“going-out” plan?
US Today (Feb. 18 2009): “China, known for its tight control of
people and the news, wants to soften its image around the world and
is ready to spend big bucks on a media empire to do that.”
The New York Times (Oct. 5 2009): “China Yearns to Form Its Own
Media Empires”
CNN (Sept. 3 2010): “Can Chinese media rule the airwaves?” CNN
proposed a market-driven and private-capital-led media reform to
soften China’s image, because Americans are suspicious of state-run
media.
5. External contradictions
• A temporary conclusion: China’s media “going-out” plan backing
by huge government subsidies has been inevitable to fall into
the West-dominated media narratives characterized by constant
criticizing media control and worrying about their oriental
counterparts who will soon to be able to displace them as a new
market “empire”.
• (2) The political economy of global media structure: Western /
transnational media conglomerates dominant
Cultural
hegemony
Institutional
powers
The logic of
dominance
6. China’s rise or a new global
communication order
• Discussions remain significant on the road Chinese media
should go to present a “full” picture of the country to the
world.
• The core value China contributes to the world is NOT:
- Trade rule: exchange value in market
- Cultural essentialism: Confucianism and Taoism
- Post-colonial perspective: Orientalism
• BUT:
- An imagination base for social development
- A tolerance and absorption of diverse cultures
- A peaceful rise in a new global communication order
Thanks!
Authors:
HU Zhengrong, Ph.D., Professor
Chair, Chinese Association of Communication
Vice President, Communication University of China
Director, National Center for Radio and Television Studies
Email: huzhr@cuc.edu.cn
JI Deqiang, Ph.D. candidate
Communication University of China
Email: jdq@cuc.edu.cn