RECENT AND FORTHCOMING COURSES AT CMC

 China Media Centre has designed a suite of courses which are especially, though not exclusively, designed for Chinese applicants.

 This year we have held two separate sessions of our course ‘INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY IN THE UK MEDIA’ and two of ‘CITY BRANDING AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS’. They are aimed at mid-career professionals in, respectively, the broadcast industry and the public spokesperson track within regional and city government administrations.

 Certificate ceremony March 2010; CMC INNOVATION2 coursE

 Each course includes a few days out with London; in Scotland, a programme introducing the visitors to Scottish public affairs has been hosted several times by John Brown, the PR expert who is brother to the recent Prime Minister. One of the courses for government officials visited Northern Ireland and the next one will be briefed in Cardiff on Welsh devolution.

Certificate ceremony March 2010; CMC CITY1 course; Ms WANG Hui, Director of Information Office of Beijing Municipality, receiving the certificate from Geoffrey Davies, Head of the Department for Journalism and Mass Communications, and Prof Hugo de Burgh, Director of China Media Centre.

 We are also recruiting to 3 summer schools for Chinese media undergraduates in July and August; applications received so far come from students at universities as diverse as Shandong University (where the Director is an Honorary Professor), Renmin University, Communications University, Guangzhou University of Foreign Studies and Shenzhen University.

Also planned for this year is a course ‘THE ORGANISATION AND SKILLS OF UK PUBLIC COMMUNICATION ‘, aimed at national level media specialists, and indications so far are that it will be attended by high ranking civil servants and the heads of public affairs of some of China’s largest state-owned corporations. 

 ACADEMIC CONFERENCE

 In April 2010, CMC also held its annual academic conference at Regent Campus, this year titled CHINA’S SOFT POWER. Delegates attending from all continents engaged keenly with the topics under discussion.

 The dramatic economic growth in China has meant a renewed international influence. President Obama’s recent visit, and the effective establishment of the “G2,” marked international recognition of the fact that China is, today, a central actor in the world economy. Historically, economic power has always been accompanied by increasing international cultural influence – soccer, Hollywood and karaoke are just some of the things bequeathed by other big economies to the rest of the world. It is certain that China’s economic stature will also be reflected in the diffusion of Chinese culture.

This reality is already recognised by many in China and outside. The Chinese government has a “going out” strategy, aiming to make the Chinese language, Chinese culture, and the Chinese media more visible internationally. At the same time, broadcasters who were once content to buy programmes and copy western models are today planning to enter the international market place as sellers of their own products. 

TEACHING THE MEDIA-a course at Chongqing’s XINAN UNIVERSITY OF POLICY & LAW

 Geoffrey Davies, Head of Department of JMC, will lead a delegation of 4 lecturers to address media teachers from all over SW China in workshops to be held in early July. Prof Jeanette Steemers is a world expert on children’s’ television, David Dunkley Gyimah a specialist on New Media and Anthony McNicholas, who runs the BBC-History discussion list and is a specialist on Media and Communications.

 LECTURE

 The Director gave the opening address at a conference at Wolfson College Oxford on 10-11 June, AFRICA, CHINA AND THE WEST MEET: TOWARDS NEW FRAMEWORKS FOR MEDIA DEVELOPMENT. Among the very scholars from many countries giving papers were UW colleagues Dr Xin Xin and Dr Winston Mano. 

 Prof Hugo de Burgh will give a keynote speech at the 11th All-China Communications Conference, to be held at Peking University 9-12 July.

China Media Centre hosted leading TV stars as they shared insights on the opportunities for potential China-UK media partnerships

Jeremy Paxman (principal news and current affairs presenter, BBC), Wang Hui (Head of Communications, City of Beijing) in the chair, Bai Yansong (principal news and current affairs presenter, CCTV)

Jeremy Paxman and China’s leading current affairs presenter and writer Bai Yansong joined Paul Jackson and David Morgenstern, from the UK television industry, at the the Future of Public Media workshop organised by the China Media Centre of the University of Westminster and the Communications University of China. The event took place in Beijing, China, on 12 January 2012.

The full-day workshop explored common experiences and challenges facing public media organisations in China and the UK. Contributors came from academic, journalistic, policy and business backgrounds and investigated where common interests and potential partnerships can exist despite real differences in media systems, giving participants the chance to identify areas of common interest and build the foundations for future partnerships.

The four visiting British speakers at the conference, with the Conference Director, Professor Hu Zhengrong. (From left to right: David Morgenstern, Paul Jackson, Professor Hu, Jeremy Paxman and Professor Hugo de Burgh)

Key speakers attending the workshop included:

From the United Kingdom

• Jeremy Paxman, the UK’s leading current affairs presenter.
• Paul Jackson, an outstanding UK TV producer, former executive producer of BBC and ITV’s entertainment departments.
• David Morgenstern, former director of BBC’s entertainment programme development department, currently Director of 10 Star company’s Programme R & D Department.
• Prof Hugo de Burgh, Director of China Media Centre, University of Westminster.

From China:

• Prof Hu Zhengrong, Deputy President of Communications University of China, Chairman of Chinese Media Research Association and the Honorary Doctor of the University of Westminster
• Bai Yansong, China’s leading current affairs presenter and writer.
• Yang Hua, Deputy Director of the CCTV News Centre
• Zhang Haichao, Deputy General Manager of China International Television Corporation (CITVC)
• Ren Xue’an, Deputy Director of CCTV Channel 1

China’s culture industries.

Last month the 4 day annual meeting of the Central Committee took place with the theme of enlivening the ‘cultural system’.

Chinese culture, in the sense of publishing, artworks and the appreciation of historical artefacts is developing very richly without any need of the Central Committee. New schools and universities are being launched while existing ones expand and clone and introduce new ideas and new pedagogy. So what is there for the Central Committee to discuss?

Two things. What significance the ‘culture industries’ have for China’s economic development and what role the very important institution, the Culture Establishment or culture xitong, will play.

The concept of the‘culture industries’ was invented in Britain but has been seized upon by Chinese intellectuals and policy makers (usually with acknowledgments to its parent) to emphasise the importance of the softer industries. Most officials in China will by now know that they are to be judged not just on how many miles of road are built or factories put up under their watch but on the concert halls, artist villages, animation companies, museums and so forth they can initiate.

Whereas money put into universities to work on the creative industries in the UK would doubtless result in the recruitment of more people to write turgid papers which nobody would read except the colleagues judging the writers’ ranking in the next Research Assessment Exercise, Chinese universities seem to be getting stuck in to their own projects with the local communities and individuals, spawning enterprises and workshops. There is a good deal of interest too in how you initiate and incubate creativity. One university plans to bring out some British psychologists and teachers to run a workshop on just that and my own organisation has been briefing broadcast executives on how small British companies are so productive of ideas that the UK is the world’s largest exporter of programme formats.

Some scoff at the Chinese as potential innovators, damning their ‘authoritarian’ political culture and ‘memorising’ schooling as impassable barriers. Like Bill Gates, reported to have said that ‘no-one was ever creative who didn’t have his basic maths and grammar right’, I’m not so sure. Any society whose food is as varied, evolving and imaginative as China’s is innovative in the deepest sense that they can apply their creativity to everyday life. Our summer school students，usually 2nd year undergraduates, astonish British lecturers when they are sent out to direct, shoot and post produce short videos and again when they have to think up ideas for television entertainments and get them judged by British Commissioning Editors. They are nothing if not imaginative and, what’s more, they realise their imaginings with enterprise, energy and the ability to apply themselves and master new skills, both dispositions learnt in a very demanding education system.

In the luxury design side of the culture industries Chinese consumers are buying Hermes and Burberry and Vuitton now because they are the best, but regular visitors to China daily witness new products and new brands which are applying internationally proven methods to their own workmanship. Its just a matter of time and trouble…….. What does this matter to us?

We have to face it that the comforting idea, that where brain and sparkle are needed we Westerners can always stay one step ahead even if all our basic necessities are produced more cheaply and efficiently in China, needs rethinking. Of course most of China’s exports are still made up of things designed by Westerners but this won’t last forever. Little by little Chinese are going to be doing their own conceptualising, research and designing. The government is also determined to reduce the exposure of China’s economy to the influence of the West, by powering the domestic market. If Chinese consumers can be spending enough to marginalise foreign buyers and if the things that Chinese consumers want are mainly to be conceived as well as produced in China then where does that leave the West? Ok, this is a reasonably long-term scenario, but it is one that our political leaders need to be thinking about.

And what about the Chinese government’s ability to realise its policy aspirations? Far from having a dysfunctional political system, as almost every foreign correspondent seems to think, China may have the edge on us institutionally too.

The Culture Xitong – the Administrative Framework for Culture – is led by the Central Propaganda (Information) Department.

There is a presupposition widely adhered to in Chinese society that culture must be supportive of authority and that it is one of the duties of government to use such media as are at its disposal to educate and inform the public as it see fit.

This approach has a number of facets which can seem to outsiders, at least to those from the Anglosphere, remarkable. For example, every city government will have a section responsible for spiritual development and civilised comportment, which will promote cleanliness, courtesy and good behaviour among citizens, through campaigns, competitions and public events. Communist media theory aside, officials who are as attentive to detail as this understandably also regard it as their duty to ensure that opinions are guided and that information that is subversive of interpersonal morality or good administration is excluded from publication. Regulating public communication is tasked, because of the legacy of Communist organization, to the Central Propaganda Department (CPD) of the CCP (MacGregor 2010: ch8).

As an illustration of the power of the CPD it is notable that, in early 2011, when it was widely reported that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had visited petitioners at the State Bureau of Letters and Calls [国家信访局] to show his concern that petitioners against injustice were not being treated appropriately by many local authorities, Chinese observers reported that the Central Propaganda Department had criticised the Prime Minister for so doing, a surprising but not unprecedented revelation. The year before it had been reported that parts of Wen’s speeches had been censored on ‘at least four occasions in recent months’ (Moore 2010). These incidents give an idea of the authority attributed to the Propaganda Department.

Quoting a Party publication, Shambaugh comments that its definition of the CPD

‘means that virtually every conceivable medium that transmits and conveys information to the people of China falls under the bureaucratic purview of the CCP Propaganda Department. This includes all media organs, all schools and educational institutions, all literary and art organs and all publishing outlets.’ (Shambaugh 2009: 107)

The CPD is responsible for (1) issuing instructions on content, (2) the professional development of content managers (editors, publishers) and for (3) monitoring the content of communications to ensure that they do not transgress the official line on topics that the Party considers important. It has units at every level of administration of which local newspapers and broadcasting channels must take account. The CPD answers for the xitong of information and cultural institutions to the most powerful decision-making body in China, the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CCP.

It guides and supervises the xitong members (Perry 2001: 27-8), which include: the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the State Administration of Press and Publication, the State Council Information Office, the Ministry of Culture, Xinhua News Agency. It shares with the Ministry of Public Security the task of filtering and monitoring the Internet. Each of the organisations will have provincial and local branches. There is in other words a comprehensive structure through which to influence ‘culture’.

While my description above may imply that the powers of the CPD are all negative, all about exercising control, that is not necessarily the case today. New ideas about how culture can be developed both to enrich everyday life and to create new industries are shooting through the xitong; enterprising officials are encouraged and professional development courses and workshops are held to vitalise local committees and stimulate entrepreneurship. While it may be the case that ideology and hierarchy will have a stultifying affect, as China’s critics assume, this is not necessarily so.

The Central Committee believes that officials in Beijing can kick into fast gear a renaissance in culture that creates modern industries and diverts people from admiration for European culture into applying modern technologies and commercial skills to their own. The Central Committee may not be so wrong.

Although this is a blog for the China Media Centre, I want to make my focus not
so much the Chinese media, on which there are already some useful websites in
English, but one about which British people in the political milieu badly need
to know more: How China works.

A recent Daily Telegraph cartoon depicts the promotion poster for the new James Bond
film; the smoothie with the gun is poised to save the world in free-fall. But
the new twist was that the face of Bond was the face of Hu Jintao, President of
China.

What a change from 2008 when, despite grudging respect for her economic achievements
and glorious Olympics, the Western political and intellectual elites pretty
well unanimously despised China because of what they perceived as China’s
political and moral failings! This view was based upon prejudices and
ignorance; just as our politicians’ failure to understand other cultures and
countries has got us into trouble in the Muslim world, the same approach to
China may have even worse consequences in the years ahead.

How little we know about how China works is really quite extraordinary, when you consider
that it is generally acknowledged that China is already influencing us and will
do so more and more. There is a whole raft of assumptions about China that my compatriots
carry in their heads – soon expelled by the smart ones when they visit it. As
Director of the China Media Centre I have enjoyed taking various prominent
Brits on their first visits to China – Boris Johnson, David Willetts, Nick
Davies (usually credited with having exposed the NOW hacking scandal), Steve
Hewlett who presents The Media Show and other leading figures from the media.
They would not contradict my saying that they found a society infinitely more
open and diverse and free than they had assumed.

 So my blog will try to show why this is and what we can learn from China. These are some
of the themes I’ll be addressing:

 Who governs China, how they are chosen, what kind of people they are and how they think is
a great interest of mine, since I began to meet officials informally through my
work some five years ago;

 How young people – students, mainly – think about their own country and about ‘the West’.
How modern history is being reinterpreted to diminish the Communist Party,
though by no means to promote ‘Westernisation’;

What’s being said on and done through the internet;

 The media, how they are managed and the roles they play in society. Why many Chinese are
skeptical of Western ‘free’ media, in particular ours;

Immigration-  China’s policies, now being run by a former British deputy Vice Chancellor
and shaped to bring in enterprise and creativity, new models and attitudes;

Education – how the schools are combining traditional disciplines with modern ideas about
learning and developing imagination;

Universities- How they manage to be entrepreneurial and profit making despite state control
which, in our country, seems only to crush initiative;

Officials- and how they are learning to re-think their relationships with the public in a
world in which their misdeeds can be easily exposed on the web, in which public
activism is often intemperate and unforgiving and in which the old
authoritarian model won’t work.

Social movements and what their aims are.

Religion in China and what its new flowering means.

These are some of the areas I want to reflect on. I hope others will join me. But the
proviso is that the perspective be that of an English person – or French, or
Russian or American or whatever – seeing China in relation to his or her
society. This is not, in other words, a blog for China experts or even
international relations specialists but about the impact of China on us, and
what we can learn from China.

As I go to – China 4 or 5 times a year, usually for around 2-3 weeks each time, I pick up
stories and meet very different people around the country; I will try to root
what I write about in those encounters, make them concrete. But as I – and the
others I hope will contribute – also dip into the torrent of academic
literature about China, we will certainly be drawing on that too.

That’s all for day one.

Interaction and Communication: The City in Transition

The city is a physical entity, a place of human inhabitation and a center of economy, politics and culture. The city represents a network of interaction and communication, and the indicator of human living conditions and the pattern of their relationships as well.

From the beginning, communication and the city associated with each other, constituting an integral co-structural relationship. The city changes in time and space, which in turn restructures the communicative and interactive relationships. The significant change of interaction and communication pattern, is undoubtedly adjustment and representation of the city and its internal and external relations. In short, the city is the carrier and network of interaction and communication which  is the pattern of the city and its resident’s living. Therefore, the research of the city and its resident cannot go without the perspectives of interaction and communication.

In the current context of globalization, digitalization and informatization, re-assessing the relationship between the city and interaction and communication, is not only a practical and significant subject concerning human existence but the cornerstone of communication theory and practice as well.

The Center for Information and Communication Studies, Fudan University, will focus on “urban communication” in its future research, re-examining the relationship between communication, the city and human beings, in order to fulfill three purposes: On the level of social function, to help build up “communicable city”; on the level of humanity idea, to contemplate human living conditions and problems in modern cities from the perspective of communication; on the level of disciplinary level, to build a new theoretical ground of communication research, connecting humanities and social science based on of communication.

The theme of “Communication and China • Fudan Forum” (2011) is determined as

Interaction and Communication: The City in Transition

“Communication and China • Fudan Forum” (2011) calls for papers from domestic and foreign scholars. In view of the wide scope of the topic, we suggest three dimensions so as to make our discussion more focused and to the point.

1. Interaction and communication as the main function of the city. For example: the relationship between interaction and communication and different urban groups; urban communication and political and economic changes in cities; public crisis communication and urban governance; community communication and neighborhood; information monitoring, public security and civil rights; urban change and building up urban media systems; interaction and communication and urban cultural identity.
2. The city as the network of interaction and communication, for example, urban space presented by interaction and communication; virtual and physical urban space and interaction and communication; transition in ways of communication and relationships and urban change; the expression of ideas in urban architecture; urban lifestyle and cultural heritage in interaction and communication; the relationship between suburban and urban distribution and interaction; political relations in urban interaction and communication; urban markets, commodity exchange and interpersonal interaction.
3. Interaction and communication as the way of city residents’ existence, for example: the transition of interaction and communication and human existential experience; interaction and communication and people’s perception of the city; urban interaction and communication and people’s daily life, urban interaction and communication and manifestation of Renqing, urban interaction and communication and individual subjectivity.

The title of the paper can be decided by the author. One can choose whatever research orientation, methodology and approach one finds appropriate. All submissions must be based on empirical evidence and not purely descriptive narrative. Empty talk should be avoided.

Date: December 28-30, 2011 in Shanghai, China

Deadline: October 31, 2011

Email: cics@fudan.edu.cn

Phone: 86-21-65643743

Fax; 86-21-65643743

Date: 6 April 2011 6.00pm – 6 April 2011 7.00pm
Location: The Old Cinema, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW
Speakers: Professor Hugo de Burgh

As China recovers from the Great Leap Backwards and re-establishes herself as a leading civilisation, what parts will the media play? And will the categories and framings that we Anglo-Americans are accustomed to applying – our leaky umbrella – help us to understand them? In examining these questions, Hugo de Burgh takes examples from newspapers and the internet, television and periodicals as illustrations of the Chinese communications revolution.

Hugo de Burgh is Professor of the Study of Journalism at the University of Westminster and Director of the China Media Centre. The Chinese Ministry of Education has appointed him a Professor at Tsinghua University under the PRC Government’s 985 Programme.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in Fyvie Hall.

RSVP to: Register online on <http://www.westminster.ac.uk/about/news-and-events/events/2011/to-the-yellow-crane-pavilion-with-our-leaky-umbrella-reflections-on-the-future-for-chinese-media-the-inaugural-lecture-of-professor-hugo-de-burgh>