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

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.

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.

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

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>

Beyond the university, attendees heard from top advertising and PR experts, as well as from the people who handle communications in London (including Westminster, the area which includes most of central London’s attractions), Glasgow and Belfast. Field visits were made to destinations across the UK, with opportunities to see the reality behind the UK’s most notable “city brands”.  The course concluded with discussion of the delegates’ experiences during their time in the UK, and they had an opportunity to put their questions to a panel of experts from the worlds of media and branding.

Seminars were led by Edelman’s new Chief Content Officer and former BBC Director of Global News Richard Sambrook,  Crisis Communications expert Mike Regester and Director of Communications at the Department for Business, Innovation and skills Russell Grossman. Barclay’s Corporate Affairs Director Howell James and the BBC’s Senior Communications Advisor Donald  Steel hosted sessions, as did senior officials at the Central Office of Information and senior partner at Portland Communications, Martin Sheehan. The Office of the First Minister in the Welsh Assembly Government organised a briefing for delegates in Cardiff on the management of  communications and media relations in a devolved administration, and delegates also met the All Party Parliamentary China Group in Parliament.

Professor Colin Sparks, director of CAMRI, the university’s centre for global media and social change, introduced the UK media system, while Professor Hugo de Burgh, founder and director of the China Media Centre, lectured on the representation of China in the UK media.

Delegates were all ministerial spokespersons – officials who represent their Secretaries of State and Ministers in public and are themselves senior career politicians.

The two-week course was designed and led by former BBC Director of Communications Sally Osman in partnership with Dr. Zeng Rong of the China Media Centre. Project organisation was by Alja Kranjec.

The next China Media Centre seminar will take place on Wednesday, 23 March, 2011 between 2-4pm in room E4.4 at the Harrow campus. Sam Geall, a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, will be talking about his latest research into environmental journalism in China. The seminar will comprise an introductory lecture, followed by an open discussion. All are welcome.

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Climate-change reporting in China has increased significantly in quantity, originality and detail over the past few years, but to what extent do obstacles still exist to the publication of high-quality information about the topic? Does the Chinese media confuse or enlighten the public about the science of climate change? What are the limits on access to information for Chinese journalists reporting low-carbon issues? How do stories about climate change in China differ from reports about other environmental issues? The presentation will explore these questions and will conclude by asking what opportunities exist for international cooperation in this field.

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Beyond academia, Sam writes about Chinese affairs for a variety of international publications. His articles have been published in Foreign Policy, New Internationalist, Far Eastern Economic Review, New Humanist, Ecologist, China Rights Forum, Green Futures and openDemocracy. He is the deputy editor of the bilingual Chinese environmental website, chinadialogue.net.

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Critical journalists and social activists are contributing to public debate in China, through their investigations, commentaries and through voicing grievances and concerns that would otherwise be ignored. These provide people with new channels of representation. At the same time both critical journalists and activists remain subject to party-state surveillance, and both freedom and control appear to be increasing. The seminar will explore this puzzle: what does it mean that more issues are being discussed by increasing numbers of critical journalists and activists while party-state control remains strict?

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Elin is a post-doctoral fellow working within the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. Further information on her project can be found at: http://www.sv.uio.no/iss/english/research/projects/critical-journalism-in-china/index.html