China’s Soft Power

A Conference organised by the China Media Centre at the University of Westminster with the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of China Renmin University

309 Regent Street, London W1 UK

April 8th and 9th 2010

 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 abroad” 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.  This conference will address the current and future state of China’s “soft power.”

Keynote Speakers

 In addition, more than forty papers will be presented, including studies on:

• Theoretical discussions of the relationships between economic power and cultural power

• Official efforts to promote Chinese language and culture abroad
• China’s international news media
• The international strategies of China’s media companies
• The competitive advantages of Chinese culture in the international market
• Is “authentic” Chinese culture under threat from the drive to sell products internationally?
• International reaction to the spread of Chinese culture
• The historical experience of the international influence of Chinese culture
• Future prospects for Chinese media and culture on the world stage 

 To register for the conference, please contact Helen Cohen H.cohen02@westminster.ac.uk.

Conceived and organized by:

Daya Thussu, Professor of International Communication and Director of India Media Centre at the University of Westminster, London

Supported by:

Mass Communication Division of the ICA and by the Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University for Pennsylvania

Call for papers:

The transformation of communication and media in China and India – the world’s two most populous countries and fastest growing economies – has profound implications for what constitutes the ‘global’. Jairam Ramesh, currently India’s Environment Minister, is credited with the notion of ‘Chindia’, representing what has been termed as the ‘rise of the rest’. Trade between the two Asian neighbours – negligible at the beginning of the 1990s – grew to $40 billion by 2008, with China becoming India’s largest single trading partner. Such economic exchanges have coincided with cracks within the neo-liberal model of US-led Western capitalism. The combined economic and cultural impact of ‘Chindia’, aided by their worldwide diasporas, is creating globalization with an Asian accent, a phenomenon that is likely to influence globalized media and its study.

With more than 70 dedicated news channels, India has one of the world’s most linguistically diverse media landscapes, while China has emerged as the planet’s biggest mobile telephone market, having the world’s highest blogger population and as the largest exporter of IT products. The study of media and communication is rapidly growing in both countries: more than 700 communication and media programmes are operational in Chinese universities, while the opening up of the media and communication sector in India has led to mushrooming of media institutes. In addition, both countries provide a considerable number of media and communication postgraduate and research students to Western universities.

Though both countries have experienced different trajectories of growth in recent decades and represent two distinct political and media systems, they also demonstrate interesting similarities. The rise of ‘Chindia’ offers exciting opportunities as well as challenges to media and communication researchers. This preconference – a pioneering intellectual venture – aims to bring together scholars from around the world, especially from China and India, to examine and explore this phenomenon.

Among the topics we wish to cover are: The rise of ‘Chindia’ and its impact on international media research; globalization of Indian media and cultural industries; China’s soft power; communication and cultural exchange between China and India; re-envisioning diasporic and developmental communication; Chindia – cooperation or competition?

The Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) of the University of Westminster, which was officially rated in 2008 as the UK’s top media research department, is home to both the China Media Centre and the newly established India Media Centre. This unique combination of expertise should ensure high-quality international participation, especially from China and India. A selection of papers presented at the preconference will be published in a special themed issue of the Sage journal Global Media and Communication.

Speakers to include: Professor Yuezhi Zhao, Simon Fraser University, Canada; Professor Daya Thussu, University of Westminster, UK; Professor Ang Peng Hwa, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Professor Bella Mody, University of Colorado in Boulder; Professor Hu Zhengrong, Communication University of China, Beijing; Professor Vibodh Parthasarathi, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi; Dr Xin Xin, University of Westminster; Professor Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Bowling Green State University, USA and Professor Joseph Chan, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Registration: Participants are required to pay a fee of $100, which includes tea, coffee and lunch, and the payment goes through ICA.

Prospective participants should submit an abstract (200-300 words) to Professor Daya Thussu (D.K.Thussu@westminster.ac.uk) and Ranita Chatterjee (R.Chatterjee@westminster.ac.uk) by 7 December 2009.

The last thirty years have seen a transformation of the Chinese media. They have moved from being solely the “throat and tongue of the party” supported by state subsidies to a situation where the majority of their income is from advertising revenue, for which they must vigorously compete with each other. The need to gain and hold an audience are today central to the concerns of media managers, journalists and creative workers. At the same time, they still need to follow the party line and to carry positive messages about China’s development. Many observers have noted how these two tasks impose unique burdens on the media and oblige them to develop new strategies to report the news and to entertain the audience.

The change in the economic situation of the media, and the orientation on the preferences of consumers, has meant that Chinese media producers have had to find new forms of journalism and new kinds of programming that are attractive to the mass audience.

In television, despite the regulatory protection that CCTV still enjoys, it must face sharp competition in markets like Guangdong from provincial and city stations whose programming is much more attuned to local tastes and language. Nationally, provincial satellite channels, notably from Hunan, are in the forefront of innovation in entertainment programming. Similarly, Phoenix TV is introducing new ways of reporting the news and winning a substantial audience, particularly amongst the younger and elite audiences.

In the newspaper press there has been a series of new and innovative titles, which have much more sensational and personalised reporting than the old norms. Some journalists have reported on events and individuals that have had major repercussions for aspects of the legal situation. At the same time there has been an explosion of journalism devoted to different aspects of lifestyle and consumption, aimed squarely at the new middle class audience. In the broader printed press, a new generation of magazines targeting audiences like young women and, more recently, young men, have enjoyed substantial success in terms of circulation.

Social change, and in particular the rise of car ownership, has also led to a revival of radio. The notorious traffic jams of big Chinese cities have created what is literally a captive audience for the medium. So, too, increasing affluence and the spread of the internet has led to an explosion of computer gaming, both offline and online, that is attractive to many young people.

The sources of these new ideas are many and varied. Sometimes, as with TV dramas, there is the straightforward purchase and broadcasting of foreign shows, many originating from Korea, which have proved very popular with audiences. In entertainment programming, there have been notorious cases of unauthorised borrowings from abroad (Supergirl is the most famous example) but today there are more and more entirely legal purchases of foreign formats. In broadcast news, Phoenix uses presentational techniques developed by international broadcasters to deliver the same sort of news as CCTV in a more approachable format. In magazines, the model is one of close collaboration in joint ventures between Chinese publishers and big western publishers that have established Chinese equivalents of many of the most famous global fashion and lifestyle titles. These borrowings, however, are hardly ever simple transfers from one country to another: in almost all cases, Chinese importers modify the original to fit better with the preferences of their audience.

Increasingly, however, Chinese media are seeking to break free from imported models and to produce media content that is wholly original. They are following in the footsteps of producers in other countries who started off with a debt to more advanced media systems but have increasingly generated their own nationally-specific content. Some Chinese media organisations have plans to develop themselves into truly global players, to generate wholly original content, and to export their programmes, ideas and formats to other countries.

These innovations in the media are taking place at the same time as the much more general and very rapid social and cultural changes that are sweeping China. Millions of people flood into the cities from the countryside and millions of urban dwellers have seen their personal wealth and their cultural horizons transformed in the last thirty years. Some welcome these cultural changes and celebrate the forms of media that are attractive to this new audience. They welcome the relative freedom and the influence of foreign ideas and values, seeing them as the building blocks of the new China. Others worry that the deluge of novelty threatens the traditional values of Chinese culture and seek to insulate the population from alien cultures. In the film industry, for example, some claim that the price of international success has been the adaptation of traditional Chinese themes and stories to fit western tastes. China will only succeed in exporting cultural products, they argue, if they are stripped of their unique Chinese characteristics.

We invite papers that look at any aspect of this complex process of change. Our interests include, but are not limited to:

• Joint deals between Chinese and overseas media companies
• Intellectual property rights and the Chinese media
• Adapting foreign models to Chinese conditions
• Originating wholly Chinese media artefacts
• Managing the process of change, creativity and innovation in the Chinese media
• Planning entry into the global market
• The nature of cultural change in contemporary China
• New freedoms and new constraints for Chinese media producers
• Chinese media and foreign capital

Send abstracts (250 words maximum) by 1st February to Guo Dawei: georgedawei@hotmail.com

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China’s Media Handlers

学术研讨会：新闻发言人与政府公关

A key issue in modern public affairs, following the Tibet crisis and Sichuan disaster, and before the Olympics.

Who are the people who manage media relations in China? How do they work?

当今中国，谁在协调政府与媒体及公众的关系？他们如何工作？

2008年6月6日，中国传媒中心在伦敦举办了一场公开讨论会，讨论的问题集中在当代中国的政府新闻发言人制度，主要探讨在西藏事件、四川地震之后以及奥运会之前的阶段，中国政府与媒体的关系。

Steven Guanpeng Dong

Trainer of China’s official spokesmen for the State Council Information Office; former CCTV journalist and Lecturer at Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism and Communication

In the chair: David Hill, formerly Tony Blair’s Director of Communications, now working at Bell Pottinger Group

with Lord (Tim) Bell

Host: Professor Simon Jarvis, Pro Vice-Chancellor,

University of Westminster

Entry is free and open to all

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