Abstract
The Party-state’s use of propaganda practices to exercise power becomes the most concrete and comes into the sharpest focus when there is a public opinion crisis. In a crisis scenario information spreads quickly and the potential for public emotions to manifest in the form of protests or other political action is higher than usual. Party-state propaganda authorities are forced to make urgent decisions about how to deal with narratives that challenge the official discourse and threaten to undermine CCP legitimacy. Although the authorities make day-to-day tactical decisions about how to implement propaganda practices in the absence of any particular crisis, when a crisis does occur the political stakes are higher, decisions carry greater consequences, and the Party-state’s priorities become clearer. Because certain kinds of public opinion crises have the potential to straddle both the domestic and international spheres, a focus on the Party-state’s tactical responses to crises provides useful insight into the relationship between domestic and international propaganda practices under conditions of globalization.
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Notes
Propaganda official Ren Xianliang differentiates between sudden incidents (tufa shijian), which he defines as events that threaten the nation and the people’s lives, livelihood, and safety, and “news mass incidents” (xinwen qunti shijian), which he defines as incidents that threaten public trust in the government. I do not make such a distinction here. Ren Xianliang, Yulun yindao yishu: Lingdao ganbu ruhe miandui meiti [The art of guiding public opinion: How leading cadres should face the media] (Beijing: Xinhua Chubanshe, 2010), 298.
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For a detailed study of a sudden incident involving ethnic Han nationalism, see James Leibold, “More than a Category: Han Supremacism on the Chinese Internet,” The China Quarterly 203 (2010): 539–59.
See Peter Hays Gries, “Tears of Rage: Chinese Nationalist Reactions to the Belgrade Embassy Bombing,” The China Journal 46 (2001): 25–43;
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For example, Wang Junsheng, “Ruhe zai yingji tufa shijian zhong zuo hao shewai guanli [How to conduct good foreign affairs management during emergency incidents],” Xingzheng Lingdao [Administration leadership] 29 (2010): 25–26.
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For a collation of such photos and reports, see Ren Xinwen, ed., Huangyan yu zhenxiang [Lies and truth] (Beijing: Shenghuo Dushu Xinzhi San Lian Shudian, 2008), 39–43.
This and similar statements are cited in Peter Hays Gries et al., “Patriotism, Nationalism and China’s US Policy: Structures and Consequences of Chinese National Identity,” The China Quarterly 205 (2011): 2.
Geremie R. Barmé, “China’s Flat Earth: History and 8 August 2008,” The China Quarterly 197 (March 2009): 68.
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See Suisheng Zhao, A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004).
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© 2014 Kingsley Edney
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Edney, K. (2014). Tactical Interaction: Public Opinion Crises and the Official Truth. In: The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda. Asia Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137382153_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137382153_7
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