Abstract
This chapter focuses on the cultural politics of entertainment media in China. I try to bring together institutional-level analysis and attention to discourses and meaning in two steps. First, I map out the political economy of both film and television industries, so as to explain the structural conditions that give rise to or suppress certain types of entertainment media content. Second, in the close reading of a few exemplary film and television texts, I situate the tensions and contradictions emerged from rhetorical devices of storytelling in the broader context of political, economic and social change in China.
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Notes
- 1.
These two movies alone accounted for about one-third of total box-office takings in Beijing and Shanghai in 1998.
- 2.
This is similar to a Ted Talk, with speakers from arts, science and humanities invited to give speeches on various topics. The name Yixi comes from the Chinese saying “tingjun yixi hua, shengdu shinianshu” (listening to one speech from you inspires me more than 10 years’ study).
- 3.
The full script of the talk is available at http://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2017/03/
- 4.
Even this figure is believed by many academics and ordinary citizens to be a gross underestimate, as it was the officially registered number and did not capture the numerous workers who were released involuntarily and informally.
- 5.
SARFT has now been merged with the General Administration of Press and Publication to form the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT), but the two regulatory bodies still operate separately.
- 6.
This is a labor NGO that has become a flagship organization for educating and training migrant workers. The NWAT was founded by the same group as those who set up Workers’ Home.
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Meng, B. (2018). The Cultural Politics of the Entertainment Media. In: The Politics of Chinese Media. China in Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46214-5_4
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