Internet ideotainment in the PRC: National responses to cultural globalization

Journal of Contemporary China

Volumn 17, Issue 54, 2008, Pages 121-140

  Lagerkvist, Johan ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GLOBALIZATION; INTERNET; LEADERSHIP; POLITICAL IDEOLOGY;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST;

EID: 37049003755     PISSN: 10670564     EISSN: 14699400     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10670560701693120     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Other works primarily deal with issues of control, online identities, global networking, and online governance. See Christopher R. Hughes and Gudrun Wacker, eds, China and the Internet: Politics of the Digital Leap Forward (London: Routledge/Curzon, 2003)
2. Junhua Zhang and Martin Woesler, eds, China's Digital Dream: The Impact of the Internet on Chinese Society (Bochum: Bochum University Press, 2002)
3. Francoisie Mengin, Cyber China: Reshaping National Identities in the Age of Information (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
4. Arjun Appadurai, 'Disjuncture and Difference in Global Cultural Economy', Theory, Culture and Society, 7, 1990, pp. 295-310.
5. Ibid, p. 300.
6. Ibid, p. 301.
7. Ideotainment is not anything that is unique to China. Many states - democratic and authoritarian - use the principles inherent in ideotainment. See, for example, Marcus Alexander, 'The Internet in Putin's Russia: Reinventing a technology of authoritarianism', presented at the Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association, University of Leicester, UK, (16 April 2003). Strategists involved with political competition and campaigning in democratic countries strive to make political communication more fun to the electorate. In election democracies such as semiauthoritarian Russia and still-authoritarian China, where political competition is minimal or outright forbidden, ideotainment is a rather new phenomenon that isn't really about winning elections - it is about keeping or increasing legitimacy for the powers in place.
8. The animated characters 'Jingjing' and 'Chacha', for example, with their youthful smiles look anything but hostile to the randomsurfer, but the message to stay in line should be lost to no one; see www.egov.org.cn/ Article/news003/2006-01-02/15229.html, (accessed 20 February 2006).
9. One is admonished to report deviations to weifa he buliang xinxi jubao songxin [The Reporting Center for Illegal and Unhealthy Information]; see http://net.china.com.cn/chinese/index.htm (accessed 21 February 2006).
10. Interview with the director of the National e-government Service Center, Beijing, January 2002.
11. In 2003, when the Sars crisis shifted from its cover-up phase to 'the Battle Against Sars' phase, the symbolic arsenal of both the CCP and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) included images of the stern countenance of the worker-peasant and the tending field nurse.
12. Database research was done at the National Library in Beijing. After doing a rundown using keywords such as 'the Internet', 'society', and 'politics', a large body of articles and books covering the time frame from 1997 to 2004 emerged. These were grouped into the major categories. From that list, I chose nine articles that were either representative for these categories, or published in influential academic or Party flagship journals such as Xinwen yu Chuanbo Journalism and Comm unication, Xueshu luntan Academic For um, Qiushi Truth, Xin Changcheng [The New Long March], or given earlier as presentations at the prestigious Beijing University. The findings in these texts were later cross-checked/corroborated in interviews with academics, media professionals, and civil servants within different sectors of the Chinese bureaucracy. The translated excerpts of these articles come from the issue 'Chinese intellectuals' thoughts on the Internet', Contemporary Chinese Thought 35(2), (2003-2004).
13. See C. L. Hamrin and T. Cheek, eds, China's Establishment Intellectuals (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1986), p. 3. Most of the writers analyzed for this article are academics working at state universities. One writer is a freelance journalist, and another is a teacher affiliated with the Communist Party's Central Party School in Beijing. Arguably, the most important factor to take into account when considering their biographical backgrounds would be age. People brought up and educated before the economic reforms of 1978, and before and after the tragic events at Tiananmen Square in 1989, have widely different levels of professional skill, education, and ideological perspectives.
14. Sun Xiaoli and Chuan Guoduan, eds, Xinxi kexue jishu yu dangdai shehui Information Science and Technology and Contemporary Society (Beijing: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe [Higher Education Publishing House], 2000)
15. Yang Boshu, ed., Yintewang yu shehui - Lun wangluo dui dangdai xifang shehui ji guoji chuanbo de yingxiang Internet and Society: Discuss ing the Impact on Contemporary Western Society and International Communication (Wuhan: Huazhong keji daxue chubanshe [Central China Science University Publishing House], 2002)
16. Yang Daigui, 'Lun hulianwang dui weilai zhengfu guanli de yingxiang' ['Discussing the impact of the Internet on future government administration'], Dongnanya, zongheng Comprehensive Southeast A sia no. 6, (2002).
17. Hui Shuguang and Huang Tianhan, 'Hulianwang dui sixiang zhengzhi jiaoyu de xiaoji yingxiang ji duice yanjiu' ['Research on the negative impact of the Internet on ideological education and countermeasures to it'], Beijing youdian daxue xuebao Journal of Beijing Post and Telecommu nications University no. 2, (2002), p. 52.
18. Ibid.
19. Li Zhuoying and Wang Jian, 'Hulianwang dui sixiang zhengzhi gongzuo de yingxiang ji duice' ['The Internet's impact on ideological and political thought work and ways of addressing it'], Xin Changzheng The Ne w Long March no. 3, (2001), p. 32.
20. D. Shambaugh, 'The Chinese state in the post-Mao era', in D. Shambaugh, ed., The Modern Chinese State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 178.
21. R. Cullen and H. L. Fu, 'Seeking theory from experience: Media regulation in China', in V. Randall, ed., Democratization and the Media (London: Frank Cass, 1998), p. 162.
22. A clear example of this was when the privately owned web-portals Sina and Sohu started to write their own news items in the late 1990s. The Central Propaganda Department was slow to recognize the threat to the agenda-setting function of Party-controlled media. Limitations to their online journalism became clear only with the promulgation of 'Provisional Regulations for the Administration of Internet Sites Engaging in the Business of News Publication', effective starting 6 November 2000. It was clearly spelled out therein that Internet companies that are wholly, or partly, privately owned are only permitted to publish news that has already been published by approved news organizations in China (see Baker and McKenzie China and the Internet: Essential Legislation (Hong Kong; Asia Information Associates), 2001, pp. 362-366).
23. On changing journalistic practices and bureaucratic control in the PRC, see Pan Zhongdang, 'Improvising reform activities: The changing reality of journalistic practice in China', in Chin Chuan-Lee, ed., Power, Money and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000)
24. and Yuezhi Zhao, Media, Market and Democracy in China - Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998).
25. See Johan Lagerkvist, 'In the crossfire of demands: Chinese news portals between propaganda and the public', in Jens Damm and Simona Thomas, eds, Chinese Cyberspaces: Technological Changes and Political Effects (London: Routledge, 2006).
26. For an estimation of the scope and weight of the resources that are planned to control the Internet, see Greg Walton's 2002 report, China's Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People's Republic of China, available at: www.ichrdd.ca/english/commdoc/publications/globalization/ goldenShieldEng.html, (accessed 1 August 2006).
27. Zhao, Media, Market and Democracy in China, p. 158.
28. M. E. Price, Media and Sovereignty: The Global Information Revolution and Its Challenge to State Power (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), p. 143.
29. U. Hannerz, Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 17.
30. N. Mouzelis, 'Reflexive modernization and the third way: The impasses of Giddens' social-democratic politics', Sociological Review 49(3), (August 2001).
31. The pledge is available at: http://www.isc.org.cn/20020417/ca102762.htm, (accessed 1 August 2006).
32. Hui and Huang, 'Hulianwang dui sixiang zhengzhi jiaoyu de xiaoji yingxiang ji duice yanjiu', p. 53.
33. Li and Wang, 'Hulianwang dui sixiang zhengzhi gongzuo de yingxiang ji duice', p. 33.
34. Price, Media and Sovereignty, p. 225.
35. For an account of what happens when socialist cadres stop believing in the fairness and legitimacy of the political system within which they play key roles, see P. Hollander, Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
36. Quan Zhemo, 'Jianchi "san ge zhuoyan yu" nuli kaichuang xuanchuan sixiang gongzuo xin jumian' ['Upholding "three views" in trying hard to open up a new prospect for ideological education'], Shehui kexue zhanxian Social Science Battle Line no. 2, (1999), p. 8.
37. Zeng Qinghong, 'Jiaqiang dang de zhizheng nengli jianshe de ganglingxing wenjian (xuexi guanqie shiliu jie si zhong quan hui jingshen, jiaqiang dang de zhizheng nengli jianshe)' ['A programmatic document strengthening the construction of the Party's governing ability (study and implement the spirit of the Fourth Plenum of the 16th Central Party Committee, strengthening the construction of the Party's governing ability)'], Renmin Ribao The People's Daily, (8 October 200 4), p. 2, available at: www.people.com.cn/GB/paper464/13101/ 1175378.html, (accessed 1 August 2006).
38. N. Hachigan and L. Wu, The Information Revolution in Asia (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), p. 80.
39. Wu Jichuan, quoted in Zhang Chunjiang and Ni Jianmin, eds, Guojia Xinxi Anquan Baogao Report on National Information Security (B eijing: Renmin Chubanshe [People's Publishing House], 2000).
40. See 'Yindao wangluo yulun shijian, Suqian de "wangluo xuanchuan duiwu"' ['The incident of Internet opinion guidance: Suqian County's "Internet propaganda team"'], Nanfang Zhoumo Southern Weekend, (19 May 2005).
41. P. Link, Evening Chats in Beijing: Probing China's Predicament (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 249.
42. Hu Yong, 'Diannao he wangluo zheng zaojiu yi zhong shenmeyang de wenhua' ['What sort of culture are computers and the network creating?'], in Wen Chi, ed., Zai Beida ting jiangzuo - sixiang de guangmang The Br illiant Rays of Thought - Listening to Lectures at Beijing University (Beijing: Xin shijie chubanshe [New World Publishing House], 2001), p. 222.
43. Lawrence R. Sullivan, 'Assault on the reforms: Conservative criticism of political and economic liberalization in China, 1985-86', China Quarterly no. 114, (June 1988), pp. 198-222.
44. Frank Dikötter, 'Culture, "race" and nation: The formation of national identity in twentieth-century China', Journal of International Affairs 49(2), (Winter 1996), p. 617.
45. See Feng Pengzhi, 'Shuzihua de "paomo": Wangluo shehui zhangli ji qi biaoxian xingshi' ['The tension in network society and its manifestations: The digital "bubble"'], Tianjin shehui kexue Tianjin Social Science no. 3, (2000), p. 29.
46. See W. Meissner, 'New intellectual currents in the People's Republic of China', in D. C. B. Teather and H. S. Yee, eds, China in Transition: Issues and Policies (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), p. 19
47. and J. Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 145.
48. Xiao Lingnuo, 'Mianlin xinxihua de minzu wenhua' ['Informatization and the national culture'], Qiushi xuekan Seeking Truth no. 6, (2000), p. 24.
49. Fu Xiaoping and Zhang Lei, 'Hulianwang dui daxuesheng xinli, xingwei de fumian yingxiang ji duice tanjiu' ['The negative effect of the Internet on the behavior and psychology of tertiary students and a thorough look at ways of dealing with it'], Sichuan shifan xueyuan bao Journal of Sichuan Teachers College (Philosophy and Social Sciences) no. 1, (2002), p. 89.
50. For an example of this processual view, see J. Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 25ff.
51. As Prasenjit Duara has argued, in Chinese national ideology, the tiyong dichotomy is prototypical for designing East-West relations, that is, striving for Western means and Eastern essence in guiding development is still relevant: See Prasenjit Duara, 'Response to Philip Huang's biculturality in modern China and in China studies', Modern China 26(1), (2000), pp. 32-37.
52. Lokman Tsui also draws on the continued usefulness of this dichotomy for understanding how it shapes discussion and thought on the Internet in China: See Lokman Tsui, 'Introduction: The sociopolitical Internet in China', China Information 19(2), (2005), pp. 181-182.
53. J. K. Fairbank, China: A New History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 217.
54. Peng Lan, 'Is the "wolf" coming? An empirical study on cultural information spread on Chinese websites', in Zhang and Woesler, eds, China's Digital Dream, p. 236.
55. See Herbert Schiller's classic thesis of cultural imperialism: Mass Communications and American Empire (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969).
56. Li and Wang, 'Hulianwang dui sixiang zhengzhi gongzuo de yingxiang ji duice', p. 31.
57. Feng, 'Shuzihua de "paomo"', p. 29.
58. J. B. Thompson, The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 174.
59. Like David Held et al.
60. one may question whether there have ever existed any indigenous, authentic traditions and cultural heritages untainted by values imposed from outside: See D. Held, A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt and J. Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (London: Polity Press, 1999), p. 371.
61. See, for example, Hui and Huang, 'Hulianwang dui sixiang zhengzhi jiaoyu de xiaoji yingxiang ji duice yanjiu', p. 53
62. and Shi Lei, 'Hulian wangluo, yanlun ziyou, weilai zhengzhi' ['The Internet, freedom of expression, and future politics'], Shandong xingzheng xueyuan Shandong sheng jinan guanli ganbu xueyuan xuebao Journal of Shandong Administrative College and Shandong Economic Management Personnel College no. 1, (January 2004), p. 117.
63. Since then, Chinese authorities have regularly cracked down on Internet café operations. During March and April 2004, the People's Daily reported that 8,600 underground Internet cafe's had been banned, citing Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng, see 'Mainland crackdown on net cafés', AFP, (27 April 2004).
64. Interview with Internet cafe owners in Nanjing, November 2002, and in Shanghai, October 2003.
65. Fu and Zhang, 'Hulianwang dui daxuesheng xinli, xingwei de fumian yingxiang ji duice tanjiu', p. 89.
66. Hui and Huang, 'Hulianwang dui sixiang zhengzhi jiaoyu de xiaoji yingxiang ji duice yanjiu', p. 55.
67. Information available at: http://net.china.com.cn/chinese/index.htm, (accessed 1 August 2006).
68. K. Robins, 'Interrupting identities: Turkey/Europe', in S. Hall and Paul du Gay, eds, Questions of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996), p. 61.
69. Since Hu Jintao became the supreme leader over the Party and China's president in 2003, the trend toward increased control over both online and offline media has been steadfast: See Freedom House Report on China, Ashley Esarey, Speak No Evil: Mass Media Control in Contemporary China, available at: http://freedomhouse.org/uploads/special_report/ 33.pdf, (accessed 30 July 2006).
70. Other scholars have also noted the CCP's ability to recast and repackage its current ideology of nationalism and legitimacy to rule China indefinitely: See also Suisheng Zhao, 'A staTe-led nationalism: the patriotic education campaign in post-Tiananmen China', Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31(3), (1998), pp. 287-302
71. Zhao Bin, 'Popular television and party ideology: The spring festival happy gathering', Media, Culture and Society 20, (1998), pp. 43-58
72. Anne-Marie Brady, 'Regimenting the public mind: The modernisation of propaganda in the PRC', International Journal 57(4), (2002), pp. 563-579.
73. See Zhao, 'A state-led nationalism', footnote 15, p. 298
74. and A. Chan, 'From propaganda to hegemony: Jiaodian Fangtan and China's media policy', Journal of Contemporary China 11(30), (2002), p. 43.
75. The colorful and expressive SMS and MMS propaganda messages, borrowing from a vast symbolic and visual reservoir of images of revolutionary heroes, poses, and sacrifice, was sent out to reassure the Chinese population that the government was efficiently fighting the spread of Sars during the spring and summer of 2003.
76. James W. Tong, 'Publish to perish: Regime choices and propaganda impact in the anti-Falungong publications campaign, July 1999-April 2000', Journal of Contemporary China 14(44), (2005), p. 522.
77. Jane Macartney, 'Message to the mob: China texts protest ban', Timesonline, (2 May 2005), available at: www.timesonline.co.uk/ article/0,,3-1594030,00.html, (accessed 1 August 2005).
78. Jonathan Watts, 'China's secret Internet police target critics with web of propaganda', The Guardian, (14 June 2005), available at: www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1506016,00.html, (accessed 1 August 2006).
79. D. Lynch, After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and 'Thought Work' in Reformed China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 209.
80. See Net Firms Criticised over China, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4699242.stm, (accessed 1 August 2006).
81. See J. Lull, China Turned on: Television, Reform and Resistance (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 171
82. Price, Media and Sovereignty, p. 177
83. Thompson, The Media and Modernity, p. 174.
84. Several case studies that are included in James Curran and Myung-Jin Park, eds, De-Westernizing Media Studies (London: Routledge, 2000), also show that aspects of globalization such as value orientations may mean different things in, and to, different cultures.
85. According to a media scholar I met in Beijing in January 2003, everything changed with the bombing in 1999. The central government then realized it had to build a strong presence on the Internet, focusing on news production. This refocusing had to be implemented in order to disseminate the official Chinese view of this piece of news. A concomitant goal was, of course, to advance the government's general policy objectives in the world. The initiatives included the Internet versions of traditional newspapers and setting up the Xinhua wang website of the official news agency New China.
86. Zhang and Woesler, China's Digital Dream, p. 168.
87. A. J. Nathan, 'Authoritarian resilience: China's changing of the guard', Journal of Democracy 14(1), (2003), p. 16.
88. Nationalistic computer games marketed to a young audience are also being tried out. A notable example is Kangri Online Resist Japan Onli ne, which is promoted by the Communist Youth League; available at: http://bjyouth.gov.cn/ywdd/tzyyw/56998.shtml, (accessed 1 August 2006).
89. See S. Kalathil and T. Boas, Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003), p. 33.
90. This information was received in an interview in January 2003 with a leading representative of Qianlong news portal in Beijing. According to this informant, the central government clearly understood that it had to establish a presence on the Internet, in order to 'guide opinion' in the Internet age. Consequently, it set up the large online news portals Qianlong in Beijing and Dongfang in Shanghai.
91. A. Esarey, 'Cornering the market: State strategies for controlling China's commercial media', Asian Perspective 29(4), (2005), p. 39.