This course aims at discussing the interaction between media and social protests. The course focuses on one social protest, the 2008 Weng’an incident, analyzing how the protest is covered by different Chinese newspapers and TV stations, commented by Internet commentators, reported by citizen journalists, and discussed in discussions forums and blogs.
The course is based on close reading, analysis and discussion of primary sources. The sources include press reports, TV news, blog and forum posts, pictures and videos circulated on the Internet, etc. Secondary research literature with an emphasis on empirical work will also be analyzed.
Classes are in seminar-format. Each student will give a 10-minute presentation on a specific seminar topic (see detailed teaching plan). The presentation should focus on primary source analysis. Following the presentation, there will be class discussions and debates. A list of suggested questions for presentations and discussions will be distributed before class. Students are required to complete assigned readings and primary source analysis prior to coming to class.
Each student will choose one media-related case and write a term paper with a detailed analysis of the case. The term paper topic is chosen by the student, but must be accepted by the teacher. The draft term paper will be discussed in class.
Both primary sources and suggested reading material are available in Fronter
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Readings:
Brandy, Anne-Marie Brandy. 2008. Chapter 4: China’s unseen engineers: Reform and moderniation in the propaganda system. In Marketing dictatorship: Propaganda and thought work in contemporary China, 65-91. Lanham M.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Chan, Joseph Man. 2003. Administrative boundaries and media marketization: A comparative analysis of the newspaper, TV and Internet markets in China. In C.C.Lee (ed.), Chinese Media, Global Contexts, 159-176. London: Routledge.
Esarey, Ashley and Xiao Qiang. 2011. Digital Communication and Political Change in China. International Journal of Communication. 5: 298-319.
Fang, Yew-Jin. 1994. “Riots” and demonstrations in the Chinese press: A case study of language and ideology. Discourse and Society, 5(4): 463-481.
Fang, Y.G., 2001. Reporting the same events? A critical analysis of Chinese print news media texts. Discourse and Society, 12 (5): 585-613.
Gong, Haomin and Xin Yang. 2010. Digitized parody: The politics of egao in contemporary China. China Information. 24 (1): 3-26.
Hung, Chin-Fu. 2010. China’s propaganda in the information age: Internet commentators and the Weng’an incident. Issues & Studies. 46 (4): 149-180.
Lagerkvist, Johan. 2010. Chapter 5: Old propaganda becomes ideotainment. In After the Internet, before democracy: Competing norms in Chinese media and society, 161-189. Bern: Peter Lang.
Lagerkvist, Johan. 2010. Chapter 3: And the baton passes to … citizen journalism. In After the Internet, before democracy: Competing norms in Chinese media and society, 93-125. Bern: Peter Lang.
Li, Xiaoping. 2010. 'Focus' (Jiaodian Fangtan) and the changes in the Chinese television industry. Journal of Contemporary China, 11 (30): 17-34.
Li, Hongmei. 2011. Parody and resistance on the Chinese Internet. In David Herold and Peter Wolfgang Marolt (eds.), Online Society in China: Creating, celebrating, and instrumentalising the online online carnival, 71-88. London: Routledge.
Sæther, Elin. 2008. Chapter 7: The polyphony of Chinese critical press discourse. In The conditional autonomy of the critical press in China, 170-208. Oslo: University of Oslo.
Tong, Jingrong. 2010. Media in China: The crisis of the centralized media control theory: how local power controls. Media Culture and Society, 32: 925-942.
Tong, Jingrong. 2011. Chapter 7: Reporting on social riots: How investigative journalists tell stories. In Investigative journalism in China: Journalism, Power and Society, 154-191.London: Continuum.
Xiao, Qiang. 2011. The rise of online public opinion and its political impact. In Susan L. Shirk (ed.) Changing media and changing China, 202-224. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Xin, Xin. 2010. The impact of “citizen journalism” on Chinese media and society. Journalism Practice. 4(3): 333-344.
Yang, Guobin. 2009. Chapter 3: The rituals and genres of contention and Chapter 4: The changing style of contention. In The power of the Internet in China: Citizen activism online, 64-102. New York: Columbia University Press.
Yu, Haiqing. 2006. From Active Audience to Media Citizenship: The Case of Post-Mao China. Social Semiotics. 16 (2): 303-326.
Tong, Jingrong and Colin Sparks. 2009. Investigative Journalism in China Today. Journalism Studies, 10(3): 337-352.
Zhao, Yuezhi. 1998. Chapter 1: Party journalism in China: Theory and practice, In Media, market and democracy in China. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Zhao, Yuezhi. 2004. The state, the market and media control in China. In Pradip Thomas and Zahoram Nain (eds.), Who Owns the Media: Global Trends and Local Resistance, 179-212. London: Zed Books.
Zhao, Yuezhi. 2008. Chapter 5: Civil rights, legal justice: Possibilities and limits of media and Internet mobilization. In Communication in China: Political economy, power, and control, 245-285. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Zhou, Xiang. 2009. The political blogosphere in China: A content analysis of the blogs regarding the dismissal of Shanghai leader Chen Liangyu. New Media & Society. 11 (6): 1003-1022.
Zhou, Yuqiong and Patricia Moy. 2007. Parsing framing processes: The interplay between online public opinion and media coverage. Journal of Communication. 57: 79-98.