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With over 1.2 billion viewers globally, including millions in the USA, China Central Television (CCTV) reaches the world's single largest audience. CCTV may be the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, but it is equally a dynamic modern media force, fully reliant on advertising revenue and agressively competitive on the global media stage. Yet this hugely influential conglomerate is practically unknown in the West.
This book explores the political, economic, and cultural forces, locally and globally that have shaped the evolution of Chinese primetime television dramas, and the way that these dramas in turn have actively engaged in the major intellectual and policy debates concerning the path, steps, and speed of China’s economic and political modernization during the post-Deng Xiaoping era. It intertwines the evolution of Chinese television drama particularly with the ascendance of the Chinese New Left that favors a recentralization of state authority and an alternative path towards China’s modernization and China’s current administration’s call for building a "harmonious society." Two types of...
The culture of the People's Republic of China offers a unique blend of the popular, the political and the avant-garde. In no other country in the world are cultural products subjected to such strict censorship and at the same time consumed by such large numbers of people. This volume presents essays by scholars at the cutting edge of Chinese cultural studies, dealing with subjects ranging from advertising to poetry, from rock music to revolutionary museums, providing an authoritative and multi-faceted analysis of some of the world's most complex cultural phenomena.
“The definitive work on Chinese television . . . A pioneering picture of CCTV and its crucial role in the contemporary Chinese political economy” (Robert W. McChesney, author of Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy). As China navigates the murky waters of a “third way” with liberal economic policies under a strict political regime, the surprising battleground for China’s future emerges in the country’s highest rated television network—China Central Television, or CCTV. With 16 internationally broadcast channels and over 1.2 billion viewers, CCTV is a powerhouse in conveying Chinese news and entertainment. The hybrid nature of the network has also transformed it into an u...
The chapters in this ground-breaking volume examine the complex practices of biographical writing in Ming and Qing China. The authors draw on a rich variety of sources to answer some basic questions: Who were the writers of these texts and the subjects of their biographical constructions? What motivated these textual productions and sustained the routes from (re)creations to (re)publications? The informed and fascinating readings illuminate the enduring appeal of representing and represented lives in Chinese history.
This groundbreaking book presents a critical introduction to the cultural and political dimensions of contemporary Chinese cinema. Leading Western and Chinese scholars trace the changing dynamics of Chinese film culture since the early 1990s as it moves away from underground and toward independence in the new century. Yet as the rich case studies illustrate, the sheer variety of alternative film culture itself provides sufficient opportunities for different--at times contradictory--configurations of cinematic products. Drawing on vigorous interdisciplinary scholarship, the book investigates the objects of its study from various methodological perspectives, ranging from historical and literar...
This collection of essays brings together the first comprehensive study of TV drama in China. Examining in depth the production, distribution and consumption of TV drama, the international team of experts demonstrate why it remains the pre-eminent media form in China. The examples are diverse, highlighting the complexity of producing narrative content in a rapidly changing political and social environment. Genres examined include the revisionist Qing drama, historical and contemporary domestic dramas, anti-corruption dramas, "pink" dramas, Red Classics, stories from the Diaspora, and sit-coms. In addition to genres, the collection explores industry dynamics: how TV dramas are marketed and consumed on DVD, and China's aspirations to export its television drama rights. The book provides an international and cross-cultural perspective with chapters on Taiwanese TV drama in China, the impact of South Korean drama, and trans-border production between the Mainland and Hong Kong.
Fragmented Memories and Screening Nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution argues that films and TV dramas about the Cultural Revolution made after China’s accession to the WTO in 2001 tend to represent personal memories in a markedly sentimental, nostalgic, and fragmented manner. This new trend is a significant departure from earlier films about the subject, which are generally interpreted as national allegories, not private expressions of grief, regret or other personal feelings. With China entering a postsocialist era, the ideological conflation of socialism and global capitalism has generated enough cultural ambiguity to allow a space for the expression of personalized reminiscences of th...
Ying Zhu's study examines the institutional as well as the stylistic transitions of Chinese cinema, from pedagogy to art to commerce, focusing on the key film reform measures as well as the metamorphosis of Chinese 5th generation films from art film narration.
A Companion to Chinese Cinema is a collection of original essays written by experts in a range of disciplines that provide a comprehensive overview of the evolution and current state of Chinese cinema. Represents the most comprehensive coverage of Chinese cinema to date Applies a multidisciplinary approach that maps the expanding field of Chinese cinema in bold and definitive ways Draws attention to previously neglected areas such as diasporic filmmaking, independent documentary, film styles and techniques, queer aesthetics, star studies, film and other arts or media Features several chapters that explore China’s new market economy, government policy, and industry practice, placing the intricate relationship between film and politics in a historical and international context Includes overviews of Chinese film studies in Chinese and English publications