Customer Reviews

After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and 'Thought Work' in Reformed China

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We've been waiting for years for a book on the Chinese communications system that not only describes it but also explains it and relates it to the economy and larger political milieu. This book is it. The author deftly details changes in the Chinese government's regulation of the communications system and shows how those changes have caused the government to lose control over information flows in Chinese society, what he calls the "symbolic environment". But unlike most commentary on the Chinese media, he doesn't see this loss of government control as contributing to China's democratization, at least not right away. Instead he sees it as causing chaos, or "praetorianism", and predicts a politically uncertain Chinese future in which neither the forces of democracy nor the forces of dictatorship can prevail. He foresees all sorts of new social movements arising in China, but not necessarily democratic movements. It's truly astonishing that this book must have been finished a good six months before the Falun Dafa movement burst upon the scene, but that's exactly the kind of movement the book predicts. A must-read for anyone interested in China.

I just finished the book and the pages turned well and I was impressed by the the author's use of past examples. His work on early Mao and Zhou's and Jing's roles were especially important and useful. However, I have worked in the media field in Beijing and Shanghai for nearly ten years, and I feel that the autrhor does lack adequate ideas of the media's role today. A simple monitoring of the major papers such as Beijing Youth, Southern Weekly, PLA Times, and Yangcheng Evening News, would throw many of his propositions to the wind.

So, basically kudos to the reasearch of the past, but shame on the author for not realizing that China has indeed changed greatly in the last 6 years. Too bad this was not taken into account in the book.