Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T09:08:22.031Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Thought Work Contested: Ideology and Journalism Education in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2017

Maria Repnikova*
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, Georgia State University. Email: [email protected].

Abstract

This article examines the dynamic evolution of China's ideology work through the prism of journalism education. Official sensitivity about both student activism and the media makes journalism education a critical sector for observing how the Party attempts to instil ideology. The article interrogates the process of negotiation of official ideology among authorities, educators and students at elite journalism schools. It demonstrates that alongside state-sanctioned media commercialization and globalization, official influence still looms large in journalism training. Ideological teachings continue to occupy a core place in the curricula, and the authorities deploy a mix of structural oversight, ad hoc surveillance and coercion to keep the educators in check. The effects of the official ideology work, however, are ambivalent, as educators and students engage in the active reinterpretation of the Party's media principles. While these practices do not directly undermine the Party's legitimacy, they demonstrate that official ideology has merely constructed what Yurchak terms a “hegemony of form,” highlighting a degree of vulnerability in China's mode of adaptive authoritarianism.

摘要

本文从新闻学教育的视角来探究中国意识形态工作的动态演变。新闻学教育对中国官方而言具有学生运动及媒体的双重敏感性, 因此可以作为观察当局意识形态工作的关键领域。本文探究了在中国精英新闻学教育机构中, 政府、教师和学生针对官方意识形态的协商过程, 论证了在国家允许的媒体商业化及全球化过程中, 官方影响在新闻学教育培训中依然非常突出。 在新闻媒体课程中意识形态继续占据核心地位, 而当局还通过一系列诸如结构性监督、临时性管制、乃至强力高压措施来约束教师。尽管如此, 政府意识形态工作的效果却差强人意, 因为教师和学生总是不断地对党的媒体原则进行积极的重新解读。这种行为虽然并不能直接削弱当局的合法性, 但是却展示了官方意识形态工作仅仅建立了“形式霸权”, 从而凸显了中国调适性威权主义模式在一定程度上的脆弱性。

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bandurski, David, and Hala, Martin. 2010. Investigative Journalism in China: Eight Cases in Chinese Watchdog Journalism. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press.Google Scholar
Brady, Anne-Marie. 2008. Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Brady, Anne-Marie (ed). 2012. China's Thought Management. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branigan, Tania. 2010. “Wang Keqin and China's revolution in investigative journalism,” The Guardian, 23 May.Google Scholar
Buckley, Chris. 2015. “China warns against ‘Western values’ in imported textbooks,” Sinosphere, 30 January, http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/china-warns-against-western-values-in-imported-textbooks/. Accessed 2 February 2017.Google Scholar
Chen, Lidan. 2008. “Huigui xinwen xue benben: gaige kaifang sanshi nian lai wo guo xinwen lilun jiaocai jiegou de bianhua” (A review of journalism teaching materials: the transformation in media theory textbooks in the 30 years since reform and opening up). Guoji xinwenjie 12, 1217.Google Scholar
Dombernowsky, Laura. 2014. “Chinese journalism students: balancing competing values.” In Svensson, Marina, Saether, Elin and Zhang, Zhi'an (eds.), Chinese Investigative Journalists’ Dreams. New York: Lexington Books, 5375.Google Scholar
Esarey, Ashley. 2006. “Speak no evil: mass media control in contemporary China.” Freedom at Issue, A Freedom House Special Report, February.Google Scholar
Esarey, Ashley. 2015. “Winning hearts and minds? Cadres as microbloggers in China.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 44(2), 69103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esarey, Ashley, and Qiang, Xiao. 2008. “Political expression in the Chinese blogosphere: below the radar.” Asian Survey 48(5), 752777.Google Scholar
Gan, Xifen. 1981. Xinwen lilun jichu (Basics in News Theory) . Beijing: Renmin University Press.Google Scholar
Guo, Zhongshi. 2010. “Through barbed wires: context, content, and constraints for journalism education in China.” In Josephi, Beate (ed.), Journalism Education in Countries with Limited Media Freedom. New York: Peter Lang, 1533.Google Scholar
Hassid, Jonathan. 2011. “Four models of the fourth estate: a typology of contemporary Chinese journalists.” The China Quarterly 208, 1332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassid, Jonathan. 2016. China's Unruly Journalists: How Committed Professionals Are Changing the People's Republic. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Havel, Vaclav. 1990. Living in Truth. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Heilmann, Sebastian, and Perry, Elizabeth J.. 2011. Mao's Invisible Hand : The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Koesel, Karrie J. 2015. “Learning to be loyal : political education in China.” Paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Lieberthal, Kenneth. 2004. Governing China: From Revolution through Reform. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Liu, Jianmin. 1999. Xiandai xinwen lilun (Modern News Theory) . Beijing: Mingzu chubanshe.Google Scholar
Lynch, Daniel C. 1999. After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics and “Thought Work” in Reformed China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mickiewicz, Ellen. 2014. No Illusions: The Voices of Russia's Future Leaders. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin, and Li, Lijiang. 2006. Rightful Resistance in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth J. 2013. “Cultural governance in contemporary China: ‘re-orienting’ Party propaganda.” Yenching Institute Working Paper, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Polumbaum, Judy, and Lei, Xiong. 2008. China Ink: The Changing Face of Journalism in China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Repnikova, Maria. 2017. Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Repnikova, Maria, and Fang, Kecheng. 2016. “Persuasion 2.0: digital propaganda under Xi.” Paper presented at Association for Asian Studies, March 2016.Google Scholar
Schedler, Andreas. 2002. “The menu of manipulation.” Journal of Democracy 13(2), 3650.Google Scholar
Shambaugh, David. 2007. “China's propaganda system: institutions, processes, and efficacy.” The China Quarterly 57, 2558.Google Scholar
Stern, Rachel. 2016. “Political reliability and the Chinese bar exam.” Journal of Law and Society 43(4), 506533.Google Scholar
Stockmann, Daniela. 2012. Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 1999. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Yan, Xiaojun. 2014. “Engineering stability: authoritarian political control over university students in post-Deng China.” The China Quarterly 218, 493513.Google Scholar
Yang, Guobin. 2009. The Power of the Internet in China : Citizen Activism Online. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Yi, Damon, and Qin, Amy. 2014. “Appointment at Chinese journalism school highlights growing Party role,” The New York Times, 24 August.Google Scholar
Yurchak, Alexei. 2006. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Zhao, Yuezhi. 1998. Media, Market, and Democracy: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Zhao, Yuezhi. 2008. Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littefield.Google Scholar
Zhong, Xin, and Zhou, Shuhua. 2006. Continuity and Change: Perspectives on Journalism and Communication Education. Beijing: Communication University of China Press.Google Scholar
Zhou, He. 2000. “Working with a dying ideology: dissonance and its reduction in Chinese journalism.” Journalism Studies 1(4), 599616.Google Scholar