Convenient Criticism

Dan Chen

Description

Why and how does critical reporting persist at the local level in China despite state media control, a hallmark of authoritarian rule? Synthesizing ethnographic observation, interviews, survey and content analysis data, Convenient Criticism reveals evolving dynamics in local governance and the state-media relationship. Local critical reporting, though limited in scope, occurs because local leaders, motivated by political career advancement, use media criticism strategically to increase bureaucratic control, address citizen grievances, and improve governance. This new approach to governance enables the shaping of public opinion while, at the same time, disciplining subordinate bureaucrats. In this way, the party-state not only monopolizes propaganda but also expropriates criticism, which expands the notion of media control from the suppression of journalism to its manipulation. One positive consequence of these practices has been to invigorate television journalists' unique brand of advocacy journalism.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Convenient Criticism

2. Tangled Maneuvers

3. Political Edge

4. Keen Partner

5. Criticism and Correction

Conclusion

Appendix A: Ethnographic Observation and Interviews
Appendix B: Content Analysis and Variables
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Film
• China
• États-Unis
• Regional
• History of Asia
• Media studies
• Region
• Visual culture
• Película fotográfica
• United States of America
• USA

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438480312
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

CONVENIENT CRITICISM
CONVENIENT CRITICISM
LOCAL MEDIA AND GOVERNANCE IN URBAN CHINA
Dan Chen
Cover art: iStock by Getty images.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Chen, Dan, author
Title: Convenient criticism : local media and governance in urban China / Dan Chen, author.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438480299 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438480312 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Those Who Persist
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Convenient Criticism
2. Tangled Maneuvers
3. Political Edge
4. Keen Partner
5. Criticism and Correction
Conclusion
Appendix A: Ethnographic Observation and Interviews
Appendix B: Content Analysis and Variables
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Illustrations
Tables
1.1 Television Livelihood News Programs
4.1 Conceptions of Journalism
4.2 Factors in Livelihood News Production
4.3 Political Constraints
5.1 Negative Binomial Regression Results
A.1 Interview List
B.1 The Codebook
B.2 Leadership Style toward the Media
B.3 Summary Statistics of All Variables
B.4 News Reports by Leaders
Figures
1.1 Livelihood News Reports
1.2 Criticism and Improvement
1.3 Reporting Intensity
1.4 Convenient Criticism
2.1 Administrative Ranks and Media Criticism
4.1 Television Stations and Channels in China
4.2 Television Industry in China
4.3 Television Program Production (10,000 hours)
5.1 Sample Means of Daily Reports
5.2 Interaction Effects in Modeling Critical Reporting
5.3 Interaction Effects in Modeling Positive Reporting
Acknowledgments
T his book developed over many years from an instinctual curiosity to an intellectual product. I owe much gratitude to the many people without whom this pursuit would not have come to fruition. My interest in media politics began during my high school years of admiring the critical reporting by the most popular local news program at the time, Zero Distance in Nanjing , which woke my civic mind and political awareness. My curiosity for politics grew thanks to the structured and supportive environment provided by my parents. We lived through an era of profound transformation, allowing me to witness communal generosity, struggle, and reinvention, exemplified by my hometown community of working people. Their lived experiences shaped my initial instinct for intellectual pursuit and lent significance to my research. For this, I am deeply indebted to my parents and my community. Along the same line, I am also indebted to all the people who generously shared their good faith, effort, and time, which make up the foundations of this research. Their names have to be withheld, but this book honors their solicitude.
In building an academic career, I was fortunate to have generous mentors who lightened my path. More often than I realize, their scholarly passion and style influence my own. For this, I owe deep gratitude to John James Kennedy at the University of Kansas, Barrett L. McCormick at Marquette University, and other professors at these two institutions who provided guidance that paved the way for this book to take shape.
Extensive fieldwork depends on financial and institutional support. I am grateful for the generous funding provided by the Department of Political Science and the Center for Global and International Studies, University of Kansas; the China and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies; the China Studies Centre, University of Sydney; Elizabethtown College; and the University of Richmond for completing this book.
Being a China scholar affords me access to a community of invigorating and generous colleagues. I owe gratitude to Greg Distelhorst, Oya Dursun-Özkanca, Rongbin Han, Haifeng Huang, April Kelly-Woessner, Kyle C. Kopko, Olivier Krischer, Orion Lewis, Wenbin Li, Peter Lorentzen, Andrew MacDonald, E. Fletcher McClellan, Joyce Nip, Ying Qian, Maria Repnikova, Yaojiang Shi, Le Tan, Wenfang Tang, Jessica Teets, Luigi Tomba, Yuhua Wang, Jiebing Wu, Jinghong Zhang, Yingnan Zhou, participants at the International Studies Association 2018 conference, and participants at my talks given at the China Studies Centre, University of Sydney, in August 2019, and the School of Public Administration, Zhejiang University, in September 2019. They offered ideas, questions, suggestions, and, most importantly, spiritual support for completing this book.
This book would not be possible without my editor at SUNY Press, Michael Rinella, the readers, and the production team. I am grateful for their belief in the value of this book. The revision process benefited much from my engaged colleagues at the University of Richmond, whose camaraderie is deeply appreciated.
Finally, this book would not have reached its current form without the intellectual challenge, inspiration, and support from my life partner, Michael Rabin. I am grateful that my intellectual journey has been shaped by his passion and wisdom.
Introduction
O n February 23, 2017, a popular news program airing on the Jiangsu provincial television city channel reported a news story about a misbehaving local official. According to an anonymous hotline call to the program in November 2016, a civil affairs department director surnamed Xu was repeatedly absent from his work at a street committee in the Gulou District of Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu. Reporters then started a three-month investigation. They disguised as ordinary citizens in need of government help on pension funds, an issue of Director Xu’s responsibility. The excuse from Xu’s coworkers was always, “Director Xu is in a meeting.” Through meticulous investigation, reporters discovered that Xu had been playing mahjong at a nearby mahjong room extensively during work hours. In the next day’s broadcast, on February 24, the news program aired a follow-up report, stating that the street committee had put Xu on an immediate leave and that the discipline commission of the Gulou District had placed him under investigation, as a result of this program’s report disclosing Xu’s misconduct. That same day, the street committee convened an organization-wide meeting to educate its officials about their duties and disciplines. Why would the Chinese authoritarian state, equipped with a sophisticated media control system, allow such critical reporting to correct official misconduct?
Over four decades of reform and opening, the media landscape in China has been transformed. Media criticism has become a steady component in the political life of government officials and ordinary citizens, despite the notoriously elaborate and effective censorship system. While the informational, supervisory, and propagandist values of media criticism for the party-state have been discussed in the literature, what remains puzzling is the prevalent yet varied levels of local critical reporting and the subsequent corrective action, as shown in the above example. Why would local officials correct misbehavior instead of lobbying their superiors to censor critical reports? What convenience does the supposedly inconvenient media criticism provide, and to whom? Finally, how has the media’s role in politics evolved, and what does it mean for governance at the local level?
This book addresses these questions by focusing on local television news programs in China. Having emerged in the late 1990s, these programs pioneered in placing an unprecedented, though comparatively limited, amount of journalistic focus on inept policy implementation and inadequate public service provision at village, township, county, and district levels. Media scholars and practitioners refer to this type of television news as “livelihood news” 1 ( 民生新闻 ), indicating the remarkable departure in both style and content from traditional television news programs, 2 which inhabit a formal language to reinforce carefully rehearsed narratives on political ideology, government policy, and high-level leaders. Livelihood news programs, instead, use a colloquial language to enliven ordinary citizens’ concerns and grievances. The pioneering livelihood news programs broadcast in Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, 3 and elsewhere were an overnight success, during a time when a series of media reforms substantially elevated the importance of profitability for media outlets. Their enviable ratings propelled other television stations to follow suit. Now, every provincial and municipal television station in China has at least one livelihood news program, operating parallel to their traditional news programs. Having become a prominent voice among the few local media outlets dedicated to covering local affairs, livelihood news programs have grown to shape local narratives on politics and governance and to participate in the local governance process by correcting misbehaving street-level bureaucr