Is Soft Power Always This Damn Boring?

In some ways, the latest deluge of rhetoric from the Party feels timeless. Ever since Mao’s famous speech in Yan’an on literature and art in 1942, the CCP has made clear that culture ought to serve politics. But there’s also something new about the renewed focus on culture, whether in the resurgent confidence in the Party’s top ranks that digital media can be sculpted, or in the amazing willingness of the top-level elite to pour billions into expanding China’s global media presence.

This week on Sinica, join host Kaiser Kuo and Sinica regulars Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser for a wide-ranging discussion about recent changes in the Chinese media landscape. Also in our studio is Adrienne Mong, the Beijing correspondent for NBC News, who joins us with first-hand stories of how China’s push for better global press is affecting not only the domestic news but also international perceptions of China, whether through the flood of Chinese journalists who now routinely cover international events, or perhaps through rising Chinese ambitions in the English-language news sphere and the increasing challenges foreign journalists have getting credentialed to report the news in China legally.

Topics: 
Media
Keywords: 
Podcast, Soft Power, Journalism