by PU HUANGYU
(Translated by JIAWEN GUO)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and his wife Peng Liyuan wave upon arrival in September 2015, at Boeing Field in Everett, Washington, US. PHOTO/Elaine Thompson/The Associated Press/CBC News
Since the end of 2013, a great deal of online media combining popular fads with communist ideology has appeared on China’s Internet.
All this reflects a behind-the-scenes push to roll the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) propaganda machine into the digital age. With the onset of online technology, the party’s traditional propaganda methods have lost mass appeal and are no longer viewed as an efficient tool for molding public opinion.
That’s why the Publicity Department of the CCP in recent years has been seeking innovative ways to harness the Internet for propaganda purposes. Some young party supporters welcome the move. But opponents say it’s merely an innovation in the way propaganda is delivered rather than a substantive change in content.
Groundbreaking party music video
On Feb. 2, the official news agency Xinhua posted an unprecedented animated music video called “Divine Song: Four Comprehensives” on Sina Weibo, China’s largest online social network.
The Four Comprehensives are the core political goals for China unveiled by President Xi Jinping in 2014. They include building a moderately prosperous society, deepening reform, governing the nation according to law, and strictly governing the party. Each goal is to be pursued by the Chinese people in a “comprehensive” way. Combining numbers with abstract words is a traditional part of the CCP’s propaganda discourse. But this is the first time a Chinese leader’s political goals have been adapted to pop music.
The singers in the video are depicted as cartoon images of a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. They dance while singing, with soldiers, nurses and farmers also dancing in the background. A favorite online vehicle of young netizens’ — “barrages” (strings of comments flying in a video), also appear in the video.
On the same day, Chinese Central Television (CCTV) released another serial online animation that explores Xi’s Four Comprehensives. Cute cartoons, music and narrations were combined in catchy ways to add substance to the vague meanings of political discourse.
The serial animation is a variation of a 2013 animated short film called “How to Become China’s Leader.” The film was produced by the Fuxing Road Studio in Beijing. It’s location is said to highlight the official support the studio enjoys, since Fuxing Road is an address where many government institutions are located.
The animated film represents the government’s first step in reforming the way it delivers propaganda. In the film, China’s new leadership, along with Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin are shown as animated figures, hopping on stairs and the like.
As in many socialist countries, images that depict leaders are a very sensitive issue. Quite a few official media have been penalized for minor errors in how they portrayed Chinese leaders since 1949. The fact that the film was released without any deletions or penalties indicated official endorsement of the Fuxing Road film.
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