Restyling propaganda: popularized party press and the making of soft propaganda in China

ABSTRACT

Propaganda has been increasingly digitized, popularized, and aestheticized globally. This article focuses on the restyling of propaganda in China, particularly the role of Chinese state-run media in the making of soft propaganda – propagandistic content packaged in sleek and entertaining formats. Building upon Bourdieu’s field theory, this article illuminates Chinese state-run media’s capacity to refract external pressures, such as digitization, to enhance their status and the resilience of the political regime. It reveals their brokering role in a heterogeneous ‘thought work’ network, comprised of state-affiliated units and private actors, where different forms of capital are exchanged. Drawing on in-depth interviews with online news staff in three central-level state-run outlets in China, my analysis challenges the discourse of digital technologies as inherently liberating forces and accentuates their multivocality, namely the flexible ways in which technological innovation is interpreted and practiced in concrete institutional contexts, serving pre-existing priorities and interests. It shows how innovation can function as a legitimation device serving organizations’ and individuals’ quests for political and symbolic capital within bureaucratic systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Propaganda
• China
• state-run media
• field theory
• web metrics
• digital innovation

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Ted Glasser, Angèle Christin, Jay T. Hamilton, Fred Turner, and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on the previous drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “Thought work” (sixiang gongzuo) in China refers to top-down ideological inculcation.

2 Traditional media in China are hierarchized into four descending levels parallel to the political system of governance: the central, provincial, prefectural/municipal, and county levels.

3 In compliance with IRB’s advice, I have anonymized the three central-level state-run outlets to which my interviewees are affiliated.

4 Although state-run media differ from commercial entities in their logics of operation, they do learn from the latter’s marketing stunts. When discussing The Daily’s “Military Uniform Pics,” interviewees cited a popular precedent – McDonald’s promotional campaign for its signature breakfast sandwich McMuffin – which produced synthesized photos of users based on their headshots. This instance shows how state-run media refract pre-existing technologies and tactics of persuasion.

5 Douyin is the Chinese version of TikTok.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sheng Zou

Sheng Zou is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan’s International Institute. He received his PhD in Communication from Stanford University. His research interests include global media industries, digital media and society, platform economy and labor, and digital journalism. His current work explores the intersection of governance, politics, and popular culture in China, particularly state-society interactions through new media platforms.