Domestic Propaganda
Within the doctrine of China's peaceful rise resorting to Peace Journalism has been analyzed as a growing trend in China's strategy for domestic propaganda, in particular in covering news from Xinjiang. After Zbigniew Brzezinski's having termed Central Asia the "Global Balkans" Idriss Aberkane has argued the resorting to unilateral, state-endorsed Peace Journalism could be a way for China to "de-balkanize" Xinjiang. This he has called "coercive Peace Journalism".
| “ | Peace journalism does not sell well because it typically proscribes the coverage of a conflict by news eliciting strong emotional reactions. Man becomes easily addicted to strong emotions and this has played a central role in peace journalism’s failure at being adopted by mainstream media. On the other hand, mainstream media badly need (and compete with each other) to provide the strongest emotional value to their audience and this has become a vital part of their business model.
Yet in the People’s Republic the media industry is not driven by returns on financial investments but by returns on political interests. Thus paradoxically promoting Peace Journalism is much easier for the PRC than say for countries of the European Union as in promoting a political agenda the former can afford to broadcast news with low emotional weight, especially in a non competitive environment for its media industry Aberkane 2011 |
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The Chinese government has used its public evaluations of historical, public figures as a means of communicating to the Chinese public the traits and political goals that it considers desirable and undesirable. The Chinese government has historically tended towards evaluating public figures either as villains or heroes, leaving little room for interpretation and making it clear whether the traits and goals of individual figures should be emulated or despised. The public image of some figures, including Peng Dehuai, have undergone radical reverses throughout the history of the PRC, as required by Party propagandists: Peng was portrayed as a subhuman villain during the Cultural Revolution; but, since 1978, has been evaluated as a nearly perfect Marxist, general, and public official.
By examining the qualities associated with public figures whose images have been manipulated to make those figures either exaggeratedly positive or exaggeratedly negative symbols, scholars have developed a number of assumptions about the traits and political goals generally desired by various PRC governments. Figures whose images have been manipulated to make them positive symbols will be portrayed as: coming from proletarian or semi-proletarian backgrounds; being courageous, fair, straightforward, and honest in their treatment of subordinates and superiors; leading a simple and frugal life; demonstrating great concern for the "masses"; achieving outstanding professional success; and, being impeccably loyal to the Party and to the communist cause. Figures whose images have been manipulated to make them negative symbols will be portrayed as: coming from backgrounds which have exposed them to "bourgeoise" thoughts and attitudes; adhering to all or most historical attempts to oppose political figures in the PRC who later became powerful, which are also vilified; being professionally inept, only succeeding temporarily or appearing to succeed through trickery or deception; participating in "conspiracies" against the correct leadership of the Party; cooperating with "foreign countries" (historically either the Soviet Union or the United States, depending on which is more threatening at the time); and, having numerous negative traits, such as opportunism or corruption. Usually, public figures will provide provide considerable examples of either positive or negative qualities, but will be made to fit either a positive or negative stereotype through exaggerating qualities which support the interpretation desired by the Party, and by omitting from the historical narrative qualities which contradict the Party's intended interpretation.
Read more about this topic: Propaganda In The People's Republic Of China
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