Course Description

[Lectures and tutorials of this course will be delivered online.]

This cross-disciplinary course explores China’s media evolution since 1978 through perspectives from sociology, media and cultural studies, and political science. Students will analyze historical turning points—including the roots of Mao-era propaganda systems, analysing its political, social and cultural foundation and continued evolution. This will be followed by an in-depth look at how Deng’s market-driven reforms infused profit making mechanisms reshaping media practices amid persistent party-state oversight. Case studies and empirical analysis will be used to illustrate how the emergence of new media technology enabled the voice of the people to be heard online, while Xi’s media convergence strategy have amplified public discourse domestically while expanding China’s global influence in the “public opinion battlefield.” By utilizing the “people, propaganda, profit” analytical framework, students will assess how shifting power relations among state, market, and society reshape state messaging, commercial imperatives and audience engagement, while evaluating China’s dual identity as both a controlled media environment and an emerging global information power. The course unpacks the dynamic interplay of political control, economic liberalization, social agency, and technological innovation that simultaneously preserves party authority and fuels cultural transformation. By engaging with diverse media forms such as newspapers, television, film, arts, advertising, and digital platforms, students will understand how media reflects and propels societal change, offering critical insights into China’s modernization paradoxes.

Course Learning Outcomes

On completing the course, students will be able to:

1. Describe the major factors that have driven the transformation of China’s media from a tool for mass propaganda to mass communication.
2. Analyze the opportunities and limitations of unfettered media commercialization and profit-making within the framework of sustained Party ideological controldirection.
3. Trace the emergence of the people’s voice through technological advancement, media diversification, and popular culture, and evaluate its role in shaping China’s evolving civil society.
4. Critique the imported “autonomy vs. control” binary as an inadequate lens, and instead, apply course theories to analyze the integrated logic and societal function of China’s distinctive media model.

Offer Semester and Day of Teaching

Second semester (Wed)