Suchergebnisse

1. Aftershock : the sentimental construction of family in post-socialist China -- 2. Crying your heart out : laid-off women workers, kuqingxi, and melodramatic sensibility in Chinese TV drama -- 3. Magic cube of happiness : managing conflicts and feelings on Chinese primetime television -- 4. Are you the one? The competing public voices of China's post-1980s generation -- 5. Undercover : internet media fandom and the sociality of cultural consumption -- 6. Let the bullet fly : film discussions and the cultural public sphere.

This paper examines the social and political uses of the Chinese popular media in promoting the market economy and reforming national subjectivity through a specific case study of the media construction of Shanxi merchants during the past decade. It looks at the emerging discourse of the Shanxi merchant through two crucial media events: the production and promotion of the TV documentary Shanxi Merchant and the TV drama Qiao Family Compound (Qiaojia dayuan). By looking at the production context, televisual discourses and social impact of these media products, and locating their production and consumption within the context of the social construction of Shanxi merchants since the early 1990s, especially in relation to the local economic and cultural development of Shanxi Province and the national Honesty and Integrity (chengxin) Campaign, the paper discusses the correlation between the discursive formation of the Shanxi merchant and the reconfiguring of social, political and economic relations in China's economic reforms. (China J/GIGA)

This paper explores the discourse of cultural nationalism and its recent articulation in historical TV dramas (Lishi ju): TV serials set in the Chinese imperial past and depicting court politics and the private lives of imperial families. First, I briefly survey the recent resurgence of historical drama on the TV screen, especially comparing two different ways of representing history: "history light" (xishuo) and "history orthodox" (zhengju). While history light, a new genre strongly influenced by the costume dramas imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan, emphasizes the entertainment values of popular culture and adopts a postmodern attitude towards history, history orthodox renews the pedagogical tradition and the moralistic narrative of historical drama in modern China since the May Fourth enlightenment movement. I then focus on TV dramas in the history orthodox mode and their ideological messages, examining two representative works by Hu Mei: Yongzheng Dynasty (Yongzheng wangchao, 1999) and The Great Emperor Wu of Han (Hanwu dadi, 2005). While drawing attention to the various narrative strategies, intertextualities and audio-visual styles employed in these dramas to represent the glorious national history and portray a strong leader (the emperor) as national hero, I also provide a contextual analysis of the production and circulation of these two dramas as well as the critical and media response to them, to reveal the social agencies and social formation of these dramas behind the screen. I suggest that the revisionist reframing of the past in historical TV drama reflects a new nationalist historical consciousness and cultural identity borne out of China's rapid rise and aspirations to become an economic and political superpower.