China's Thought Management argues that by re-emphasizing and modernizing propaganda and thought work since 1989, the CCP has managed to overcome a succession of local and national level crises - the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the impact of the collapse Socialism in the Eastern bloc, SARS, ethnic clashes in Tibet and Xinjiang, to name but a few - emerging re-strengthened and as dominant in Chinese society as ever. The contributors to this book address such crucial issues as the new emphasis on economic propaganda, the continued importance of the PLA propaganda system in China’s overall propaganda work and political stability, how the CCP uses "Confu-talk" in its foreign and domestic propaganda, and new approaches to mass persuasion such as "campaigns of mass distraction". Each chapter is a case study of the multiple ways in which the CCP has modified and adjusted its propaganda to reflect China’s changed economic and political environment.
Challenging readers to reconceptualise mainstream understandings of the CCP’s hold on power and the means the CCP government adopts to maintain its authority to rule, this book will be invaluable reading for anyone interested in the Chinese media and Chinese politics.
Introduction: Market-friendly, Scientific, High tech, and Politics-lite: China’s New Approach to Propaganda, Anne-Marie Brady Part1 New Themes: 1. The Beijing Olympics as a Campaign of Mass Distraction, Anne-Marie Brady 2. Talking Up the Market: Economic Propaganda in Contemporary China, Anne-Marie Brady and He Yong 3. State Confucianism, Chineseness, and Tradition in CCP Propaganda, Anne-Marie Brady 4. "Confu-talk" : the use of Confucian concepts in contemporary China’s Foreign Policy, Valerie Niquet 5. Linguistic Engineering in Hu Jintao’s China: The Case of the ‘Maintain Advancedness’ Campaign, Ji Fengyuan Part 2 New Methods of Control: 6. From Control to Management: The CCP’s ‘Reforms of the Cultural Sphere’, Nicolai Volland 7. Sword and Pen: Propaganda in China’s Military Modernization, Wang Juntao and Anne-Marie Brady 8. Debating Prostitution and Propaganda Work in the Chinese Media, Elaine Jeffreys 9. Thought Management and the OC, James To Conclusion: The Velvet Fist in the Velvet Glove: China’s Modernised Approach to Social and Political Control, Anne-Marie Brady
Biography
Anne-Marie Brady is Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
'This book is a substantial addition to Brady’s earlier work (Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China, 2008), which was already a substantial contribution to the literature as a whole.' - Josef Gregory Mahoney, East China Normal University; The China Journal (July 2013).
"This volume, edited by Anne-Marie Brady, contains interesting and valuable information obtained from research conducted by specialists on the Chinese partystate’s dissemination of information throughout the Chinese communication system." - Johan Lagerkvist, Chinese Journal of Communication 7:1, 126-128
