THE SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE NEW MEDIA BUSINESS: AMONG STATE, MARKET, AND PUBLIC

Master'sMASTER OF ART

Cultural governance in contemporary China: popular culture, digital technology, and the state

This dissertation is a study of the historical formation and transformation of the Chinese online audiovisual industry under forces of strategic political calculations, expanding market relations, and growing social participation, and the cultural ramifications of this process, especially the kind of transformations digital technologies have wrought on the state-TV-station-centered mode of cultural production/distribution and regulatory apparatuses. Through this case, the project aims to theorize the changing mode of cultural governance of post-socialist regimes in the context of digital capitalism. Using mixed methods of documentary research, interviews with industry practitioners, participant observations of trade fairs/festivals, and critical discourse analyses of popular cultural texts, the study finds that the traditional broadcasting and the online video sectors are structured along two different political economic mechanisms. While the former is dominated by domestic capital and heavily regulated by state agencies, the latter is supported by transnational capital and less regulated. Digital technologies coupled with transnational capital thus generate new cultural flows, processes, and practices, which produces a heterogeneous and contested cultural sphere in the digital environment that substantially differs from the one created by traditional television. The development of such a sphere in a cultural environment that was historically policed suggests that the Chinese state strategically configures the cultural realm into multiple zones delineated by technological forms. Cultural zoning allows the state to accommodate needs in relation to transnational forces while simultaneously retaining socialist legacies through state media. Zoning technology demonstrates flexibility in cultural governance and thus illuminates the extraordinary resilience of post-socialist regimes amid neoliberal globalization

Popular Music and Identity in China: A Qualitative Analysis of “Chineseness” in Mandopop since the 1980s

This qualitative popular music study explores the construction of identity in Mandopop after the policy of reform and opening-up in 1978 in China. Opening Part I of the thesis, the discussions begin with the concept of identity and subsequently explore Chinese identity, especially national identity and cultural identity, and its role in Chinese music history and Mandopop history by drawing on the concept from previous works by popular music academics and from the research by ethnomusicologists and cultural sociologists, who have made significant contributions to the study of music and identity. The discussions also explain the design of the research and analytical methods from a variety of disciplines to explore research questions, including one-to-one interviews, open-ended questionnaires, music observations and textual analysis, and acknowledge the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the research design and fieldwork. Part II explores the first research theme, Mandopop in a Changing Context, to reveal the historical background and sociocultural context of Mandopop and understand the commercial genre of Mandopop to relocate the use of the term “wind” in Mandopop, and to explore the functions of Mandopop. In Part III, three further research themes explore “Chineseness” in Mandopop based on the perspectives of fieldwork participants, with subsequent chapters based on each theme. The first theme is related to Chinese nationalism and national identity in Mandopop by discussing key terms and analyzing representative musical examples to explore the rise of nationalism in China and the construction of national identity in Mandopop. The second theme explores class identity and social stratification in Mandopop, illustrating the connection between class status and musical taste in Mandopop based on the homology and “omnivore-univore” argument, thus discussing the construction of class identity in Mandopop. The final theme is about fandom culture and idol industry in China and its impact on Mandopop, illustrating the relationship between fandom, policy and media platforms, as well as discussing how fandom (as a subcultural group) constructed its own identity in Mandopop under the strict censorship 4 system in China. Overall, the thesis presents multiple factors that affect the construction of Chinese identity in Mandopop as it is shaped by different ideologies and creative expressions within changing sociocultural contexts

Научная инициатива иностранных студентов и аспирантов : сборник докладов II Международной научно-практической конференции, Томск, 26-28 апреля 2022 г.

Сборник представляет интерес для специалистов и исследователей в области математики, механики, электротехники, информатики и вычислительных систем, физики, химии, геологии, гуманитарных наук и экономики