Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism (Fortchoming, Cambridge University Press). By Maria Repnikova
Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism theorizes about participatory channels under authoritarianism through the prism of the relationship between China’s critical journalists and the party-state in the past decade. Drawing on over 120 in-depth interviews with journalists, officials, and experts, it depicts their routine interactions, as well as their dynamics following national crisis events. The book portrays the relationship between the two actors a fluid collaboration, characterized by “guarded improvisation,” whereby the two actors make continuous creative adjustments in response to one another under the shadow of the party-state.
“The Party’s Shadow in China’s Journalism Education,” China Quarterly (Forthcoming). By Maria Repnikova.
Abstract: This article examines the dynamic evolution of China’s ideology work through the prism of journalism education. The combination of official sensitivity about student activism and the media makes journalism education a critical sector for observing the party’s ideology pursuit. The article interrogates the process of negotiation of official ideology amongst authorities, educators and students at elite journalism schools. It demonstrates that alongside with state-sanctioned media commercialization and globalization, the official influence still looms large in journalism training. Ideological teachings continue to occupy a core place in the curricula, and the authorities deploy a mix of structural oversight, ad-hoc surveillance, and coercion to keep the educators in check. The effects of the official ideology work, however, are ambivalent, as educators and students engage in active reinterpretation of the party’s media principles. While these practices do not directly undermine the party’s legitimacy, they demonstrate that official ideology has merely constructed a “hegemony of form”, highlighting a degree of vulnerability in China’s mode of adaptive authoritarianism.
“Propaganda during Crisis Events: A Case Study of Beijing Floods of 2012,” Journal of Contemporary China (Forthcoming). By Maria Repnikova.
Abstract: This article examines the evolving process of China’s information management at sub-national level through the prism of a crisis event. Specifically, it investigates the response of officials and the media to Beijing’s fatal floods of 2012—the heaviest and the deadliest floods the Chinese capital has seen in 60 years. The article draws on ethnographic observations, the analysis of interviews with Chinese media professionals, officials and media scholars, as well as the coverage of the storm by two prominent, but distinct Beijing news outlets: an official daily, Beijing Ribao and a commercial daily, Jinghua Shibao. The analysis reveals various strategies deployed by Beijing authorities to positively shape public opinion, and the media’s creative implementation of official directives. Namely, the two newspapers fused regular news coverage with different styles of positive framing. This process of mutual and diverse adaption highlights the increasingly dynamic nature of China’s crisis communication and public opinion management.
“Social Media and the State in China,” in Sandra Gonzalez Bailon and Brooke Foucault-Welles (eds) Communication in the Networked Age (Oxford University Press: forthcoming). By Maria Repnikova and Bo Mai.
Abstract: This chapter examines ethical consideration underpinning research of the Chinese web. Specifically it explains how surveillance and weak privacy protections complicate researching using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The chapter further offers solutions and suggestions for how to go about carrying out research of Chinese web in a more ethical manner.
Abstract: Western media studies have largely presented the relationship between new and traditional media as adversarial, often claiming that the Internet challenges
the survival of traditional journalism. Focusing on China, this article re-evaluates this relationship in a non-Western context. Relying on extensive interviews with Chinese journalists, we argue that the relationship between China’s print and Internet media is symbiotic. Although it does challenge traditional business models, the Internet also helps journalists improve their commercial competitiveness and presents new channels for resisting censorship and expanding the boundaries of permissible reporting.
Civic Approaches to Confronting Violent Extremism: Sector Recommendations and Best Practices (British Council, 2016). By Abbas Barzegar, Shawn Powers, and Nagham El Karhili.
“As concerns about violent extremism grow, there is a troubling knowledge gap between those operating at the grassroots and community levels on the one hand and those working in government and law enforcement on the other. This report aims to fill that gap by highlighting best practices and identifying areas of vulnerability in civil society and private sector campaigns against extremism. Having consulted dozens of organizations, thought leaders, and government practitioners, the findings in this report identify consensus points and practical ways forward for those invested in a collaborative e ort to tackle the shared problem of ideological violence and extremism.”
The Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom (University of Illinois Press, 2015). By Shawn Powers and Michael Jablonski.
“The Real Cyber War is a comprehensive analysis of the ongoing contests surrounding the rules and norms governing growing global connectivity and related transnational digital information flows. It tackles a number of topics central to the field of International Communication, including critical analysis of the information and data industries, internet governance and multistakeholder fora, governmental surveillance, and the Western governments, corporations and institutions driving the internet freedom movement. The Guardian praised the “excellent book” for “drawing attention to the irregular regulation of the global data trade” and “the power of the internet-freedom agenda to legitimize a particular set of economic practices.” Boundary 2 to describe the work as “seminal,” admiring its capacity to “inspire a change in course that will restore the internet to what it might become (and what many thought it was supposed to be): an engine for democracy and social and economic progress, justice, and equity.
The Syrian data glut: Rethinking the role of information in conflict (Media, War, and Conflict, 2015). By Shawn Powers and Ben O’Loughlin.
“This commentary challenges the pervasive narrative of ‘information as peace inducing.’ Political actors are employing big data tools to better understand conflicts, but not necessarily to end them. Building on an historical record of ways in which information freedom is selectively used to justify geo- strategic policy, we explore the relationship between information and conflict through the lens of the Syrian civil war, ‘the most well documented conflict in history.’ Specifically, we argue that the conditions required for information to reduce the likelihood for violence are at fundamental odds with the conditions of war. Thus, while greater access to accurate information can, theoretically, reduce the likelihood of conflict breaking out, adding an abundance of data to an ongoing conflict is ineffectual at best, and, in the case of Syria, potentially dangerous.
Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: Progress Towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities (U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2014). By Katherine Brown, Sean Aday, Amelia Arsenault, Matthew Baum, Nicholas Cull, Kathy Fitzpatrick, Craig Hayden, Erik Nisbet, Shawn Powers, and Jay Wang.
“This report examines current efforts underway at the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to assess impact through research, analytics and evaluation. It makes suggestions on structures and methodologies needed to make foreign audience research more robust, impact assessment more institutionalized, and feedback loops for strategy and tactics more systematic. The report is based on findings from a six-month study of nearly 100 State Department and BBG research and evaluation documents, in addition to dozens of interviews conducted between February and August 2014 with the staff responsible for them and with users of them.”
Towards Information Sovereignty (in Beyond NETmundial: The Roadmap for Institutional Improvements to the Global Internet Governance, 2014). By Shawn Powers.
“Continuously challenged, states naturally seek means of legitimating their authority, a process that increasingly requires providing a citizenry with some level of freedom of expression. At the same time, technologies are evolving quickly and changing the ways that communities are formed and authority legitimized. For many states, allowing too much freedom of expression risks a loss of legitimacy by another sword: the rise of political challengers more able to engage the masses and offer alternative visions for the future. It is within this continuum—with absolute freedom of expression on one end and total information control on the other—that I explore four case studies in which states discourage access to a singular, shared internet by developing malleable domestic networks more capable of facilitating a balance between freedom and control.”
Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism theorizes about participatory channels under authoritarianism through the prism of the relationship between China’s critical journalists and the party-state in the past decade. Drawing on over 120 in-depth interviews with journalists, officials, and experts, it depicts their routine interactions, as well as their dynamics following national crisis events. The book portrays the relationship between the two actors a fluid collaboration, characterized by “guarded improvisation,” whereby the two actors make continuous creative adjustments in response to one another under the shadow of the party-state.
the media makes journalism education a critical sector for observing the party’s ideology pursuit. The article interrogates the process of negotiation of official ideology amongst authorities, educators and students at elite journalism schools. It demonstrates that alongside with state-sanctioned media commercialization and globalization, the official influence still looms large in journalism training. Ideological teachings continue to occupy a core place in the curricula, and the authorities deploy a mix of structural oversight, ad-hoc surveillance, and coercion to keep the educators in check. The effects of the official ideology work, however, are ambivalent, as educators and students engage in active reinterpretation of the party’s media principles. While these practices do not directly undermine the party’s legitimacy, they demonstrate that official ideology has merely constructed a “hegemony of form”, highlighting a degree of vulnerability in China’s mode of adaptive authoritarianism.
response of officials and the media to Beijing’s fatal floods of 2012—the heaviest and the deadliest floods the Chinese capital has seen in 60 years. The article draws on ethnographic observations, the analysis of interviews with Chinese media professionals, officials and media scholars, as well as the coverage of the storm by two prominent, but distinct Beijing news outlets: an official daily, Beijing Ribao and a commercial daily, Jinghua Shibao. The analysis reveals various strategies deployed by Beijing authorities to positively shape public opinion, and the media’s creative implementation of official directives. Namely, the two newspapers fused regular news coverage with different styles of positive framing. This process of mutual and diverse adaption highlights the increasingly dynamic nature of China’s crisis communication and public opinion management.
information flows. It tackles a number of topics central to the field of International Communication, including critical analysis of the information and data industries, internet governance and multistakeholder fora, governmental surveillance, and the Western governments, corporations and institutions driving the internet freedom movement. The Guardian praised the “excellent book” for “drawing attention to the irregular regulation of the global data trade” and “the power of the internet-freedom agenda to legitimize a particular set of economic practices.” Boundary 2 to describe the work as “seminal,” admiring its capacity to “inspire a change in course that will restore the internet to what it might become (and what many thought it was supposed to be): an engine for democracy and social and economic progress, justice, and equity.
Diplomacy, 2014). By Katherine Brown, Sean Aday, Amelia Arsenault, Matthew Baum, Nicholas Cull, Kathy Fitzpatrick, Craig Hayden, Erik Nisbet, Shawn Powers, and Jay Wang.
At the same time, technologies are evolving quickly and changing the ways that communities are formed and authority legitimized. For many states, allowing too much freedom of expression risks a loss of legitimacy by another sword: the rise of political challengers more able to engage the masses and offer alternative visions for the future. It is within this continuum—with absolute freedom of expression on one end and total information control on the other—that I explore four case studies in which states discourage access to a singular, shared internet by developing malleable domestic networks more capable of facilitating a balance between freedom and control.”