This book presents a critical analysis of the images of China portrayed in British television documentaries between 1980 and 2000. The examination is contextualized within the profound transformations of the post-reform China and global political structures in the last two decades of the 20th century. Using an innovative analytical framework based on Vladimir Propp, the book focuses on how different images of China are constructed through an effective use of TV narrative strategies. In particular it details how various strands of (Western) modernity underpin major discourses about China. The book will be valuable to the understanding of how China was perceived in the West during one of the most dramatic moments in modern history.
Sample Chapter(s)
Chapter 1: China as an Image: History, Structure and Perspectives* (421 KB)
Contents:
- China as an Image: History, Structure and Perspectives
- Television Narrative as Discourse: Poetics of Representation
- Legitimate Controversy: China as a Civilisation
- A Struggle Without Heroes: Representing Republic of China, 1911–1949
- Consensus and Deviance: China as the Communist ‘Other ’, 1949–1989
- Road to Xanadu: A Case Study
- Behind Representation: Discursive Strategies and Relations of Power
- Conclusions
Readership: Researchers and students who are interested to understand how China was perceived in the West during the 1980–2000 period.
“Cao Qing has established a reputation as a leader in the study of how the West views China, including in the areas of history, periodization and theory. In this new study, he takes up views of the big picture of Chinese civilization and history, but does so through one medium in one country during a comparatively short period, namely British television documentaries from 1980 to 2000. This makes for a valuable and interesting study of images, especially as transcripts of many of the relevant programmes are included. I recommend this book strongly as a learned but accessible and fascinating study, and am confident it will become acknowledged as a major contribution to the study of Western, especially British, perspectives on China.”
Colin Mackerras
Griffith University
“Cao Qing has written a very important book. In successive epochs, the West has constructed different images of China and the Chinese — often as repulsive or revulsive, but always difficult to understand and, above all, somehow as threatening and alien. With the advent of modern technology and visual representation, leading to products of representation destined for global viewing, one would imagine greater care not to construct an Other race and culture on the basis of one's own fears, concerns or simple lack of knowledge. Perhaps it is a fear of knowledge. Cao Qing looks deeply at how the British have been representing China and the Chinese in the most modern and far-reaching of media. His findings are profound, very useful, but also profoundly disturbing.”
Stephen Chan
The Foundation Dean of Law and Social Sciences at the School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London, UK