University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Anticorruption Television Dramas: Between Propaganda and Popular Culture in Globalizing China

Bai, Ruoyun

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Description

Title
Anticorruption Television Dramas: Between Propaganda and Popular Culture in Globalizing China
Author(s)
Bai, Ruoyun
Issue Date
2007
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Bruce A. Williams
Department of Study
Communications
Discipline
Communications
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Mass Communications
Language
eng
Abstract
I argue that anticorruption drama serials are the result of complex negotiations and compromises between the Party, commercializing media institutions, and a number of influential writers, in a context of social unrest fueled by corruption. At the content level, anticorruption dramas are ideologically complex products, providing a certain degree of openness for negotiation. Although the dominant narrative about corruption is provided by the official discourse, these drama serials are much more complicated narratives that engage a variety of alternative discourses about corruption. Through textual analyses and audience interviews, I identified four major overlapping and conflicting interpretive frameworks in almost each of the drama serials under study. The results are mixed for the official discourse of corruption, which is sometimes reinforced but frequently rendered vulnerable to serious criticism if not subversion. But in the end, none of the alternative discourses poses a challenge to the legitimacy of the market reform policy, which suggests a more fundamental hegemony at work.
Graduation Semester
2007
Type of Resource
text
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/86584

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