TV China

If radio and film were the emblematic media of the Maoist era, television has rapidly established itself as the medium of the "marketized" China and in the diaspora. In less than two decades, television has become the dominant medium across the Chinese cultural world. TV China is the first anthology in English on this phenomenon. Covering the People's Republic, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora, these 12 original essays introduce and analyze the Chinese television industry, its programming, the policies shaping it, and its audiences.

Zhu (CUNY, Staten Island) and Berry (Goldsmiths College, Univ. of London, UK) pull together 12 disparate papers on television in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the diaspora. Offering broad perspectives on television practice, circulation, and consumption, the book is structured around four large issues: institutional factors, e.g., political economics, government policy and censorship, trade protection, and corporate policy; programming, especially Shanghai's Documentary Channel, a Taiwanese drama serial, and a popular New Year's Eve variety show; reception, including cultural impacts and viewership patterns; and globalism. The book's content certainly helps to fill in cracks and crannies of Chinese television studies, for which readers will be thankful... -CHOICEJ. A. Lent, Temple University, July 2009

"... The book's content certainly helps to fill in cracks and crannies of Chinese television studies, for which readers will be thankful..." --Choice, July 2009 Indiana University Press

"TV China is a very welcome addition to the limited number of major works dedicated to this topic. To varying degrees and adopting diverse approaches, individual contributors have updated and expanded our current knowledge of Chinese television...the volume has succeeded in filling a number of gaps, most notably in bringing together within one volume various approaches to the study of Chinese television as a cultural phenomenon that is at once national, transnational and diasporic. It is a welcome addition to the field, and students and researchers of Chinese media, culture and society, as well as television studies academics in general, should find the book a very useful reference." --Wanning Sun, China Quarterly, Sept. 2009

"TV China provides us with a timely and comprehensive compilation of writings on Chinese television. By presenting the regional dynamics of Chinese television production and reception, Ying Zhu and Chris Berry provide a broad canvas enriched by contemporary media theory.... In summary, this is a fine collection, and will become a benchmark for students and researchers of Chinese media." --The China Journal, No. 63, Jan. 2010

"Fills an important gap in both Chinese studies and media studies." --Lisa Rofel, University of California, Santa Cruz Indiana University Press

"There is nothing currently comparable in English, and quite possibly in any language." --John Downing, Southern Illinois University

TV institutions, programming, and audiences in Greater China and the Chinese diaspora

Ying Zhu is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies in the Department of Media Culture, City University of New York, Staten Island.

Chris Berry is Professor of Film and Television Studies in the Department of Media and Communication at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Contents

Introduction Ying Zhu and Chris Berry

Part 1. Institution

1. Toward Television Regionalization in Greater China and Beyond Joseph M. Chan

2. CCTV in the Reform Years: A New Model for China's Television? Junhao Hong, Yanmei Lü, and William Zou

3. Hong Kong Television: Same as It Ever Was? Karin Gwinn Wilkins

Part 2. Programming

4. Shanghai Television's Documentary Channel: Chinese Television as Public Space Chris Berry

5. Made in Taiwan: An Analysis of Meteor Garden as an East Asian Idol Drama Hsiu-Chuang Deppman

6. Ritual, Television, and State Ideology: Rereading CCTV's 2006 Spring Festival Gala Xinyu Lu

Part 3. Reception

7. Mediation Journalism in Chinese Television: Double-Time Narrations of SARS Haiqing Yu

8. Building a Chinese "Middle Class": Consumer Education and Identity Construction in Television Land Janice Hua Xu

9. Chinese Television Audience Research Tongdao Zhang

Part 4. Going Global

10. Hong Kong Television and the Making of New Diasporic Imaginaries Amy Lee

11. Globalizing Television: Chinese Satellite Television outside Greater China Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong

12. Transnational Circulation of Chinese-Language Television Dramas Ying Zhu

Appendix: Relevant Milestone Events in the Development of Chinese Television

List of Contributors

Index