Media “Schizophrenia” in China
(Aug 7, 2006)Abstract
Some rather astonishing changes took place in the Chinese media landscape in the 1990s with the advent of digital technology and the sudden availability of a vast number of bootleg foreign entertainment disks. The rapid and chaotic influx of so much foreign material into average Chinese homes caught the Chinese government off guard, and necessitated certain rapid and ad hoc adjustments to the general policy of combating “spiritual pollution”. This development, combined with certain features of China’s system of information control has resulted in a peculiar kind of “schizophrenia” in the Party’s treatment of entertainment media. This article will try to trace the factors that have led to this interesting state of affairs.