The Paradox of the State-Run Media Promoting Poor Governance in China: Case Studies of a Party Newspaper and an Anticorruption Film

ABSTRACT

This essay draws on the analysis of media texts and ethnographic fieldwork to present case studies of the production, distribution, and consumption of two kinds of media products in China that are used for educating cadres about official policies, law and morality, namely, a Party-produced prefectural newspaper and an anticorruption film. Such pedagogic media products merit study because they are consumed by a huge audience of cadres who are entrusted with interpreting and implementing state policy and with carrying out the daily work of the different institutions that make up the Party-state. The case studies show that the internal circulation of pedagogic media products within the Party-state apparatus works in two ways to reinforce “organizational involution,” which causes poor governance. First, the content of the media products and their methods of distribution buttress the norms and institutional practices that entrench unchallenged power, corruption, and official malfeasance within the system. Examples include the role of top-down administrative fiat in determining the content of the media products and the ways in which individuals and institutions are compelled to purchase materials and participate in pedagogic activities to secure their positions. Second, state pedagogy deflects attention away from the structural failings of the Party-state system. The pedagogic products enable the Party-state to portray itself as the leading crusader in the fight against corruption, despite the corrupting consequences of its continuing unsupervised monopoly on power. Meanwhile, self-improvement exhortations in the media texts sidestep the question of systemic political reform.     

A vindication of the rights of girls: surviving girlhood in the 21st century

ABSTRACT

Between 2014 to 2016 we conducted mixed-methods research exploring girls’ experiences of growing up in the UK in the 21st century. We spoke to girls and young women between the ages of 10 and 24 in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to gain a qualitative snapshot of what matters to girls. We also conducted the first quantitative study of a range of quality of life indicators disaggregated by age and gender in the UK to garner a statistical view of geographically-based experiences of growing up girl. The study was commissioned by Plan International UK and The State of Girls’ Rights report was launched in September 2016. What struck us at the time of writing the report was the resonance between challenges girls raised in 2016 and those proclaimed by Wollstonecraft in her 1792 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published over 200 years earlier. Here we bring together these voices from the 18th and 21st centuries to consider the continuing legacy and resonance of Wollstonecraft’s ideas in thinking about growing up girl in Britain.