Propaganda Battles

I read Peter Foster's reply on his blog and all of the comments. It seems that most of the readers giving the comments don't agree with Mr. Peter Foster this time. For example:

"there is no substantive difference" "between Obama's Facebookery and the Chinese propaganda efforts"; -- By Dan

"I'd choose Chinese propaganda's over American's without a blink, it's less pretensious and less hypocritical, and it has the gut to call itself 'PROPAGANDA'." -- by Chi

"Also, tell us why by Reuters, The Times, The Guardian, The New York Times and others - cannot and will not accept China's socialist governing system? Why not? Even this system perhaps suits China better at this moment in history? Have the CHinse people asked you, the western median, to accept it?" -- by Venetia

"For many Chinese CP is the pillar of their nation; that notion is fuelled largely by the country's relative material success in recent decades than by 'propaganda' alone.
Yes, China has its pot of 'wrongdoers', corrupt officials who maintain second homes and swimming pools at tax payers' expense, for example. Is democracy the solution to that? The Telegraph, being a British publication, probably knows better." -- by Peter.Ratna

"As far as I could tell while I was there, young educated Chinese are among those to have benefited the most from CP policy and really support their government (partly I'm sure as a result of indoctrination). They find it annoying that westerners expect them to hate the CP." -- by Tom

Interesting exchange!

Xuanchuan or propoganda -- words are powerful expecially when it comes to delivering a message to, or promote a program with, the general public who may or may not know, who may or may not be insterested in knowing, who may or may not be capable of undestanding of the complixity, or may or may not be willing to be botherred by, the issues.

Having been in the "west" for so many years, I honestly feel, through observation and participation, "proganda" is everywhere in this sociaty from internationally affairs, to neighbourhood plans... let alone things such as persuding you to buy certain stuff, which is "nicknamed" media commercials.

Regardless the contents and nature of these different "propoganda" businesses they share one common objective -- to sell as much as possible, whether it is a geo-political agenda or a new taste from CocaCola!

In the west, these "propoganda" businesses have become more and more sophiscated along with the evolution and florishing of the word itself. So, in stead of "propoganda", which was used in the 1910s' according to Whitely, now a days people say public relations, public engagement, public education, and so forth.

Who can deny that those beautiful, powerful, and sometimes sensational and emotional campain languages from various candidates who are running for various levels of government offices are NOT "propoganda"?

Just listen to what Candidate O now President O had to say not long a ago and you judge by yourself!

P.S., if Candidate O's sexy speeches were translated into Chinese, they might have, quite interestingly, been quite comparable to China Daily's patriotic propoganda presentation? I don't know. Never tried. But I did have a feeling when listening to his speech ... though I still liked to listen to his speech as he gave me what I wanted to hear.

As an interesting comparison, when the west is becomming more and more sophisticated in "propoganda" in all aspects of the society(including the evolution of the word itself), China's political "propoganda" is still in the 1910s even though its marketing "propoganda" and many other "propoganda" things have quickly caught up with the last trend set by the west.

Anyways, so this concludes my assessment of this interesting "propoganda" or (xuanchuan) exchange.

Now, I trust Austin's post will almost certain attract the ones in the china-bashing camp to dump tons of pre-fabricated waste (regardless of the contents and the context of the posts) ... I will stop and wait ... things such as free-media, democracy, CPC's one-party rule, etc, will certainly, again, become the centre of their arguement ... which, as Whiteley put it in his quite insightful arguement, are so f***** boring.

The Chinese state-run media (under the thumbs of the state propaganda apparatus) is among the most backward components in the society today. They are both hypocritical and incompetent. They are merely the running dogs of the communist party.

That said, being a long time consumer of the western media, I have to says that the western media are not the knights on white horses they pretend to be. You can find them prostituting themselves, time again, to their governments, their industrial powers, their ideology and nationalism. Those occasional prostitutes include the Time and some of you Time correspondents on this blog.

So, this fight is between full-time running dogs and part-time prostitutes. There is no moral high ground here. They are all self-serving.

I say, the Chinese state media is a woman(or man, let's be fair to both genders) on the street who spreads her (or his) legs out waiting to be f***ed in exchange for cash...

The western media is a unionized "sex worker" (man or woman) in a nicely decorated aparting who spreads her (or his) legs out waiting to be f***ed in exchange for credit card transaction.

correction: in a nicely decorated apartment

No offense to "prostitutes" or "sex workers" on the street or in the aparments. There are fair market games of human society.
I just don't want to see "sex workers" attacking "prostitutes" for being imoral...

BTW, when I was a kid in China I used to have text books with the following "government propoganda" statement (as it was called)printed in the back:

Do not damange public facilities.

Here I saw kids putting their muddy shoes on clean seats on buses and nobody would bother to intervene ... kids are free to vandalize things.

Perhaps such "government propoganda" is necessary?

This issue is not just what kinds of messages were sent out by the government, but also what kinds of messages were forbidden by the government. It is the combination of the two that makes the difference, not just the message sent.

In the west, everyone knows that whatever the government says is suspicious, and one should find something with the opposite opinion. And there are plenty of opposite opinions. In China, the government enjoys the status as the only trustworthy source of information, as all others are in jail.

That's why China is so successful and the west is not.

A great propaganda: http://tinyurl.com/qkbwfx

Learn it well, and you can also become a Chinese.

Aha, now I can smell the waste!
So, someone who believes in the diversity (in political opinions) actually thinks there ought to be only one standard for the entire wolrd in designing the system of politics.
Should this be called self-reference?

A senior reporter from Xinhua wrote: 至6月3日晚，张万舒收到前线记者报告指军队开入木樨地，军队终于开枪，穆青闻言痛苦地说：“今夜，是中国历史上最黑暗的一夜。”另一名副社长郭超人说：“历史将不会忘记这一夜！”

But he was totally wrong. Not only that night will be forgotten. It was made forgotten. People were made to forget. The forgetfulness of Chinese is now complete.

"On the 20th anniversary of June 4, I would like to publicize this letter and raise these questions to all my friends: What are the negative impacts we have bought on our society because of our silence in the past 20 years? What harm has such silence done to our national spirit and morality? How has it affected our work and our lives? Can we still keep such a silence?

This secrecy is poisoning the environment and atmosphere around us and affecting our life and spirit. When we choose to moderate our comments to avoid trouble we are actually conspiring in covering up the truth, aligning with the Government and participating in their power game. Even if we did not directly cause the bloody crime 20 years ago, the fact that we have been silent for all these years for whatever reason makes us complicit in the incident."

~ Cui Weiping

Wenweipo, 1989 June 4th: http://tinyurl.com/ova26v

Boring!