Legitimizing Ruptures of Development Trajectories

Party Press Discourse on Rural Society in Transitional China, 1997–2006

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12977435
AutoresY Song (0000-0001-5159-1689, City University of Hong Kong, autor correspondente), Tsan‐kuo Chang (City University of Hong Kong)
Ano2012
Volume17
Fascículo3
Páginas316-340
Data de publicação2012-04-30
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe International Journal of Press/Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1940-1612 • E-ISSN: 1040-1620
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1940161212443986
OpenAlexW2123822076
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas65

Although the Communist Party of China has based its economic claims to legitimacy on its ability to raise individual living standards, the state’s earlier approach to encouraging some people to get rich first was rendered problematic after continual ruptures in the rural economy. Through both quantitative and qualitative analyses, this study seeks to unravel the interplay between the state and media in China’s march toward modernization by examining coverage of rural development in People’s Daily (PD). From 1997 to 2006, China’s central party organ reported an enormous increase in the central officials’ efforts to boost the rural income, but highlighted in a hierarchical way their responsiveness according to the logics of period, region, and the task. In its assessment of rural anomalies, the responsibility was devolved to local bureaucracies, hence shifting the blame away from the central authority. A discourse analysis showed the PD stuck to a contour of economic developmentalism that upheld information and technology as the panacea, and perpetuated the state’s redistributive role as the key to social equality. As such, the overtly propagandist rhetoric has been increasingly giving way to a coherent set of framing practices that rationalize the centrality of the party-state in China

Blame · Bureaucracy · Centrality · China · Communism · Economic growth · Economics · Framing (construction · Legitimacy · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Rhetoric · Sociology · State (computer science · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Law · Public Administration