322 Beziehungen des Staats zu organisierten Gruppen
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“In Other News”: China’s International Media Strategy on Xinjiang — CGTN and New China TV on YouTube
(2023)
In the Western world China stands accused of severe human rights violations regarding its treatment of the Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in its northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This is the first article to systematically analyze the response of China’s international state media to these allegations. By studying the YouTube channels of two leading Chinese state media, China Global Television Network (CGTN) and New China TV (operated by Xinhua News Agency), it presents an indepth understanding of how China’s foreign-facing propaganda works in a crucial case. The quantitative content analysis highlights how China reacted to increasing international (mostly United States) pressure regarding its Xinjiang policies by producing higher volumes of videos and putting out new counternarratives. The qualitative analysis that follows provides in-depth treatment of the most important discourses that Chinese media engage in to salvage the nation’s international image, namely those on development, culture, nature, and terrorism. It finds several ways of countering criticism, ranging from presenting a positive image of China, in line with traditional propaganda guidelines and President Xi Jinping’s assignment to state media to “tell the China story well,” to more innovative approaches. Thus the development narrative becomes more personalized, the discourse on culture supports the “heritagization process” to incorporate minority cultures into a harmonized “Chinese civilization,” representations of nature firmly tie Xinjiang into the discourse of “beautiful China,” the “terror narrative” strategically employs shocking footage in an attempt to gain international “discourse power,” etc. The article provides an up-to-date picture of China’s state media strategy on a highly contentious international issue.
In recent years, numerous renewable energy cities were established worldwide, piloting different pathways to transition to clean energy. With the ability to address local needs more precisely in their unique geographic, social and economic contexts, cities play a vital role in implementing overall climate mitigation goals on the local level. In China, many renewable energy cities have emerged as well. However, official documents suggest that Chinese government authorities establish such renewable energy cities strategically, which leads to the assumption that the impulse to become renewable is different from other countries, where bottom-up initiatives are more common. Hence, this thesis explores answer to the question why and how the Chinese government promotes the energy transition of Chinese cities and regions. To explore the dynamics of local energy transition projects, this thesis adopts two frameworks from the field of sustainability transitions, the multi-level perspective and strategic niche management, and applies them to seven European and two Chinese case studies. The European sample includes the cities Graz, Güssing, Freiburg, and Helsinki as well as the communities Feldheim, Jühnde and Murau. The Chinese sample consists of the bottom-up initiative Shaanxi Sunflower Project and the demonstration project Tongli New Energy Town. A comparative analysis evaluates in how far the cases correspond to the multi-level perspective or strategic niche management. The comparison of the case studies reveals that the development of renewable energy cities in China goes beyond a top-down vs. bottom-up logic. In the Chinese context, strategic niche management should be understood as experimentation under hierarchy, which serves at pretesting different approaches before rolling them out nationwide. In addition, the analysis shows that both the multi-level perspective and strategic niche management have their advantages and disadvantages for niche development. Niches following the logic of the multi-level perspective may result in higher stakeholder acceptance, whereas strategic niche management can in turn accelerate niche development. However, since natural niche development cannot be steered intentionally, decision-makers who intend to induce local renewable energy projects have no other option but to resort to strategic niche management. To increase stakeholder acceptance and thus to improve the project outcome, decision-makers are advised to accommodate sufficient room for stakeholder participation in the project design.