Book Review: Popular Media, Social Emotion and Public Discourse in Contemporary China, by Shuyu Kong

Abstract

Popular Media, Social Emotion and Public Discourse in Contemporary China. Shuyu Kong. London, UK: Routledge, 2014. 168 pp. $140 hbk.China is global force that has risen to prominence in the last two decades, and books that provide insights into the various aspects of media in China are needed to better our understanding of the changes that have been taking place there. Hence, Shuyu Kong's highly readable book, Popular Media, Social Emotion and Public Discourse in Contemporary China is welcome addition to the existing literature in this field. She captures the trials and tribulations, hardships and benefits, and joys and sorrows experienced by people in rapidly changing China through an analysis of audiences' emotional online responses to variety of media content in modern-day China. The author has effectively portrayed the changing media content and habits and public opinion within the historical, political, and socioeconomic context of country in transition.Many factors have led to wider choices in media content for viewers in China. These factors include commercialization of media, increasing popularity and diffusion of the interactive aspects of the Internet and social media, investment of domestic private capital, and participation of non-state business organizations in television content production. The book is divided into six chapters, each focusing on case study of specific type of media content, including film, television drama, reality shows, dating shows, and military and spy shows. Several of these shows are directly connected with important social issues confronting the Chinese. Some of the shows are local adaptations of shows that are popular in America, Russia, and other countries. The book is based on extensive research and analysis of the media content and its context, reviews of the shows, and discussions by fans of the films and television shows in online forums.The market economy in China provides more freedom to media content producers. However, the state keeps close watch or is itself involved in the production of content. Kong observes that state monopoly has been replaced with a new kind of commercial monopoly based on capital-albeit frequently mixture of political and economic capital leading to the growth of blockbuster megafilms such as Aftershock (Tangshan da dizhen). Aftershock, joint production of Tangshan municipality and two other firms, cost 120 million yuan and deals with the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan that took 240,000 lives. The film was government effort to reconstruct the image of Tangshan. Based on novella, the film emphasized family values and morals and allowed the nation to mourn the tremendous loss they had suffered in this natural disaster. Crying Your Heart Out (Youlei jingling liu), TV drama, one of the many in the 1990s on the theme of laid-off women workers, received high audience ratings and provided audiences with similar opportunity to empathize with others who had suffered job losses. …