Manufacturing Digitalized Soft Propaganda: Practices of the Chinese Party Newspapers in the Past Decade

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the practices of the Chinese party newspapers’ propaganda in the past decade. Through in-depth interviews with 30 journalists and editors of 12 party newspapers and analysis of investigative reports about 43 party newspapers’ propaganda work, this article finds that the party newspapers mainly used three propaganda strategies. Among them, mobile first is a technical strategy that gives priority to the use of mobile communication platforms and technologies in the whole process of news production and dissemination; digitalizing authoritative and localized information is a content strategy that aims to increase the appeal of party newspapers’ content to the citizens; and diversified outsourcing, as a service strategy that provides a series of services to the citizens on behalf of government departments, is an innovation of the propaganda practice of the party newspapers. However, there exists a gap in the performance of party newspapers at different levels in the actual propaganda work, and some of them engage in the practice just for the sake of formality.