Chinese TV Drama Research Articles

Chinese TV drama in a regional market: Aspiring to be a cultural actor?

Once isolated from the outside world, Chinese TV exclusively and loyally served as a Party’s propaganda tool, and almost “zero” trans-border TV trade was developed. With China’s unreserved embrace of market economy after the 1980s, TV production has been internationalized, and sporadic cases of overseas trade have taken place. Joining the WTO compelled Chinese TV officials to face increasing challenges from global broadcasters which led them to formulate the “going-global” policy to encourage large scale of TV exportation. China, now, has displayed its aspiration to increase its TV exportation, or put it more ambitiously, to “centralize” a regional Chinese cultural market, including the areas of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and possibly Korean and Japan.This paper adopts a historical analysis of the trend of China’s TV exportation. It involves the discussion of the officials’ motivation in the “going-global” policy-making process, the marketing strategies of Chinese producers who aim at overseas trade, the types of TV dramas which have been particularly produced to circulate abroad, as well as the consumption of these exported TV dramas by overseas audiences. Based on current situation, this paper argues that it would be too optimistic to conclude that China has been able to be the center for this regional market, either culturally or economically.

Women in chinese TV drama Woju

Women in chinese TV drama Woju

The Korean Wave (Hallyu) in East Asia: A Comparison of Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese Audiences Who Watch Korean TV Dramas

The major purpose of this study is to find out what factors are responsible for Hallyu, the flow and popularity of Korean popular cultural products in East Asia, and which direction Hallyu is heading for. To do this, recent structural and institutional changes in the region are examined and the 2008 EASS data analyzed. Opening up of the cultural market and development of the mass media industry, especially television, laid the ground for Hallyu in East Asia. The 2008 EASS data reveal that social proximity and two demographic variables are common factors for the rise of Hallyu in East Asia, but globalization and modernity variables had no effect on Hallyu. Females are more attracted to Korean TV dramas than males, but typical Hallyu fans are youngest in China, followed by Taiwan, and Japan the oldest. Besides these characteristics of Hallyu fans, the quality of Korean cultural products is an important factor in their success abroad. Since the second decade of the new millennium, Hallyu evolves into a new, or second, stage in which its contents, strategy, and media change considerably. Hallyu, representing a case of alternative globalization, signals a new phase in the recent history of globalization.

Media-Induced Voluntourism in Yunnan, China

Media-induced tourism as well as voluntourism are topics increasingly investigated in the tourism literature. However, a discussion of the intersection of these two forms of tourism (i.e., media-induced voluntourism) is currently missing from the literature. Using the example of two Chinese TV dramas, this article seeks to shed light on motivations and activities of media-induced voluntourists to the Chinese province of Yunnan. Based on a thematic analysis of online postings of the fans of these Chinese TV dramas, the article finds empirical evidence for media-induced voluntourism. The findings reveal that fans travel to Yunnan not only to engage in altruistic behavior, but also to inspect the volunteer work of other fans, as well as to receive recognition from the community. General tourism activities also play a role in their travels. The results indicate that fan voluntourism was strongly motivated by their empathy for the TV dramas' characters and their desire to live the values promoted in these dramas.

Re-conceptualizing the Chinese concept of face from a face-sensitive perspective: A case study of a modern Chinese TV drama

The present study adopts a new approach to face-analysis, originally proposed by Spencer-Oatey (2007:639–656) in light of identity theories, to analyze and re-conceptualize the Chinese concept of face based on data collected from a modern Chinese TV drama. The results reveal that miànzi in Chinese culture is inherently associated with the respectable identity and/or status that an individual establishes, and many Chinese miànzi phenomena can be explained and understood in terms of people's attributes or characteristics from a miànzi-sensitive perspective on identity theory. Its findings also indicate that Chinese people tend to be miànzi-sensitive about those attributes or characteristics foregrounded in social interactions of their own, as well as those of their family members, close friends, colleagues, and social groups. Based on these categories of miànzi-sensitive factors, this paper concludes that the Chinese concept of face, as a holistic term, can be categorized as individual, relational, and group miànzi.

Television in post-reform China: serial dramas, Confucian leadership and the global television market

This book explores the political, economic, and cultural forces, locally and globally that have shaped the evolution of Chinese primetime television dramas, and the way that these dramas in turn have actively engaged in the major intellectual and policy debates concerning the path, steps, and speed of China’s economic and political modernization during the post-Deng Xiaoping era. It intertwines the evolution of Chinese television drama particularly with the ascendance of the Chinese New Left that favors a recentralization of state authority and an alternative path towards China’s modernization and China’s current administration’s call for building a harmonious society. Two types of serial drama are highlighted in this regard, the politically provocative dynasty drama and the culturally ambiguous domestic drama. The book also provides cross-cultural comparisons that parallel the textual and institutional strategies of transnational Chinese language TV dramas with dramas from the three leading centers of transnational television production, the US, Brazil and Mexico in Latin America, and the Korean-led East Asia region. The comparison reveals creative connections while it also explores how the emergence of a Chinese cultural-linguistic market, together with other cultural-linguistic markets, complicates the power dynamics of global cultural flows.