Staging a social drama: Ritualized framing of the spring festival homecoming in Chinese state media

Abstract

The transformation of Chinese media from the propaganda organ of the Party-state to its central means of hegemony has given rise to typified news practices that vary in formality but cohere in functionality. Integrating theories of media ritual and framing, this study explores how Chinese state media ritualistically manufacture a public consensus on the interpretation of the annual Spring Festival homecoming, a chronic social problem that exposes socioeconomic inequalities and policy deficiencies. An analysis of the 2014 homecoming coverage on China Central Television (CCTV) reveals that state media create and popularize a state-sponsored social drama, reducing a complex, multifaceted social problem to a one-dimensional transportation crisis. This media ritual, in accordance with both the state’s mandate to maintain social stability and the media’s logic of commercial success, contains alternative interpretations and obscures the important social concerns encapsulated in this issue.

Social Economic Perspectives of Homecoming Tradition: An Indonesian Context

“…Homecoming (Mudik) seems to be the peak of Indonesian rituals. The result of the struggle in the city and then spilled in his hometown when going home (Li, 2019). The villagers seemed to see that someone who had returned from wandering in the city was a successful profile, had a presentable appearance, and of course brought large sums of money even though many of them were working as factory workers and construction workers (Aulawi, 2017).…”

From media events to my events: Chinese mediated festivals in the digital era1

“…Various newly emerged festivals have begun to flourish in contemporary China as shopping, music and film festivals (e.g., Meng and Huang, 2017; Smith, 2014). Increasing attention has been paid to how contemporary festivals are shaped by digital media (Li, 2018; Sigala, 2018; Van Winkle et al, 2018), yet the festival participants’ perceptions and experiences during such events are less examined.…”

Striking the balance between professionalism and commercialism: A cross-case study on news start-ups in China

“…The conflict between professionalism and commercialism in entrepreneurial practice in Germany, the US, the UK and so on, has been extensively discussed in recent years (Chadha, 2016; Gollmitzer, 2014; Hellmueller et al, 2017; Porlezza and Splendore, 2016). However, previous studies in China have tended to overwhelmingly concentrate on the mainstream news organisations (Li, 2018; Pan, 2009; Pan and Chan, 2003; Liang, 2012; Wang and Sparks, 2019; Zhao and Xiang, 2019), and few have focused on entrepreneurial journalism, such as news start-ups (Zhang, 2019). The present study employs a combination of in-depth interviews and participatory observation to examine the entrepreneurial practice of four representative news start-ups that are experiencing this conflict and striking a balance between professionalism and commercialism in China.…”