Perspectives on Communication in the People’s Republic of China

China’s development from a traditional society to a technologically advanced, completely modern republic has been rapid. Due to developments since the mid-1980s, Chinese daily life for many has jumped directly from that constrained by an agricultural economy to that liberated by the information age. This volume chronicles these changes and their impact upon mass communication. It looks closely at Chinese newspaper reports and television programmes and listens to government officials and people in the street, providing readers with an insider’s view of the current state of communication in China, from the political to the personal. Grouped under the major categories of politics, education and health are observations gleaned from Schnell’s nine visits to China as a visiting scholar and military attache. Ethnographic case studies are supported by examples from the media and supplemented with extensive references. Schnell concludes his examination of contemporary China with an examination of cross-cultural communication on the most sophisticated level: that between President Clinton and Chinese officials during Clinton’s 1998 visit.