"Propaganda bureau: Don't listen to the government"

[onebir]

Interesting article from GoKunming:

Wu Hao, vice director of Yunnan's provincial propaganda bureau, told reporters in Kunming last week that media coverage of events should not pander to the language used by local governments or police, essentially telling journalists not to put too much faith in local officials' descriptions of social disturbances.

A Southern Metropolis Daily report said that inflammatory wording often used in government and police reports about social unrest came across as an official pronouncement from above and tended to worsen the problems, which were often caused by the government itself.

[Full article linked above.]

This seems to continue the theme of conflicts between local and central government - the latter considerably more concerned about the broader consequences of the former's misbehaviour for "harmony"...

[wushijiao]

I thought the name Wu Hao sounded familiar: China Media Project has a series of interesting articles on how Wu Hao is leading the field of cutting edge propaganda:

http://cmp.hku.hk/2009/02/24/1483/

http://cmp.hku.hk/2009/02/27/1498/

http://cmp.hku.hk/2009/02/26/1494/

From the first article (in refrence to the guy who came up with the media strategy to quell the "elude the cat" episode/躲猫猫事件):

It’s all about Wu Hao (伍皓).

That’s right. It’s about an intelligent, 38 year-old former Xinhua News Agency reporter who is rising rapidly through the ranks of China’s propaganda apparatus. It’s about the fresh new face of Chinese propaganda controls in the information age.

Control 2.0 now has its poster boy.

Yunnan’s ingenious approach to “public opinion guidance” in the “eluding the cat” case was masterminded by Wu, who has explained the thinking behind the action in numerous media interviews, like this one that appeared in Southern Metropolis Daily.

“But we didn’t wish to have a repeat of the South China Tiger affair,” Wu Hao told Southern Metropolis Daily in an interview last night. He believes prior experience tells us that the doubts of netizens will not simply evaporate as time passes, but will rise wave upon wave . . .

And there is his classic and revealing line, which we will come back to:

“As for online public opinion, it is best resolved by the laws of the Internet itself.” (“对网络的舆论,要用网络的办法来解决.”)

[Chi-Eng]

I wonder why it's called "propaganda bureau". It could be called "bureau of communication", "information office", or "dept. of media and communication". Over the years, English teachers who're Chinese warn the students against using the word "propaganda", for fear that the communist color would repel westerners.

[imron]

This article does a good job of explaining why propaganda department is still a valid name for this department.

[Ah-Bin]

Over the years, English teachers who're Chinese warn the students against using the word "propaganda", for fear that the communist color would repel westerners.

That is so funny. Seems like there is a delicate balancing act going on in translations from Chinese to English in the PRC to tone down the rhetoric so it doesn't seem as repugnant. Perhaps that's why they always insist on translating 祖國 as "motherland" rather than the more accurate "fatherland" (when did Chinese ever worship their female ancestors?) to avoid the obvious (and fitting) connotations of that word.

[gato]

The personification of 祖国 as "motherland" might be influenced by the Russian "Mother Russia".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Russia

It is true that whenever "祖国" is referred to in the third person, the feminine ”她“ is used.

[Outofin]

I wonder why it's called "propaganda bureau". It could be called "bureau of communication", "information office", or "dept. of media and communication". Over the years, English teachers who're Chinese warn the students against using the word "propaganda", for fear that the communist color would repel westerners.

Meanwhile, communist is obviously the worst name a party can have in english speaking countries. So they should change their English name to something like the Ever Great Glorious Correct Party. Hmm, sounds good to me.

[gato]

Meanwhile, communist is obviously the worst name a party can have in english speaking countries. So they should change their English name to something like the Ever Great Glorious Correct Party. Hmm, sounds good to me.

Good point. Maybe it can be called the Harmonious Patriotic Party (和谐爱国党）. That's closer to the party's philosophy today.

[wushijiao]

Shouldn't it be (和谐爱党国）?

[gato]

Watch out! You are going to get harmonized. （注意要被和谐了！）

[imron]

Surely that would then be 挨党

[crazy-meiguoren]

So we have someone saying, "Don't listen to the other guy's propaganda. Listen to ours instead!"

Ah, a propaganda smackdown! Yes!