An Introduction to Images in the China Urban Outdoor Propaganda Image Archive, 1998 to 2019

Introduction

Xi Jinping’s rise to power has been accompanied by a level of centralization unseen in the People’s Republic of China since the days of Mao Zedong, its first paramount leader. Throughout its existence, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has utilized propaganda to motivate, organize, and mobilize party cadres as well as the general population. An abundance of scholarship examines the crucial role new forms of propaganda have played in reinforcing the party’s legitimacy during moments of political turmoil and reform. According to such studies, Xi’s centralization of power will very likely require a similar change in forms and messages of propaganda. While previous literature provides much qualitative analysis of the artistic and rhetorical techniques used in Chinese propaganda, it is lacking in more quantitative metrics that might predict internal political shifts through the analysis of propaganda.

In this working paper, we will provide an initial historical overview from a scholarly perspective before suggesting new metrics for measuring the centralization of power under Xi Jinping. Using these metrics, we analyzed the China Urban Outdoor Propaganda Image Archive, 1998 to 2019’s collection of over three thousand photographs of public service announcements^[1] (PSAs) taken on the commercial and residential streets of multiple districts in both Shanghai and Beijing between 1998 and 2019.^[2] According to the preliminary quantitative and qualitative analyses of both visual and textual rhetoric here, there appears to be more centralization of outdoor street propaganda in Beijing than in Shanghai in the years since Xi came to lead the Chinese Communist Party, but there are also preliminary conclusions that can be reached about the large variation in visual rhetoric and textual rhetoric observed, and also the large number of creators of the PSAs included in the surveys.

Visual Propaganda:

• Notably, visual images of senior Chinese Communist Party leaders, or of the Chinese military, are rare;
• Imagery of cityscapes become increasingly common in urban outdoor propaganda over the period of this survey, eventually comprising approximately a sixth of all visual images in both cities;
• As expected, imagery for the Beijing Olympics comprised about a fifth of all PSAs in Beijing in 2008;
• Visual symbols of nationalism increase over time, and rise significantly in 2019, although more so in Beijing than in Shanghai;
• Artistic motifs increase over time, especially in 2019, although folk art motifs are more common in Beijing, whereas traditional art, especially classical painting, are more common in Shanghai.

Textual Propaganda:

• As for text of the PSAs, the prevalence of certain core propaganda terms, such as “Party” and “Spiritual Civilization” and how they vary in usage in text of the body of the PSA versus in the name of the creating unit for the PSA, suggests that there are significant institutional differences between Shanghai and Beijing as to which government or Party unit can disseminate PSAs on the streets of these two major cities with provincial ranking;
• An examination of the creator identifiers on the PSAs shows, remarkably, that a very large amount of propaganda on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai cannot be attributed to any specific single government agency, Party organ, or community units, although the number of creators expands over time, and this is coterminous with an increase in the number of unique visual or textual messages. Furthermore, during Xi Jinping’s time, the number of PSAs directly disseminated by central organs has increased greatly. Overall, however, of the nearly 3000 images in our survey of street propaganda, there are some 746 unique creators, with only 45 of them coming from the central level of government or Party;
• An examination of basic textual content, using simple analytic tools such as word clouds and word frequency counts, reveals considerable variation in topics of propaganda across both location and level of the creator. Or in other words, not all levels of the government, Party and social units are putting out the same messages at the same time, and thus there is likely division of labor and specialization in messaging.

This working paper also serves as a guide or manual to the materials in this unique collection, providing 32 examples of PSAs of the major propaganda campaigns across time and location, examples of some 20 different types of PSA format, and also lists of the creators by locality and by year.

View the full paper (PDF).
 

Notes

^[1] We are using the term “public service announcement” as an English translation for 公益广告 (gōngyì guǎnggào), which in the PRC context can refer to anything from safety campaigns to anti-littering signs to more political forms of public propaganda.

^[2] All images in this working paper and in the archive are property of the China Studies Program at the Baker Institute for Public Policy. The images were collected by researchers of the China Studies Program (formerly the Transnational China Project) of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, with organization provided by Steven W. Lewis, and coding and translation by Brandon Zheng. This archive was produced with the funding support of the Starr Foundation and the Luce foundation, both of New York, and the technical support of staff from the Baker Institute for Public Policy and Fondren Library of Rice University. The archive is currently restricted to scholars of the China Studies Program and associated academic collaborators. It will be made public in the future. Questions about the archive should be shared with Steven W. Lewis at [email protected]. 

This publication was produced on behalf of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Wherever feasible, this material was reviewed by external experts prior to release. It has not undergone editorial review. Any errors are the responsibility of the author(s) alone.

This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author(s) and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.