Within power constraints: Forty years of the successes and failures of talent shows in China

This study reveals the transformation of representation and voting mechanisms in the successes and failures of talents shows in China over the past four decades. This article analyses how talent shows have been shaped within the constraints of political power in China, global neoliberal economic logic and the collective power of population. As an inherent tactic of talent shows to engage the populations of audiences, users and consumers in commercial society, voting mechanisms have not been suspended but rather modified. Talent shows ranged across a spectrum of bureaucratic/commercial elitism and ordinariness. In this context, the power of Capital is considered as furthering unfairness in public discourse.