Communications and Chinese Political Culture

FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT of the People's Republic (PRC) until the Cultural Revolution, discussions of the relationship between the mass media and the Chinese Communists' political culture dwelt almost without exception on, first, the ways the Chinese Communist Party used, presumably with almost magic success, communications systems to mobilize and control the population, to indoctrinate, and to raise the level of political consciousness of even the most apathetic, and generally to speed the making of the Maoist Man and a more modern China. A second and somewhat lesser theme has been the ways the authorities have used and controlled writers at each turn in the Party's line. Any study of the spirit and practice of governance in China today must still take into account the fundamental findings of such scholars as Alan P. L. Liu,' Frederick T. C. Yu,2 and Franklin Houn3 on how the Chinese use the radio and the press to propagandize their goals and change the attitudes of their people. And, of course, all students of Chinese politics will be permanently indebted to Merle Goldman for her blend of careful but exciting analyses of the political fates of Chinese writers.4 Recent developments since the Cultural Revolution and through the smashing of the Gang of Four, however, call for some updating of these fundamental studies of the influence of the media on the political culture and of political efforts to control culture. Visitors to