Battle for China's Past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution

THE BATTLE FOR CHINA’ S PAST
Media effect, public space and e-media
That media set the public agenda and have an effect on what the public
thinks is a well-known social phenomenon in contemporary life.
McCombs and Shaw (1972) are credited as the first to have researched
agenda setting; they found that there was an almost perfect correlation
between media agenda and public opinion. Funkhouser (1973) also
demonstrated a strong correlation between US media agendas and
public concerns, as measured by the ranking of issues in opinion polls.
A study in West Germany by Brosius and Kepplinger (1990) demonstrates
that while people’s own previous knowledge was important,
media coverage did indeed raise public awareness. The media might
not tell the public what to think but they do tell them what to think
about. Brosius and Kepplinger also show that public awareness in turn
exercises a significant causal influence on media coverage. Again,
Dearing and Rogers (1996) show that among the agenda-setting
research studies reviewed in their research, 60 per cent confirm a correlation
between media and public agenda. They also find 1) that news
organizations tend to hunt in packs, continually monitoring each
others’ output and following very similar editorial strategies, and 2)
that real-world indicators are relatively unimportant in setting the
media agenda.
Members of the Glasgow University Media Group also confirmed
these findings. People are able to resist dominant messages if they can
deploy personal experience in a critical way or have knowledge
acquired through alternative sources (Eldridge et al 1997). For example
those with direct experience of life in Northern Ireland were more
likely to question the dominant news definition of the ‘Troubles’
(Miller 1994). However the Glasgow Group also finds that personal
experience cannot be artificially isolated from ‘broad media and
cultural factors’ (Kitzinger 1999: 8). ‘Peoples’ experience cannot be
regarded as a separate resource uncontaminated by previous media
exposure’ (Manning 2001: 223). Kitzinger (1993) and Miller et al (1998)
show that media 1) supply ‘facts and figures’, 2) develop vocabulary
and 3) generate images that have a powerful impact upon public
understanding. In other words, ‘the media can be powerful influence
on what audiences believe and what is thought to be legitimate or
desirable’ (Philo 1999: 287)
The Chinese government exerts very strict control over the official
media. Precisely for this reason, the e-media as an alternative
play a more important role in China than they do in the West,
making it possible for unofficial values and attitudes to be
expressed and promoted among the Chinese. There have been lively
debates on many issues important to China and the world on the
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