HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA

The course will introduce the students to the study of mass media in Twentieth-century China from a historical perspective. Its goal is to provide the students with a knowledge and critical understanding of the role played by the media in the political, social and cultural transformations of contemporary China. Moreover, it will give them the critical tools needed in order to use the Chinese media in a proper way as sources of information and understanding of Chinese historical and contemporary events and dynamics.

Through an active participation in the planned learning activities and the individual study of the reference texts the students are expected to achieve the following learning outcomes:
1. Knowledge and understanding
● To know the technological, political, and social transformations of the Chinese media system from the late Nineteenth-Century until today.
● To understand the endogenous and exogenous factors that have influenced and characterized the political, cultural and socio-economic role of the media in modern and contemporary China
● To know the main theories and perspectives of scientific-academic analysis of media studies concerning China.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
● To be able to contextualize and critically analyze a Chinese media product with special reference to journalism and information.
3. Ability to judge
● To know how to identify and evaluate the importance and usefulness of an information resource produced by the Chinese media system.
4. Learning skills
● To discuss the concerned academic literature critically.
● To build a possible perspective of analysis and research on the media system in China.

A general knowledge of history of China in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century and reading knowledge of modern Chinese are required.

Mass media and modernity: perspectives of analysis.
Communication in traditional China.
The birth of the modern newspapers in the nineteenth century: the notion of the public sphere
Nation-building and mass media.
Modern journalism and the transformation of the intellectuals' role in Chinese politics and society.
Mass politics and political propaganda.
Radio and television in China: a historical perspective.
The media in the People's Republic: propaganda, pluralism, and dissent from newspapers to the Internet.
Media and globalization in China and East Asia.

The full bibliography will be published at the beginning of the course.
Introductory texts are the following:
Laura De Giorgi, La rivoluzione d'inchiostro. Lineamenti di storia del giornalismo cinese. Cafoscarina, Venezia, 2001
Zhao Yuezhi, Media, Market and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line, University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Anne-Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China, New York, Rowman and Littlefield, 2008.

The achievement of the expected learning outcomes will be judged asking the student to submit a written essay to be completed in two hours. The short essay will concern one of the topics discussed in class and in the reading material listed in the bibliography.
The evaluation of the essay will take the following aspects into account:
- the student's knowledge and understanding of the reading material assigned on the subject;
- the student's ability to illustrate and reflect on the topic on the basis of the work done in class with the instructor;
- the clarity of the writing and argumentation.

The 30-hour course will include 14 hours of lectures by the instructor and 16 hours of seminar activities. The seminar activities will consist in the individual or group presentation and discussion of an essay or article or of a printed or audio-visual source assigned by the instructor during the previous lesson. Students will be invited to prepare a written summary of the assigned reading or a presentation of the source, to be read in class. The teacher will then guide the class discussion.

Italian

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development