Two Billion Eyes

August 6, 2012
Though it has become one of the most watched news networks in the world, China Central Television has largely escaped the notice of media commentators in the West. Chinese media specialist Ying offers the first book-length treatment of the subject in English, revealing an organization that, far from being just a dreary organ of propaganda, is vibrant and innovative, as well as internally divided and conflicted by the pressures of practicing journalism under authoritarianism. Utilizing far-ranging, candid interviews with many of the network’s leaders, staffers, and anchors, Ying shows how despite CCTV’s monopoly status, it is increasingly shaped by market forces. CCTV employees must balance their mission to deliver reliable and accurate coverage, their status as “mouthpiece of the state,” and their mandate to generate ad revenue. Yang Rui, the ultranationalist talk show host and star of CCTV’s English-language station, provides an object lesson in the business’s inherent tensions—both defending official censorship as serving the national interest and criticizing CCTV’s younger generation of employees as strivers unconcerned with journalistic ethics. Those unfamiliar with Chinese television may find the lengthy profiles of media personalities and programming snapshots to be tiresome, but Ying’s cogent analysis and penetrating insight are invaluable for anyone trying to understand the political and social reality of the world’s most populous country.

November 1, 2012

All eyes are on China Central Television (CCTV) in this interview-based account of the Asian media conglomerate's conflicting roles and goals as the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party. Zhu (media culture, Coll. of Staten Island, CUNY; Television in Post-Reform China) traces the story of CCTV's evolution, from its rise to cultural prominence in the 1990s to its struggles with credibility and identity from the early 2000s to today. Drawing mostly on a series of original interviews with prominent Chinese media professionals--among them, influential CCTV news anchor Bai Yansong and eccentric variety show host Li Yong--Zhu succeeds first and foremost in capturing the complexities of life inside China's highly competitive yet politically restricted television industry. Consequently, what perhaps begins as the broader story of China Central Television becomes by the book's conclusion a somewhat eclectic if fascinating insight into the people who shape and will shape Chinese television, for better or for worse. VERDICT Recommended for scholars of contemporary China or Chinese media and for readers generally interested in international broadcasting.--Robin Chin Roemer, American Univ. Lib., Washington, DC

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.