MCLC: Propaganda turns to pop-rap

[MCLC LIST]

MCLC LIST
Propaganda turns to pop-rap
Source: Sinosphere, NYT (2/2/16)
Video Extols China’s Party Slogans, Turning to Rap and Beethoven
点击查看本文中文版 Read in Chinese
By Vanessay Piao and Patrick Boehler
BEIJING — China’s Communist Party propagandists turned to rap and Beethoven this week in their quest to reach a target audience often rendered indifferent to dull party slogans by lifelong consumption.
“It is everyone’s dream, to build a moderately prosperous society comprehensively,” goes the song in a cartoon video released by Xinhua, the state news agency. It extols the “Four Comprehensives,” priorities that President Xi Jinping laid out in December 2014:
• Comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society,
• Comprehensively deepen reform,
• Comprehensively govern the country according to the law,
• Comprehensively apply strictness in governing the party.
State news media have since praised the priorities as a guide to realizing the China Dream, a concept of national strength and prosperity that Mr. Xi has also put forth.
“There will be no panic in our hearts, as long as food is not a concern and our hands are full of money,” the main singer enthuses in a heavy Beijing accent. As a song that will “both enrich your knowledge and help you achieve physical fitness,” as Xinhua puts it, it could well become a favorite of China’s famous, or infamous, dancing grannies.
The tune turns to the swelling strains of the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as the cartoon figures sing that, “with the Four Comprehensives, the China Dream will not be far away.”
In recent years, Chinese party propagandists have shown a growing interest in using music and animation to convey their messages. In October, the Fuxing Lushang Studio, a mysterious team that has producedseveral viral videos praising the party, released a song in English about China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.
Follow Vanessa Piao on Twitter @VanessaPiao and Patrick Boehler @mrbaopanrui.
by denton.2 at osu.edu on February 5, 2016
You are subscribed to email updates from MCLC Resource Center  
To stop receiving these emails, click here.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/mclc/attachments/20160205/674cd0b5/attachment-0001.html>