Sheng Zou_photo.jpg — “I look at the production of social media-based propaganda in China. I approach propaganda not just as a political instrument, but as multi-faceted media artifacts.”

Sheng Zou

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

My name is Sheng Zou (邹胜). I am a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies. I got my PhD in communication from Stanford University. I'm working on topics related to global media industries, politics and popular culture, platform economy and labor, as well as emergent technologies.

It is sometimes hard for me to tell people what exactly my research interests are because I have multiple projects and they're about different aspects of communication, but they're all tied together at a higher level. They are all related to communication and media and how that changes the way we live our lives and how we interact with others.

Q: How did you get interested in those topics?

I started from a different discipline than communication. I did my BA in international relations and diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University. But later on I found that I was not so interested in topics like war, weapons, and military confrontation. Instead, I was always more drawn to topics related to culture, media, representations and meanings. So, I read a lot about media representation and how that influences the way in which we think about others and the world.

I remember I was in a library and I happened to come across a bookshelf with all the communication journals. I started flipping through and looking into those journals. I was immediately hooked. They were so interesting and so related to everyday life. So, I went further to get a MA and a PhD in communication.

Q: Tell us about your research?

I look at the production of social media-based propaganda in China. I approach propaganda not just as a political instrument, but as multi-faceted media artifacts. I am looking particularly at soft propaganda campaigns that blend ideological messages with entertaining formats, such as animated music videos about a government policy or a mini game, or an interactive webpage that is designed to teach the audience about the party or the party's policies and principles.

I'm interested in how they're being produced, especially by state run media outlets in China. State run media outlets are playing a very crucial role in producing this sort of content. Propaganda in China consists of various hybrid media artifacts.

Q: How effective is soft propaganda; can people tell it is propaganda?

My focus is more on the production side. I haven't researched much on the audience side.

But I did look at the social media comments and I found that people were savvy enough to tell a piece of propaganda couched in a more commercial or entertaining form. And some people were very critical about it, but a lot were fond of it. That said, such positive comments need to be taken with a grain of salt as we dont know how authentic they are.

Propaganda doesn't have to always act on the conscious level that leads to behavioral and attitudinal changes. One of the arguments in my work is that sometimes this kind of (soft) propaganda as media artifacts can touch on people's heart and mind at a subliminal level. That means that it has a subtle influence on people.

“One of the arguments in my work is that sometimes this kind of (soft) propaganda as media artifacts can touch on people’s heart and mind at a subliminal level. That means that it has a subtle influence on people.”

My study of soft propaganda in the digital age traces it back to the revolutionary era, when people were watching the revolutionary movies and singing the red songs. They enjoyed these cultural mediums and they were subtly influenced by the message. But they were engaging with these mediums oftentimes because of their artistic appeal. Maybe they were also influenced along the way.

In my dissertation project, I actually went all the way back to the 1930s, to the anti-Japanese war period. And there were already different forms of propaganda, like comics and flyers.

Q: What are the themes of propaganda in China?

In the revolutionary era, propaganda was more about mobilizing actions against political enemies. It portrayed violence to stir up anger towards imperialist invaders and the landlords, so people would fight in the war against forces like the Japanese army or other imperialist powers, and would join the ideological battles against class enemies.

The current era, of course, is relatively more peaceful and developed. Emotional mobilization is no longer so much oriented toward confrontation. The focus has been shifted towards the maintenance of stability and harmony and the promotion of positive energy.

Nationalism is definitely also a very important theme. Nationalism is intertwined with national pride as China is becoming a global economic and political power.

Q：In the COVID era, have you seen any new themes and how China is doing propaganda now?

This may be a new chapter in my larger book project. It is still work in progress informed by some preliminary observations. I do think China is doing a lot of soft propaganda related to COVID-19.

A lot of Western media are saying that China (government) is rewriting the history of COVID outbreak, because there have been a lot of controversies about where the virus started. The government wanted to shift the blame so it would not undermine its own legitimacy.

There are a lot of campaigns about front line workers who are sacrificing their lives to combat COVID 19. And this is a very important theme in the post COVID propaganda. It tries to evoke respect for medical workers. It is cultivating a sense of appreciation of what medical workers and the Party have done in response to the outbreak.

Another angle that I'm looking at is how the official discourse represents the city of Wuhan.I originally come from Wuhan, so personally and academically, I'm very interested in how the discourse around Wuhan has shifted.

In the beginning and during the COVID outbreak, Wuhan was the target of blame in popular discourse and Wuhan people were discriminated against . It was really upsetting because Wuhan people were also suffering. And now Wuhan is portrayed as a heroic city. It goes from ground zero to the city of heroes---or to put it simply, from zero to hero.

The hero theme is very much aligned with the idea of harmony, stability and positive energy, because I think there has still been some sort of control over the negative emotions. People's dissatisfaction has been reined in, especially at the beginning of the pandemic when people were not happy with how the government handled the situation. To consolidate its own legitimacy, the Party shines a light on medical workers or Wuhan people, letting people come to the realization that they should appreciate how this crisis has been handled.

Another interesting thing is their comparison between China and the U.S. That's another tactic the Party-state uses to consolidate its own legitimacy. A lot of the news, as you may have read too, is about the terrible COVID19 situation in the U.S. Many are dying and the U.S. government is not doing anything so effectively as China. So, people would appreciate what the Chinese government has done to bring Covid under control.

Q. What do you think are the issues with China’s propaganda?

There is an issue of authenticity. Because a lot of times propagandists would try to imitate what the commercial media are doing.

Once I studied a video called “四个全面 (Four Comprehensives).It's a video produced by a state-run outlet, explaining what this Party slogan is. It is by no means a high-quality video in terms of visuals and production. It's just not very refined, but that's what they tried to achieve with all the limited resources. It is not a video production company. It is a news outlet. A lot of the work has to be outsourced to specialists.

And the second thing is the way in which the propagandists try to make persuasion subtler. However, those senior press leaders don't understand young people. They think that they do, but they don't, and they don't really understand what people like, especially young people.

I would say it's very hard to balance political correctness and digital innovation. Innovation sometimes entails risks. And from my research, I find that when propagandists are encountering a choice between political risk and innovation, they would rather give up on innovation to circumvent a risk.

I think this is in their mindset. This is how they do things. But I think if the mindset doesn’t change, it is hard to communicate with the public effectively.

Q: Can you give me an example of a “successful” propaganda campaign?

One “successful” case is a mini-program developed by a Chinese state-run media outlet in collaboration with Tencent. It is a photo app that uses users’ selfies to produce synthesized photos of them dressed in military uniforms. The photos look so nice. it is “you” in a military uniform, but more handsome or beautiful. You are motivated to share the photos on social media to let people see how great you look with that filter.

I think this is so subtle. It is not using a hard-edged way to say you have to be loyal to the regime, or you have to be loyal to the party. It tries to cultivate your subtle identification with the regime in a very covert and unobtrusive way.

Q: How is the U.S. propaganda different from China’s?

In China, propaganda is often more overt and more centralized. Propaganda in the U.S. is very diffused and polarized with the co-existence of opposing ideological groups.

Some of the ideological groups are very radical and they are so good at using social media. So, when you say China is doing propaganda, I think you can often trace it back to the Party and the state. While in the U.S., it is not just the state or the political parties, but ideological groups and many different organizations and individuals.They're all doing their own propaganda.

Q: Can you tell us something that most people don't know about you?

I have a twin brother who is five minutes older than me. The funny thing is that we don’t look alike, even though we are twins.

Q: How is Michigan different from California?

Michigan’s weather is really mysterious and changeable. Sometimes you can experience four seasons within just one day.

I'm so impressed by the community spirit here in Michigan. People that I know here identify as Michiganders or Midwesterners , and they develop this kind of attachment to this land. I did not quite see this in California, as California is more like a hub with people coming from very different cultures and different places of the world.

People also have a strong identification with the University, expressed in such slogans as “Go Blue”. I didn’t see anyone at Stanford saying anything like that as everyday greetings.People may say “Go Blue” at the end of a seminar as a way of saying goodbye. As a media/cultural scholar, I have always paid close attention to people’s language use, and this is something that I find so interesting and powerful. And I really like this community ethos.

-Interview and edit by Debing Su.

Q&A with Sheng Zou