War of the Loaded Word: ‘propaganda’
Today Shanghaiist linked to a mini-war going on between Peter Foster of the Telegraph and Australian reporter Patrick Whiteley of China Daily over the Telegraph’s use/overuse of the term ‘propaganda’. The Telegraph referred to a government campaign on education as propaganda. Whiteley returned with a critical piece, arguing that through its consistent use of the term ‘propaganda’ to describe Communist party publicity, western media outlets like the Telegraph proclaim their immovable bias against China’s socialist system. He says that the Party won the war of favor and has a mandate to govern. I couldn’t access China Daily online for some reason, but here’s a BBS posting of Whiteley’s article
In his reply, Peter Foster of the Telegraph accuses Mr. Whiteley of spinning propaganda for the Chinese government’s ‘mouthpiece’, China Daily. He contends that the White House opening a Facebook page to promote the Obama administration to young people is not propaganda, because “in America the young people are free to throw as many rotten tomatoes at Mr. Obama as they like”. For Foster, the freedom to reply makes what Obama’s party does on Facebook different from Communist party publicity campaigns.
I’m not trying to debate that here. The Chinese would name their government’s efforts and the Obama administration’s efforts with the same word — xuanchuan, 宣传. It’s a neutral word closer to ‘publicity’ or ‘dissemination’ and doesn’t carry the negative connotations that it does in English.
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I’ll just say this. News outlets are organizations run by people, and it is in our nature to create spin. We’re not Vulcans; it requires immense effort for humans to actually remain neutral in their communications.
Now for my blanket-statement interpretations of what are perhaps truths, sometimes (don’t worry, I’ve seen the bumper stickers…don’t believe everything you think):
Westerners are amazed by the straightforward, blatant mandates the CP uses to promote itself: “Love China, Love Socialism”, etc. We marvel at those translations, thinking, ‘does the general population really think in those terms?’ The Chinese struggle to see their nation jabbed at under the spotlight of western media attention. ‘Do the westerners really think stripping something naked for all to see is the proper way to deal with its problems?’ Both wonder, ‘how can they be so hypocritical?’
As someone who once worked in the Publicity/Propaganda department (officially the 宣传与公共关系办公室) at a Chinese public university, and who has both Communist and WWII-era U.S. Navy and Marines propaganda hanging on the walls of her home…I have no real authoritative answers. In wars of loaded words, I can’t think of anyone who would. Maybe Spock.
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*Update: How about ‘torture’ and ‘harsh techniques’ for loaded words? Heretical Ideas Blog
