Global Media and Public Diplomacy in Sino-Western Relations: (Rethinking Asia and International Relations)

Many researchers and China observers would agree that understanding how China pursues global communication is critical for assessing its growing soft power. While soft power as a concept has, in many ways, become almost inextricably linked with the PRC's (People's Republic of China) international diplomacy of the twenty-first century, the specific role of global media within soft power diplomacy and the corresponding influence of Western mediated public diplomacy within China is a lacuna that has remained largely unexplored. Moreover, the different Chinese and Western perspectives on the influence of global media and public diplomacy on Sino-Western relations, and the changing role of global media on this crucial aspect of international politics, have not yet been critically examined. This volume presents a broad social science audience with recent innovative scholarship and research findings on global media and public diplomacy concerning Sino-Western relations. It focuses on the implicit nexus between global media and public diplomacy, and their actual utilisation in and impact on the shifting relationships between China and the West. Special attention is given to the changing nature of globalised media in both China and Western nations, and how globalised media is influencing, shaping and changing international politics. The contributions delve deeply into both theory and practice, and focus especially upon the analysis of several key aspects of the issue from both Chinese and Western perspectives. This combination of approaches distinguishes the volume from most other published works on the topic, and greatly enriches our knowledge base in this important contemporary field.

Table of Contents:
1. Transforming Sino-Western Relations through Global Media and Public Diplomacy 2. China’s Soft Power: A Mid-Term Assessment 3. Towards Increased Diversification and Sophistication: Trends and Issues in China’s Public Diplomacy 4. Exercising Public Diplomacy in Domestic Dispute: The Frames of Cross-Strait Relations by the Taiwan Affairs Office during the Chen Shui-bian Administration 5. Foreign Capital in the Chinese Media Market after Joining the World Trade Organisation: Co-produced Films in Public Diplomacy and Investment Polices 6. The Impact of China’s Foreign Policy on War Reporting 7. Chinese State-Owned Media Going Abroad: A Case Study of Australia 8. When a Rising Giant Tries to Smile: Explaining the Quixotic Quest of China’s Media Diplomacy in Australia and Beyond 9. Conservative Popular Journalism, Public Diplomacy, and the Search for an Alternative Chinese Modernity: Revisiting the Global Times 10. In the Name of the Nation: The Development of China’s International Propaganda from the Late-Qing to the End of World War II 11. Communication and Understanding: A Chinese Perspective on Information Flows in a Converged World

About the Author :
Jia Gao is an Associate Professor of the Asia Institute, and concurrently Assistant Dean (China) at the Faculty of Arts, at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Catherine Ingram is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney, Australia. Pookong Kee is Professor and Director of the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia.