China Under Western Gaze

Representing China in the British Television Documentaries 19802000

This book presents a critical analysis of the images of China portrayed in British television documentaries between 1980 and 2000. The examination is contextualized within the profound transformations of the post-reform China and global political structures in the last two decades of the 20th century. Using an innovative analytical framework based on Vladimir Propp, the book focuses on how different images of China are constructed through an effective use of TV narrative strategies. In particular it details how various strands of (Western) modernity underpin major discourses about China. The book will be valuable to the understanding of how China was perceived in the West during one of the most dramatic moments in modern history.

Contents:

• China as an Image: History, Structure and Perspectives
• Television Narrative as Discourse: Poetics of Representation
• Legitimate Controversy: China as a Civilisation
• A Struggle Without Heroes: Representing Republic of China, 1911–1949
• Consensus and Deviance: China as the Communist ‘Other ’, 1949–1989
• Road to Xanadu: A Case Study
• Behind Representation: Discursive Strategies and Relations of Power
• Conclusions

Readership: Researchers and students who are interested to understand how China was perceived in the West during the 1980–2000 period.
Key Features:

• This is the first book-length study of television documentaries about China in a European country
• The book uses an innovative analytical method based on Vladimir Propp's narrative functions to decode televisual images of another country
• It focuses both on China images portrayed in the media and how those images are constructed