Abstract
Convergent Chinese Television Industries cuts into an ambitious topic with micro-level analysis, focusing on the production practices and strategies of producers at different levels of Chinese media institutions. It sheds light on the ideological, cultural and commercial dynamics at play, with the rise of platform capitalism and technological development. In the introductory section, Lisa Lin sets out the key themes and research design for the book. In particular, she stresses the importance of researching Chinese production culture and the originality of adopting a thickly descriptive approach in uncovering the industrial ecology of the context. The chapter also lays out the intertwined research questions which serve as the basis for the subsequent chapters. These themes include the institutional origins of different broadcasting systems in the convergence era and how their backgrounds influence their innovative processes in the era of convergence; the impact of institutional innovation and convergence strategies on production culture and the emergence of new screening forms; and the provision for production workers in different systems and the negotiation of creative freedom among different media communities.
Having started, in chapter 2, by situating China's television production ecosystem within the historical development process, chapters 3 and 4 revolve around the way institutional origins influence their ways of responding to the convergence trend and the development of distinctive production cultures. For CCTV (China Central Television), the convergence strategies are state-driven, which generates a disconnection between top-down innovation strategies and the everyday reality of CCTV, and causes the failure of innovative management inside the institution. HBS (Hunan Broadcasting System), driven by commercial interests, implements innovative measures more smoothly with support from its online and offline platforms. Data-driven audience observation allows producers to gain in-depth insights into the preferences of the audience, enabling tailored online programs for target audiences. However, the rise of ‘the fast-developing digital streaming player’ (p.3) Tencent Video as a digital fiefdom in China is not only reflected in its data strategies but also in how it deals with commercial pressures, audience demands, and ideological obligations as a leading online reviewing platform and provider of other services. Tencent adopts a hybrid model: distributing media content online while also creating a substantial amount of original content, thus transitioning from a distributor to a producer.
Against this backdrop, a comparative analysis of CCTV, HBS and Tencent is then employed to address the second part of the research questions about strategy and reality. Chapter 5 begins the analysis of the production values of the various organisations: CCTV embodies both ideological pride and the fear of political demands which stifled the innovative applications of its production modes, such as TES (Technologically Empowered Screen forms), while HBS, as a regional broadcasting system, is considered a better-mixed version of both ideological and commercial values. Chapter 6 focuses on the escalating production formats and screening aesthetics of Tencent Video which continues to generate innovative ways of user engagement and to provide media workers with greater creative autonomy.
The following three chapters are arguably the highlight of the whole book. They sketch a nuanced picture of the daily production practice of media workers. Based on the unstable and unpredictable nature of media regulation in China, the media workers’ subconscious expressions and reactions to their daily work are scrutinised to interpret how producers understand the ideology and internalise the different types of fear it triggers. Chapter 8, in particular, examines how new technological and ideological controls and market forces have combined to shape various degrees and types of producers’ creative autonomy in the production process. Furthering the battle for creative autonomy in the industry, Lin acutely grasps the phrase “edge ball” as a critical strategy in China’s creative industries that does not directly confront ideological censorship but generates a set of ‘disguised “languages” for creative and political expression’(p. 200). For example, CCTV producers make innovative submissions to the censorship and fulfil their sense of pride in public service, while the producers from video platforms such as Tencent and iQIYI keep pushing the boundaries between cultural creations and political expression by launching updated screening forms or reality shows such as We Fifteen (2015-16) and the online talk show U Can U Bibi (2014-21). “Playing the edge ball” is a vivid metaphor that helps readers understand the elasticity of autonomy and freedom through fugitive tactics in Chinese media production.
The strength of this book lies in the use of comparative analysis of different levels of the media outlets being analysed. As television continues to develop in the context of media convergence, it is important to study the contrasts between different media institutions and the longitudinal dynamics between the state and the market. The book satisfies this multidimensional research in its breadth while also, at micro-level, providing a large number of nuanced and in-depth portrayals which help to explain the genesis of production practice and strategies in this convergence trend. The book thus builds up robust industry-level studies and points out that the Chinese production industry can be a very fruitful site for media studies; for example, as Lin mentions in the concluding section, future research could look at how algorithms and platform capital affect production culture and media ecology in China or consider the relationship between technological innovation and creative autonomy from a non-producer-centred perspective.
As a documentary producer and media scholar, Lin provides a wealth of material from an insider's perspective which hardly compromises her unerring analysis and integrity of data. However, from an ethnographic perspective, the implications of her position as a practitioner and researcher in the field sites are not sufficiently discussed here. In addition, the analysis neglects the role of the user/audience in the production process. Lin mainly shows how to manage upwards with the “edge ball” strategy while neglecting to consider how this freedom is constantly shaped in the triad of the audience, the political dynamics and the producers themselves, or how the ‘participatory censorship’ (Luo and Li, 2022) at the users’ end helps reshape the landscape of media production.
Lin’s book is a significant contribution to the literature about Chinese television production culture in the digital age. The book certainly answers the research questions it poses but, with such rich data, it could benefit from a stronger theoretical framework to explore the interplay between media creation, political power, and markets. Nevertheless, this book is excellent reading for students of Chinese media studies and production culture, particularly in terms of its research design, writing conventions and abundant empirical material.