Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, November 23, 2012

Peevish censors

Can censorship be self-defeating? The Chinese censors might be trying to find out.

Why is China censoring a fake photo of its leaders doing ‘Gangnam Style’?

Here’s the timeline: On November 8, the first day that Chinese leaders gathered for their once-in-a-decade Party Congress to announce the next generation of leaders, a Chinese-language Facebook page posted a clearly doctored photo of the party’s top officials doing the dance from South Korean pop hit Gangnam Style… Censors pulled it down almost immediately.

(L to R) Xi, Hu, and Wen

Why? It would be easy to read too much into the decision of one censor, though the potential capriciousness of the censors is itself important for understanding the Chinese web… the explanation might have to do with the extreme care that the country gives in cultivating the images of its leaders… the government is clearly concerned about the perceived legitimacy of its leaders and thus the single-party system they command.

As the China Media Report puts it, in language so dry it’s hard to tell whether or not it’s supposed to be funny, “The images of Chinese leaders are carefully managed by propaganda leaders, and the suggestion that they would dance in formation and shake their hips is certainly unwelcome.” In other words, censors are so sensitive to any unapproved and apparently undermining material on top leaders that even this seemingly meaningless photo is perceived as too risky to let through…

In this instance, as is often the risk, overstepping censors seem to have risked drawing more attention to what they were trying to keep quiet. As Chinese web use grows, as does the flow of ideas and images between China’s semi-closed Internet and the rest of the world, it’s hard to see this challenge getting any easier for the Chinese government.