China as an image: history, structure and perspectives -- Television narrative as discourse: the poetics of representation -- Legitimate controversy: China as a civilisation -- Struggle without heroes: representing Republican China, 1911-1949 -- Consensus and deviance: China as communist other, 1949-1989 -- Road to Xanadu: a case study -- Behind representations: discursive strategies and relations of power -- Conclusions
Summary
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
