reading between the headlines: sars, focus and tv current affairs programmes in china

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2006 28: 715Media Culture SocietyXiaoling Zhang

programmes in ChinaReading between the headlines: SARS, Focus and TV current affairs

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Reading between the headlines: SARS, Focus andTV current affairs programmes in China

Xiaoling ZhangUNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM, UK

Recent research has shown an increasing interest in Chinese media, as theyhave been taken as sensitive barometers of political, economic and socialchanges in a transitional society. The response of the Chinese media to theextraordinary event in 2003 – the outbreak of Severe Acute RespiratorySyndrome (SARS) – provides another opportunity to observe changes inChina, revealing a complex relationship between government, media andsociety in a partially reformed system.

U-turn in the coverage of SARS

In spring 2003, the world learned a new word and a new cause for anxiety– SARS. Media reaction throughout the world was instant, following analert from the World Health Organization (WHO). The Chinese media,however, followed its own agenda and reacted to this epidemic in its ownway. Although the first recorded case of SARS appeared on 16 November2002, in Foshan in China’s southern province of Guangdong,1 the firstreports on SARS from the state media did not appear until mid-February.2

On 17 February 2003, the Central Chinese TV Station (CCTV) currentaffairs programme Focus (Jiaodian Fangtan) put out its first coverage ofthe deadly virus. These first reports on SARS were followed by an outrightsilence from all media for a number of weeks.3 Like other media, thesecond programme by Focus at the beginning of April was again followedby weeks of limited coverage. But, from 18 April, the world saw asignificant increase in the state media’s coverage of SARS. On 21 April,news of the dismissal of Beijing Mayor Meng Xuenong and China’s Health

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Minister Zhang Wenkang was reported in state newspapers one day afterthey were charged with mishandling the outbreak of the disease. Thatfollowed an announcement by the Health Ministry that the number ofSARS cases in Beijing had jumped from 37 to 339 – nine times as manycases as previously reported. From that day on, SARS dominated Chinesestate media, which carried daily reports on SARS until 17 August 2003,when the last two SARS patients were discharged from hospital.

This change from limited to overwhelmingly all-out coverage of SARShas been taken by some observers, both Chinese and overseas, as a turningpoint (U-turn) in media reform in China.4 They believe that, althoughChina’s pre-reform style of secrecy will hardly vanish overnight, a newtrend is emerging. An example in point is the resumed daily reports on there-emergence of SARS in China from around 22 April 2004.

This article first examines the way CCTV’s current affairs programmeFocus responded to the emergence, rise and fall of SARS, with a view toexamining one major research question: has there really been a ‘break-through’ for Chinese TV current affairs programmes represented by Focusin the coverage of SARS after two decades of reform which has greatlyincreased the power of the market relative to the old political imperatives?The findings from the study show that, contrary to some observers’optimistic belief, the change in the coverage of SARS is a matter offrequency rather than content. Of further interest is that the change infrequency absolutely conforms with the agenda set by the party, suggestingthat the party has complete control of the propaganda apparatus at alltimes. The article then examines earlier programmes by Focus, and officialspeeches, in order to find out why Focus, as a product of reform, has failedto act in the way it was expected to. The article finds that, contrary to somescholars’ belief that Focus was a test for the party, it is actually a politicalresponse from CCTV to the call by the Propaganda Department of theChinese Communist Party to engage actively with issues of public concernand to provide an official frame on controversial topics (or to ‘providecorrect guidance to public opinion’, as the official terminology puts it). It isa result of the party’s wish to produce a programme that is ‘innovative anddemocratic in form’ to achieve greater propaganda effectiveness. Theresponse of Focus to SARS is only another example of the party’smanipulation of TV current affairs programmes.

Content analysis is employed to examine the coverage of SARS byFocus from 17 February 2003, when the first report on SARS appeared,until the WHO gave Beijing the all-clear in late June.5 Discourse analysis,practised in a variety of disciplines today, is also employed to ‘comple-ment, more qualitatively, the traditional method of quantitative contentanalysis, as it allows us to inquire into abstract formal structures of newsreports as well as into their subtle underlying meanings, in a way usuallyignored in content analysis’ (Van Dijk, 1988a: x). A critical analysis of

716 Media, Culture & Society 28(5)



media discourse, understood as an attempt to show systemic links betweentexts, discourse practices and sociocultural practices (Fairclough, 1995: 16),allows the investigator to examine the intricate relations between mediadiscourse and its political, social and economic contexts. The analysis isextremely useful as it is ‘sensitive to absences as well as presences in texts’(1995: 58). The analysis is enhanced by the examination of the programmefrom 20 April 2001 to 31 January 2003,6 the study of official rhetoric onTV work during the last decade7 and interviews with media practitionersduring the investigator’s field trip in February and March 2004. It is hopedthat the examination of the Chinese TV current affairs programme Focus,especially during the outbreak of SARS, will throw some fresh light on thetrajectory of media reform in a transitional China.

Chinese TV current affairs programmes and CCTV’s Focus

As economic reform in China deepens, Chinese media have undergonegreat changes, with television’s influence and penetration throughout thecountry increasing. The following is Hugo de Burgh’s depiction of thepopularity of television sets in China:

Virtually everyone in China watches TV, and at the end of 1997, there were 400million sets on private homes and over a billion people had acquired regularaccess to TV programmes. In 1998, in terms of household penetration televisionand the number of TV sets counted on a per capita basis, China was alreadywell ahead of all other developing countries and high above the average levelfor the world and Asia. (2003: 36)

Because of its vast public, TV plays a more central role in publicinformation processing than other media. According to a survey conductedby the Institute of Opinion Studies at the People’s University in Beijing inApril 2003, of all the channels from which people obtained information onSARS (e.g. TV, newspaper, radio, media from abroad, personal contacts,mobiles), 34 percent of the informants learned about the disease from TV.8

Among all the changes and developments in media in the early 1990s,the rise of the state-owned (like all the TV stations in China) CCTV’scurrent affairs programme Focus became the most noticeable. Launched on1 April 1994, it is a 13-minute programme that starts at 7:38 p.m. onthe primary national television channel, CCTV-1, immediately after the7 o’clock evening news and the national weather forecast, and is broadcaston several other CCTV channels at different time-slots. The programmeproduces news features with a special in-depth or investigative aspect, andadopts the format of discussion on topical issues rather than merelyechoing official political slogans. Most important, it breaks the conventionof covering good news and avoiding the bad, marking the first time that

717Zhang, Reading between the headlines



television in China has come out to openly criticize bureaucracy, corrup-tion, pollution and other social problems.

The public warmly welcomed this intervention into the fraught relation-ship between the state and the people after the Tiananmen Incident in 1989.According to Zhao Yuezhi (Zhao, 2000: 583), around 30 percent of theaudience – 300 million people – watched this programme every night inthe mid 1990s. Its impact is unprecedented. Stories from Focus, forexample, were often carried in the print media and transcripts of Focusappeared in many books. As Focus gained popularity throughout thecountry, almost every provincial and local television station started its owncurrent affairs programme, adopting the form of Focus. As a result, over 60similar programmes9 emerged throughout the country, making criticism ofwrongdoings a common practice.10 Soon other media – radio stations,newspapers and magazines – started to report investigations and revelationsof corruption.

Some scholars believe that the programme is an attempt by CCTV to testwhether the government and the public are truly prepared to acceptexposures of truth and criticism (Li, 2002: 22), while others express theiroptimism that the multi-media cross-promotions have significantly ampli-fied the theme of ‘supervision’ of government officials by the media (e.g.Guo, 1999) and that this open atmosphere for public discussion of real-lifecases is conducive to the development of a more open, tolerant anddemocratic society in the long run.

As Focus has become a famous vehicle of investigative journalism inChina, it is natural that, at times such as the SARS crisis, audiences wouldexpect Focus to scrutinize the system for its failure to curb the disease.However, an examination of the programmes reveals otherwise.

Altogether, 45 programmes on SARS over a period of 116 days werecollected, from the first on 17 February 2003, to the last on 11 June 2003.These programmes are analysed on both macro-level and micro-level forvarious discursive dimensions, including headlines, topics, voices andinterview strategies.

Reading between the headlines

In Van Dijk’s news schemata, ‘which both journalists and readers at leastimplicitly use in the production and understanding of news’ (1988b: 57),headlines, together with leads which may or may not be present, structur-ally function to express the major topics of the text. That is, they functionas an initial summary (1988b: 53). Van Dijk regards headlines as the mostprominent feature of news discourse: ‘They subjectively express themost important of the text, that is, the main topic or the top of the semanticmacrostructure. They define the situation and, thus, programme the reader




with a preferred reading and interpretation plan’ (1988a: 226). Thus,headlines take up a central and revealing role in the production andreproduction of ideologies in a report.

Because of the importance assigned to the headline in a news item, thissection starts with an analysis of the headlines on SARS during the periodcovered to address the following questions: what topics tend to beexpressed in the headlines and what inferences can be drawn from theirstructural form or style? Table 1 shows the dates of the programmes onSARS and their headlines.11

The headlines fall into four categories according to their semantic aspect:the first type is categorized as positive, which includes those on progress indealing with SARS; on eulogizing government officials at different levels,Communist Party members, military and medical staff in fighting againstSARS; and on instigating the masses to unite and fight a people’s waragainst the disease. The second type is categorized as ‘neutral’, whichincludes those on explanations of policies or laws related to the preventionand control of epidemics, and offering warnings or advice, as well as thoseintended to educate. The third category, the ‘critical’, consists of criticismof social ills. The last category is that of the ‘unclear’, as the headlines donot give much information about the topic(s) of the programmes.

This article argues that the headlines for the coverage of SARS fromFocus are illustrative of the programme’s function as the ‘tongue andthroat’ of the party, especially at times of crisis. The programme hasfollowed completely the government’s strict guidelines and served to dispelpanic among the masses in order to preserve social and political stability,to improve the image of the party as close to the masses, and to boost theunity, confidence and morale of the people.

One would expect Focus’s first programme on SARS on 17 February tobe informative if not revealing about the disease, which should be reflectedin the headline. However, the headline ‘Speaking about SARS’ (HuashuoFeidian) did not give any clue at all about the situation of the disease. Onthe contrary, its lexical choice of the word ‘huashuo’ reveals that theprogramme was intended to talk down the risk of the disease. The Chinesedictionary Cihai (1989: 1033) defines the word ‘huashuo’ as being mostlyused at the beginning of a chapter of a novel (the form of which wasdeveloped in the Ming Dynasty), or a script for story-telling (in Song andYuan folk literature). ‘Hua’ refers to the story of the speaker. Therefore amore literary translation of the headline can be ‘Story about SARS’.Imagine the shocking effect of a headline that reads: ‘UnidentifiedEpidemic Likely to Cost Hundreds of Lives’. Of course this hypotheticalheadline is completely unutterable due to the particular form of ideologicalhegemony in the Chinese media.

The second headline, on 2 April, claimed that SARS was ‘underEffective Control – Interview with Health Minister Zhang Wenkang’. In




TABLE 1Dates of the programmes on SARS and their headlines

Dates Headlines

February17 Speaking about SARS

April2

467

131418192021

22232425272830

SARS under Effective Control – Interview with Health Minister ZhangWenkangFeeling the Pulse of SARSInternational Joint Efforts in Preventing and Curing SARSOut of the Shadow of SARSWorking in Full Cooperation to Prevent and Cure SARSCross-strait Efforts in Overcoming SARSHeart to Heart with People in Fighting against SARS Bounden DutySoldiers – Stories of Medical Staff in ICU in Guangzhou Successful Development of Speedy Check Technology for SARS byMilitary Medical InstituteFaced with the Challenge of SARSFearless Soldiers Fighting against SARSSea, Land and Air Preventing SARS togetherEnquiry Line with Boundless LoveRely on Law to Prevent and Cure SARSGoing near Quarantine AreaMillions of People all of One Mind, Be United as One Great Wall andCarry Forward the National Spirit to Fight against SARS Wholeheartedly

May1

234678

101112

131415161720212223

Unite and Help Each Other and Work Together with One Heart in Timesof DifficultyMeet Difficulties Head-on and Do not be Afraid to WinMiracle – Report on the Construction of Xiao Tangshan HospitalIncreased Input to Prevent and Cure SARSMeasures Taken from Village to Village to Stop SARS from SpreadingCut Off the Source of SARS GarbageGoing Out of the SARS Quarantine AreaDo Away with Superstitions and Fight against SARSSARS in Hong Kong StabilizingRead and Understand the Regulation for Sudden Outbreak of PublicHealth IncidentRecovery – Report on SARS Patients Leaving the Beijing Chest HospitalRecounting the Kindness of YimengRely on Law to Prevent and Control Epidemics and Natural DisastersEpidemic under Control, but No Slackening YetNational Law Does Not Allow Interference with Prevention of EpidemicsStrike Criminals and Maintain StabilityDeclare War on Bad Habits – Small Habit, Big DisasterDeclare War on Bad Habits – Unhygienic Food Causes Diseases Declare War on Bad Habits – Dangerous Garbage




the headline, which provides much information about the programme, itwas made clear that the programme was to be an interview with anauthoritative figure. The minor headline thus served to emphasize theauthoritativeness of the announcement in the main headline: ‘SARS underEffective Control’. It is an odd headline for the second programme onSARS, after a period of complete silence, when the number of SARS casesin Beijing and around the country continued to climb. In the followingdays, a number of programmes carried headlines that provided littleinformation on the spread of the disease. Instead, they kept making claimsabout the state’s efforts, in cooperation with international and across-straitsorganizations (e.g. the programmes on 6, 13 and 14 April). Amidst all theprogrammes with positive headlines, the one on 7 April – ‘Out of

TABLE 1continued

Dates Headlines

2425283031

Black-hearted Businessmen Making Money out of National Difficulties Epidemic Easing Up, No Slackening in PreventionTwenty-one Days in the Intensive Care UnitMeet Difficulties Head-on and Further DevelopmentQuarantine Comes to an End in Dong Gan Village

June26

11

Fight against SARS Hand in HandPerseverance Is the Most PreciousPrevent Epidemics Scientifically and Go to the Doctor with NoMisgivings

TABLE 2Categories of the headlines

Type Numbers Percentage

Positivea. progress in dealing with SARS 19b. eulogy 8c. instigation 3

30 67%

Neutrala. educational 4b. warning/advice 3c. explanatory 3

10 22%

Critical 3 7%

Unclear 2 4%

Total 45 100%




the Shadow of SARS’ – could easily lead audiences to believe that theepidemic was coming to an end, while in fact the disease was rampantin China.

After many days of headlines with clear positive messages, the headlineon 22 April stood out from the previous ones because of its unclear nature:‘Faced with the Challenge of SARS’. Although the headline itself did notcontain any topics covered in the programme, to a critical audience thiswas certainly an indication that a different stage was starting in thecoverage of SARS. Indeed, from 18 April, Focus changed from intermittentto almost daily coverage. On 18 April, the headline ‘Heart to Heart withPeople in Overcoming SARS’ reassured the audience that the party and thegovernment were concerned with this matter. Headlines indicating topicsother than positive progress made an appearance as well, although theyconstituted a very small percentage. A number of headlines started toappeal to patriotism and national unity in fighting against SARS, such asthe extremely long ones on 30 April and 1 May. Although the direct orindirect use of the metaphor of dealing with SARS as fighting a war (e.g.referring to medical staff as soldiers on 23 April; referring to RailwayMinistry, Communications Ministry and Civil Aviation Bureau as ‘Sea,Land and Air’ on 24 April, as the three terms together are normally used inChinese to refer to the three army forces, and ‘War’ on 21, 22 and 23 May)reminded audiences of the typical Maoist-era rhetoric during politicalcampaigns, it is also significant in terms of the headlines’ explicit claim toa relationship of solidarity and common identity with the audience. It drewupon war as an evocative theme of the memory that it was the CommunistParty that led the people of China to victory in the most recent wars: thewar against the Japanese invaders from 1937 to 1945 and the three years’Civil War after that. The headline on 6 May – ‘Measures Taken fromVillage to Village to Stop SARS from Spreading’ – reminds one of thewell-known film Tunnel Warfare, in which villagers built up what is termedan ‘underground great wall’, from village to village under the leadership ofthe Communist Party, and successfully fought a people’s war against theJapanese invaders. The headline ‘Recounting the Kindness of Yimeng’ on14 May again serves to remind people of the film Song of Yimeng, the storyof a peasant woman in the Yimeng area saving a People’s Liberation Armysoldier with her breast milk during the Civil War. Headlines indicatingcriticism started to appear as well on 17, 20 and 24 May. Headlines witheducational purposes were also put out, such as those on 21, 22 and 23May, as, in addition to regulating the flow of information, TV currentaffairs programmes constitute part of a broad cultural development agendathat aims to develop the attributes of the Chinese population by raisingpeople’s moral and intellectual quality. Headlines for the programmes on16 and 25 May suggest that warnings and advice on taking precautionsagainst the disease were given even when the epidemic was declining.




It should be noted that, during this period, headlines offering criti-cism, education, warnings or advice are all in the form of imperativesentences resembling rally cries. They function as demands while exercis-ing authority.

It may be concluded that, similar to normal Western practice, in ChineseTV current affairs discourse topics are generally expressed in headlines,which apparently have summary functions: ‘topics may be expressed andsignalled by headlines, which apparently act as summaries of the newstext’ (Van Dijk, 1988b: 35). The exceptions are those of 17 February and22 April. Neither of these gives any clue as to what the topics of theprogrammes on these days would be. An attempt is therefore made toexplore the topics by looking at the texts of the two programmes, in orderto reach a better understanding of the underlying meanings of the absenceof information in the headlines.

‘Unclear’ headlines and topics

An examination of the text of the first programme ‘Speaking about SARS’shows that in the lead, which is as important as the headline insummarizing general information, we only see words such as ‘rumour’about the disease, and the statement that ‘the market has been stabilized asa result of measures taken by the Guangdong government’ serves to dispelpanic. The second paragraph contained only one sentence of information onthe situation:

According to news from Guangdong, up to three o’clock on 10 February, 305cases of SARS were reported, with five dead.

However, it immediately went on to say:

People have already been discharged from hospital and the disease is on thedecline.

Contrary to the lexical choices made in the lead, such as ‘news from thebamboo telegraph’ and ‘false news’ about the disease, terms that arerelated to authority were employed, such as ‘Guangdong government’,‘news conference’, ‘Health Ministry of the Nation’, ‘experts’ and ‘medicalstatistics’, to project the presenter as a figure of authority, someone whoknew (had the ‘facts’), and someone who had the right to tell. Oneobjective here has to be to create a sense of authority.

The programme is wrapped up with the presenter’s statement, declaringthat everything was under control:

In recent years, our country has established a whole system for the inspection,prevention and control of any epidemics. This system can not only cope with




epidemics on a normal scale, it can also deal with epidemics on a bigger scaleeffectively.

No topics of this programme were signalled in the headline or in the lead,which, instead, together defined the overall situation and indicated to theaudience a preferred overall meaning of the text – do not believe inrumours; the government is dealing with it. They took on a light tone tominimize the panic it may cause, despite the fact that in Beijing and Sanxi,as well as in some other places, the epidemic was getting worse.

It is found that in the text with the headline ‘Faced with the Challenge ofSARS’ (22 April), Focus for the first time in its coverage of SARSadmitted that ‘at the moment SARS is still spreading’. In the secondparagraph, it went on to say that ‘new cases in Guangdong start to dropoff, while in Beijing and Sanxi there is a rise in new cases. Some otherplaces are also starting to have cases.’ A more or less representativeheadline for this programme, therefore, could have been ‘SARS on theIncrease’. However, just as it did in its first report on SARS, it statedfirmly and categorically, in the same paragraph after announcing the spreadof the disease: ‘the government has taken effective measures to prevent theepidemic from spreading’. Fairclough pointed out: ‘In any representation,you have to decide what to include and what to exclude, and what to“foreground” and what to “background” ’ (1995: 4). In the Chinese case,negative topics are either backgrounded or excluded altogether from theheadlines. Therefore, we may conclude that a headline with an ‘unclear’nature may contain negative topics: the story on 17 February at leastadmitted there was a ‘rumour’, and the one on 22 April went further,saying that ‘the situation is still very serious’.

Further examination of texts with positive headlines reveals that severaltopics may be expressed in one programme, but that only one is signalledas the main topic by the headline, and that one is usually the positiveside of the picture. Most headlines only cover part of the information inthe texts.

Headlines indicating criticism

Of the 45 programmes collected, there are three headlines stronglysuggesting criticism (17, 20 and 24 May). However, a reading of thesethree texts reveals that not only is no criticism of the failure of the systemthat contributes to the spread of the epidemic ever found in the coverage,but the level of criticism is also far below what is usual in non-crisissituations. Before SARS, exposes of failures in the system, along withrepudiations of the policies of those who have fallen from power, werebelieved to be commonplace in Focus. However, during the outbreak of




SARS the programme never suggested any shortcomings of the system.The three programmes are only pallid stabs at expose, targeting villagers(17 May), or those individuals who tried to make money out of theepidemic (20 and 24 May).

To summarize, during the period studied, whether before or after the so-called ‘turning point’ in the coverage of SARS, high-level negative topicswere never mentioned in headlines in Focus. The headlines are mostlypositive, even after the party has declared its intention to be moretransparent. It would take a critical audience to find out the embeddednegative information or topic in any TV news programme.

Voices, objectivity and interview strategies

Traditionally, Chinese TV news programmes are associated with a voice ofauthority that was unchallenged and closed to scrutiny. ‘The typicalprotagonists were state officials at various levels (who pronounced andexplained policies) and the masses (who cheered and carried out thepolicies at the grassroots)’ (Zhao, 2003: 42). Focus, since its birth, set anexample for the media world in China in adopting the democratic approachof interaction and discussion, with experts and ordinary people talking onthe programme. However, an examination of the interviews shows that themere fact that a plethora of voices is included does not entail an absence ofcontrol. The interviews do not manifest a real shift from an unchallengedofficial voice to many voices. They should be seen as merely a strategy tomore effectively recruit people as audiences and manipulate them sociallyand politically. To put it bluntly, what the interviewees said is far lessimportant for the programme than it going through the motions ofconducting interviews.

Of the 45 programmes, 14 are found to be composed mainly ofinterviews, with the one on 6 April actually reporting on the interview. Amicroanalysis12 of the programmes reveals that, for the coverage of SARS,strategic devices were adopted to give an aura of being objective, truthful,plausible, correct, precise or credible. These devices include selective useof reliable, official, well-known and especially credible persons andinstitutions (e.g. medical experts, military researchers as well as high-levelofficials, both from China and from the WHO, as well as similar peoplefrom Hong Kong and Taiwan) and the description of close, concretedetails, and quotations from eye-witnesses or direct participants. Analysisshows the interviews were carried out mainly for the following purposes:

to give voice to official figuresto eulogize party members and medical staffto pronounce or explain policies.




Interviews carried out with authoritative figures13 simply functioned togive voices to these figures. For instance, the questions raised in theinterview with the Health Minister are found to serve the purpose ofhighlighting what he was going to say. Examples:

1. Minister Zhang, why do we call this disease SARS? What specialcharacteristics does this current SARS have?

2. How about SARS cases in our Mainland China so far? 3. What measures do we need to adopt to prevent this kind of disease?4. What has our country done, what effective measures have been taken, to

prevent the spread of this disease?5. At the moment, some other countries have also found patients with

SARS. Is there enough evidence to show that our Guangdong in Chinais the place of origin?

6. Has our country cooperated with the international health organization toovercome this disease?

Apart from asking questions that actually function to highlight the answersfrom the Health Minister, the interviewer is also found to use the technicaldevice of formulations, a device widely used by interviewers to summarizewhat interviewees have said by drawing out its implications, so as to helpto bring out and emphasize to the audience the implications of what Zhanghad said. Examples:

1. So we should not be too worried about this disease.2. So we should see that, with our government’s efforts and medical staff’s

efforts, we masses are not to be worried.

In order to achieve an appearance of being factual and objective,different sources were interviewed for programmes eulogizing party mem-bers and medical staff (19, 20, 23, 25 April), reassuring the masses (7, 21April) and explaining policies (27 April, 12 and 15 May). Experts likeAcademician Prof. Zhong Nanshan, group leader of the SARS Preventionand Cure Expert Team in Guangdong, ‘add credibility, authority, and evena touch of independence’ as they ‘speak a universalizing and rationalizinglanguage, which lends legitimacy to the state and its policies’ (Zhao, 2003:42). Indeed, ‘a stance of neutrality, an appearance of “objectivity” iscreated when opinions of different backgrounds or ideologies are expressedon an issue’ (Van Dijk, 1988b: 85). Typical examples include theinterviews on 4 and 14 April.

When the director of the China Disease Prevention and Control Centre,Disease Prevention and Emergency Management Office was interviewed on4 April, the presenter acting as the interviewer is found to have framed andmanaged the answers, pushing the interviewee to answer the questions inthe way the presenter desired:




Presenter: Hello, Mr Yang. At times like this, people easily get into anextremely nervous state. A bit of cough or cold and they will suspect thatthey have got SARS. Can you tell us for sure, what symptoms one must haveto be definitely diagnosed as suffering from SARS?

Mr McKenzie was the second interviewee that day. Extracts from theinterview:

Presenter: Welcome to our programme. I know that WHO is organizing a groupof experts to observe and study the disease. What is the latest development?

McKenzie: We are trying to reach an agreement on the definition of SARS.

Presenter: You just said that you are still trying to define the disease. Does thatmean you are not sure that the cases in China are exactly the same as theones in other parts of the world?

It is found here that formulations provide the interviewer with a covertmeans of evaluating what is said and trying to draw out implicit meanings.However, when Mr McKenzie knowingly or unknowingly went in adirection the presenter did not want to go, the presenter simply ignoredwhat was said and then went on to another question:

McKenzie: We don’t know. Before we reach an agreement on the definition, wecannot confirm that they are of the same type of disease. From theinformation provided by the Health Department in Guangdong, the symptomsof the SARS cases found three months ago in Guangdong are very similar tothe ones found in other parts of the world.

Presenter: The public cannot understand why it is so difficult to find the sourceof the disease today, when science is so advanced?

For the programme on 14 April, similar techniques were used, showinginterviews between journalists with Mrs Chen, head of the Health Depart-ment in Hong Kong, and with Dr Zhang from a hospital in Taiwan. In thesame programme an interview was also conducted by the presenter withProf. Zhong Nanshan. The aura of objectivity is established, and inter-pretation now stands a good chance of passing as fact. However, it is alsonoticeable that those who are ideologically safe were given most attentionand, in this case, Prof. Zhong was given the final voice word in summingup the situation.

To conclude, although Focus adopted the democratic approach ofinteraction and discussion, with experts and ordinary people talking on theprogramme, this cannot simply be interpreted as a sign that previously closeddomains are opening up. Rather, this serves as a more effective mask for theexercise of power. Despite the superficial resemblance to the Western practiceof relying on expert opinions, the journalistic convention of ‘balance’ – thatis, citing experts who hold opposing views on an issue – is hardly practised.




The narrow range of expert sources and their non-contested perspectivesmean that these experts are exploited to help explain and interpret governmentpolicies. The analysis shows that this kind of democratization is a matter ofapproach rather than content. Worse still, the approach is far from beingmature, as has been demonstrated in the examples.

Change in frequency – agenda set by the government

Both macro- and micro-analyses prove that the change in the coverage ofSARS is in the frequency of reports only. This frequency sees mainstreamideas being reproduced, rather than critical reports. Further analysis alsoshows that every move from Focus was in perfect timing with calls fromthe government.

From the first programme on 17 February to 17 April 2003, only sevenprogrammes were found on SARS. Apparently this limited coverage wasthe result of Focus following strict guidelines: in late February thePropaganda Department ordered a halt to public reporting on the disease inorder to ‘ensure the smoothness’ of the National People’s Congressmeetings in March (Link, 2003). As a result, although SARS was far fromunder control in March, this was hardly reported on throughout thenation.14 The few programmes that were made during that period by Focusrelied on positive self-representation and countered the charge of Chinabeing the place of origin of SARS (2, 4 and 6 April).

On 17 April, at a meeting of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, it wasordered that ‘government organizations at all levels must know accuratelythe development of the disease and report honestly. The condition shouldbe released to the public at regular intervals and there should be nodelaying and hiding in reports’ (Dai et al., 2003: 312). That explains thesignificant increase on the coverage of SARS, including in Focus, from18 April. The programmes appealing to patriotism and national unity infighting against SARS were apparently in answer to the calls of thePropaganda Department, which held a meeting on 25 April presided overby Li Changchun, the Politburo member in charge of propaganda(Fewsmith, 2003: 253). Drawing on the line used by President Hu Jintao,Li emphasized that ‘the strongest motif of our times’ was ‘uniting the willof the masses into a fortress’.

Current affairs programmes, media supervision and guidanceof public opinion

So the questions to be addressed now are: why did Focus as a product ofreform fail to fulfil audiences’ expectations, and why have the commer-cially oriented developments in Chinese media not led to a lessening of the




Chinese Communist Party’s control, as some scholars (e.g. Zhao, 2000:581–2) have predicted?

To answer these questions it is important to remember that TV stationsin China are state-owned and party-controlled propaganda instruments. Areading of the speeches by the head of the Propaganda Department, thedirector of the Radio, Film and Television Ministry (renamed as StateAdministration of Radio, Film and Television in 1998) and the president ofCCTV over the years shows that, although technological developmentshave changed the face of the media landscape in China since the late1970s, the guiding principles for news production promoted by the partyhave changed little. As part and parcel of the party’s ideological apparatus,one of the fundamental responsibilities of news media remains to contrib-ute to social changes as desired by the party and government. The lessonthe former president Jiang Zemin learned from the 1989 TiananmenIncident is:

The party and its journalism stand together through ups and downs. Journalismis part of the party’s life. Working with public opinion means working withpolitical and ideological work. It is linked with the fate and future of the partyand the government. (Zhang, 2001: 20)

However, as the state lost much of its public credibility and authoritydue to the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, and as it is faced with theglobalization of information, the party-state realized that to be an effectivepropagandist the news media must adopt new strategies. In 1992, DingGuangen, head of the Propaganda Department at the time, made explicitinstructions on the content and form of propaganda:

The effectiveness of propaganda should be paid attention to. The democraticform of discussion and interaction should be adopted so that the programmesare lively and convincing. (in Xin, 1996: 10)

At a later meeting specifically held for TV work, he emphasized again:

TV stations can add current affairs programmes, invite leaders to explainpolicies and answer questions, or invite both experts and ordinary people tohold discussions on hot topics and puzzling issues, so that people can inspireeach other and draw the correct conclusion. In this way, the programmes willbecome more attractive and convincing. (Li, 2002: 11)

Despite encouraging rhetoric by leaders however, news programmesremained the same in form and content, a phenomenon that could only beexplained by the doubtful attitude of the people working at all levels in TVstations. At the beginning of 1993, Ding pushed harder:

This year, programmes should try to make greater changes. There should benew programmes, which must relate to the needs of the people. The forms mustbe original. (Xin, 1996: 11)




It is therefore in answer to the requirements, specifications and directionsfrom the Propaganda Department that CCTV, among other reforms, put onFocus in 1994. The formal application of democracy – investigativereports, interaction between presenters and audience, discussions on hottopics – should therefore be seen to have been adopted under the directinterference of the top leaders with two faces in mind, one turned towardsthe domestic and the other towards the international audience. To thedomestic audience it is a sign of the party and the people sharing the sameinterest in order to secure the party’s legitimacy. To the internationalcommunity it is a sign of the Chinese government’s firm control, growingconfidence, stability, prosperity and openness.

From the examination of the programmes, and from the response itreceived from the audience (readers’ letters)15 and the authorities, it iscertain that Focus in its early stages was bolder in its exposure andcriticism. To a certain extent it is not wrong to claim that ‘by publicizingcases of wrongdoings, the media have put pressure on the government totake note of the problem and to respond’ (Li, 2002: 27). But one must notforget that it was the government that initiated this programme to help todeal with specific problems and to combat bureaucracy and cadres’indifference, thus closing the gap between the government and the masses.The exposure of too many problems was therefore seen as a threat tostability and social order, or as ‘misguiding the public’ to think that therewere too many problems with the party. In his speech, Sun Jiazhen, thenMinister of Radio, Film and Television, warned at the 1995 Radio and TVCurrent Affairs Programme Conference:

Although we have spent considerable time preparing for the appearance of theprogramme, we must know that it has not been long enough for us to put it onwidely. Some programmes put on by other stations are just a few months old.There are many problems that require time to study and investigate. Someprogrammes have made mistakes to different extents. We must draw lessonsfrom these experiences. (Sun, 1995: 4)

In the same speech, he reiterated the Central Committee’s position:unswervingly follow Deng Xiaoping’s theory of socialism with Chinesecharacteristics and the party’s basic line under all circumstances: to firmlymaintain the authority of the Central Committee, the unity of the party andthe whole nation.

Yang Weiguang, then acting as both the president of CCTV and thedeputy director of the Radio, Film and Television Ministry, made a similarspeech in 1996:

It appears that some departments have not been communicating in a timely wayand widely enough the Central Government’s intentions and propagandaspecifications. Some programmes that are not in accordance with the propa-ganda specifications are still being made or run. (1996b: 5)




On another occasion in the same year, he pointed out that the mostimportant aspect of propaganda work was to correctly guide public opinion.‘To correctly guide the public opinion’, he stated, ‘the most important thingis to understand the requirements of the two sides: the nature of policiesand lines from the party and government, and the real thought of thepeople and the changing situations’ (1996b: 8).

Media supervision and the guidance of public opinion are thereforeunderstood by TV workers to be the two sides of the same coin, with theultimate aim of producing propaganda for the party-state (Ying, 1997: 16).In other words, media supervision serves the ‘correct guidance of publicopinion’ (Li, 2001: 9). In order to shape public discourse, propagandaofficials exhorted the news programmes to play up the positive side ofthings to boost people’s confidence and foster stability and unity (Yang,1996a: 5), and to take greater care with the negative (see Yan, 1995). ToYang Weiguang, ‘If a state TV station reports problems here and thereevery day, how can it be called the tongue and throat of the party?’ (1996b:5). For this reason, Focus was restricted to putting on critical reports twicea week at most (Yang, 1996b: 5). Positive reports, on the other hand, are tobe made attractive and critical reports are to be designed to achievepositive social effects. For better control, local stations and programmes arewarned not to deal with hot topics, apart from Focus from CCTV: ‘thephenomena of putting on hot topics in every program must be stopped.They are to be done by Focus only’ (Yang, 1996a: 4).

Under strict control and discipline (Ding, 1998), and by carrying out firmpolicies and directions from the Central Committee, Focus exercises greatcaution in relation to the following: selection of topics, timing, level anddegree of criticism.

Selection of topics

A very strict editorial control system is in place for Focus. Journalists arerequired to submit the topics they have selected to the producer of theprogramme, who then passes them on to the head of the News Centre ifapproved. The final decision rests with the president of the TV station(Sun, 1995: 8; Yan, 1995: 8). In selecting topics journalists and producersclosely follow the ‘two don’ts’: ‘Do not report anything that cannot besolved quickly, otherwise it can only bring panic. Do not draw the attentionof the audience to issues that cannot be solved under the present conditionsin the immediate future’ (Yan, 1996: 22). The selection of topics alsofollows the rule that the topics chosen should ‘avoid triggering instability athome and providing subjects to be attacked from abroad’ (Li, 2001: 9).Under such an editorial system, and in spite of some journalists’ aspira-tions, ‘many critical reports cannot avoid the fate of being “killed”.




Sometimes a report got killed even before the journalists reached their TVstations from investigation’ (Zhou, 1999: 16). It is not strange that Focuswas slow in covering the outbreak of SARS at the beginning. The changein frequency later could be seen as a response to the situation for thefollowing reasons: first, as China actively seeks to be involved ineconomic globalization, it has increased its economic dependence on theoutside world (including Hong Kong and Taiwan). Cooperation with theinternational community, and the transparency that is demanded for suchcooperation, makes it impossible to control information within China.DeLisle rightly pointed out that: ‘in an era of extensive foreign trade andinvestment dependence, the economic and diplomatic costs to China ofnon-cooperation were too high to bear’ (2003: 600). After all, the party-state has maintained its legitimacy through its economic push. Second, inthe face of the globalization of information (with the advent of theinternet, wireless communication and access to foreign news sources)the once-common strategies of information control – popular repressionand Maoist-style campaigns – became untenable.

It is also understood that in different periods different topics should beselected to facilitate the appearance and implementation of policies of thegovernment (Guan, 1998: 19). For instance, around the 20th anniversary ofthe Land Contracted Responsibility policy, Focus broadcast a timely seriesof programmes targeting the problems involved. These programmes helpedprepare the way for the appearance of the government’s new policies. Theprogrammes on SARS on 27 April and 12 May are such programmesas well.

Timing

Chan (2002) has noted that Focus does not broadcast on such occasions asthe Lunar New Year holiday, the National Day and the period when theNational People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Consultative Con-ference were held in 1999, when stability is considered paramount.Similarly, this study finds that there are no reports from 7–15 November2002, during which the 16th Party Congress was held. Neither was thereany report around the National Day from 30 September to 2 October 2001,nor from 4–18 March, during which the first session of the 10th People’sCongress was held. The best example to illustrate the great sensitivity totiming the programme exhibits is the series on the education of childrenaround 4 June 1994, which started on 28 May and lasted till after 5 June.This kind of timing has often been cited as good practice as the series fitsnaturally with the time (1 June, International Children’s Day, is celebratedevery year in China) on the one hand, and avoids sensitive topics aroundthat period on the other (4 June being the anniversary of the Tiananmen




Square massacre; see Wang, 1994; Xin, 1996). The absence of reports onSARS during the National People’s Congress meetings in March 2003 isanother example.

Level and degree of criticism

Because of the nature of media in China, critique of major state policies oropen media monitoring of policy-making processes at the top is notpossible. It has been noted that Focus’s criticism is limited to policyimplementation by local cadres. Power abuse, violation or ‘distortion’ ofpolicies by local bureaucracies can be reported, but must be reported to the‘proper degree’ and with the right timing. It is not surprising that, duringthe sensitive period of the outbreak of SARS, the level of criticism wasless than usual.

When reporting on the wrongdoing of local cadres, there have been calls(Li, 2001) to give these wrongdoers a chance to correct their mistakes anderrors, so that the image of the party to cleansing its mistakes is conveyedto the audience. From April 1998 (Liang, 2000: 50), a follow-up on theproblems exposed is generally required, so that ‘negative reports achievepositive effect’. As a result, critical investigative reports in Focus followmore or less the same format: the programme either exposes an outrageousinstance of injustice, after which the party leadership becomes concernedand instructs that justice be served, or a social ill is exposed, followed bywhat has been done by related governmental organizations, and thecriminals or wrongdoers are punished.16 The format of investigative reportsin Focus is revamped socialist realism in new times.

As a result of so many constraints on the programme, in spite of somejournalists’ open protest about the restraints on the supervision media,17 theviewing rate for Focus has been steadily dropping. According to LiuHaibei, the viewing rate from 1995 to 1996 dropped by 5 percent, and theviewing rates from January 1998 to December 2000 are respectively 29.57percent, 27 percent and 23.86 percent (Liu, 2002: 33). The surveyconducted by TV Research in October 2001 shows that the viewing rate hasdropped to 21.35 percent. In 2002, the viewing rate dropped further, tobelow 16 percent. There was a slight increase during the outbreak of SARSin 2003. However, it dropped again soon after, the lowest point being13.84 percent in October. Two reasons may be named for the decline: first,the audience is getting used to the fixed format of the critical reports.Second, and certainly the main reason that accounts for the drop, is that theaudience is becoming disappointed as the reports have stepped back fromtheir early stronger critical stance, when the party first instigated theappearance of the programme.




Conclusion: Focus will remain an example of mediasupervision in China

The Chinese government has been very active in trying to resolve thetension between political control and economic openness. This effort isreflected in its encouragement of the rhetoric and formal application ofdemocracy in TV current affairs programmes represented by Focus, whichhave been used, under government control, as a far more effective forcethan crudely made propaganda to strengthen political stability by construct-ing an image of concern and care for the people and thus dispersing socialfrustration. In other words, TV current affairs programmes in China havebeen exploited to play a key role in shaping public discourse and creating asocial or psychological climate favourable for political stability. Analysisof Focus during the outbreak of SARS shows that, although the effects ofreform in China have gradually altered media production beyond recogni-tion, Focus’s attempt to contain the outbreak of the disease, to minimizeeconomic consequences and to avoid losses of confidence in the regime athome and abroad means that TV current affairs programmes, with theirmassive audience and thus their immense potential power and influence,have less freedom than ever to violate the guidelines set down by the stateat times of crisis. The nature of Focus in China determines its discourse,which has manifested itself in various ways, including the way interviewsare structured to ensure that the dominant voices are those of thegovernment and party.

The visits from the three generations of premiers18 signal the continuousattention paid to the programme by top Chinese leaders, while Focus’slatest announcement that it is to increase its critical programmes from twicea week to 50 percent in 200419 illustrates the party’s determination tomaintain the programme as an example in order to shape public discoursefor other TV current affairs programmes in China, and as a symbol ofmedia supervision for the outside world. It may be concluded that, as longas the party is not willing to give up its control, democracy will stay at arhetorical and formal level. Therefore it may not be too far from the truthto say that TV current affairs programmes, which must consider politicalstability and public order as a priority, will not act as ‘permanent thorns inthe side of political power’ (Keane, 1991: 67) as long as the nature of thepolitical system remains unchanged.

Notes

I am very grateful to the British Council for the generous grant that made my fieldwork possible in February and March 2004.




1. From http://www.cctv.com/program/dysj/20040423/100897.shtml2. For example, on 10, 11 and 13 February in Yangchen Evening Post, Nanfang

Daily and Southern Weekend respectively in Guangdong Province, which isconsidered to be more liberal. The pioneering bi-weekly magazine Finance &Business (Caijing) first reported on SARS on 20 February; in People’s Daily thestory was not reported until 12 April.

3. With the exception of Finance & Business, which carried a related article on5 March; its next report on SARS was on 5 April.

4. For instance, the China Daily (22 August 2003) claimed that:

. . . the order issued by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of theCommunist Party of China to openly disseminate information on the spread ofSARS and the warning that any officials found to be withholding or distortinginformation would be severely punished, led to a real turning point in theChinese media coverage of SARS.

See also DeLisle (2003: 597), Pomfret (2003), Fang (2003), Cheng and Zhu(2004).

5. The content analysed from Focus comes from the transcripts of the pro-gramme on the CCTV website: http://www.cctv.com/program/jdft/01/index.shtml.

6. The starting date chosen for the analysis of the programme is based on theavailability of the transcripts of the programme on the CCTV website.

7. The decision to examine official rhetoric from the early 1990s is based onthe time that Focus was first broadcast (1 April 1994).

8. From the website C:\sars\sars survey.htm9. From http://www.tv-view.com/research/2003/Yuguoming/yuguoming_

zhanghongzhong_SARS_spreadabroad.htm&21918369 = 719179166 (consulted May2006).

10. However, in 1996, for better control, local stations and programmes otherthan Focus from CCTV were directed not to deal with hot topics. Yang Weiguang(1996a: 4), then president of CCTV, directed that ‘the phenomena of putting on hottopics in every programme must be stopped. They are to be done by Focus only.Focus is, after all, one of the party’s strategies to do theoretical propaganda.’

11. All the translations in this article are by the author.12. According to Fairclough, ‘Apart from other functions, microanalysis also

identifies rhetorical features of news reports, such as features which give reports anaura of factuality’ (1995: 30).

13. For example, with the Health Minister on 2 April, with the director ofDisease Prevention and Control Centre, who is also a member of the SARSPrevention and Cure Group, on 13 April, with the Head of Sanxi Province, theActing Chairman of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the Mayor ofShanghai on 22 April, and with the ministers from the Railway Ministry,Communications Ministry, and the Civil Aviation Bureau on 24 April.

14. Of the few voices on SARS, the bi-weekly magazine Finance & Trade(Caijing) reported on SARS on 5 March, after it had first reported on it on20 February. The next report was on 5 April.

15. See, for instance, a letter from Heilong Jiang, on http://www.cctv.com/news/focus/focus.html

16. For instance, the item titled ‘Strike Hard on Ticket Mongers during theSpring Festival Holidays’, broadcast on 19 February 2003.

17. Zhou Hong from Yiyang TV in Hunan, for instance, wrote that all leadersonly paid lip service to media supervision (1999: 16). When it comes to reality it isoften different.




18. Premiers Li Peng, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao have all visited the crew onset and conferred epigraphs to the programme, a typical Chinese way of greatattention and praise from officials.

19. In order to increase the viewing rate, Focus, with consent from the centralgovernment, will increase its critical reports to 50 percent of the programme,according to Jin Yidan (2004).

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Xiaoling Zhang is a lecturer at the Institute of Contemporary ChineseStudies, University of Nottingham. Address: Institute of ContemporaryChinese Studies, China House, Nottingham University, NottinghamNG7 2RD, UK. [email: [email protected]]




reading between the headlines: sars, focus and tv current affairs programmes in china

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