China Media Project writes about “Control 2.0,” the government’s new propaganda strategy, and coverage of the recent riots in Shishou, Hubei:
By getting the information out, officials can get the “peripheral media” (especially influential portal news sites, but also commercial newspapers) to work for them. These media feed off of the original Xinhua reports, amplifying their effect. Those same reports, with only slight permutations in many cases, become AFP, Reuters and AP reports. Finally, using those methods that create the smallest stir, you kill the information it is most critical to keep under wraps, keeping rabble-rousing professional media away, and punishing those media that “don’t listen.”
BUT. In the recent Shishou incident, Xinhua News Agency did not report the news at the first available moment, and it was five days before Hubei provincial leaders relayed the news that “the incident had been calmed.”
This handling of the incident has drawn some criticism from the same official media, including People’s Daily, that have been drumming home Hu’s point about “taking the initiative” in news reporting, the Control 2.0 mantra.
See also the ESWN post translating an article from Yazhou Zhoukan titled “How The Shishou Police Dispersed The Crowd.”
