EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 19 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 215 Mottura Bettina (Università degli Studi di Milano) Beijing’s Identity as Represented in the Local Official Government Website Key words: government website, national identity, representation, textual genres, institutional com- munication In China government websites have been considered as crucial tools for the implementation of the open government information policy since 2008. In 2015 the Chinese government conducted the first national survey of official government websites. Throughout the year, the survey examined institutional websites published by the central and local levels of the state executive apparatus. One of the declared objectives of the survey was “to raise the government websites authoritativeness and influence and to safeguard the governments’ credibility”. This statement confirm the relevance still accorded to the Internet as a medium in the institutional communication with the general public, and the focus on the state intent of moulding public opinion. As a country capital is often considered as an emblem of national identity, this paper will focus on the representation of Beijing as the centre of the country spirit and life for Chinese audiences. It will particularly concentrate on how the municipality’s identity is constructed through Beijing’s Chinese language website ( www.beijing.gov.cn) . This online materials seem to be relevant as the 2015 survey data identify the official website of the municipality of Beijing as one of the most reliable at the provincial level, affirming therefore it has an influence over the national public. In this framework, the paper will start by analyzing the structure and the content of Chinese language version of Beijing’s website. Then it will clas- sify the main genres displayed by the website. The hypothesis is that genre identification can shed a light on the intended purposes of the online texts and highlight the concrete functions performed by the website, thereof further clarifying the peculiarities of the representation of the city role in the country. Negro Gianluigi (Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) —China Media Observatory (CMO)) Speaking through Cartoons and Animation Videos. The Role of Creative Industries in China Key words: new media, political cartoons, video sharing, online animation, political economy One of the most innovative strategies proposed by Xi Jinping leadership in terms of political communi- cation is the introduction of video cartoons and animations in his narratives. Although the use of political cartoons does not represent something completely new in the Chinese media context (Liu, 1993; Ji, 2009), the new leadership focused its efforts to address its messages also to the younger generations through new media. The foundation of the state-funded Chinese magazine Pengpai 澎湃 (Olesen, 2014) as well 461 million Chinese Internet video sharing users (CNNIC, 2015) represent two important opportunities for the Chinese leadership to approach its present fragmented audience (Zhao & Guo, 2005). This trend has to be included in the path of creative industries (Caves, 2000, Cunningham 2002, Richeri, 2009) and it needs to be analyzed not only under the political discourse perspective (Greenberg, 2002; Medhurst & De Sousa, 1981) but it has also a concrete economic impact on the national media economy (Keane, 2013). This article aims to analyze -the most representative video animations, which represented Xi’s policies; -the channels and the platforms used to support the circulation of cartoons and animated videos; -the actors involved in the production and the distribution of the videos. Amixed methodology will be used to reach the proposed findings. A video content analysis (Hauptmann, 2009) will be implemented for investigation #1 while a political media economy approach (Richeri, 2012; Wasko, 2011) for investigations #2 and #3. Pellin Tommaso (Università degli Studi di Bergamo) Media and State: China’s Linguistic Policy as Reported in the Issues of Language Situation in China (2005–2015) Key words: Language Situation in China, linguistic policy, borrowings, neologisms, Internet language