Abstract
In recent years, new communication philosophies have been increasingly employed by China’s changing propaganda initiatives. By using the Amazing China narrative as a case, this chapter aims to explore how transmedia storytelling has been implemented in a highly centralized media regime. It reveals that China’s top-down propaganda franchise has created an idea universe which centers on a specific propaganda theme. Moreover, the ways in which stories are narrated are enriched insofar as boundaries between online and offline as well as fictional and nonfictional have been blurred. Further, not only different stories but also the specific idea has been told in a transmedial way. These findings have profound implications as to how a centralized media regime can contribute to the implementation and development of transmedia storytelling.
In this chapter, when Amazing China is used, it refers to both the TV documentary and documentary film.
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Gu, J., Zhao, X. (2021). From Telling a Story to Telling an Idea: A Transmedia Narrative of Amazing China Under New Propaganda Initiatives in China. In: Gilardi, F., Lam, C. (eds) Transmedia in Asia and the Pacific. Palgrave Series in Asia and Pacific Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7857-1_2
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