2 August 2008
Blogs, bribes, booms and post punk Beijing (with distant peasant protests and executions). Reading the News from China
|
Once closed to the world, China is now in the middle of a media feeding frenzy. From state controlled radio and TV to the western media and Youtube, not forgetting 16 million bloggers (and rising), there's an unprecedented flow of stories pumped out daily. But sometimes it seems that the more we're told, the less we know.
As the world braces itself for the Beijing Games, Radio Eye has assembled its own Olympic team for this week's feature, Reading The News From China. James West is a journalist with Triple J's Hack program. His book Beijing Blur (Penguin Australia) is based on his experiences working for China's state run radio; Stephanie Hemelryk Donald is professor of Chinese media studies at Sydney University and Nicholas Jose is the author of Avenue of Eternal Peace (Wakefield Press with a new Postscript Beijing 2008).
Punctuated with the sounds of China online and the music of punk and post-punk Beijing, Reading the News from China was produced by Steven Tilley and Nick Franklin.
Young Chinese on Western reporting of Beijing 2008 
Images
View larger images
Further Information
Amnesty International's China Internet Censorship Index (CICI)
Chinese media, advertising, and urban life.
Sina English (Disseminates coverage from Chinese press)
The Men Who Would Conquer China, by Nick Torrens
Lust and Caution (2007)
Dir: Ang Lee
2008 China Stand Up! (link to nationalist Chinese video)
Rebuilding the Rights of Statues
Kung Fu Implosion, Brain Failure, Cold Blooded Animal, Singer XTX, Happy Avenue, Convenience Store, AK47, Faye Wong, Karen Mok, Thin Man.
Up the Yangtze
Dir:Yung Chang
Crienglish (China's international English language radio service)
Publications
Title: China Shakes the World
Author: James Kynge
An account of China's dramatic economic growth
Title: Beijing Coma
Author: Ma Jian
Publisher: Chatto and Windus 2008 translated from the Chinese by Flora Drew
"seems determined to enshrine the strivings of the Tiananmen Generation"
The New Yorker - June 30, 2008
Title: Red Dust
Author: Ma Jia
A Chinese On The Road
Title: Chinese Lessons
Author: John Pomfret
Traces the lives of the author's classmates from his time at Nanjing University in the early 80s
Title: River Town
Author: Peter Hessler
A year teaching English in a small town on the Yangtze
Title: A Season in Red
Author: Kirsty Nedham
Title: Rupert's Adventures in China
Author: Bruce Dover
Murdoch in China
Title: Beijing Blur
Author: James West
Publisher: Penguin Australia
An Australian journalist's story of "polishing" the news on state run radio in Beijing)
Title: Will the Boat Sink The Water?
Author: Chen Guidi and Woo Chuntao
The struggle of peasants in 21st century China - this book is banned in China
Title: Sons of the Yellow Emperor
Author: Lynn Pann
A history of the Chinese overseas
Title: Avenue of Eternal Peace
Author: Nicholas Jose
New edition by Wakefield Press with a Postscript Beijing 2008
Title: On The Smell of an Oily Rag
Author: Ouyang Yu
Speaking English, thinking Chinese and living Australian
Title: Wild Grass
Author: Ian Johnson
The story of individuals taking on the Chinese system
Title: A Season in Red
Author: Kirsty Nedham
Title: The Great Wall
Author: Arthur Waldron
A history of China's biggest tourist attraction
Presenter
Brent Clough
Radio National often provides links to external websites to complement program information. While producers have taken care with all selections, we can neither endorse nor take final responsibility for the content of those sites.
