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Celebrity Public Relations in China: Power, Politics and Pop Propaganda

journal contribution
posted on 2025-01-31, 03:28 authored by Jian XuJian Xu, Ling Yang
Abstract The article uses the scandal surrounding Jackson Yee, a state-endorsed celebrity and household name in China, as a case study to critically examine how the “government–industry–fan–platform” alliance co-conducts what we call “collaborative celebrity PR” to rescue co-opted stars from scandal. We find that the relationship between the four agents is symbiotic but that the government plays the most important “arbitrator” role. We argue that the state-endorsed celebrities face an inherent dilemma of “power(lessness)” in which they have to dedicate more effort towards propaganda and behave in a moral and exemplary way to please the government to gain more political capital and power and minimize their own precarity. We also highlight the uncertainty and risks using celebrities in its pop propaganda can bring to the CCP: if a state-endorsed celebrity cannot be saved, the scandal can damage the legitimacy and reliability of the Party propaganda.

History

Journal

The China Quarterly

Pagination

1-16

Location

Cambridge, Eng.

ISSN

0305-7410

eISSN

1468-2648

Language

eng

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

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