The People’s Republic of China began the 21st century with a new-and-improved public relations approach that was meant to counter anxieties about China’s role in the world while simultaneously showcasing its leadership’s policies to a domestic audience. Crucial to this communication strategy have been networked spectacles: elaborate mass events, designed to reconfigure organizations, ideas, and relations between people. In Staging China, Florian Schneider analyzes large-scale projects like the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai Expo to show how such spectacles became part of the ruling party’s governance toolkit under Hu Jintao’s leadershi, and how their legacy informs politics and political communication in China to this day.
 

Florian Schneider is Senior University Lecturer in the Politics of Modern China at Leiden University. He is managing editor of the academic journal Asiascape: Digital Asia and author of China’s Digital Nationalism and Visual Political Communication in Popular Chinese Television Series.
 

Acknowledgements
Note on Conventions
List of Abbreviations
1. Introduction: Making Sense of China's Spectacles
2. Arriving on the World Stage
3. The Governance of China's Networked Spectacles
4. Staging China's Revival
5. Designing Chinese Nationalism
6. The Making of a Harmonious Utopia
7. Contested Nation Branding
8. Fractured Discourses, Idiosyncratic Interactions
9. Conclusion: The Legacy of China's Mass Media Events
List of References
Figure Captions
Glossary