China's quest for "soft power"
Professor Yuezhi Zhao of Simon Fraser University, Canada, and the Communication University, Beijing, will talk about China's quest for "soft power" in a public lecture at Leeds on 28 October 2011.
From establishing Confucius Institutes all over the world to mounting an advertising blitz in New York's Times Square, the Chinese state's multifaceted endeavour to strengthen its "soft power" has been highly visible and the subject of much recent journalistic and scholarly attention.
This talk examines the contradictory political and cultural underpinning of the Chinese state's "soft power" quest. There are irreconcilable tensions between a drive to pursue an essentially elitist approach to global communication and to present a social vision that appeals to the vast majority of the world population.
Dr. Zhao's books include Communication and Society: Political Economic and Cultural Analysis (in Chinese, Beijing: Communication University of China Press, 2011), Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), and Global Communications: Toward a Transcultural Political Economy (co-edited, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).
The lecture will take place:
On: Friday 28 October 2011
At: 4.10-5.30pm
In: Speakman Lecture Theatre, Clothworkers' Building Central
Admission to the lecture is free.
Posted in: Research and innovation