ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Crosstalk: Unmuting the History of the Broadcasting-telephony Network in Maoist China

• In Event: Science and Technology in Post-1949 China

English Abstract

Telephony has been differentiated from broadcasting as a one-to-one medium, in contrast to the latter’s one-to-many transmission. This article challenges this seemingly distinct divide by introducing a hybrid media practice. From the 1950s to the 1970s, using telephone lines to transmit broadcasts to rural areas was an expedient solution amid severe shortages of technical resources. It was initially inspired by an accidental instance of crosstalk, when an official heard a broadcast while making a telephone call, yet its nationwide adoption soon produced more crosstalk and political conflicts over the use of the limited telephone lines. This article explores the history of the broadcasting-telephony network in Maoist China with a focus on crosstalk. It uses “crosstalk” as both a technological term and a political metaphor to integrate my twofold concerns with media infrastructure: the materiality of media infrastructure that transmit the voices of the socialist state and the wider political configuration that determines which voices could be transmitted by allocating the infrastructure with licenses, labor, and funding. By adding crosstalk to the soundscape of Maoist China, this article turns our attention on media infrastructure from its smooth operation to the moments of disorder and chaos, offering a window onto the ongoing activities to maintain, restore, and reform the sonic order. Crosstalk, in this sense, is symptomatic of the complexities of this critical period, as it demystifies the smooth and unimpeded top-down flow of information, and a monolithic Party-state with only one unified voice to speak to its citizens.

Author

• Min Gao, London School of Economics and Political Science