Listening to Television: Daily Life and Communal Viewing in 1970s China

• In Event: More than a Mouthpiece: Media Culture in Cold War China

Abstract

Television was anticipated and celebrated as an exciting new medium throughout the Mao era in China, though the era of individually own televisions did not commence until the late 1970s and early 1980s. This paper argues for the need to study the prehistory of television, which includes a lengthy period of communal television in China, with the 1970s being its height and last stage, before television became ubiquitous in domestic life. Contrary to the prevalent belief that television in China was a product and a shaping ideological force of the Reform era, television and its viewing culture were already situated at the center of urban life by the mid-1970s. This paper argues that the pre-history of individual TV ownership in China has to be addressed in terms of the role that television played in organized leisure activities and how the medium shaped individual experiences in a communal setting and against a changed global environment.

Author

• Nicole Xincun Huang, University of Wisconsin-Madison