China, Media Use in

In the past 25 years, children's media in China have seen a great increase in the amount of content produced by both domestic and foreign media institutions. This entry focuses on the growth and transformation of the Chinese children's media, ranging from TV programs, movies, and cartoons to music, advertisements, and the Internet. Also discussed are several sociopolitical factors—the one-child policy, parental control, government's appropriation of the media for ideological and educational purposes—that influence children's media interactions. Finally, this entry highlights contemporary Chinese children's interpretive competency regarding media messages and their creative adaptation of various genres and content to their own tastes and interests.

The history of children's media in modern China can be traced back to 1874, when the first children's newspaper in China, Xiaohai yuebao (The Child's Paper), was published in Guangzhou. Then, a series of other children's publications followed during the Republican era (1912–1949), including Shaonian zazhi (Youth Magazine), Ertong shijie (Children's World), and Xiao pengyou (Little Friends). Researchers show that these early print media intended to foster brave, independent, and hardworking children who were equipped with critical thinking and democratic ideas. After 1949, many new books and newspapers for children emerged in China, including Hao haizi (Good Children), Hong haizi (Red Children), Hong xiaobing (Little Red Guard), and Xin shaonian (New Youth). Operating as part of a communist ideological system, these print materials aimed at cultivating communist allegiance among children and transforming them into loyal “successors of the communist cause.”

As China entered its reformist era (1979–present) and opened its door to the rest of the world, children's media proliferated. A recent study shows that, in addition to newspapers, contemporary Chinese children are catered to by television, films, cartoons, magazines, and the Internet. Statistics also indicate that today's Chinese children prefer visual and audio materials to books and magazines. An average Chinese child spends 2.22 hours a day watching television and 3.53 hours a week using the Internet for music, movies, games, and chat-room socializing. In regard to media production, in 2000 there were already about 640 television stations broadcasting to children. CCTV (Chinese Central Television) alone offered 8 hours of programming per day. In 2003, CCTV debuted its children's channel, and since then it has provided 18 hours of children's programming a day. If the time that CCTV devotes to family films every day on its movie channel is included, the amount of children's programming is even higher. Moreover, during the past two decades, through its Children's Film Studio, the Chinese government has produced 90 children's films and has required the studio to keep producing at a rate of at least five movies per year. Meanwhile, China's domestic cartoon industry, although seriously threatened by Japanese and American imports, is trying to recapture Chinese children's animated imagination by fusing cutting-edge technology and traditional Chinese cultural and aesthetic values.