East Asia, Science Communication In

Mainland China

Since the May 4th movement in 1919, which introduced the concepts of science and democracy to the Chinese people, science has gradually taken the upper hand in China's public discourse, particularly after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. In the 1970s and 1980s, a popular saying in China was that one could succeed anywhere with learned scientific knowledge. Guosheng Wu, director of Center of Science Communication at Peking University (CSCPU), called such worship of science “scienti-cism.” The Communist Party has been a fervent adherent to such scienticism and has devoted much effort the popularization of science and technology (or PST), which could be seen as the main initial form of science communication in the PRC.

Xiaomin Zhu, a scholar at China's PST Institute, divided China's PST effort into five historic periods. The first is the institutionalization period (1949–1958). At its beginning, the government of the PRC wrote in the temporary constitution that the nation needed to dedicate itself to PST, and the PST Association was established to implement this policy. By the end of 1958, the PST Association had built branches in 27 provinces, more than 2,000 cities and counties, and about 4.6 million local communities, with an estimated 102.7 million members and volunteers. The second period, the period of expansion (1958–1966), began when the PST Association and the Association of Scientists were merged into the new China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). CAST organized Chinese scientists to promote successful scientific practices in industrial and agricultural production, and it encouraged workers and farmers to do their own studies. The PST movement discontinued its activities in the third period, the Cultural Revolution era (1966–1976), when most of the science and technology (S&T) organizations in China were dismantled or shut down.

The fourth period is the recovery period (1976–1990). In 1978, the National Science Conference was held, which was broadly seen as the “spring of science.” At the conference, Deng Xiaoping, then the top Chinese leader, said that S&T were the “first productive force” and set S&T development as the top priority of China's development. In this decade, CAST opened 13,000 township agricultural technical schools, training 80 million peasants. It also created more than 600 science wagons equipped with devices to play movies and radios and provide exhibitions in rural areas with poor transportation conditions. In 1986, a new national newspaper, Science & Technology Daily, was launched, sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology [Page 238](MST), the Committee of Science and Science in National Defense, China Academy of Science, and CAST. The newspaper is now published 7 days a week and hires about 180 journalists, operating 31 domestic and 13 international bureaus.

A delegation from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) witnessed China's PST development in 1980. Its report to the AAAS described how China used film, radio, and television in science communication. Science film, with subjects in health, natural history, new technology, and so on, played a significant role, particularly in rural areas. In 1979, Shanghai showed 200 science films, reaching 160,000 people; in a rural commune close to Shanghai, 100,000 people viewed 100 science films. Radio reached almost every Chinese person through receivers and loudspeakers, and radio stations at all levels had a decent amount of science programs. There were only four television channels and 3 million television sets at that time, but a few hours of educational programming during the day were still warranted, primarily blackboard lectures on electronics, computer science, and foreign languages. In prime time, there was about 1 hour of science programming each week.

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