Radio in China

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There are over 3,000 radio stations in China. China National Radio, the nation's official radio station, has eight channels, and broadcasts for a total of over 200 hours per day via satellite. Every province, autonomous region and municipality has local broadcasting stations. China Radio International (CRI), the only national overseas broadcasting station, is beamed to all parts of the world in multiple languages.

Contents

History of radio broadcasting

Republic of China

The Republic of China established The Nationalist Government Radio Station in 1928; it was a major mechanism for disseminating ROC propaganda messages. [1] :57–58

People's Republic of China

In 1950, approximately 1 million radio sets existed in China, mostly in bourgeois urban households. [2] :45 The People's Republic of China began establishing a radio reception network assigning "radio receptionists" in schools, army units, and factories. [2] :45 These receptionists organized group listening sessions and also transcribed and distributed written content of radio broadcasts. [2] :45 Through the practice of rooftop broadcasting, village criers using homemade megaphones would also relay the content of radio broadcasts. [2] :45 Radio receptionists and rooftop broadcasting remained a significant component of broadcasting practices until wireless broadcasting became widespread in the 1960s and 1970s. [2] :45

In 1978, China stopped jamming broadcasts from Voice of America (VOA). [3] :104 VOA opened a bureau in Beijing in 1981. [4] In 1982, Radio Peking and VOA began regular exchanges. [4]

In 1998, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) began the Connecting Every Village with Radio and TV Project, which extended radio and television broadcasting to every village in China. [5] :30

Radio manufacturing

In the 1950s and 1960s, Red Star Radios became one of the Four Big Things, important and desirable consumer goods that demonstrated an increase in Chinese standards of living. [6] :39–40

Radio manufacturing expanded significantly during China's Third Front campaign to develop basic industry and national defense industry in China's rugged interior in case of invasion by the Soviet Union or the United States. [7] :4, 219 In the Third Front regions, radio manufacturing increased by 11,668% percent as a result of the campaign. [7] :219

See also

References

  1. Wang, Xian (2025). Gendered Memories: An Imaginary Museum for Ding Ling and Chinese Female Revolutionary Martyrs. China Understandings Today series. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN   978-0-472-05719-1.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Li, Jie (2023). Cinematic Guerillas: Propaganda, Projectionists, and Audiences in Socialist China. Columbia University Press. ISBN   9780231206273.
  3. Minami, Kazushi (2024). People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations during the Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN   9781501774157.
  4. 1 2 Li, Hongshan (2024). Fighting on the Cultural Front: U.S.-China Relations in the Cold War. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. p. 326. ISBN   9780231207058. JSTOR   10.7312/li--20704.
  5. Shi, Song (2023). China and the Internet: Using New Media for Development and Social Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN   9781978834736.
  6. Chatwin, Jonathan (2024). The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China's Future. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN   9781350435711.
  7. 1 2 Meyskens, Covell F. (2020). Mao's Third Front: The Militarization of Cold War China. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108784788. ISBN   978-1-108-78478-8. OCLC   1145096137. S2CID   218936313.