IT LOOKS a lot as new media should, with hip click-bait headlines that are ready to be tweeted on microblogs. One headline on the website of a new online publication in Shanghai, the Paper, is about an “evil” former general, defrocked for corruption—“so wicked he looked loyal, so fake he looked real”. Another headline says that three women have withdrawn an accusation that a teacher raped them during the Cultural Revolution. There is also a story about an internet company being called “mean” for attacking the founder of a Chinese dating app ahead of the app firm’s initial public offering.
This is not the standard packaging of Communist Party propaganda. The party is still getting its message across, but in the style of America’s Huffington Post, a news and opinion site. The Paper aims to be accessible to a generation of Chinese that uses smartphones and social media. The Shanghai Observer, another new-media publication that is part of the same state-owned group as the Paper, made a splash in October by publishing a...Continue reading
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