Advance Praise for Two Billion Eyes:
“Ying’s cogent analysis and penetrating insight are invaluable for anyone trying to understand the political and social reality of the world’s most populous country.” —Publishers Weekly
“Ying’s cogent analysis and penetrating insight are invaluable for anyone trying to understand the political and social reality of the world’s most populous country.” —Publishers Weekly
Two Billion Eyes
The Story of China Central Television
hardcover
$27.95
The first inside look at China Central television (CCTV), the little-known global media conglomerate that broadcasts to the world's largest audience
The problems and issues that CCTV faces at home, and those that it might introduce to the global media environment, are of imminent relevance to media watchers in the United States and elsewhere.
—FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO TWO BILLION EYES
With over 1.2 billion viewers globally, including millions in the United States, China Central Television (CCTV) reaches the world’s single largest audience. The official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, CCTV is also a dynamic modern media conglomerate, fully reliant on advertising revenue and aggressively competitive both within China and on the global media scene. Yet this hugely influential media player is all but unknown to the West. Two Billion Eyes tells its story for the first time.
For this unprecedented look inside CCTV, noted Chinese media expert Ying Zhu has conducted candid interviews with the network’s leading players, including senior executives, noted investigative journalists, and popular news anchors, as well as directors and producers of some of CCTV’s most successful dramatic and current affairs programs.
Examining the broader story of CCTV in a changing China over the past quarter century, Two Billion Eyes looks at how commercial priorities and journalistic ethics have competed with the demands of state censorship and how Chinese audiences themselves have grown more critical, even as Party control shows no signs of loosening. A true inside account of one of the world’s most important companies, this is a crucial new book for anyone seeking to understand contemporary China.
Ying Zhu is a professor of media culture at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island. The recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, she is the author or editor of seven other books, including Television in Post-Reform China and Chinese Cinema During the Era of Reform, and a co-producer of current affairs documentary films, including Google vs. China and China: From Cartier to Confucius. She resides in New York.
Fall 2012
hardcover
6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 304 pages
978-1-59558-464-9
hardcover
6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 304 pages
978-1-59558-464-9
For overseas orders, please contact your local representative from our
Sales & Distribution page.