Power Transitions as Revealed from News Photos: Jiang Zemin’s and Hu Jintao’s Photos on The People’s Daily
Author: Chien-wen Kou, Shu-Yuan Liang
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
This article claims that photographs of Chinese leaders in leading Partynewspapers provide first-hand information for understanding interaction amongthese leaders. Because of the Chinese Communist Party’s control over mass media,Party newspapers’ editorial policies must abide by the directions of the Party centralauthority. Accordingly, these photographs reflect the changes in leaders’ politicalstrength at various stages throughout the power competition. In order to illustratethis argument, this article analyzes Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin’s photos, which werepublished on the front page of the People’s Daily between November 2002 andFebruary 2005. The three indicators used in the analysis are monthly publicationfrequency of photos, monthly layout scores on the front page, and the figure focusedon in the photos.