Decentralization of Political Design in China

Political posters, banners, and similar objects are extremely common in China. This article uses political design from contemporary China, particularly emphasising the government’s Chinese Dream campaign, to analyze what at first appears to be a paradox. The subjects of the campaigns and the language they use are mandated by the central government and promoted through central and local publicity departments. But the graphic aspects of these campaigns, such as the choice of colours, images, layout, and typeface, are much less strictly controlled, and are decided by local governments or authorities. This makes political design in China decentralized. Decentralized design is inconsistent with the principles of global marketing and with the PRC’s reliance on set forms of political discourse, both of which rely on the assumption that uniformity will lead to more effective communication of messages and persuasion of the public. Evidence from local design campaigns indeed shows that Chinese political posters are often designed hastily and without expertise, resulting in strange and unpersuasive images. Despite this, this article shows that decentralized design is not paradoxical. This is largely because the Chinese party-state uses propaganda as a method of “signalling” its overall power, more than as a tool of indoctrination or persuasion about particular topics. The central government’s reliance on incentives and metrics to regulate local authorities also means that the production of propaganda is also a means by which local governments can signal their loyalty to the Centre.

中国政治宣传设计的去中心化

关键词：当代中国； 政治传播；宣传；平面设计；政治营销。

政治海报、条幅以及类似的事物在中国极为常见。本文利用当代中国的政治设计，特别围绕政府的“中国梦”宣传活动来分析一个貌似悖论的现象。这些宣传活动的主题和使用的语言都是由中央政府批准，通过中央和地方宣传部门进行推广的。但这些宣传的平面设计包括色彩、图像、布局以及字体的选择都不受严格控制，而是由地方政府或部门决定的。这使得中国的政治宣传设计去中心化。去中心化的设计与全球化营销的原理以及中华人民共和国对固定形式的政治话语的依赖是不一致的，后两者都预设统一性会导致更有效地传播信息和说服公众。来自地方的宣传设计活动的证据表明，中国的政治海报通常的确是设计仓促，专业性低，制造出奇怪而没有说服力的图像。尽管如此，本文表明去中心化的设计并非自相矛盾。这在很大程度上是因为中共党国把宣传当作一种“发信号示意”它整体的权力的方法，而不是作为一个就特定题目进行灌输或者劝服的工具。中央政府通过激励机制和评价指标对地方权力部门进行监管，这也意味着宣传作品的生产也可以是地方政府“发信号”向中央政府宣示效忠的一种手段。

Translated from English by Li Guo