Utopia, nostalgia, and femininity: visually promoting the Chinese Dream

摘要

The concept of the Chinese Dream has become a primary developmental goal of the Chinese Communist Government since it was put forth by Xi Jinping in 2012. It has been promoted through different forms of media, of which propaganda posters have played a dominant role. The propaganda discourse regarding the Chinese Dream has been mainly articulated in both the verbal text in official documents and the visual text in the posters. This study focuses on analyzing the visual images represented in the posters and exploring how they accord with social and historical texts, particularly the official verbal text of the Chinese Dream, the historical text of the propaganda of the Communist Party of China, and the social-cultural text interrelated with the visual symbols. The approach of intertextuality and intervisualityis adopted for the analysis and interpretation. The study shows that the majority of the visual symbols used in the posters are transposed from the sign systems of Chinese traditional culture and the revolutionary discourse of the Communist Party of China. The political concept of the Chinese Dream has embodied the characteristics of utopia, nostalgia, and femininity. With the posters in public spaces, the visual propaganda of the Chinese Dream has turned it into a mundane movement of political culture. This study hopes to contribute to the understanding of the role of visual images in political discursive formations and integrated propaganda in post-socialist China.