The View | Motivational spanking shows effects of China’s one-party rule
Official mainland media is under orders to glorify contemporary Marxism while at the same time providing news that attracts more readers
One media outlet wryly called it “motivational spanking”. The People’s Daily, which broke the story, called it “shocking”.
Smartphone video footage obtained by the People’s Daily showed bank employees being physical disciplined by an outside consultant to Rural Commercial Bank in the city of Changzhi. The consultant can be seen berating a group of allegedly underperforming employees on a stage; then, after yelling at them to “get your butts ready,” he administers a paddling.
An interesting aspect to this affair is that the secret video recording was uploaded by the country’s leading “mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party” newspaper. Is this a mouthpiece’s job – to spread the news that really dumb things occur in China’s corporate culture?
Hardly. This is about money. Sensational news sells papers and attracts digital page views.
China’s media is strictly regulated and censored, yet is also expected to respond to market conditions – to be profitable and not completely dependent on the state for support.
Such has been the case since the 1990s when, as part of country’s sweeping economic reforms, the government decreased subsidies for media. “This, in turn, forced media agencies to operate as commercial enterprises as they had to depend on advertising and circulation in order to survive,” Sheila Coronel, an administrator at the Columbia School of Journalism in New York, wrote in a 2009 World Bank-sponsored book.
