Overview

Picturing China in the American Press juxtaposes what the ordinary American news reader was shown visually inTime Magazine between 1949 and 1973 with contemporary perspectives on the behind-the-scenes history of the period. Time Magazine is an especially fruitful source for such a visual-historical contrast and comparison because it was China-centric, founded and run by Henry Luce, a man who loved China and was commensurably obsessed with winning China to democracy and Western influence. Picturing China examines in detail major events (the Korean War and Nixon's trip to China), less considerable occurrences (shellings of Straits islands and diplomatic flaps), great personages (Chairman Mao and Henry Kissinger), and the common people and common life of China as seen through the lenses and described by the pens of American reporters, artists, photographers, and editors. Picturing China in the American Press is of great interest to both scholars of communications, Chinese history, China Studies, and journalists.

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The primacy of imagery is one of the defining attributes of the post-modern world. This is particularly true in media coverage of foreign events and issues in remote settings. No country has frightened and fascinated Americans more than China in times of crisis and peace when the images of its panic-stricken soldiers crossing the Chinese-North Korean border and the massive hysterical crowds waving a little red book across the country appeared in the U.S. media. A top-notch scholar in the field of visual communication, Perlmutter captures in a painstaking fashion the changing faces of China that has intrigued Americans, both officials and civilians alike, for decades. This book adds a unique and perceptive dimension to our understanding of the love-hate relationship between the United States and China that spans more than 100 years. It is a significant contribution toSino-American studies and visual communication research.--Tsan-Kuo Chang

Studying the role and impact of visual images in the mass media is deceptively challenging. How do we reconcile the apparently autonomous power of images to frame and condense persuasive concepts and messages with their frequent appearance as passive and malleable ancillaries to verbal rhetoric in specific historical circumstances? In Picturing China in the American Press Perlmutter provides a model for understanding the shifting influence of pictures within thick nests of historical, cultural and political context. In this exemplary case study of the influence of Time magazine's visualization of China on Sino-American relations, he shows us the real symbolic power of the visual to iterate enduring concepts in public perception and political relations, while demonstrating that this power can only be understood as a specific historical effect.--Michael Griffin

In Picturing China in the American Press , David Perlmutter reveals how images specifically images of China published by Time Magazine in the mid-20th century shape public perception and thus foreign policy in a democracy. This work will be especially valuable to students of mass media, Sino-American relations, and international politics. Just at the 'CNN effect' i.e., live video images of international crises influences U.S. foreign policy today, the images and captions presented by the Henry Luce media empire profoundly shaped the U.S. approach to China before World War II, during the Japanese occupation, throughout the Nationalist-Communist civil war, and finally during the Mao Zedong years.--John Yemma

Author Information

David D. Perlmutter is professor and associate dean for graduate studies and research in the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. A documentary photographer, he is the author of three books and the editor of a fourth on war, politics, visual images, new media, and public opinion: Photojournalism and Foreign Policy: Framing Icons of Outrage in International Crises (Greenwood, 1998);Visions of War: Picturing Warfare from the Stone Age to the Cyberage (St. Martin's, 1999); (ed.) Guide to Political Communication (LSU Press, 1999); Policing the Media: Street Cops and Public Perceptions of Law Enforcement (Sage, 2000).

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