RCCHC "Science, Technology, Society and Culture" Talk Series - Chinese Media Improvisations: Thriving on Deficits

Xuenan Cao’s new book, Chinese Media Improvisations: Thriving on Deficits, offers an unexpected angle on China's technological rise, spotlighting the role of deficit-driven improvisation. In this book talk, Cao shares key moments of media improvizations in Chinese history: Mao's Great Leap Forward, which demanded the country produce mountains of books, notwithstanding the shortage of papers and printers; the compressed development that pushed key industries—such as China Railway—to informatize amidst hazards; the information-theoretical explosion in which scientists impersonated computing devices when there were none for them to access; and the ironic present, when municipals have scrambled to update their smart-cities with low-budget AI gadget theatrics, such as facial recognition toilet paper dispensers. These are scenarios in which media practitioners—from print to information technologies and to AI—have had to improvise in response to political pressure and thrive on a deficiency of funding and materials. Drawing on Chinese communist party archival records, China Railway local archives, newspapers, ersatz college reference books, science journals, and AI-related technical documents, each book section combines archival research and literary readings, narrated through personal history with media-theoretical extrapolation.