@article {21125,
	title = {\&$\#$39;These War Dramas are like Cartoons\&$\#$39;: Education, Media Consumption, and Chinese Youth Attitudes towards Japan},
	journal = {Journal of Contemporary China},
	volume = {27},
	year = {2018},
	note = {Published Online First, April 11, 2018},
	pages = {703-718},
	abstract = {The growing prevalence of foreign media consumption, including from Japan, among young Chinese has received considerable notice in recent work on PRC youth culture. To date however, few studies have considered how youth of different social backgrounds perceive their consumption of Japanese popular culture in the context of the Party-state{\textquoteright}s {\textquoteright}patriotic education{\textquoteright} campaign waged in schools and in the mass media since the 1990s. Studies have also overlooked the question of how rural and urban youth in China currently juxtapose the images and themes conveyed in the Japanese popular culture that they consume with school and domestic media messages about Japan. Drawing on interviews among senior middle school students in China, the present study addresses this issue. It finds that a majority of youth of different backgrounds profess animosity towards Japan, but readily separate these feelings from their passion for Japanese media. In some cases, consumption of Japanese popular culture allows youth to feel that they {\textquoteright}know{\textquoteright} - or even appreciate - the other country better. Amid the anti-Japanese messages youth currently receive at school and through domestic media, consumption of Japanese popular culture products therefore manifests a form of {\textquoteright}expressive individualism{\textquoteright} on the part of some Chinese youth, who creatively construct their own notions of patriotism, national memory, and Sino-Japanese relations.The growing prevalence of foreign media consumption, including from Japan, among young Chinese has received considerable notice in recent work on PRC youth culture. To date however, few studies have considered how youth of different social backgrounds perceive their consumption of Japanese popular culture in the context of the Party-state{\textquoteright}s {\textquoteright}patriotic education{\textquoteright} campaign waged in schools and in the mass media since the 1990s. Studies have also overlooked the question of how rural and urban youth in China currently juxtapose the images and themes conveyed in the Japanese popular culture that they consume with school and domestic media messages about Japan. Drawing on interviews among senior middle school students in China, the present study addresses this issue. It finds that a majority of youth of different backgrounds profess animosity towards Japan, but readily separate these feelings from their passion for Japanese media. In some cases, consumption of Japanese popular culture allows youth to feel that they {\textquoteright}know{\textquoteright} - or even appreciate - the other country better. Amid the anti-Japanese messages youth currently receive at school and through domestic media, consumption of Japanese popular culture products therefore manifests a form of {\textquoteright}expressive individualism{\textquoteright} on the part of some Chinese youth, who creatively construct their own notions of patriotism, national memory, and Sino-Japanese relations.\&nbsp;\&nbsp;},
	url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10670564.2018.1458058},
	author = {Naftali, Orna}
}
