Picturing China in the American Press: The Visual Portrayal of Sino-American Relations in Time Magazine [Hardcover]

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.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).

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 ofcrisis and peace when the images of its panlB