ABSTRACT
The "propaganda state" in the People's Republic of China is firmly based in the ideology and organization of the CCP. The propaganda system in China is a two-way process based on Mao Zedong's famous description of mass line politics as "from the masses, to the masses." The CCP gave its most clear definition of the role of propaganda and the media in 1942 during the famous Yan'an rectification campaign: Newspapers are the most useful tools for party propaganda and agitation work, every day reaching hundreds of thousands of the masses and influencing them. Public propaganda has long been studied by scholars in China and abroad. However, studies of the internal reporting side of the propaganda system have been fewer and hampered by the lack of material available to outsiders. Internal publications and public newspapers are twin pillars of the broader propaganda and political system of China.
