ABSTRACT
On Chinese television, various types of experts now teach and give advice on a diverse range of topics regarding how to live a better life. In this sense, lifestyle television plays an important role in the wide range of self-managerial, self-governing activities promoted by the neoliberal political-economic order. However, despite the obviously prominent role assumed by the lifestyle programs on free-to-air television, it remains somewhat unclear how these programs translate the information and knowledge of the expert into common sense for ordinary people. Nor is it clear who is qualified to pass authoritative judgment and give credible advice and instructions in the lifestyle media. Taking a cultural-political approach to critique neoliberalism, this chapter engages with the content of lifestyle shows on Chinese television to advance a particular way of studying neoliberalism as a way of life under an authoritarian rule.
