Conclusion: Convergence of Entertainment and Politics in Contemporary China

In this concluding chapter of the book, Wu discusses what it means for political discourses to be deferred to entertainment conversations. Latest developments in American politics of 2016 may make it particularly challenging to contend for entertainment’s significance in politics. Critical theories that the book revises may be especially relevant in the American public’s sense-making of Donald Trump’s presidency. Wu argues that if entertainment continues to occupy a semi-polluted position in the West, one needs to acknowledge its role in Chinese citizens’ political communication. As the author addresses in this chapter lingering concerns with the limits and threat of entertainment, the more productive task is to examine entertainment’s power for average citizens in an empirically grounded manner. The theory of an aesthetic public sphere and the empirical undertakings of this book provide a useful framework. Furthermore, scholarly efforts should look more closely for the connection between informal public spheres and the official public sphere of a country. Wu discusses latest developments in China’s entertainment and politics, and how the book’s central theoretical and empirical frameworks apply to newly emerging cases. The thesis of an aesthetic public sphere provides an informative and balanced analytical perspective for readers to contextualize new shows and new struggles in the broader framework of entertainment and politics, in China and other media systems.