Talk:Xuanchuan

Chinese interwiki orphan

Note that the zh.wikipedia links zhengzhi xuanchuan 政治宣传 "political propaganda" to English propaganda, but does not link xuanchuan 宣传. Why? Keahapana (talk) 01:39, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Are sources living in China reliable for this topic?

I have been treating them the same way Wikipedia advises editors to treat the China Daily "...noting that (a) China Daily's interpretation of those facts is likely to contain political spin, and (b) China Daily's omission of details from a story should not be used to determine that such details are untruthful; and, with great caution, as a supplementary (but not sole) source for facts about political events of mainland China. Editors agree that when using this source, context matters a great deal and the facts should be separated from China Daily's view about those facts. It is best practice to use in-text attributionand inline citations when sourcing content to China Daily."

In this case, that my instinct would be to remove all references by Chunfeng Lin, a professor in China at a Chinese University since 2019, or at the very least supplemented with more reliable sources of information from countries with freedom of speech and no government censorship of academia. Superb Owl (talk) 02:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

You absolutely should not be treating Chinese sources that way. Please go back and fix anything you have approached on this basis. That's a dire error.

China daily is a CPC-operated news outlet. It is entirely understandable that we would treat (party-)state media with caution. There is zero grounds to treat sources living in China the same way as state (or party) media. Moreover, China Daily is itself not deprecated, but merely use with caution.

In this specific instance, the comparison is particularly off-base as we're talking about a text by an academic published by Taylor & Francis. Academic texts by major academic publishers are the essential WP:RS. JArthur1984 (talk) 03:09, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Although the analysis doesn't change, it's actually Routledge not T&F. Another enormous, well-regarded academic publisher. JArthur1984 (talk) 03:22, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Is that really a 'dire' error? I'm curious to hear others weigh-in because it strains credulity that there are academics in Chinese Universities covering political topics that do not tow the party line.

At the very least, a 'Better sources needed' or 'More sources needed' in-line template seems appropriate (which is what I initially added before you reverted it and violated WP: Assume good faith in your justification). Superb Owl (talk) 03:27, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it’s a dire error to suggest that living in a country equates a source to being state (party) media.

There is no basis in policy to impose the standard you suggest. JArthur1984 (talk) 03:58, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I want to note why China Daily wasn't deprecated, only because there was a "narrow consensus against deprecating China Daily, owing to the lack of available usable sources for Chinese topics." Another similar example, the South China Morning Post, has since 2020 come with this caveat for editors, "However, in addition, there is a rough consensus that additional considerations may apply for the newspaper's coverage of certain topics, including the Chinese Communist Party and the SCMP's current owner, Alibaba. Editors may apply higher scrutiny when dealing with the SCMP's coverage of such topics." What I am suggesting, is simply the application of higher scrutiny (caution) consistent with how similar sources are being treated due to the influence of the CCP. Superb Owl (talk) 04:18, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Treating a sixth of humanity as unreliable is a little broad and would degrade the value of this encyclopaedia. Burrobert (talk) 06:58, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

One last resource I want to add to this discussion is by v-dem and it ranks academic freedom by country: https://academic-freedom-index.net/. China has a very low score of .06/1. This seems like a significant variable in assessing the reliability of academic sources, especially on sensitive political topics Superb Owl (talk) 16:07, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

It appears you do not know enough about this topic or China generally yet. I do not say this to be critical in a personal way, only to acknowledge the reality. Chinese people are not a monolith. There is debate in China. There is debate in the academe in China. There are indeed some greatly restricted topics. This is not one of them.

Worse, the specific source you are quibbling about is published in English. It is published by an academic publisher in UK. Your inquiry should be based on academic freedom in the United Kingdom, not based on the country which is the national or ethnic origin of professor who wrote it. You are raising entirely speculative concerns based on nationality or national ties, and not shown a single factual disagreement with an assertion made in the source. This is part of why I characterized your errors as dire. JArthur1984 (talk) 16:19, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

@JArthur1984, I have already asked you here and and your talk page to please not assume bad faith about my edits and already clarified this was a matter of academic freedom and reliability, not ethnicity or country of origin. The author works for a Chinese university where academic freedom is quite severely restricted. I understand your point that the publisher may be considered reliable but am concerned by the lack of acknowledgement that the author may need to be treated with caution. Additionally, I provided a source directly in the article text that offered a negative interpretation of the term that seems to provide some further evidence that the caution is warranted. Superb Owl (talk) 16:42, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Your edit is fine edit. It is consistent with the Routledge source. It provides no reason to doubt the source. JArthur1984 (talk) 16:47, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

The omission of negative interpretations of the term by the Routledge source seems revealing that in fact that source should not be relied upon as a standalone source but in combination with other sources that may be able to discuss negative interpretations of the term Superb Owl (talk) 16:56, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Responding to third opinion request - even though Burrobert has already given a third party perspective here - and my opinion is much the same as theirs. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 04:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Possible integrate into Propaganda in China#Terminology

I don't see the need for this article to stand alone, the current article could well be merged back into propaganda in China in several parts, some of which could be split out and put into Wiktionary. The current entry is written in a way that makes it sound like a bunch of construction materials were piled up there and then no one ever came to build them into a tall building. ときさき くるみ ^{not because they are easy, but because they are hard} 07:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Agree - would be helpful to have the term in context with related terms as discussed in reliable sources Superb Owl (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)