A new world of spectacle in the post-cold war era: China's central television and its significant other, 1992–2006

• A longitudinal content analysis of China's most influential newscast finds that CCTV has been adapting international news production to marketization and international outreach.
• This study underscores the importance of conceptual distinctions between foreign news and foreign policy news in international communication research.
• Foreign policy news serves as an indication of China's regionalized foreign policy design, while the softening of foreign news reflects alterations of popular news taste.
• CCTV's coverage echoes the Chinese bifurcated views of the U.S. in its pursuit of peaceful rise.

As the Chinese society is increasingly looking outward, such official media outlets as China's Central Television have been adapting their international news production to the bend of marketization. A longitudinal content analysis of its flagship news program Network News from 1992 to 2006 found that although the quantity of international news hardly echoed such gear changes, the news’ timeliness increased remarkably. Consistent with previous findings about the distinctions between the conceptual devices of foreign news and foreign policy news, the focus of CCTV's foreign policy news coverage on the U.S. and East Asia indicated China's regionalized foreign policy design, while the increasing soft news in its foreign news coverage implied CCTV's inclination to tap the audience demands. A further examination of the U.S.—the longstanding “significant other” in CCTV's survey of global spectacle—echoed the Chinese bifurcated views of the U.S. in its pursuit of “peaceful rise”.