Observations on the mainland media

The Danwei Model Worker Award is granted by Danwei editors to blogs that we feel are especially worth reading. See the full list for more fascinating material.

Fang Kecheng's blog 绝版青春 ("Youth out of print")

Fang Kecheng (方可成), a graduate student in journalism at PKU, keeps a blog with a focus on Chinese media and social issues.

Fang started his blog on Ycool in 2006 and moved to a standalone server on October 4, 2008. A redesign earlier this month (compare to the earlier version). The new layout makes the blog's top-level categories prominent: Observations on China, Civil Society, Media, life, Film, music, and books, and Travel.

From the subject matter alone, it's easy to see why Fang's blog appeals to us at Danwei. His well-sourced, carefully-argued posts make it a required RSS subscription.

Fang may be familiar to Danwei readers from his compilation of a list of countries that have "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people." Other recommended posts:

• Media as a weapon: How Teresa Teng Li-chun was used in the Taiwan-mainland propaganda war. (2010.05)
• Militarized society: Thoughts on regimented education. (2010.04)
• Dictator Douban: A complaint against the social network site for violating its own policies by inexplicably locking his account without warning. (2010.01)
• A list of PKU People of the Year for 2009. (2009.12)
• National Periodicals: Which newspapers and magazines can use "national" (国家) in the title? (2009.11)
• People's Daily's unchanging page layout during the annual legislative sessions. (2009.03) See also: How to write a Xinhua report. (2010.03)