When China's reformers eased open the communist giant's doors to the world, they found Rupert Murdoch standing outside in his best suit with a bunch of flowers. Used to being courted by those in power, Murdoch made a clumsy suitor. If the billionaire media mogul thought he could swagger into China and add the world's biggest audience to his News Corp empire, he quickly discovered that things worked differently in the Middle Kingdom. The communist leadership kept the 'ultimate capitalist' at arm's length. Nonetheless, amid many blunders and much wasted money, News Corp managed to connect China to the world through the Internet and to transform its staid television service into a popular-entertainment medium. But was Beijing simply using Murdoch to help the country modernise and to rehabilitate its image in the wake of Tiananmen Square? Bruce Dover, Murdoch's man on the ground in China for much of the 1990s, delivers a rollicking insider's account of doing deals at the highest level of business and politics. In this intimate portrait of the impulsive billionaire in his prime, Dover describes fatefully introducing his boss to Wendi Deng, the woman who would become his second wife - News Corp's future has a Chinese face after all.

A portrait of News Corp.'s controversial chairman and CEO draws on the comments of top executives, competitors, and Wall Street experts to address such topics as how he grew his global media empire, the real reasons he challenged the television establishment, and his acquisition of MySpace.

After having worked with Rupert Murdoch for what the legendary newspaperman describes as "thirty-five years of great memories," Irwin Stelzer is uniquely positioned to evaluate Murdoch’s media empire through periods of rapid expansion and acquisitions, times of financial and regulatory stress, and political battles in Britain and America. Stelzer helped plan important company conclaves and assisted with speeches, at least one of which was responsible for having News Corp barred by the Chinese regime from doing business in that country. Here are the philosophies on how Rupert approaches and values deals, whether stalking the Wall Street Journal for decades before pouncing, or “over-paying” for everything from Fox Studios to NFL rights; how he copes with regulatory constraints; how he wins some and loses some, must notably MySpace. The Murdoch Method is the sum total of the management techniques that grew out of Rupert’s attitudes and conceptions, taking him from a struggling newspaper in an out-of-the-way town in Australia to running a globe-dominating media enterprise.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. The question Professor Li Wuwei investigates is not 'whether' creativity is changing China - but 'how' creativity is changing China. The outcome will have a profound impact on how China develops and its economic role in the world. Creative industries maintain and protect historical and cultural heritage, improve cultural capital, and foster communities as well as individual creativity. This leads to the improvement of cultural assets of cities, the establishment of city brands and identity, the promotion of the creative economy, and overall economic and social development. In this context, creativity is changing China forever.

Recognising that creativity is a major driving force in the post-industrial economy, the Chinese government has recently established a range of "creative clusters" – industrial parks devoted to media industries, and arts districts – in order to promote the development of the creative industries. This book examines these new creative clusters, outlining their nature and purpose, and assessing their effectiveness. Drawing on case studies of a range of cluster models, and comparing them with international examples, the book demonstrates that creativity, both in China and internationally, is in fact a process of fitting new ideas to existing patterns, models and formats. It shows how large and exceptionally impressive creative clusters have been successfully established, but raises the important questions of whether profit or culture is the driving force, and of whether the bringing together of independent-minded, creative people, entrepreneurial businessmen, preferential policies and foreign investment may in time lead to unintended changes in social and political attitudes in China, including a weakening of state bureaucratic power. An important contribution to the existing literature on the subject, this book will be of great interest to scholars of urban studies, cultural geography, cultural economics and Asian studies.

When China's reformers eased open the communist giant's doors to the world, they found Rupert Murdoch standing outside in his best suit with a bunch of flowers. Used to being courted by those in power, Murdoch made a clumsy suitor. If the billionaire media mogul could swagger into China and add the world's biggest audience to his News Corp empire, he quickly discovered that things worked differently in the Middle Kingdom. The communist leadership kept the 'ultimate capitalist roader' at arm's length. Nonetheless, amid many blunders and much wasted money, News Corp managed to connect China to the world through the internet and to transform its staid television into a popular entertainment medium. But was Beijing simply using Murdoch to help the country modernise and to rehabilitate its image in the wake of Tiananmen Square? Did the panda outwit the fox? Bruce Dover, Murdoch's man on the ground in China for much of the 1990s, delivers a rollicking, insider's account of doing deals at the highest level of business and politics. In this intimate portrait of the impulsive billionaire in his prime, Dover describes fatefully introducing his boss to Wendi Deng - News Corp's future has a Chinese face after all.

Television is a massive industry in China, yet fewer people are watching television screens. This ground-breaking study explores how television content is changing, how the Chinese government is responding to the challenges presented by digital media, and how businesses are brokering alliances in both traditional and new media sectors.

The study of Chinese media is a field that is growing and evolving at an exponential rate. Not only are the Chinese media a fascinating subject for analysis in their own right, but they also offer scholars and students a window to observe multi-directional flows of information, culture and communications within the contexts of globalization and regionalization. Moreover, the study of Chinese media provides an invaluable opportunity to test and refine the variety of communications theories that researchers have used to describe, analyse, compare and contrast systems of communications. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media is a prestigious reference work providing an overview of the study of Chinese media. Gary and Ming-Yeh Rawnsley bring together an interdisciplinary perspective with contributions by an international team of renowned scholars on subjects such as television, journalism and the internet and social media. Locating Chinese media within a regional setting by focusing on ‘Greater China’, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities; the chapters highlight the convergence of media and platforms in the region; and emphasise the multi-directional and trans-national character of media/information flows in East Asia. Contributing to the growing de-westernization of media and communications studies; this handbook is an essential and comprehensive reference work for students of all levels and scholars in the fields of Chinese Studies and Media Studies.

The Blogging Revolution is a colourful and revelatory account of bloggers around the globe who live and write under repressive regimes – many of them risking their lives in doing so. Antony Loewenstein’s travels take him to private parties in Iran and Egypt, internet cafes in Saudi Arabia and Damascus, to the homes of Cuban dissidents and into newspaper offices in Beijing, where he discovers the ways in which the internet is threatening the rule of governments. Through first-hand investigations, he reveals the complicity of Western multinationals in the restriction of information in these countries and how bloggers are leading the charge for change. The book also reveals some of the key players of the Arab Spring and how years of organising, web dissent and bravery led to momentous changes in US-backed dictatorships across the Middle East in 2010 and 2011. The Blogging Revolution is a superb examination of the nature of repression in the twenty-first century and the power of brave individuals to overcome it.

Rupert Murdoch - ruthless visionary, empire builder and business genius. He has created a global media network which has made him one of the most powerful and influential figures in the world. So potent was the force of his empire that he was even on first-name terms with presidents and prime ministers - superpowers were only a telephone call away. But just recently, rather than controlling the news, Murdoch has instead become the front-page story as the world had been gripped by the unfolding drama of the News International phone hacking scandal.