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Rosanna Mclaughlin
Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

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The Pious and the Pommery

Essay

Issue No. 18

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

Issue No. 18

I.   Where is the champagne? On second thoughts this is not entirely the right question. The champagne is in the ice trough, on...

Essay

April 2019

Ariana and the Lesbian Narcissus

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

April 2019

‘Avoid me not!’ ‘Avoid me not!’                                   Narcissus   Let me describe a GIF I’ve been watching. A lot....

The CCTV New Year’s gala broadcast, known in Mandarin as Chunwan, is probably the most massive media event you’ve never heard of: with an audience of 700 million, it has few rivals for sheer reach A China Central Television institution since 1982, the show provides an annual bromide of light-hearted comedy, music, and choreographed patriotism on the eve of the country’s most important festival In a nation reeling from frenetic development and riven by social tensions, it’s a reminder of the cultural ties that bind (most of) China together This year, Chunwan rings in the Year of the Rabbit on the evening of 2 February But even in China, this throwback to a bygone era of modernist spectacle is not immune to larger shifts in the way we consume media The show is losing its younger viewers: according to a recent online poll on Sinacom, 50 percent of respondents who saw the show called it ‘bad,’ while only 13 percent said it was ‘good’ It seems that colourful ethnic minority maidens singing about social harmony just don’t cut it any more for the post-‘80s generation Alarmed over declining ratings, broadcasters have turned to the internet for the first time this year to infuse new life into the old Chunwan beast, planning to draw several musical performers from the online ‘grassroots’ CCTV and other Chinese media have long had a troubled relationship with the 380 million ‘netizens’ who comprise China’s online population Of course, this comes as no surprise to those familiar with the overall status of internet speech in China A small army of censors regularly scrub references to sensitive topics like Falun Gong, Tibet and Liu Xiaobo from bulletin boards Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, among other social networking platforms, are blocked: in this visualisation of global Facebook connections, there’s a conspicuous hole where China should be Historically, censors have also intervened to halt the careers of apparently harmless internet celebrities, which China produces in spades With a massive online population isolated by the so-called Great

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Ten Years at Garage Moscow

Art Review

November 2018

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art Review

November 2018

When I arrive in Moscow, I am picked up from the airport by Roman, a patriotic taxi driver sent to collect me courtesy of...
Becoming Alice Neel

Art

August 2017

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art

August 2017

From the first time I saw Alice Neel’s portraits, I wanted to see the world as she did. Neel was the Matisse of the...

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poetry

January 2012

Mount Avila

W. N. Herbert

poetry

January 2012

‘el techo de la ballena’   Time to be climbing out of time as the wild city rates it,...

poetry

May 2012

REGULAR BLACK

Sam Riviere

poetry

May 2012

Who wouldn’t rather be watching a film about werewolves instead of composing friends’ funeral playlists all day I’ve been...

feature

February 2011

The dole, and other bailouts

Chris Browne

feature

February 2011

One of my first actions as a Londoner was to sign on for as many benefits as I could...

 

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