Hi Manqiangrexue, I took time to critically think about ways to improve Chinese-based competitive media, because you asked a good question. If you look at the lego video, it was incredibly "hip" and did an excellent job of playing the west at its own media game, which is why it went "viral". Whoever created it clearly was targeting a western audience and probably spent a good chunk of his/her life in the west to understand certain cultural nuances. Which gets to my point, if Chinese competitive media intends to put out english/foreign language materials to combat western mis-information, they better damn well hire the people that are familiar with communicating in facebook/twitter/instagram, which in many respect, do live in the west. We don't need the shit to be correct, "close enough is good enough" but lets get it viral and tugging on people's emotions. And this, I believe Xinhua is already doing with CGTN, they just need to accelerate this momentum.
To the second point, I don't believe the underlying "factuality" of data in China vs the US is as critical to winning the realm of global public opinion as how the message is delivered. If we think about the ways in which US misinformation has been "undermined" over the last week, I am sure China has published numerous articles about how this fact on COVID was wrong, this was a lie, here was an omission... and it mattered not one bit. All the academic effort and careful points and counter-points pales in comparison to how stupid the US looked once everything was distilled into this funny 2 minute video of a few cute legos. How do I know this? Three of my non-asian friends sent me via facebook messenger separate links to the youtube video over the last two days. Previously, I have never been sent any chinese-based articles or media by non-asian friends, not because they lacked sufficient facts or depth, but rather they turned off people by the inane headline and nobody bothered to read until the end.
Yes, you are absolutely correct "Chinese propaganda is more effective in uniting Chinese citizens domestically than American propaganda is at uniting American citizens domestically and neither are effective at swaying each other's citizens." But the realm of contest isn't each others home markets (which is unrealistic), but rather large majority of non-aligned (or to be non-aligned) countries such as the Italy's, Korea's... where China needs to adopt western methods to tell its stories.
I now use a personal analogy to hammer the point. Many of us know from personal career experiences that just because you have the "right skills" or "competence" does not allow you to climb up a north-american company ranks. You also need to be charismatic, and its not as important "what you say, but how you say it". In fact you could even be pointed out as being incredibly capable, and not be able to advance meaningfully to leadership. The best example of this dichotomy was expressed in a recent survey, where many citizens in the EU said they trusted Xi Jinping more than trusted Donald Trump "to personally do the right thing", but paradoxically almost everyone trusted the US more than China "to do the right thing".
And yes, you are correct "the greater influence of American media over the world over China's is an old tool that was built by the nation through the decades of being the world leader, and that US propaganda is waning as it uses up the old reserves of its leadership legacy." But until such time comes that the average European or Asian listens and believes what Beijing has to say over Washington, we need to continue playing the western media's game.
Let the americans figure out whether their "skills" are sufficient or if government is "competent/truthful" when they become the second most powerful country in the world.
