Staff profile

My research focuses on the study of Chinese media, communication and modern intellectual history with three strands of interest. The first is concerned with the role of the media in transforming traditional China into a modern society. The second is the impact of language use in the media that shapes people’s perceptions of reality, and how they respond to rapid socio-political changes. The third examines mutual media representations between China and the West, focusing on identity production and reproduction through the image of the other. My central concern in all these strands is the way in which the mass media impact on the way people in China make sense of the modern world they live in.

Currently I am working on a new book Communicating an Alternative Modernity in China: Media and the Chinese State (Routledge forthcoming) that investigates the role of China’s modern state-building as a unique form of Chinese approach to modernity from the perspective of China’s classical political philosophy. It investigates the way in which the state media construct collective identities, public consensus and common purposes in China’s current socioeconomic transformations underpinned increasingly by traditional assumptions of politics rather than Western post-enlightenment values promoted in late Qing and Republican periods. Meanwhile, I am also working on a publication project as the section editor of the Chinese Film, Media and Communication as part of the Routledge Research Encyclopaedia on Chinese Studies.

My recently published monograph The Language of Nation-State Building in Late Qing China examines the pivotal role of the late Qing press in facilitating the transformation of China's universalist dynasty into a modern nation-state. The book is based on a project funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) under the Open World Research Initiative (OWRI) that I completed in 2021. My project Translating Modernity: a Linguistic Investigation of the Migration of Western Ideas to China around the Turn into the 20th Century investigate how concepts rooted in modern European values were linguistically reconstructed in China’s early modern press and how it shaped intellectual and political discussions about fundamental issues on how to modernize China.

Previously I completed two British Academy-funded research projects. Both examined the way in which the media actively promote a developmentalist identity of the post-reform China contextualised in the historical drive for an industrialist modernity.

My first monograph China under Western Gaze is the first book-length study of the British television documentaries’ representation of China in the pivotal years of 1980-2000. Drawing on Vladimir Propp’s dramatis personae, I analysed the mythic and mimetic narratives of the documentary texts and visual images. The book details how the 1980s’ fascination with a ‘rediscovered’ cultural China turned into the 1990s’ repulsion of a political China; and how the sudden change of China's image in the British media in a single decade is intricately linked to the global shift of geopolitics from the cold war to the post-cold war world.

I have supervised PhD students working on a range of topics, including the British Conceptions of China and Japan in the 19th century, the BBC reporting of China, Western newsmagazine reporting of US-China and US-Japan trade wars, the 19th century English newspaper representation of China, BBC reporting of Saudi Arabia, Chinese literary representation of modernity in Republican China, discursive construction of China’s national identity, China's diplomatic language, and representation of women in newspapers from late Qing to contemporary China. I would welcome enquiries from students who wish to pursue PhDs in similar fields and those related to my research interests. Proposals that use corpus linguistics as a research method are welcome.

 

• China's modern intellectual history
• Chinese politics
• Mass media and society
• Western reporting of China
• Chinese language and linguistics
• Chinese translation

Authored book

• Cao, Q. (2023). The Language of Nation-State Building in Late Qing China: A Case Study of the Xinmin Congbao and the Minbao, 1902-1910. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003206835
• Cao, Q. (2014). China under Western Gaze: Representing China in the British Television Documentaries, 1980-2000. World Scientific Publishing
• (224 pages). Nankai University Press

Book review

• Cao, Q. (2023). Review Essay: Contemporary Marxist Aesthetics and Criticism
• Cao, Q. (1999). China under Communism. The Pacific Review, 12(1), 136-138. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512749908719281

Chapter in book

• Cao, Q. (in press). Guiding the Public: the Politics of Documentary Films in China. In M. Rawnsley, Y. Ma, & G. Rawnsley (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media (2nd Edition). Routledge
• Cao, Q. (in press). State Developmentalism and the Chinese Leadership: Ideology, Cultural Heritage, and Self-reinvention. In U. A. Bērziņa-Čerenkova (Ed.), Discourse, Rhetoric and Shifting Political Behaviour in China. Routledge
• Cao, Q. (2022). The Lure of Utopia: Reinterpreting Liang Qichao's Xinmin Shuo. In D. Margolies, & Q. Cao (Eds.), Utopia and Modernity in China: Contradictions in Transition (11-32). Pluto Press
• Margolies, D., & Cao, Q. (2022). Introduction. In D. Margolies, & Q. Cao (Eds.), Utopia and Modernity in China: Contradictions in Transition (1-10). Pluto
• Cao, Q., & Lang, I. (2021). Digital media, governance, and the making of youth in contemporary China. In X. Wei (Ed.), China's Contemporary Image and Rhetoric Practice (137-158). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315144764
• Cao, Q. (2021). Translating 'Nation' in Late Qing China: The Discourse and Power of Nation in the Remaking of Chinese Society, 1895-1911. In A. Almanna, & C. Gu (Eds.), Translation as a Set of Frames: Ideology, Power, Discourse, Identity & Representation (193-208). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003024828
• Cao, Q., Wu, D., & Tomaselli, K. (2019). Introduction: Continuities and Changes for an Alternative Modernity. In Q. Cao, D. Wu, & K. Tomaselli (Eds.), Brand China in the media: transformation of identities. Routledge
• Cao, Q. (2019). Discursive Construction of National and Political Identities in China. In C. Shei (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of Chinese discourse analysis (431-443). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315213705
• Cao, Q. (2017). Chinese Developmentalism and Television Representation of South Africa. In K. Batchelor, & X. Zhang (Eds.), China-Africa Relations: Building Images through Cultural Co-operation, Media Representation and Communication (199-217). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315229096-12
• Cao, Q. (2016). Narrative Approach to Discourse Analysis: Theory, Method and a Case Study. In H. Tian (Ed.), Discourse Studies (Volume 2) (1-25). Nankai University Press
• Cao, Q. (2015). The Politics and poetics of television documentary in China. In G. Rawnsley, & M. Rawnsley (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Chinese media (355-371). Routledge
• Cao, Q. (2014). Introduction: Legitimisation, Resistance and Discursive Struggles in Contemporary China. In Q. Cao, H. Tian, & P. Chilton (Eds.), Discourse, politics and media in contemporary China (1-22). John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.54.01int
• Cao, Q. (2014). China's Soft Power: Formulations, Contestations and Communication. In Q. Cao, H. Tian, & P. Chilton (Eds.), Discourse, politics and media in contemporary China (171-194). John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.54.08cao
• Cao, Q. (2013). From revolution to business: China's changing discourses on Africa. In S. Chan (Ed.), The morality of China in Africa : the middle kingdom and the dark continent (60-69). Zed Books
• Cao, Q. (2012). Re-imagined West in the Chinese Television: a Case Study of a China Central Television Documentary Series Rise of Great Powers. In P. Chilton, H. Tian, & R. Wodak (Eds.), Discourse and Social-Political Transformations in Contemporary China (127-144). John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.42
• Cao, Q. (2012). Introduction: Language, Discourse and Identity in Globalised China. In H. Tian, & Q. Cao (Eds.), Reinventing Identities: the Poetics of Language Use in Contemporary China (1-15). Nankai University Press
• Cao, Q. (2012). Reimagining Traditions: the Role of Culture in China’s External Relations. In H. Tian, & Q. Cao (Eds.), Reinventing Identities: the Poetics of Language Use in Contemporary China (45-70). Nankai University Press
• Cao, Q. (2012). Anti-Colonialism. In O. Patterson, & G. Geoffrey (Eds.), Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia and Africa (Volume 3: East and Southeast Asia) (201-203). SAGE Publications
• Cao, Q. (2012). Propaganda. In O. Patterson, & G. Geoffrey (Eds.), Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia and Africa (Volume 3: East and Southeast Asia) (351-353). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452218458
• Cao, Q. (2011). Reporting China: Perspectives, Patterns and Research Methodology. In W. Pan, & J. Chan (Eds.), Chinese Stuides and International Communication (Volume 1) (1-19). East China Normal University Press
• Cao, Q., & Renwick, N. (2010). China’s Evolving Human Security Discourse. In M. Iwatake (Ed.), New Perspectives from Japan and China (27-50). Renvall Institute Publications 27, University of Helsinki
• Cao, Q. (2009). Intercultural Communication through Language: Chinese Cultural Linguistics and Its Implications in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. In X. Zhang (Ed.), Theories and Practices in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (1-12). Cypress
• Cao, Q. (2009). Western Perspectives on China. In L. Cheng (Ed.), Berkshire Encyclopaedia of China (1749-1753). Berkshire Publishing Group. https://doi.org/10.1093/acref/9780190622671.001.0001
• Cao, Q. (2009). Journalism and Political Change: the Case of China. In A. Stuart (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism (138-148). Routledge
• Cao, Q. (2006). Western Representation of the ‘Other’. In Shi-xu (Ed.), Discourse as Cultural Struggle (105-122). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press
• Cao, Q. (2005). Chinese. In C. Moore (Ed.), In Other Words: The Language Lover's Guide to the Most Intriguing Words Around the World (82-85). Oxford University Press
• Cao, Q., & Renwick, N. (2003). Modern Political Communication in China. In G. Rawnsley, & M. Rawnsley (Eds.), Political Communication in Greater China: The Construction and Reflection of Identity (62-82). Routledge
• Cao, Q. (2001). Selling Culture: Ancient Chinese Conception of the ‘Other’ in Legends. In S. Chan, P. Mandeville, & R. Bleiker (Eds.), The Zen of International Relations: IR Theories from East to West (178-202). Palgrave Macmillan
• Cao, Q. (2000). Religious Culture and Translation. In J. Guo (Ed.), Culture and Translation (364-377). China Translation Publishing House

Edited book

• Margolies, D., & Cao, Q. (Eds.). (2022). Utopia and Modernity in China: Contradictions in Transition. Pluto
• Cao, Q., Wu, D., & Tomaselli, K. (Eds.). (2019). Brand China in the Media: Transformation of Identities. Routledge
• Cao, Q., Tian, H., & Chilton, P. (Eds.). (2014). Discourse, Politics and Media in Contemporary China. John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.54
• Tian, H., & Cao, Q. (Eds.). (2012). Reinventing Identities: the Poetics of Language Use in Contemporary China (214 pages). Nankai University Press

Journal Article

• Wang, Y., Cao, Q., & Nitschke, C. (2023). The Relational Self: Maternal Inheritance and Eurasian Identity in Han Suyin’s The Crippled Tree. Life Writing, 20(3), 563-581. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2022.2151847
• Cao, Q. (2022). The Discourse of Xinmin: Mindset Remodelling and Nation-Building in Early Twentieth Century China. Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal, 13(1), 123-143. https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.21032.cao
• Cao, Q. (2018). A Corpus-based Investigation of Guomin. Zhongguo shehui yuyanxue, 31(2), 13-28
• Cao, Q. (2018). The adaption of Western Ideas in Late Qing Press: A Translingual Investigation. Shehui kexuejia, 32(11), 11-19
• Cao, Q. (2017). Rupture in Modernity: A Case Study of Radicalism in Late Qing Chinese Press Debate. Critical Arts: A Journal of South-North Cultural Studies, 31(6), 9-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2017.1407809
• Cao, Q., & Wu, D. (2017). Modern Chinese Identities at the Crossroads: Introduction. Critical Arts: A Journal of South-North Cultural Studies, 31(6), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2017.1405456
• Cao, Q. (2012). Modernity and Media Portrayals of China. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 22(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.22.1.01cao
• Cao, Q. (2011). The Language of Soft Power: Mediating Socio-political Meanings in the Chinese Media. Critical Arts: A Journal of South-North Cultural Studies, 25(1), 7-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2011.552203
• Cao, Q. (2011). Cultural Foundations of Western Representation of China. Global Media Journal - Brazilian Edition, 8(1), 128-143
• Cao, Q. (2010). The re-imagined West in Chinese Television: a Case Study of the CCTV Documentary Series the Rise of the Great Powers. Journal of Language and Politics, 9(4), 615-633. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.9.4.08cao
• Cao, Q., & Fu, D. (2009). Missing Heroes: Portraying Chinese History in British Television. Zhongguo shehui yuyanxue, 13(2), 60-77
• Cao, Q., & Renwick, N. (2008). China's Cultural Soft Power: An Emerging National Cultural Security Discourse. Journal of Chinese studies (Albuquerque, N.M.), 15(2), 69-86
• Chan, S., & Cao, Q. (2008). After the Civilization Orders: International Cultural Relations in a Third World Perspective. Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi, 27(7), 67-71
• Cao, Q. (2007). China Through Western Eyes: a Case Study of a BBC Television Documentary Series Road to Xanadu. European Journal of East Asian Studies, 7(2), 275-297
• Cao, Q. (2007). Confucian Vision of a New World Order? Culturalist Discourse, Foreign Policy and the Press in Contemporary China. International Communication Gazette, 69(5), 431-450. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048507080868
• Cao, Q. (2006). The Discourse of Technology in Western Representation of China: A Case Study. Global Media Journal - Brazilian Edition, 5(9), 1-14
• Cao, Q. (2004). Two Faces of Confucianism: Narrative Construction of Cross-cultural Imagery. Concentric. Literary and cultural studies, 30(2), 223-248
• Cao, Q. (2000). Journalism as Politics: Reporting Hong Kong’s Handover in the Chinese Press. Journalism Studies, 1(4), 665-678. https://doi.org/10.1080/146167000441367
• Cao, Q. (1999). Signification of Hong Kong’s Handover: the Case of the British Press. The Journal of International Communication, 6(2), 71-89. https://doi.org/10.1080/13216597.1999.9751890
• Cao, Q., & Renwick, N. (1999). China's political discourse towards the 21st century : victimhood, identity, and political power,. East Asia, 17(4), 111-143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-999-0019-7

Other (Print)

• Cao, Q. (2019). Hong Kong protests: why Chinese media reports focus on Britain's colonial past
• Cao, Q. (2008). Changing Perspectives on China
• Cao, Q. (2003). Deconstructing China Threat
• Cao, Q. (2003). China's Position in the New Global Structure
• Cao, Q. (2003). Tony Blair's Foreign Policy and its Impact