Double Hegemony-Market and Ideology Control of ‘the Same Song’

Stage One—A Song for the Sports Game

Surprisingly, the majority of audiences did not know what this song was originally written for. ¹ According to the composer of ‘the Same Song’—Weidong Meng during his interview with CCTV, ‘the Same Song’ was an assigned work for the 11th Asian Games in 1990. The director of the opening ceremony—Zaijun Deng realized there were 4 minutes 30 seconds blank period before the start of the ceremony because they had to test the signal for the broadcasting, Deng thought it would be a good idea to perform a song to light the passion of audiences, so Deng asked Meng to compose a piece of music lasting 4 minutes 30 seconds precisely. Working with lyricists Zhe Chen and Yingjie Hu, they wrote the song quickly. The lyrics can be translated literally as below: Flowers once told me how you passed by The earth truly knows your heart Nobody wants to miss a sweet dream We finally welcome today—the happy moment of gathering Starlight shine on all childhood Wind and rain travel to every corner of the world The same feeling gives us the same expectation The same joy gives us the same song We trekked through thousand rivers and mountains We remember every gathering and every smiley face In the sunny and joyful days Hand in hand, we have so much to say Sunshine wants to shine through all languages Spring spread the friendship stories everywhere The same feeling gives us the same expectation The same joy gives us the same song

The 11th Asian Games was the first large-scale international sports event which China hosted since its establishment in 1949. After the crackdown of the student movement in 1989 which caused serious diplomatic problems between China and many countries, the government was keen to improve their images on the international arena, and the Asian Games was a great opportunity. ‘The Same Song’ had its political significance as the government aimed to rebuild their diplomatic relationship with fellow Asian countries, and also to show the outside world that the Communist regime would not collapse in China, but from every perspective at this stage, this song was an easy-to-understand expression about how China as the host wished its ‘sisters and brothers, neighbours and friends’ to enjoy the 11th Asian Games as the big Asian family came together in Beijing. There was a kind of ‘general love’ (Da Ai) to all countries, and even beyond the concept of Asia in it. Because this song was not the theme song of the 11th Asian Games, without massive promotion, most Chinese people were not familiar with this song and the singer Chang Liu.

Stage Two—A Song for the Political Game of Reunification

Chinese New Year is definitely the most important festival for Chinese people all over the world. In order to emphasize that ‘Liang’an Sandi’ (both sides of the Taiwan Strait and three regions including P.R. China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) is an inseparable big Chinese family, since 1984, pop stars and popular music from Gangtai (Hong Kong and Taiwan) were introduced to the mainland audiences at the Chinese New Year Gala (Chunjie Lianhuan Wanhui) of CCTV—an extremely influential show with over two third billion audiences in average. ² After performing ‘My Chinese Heart’ (Wode Zhongguo Xin) on the gala, unknown Hong Kong singer Mingmin Zhang became a superstar overnight in mainland China while he was never successful in Hong Kong. ‘My Chinese Heart’ is labelled as a patriotic song, and is promoted by the government as a song of how the overseas Chinese express their love and loyalty to the homeland. Xiulan Xi represented Taiwan to perform an ethnic style song ‘Girls of Ali Mountain’ (Alishan de Guniang), which also became a big hit overnight. After Zhang and Xi’s success, Gangtai pop stars and popular music would be the highlight of every Chinese New Year Gala.

On the 1991 Chinese New Year Gala, ‘the Same Song’ was performed by Tianqi Hang from the mainland and Ni Zeng who symbolically represented Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau because of her background. ³ This dual performance immediately added extra meaning to this song as if it was a song calling for the ultimate reunification of mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. In the end of this performance, a blessing—‘Wish compatriots in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and all overseas Chinese a happy Spring Festival’ appeared on the TV screen, which confirmed the newly added meaning. From that moment, ‘the Same Song’ was no longer a song for the sports game, but functioned like a propaganda slogan for the idea of a big united Chinese family.

After it was well developed at stage four, ‘the Same Song’ concert/show had toured Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and many overseas Chinese communities in the USA, Singapore, Japan and Korea since 2005, and reiterated the political significance of this song—to propagandize the concept of ‘we are the same’. Unsurprisingly, after the devastating earthquake hit Taiwan in August 2009, a charity show was held in Beijing which collected 310 million RMB donations for Taiwan. ⁴ ‘The Same Song’ was performed by A’min Mao as the theme song of the show, and an explicit message was sent out that people at the both side of the Taiwan Strait are sharing the same things, such as ancestors, blood, cultures, languages, joy, pain, and dream of future because we are a family.

Stage Three—A Song for the Political Game of Domestic Stability

When A’min Mao made ‘the Same Song’ into a music video in 1994, this song was fundamentally re-created. First, its length was extended to 6 minutes 10 seconds in order to tell a patriotic story. Second, children’s chorus was highlighted. In original versions, the children’s chorus was only used in the background of the song, but in Mao’s version, the children’s chorus opened the song, sung in the first verse, and repeatedly appeared through the rest of the song. This created a call and response communication between the children and Mao. Since children are always referred as ‘the flowers of the country’ or ‘the future of the country’ in governmental terms, the emphasis on the children’s chorus displayed an expectation that the young generations are the future of China, and they should always remember who sacrificed their lives for today’s China. Third, and the most importantly, the introduction of a fictional storyline where a newer meaning of the lyrics was developed, becoming the core content of the song. The visuals pushed the political meaning to the extreme. The music video was created with two intertwined storylines representing the past and the present, war and peace. The music video started with five female ‘red army’ (Hong Jun) soldiers holding torches at night and marching on the road with other soldiers which represented the famous 25,000 miles Long March during the Civil War. The music video then changed from the past into the present with five female students (played by the same actresses, symbolising the reincarnation of the ‘red army’ spirit) of a music college holding their musical instruments in a bright and spacey classroom. This attempted to show the happy life of today’s China in contrast to the darkness of wartime. The montage technique was repeatedly employed to make a vivid comparison and connection between the two groups of characters, for example, a female red army soldier and a female student wore the same shape of glasses, when the soldier was hit by bombs, collapsed on the ground, lost her glasses, and tried to grab it, the student held her own glasses nervously as if she had crossed time, seeing the soldier by her side, and wishing she could help the wounded soldier. Later, when enemies came, they could escape, but when they saw a child crying in a burning camp, they ran back for the child with no hesitation. Bullets shot into their breasts, their young faces were covered with blood, but even death could not stop them running to the child—the symbol of the future of China. In the end, at the battlefield where the five soldiers sacrificed themselves for the birth of P.R. China, the five students stood in a peaceful and sunny land. The whole music video was explaining that people should never forget those wartime martyrs, and should treasure today’s happy lives. With the visuals and the storyline, this song developed a very strong meaning of patriotism and nationalism, and the political theme changed from the reunification of China to the peace and stability of P.R. China. Partially, if not completely, due to the new added meaning, this music video won the gold award from the 3rd CCTV MTV Award in 1995, and was frequently played on national, regional and local TV afterwards. This version had become the standard for other performers. ‘The Same Song’ was later categorized as a ‘red song’ (Hong Ge) and ‘the song of patriotism’ in a large number of sheet music books (Wu 2009; Yang 2009), and it had become a compulsory repertoire for patriotic song singing contest or performance at schools, universities, and local communities.

Stage Four—A Song for the Commercial Game

The popularity of ‘the Same Song’ was finally capitalized on 27 January 2000 when Xin Meng—a programme producer of CCTV—made a ‘New Century, New Concert’ TV show, and decided renaming it as ‘the Same Song’ show during the editing. ‘The Same Song’ consequently became the theme song. At the beginning and/or in the end of every concert, a pop star or a group of stars would be accompanied by children to perform it. Originally, the concert was a TV show of CCTV, and CCTV financed it, but ‘the Same Song’ concert/show quickly became a commercial concert in 2001, and demonstrated its popularity and commercial value by auctioning its advertising slots and the solo agent rights of advertising resource for the price of 20.2 million and 45.4 million RMB in 2002 (Zhu 2007). In November 2003, CCTV made an official announcement that ‘the Same Song’ concert/show was under the management of CCTV International Company, and the concert/show started to be managed like an independent company. This essential change immediately received strong complaint from record companies and concert organizers for unfair competition and other legal issues, such as copyright, but no individuals and organizations could prevent this CCTV-backed concert/show from occupying the market. Reported by CCTV, ‘the Same Song’ concert/show was the most popular music programme on all CCTV channels, and its popularity was even higher than ‘CCTV News at 7 o’clock’ (Xinwen Lianbo). In May 2005, unlike other nine business organizations, ‘the Same Song’ concert/show as a TV programme won an award from the first ‘China’s Top Ten Brands of Cultural Force Award’. From 2000 to March 2005, this concert/show had 155 concerts around China, singers performed over 6,300 times, and the audience numbers, including the concert and TV audiences, was over 800 million (He 2007). Although she was just a TV producer, Meng had become one of the most powerful people in the Chinese music industry for her control on such an efficient marketing and promotion platform, which most Chinese (popular) musicians and stars were keen to perform at this concert/show in order to improve their popularity.

‘The Same Song’ concert/show was actually very simple. Meng and her 10-man team simultaneously played the roles of concert organizer and CCTV programme producer. This unique position gave Meng and her team the superpower to make unfair deals with both sides—the performers and the market. Representing the most powerful mass media in China, ⁵ Meng and her team could guarantee that a certain number of pop stars would perform at every concert, including superstars like Faye Wong and Andy Lau. As a branch of governmental media, CCTV seldom negotiates and compromises with anyone or any organizations. Several local TV stations, such as Hunan Satellite TV, have produced some popular entertaining programmes to challenge the domination of CCTV, but CCTV still has a monopoly over the TV media in China. When dealing with the performers, this concert/show was claimed as a non-profitable TV show, Meng and her team therefore offered very low payment to the performers (between 10 to 20 per cent of their normal concert payments), and even demanded some of them to perform for free (Wang 2007). When dealing with the market, however, large sums of money were demanded, and the price tag increased every year. Meng once explained that 80 per cent of income went to the performers, 10 per cent was spent on production, and another 10 per cent was spent on recording and accommodation. But as was revealed by Li Ding who represented the local government of Baoji to deal with Meng’s team in 2006, Ding paid 7 million RMB for the concert/show, just over 2 million RMB were paid to the performers, roughly 1.6 million RMB were used as the broadcasting fee, and the remainder was unclear where it went to (Zhu 2007).

Hegemony of ‘the Same Song’ Concert/Show

Gramsci (1992) used hegemony to describe the development of power, and how a social group or class used military power with recognition to dominate the others. Hegemony is exactly about the special recognition of how the special benefit or need of a social group or class is displayed as the general benefit or need of a society, and make other social groups or classes accept it as common sense. The term cultural hegemony stresses the manipulation of social cultures, such as its belief, value, and perception, by a ruling social group or class, and make the manipulated cultures become the worldview of the being ruled social groups or classes. Hegemony was the key factor guaranteeing the success of ‘the Same Song’ concert/show, and in return, this concert/show used its popularity to establish and strengthen double hegemony over market and ideology control in the realm of Chinese popular music.

The media in China has changed substantially in the past two decades. Donald, Keane and Yin (2002) have summarized the change and development in China’s media at the three stages of pre-reform, 1980–1999 and after 2000, including regulation, function, type and characteristics four parts. All these changes and developments have consequently redefined the government’s role in media control and the media’s role in developing social culture, particularly with the mergence and the rapid development of the cultural industries in the 1990s which accelerated the commercialization and industrialization of China’s media, and forced the government to adjust its policies to deal with the demand. Ma (2000) points out, the government makes sure that they maintain control over major political issues, and use censorship to control the public release and distribution of cultural products. For the sake of economy, the government has to lift its tight control over other media organization except CCTV. TV is the most powerful media in China which covers 89 per cent of 1.3 billion people via terrestrial, cable, and satellite delivery, and CCTV is the most influential one (Redl & Simons 2002).

Because of the hegemony and privilege of CCTV, business organizations did not dare to challenge the hegemony of this concert/show, and individuals only felt helpless. As a concert/show, copyright would be a big issue for any normal concert organizers, but not for Xin Meng and her team. ‘The Same Song’ was written by Weidong Meng, Zhe Chen, and Yingjie Hu in 1990, and it was the theme song and the name of this concert/show, but none of composer and lyricists had formally given the permission to this concert/show to use their work, neither did they receive any payments from Xin Meng. In 2004, Weidong Meng and Zhe Chen sued ‘the Same Song’ concert/show for breaching copyright, lawyers of CCTV contacted them, and no result came out in public. In general, the public believed that Weidong Meng and Zhe Chen withdrew the case from the court for the fact that nobody could really challenge CCTV and the political forces behind; especially as Weidong Meng worked at a military singing and dancing troupe as a high-ranking military official. Weidong Meng and Zhe Chen’s case, however, was just the beginning of how this concert/show demonstrated its hegemony.

All performers had to sign an ‘overlord’ (Bawang) contract, which stated that performers allowed Meng and her team to use their performance materials for free in the future. ⁶ Almost all performers accepted it in silence, only very few individuals dared to reveal the inside stories. Tianshuo Zang was invited to perform on this concert/show at China Agricultural University in 2007. When he arrived, he was told to perform ‘Friends’ (Pengyou) and ‘Waiting for that day’ (Dengdao Na Yitian), but a trumpet was needed to perform the second song, and his band member neglected to bring a trumpet. After discussing with an executive director, he performed ‘Love comes together’ (Ai Zai Yiqi) instead. Few days later, he received a text message from a staff of Meng, and demanded Zang to return his 50,000 RMB payment because he did not perform ‘Waiting for that day’ (Hou 2007). Linsheng Gao also complained that sometimes he was allowed to perform few new songs at the concert, but his new songs had never appeared on TV. Gao felt sick of singing his old hit song—‘It is me missing you’ (Qiangua Ni De Ren Shi Wo) repeatedly while the media and the audiences criticised him for earning easy money by repeating an old song. Gao felt frustrated, annoyed and helpless. Facing this situation that this concert/show somewhat controlled the development of Chinese popular music, robbed the profit of the music industry, and trampled on musicians hard works, Gao questioned—does ‘the Same Song’ mean ‘to harvest together’? ⁷ It was a very good metaphor indeed. This concert/show was like a combine harvester which not only plundered the fortune of musicians, but also destroyed the land of popular music.

The hegemony of this concert/show developed Meng’s personal hegemony. Meng was referred to as ‘Empress Cixi’ who directly caused the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the colonization of China by western countries in the nineteenth century. Meng’s daughter was appointed as the executive director of this concert/show, who verbally abused the staff frequently (Yi & Hu 2007). The whole situation and the possessed power were created by the hegemony of CCTV and the government, which intervened with the conventional logic of capital exchange in a free market.

The Conversion from Social and Symbolic Capital to Economic Capital

It is easy to understand that the music industry has to cooperate with CCTV in order to promote their contracted artists on this concert/show, but it is also important to understand its market and customers. Shockingly, the customers were the local governments of China’s cities. Every year, except few occasions to propagandize political issues for the Central Government, commercialized concerts were scheduled in cities around China. The local governments wanted this concert/show in order to win the competition between cities for the sake of economy and political achievements. Urbanization had started since the establishment of P.R. China in 1949, and the rapid economic development in the 1990s accelerated the process. It developed from 10 per cent of population (over 50 million) living in cities in 1949 to one-third of population (460 million) in 2005 to two-third of population (900 million) with another 30 years (Friedmann 2005), and the number of cities continuously increased as the Table 1 shows.

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Table 1.

Number of Cities in China (Wang 2004, p. 36)

Year	Very large (1 million +)	Large (500,000–1 million)	Medium (200,000–500,000)	Small (Less than 200,000)	Total No. of cities
1952	9	10	23	115	157
1982	20	28	71	125	245
1985	22	30	94	178	324
1993	32	36	160	342	570
2000	40	53	218	352	663

Source: Various sources in Chinese including; State Statistics Bureau’s Urban Social and Economic Survey Team, 1995, 1999, and 2001.

Accompanying the urbanization, another vital development of China’s society and economy is the regional division. The first economic reform quickly divided China into three unequal parts: the rich coastal, the alright central, and the poor Western—the so-called Ladder-Step Doctrine in 1986 (Friedmann 2005; Wei 2000). Jing (2000) points out a pattern of economic development in post-Mao China is ‘points-line-surface progression’, which means the coastal cities and special economic zones (the points) are developed first, gradually bringing about prosperity to the whole coastal area (the line), and the inland and Western part of China are the last (the surface). A small number of municipalities, special economic cities and provincial capitals like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen run in the front. Various city rankings, such as ‘China’s Top Ten Cities’, has been published annually in recent years. The gap between ‘A-tier’ and ‘B-tier’ and ‘C-tier’ cities is widening. Lower-tier cities, especially ‘B Tier’ cities which are relatively prosperous but far behind the ‘A-tier’ cities, are fighting hard for a higher position through various approaches, including sports game, concert, and exhibition. The aim is to promote the cities nationally, create more business opportunities, and attract more investors and tourists. A large-scale influential event, such as ‘the Same Song’ concert/show, could be regarded as a symbolic achievement of local officials’ political career.

Another important reason is that the cost of promoting a city through ‘the Same Song’ concert/show is much cheaper than through conventional advertising. The price of a 30 seconds advertising varies from roughly 40,000 RMB to quarter million RMB which depends on schedule and programme on CCTV. ⁸ This concert/show was a 100 minutes long programme on CCTV 3 every Friday evening, and was replayed several times on other CCTV channels. Throughout the concert, the hosts would systematically and intentionally introduce what the local government wanted to promote in front of the national audiences, such as special local products, tourist attraction, coming events, and investment opportunities. Performers also helped doing soft advertising on stage by talking about how much they loved specific local products or tourist sites. Adding all these sections together, the total advertising time was generally over 10 minutes. In this case, the average 5 million price tag of this concert/show was reasonable. And in general, the local governments only afforded a small percentage of the total payment, local business organizations, state-owned or private, would pay the most, for example, six local business organizations sponsored 6 million RMB for the 7 million RMB cost concert in Baoji. The local governments had no financial risk to have this concert/show, and on the contrary, they could earn decent profits from the ticket sales.

Officially, the Central Government has banned local governments for spending a large amount of money on concerts, but this is a typical political scene referred as ‘policies from the above, counter-measures from the below’ (Shang You Zhengce, Xia You Duice). When ‘the Same Song’ concert/show was demanded for various reasons by over 600 cities, it was difficult for the Central Government to tighten the control. The significance of this concert/show had been far beyond the significance of a musical event, but a very politicized cultural event which could symbolically deliver what the then president Jintao Hu conceptualized—‘a society in harmony’ (Hexie Shehui). Wherever this concert/show was held, business organizations were happy to sponsor it in order to develop a closer relationship with the local governments for future benefit, and promote their brands or products. The city would be in a festive atmosphere, and in average, over 20,000 audiences would be entertained by their idols. ‘Be happy with the people’ (Yumintongle)—a political slogan would be highlighted at those occasions because local officials would sit in the front where the camera could picture them having good time with ordinary people.

‘The Same Song’ concert/show had undoubtedly become a money-maker machine of CCTV. Estimated by journalists, Meng and her team organized 50 concerts/shows every year, and in average, they charged 5 million RMB per concert, so their annual turnover was 2.5 billion RMB. Assuming that their tax-free profit was only 1 million RMB per concert (very likely much more than that), their annual tax-free profit was over 50 million RMB which was higher than many middle-size business organizations, especially the concert/show was conducted by a ten-man team, and how easily they could earn the risk-free profit (Li 2009). From social and symbolic capital to economic capital, the ease came from the hegemony of CCTV in the media industry, and CCTV’s hegemonic position came from the hegemony of the government as the only party in power in China.

The Conversion from Social and Symbolic Capital to Cultural Capital

Ideology simply refers to ‘more or less coherent set of beliefs’ (Edgar & Sedgwick 1999, p. 189), and there is a link between cultural capital and the formation, structure, or articulation of ideology. Between encoding and decoding, the process of interpretation and comprehension of ideologies in Chinese popular music is where ‘the Same Song’ convert/show could act as ‘diffuse education’ (Bourdieu 1993, p. 7) and influence the cultural capital of the audiences. After this concert/show became a business brand, it demonstrated its tremendous power and value for political propaganda and ideology control. This concert/show was often carefully scheduled to match the date of various political events as its subthemes, such as the Party Congress, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and National People’s Congress. On those occasions, politicians would make their speeches, and sometimes even did karaoke singing. Besides political events, this concert/show was always linked to various big events, for instance the Beijing Olympic Games, the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, and China sent the first astronaut into the Space. This concert/show had become an efficient propaganda machine to exert considerable influence on ideology control.

When CCTV announced that ‘the Same Song’ concert/show started to be managed as an independent business organization in 2003, three key words: duty, cost and market were stressed in the statement. Duty clearly meant that this concert/show had to meet the needs of CCTV and the government, and the needs included profit and political propaganda, in other words, market and ideology control. Meng and her team achieved ideology control through two approaches: the control of the repertoires and the programme. In one hand, Meng and her team controlled the performing repertoire. Depending on the themes, although the local governments could suggest a performer list, Meng and her team had the final decision who and what songs could be performed. Their decision was non-negotiable. In another hand, the concert was three hours long, but it would be edited into a 100 minutes programme, so Meng and her team could decide which part of the concert could be watched by the audiences nationally. This control ensured that the concert/show would never make any mistakes on political issues. This concert/show used entertainment to deliver political messages, and developed the ‘false consciousnesses’ of politics in terms of happiness, prosperity, and social harmoniousness, for example, facing the severe problem of mine collapse accident, a concert dedicated to miners was organized at one mine site, the hosts and performers repeatedly praised the miner audiences how greatly they contributed to China’s economy by supplying mineral resource to other industries. Songs such as ‘Yugong Removed the Mountain’ (Yugongyishan) ⁹ were performed to praise miners’ fighting spirit.

The fascinating and also the frightening aspect of ‘the Same Song’ concert/show is the endless expansion of the indication of ‘the same’. Literally, ‘the Same Song’ is about you and me. At stage one, you were my friends coming from other Asian countries, and then you became my compatriots and overseas Chinese at stage two. Later, you were all China’s young generations who had to remember the glorious history of the Communist Party. In the end, you were me, I was you, and we were the same, but what was ‘the same’? It was the same music, concert, show, people, country, pursuit, future, and everything could be the same if following the same government and the same party. What a wonderful utopia! And what a society in harmony! ‘The Same Song’ concert/show exactly displayed the problem of today’s China—the still existing political struggle between consensus and coercion where social, economic, and cultural factors had developed the complexity of hegemony (Howson & Smith 2008). This concert/show was a complex unity where various social forces participated in the formation of it while CCTV used it to establish its double hegemony over market and ideology control.